It's great to ride...

It's been so great to get some miles in recently. My daughter is with her mother for a little camping trip, so I've had the past few days "free" to ride. I had a nice ride at home after work on Thursday and then on Friday I was feeling good so I rode hard at lunch and then did another hard ride from the office after work. Today I did one of the smaller but faster local group rides and had a good time. My legs were very tired from the double day on Friday, so it took a long time for them to warm up and they were missing a little bit of the snap- especially on the one challenging climb for the ride. After things regrouped a bit, I got my legs back- more or less- and settled into the group.

The last portion of the ride culminates in a series of easy rollers that set up the final sprint. It's a sprint that I know like the back of my hand and have a history of doing well in- it just suits my style of sprinting. The group stayed relatively intact and then about a mile or so from the sprint, a small group broke things up and I chased onto the group and sat on as best I could- which was not all that easy. Things came slightly back together just before the sprint and I found myself taking a pull in a spot I didn't want to, so I took a short pull and worked my way back into the shelter of the pack. It was right about then that the first attacks in the sprint happened and I had to back out of the group and move from the right side of the road and out to the left into the sprinting group. It took some effort, but I made it in and then launched my sprint. Things looked really good and I thought I had it for sure- and I think I would've- until my chain dropped off to the outside of the big ring as I was trying to get my 11t wound up. Sadly, that is why SRAM is now making a new, stiffer version of the big ring used on the Red group. I have the new ring to test out, but have lazily not installed it yet.

Still, even with the slight mechanical, I had a great ride and was really pleased that I was able to recover from the hard efforts earlier and have the legs to sprint well. I'm still just inching my way back to being stronger, but each little step like this sure feels good. Hopefully I'll have better sprinting legs at the track on Tuesday night. Would be nice to finish one of the races with a "podium" or a win.

Tomorrow is hopefully gonna be a nice long day of 100+ miles and further building of base fitness and endurance. The legs are super tired right now, but after a rest I hope they recover. Had a nice big meal of pasta with chicken sausage for dinner, so hopefully I'll have enough carbs and proteins to endure the day tomorrow.

Hope you are having your own epic weekend- with or without your bike.

Tim