Club training ride

[Kev365428]

Went out for my third club training ride today. Pity the weather didn't cooperate, with light rain for the first 3/4 of the ride, then downpour for the remainder, plus the ride home.

The course is 33km long, going from Narellan, through Camden, to the base of Razorback, then turning to Menangle before finishing back at Narellan. I actually bail out a few km early to save back-tracking when heading for home, as do a lot of other riders. The ride is a fairly sedate affair, with speeds kept on or below 30km/h average. In the last 5 km or so, the pace hots up with a sprint at the finish.

On my first ride, the peleton left me for dead on the first of two significant hills. From that point on, the remaining 10km or so was a grind, and I never saw the main group again until the finish.

On the second ride, I managed to keep up with the group, or I should say I kept them in sight until the second significant hill when I lost them again.

Tonights ride I kept up with the peleton up the first hill, but dropped off on the next small hill, and then on the preceeding down hill after that. The good thing was that I nearly caught back up on the next hill. If I'd had, I reckon I could've stuck with them all the way home.

So tonight, I learnt that you have to stick with the group or you'll get dropped faster than a Wallaby coach. I was quite amazed at how much easier it was when I was on someones wheel when climbing.

So my goals for the next couple of rides are -

1. Stick with the peleton for the entire ride.
2. There are at least two female riders who come on the club ride. I need to finish in front of them at least once. Both are excellent C or B grade riders, who ride almost every day of the week.
3. try to participate in the sprint finish.

While typing this post I checked the figures from tonights ride against last weeks ride.

Last week -
Dist. 33.07km
Time 1:05:43
Av. Sp 30.2km/h

This week -
Dist. 33.05km
Time 1:02:31
Av. Sp 31.7km/h

I thought for a minute that maybe it was a slower group this week, but I can see that my performance has improved. As a pointer, the first time I did this ride my average speed was only 29km/h.

Kev.

[sogood]

Congrats! And then there'll be a point in the future when you'll start to venture out on your own to achieve additional training targets...