Wed. 6/10/09

With all the rain over the weekend, I didn't get any riding in and before I knew it it was Wednesday. So, Jeff, Steve, and I decided to make it out for the Erik's group ride.

I got a late start from home and saw the group rolling out, just as I pulled up. I threw on my shoes, gloves, and helmet, grabbed my water bottles and began the chase. I was close enough to see which way they headed out on the Douglas trail, so I pedaled along until I caught up to them just before Northern Hills Golf Course. I looked the group over to see who had made it. I saw Steve G., Kristi, Paul, Jim G., Jeff G., Eric,

Big Tom,


and way up front was Big Jeff, but no Steve S. :(

As we rolled along there was another rider coming up from behind, sure enough here comes Steve S. clipping right along. :)

We rolled into Douglas, then jumped on cty 3 (I think) north out of Douglas and passed Big Jim's ranch. We turned left and headed for PI, when a car went by with a bike on top, it got a ways ahead, stopped, and the passenger got out and climbed on the bike. It was Todd. He too had missed the start. So now the group had 13 riders as we rolled into PI.

Then north and west out of PI and headed for Roscoe. Lots of nice rollers and everyone was taking turns at the front. We turned south at Roscoe and headed back toward Mantorville. The climb on cty 11 put a nice hurt in everyones legs. We decided to head into Mantorville and then east past the golf course. Again, the hills made this stretch a real blast.

We got into a real nice rotating paceline as we turned south. What fun! Sinc a bit of a gap had openned up, we pulled over and waited at the stop sign for everyone to catch back on. Then we continued east into Byron.

At Byron, we stayed on the frontage road and most of the group turned north, while several riders turned south and headed for home. The northbound group zig-zagged our way to cty 4 and then headed east back to Rochester. As we neared town Paul and eric split for home, while Jim G., Todd, Big Tom, and the rest turned the screws up as we attacked one climb after another until we reached west circle drive. Big Jeff headed for home and Steve S. turned south for his house, and the rest of us limped back to Erik's.

Not a bad showing for the old, injured, and undertrained. I know I'll be hurting for a couple of days...

A very fast-paced (for me) 54 mile weekday ride.