Today's ride was sick! It started as it usually does with Chuck Hutch leading the pack at a quick pace. After a few miles he broke away and I was behind him, it was up to me to pull the entire pack with me to catch him at about 26-28mph on flat road. I caught him with a crazy surge of energy that I hadn't felt on the bike before. But that wasn't the last time I felt it on this ride.
After catching him we sat back in and relaxed with me still pulling the group until we got to the first climb of the ride, Old Anglers Hill at the end of MacArthur Boulevard. There was a 6 man break pack that formed halfway up the climb and I wasn't in it. I was pulling the 10-15 man chase group. They had about 30 meters on us with not much left of the hill to go and I wanted to be first up that thing badly. So I stood up and absolutely crushed my pedals into the ground. I left the chase group and in the blink of an eye I was on the wheel of the breakaway group, but I kept going. I passed everyone except Chuck who had me by about 5 meters. Once we got to the top though it was a different story, he seemed very tired and I took full advantage. I got in the big ring and descended down the 2nd climb like a mad man. I must have been going 37mph the whole way down and I completely dropped everybody.
I was at the bottom of the 2nd climb looking up at a 1.1 mile long hill that was half 9% gradient. It was me up front and a 30 man group of extremely experienced and strong riders 50 meters behind me. Robbie finally caught me up the climb and said to me "Grab your ticket kid, we're going to the top." This kept me on his wheel even though I was absolutely dead. Chuck finally caught us as well and started to pull. This is where I really died. They dropped me and I got caught by a 2 man chase group of Lance, a very strong rider for Harley Davidson, and Nick Mulder, an extremely talented 20 year old rider from Park Hotel Rooding U23 RT in Holland. Nick dropped us and I dropped Lance. I was 4th up the hill in the end.
I ended up getting 4th in the sprint which met my goal from yesterday. Overall this was a very exciting, fast, and efficient ride. I enjoyed it very much. Here are my Stats from the ride:
(TRP - 51.52mi) (ATM - 2:52:10) (MXS - 37.4mph) (AVS - 18.8mph)
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