it was a great day for a ride! It was also a great day for a short(ish) high intensity effort. Great big bunch of Easter Eggs pounded the pedals in anger on their way to some great results. I think everyone did better than ever before (other than Pooky whosi still recovering from being smacked by a car - he was still within 30secs of last year though )
Kudos toour top 3 men Bruce and Josh whoboth went under 9' and Bigring John Taylor who was just a hair over 9' - great effort guys! Our top woman was Jen - woot woot! Also props to first time racer Geoff W. - way to go Geoff - the other races are WAAAY easier so you will have to keep at em.
I'm already looking forward to the next time out, I went a bit too hard too early and blew up on the top 20%.
This climb is nasty that way, not like doug or the observatory, where you can just go hard and hang on to the top. Those extra two or 3 minutes really punish you if you get the pace wrong. Thanks to Dave "Spires" for riding an awesome stubborn climb, and not letting me pass him. I would've definitely been slower without him to keep me going, he out kicked me at the finish too.
The VCL is a bit like Triple Shot. People keep getting faster. I guess that's the point. It was a great day weather-wise, but my lungs still hurt. Good going Dave - a top-ten finish. Me too! I left thinking I was 13th or 14th but ended up 10th. The thrill is diminished a little by the realization that they'd scored three B's who beat me as A's. None of the B's beat Josh - great ride. Bruce is making the Triple Shot Bunny team look very good. As noted above, Peter wins the most-improved award. Gotta go, there were other great TS performances that others can report.
So I never actually intended to race. Hugh and I were trying to line up sitters so we could go for a ride. When it turned out that Sunday morning would work, we thought we could head out to Neild Road and at least cheer on the triple-shotters. My failsafe was that we would surely not reach there in time to start the event since we couldn’t leave until 9:15 – 9:30 or so. Little did I know that Hugh had been up all night researching the shortest route to get there, then proceeded to hammer all the way, getting us to the registration at 10:20 – lots of time to register. Rats.
I didn’t feel any better when Jen saw me at the start line and started laughing. She made some comment about how I pick the hardest races to come out for – not the vote of confidence I was looking for. We didn’t have time to ride the route and my team mates were not very helpful with any route details (Q: Hey how many switchbacks on the course? A: Seventeen!).
Nothing like a blind ride up a steep hill with no idea how long you have to sustain it. In selling the idea everyone says that this course is a good one because it’s only ten minutes. Well it’s not. It’s twelve. And they all hurt. At least I beat the guy in the camelback. And the three guys that passed me probably felt pretty good about their effort, so there’s that.
Really though, it was a great day for riding with a big group of teammates. I’ll do it again. Just not tomorrow.
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