Meltdown

Today was pretty epic...I started out climbing great and stayed with the front group of 30ish riders over the first major climb up to the parkway (did 30min at 281w NP). I recovered and really was feeling good when my rear derailler started jumping around...it wouldn't stay in a gear.

After it got real bad I had to stop and check it out...goodby group. It turns out that a link in my chain had chosen the biggest ride of the year to meltdown...luckily I had a chain tool with me and removed the link. The problem was that with a shorter chain I would forget and shift big-big and my whole drive train would seize up in a tangled mess...Then I would have to stop, get off and pull the chain out.

By this time I was way behind and several very large groups had rolled past...bummer. I had a mental meltdown thinking about riding alone for 70miles and my hands were solid black with grease. Not fun. That was a bad next hour on the bike.

When riding alone for this long you gotta try to figure out how to pace yourself to survive...I felt pretty good at about 220w so I tried to keep it there. I ended up jumping from group to group and found some good riders to work with but I usually wanted to go faster so I'd eventually end up alone. It was a long day but I actually enjoyed it a lot and kindof liked pulling people around.

I finished in 5:45....not much to say about that, I would have like to see how far I could have lasted with the fast group and I can imagine the meltdown associated with that would have been far more spectacular. Karl killed it as usual and finished 7th at 4:57 (he was close to bridging to the winning 3 but they saw him coming and drilled it) and Ladd--the new climbing sensation--at an amazing 5:03. Brian at 5:15 and Francesco just behind him. Mick and Treze both had good rides and Chris was the smartest of the bunch and found a great shortcut.

And Jules was 39th (6th female) in the 50miler.