Smitty met me at PUE for a 7 am ride. He was game for anything. I figured he might like to continue to get in hill practice as mountain practice was outside the the options today. Also, the sky looked threatening, so staying close to PUE seemed like a good idea on that account.
I also thought hill-cadence practice would be good for me. I wildly hoped that I'd be able to cadence my way uphill and upslope and end up with an average somewhere near 16 mph. Ha!
Smitty knew almost all the roads I took him on during our hill-training quest, but he didn't know all the roads. (After the firehouse stop and visit, Smitty commented "I never expected so much 'city' riding from one of your routes".)
Raven Ridge and Possum Track and Durant and Bayleaf Ch Rd all figured importantly in the first 20 miles of the ride. Don't ask -- Smitty is sworn to secrecy.
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As we were riding past Bayleaf Volunteer Fire Dept. Station # 1, we decided to stop in and harass LT. One of the firemen greeted us as we were parking our bikes and asked if we were looking for LT. I said that and maybe some water -- when the fireman started to turn aside from leading us to LT and toward water, I added "but mostly we are here to harass LT".
Visited with Dave for a bit. Got some water. Discussed yesterday's ride and how tough Robert is. Shared more B.S., then we left to complete our ride -- leaving Dave in the peace and quiet of the firehouse life (which seemed to be mostly about seeing how many of the crew's vehicles they could wash in one day).
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On to more hill training, and I took Smitty on a few turns he was not expecting. Don't ask -- he's sworn to secrecy. (The route makes an excellent "Shadow Route", and I might need to spring it, er, share it, yeah, that's it, "share it", with the "Irregulars" one day.)
Smitty thought I was trying to "sneak" the Durham CL on Victory Church Rd (becomes Kemp Rd), so he put the kabash on that.
At the corner of Kemp and Carpenter Pond, we agreed that we'd had enough hill training for the day, and would finish out with a short ~ 15 miles "time trial" on CP and Leesville to just past DocNichols and then back on Carpenter Pond to PUE. We were averaging about 14.5 mph when we abandoned the hill training. At the end of the ride, despite riding up MVC much / most of the way in the triple / granny at about 6.5 mph, my avg came in at 15.3 mph for the whole ride. Smitty couldn't resist chasing a guy up the MVC hill, and he probably ended up with at least 15.4 mph for his avg. (Smitty had to do a LOT of soft-pedaling while waiting for me to catch up -- he chose that "method" for regrouping instead of riding repeatedly ahead and waiting.)
In the PUE parking lot, after the end of the ride, Smitty and I lied to each other about much we had enjoyed the ride.
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May-02:
PUE: combo hill training "Shadow Course" with "TT"; 48.5 m.; 3hrs, 10min in-motion time; 15.3 mph.
Q-1 tot: 16 rides; __938.2 m.; _60 hrs, 39 min; 15.5 mph.
Apr tot: 10 rides; __717.9 m.; _45 hrs, 27 min; 15.1 mph.
May tot: _2 rides; __116.1 m.: __7 hrs, 41 min; 15.1 mph.
YTD tot: 28 rides; 1,772.2 m.; 115 hrs, 47 min; 15.3 mph.
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