by Sylv » Mon Mar 15, 2010 1:28 pm
Anyway .. it was a good ride once again. Don't know if it's because neither George, Keith or Paul showed up in the TG, but when I looked back at the first roundabout, there were about 20-25 riders behind. Thanks to traffic lights I don't think we lost any until after Reigate. As I said the turns at the front were shared by a handful, won't name any by fear of forgetting anyone. You could tell there was a decent tailwind as I could hear the whirr of Dave K's aero wheels from about 20m back as he was pulling along for a turn. You could also tell he was racing the following day, as he was not ripping everyone's legs like previous weeks.
Serge and I had a good dig sharing turns up the hills before Rusper, then Ant went past both of us to crest the top first, I managed to get back on his wheel and we kind of regrouped on the way down after Rusper. Couple riders turned left and Rogan had a puncture to fix. Through and off was ok in still a big-ish group of about 10-12, including sprinters Steve B and Ed O. Approaching Charlwood Steve found himself at the front earlier than he'd hoped and I knew I could stay on his wheel to the last moment due to the headwind. Alas, both of us were pipped to the line by Andy E, whose lack of training hasn't affected his top end speed it seems, there was about half a bike's length between the three of us.
Back via Box Hill a group of about 6 of us left, hoping to catch Rob W and Andy, who had left 10 min earlier. We kept a good pace and by that stage I was feeling better than previous weeks. Even managed to drop Serge on the final straight to Box Hill, my guess was he'd had a heavy training week, whilst I'd only ridden to work. With heavy legs after a stop we carried on and were motoring, when out of nowhere Rob and Andy came flying past at the top of that horrible last bump before the traffic lights. They'd stopped at Dauphin's to fix Rob's gears it turned out.
The wind was strong but we kept taking turns and I averaged 221w for the 2h30 C to C ride (240w excluding zeros), which was about 10 more than the previous week, and 10 more than the one before. Stopped half an hour for some food then rode the 25km round trip to Bromleybike, despite feeling ok upon stopping, my legs were now completely wooden and I could barely ride above 150w! Resigned myself to treating the ride as a warm-down and finished the ride in just under 4h, happy to be slowly improving in my form, not enough yet for racing though.
