I started the Garmin about 15k late but it was just easy spinning from the store.
Today was an amazing ride. I am proud to say it is the strongest that I have ever ridden before, and everyone on the ride could tell. The Garmin stats above should give a pretty good idea of just how hard I was going for the first 65k which was the actual ride, the remainder was me riding solo and with Robbie easy.
I was attacking the entire time on Clara Barton and left the entire pack for a couple K. There were some extremely strong guys in this pack, Chuck, Jose and Barry who ride for Harley, Greg who rides for Kind Human Sports, Matias who is a very strong teammate of mine, and a couple others. Me and Chuck finished up Clara Barton away from the pack and kept it that way all along MacArthur Boulevard until we hit the first climb where Chuck ended up dropping me. His strength on the hills is just absolutely insane and when you see him get to the top, where he is hardly breathing (either he is hiding it or he is just that good...lol) it is quite demoralizing. Three guys caught me on the hill and we started to work on closing Chuck's strong and threatening gap. I was in the tight 3 man pack up the 2nd climb, Old Anglars, behind Chuck who we still couldn't see because he had apparently already finished the climb and started to descend the 3rd climb of the ride, Great Falls Hill. The group broke up on the descent and I turned around at the bottom before the roundabout.
Me and Chuck met back up on the climb and I held off his attack for a while till we were about 3/4 up the hill when he slowly began to gap again...the dude is just TOO strong haha. I pulled up to him at the top and said to him jokingly, "You son of a bitch." He just laughed. We had a good talk after that about what I'm doing wrong and what I'm doing right. It was an eye-opening talk for me, literally, and I'd really like to thank him for that, because I definitely needed it.
The rest of the ride was a blur of speed as we moved into the Neighborhood Section. The 40 man group had now dropped down to 6 strong riders, and I was proud to be a part of them. We pushed it really hard and I was surprising myself with constant attacks and breaks. The final sprint was fun as it was 5 of us trying to close Chuck's 50m gap before the finish. I was in the back and felt good, so I went, and I brought the rest of the guys with me right up to Chuck and then right passed him at a very strong speed. I continued to pull the group for another 10-15 seconds until they passed me in the last 50 meters. I finished with the pack.
Like I said this was an amazing ride and was also very eye opening for me because I showed myself and everyone else what I am really made of and what I am really capable of. I rode hard!
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