July 4th - Baldwin Trail Fireworks

56 miler NFBC ride from the trail, looks like about 30 or so showed up including the ever present A-Team riders of Marino & myself. Kendall Frederick also joined the fray since his posse was out at the Nationals tearing it up.

Under overcast skies the ride started out downwind so the pace was brisk, about 21ish up to the stop at the convenience store. It was a good thing we all had ride maps because as a group, all of us missed the left turn at MLK on the trail so improvised to doing the route in reverse order.

I think this guy named Potts was the ride leader but I never really saw him during and at the convenience store stop several took off while others, me & Marino to name a few, were still filling water bottles and re-fueling. Fragmented is what happened next, a group took off and I scrambled to get back on the bike - didn't want to be gapped.

Now I'm looking ahead at this group, I didn't see Marino or Kendall as I left the store so I'm thinking they're up ahead on that pack. I start hammering it to try & catch up hoping Mike & Kendall are in the group telling them to back it down until 4 or 5 of us latch on. I didn't realize that Mike was behind me or I would have dropped immediately.

Anyway, got lucky, the group ahead was slowed by a stop light & then caught a draft from a truck to catch up. Now, as I catch up, I am just finishing a hard effort and coasting so I come up on the left of some old guy who gives me crap for not saying something so I told him basically to shove it since he & the others left us & I just finished sprinting to catch their asses!

Back in the pace line about 10 riders back I think I'm seeing Marino's jersey until Kendall drops back to say "Where's Mike?" Uh Oh...so we drop a bit but see nobody behind us (Actually Kendall dropped quite a bit but then he's more capable than I of making up the gap) so we rejoin the lead group. Now, some fat chick ahead of us lets the lead dogs gap us and Kendal decides to have no part so he goes & I go with him...I don't know why but I did. Kendall hammers out a steady 24 mph for a couple of miles w/me hanging on his wheel, barely and we catch lead group.

Stayed with that group for about 15 miles or midway on Yellow Water then cracked and dropped. Ended up riding the last 15 solo mostly in the rain.

A great workout, some are miffed about how the ride blew apart, 56 total miles in about 2:45 is faster than I had intended.

Went home & took a 1 hr nap & felt great after, wouldn't it be great if we could always nap after a ride?

Post ride thoughts:

1. Sorry Mike, I really thought you were ahead of me at the break or I would have dropped, honest.

2. Didn't plan on the hammer fest but it turned out to be a great hard effort work out.

3. Kendall is flat out riding like a maniac, that pull he did to catch the lead group was a blast & down right impressive!