Descenders, today we had an excellent TTT practice at El Capitan with
14 total descenders by my count. 6 of us (Rob, Guido, Proulx, Jim,
Jeff S. and I) showed up at Casa Voris (both Voris and Hodges were out
of town but we are by now Pavlov's-dog conditioned to meet in their
cul-de-sac). It was very foggy, with visibility reduced to only 100
yards or so. We rode over to 7-11 where we met 6 other descenders
(Rick, Bob Raibert, Yi-Shiou, Larry, Tony from Ireland and Geoff). We
rode over to El Monte where we met with Neil and Matt Babb who were
warming up on the course. We split into three teams – Rick, Matt, Jim
and Bob were the only complete team today. Our team was missing Voris
(Neil, Jeff and I) but we substituted him with Larry. It worked
amazingly well. Others rode as a slightly larger group, I think. We
practiced rotations and calling things out and from what I have heard
and/or seen things went very smooth. After our team did 2
out-and-backs at what I thought was a fairly solid pace, we joined
Rick's team for 8-person TTT. It was a lot of fun riding at 30mph but
catching on to the fast train after taking a 10-second pull proved the
biggest challenge. It was fast, adrenaline-powered ride but riders
were shelling off the back one by one (I was among the first victims
just before the school). I think only Jim, Rick and Matt made it to
the reservoir dam together, with Bob and Jeff not far behind.
Jim, Jeff and I called it quits after 3 rounds of TTT fun and rode
back to Poway, but Rick, Neil, Bob and Matt decided to do another
round. I got back to casa Voris with 72.4 miles, but Jeff put in a
total of 101 miles in his ride from home and back! Bob Raibert also
hit 100.0 – looks like he had to add some loops near his house to hit
that number so precisely, nicely done, Bob!
Excellent ride all around (photos attached), and as always, you should
have come!
— Oleg