Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Beware the Colombian TGV

Sebas...that's the story from last night's windy training race. Don't know if you've seen him lately, here's a recent photo.

It was windy, not gusty, just constant and the turnout was all you could ask for. Lots of fast folk, lots of hard riding all the way around.

When we made the left hand turn, we finally got a nice tailwind which was being wasted by idle chatter and comfortable 22 mph 2x2 riding. Norm wasn't having it and pumped the pace back up.

Adrenalin remnants and the favorable winds made for a fast moving group of about 6 of us who were rotating at 29. We didn't stay off for long, then Sebas pulled through and i thought, "you know, i should grab that wheel."

Carnage ensued, quickly we were off, he's pulling and i'm watching the speedo go 30,31,32,33,34,35. Yep that was a steady 35 through the first s-turn, ok. I looked under my arm and there's nobody, the group is quickly becoming a dot on the vanishing horizon.

In my head i'm thinking, "i sure hope somebody is filming this" then "don't flick your arm dude, i'm not going to match this" then a small gap opened. I'm doing 33, and holding it steady, i start wondering "am i about to be dropped while riding at 33?" It was impressive.

Luckily, he finally backed off, the pack came back and all was well. Sebas pulled off at Gardere, thankfully. If he had done that again, i think i would have had an aneurysm on the spot.

The rest was good fun, hard pulls into the wind in the final miles made the pack much smaller. Brian and i tried a 2 man break with about 2k to go but got pulled back by tri-power. It was fun and it hurt, good stuff.

3 comments:

Taylor said...

Man, I hope there are still two groups... I will have no hope of surviving anything close to that.

David Alexander said...

You'll do fine, it was a big group before the carnage began.

Jeff said...

Taylor-
Don't listen to him...
Any statement that starts with "You'll be fine" makes me nervous...

That ranks right up there with asking for directions and getting, "You can't miss it".