Thursday Night Slowdown...

Well our Thursday night ride has come and gone. Normally this ride draws the fastest and bravest of our area, however lately this summer I have to say that attendance has been...eh, lacking. Tonight there were a scant three of brave souls that showed up...well four. Joe K. showed up for the ride...with a broken spoke on his beautiful carbon fiber wheelset. The wheel was so horribly out of true that even with the brakes open he could not spin the wheel freely.

We left him at the meeting spot and headed into the hills of Ohio, looming storm clouds long gone and being greeted with fresh new sunshine. The listserv email had said a "moderate paced recovery ride" which is pretty much what it says every week. And normally the ride starts out fairly leisurely, but heats up to a solid boil by the end. Tonight on the other hand, it looked like it was really going to be a recovery ride. As we climbed on into Washington county, the pace was barely above 15mph and we had already popped one of our comrades off the back.

Now mind you, I had come loaded and foaming at the mouth for some attacks. The Tour is in full swing, I have ridden by myself all week, and yesterday was a rest day. Tonight I was gunnin for whoever was lookin for it. However, as we clipped along talking about work, the economy, and the local racing scene I settled into the recovery pace and just enjoyed the ride. Sometimes its easy to be so focused on the "end goal" that we forget the beauty and simplicity of just riding a bike. Tonight, I just was happy to take it all in.

We road along CR8 and then transitioned to SR530. Once on 530, the pace quickened a little bit, however I think it was just in anticipation of the upcoming climb. SR530 is mostly rolling, except for one 1.5 mile climb that is not only fairly sustained, but brutally steep. As we hit the base of the climb, one guy dropped off the back and the other tried to hang with me for a few meters...however I had been holding this in all evening. I dropped the hammer, shed my follower and opened a significant gap as I climbed the remainder of the hill. When I turned around, there were obviously no answering attacks and werent going to be...so I backed off and let the other guys catch back on. Then that was it. We rolled back into town, chatting the whole time and then parted ways. No attacks, no sprints for town signs, just a ride between friends.

And honestly, it was great! I truly enjoyed it. And while tonight was literally more like the Thursday night Slowdown (we averaged 17.5mph), I know that there are plenty of hard, insanely fast group rides left this year. I need not worry about getting my tempo rides accomplished in the weeks to come as I have a packed racing schedule and some tough training days with teammates already on the calendar. So goodnight to you all and remember to enjoy those recovery days...as they seem so few and far between!