Well folks I kind of hit a landmark on the group ride last night. The week worked out kind of funny, see I have it in the "marital contract" this summer that I get to do a group ride a week.......You all know what the marital contract is right? If not you need to contact me and I can fill you in on how to be a master negotiator. Anyway....

Back to the ride, I had been going on Tuesday nights but like I said we had a conflict on Tuesday and I was allowed to go to the Wednesday night ride at Wheel and Sprocket. I had heard that is was a bigger ride but I was a bit amazed when people kept coming. Fancy bikes, deep carbon rims, time trial bikes, fancy biking jerseys, chicks that looked like they could "chick" me. I was excited to see how the ride would go.

Well it started out easy with a warm up with the group of about 30 staying together. Hand signals abounded, shouts of "CAR BACK", "SLOWING", "CAR LEFT" and "STOPPING" rang out as we meandered our way out to the country roads at an easy pace.

Then we crossed a road and BOOM it was on, the top group shot off and I knew right away I was not in thier league. And when I found out later that they average about 23 mph I simply thought maybe some day. I settled into a group of about 7 riders that seemed to be clicking along at a pace I could keep. It was fun we chatted a little but mostly it was serious riding. We formed a line and took turns pulling dropping to the back when we got tired. I would drop in the aero bars when I was in front and ride on the hoods when drafting. There is definitely a sense of pushing it on these rides, there is a non verbal feeling out. A guy will get to the front and push the pace. Eventually we dropped a couple and picked up a couple of stragglers that were dropped by the lead dogs, but what was landmark moment you ask.

Well the landmark moment is I averaged over 20mph for the entire 30 mile course. This is the first time I have ever averaged over 20 miles per hour on a longish bike ride. Could I have done it without the aid of the group, no way, but I will take it. My HR was very much threshold the entire ride. I know I will get benefits from these rides. At the end of the ride I saw "Kona Guy" hitting the roads for a little run and I was inspired. So I threw on my running shoes and went for a 2.5 mile loop around the neighborhood, hopefully flushing some of the Lactic Acid out of my legs. What an awesome workout and confidence builder it was. Here is how Garmin saw the ride.