Today could have been called Bike Hard with a Vengeance. After riding at the speed of slow yesterday, today I rode hard with Jose all day. We didn't stop for either lunch break and rode fairly hard the entire day, powering through the flats at 27 mph and taking every hill at tempo pace. Today's ride featured mostly rolling hills, with a long gradual sustained climb that lasted about 6 miles and covered over 1,000 feet of elevation change before switching to rolling hills before rolling into State College.
Total distance- 93.7 miles
Total time- 5 hrs, 20 min
Average pace- 3:25/mi
Average Speed- 17.6 mph
Average heart rate- 133 bpm
Max Heart Rate- 171 bpm
Total climbing- 4232 feet
Jose is an extremely strong rider, and surprisingly strong at climbing given his larger build. For almost the entire day, I stayed tightly on his rear wheel, reaping the aerodynamic benefits of drifting. We rode 99.4 miles into State College (my garmin kicked out for a while which explains the distance differences, and yes, we were .6 miles from completing a century and didn't care enough to go the extra difference to claim riding a century)
We stayed at Clay Chiles' house, the former president of Penn State Cycling, and the coolest racer in the ECCC. Clay is one of my favorite people to see every weekend in the spring, as he is a consummate teammate, a confident and experienced racer who isnt afraid to take pulls at the front, and one of the nicest guys I know. I was sad to see his back yard no longer held a mini bike race course, but was happy to meet his girl friend, who was extremely nice.
We arrived at Clay's house around 2:30, which would have been much earlier had neither of us gotten a flat, or Jose not gotten repeated calls from a newspaper reporter looking to do a story on Bike and Build. Still we we arrived several hours before the next group of riders and decided to ride into town where I consumed some delicious Sticky Buns at "The Diner", a local delicacy, and consumed a Qdoba Burrito, in a freaky flashback way to the Penn State Criterium race held this year.
The knee and cleat issues were fine, but apparently I did not do as good a job as I thought I had on shifting, and was forced to use the tension adjusters on the cables to adjust my bike on the go. I actually took my first crash today, when a lapse in timing led to me crossing wheels with Jose and taking a small spill that left me fine but my bar tape a little scratched up.
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