At New Albany, the A's are A's, the B's are B's but are they also....

As is the norm, the parking lot was virtually empty and then, around 15 minutes until 6:00pm, after I had already told Dennis it looked like he was top dog tonight, after I told Katherine she was top dog, after I told 3-4 others the same....the real top dogs rode in.  John Morgan, Dave Chesrown, Chris G, Randy B, Gus, and those I had told were the top dogs, were crestfallen with the late arrivals.

---

  Here, poor Katherine had someone swerve into her last Thursday at the stop sign at 310.  She fell on her wrist (note the black wrap) and is waiting on a doctor's analysis.  Nevertheless, she bravely showed up and rode strongly with the B group.

---

The A group, although small, was quality and when Jeff S, here on the right, called them out it scared off the usual imposters like me into diving into a very strong B group.  By the way, next Thursday is the last official Thursday ride so tell Jeff you appreciate his efforts this year as ride leader, a largely thankless job.  I thought about getting him a card and forging signatures but I forgot to do it.  Maybe next week.

---

So, after 8-9 A's went out a huge group of B's, including Dennis, Axel, Jeff S, Christian, Katherine, David, couple of Trek guys, John who let slip he reads the stupid blog), Peggy, SupeDave, Mark V, Denver Dan...around 18-20 of us.  We headed out old 161 but turned left on Kitmiller while, get THIS!!!! waiting for half the group that got stuck at the light, left on Clover Valley, right on Green Valley, right on Duncan Plains and soon arrived at the #37 crossing.  The group had been thinned a bit by now and maybe we were down to 12??  Out Castle, right on Sadie Miller, right on Northridge into Alexandria, then out Jersey Mill where we again paused to allow some regrouping.  All this was very weird to me after what I have witnessed with the A group but curiously, it was always Jeff S who asked us to wait and I suspect he was finding the New Albany B pace to be harder then the Canal Mudhens "A" pace.   

We approached the Kitzmiller overpass, Randy Brown took off, I sprinted around him adn looking back, had a nice gap and kept going to claim the sign sprint.  I asked Dennis if anyone tried to catch me and he said, "No, all I saw was several guys with fear in their eyes"  Yuk, Yuk.  He also credited me with the king of the overpass poWe finally arrived back at the parking lot with 30 miles, a 21.9 average....what, the B group average was 21.9 on a somewhat hilly route while the Toledo Mudhen's A group was well below that on the Tuesday ride?  Oh, we added Randy Brown to our group about half way through after the A pace exhausted him but he was in the Tuesday A group all the way around.  Not sure what the A group's average speed was, probably 26+or so.   

---