Tuesday Canal Ride Report

Steve O and his "Mean Machine" were out, basking in the well wishes of everyone, well, except for some snipers in the parking lot.  For example.....

....while I was gushing over Steve O and Dustin's performance at Mountain Mama, others were not so impressed, including Kevin H, who told me he and Jeff S rode the 100 mile Pedal with Pete ride in 5:19..  I was impolite enough to ask how much climbing was on the PWP ride and Kevin mumbled something that I could not discern.  Regarding Mama, John DeLong won the event with a time of 5:08 and in so doing, set most of the fastest times on each climb.  He climbed the final climb, Monterey Mountain, listed as a Cat 3 climb in 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, Sarah G, who was in the top 10 when she flew by me made a clean sweep of all the mountain climbs, according to Strava.

Another new rider joins our group.  She rode out with the C group and was the first to gravitate to the shady area.

Younger Phenom Nick showed up after his tour of the Midwest to various cycling camps or races.  Euro-Patrick showed up tonight as well.

Mark Rossi and Karen were back out, famous now after the Dispatch article.  Many people sought his autograph but he said he and Johnny Manziel are no longer giving autographs.

Poobah was embarrassed.  He had bragged to all of his friends that he was going to be in the Dispatch picture but some very clever image altering removed him.  He also parked in the official ride leader's spot and was rewarded with a banana peel on the windshield.

Some of the New Albany boys came down, Marty, Dave C and Jon Morgan.  Sounds like they are all for coming to Monterey next year and taking out the top 5 spots.  I have heard some of them are not riding Pelotonia this year because "racers" are being discouraged from participating or at least from riding fast. 

Corvair, unofficially, probably has been a member of more cycling groups then anyone.  Savage Hill, Roll, Cyclist Connection and Team 614 are only part of her vast resume.  She's riding very well this year.  Andrew Cayton on the right and next week's ride leader.

A small but quality group of A's headed out, maybe 7 and then a large group of B's some of whom observed the A group and decided to drop back a category.  Around 25 in our group including Eric the Dispatch photographer, Jeff S, Claude, Poobah, Kevin H, Matt A, Dane, Katherine, Corvair, Ryan, Mitch, Dirty Dan, new guy Chris, Andrew, David Freakin Smith, etc...  Pretty good route tonight and we all made it around with plenty of time to spare.  The way south was uneventful with most of us staying together.  As we rode through Amanda, I let everyone know we would regroup at the stop sign after the Delmont climb.  Ryan could not resist interpreting this as a stopgap measure for myself to stay in contact.

We rolled out of Amanda, got on to Hamburg and then turned left on Delmont.  It always surprises me how fast the group hits this portion of the route, as if they don't know what awaits them around the corner.  We hit the opening ramp of the Delmont climb and Ryan and I discussed unclipping and just pushing our bikes.  I noticed the front guys were not pulling away too quickly so I put in a dig, caught Eric near the top and he gifted me the KOM points cause he's a good guy. We regrouped at the stop sign and eventually got on to Crumley where Nick rode by with Marty on his wheel, a couple of bike lengths later came Jon, a few more bike lengths and the Mean Machine came by with Patrick, then Pete A and a couple others.  They finished with a 22.3 average and our group finished with 19.6 and 44 miles.