She Went to Jared

OK, only in my imagination, but thrilling to have a pretty young co-ed checking out my butt on the Guy West Bridge at CSUS last night! It's official, I'm a dirty old man! ;)  I was sweating profusely from cranking out a blistering 21.7 average from Sunrise to Guy West Bridge, and up on the bridge stretching out my hams and gluts trying to catch a breeze.

It was hot and dry yesterday at 4:30 when  heading out the door, so I decided to stick to the flats where I can make my own wind. The plan was to start at Sunrise via Bannister Pk and ride down to Del Paso Rd and then return home via WBP.

I caught the wheel of a guy, who turned out to be my age, on a beautiful, red, Felt S32 TT bike. He slowed just a bit going up a shallow grade on the right-hand turn just past Sunrise, so I jumped hard and bridged up. I couldn't read my Garmin in the flat light, but knew we were doing over 20 mph.

He kept testing me, trying to drop me, on every little hill and turn, but didn't have the legs to make my kind of power. His cadence was in the mid-90s though, with perfect form and immaculate shifts. Very impressed with the latter, especially at the base of hills. The upshot was, I kept overtaking his back wheel when he tried to drop me, so I started hanging back 4 ft and offsetting 18-24 inches to keep a clear view of the trail ahead.

Almost hit a guy head-on going through the tight turns around Rossmor Park, leaning hard and cheating the lanes. The guy was wearing a dark, camo mtb jersey under total tree canopy, downslope from us, and we were looking into the setting sun. He was yelling and cursing, so I knew right where to look, but still couldn't see him until 20 ft away.

I apologized, of course, but he's going to get hit wearing that kind of gear this time of year. We were doing about 23 at the time, so that would have been ugly. There's only one line through those turns, and I was committed, so not sure what I could have done differently.

My rabbit peeled off at Watt Ave, so I rode solo the 2.2 miles from Watt to CSUS. Very pleased I maintained the same speed. Although my HR ticked up ~ 5bpm or so, it was my legs that were really hurting, especially my hams and quads. The surface is brand new asphalt, and very smooth, although a little soft and spongy in the hot sun. I ran across the paving crew on the way home and stopped and thanked them for a job very well done!

Stats:
Sunrise to CSUS: PB 21.7 mph avg @ 90% of max HR for 32 min
Total ride 19.2, 19.8 on bike trail
252 watts average power start to finish

I am just incredulous I am riding this hard this late in the season. What a thrill!