Tuesday New Albany TCC Ride--Winds

I am out of dsl service for a day so with the crushing demand of my job (updating the blog) I am at River Road Coffee Shop, eating a cookie and working. The Cycling Club's Tuesday ride, New Albany, 5:30 and few are there as the clock ticks toward the 6:00pm start.  Probably the winds, 15-20mph out of the west has discouraged some but this ride always has a late arriving crowd so....

The minutes tick by and more cyclists come....

..and then more and we get going with 24, following the strong tail wind.  Among those who came out were John and Anthony, who used the group ride opportunity to do interval training?  Anyway, we head out at the usual kind of B group pace until reaching the eastward headed climbs and....

...regroup at Louden.  In the foreground is Muscle Dude, who with Kyle, were the stars of tonight's group, along with Gus & Peggy, Denise, Axel, Rick, etc...

Looking back into the sun, we await George who arrives and makes the implausible claim there are still two cyclists behind him.  I found this claim hard to believe and so when we turned north and then west on Stone Quarry, I hung back for photographic evidence but the last to appear was.....

....George but there were still some climbs to go on this road so later, at Northridge where Stone Quarry ends, sure enough.....

.....George was ahead of Michael and one other guy.  I apologize for doubting the veracity of George's statement.

On we went and enjoyed the newly paved Concorde, hit the Caswell decent and then arrived at the foot of the Caswell steps.  Wait for it......I attacked!  Usually when one attacks you get a blink of an eye and everyone follows but the shock of seeing me attack brought forth a flurry of blinks.  No doubt an exchange of stupefied looks followed and it took awhile for there to be an organized follow so I had a bike length or two advantage!  Quickly, Gus and Muscle Dude caught me and MD even gave me a push as they began to pass but MD is way too young to understand I had eased not because I was tired but because a wily veteran like me does not waste energy outside the draft. As soon as they passed I stapled myself to a tire and then toward the end...wait for it....I attacked again!!!!  Even with the strong cross/head wind I set a new Strava PR that puts me inside the top 1000!!!!!!!    Ahhh, the life of an endurance athlete is such fun. We finished with 37 miles and a 20. something average.