Her's the story, somewhat strange strategy imo. So we have 4 guys and I am thinking this is going to be fun and fast. When we started north toward Yorba Park, we were rolling pretty good. At the park they asked if we could skip the Edna Park stop and ride right through. Sure! The only reason I stop at Edna is so Gina can take a break when she rides with me. Then we turned around and the guys were holding it down to 16. I was thinking to myself, OK maybe they're warming their legs back up after the short turnaround break before heading back to the coast. Few minutes later I'm sitting at the back wondering what the deal is!
Our original plan was to take 1 mile turns at the front in order to hold a decent pace. I don't know what was going on at that point but it wasn't working out that way. One guy would sit at the front holding 16. OK, time to move over, nope! Stayed at the front. Hmm! I was getting bored so when it was my turn, I lifted the pace to 18. Figured that would be good if we all held it there. Nope! Rotated back to the front and again pace was down. Couldn't figure it out cause these guys usually like to do a good pace.
Then after the ride, one of them explained the situation. I guess a couple of them had a disagreement last week so they were somewhat playing cat and mouse. Seems the plan was to hold it way down to the coast then save some gas to race back hoping to drop one another. Great!
So we have this lousy average to the beach when we could have all had a good ride. On the return, the guys pick it up to like 25 MPH. Rolling pretty good but I'm getting tired. The two guys take turns trying to drop one another and I'm just holding on. At the short little climb (405 fwy) the 4th guy gets dropped. He helped us at the front too so I don't think it's fair to just drop a guy after he helps. SO I hold back and let him get back on my wheel. I think he recovers but not enough I guess. The other two are rolling and I do a hard effort to close a gap of 30 yards maybe. 4th guy can't keep up so he falls behind. By the time I close the gap, I'm hoping the other two will slow down, NOT! These guys must have really wanted to kill each other cause they were rolling. 24, 25, I was breathing hard. Sure, my fault for not riding much lately but darn! So I just told them I'm not taking the front and I'm just trying to hold on. Finally, at Fairview, about 1/4 mile before Edna Park, I just popped. My legs didn't want to push anymore so I let them roll ahead. Of course they were going to call it quits at the bridge anyway as I knew that was their finish line goal for the day.
My legs were to tired to push 24 but I knew I still had it in me to continue on at a decent speed. Sure enough, and not expecting it, the guys stop at the park, what! I knew they had to be tired. A short break then we hit the trail again. This time the speed is like 16 MPH. Then one guy turns off ending his ride. I really expected him to ride all the way back with us as usual but he turned off.
Then the other guy takes the front and holds like 16 still. OK, I'm tired but this is boring again, I got in the front and held 19 the rest of the way. I think at this point the others were really tired and possibly burned themselves out playing games with each other.
I'm not one for racing back at 24-25 trying to drop my friends. I'd rather do a decent pace through the entire ride. Did it before with 3 of us and we held a 19.3 average over the 44 miles. This time it was rather discouraging holding 16 for 30 miles then having the two guys race each other at high speeds trying to play hero on the way back over some silent feud on the ride.
I tell ya man, I get tired of riding in groups now. If I am the strong man that day, I usually end up at the front for 40 of the 44 miles. If someone else feels strong, do they help? No, they try to drop you!
Being at the front 90% of the time over a course of 30 consecutive rides gets old. But ask someone to help??????? People just don't know how to ride together. :-(
Jose R. (2nd spot) and his buddies
Pete, been many years, maybe 10 ???
What happens when you ask 2 guys to put their heads together and hug for a pic ha ha!
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