Tuesday ride

I know that today is Thursday.  The weather was looking iffy and I was running late today so I didn’t make it to tonight’s group ride.  I figured I’d tell you about Tuesday’s ride instead.

I was also running a bit behind schedule on Tuesday so I really had to book it to make it to the start of the ride on time.  As soon as I made it into the parking lot, the group started out.  We were heading out to the Waterworks and then doing Schwartz hill.  We were really cruising on the way out to the Waterworks.  For the 7.5 miles out there, we averaged about 17.5mph.  That is absolutely blistering compared to what I normally do.  My normal average speed for just about any ride in Bloomington is somewhere between 13 and 14mph.  As soon as we got out there EVERYONE went down to the boat launch.  I succumbed to peer pressure and went down as well.  Once we all got down there, Alan took a picture of us all standing in front of the lake then we started the 6.5% climb for half a mile.  It wasn’t absolutely horrible, but it certainly wasn’t a joy.

I figured that I was then going to be shot for the rest of the ride.  That’s usually what happens on these Tuesday/Thursday rides;  I’ll be keeping up fine until we come up to the first big hill, then I’ll lose it and have to limp back home.  Well, surprisingly enough, that did not happen today.  The next 5 miles after the hill we averaged 16mph and I wasn’t feeling bad at all.

Then we had a nice long downhill which meant that a big climb was coming up again.  This was Schwartz hill.  It averaged 8.5% for half a mile.  At the very start of the climb I was directly behind Alan.  He dropped down to his inner chainring (he has a triple) and just slowly started making his way.  Instead of just pushing until I couldn’t push any more, like usual, I stuck behind him for the first couple hundred yards which was the steepest part.  While I was going slower than I normally did, I was apparently saving myself for later.  I then made it up the rest of the hill with no problem and caught up to the group.  For the first time this year, I was NOT the last person to catch up to the group after a long climb.  It felt pretty awesome.

After that the ride was pretty uneventful.  We just rode back into town with no more big hills or anything.  Overall, my final average speed was 15.4mph.  This is by far the fast average speed I’ve had in Bloomington on any ride over 2 miles.  I felt quite accomplished after this ride was done.

So I was rather looking forward to today to see if I could do a repeat performance, but it wasn’t to be I suppose.  Today was interesting in its own right though;  I got a couple new things for the bike.  I went to Revolution Bike and Bean and picked up a Specialized Toupé.  This is a ‘real’ saddle.  I’ve only ridden it about 10 miles since I’ve gotten it, but it feels much more comfortable than even my broken-in old saddle.  I’m quite excited to see how this saddle turns out.  I also ordered and picked up a 12-27 cassette to replace my 12-25 that I used to have.  I figure that the extra couple teeth can really come in handy on those steep hills during the Hilly Hundred.  Hopefully next week the weather and my schedule cooperate and I can try out this fancy new equipment.