first century of the season

had a great ride yesterday to wachusetts and back. (andy's map). brad and andy hung in medford on friday night so we'd make the 7am start time, but the pile of beers we ended-up drinking while shooting the shit and staring at our bikes had us 15mins late. didn't really help the legs either, but what kind of epic would it be w/o a good night of goofing-off before the ride!?

rode-out to wa-wa in a paceline, pretty dangerous on the narrow, pot-holed roads, but it was worth it - got-out to the 40m mark way ahead of schedule. on the next section, the climb up to wachusetts (wa-wa) rob had to turn-back early from the climb to ride w/brad who was in pure survival mode (as andy would say). our early paceline work really destroyed brad's legs. he doesn't have the same base as rob, john, andy and myself, but he's a tough dude and didn't complain once. rob saw the need to get brad back a little early and took one for the team. very solid, but that's rob.

it was the first time i've ever ridden on the road with john hurley, that brother's got some legs! he really pushed the pace down off the mtn, we were flat-out tt'ing it back to the mid-point (rob's parent's house). hurley made a strong move on a short climb, gapped andy by 100ft, i another 100ft off andy's wheel. we chased each other at full-tilt for 10-15miles until slamming into a large climb like water on rock. after meeting-back up at rob's parents place after the descent (we did get turned-back from the summit early due to a damn ski slope running across the auto-road!), andy dropped back to ride back to medford w/brad while john, rob and i worked a fast pace through concord. i did some work on this section, but rob had go-go in him and hurley was flat-out on fire, so i mostly just hung-on. i'm more apt to work a climb than the flats and they dropped my sorry ass once when sprinting for a town sign, but managed to crawl back-up about 5miles later. this is the time in a long ride i call the pain cave. just hanging-on, head-down, using all energy possible to keep the legs turning-over in a gear that's 2 cogs harder then what's even slightly comfortable. after we hit concord, hurley broke-off to get a cpl extra miles in. he re-set his computer 10m into the ride and insisted it was going to read 100mile by the time he got home - that dude's a trip.

expected a slightly more mellow pace yesterday, it ended-up being quite the rip! great riding, feeling good today. the 10lbs of good food i ate last night here in NH at Jenn's sisters place (surf and turf to celebrate her 35th), hit the spot. i hope all the other ride junkies out there got their fix this wknd as well.