The sun was out all weekend
I did 56 km on Saturday. Part of that was with the missus as that was the first Saturday she was not working in a long while. After that I did an Iona Ride which was hard because the wind was great for flying kites or sail boating.
Today we had four in our group. Eoin has signed up for one of the MFF seminars. He will be riding to Whistler in September. He still needs to build a bit, but he is way ahead of what most MFFrs are when they start. Brian showed up saying he had not been on a ride for weeks ( except riding to and from work downtown every day). Alan was there are usual.
The famous Vancouver Sun Run was on today downtown so Brian said he wanted coffee. The little windmill thing on the light post was whirring away enthusiastically. 25 gusting to 30 ish from the NNW. So Qbucks would be a tailwind outbound and predictably hard on the return leg.
As expected the ride out was fast. We often hit mid thirties, but Alan kept getting dropped. His back must still be bothering him. Backs are rather important as that is what your legs are anchored to on the bike.
At #5 rd a horde of cyclists I mean a solid block 50 or 100 Strong came down the other way using a full lane of road. This lead to a frustrated driver trying to pass them at the moment we were passing them in the opposing lane and direction. The car did not see or care about the two riders she was head on to.
So there were two examples of bad judgement. The massive pelleton using up the whole road lane was the first. The second was the car that could have bug splatted your obedient servant. I had no shoulder to dive to so it was an exciting few seconds. Missed me by that much…
Got to Qbucks fast. Had coffee and hoped to have the wind shift. It didn’t. I decided I would stay back and let the young ones pull. That worked for about 6 or 7 km then Eoin faltered a bit, Alan got dropped and well Brian is burdened with speed and somehow ended up far ahead. I was not going to go red on River Road as it was a long haul.
Eventually Alan turned for home on #4 road and Eoin turned for home at Garden City. Brian and I headed out to Iona. He always seems to make me do silly things. So out we went.
We only averaged 24 or 25 outbound, but that was into 20 to 25 kph wind. That is hill climbing power. So it took a while. We passed some groups of older or “not serious” riders. It was a decent pull. I tried to get a draft from Brian, but he makes a very small hole in the air. I looked back at one point a there was someone on my wheel. Hey where’d he come from? Soon after he was spotted he dug in and passed us. Brian chased an got on his wheel and I chased Brian. With two people the hole in the air was bigger and I could rest.
Soon this mystery guy slowed down to 24 and it was back to just holding on. We were just past the horse farms and approaching that curve to the right. The wind is always worst there as it negotiates its way around a clump of trees. So in the worst place I hit it and got up to 30 ish into the wind and I could see Brian’s shadow right on my wheel. I am a big airhole and was going into the red. Which I did. But we dropped the stranger.
Brian beat me to the parking lot not unexpectedly, and I straggled in a bit tired.
Weirdly we hit the return leg hard and were over 40 kph with the tail wind. A car passed us and we could tell he was speeding because we were speeding. The limit there is 30 kph. I realized I was working harder on the return than I was into the wind. Tailwinds are supposed to be fun. So I backed down to 75% and cruised at 35. Brain dropped me again.
So anyway he turned for home at Granville and I headed for Steveston. 71.8 km covered at 26.8 kph average. I am at 128 km for the weekend and 2099km so far this year.
Oh and I felt my toes all day.
Oh and I am actually 50ish km ahead of my big year total for the end of April mostly because I was far ahead in Jan Feb and March.
Oh and this is my 299th post.
