Hey, Guys and occasional girls,

The SFC today was a blustery beast.  A pretty dawn gave way to cloudy skies, some v. light drizzle, and bizarre wind patterns...generally from NW...but sometimes a full W crosswind other times a full N cross wind, on tree lined roads it swirled and made for occasional head winds.

I went out with the lead riders...mostly Team Cyclogic...Paul and company.  In the first 31 miles we averaged 25.1 mph.  A nice group formed and we were moving right along.  I heard someone say time for a nature break...I pulled over and took a 60 sec break...we were in the middle of nowhere heading north.  What at the time seemed like a good move...I figured I would pass other riders doing the same as me and we'd form up to recapture the main little group of ~20 riders or so....was incredibly DUMB with a capital D.  To my knowledge no one else ever pulled over so that left me watching the main group just about 5-600 yards out in front of me.  Chasing them at 27-30 mph is out of the question for me for that long.  I watched them slowly disappear in to the distance.  So, I did what I do, put my head down and spun out tempo to keep my pace ~21-23 mph.  There is a lot of tree cover on the north part of the course to hid from the wind...so, I was really hoping somebody would flat or they would get blocked by a tractor on some of the narrow country roads...didn't happen.  They must have had a good ride, too.

Made the turn at the 50 mile rest point and started to use the tail wind to go a bit faster.  Finally caught another older man at mile 65, who had been spit out the back and we traded pulls to the 77 mile rest point.  He pulled over, I rode on...I saw another guy who had just pulled out of the rest stop...he was just ~100 yards up on me.  Chased him ~8 miles or so...he kept looking over his shoulder and then get up and ride.  I finally got kinda pissed off and really went into a hi-speed spin ~24-25 mph and caught him at the Krishna stop sign.  He was an old guy too...we are quite a fraternity.  We turned left and I asked him how he felt...he was good so off we went trading pulls at 22-23 mph all the way to the Boy's Club.  Finished in 4h41m for 100.75 miles.  Damn...if I had just stayed with the main group, up to the point where they dropped me, I'm sure I could have broke 4h30m.  Ah, well, that's cycling.  I had a plan, it nearly worked as I wanted it.  It was a good day. Now, there is the 2009 season and the Ride to Remember in May to think about and avoid that neophyte mistake.

Those of you riding the HFH tomorrow...good luck...you look like you will have a nice cool, but sunny day...go fast, it hurts, yet it feels good.  If you have a good adventure post it out here. See you on an upcoming Sunrise ride.  Bob Howland

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