Ride Reviews - 8/22-23

Saturday

More good rides! We are all trying to stretch ourselves to get ready for this year's Cycle to the Shore in early October. So we got together and did the Micklers to Vilano run on Saturday 8/22. It was Diesel, Sweet Spot, Buffalicious, KL and Quadzilla on a mission to go Fast! Well it seems as if everyone else in Jax was 'in training' too so we had alot of groups to choose from. This benefited KL since she was not keen on the prospect of a continuous fast ride. She jumped onto another group and had a good ride. So the rest of us, right off the bat, got hooked up with a 6 person group from Comcast. They were planning to do 30 sec pulls to keep the speed up at 23-24 mph. We fluctuated but stayed pretty fast to the Gate station. Since a few of the group dropped a couple miles before the Gate, we got to catch our breath. The two from the Comcast group that dropped, I think, decided to head back to Micklers instead of continuing on to Vilano. So the rest of us hooked up and got back up to speed. We made it down to the bridge, turned west right into a pretty good headwind (just what you want up the bridge :( ). We turned right back around, attacked up with the wind and all regrouped at the close BP station. We made sure everyone was ready and got going back North.... as soon as we got up to speed, Buffalicious blew a tire....We told the Comcast group to keep going and then tended to his tire. It's always happens in the hottest section of road without fail. New tube replaced, new tire tool thrown out...(I didn't like it) and we were off... As we were 'trek'ing north we caught a couple lone riders that looked like they could use a wheel to grab onto. So our little troop grew as we went along. One of the riders got enough of a rest that he accelerated up the inclines in Guana during his pull, the other new rider wasn't fond of that and dropped. We proceeded to finish the ride with our sprint starting at the top of the last incline where the houses stop through the long left turn into the hard right turn to Micklers. I got the benefit of the Sling Shot from Sweet Spot and burned out the rest of the gas out of my tank by the time I got back to the parking lot. Everyone rode strong and I think showed that we are ready for the Cycle to the Shore.

Sunday was Schmuckatelli's Ride. It was Schmuck, Sweet Spot, Masher and Quadzilla. Diesel was being Super Mom and ran errands with Diesel Junior. It was cooler than expected (for mid morning in Aug) but we were all OK with that. We did the tour starting at Monument at Hidden Hills, right onto Wonderwood/Merrill, turn around at Merrill/Old Ft Caroline, right onto Monument Rd, left onto St Johns Bluff to the Town Center. Half way down St Johns Bluff the clouds looked pretty ominous. We were contemplating turning around and forgetting the Wonderwood bridge (I don't like riding in rain and wind). We lucked out though since the upper level winds pushed that storm out to sea and we were back in the sunshine. we made it all the way back to monument, took a right then took a break at Monument/Wonderwood before heading towards the bridge. Sweet Spot needed a quick lower back stretch to get him the rest of the way. Masher was passing out her Power Gels(?), I am not sure if I liked the little gummy discs...but they did taste just like Coke(modern technology is great!) Since Masher was under the weather a bit, the other 3 of us rotated the pulls (yes, even Schmuckatelli). We all attacked up the Wonderwood with the wind pretty well. We all hit around 35 mph down going east. We took a quick break then headed into the wind back over going west. I think I was pedaling through the downhill and only hitting 25 mph. We grouped up after Girvin and continued to the Mt Pleasant right turn. We all decided to get a couple more hills into the ride instead of heading straight back up to Monument. We all had a strong day and a good ride.