Alpine Ride report, Nov 23 2013

Descenders,after a few days of rain yesterday’s ride seemed a bit dicey, with predictions of a reasonable chance of precipitations. Nonetheless we had 13riders come out for an Alpine ride. As I pulled up to Springmeadow Guido was already waiting. Soon we were joined by John Moran, followed by Jeff and Eileen, and Rick, as well as Voris and Hodges.
We rode over to the 7-11, where Ernst, Bernie, Tony O’Gorman, Yi-Shiou and another Tony, DiLorenzo, were waiting.

It was a bit chilly at the start but we warmed up quickly as we climbed SPP.
The group stayed together until the Dehesa – Ernst went for a breakaway past the fire station, but Tony O did a monster effort and pulled me to him. The three of us worked together on easy slopes but couldn’t hold off Rick-lead group of Guido and Bernie, they reached us just as the steep section started. Ernst did a super-long pull, and Guido followed by another pull that split the group apart a bit but we all reached the turn to Tavern more or less together. Bernie and I got away again, just before reaching the plaza. The parking lot had a farmers market and we explored it a bit.
It was getting chilly there! After a brief snack we headed back. We were together until climb up 67. I hate that climb! Bernie set a hard tempo and I got on his wheel. Rick rode by, and I could see that we were chased by Ernst and TonyO, with Guido not far behind. We had a maybe 15-second gap at the top of the first half but Ernst got into his aerobars and closed it easily – he just kept going and broke away from the group that now included Rick, Bernie, myself, Tony and Guido, lead by Rick. At the very top Ernst still was holding us off but Guido outsprinted him at the very end. I was cramping a bit as lack of mileage was getting to me.

We did a few strong pulls coming back to Springmeadow, now the sun was out and it was warm, almost hot!

Guido and Ernst were amazing today, as was Bernie – very strong. A lot of us had PRs all around, with Eileen scoring a bunch of QOMs despite just recovering from being sick last week.

A few photos are attached, more are at http://goo.gl/t9na8X.

Great day to be on the bike, you should have come!

Oleg.