First Dirty Dozen training ride of the season for me. Jim Logan led the ride out of the K-Mart parking lot in Shaler; he, myself, Scott, Don, and Brian were in attendance.
I botched my shift to the granny on the very first hill (Center), so ended up climbing more than half of it in my middle ring. Coincidentally (or not), this was also the only hill on which I wasn't dead last...perhaps a lesson could be learned by this, but I'm not gonna try right now.
Ravine hurt. A lot. The long grinders always take a toll on me; I need to work on smoothing my pace a bit, and possibly working on the psychological end of things as well as physical conditioning.
Berry Hill was pretty much business as usual; dead stop, into lowest gear to hit the asphalt wall, then exhaustedly pedaling up to Middle Road. The plummet down Middle is always a good way to revive my spirits, though.
High St has lost a lot of its mystique for me. It's a hill, and not to be sneered at, but is really not that big a deal.
Fun, I think. I take comfort in the fact that I felt significantly better afterwards than last year; I was hoping for a bit more snap on the hills than I actually displayed today, but that's something I can only address by actually riding my damn bike in such terrain rather than doing 100+ miles of long steady distance every weekend.
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