SART 10/29/11

Maiden voyage for the new Madone Frame. Joined by El Monarcha for a portion of the ride along with JeepSeaHawk of the forums. Ride was nice. Most people said that once I rode full carbon I'd see a big difference in the ride quality. Yeah, little nicer but not much as far as road absorption. The one thing that I did notice was the scary light feeling of the frame. Wow, little twitchy at first on the steering but the frame felt really light. I swear the bike felt like it was going to come out form underneath me. But like most new things, I'm sure I'll grow to appreciate the frame over a period of a month or so. Don't get me wrong, nice ride but so was the 3/5 carbon Lemond. Biggest difference was the scary light feeling.

Back to the ride. JeepSeaHawk, another " I dunno if I can keep up" rider. As usual we do a warm up pace to Imperial then a good effort to the coast against the wind. Seemed the guy had no problem at all keeping up. Not used to riding with others, he did a pretty good job of riding in a small group. Nice safe rider, nothing scary thank goodness.

On the way to the coast, a guy goes flying by and says, "nice bike!" Fist thought is, somebody knows I just got the frame but I'm not sure. Then a gal comes up and asks, are you Mr. Beanz?" Yup, that's me! So she explains that they recognized us from the blog and read about the new frame.

We get a chance to chat at the coast. Turns out to be Mariana and her hubby Rodrigo. They are from Brazil. Turns out Rodrigo's friend searched bike rides from Brazil and my blog turned up. So he mentions it to the M&R and they check it out. Cool, Marianna says they know me in Brazil ha ha! Nice couple and beautiful bike. I love her paint scheme. From Brazil, to Hollywood, to SART! Cool, they travel all the way down here just to check out the trail after seeing it on the blog! Well, I do touch up some of the pics I post and Marianna is worried that hers might not come out well. But when I get home, I look for flaws but don't find any. So I use a softener on their pic and nothing, looks the same ha ha! Sorry Mariana, I tried to edit it but she is just too dang pretty, didn't need it! That's a compliment Rodrigo, don't hurt me!

So they ride off into the sunset and we hang at the coast for a while with JeepSeaHawk, Gail and Mark. A brief visit with Alex2 and MTBLrkr. Not sure what happened to Alex2 but he didn't show on the return portion. I though the was right behind us. Another thing I wondered about were those little white tablets MTBLrkr was popping. Hm, all I know is that a few miles down the road, he took off like a bullet. OK, a third thing I was wondering about. Did he give some of them tablets to Gail? Cause she took off like a rocket from the start. It took us about 6 or 7 miles to catch her. Not to mention, after she rested on the back for a while, she made another move 2 miles later. You can see in the video, she shoots off the back and takes the front.

Everybody rode well and strong but Gail and Gina took turns pulling. Today was a "Gurl crush Boy" type of ride. Maybe I said something to upset Gail or maybe she was upset with hubby Mark, but she was punishing us today!

I love the scene at 6:55 Music kicks back up and Gail shoots around to the front to lift the pace once again. "Roll Me Away"