Feb-14 Irregulars ride

Feb-14:

PUE: DocN-Kemp-Virgil; w/ Snapper, PaulN, BobH, Peter, PaulS, Iva; 27.4 miles; 1 hrs, 37 min, 30 sec; 16.8 mph avg pace.

Jan tot: 2 rides, 96.0 m.; 6 hrs, 5 min.
Feb tot: 6 rides, 194.4 m.; 12 hrs, 1 min, 33 sec.
YTD: 8 rides, 290.4 m.; 18 hrs, 6 min, 33 sec.  

Iva finally showed for a ride!  Yet another person that is faster then me upslope / uphill.  He rode conservatively, which is a smart thing to do the first time you ride with a new / unknown group.  However, the group probably cannot be accused of riding conservatively, after we were warmed up.

Snapper arrived just before the scheduled start time, as usual.  The rest of us (except Peter) did a short warm-up loop while Snapper got ready to ride.  After the start of the "ride-proper", Peter turned back in the first three miles with a broken spoke; that is too bad since it would have been nice to have him on his "Led Zeppelin" bike later when we re-passed two riders that had passed us & tried to "put us away".

Even before Peter had his spoke problem, postscript asked "if Peter and Harvey are just going to sit in, should we stretch out the pace a bit?"  He had ridden 7 or 8 miles from home to the start of the ride, so was already well warmed up, whereas I certainly was not.  Therefore, I replied, "too early, let's wait at least until my legs are warmed up."

Just after that we lost Peter due to his spoke problem.

PaulS is a strong rider.  He rose to every increase in pace whether on the flat, upslope, or downslope.  Just imagine if he were riding something other than his "silver streak".

BobH generally rode conservatively, as he was hoping / looking to ride farther.  I had intended to ride extra with him, but the accelerations, esp. on Carpenter Pond on the way back put an end to thoughts along those lines.  BobH stuck to whatever the pace was, and did ride some extra.  Unfortunately for him, his intended extra got cut short due to a phone call from work.

PaulN is PaulN.  But maybe he better be on the alert, because I have a suspicion that he will have a much harder time "taking county line sprints" in the future.

Some of us heavier bodies do not like it when we cannot just "let the bike run" on downslopes and downhills, so some of the heavier bodies used the occasions to go around the smaller bodies and keep the pace up or increase it.  PaulS responded every time.  He is strong.

I knew from experience that I could do the 7.8 miles from the Virgil/Carpenter Pond corner back to PUE at an avg of 19 mph solo.  I was convinced the group could do better if Harvey and PaulS could be enticed into doing some serious pulls.  In the event, we were assisted by two guys that passed us like we were standing still.  However, they did not completely follow thru on the "race-style-pass" with which one tries to demoralize the passee; I think they tried, but they did not know the Snapper engine had been lying mostly dormant, nor did they know that postscript has a significant engine disguised by that silver streak (or as Harvey described it, that "Led Zeppelin" bike).

Harvey moved to catch their wheel.  PaulS moved to catch Harvey's.  I caught PaulS's.  And Iceman, BobH, and Iva followed.  I felt great pleasure when we passed those two guys after dogging them for a couple miles.  The one guy I recognized from quite a few times when he has sneered at me as he zipped past.  Revenge, complete with a guy on a "Led Zeppelin" bike and me asking a polite question as we zipped passed, was quite sweet.  The only thing I can imagine that would have made it sweeter was if Peter had still been with us and there would have been two "Led Zeppelin" bikes.

Harvey -- I forgot to look around within the group and see who had the most expensive bike today.  We must remember to check that out next time.