8/13/11 Ride Recap- 85 Miles to Barrington Hills

We had a good 85 mile training ride today on the Cuba Road rollers and the hills in the Barrington area. Seven of us were on the ride: Bob, Clay, Cons, Herb, Ian, Martin and me. It's probably a good thing Herb was on the ride, because he was the only one of us that really knew the route. He navigated flawlessly.

We maintained our target pace of 22-23 mph for the most part on the flats on the trip out to Barrington Hills, and on the way back with the wind at our backs had a number of stretches of 24-27 mph. While the results from Cons' Garmin indicate that our average speed was 19.1 mph, that is due to all the stops and the hills. We were pretty close to the pace we need to be at for the Sub 5 Hour Century.

I have now worn my event jersey twice, and ended up on the asphalt both times. I assume it is just bad luck and not any sort of omen. Last week, leg cramps temporarily disabled me. On today's ride, we were stopped at a light, and the cyclist next to me lost his balance and took a slow motion clip fall into me. I couldn't get unclipped, and went down like a domino. The whole thing happened in such slow motion that no damage was done, and we all got a good laugh out of it. Bob even congratulated the other rider on his successful technique for breaking his fall.

I broke off early from the ride to head home. I happened to cross paths with Hugo on Sunset Ridge Road., who was out for a training ride. He is regaining his fitness, but being sensible about not over doing it.