Good day on the bike....finally!

Just a short one...I'm ready to go to bed. Tonight's training ride was a speed-fest. It was for me, anyway. We were missing the truly fast boys: Russ, JHam, Whale, and PMarr but we did pretty good without them. With a slight tailwind we were flying down Ellerbe Road around 28-30 mph at times with various team members taking chances up front and others just hiding in the pack. I even made a couple of attempts to string the field out, not with much success but I was doing it and that's the thing. I pulled the pack up to Vanderlick, who had gotten way off the front earlier. I slowed as I passed him, thinking some others would come by me but nobody did. I weaved over to the left to allow some room but still nobody was coming through. I could see the shadows of the riders behind me so I knew they were there and even heard someone in the back yell something about somebody move up to the front and quit making me do all the work (thanks!). I decided to jump again and did, and the shadows were gone for a while. Vandy pulled up alongside after a while with a grin on his face...he thought it was a smooth move on my part. There were a few slower moments when the efforts were wearing everyone down but we pushed on to Frierson. Kiki and T-Bone were dishing out the punishment off-and-on. We hung on into a headwind but still knocking out 25-26 mph speeds. My back was starting to hurt.

Vandy did a lot of damage the rest of the ride...the guy never looks tired! He gives you an honest smile and a laugh when you tell him to take it easy on the rest of us. He seems to really not believe he's riding that fast. We hit the "dark side" of Linwood Road and got back up to the high 20's again but I was having fun at this point. I took another flyer off the front but yielded the position eventually to Paul. He's riding better than he thinks he is. Well, the thing is that I stayed with the pack all the way to Mayo Road and I was quite pleased with myself. I also did the morning ride, too, so I put in 62 miles for the day. Not bad. I'm taking Friday off because I seemed to have developed a raw spot under my left butt cheek so that's a little tender. I'll give it a rest before the Saturday long ride.

The rest of the day was largely uneventful. Big surprise, hey?