Tuesday night ride report 9/2

Arrived at the gym and found that I had;
Grabbed my bib knickers instead of my bib shorts.
Forgot my socks for after the ride.
Forgot my towel for my shower after the ride.
This getting more mature thing is starting to suck.

Here it is September already, where did the summer go? Felt like a Fall night last night with the temperature at launch at 69F, with a slight Southwest wind. I started out wearing my arm warmers as well. I think my blood is thinning out. I’m guessing around 25 riders or so showed up for the ride.

We were headed on the roads that go by the Grand View golf course. Starts getting dark around 7:30pm, so Daren set a very brisk pace right out of the chute. I was in the big ring right after we went by the hospital. Once we made the right turn on the climbs to the Grand View golf course I got dropped from the lead group. By the time I had arrived at the top they had already hit a bucket of balls.

We re-grouped at the top, slapped it in the big ring, then off we went screaming down all the down hills then a very sharp left at the near the base of Justice Hill Road, onto Leominster Rd. A right onto 140 then a quick left onto Gleason Road. Then another right and a quick left onto Bullard Road which brought us to Route 62 where we turn left and stayed on this all the way to Moore’s corner on route 140. From here we got on what used to be the old 140 TT course that took us by the Sterling Airport. A right onto Route 12 then a left onto Gates road where we went over some nasty RR tracks. One dropped bottle that slowed down the groups pace a tad then it was full throttle again as we headed over to Route 70 in Lancaster.

All this was rolling terrain and I had a few red zone moments, mostly on the uphill sections staying with the front group. As we all know once you get to Route 70 it’s going to get REALLY hard. We had a small lead group about 8 of us tooling along and I’m almost at my max when Greg who’s on the front turns up the screws and now I’m beyond my max, well over the redline, completely shattered and fell off the group just before we got to Route 2.

By now it’s pretty dark and the temperature had dropped to 62F so now I was glad I had my knickers on as well as my arm warmers. Meandered over to Target and caught the lead riders at the lights there. Had visions of the fire box sprint, but that’s just what it was, a vision. I was so far back they were out of site by the time I arrived at the fire box. Rode back to the gym and walked in at 8:55pm completely wasted.