rendezvous, oh la la

Pink and I rode separately yesterday, he in the morning and myself in the afternoon. It was just perfect weather at 6 pm last night when I headed out.

Pink did a short but strenuous ride while I opted for a distance ride (21.29 miles) since it is probably going to be my only time on the road this week. It's supposed to rain today and I'm leaving for MN tomorrow. Helix won't see pavement again until next Monday at the earliest.

The good news is that my average is up a little. The bad news for me is that Pink's is up more.

Only 90-something days of training left until the rendezvous. Time to kick it into high gear.

no match

Yesterday was the first day Pink and I have ridden together in over a week. Even though I have been working hard on my riding and have even dropped a few pounds, I am no match for the massive leg strength of Pinky. My climbing is a little better than his but I don't think that will hold up for much longer, especially given my limited availability to ride for the next two weeks.

We did a short loop on the access roads. On the way down the access Pink was ahead of me by a fair amount. A rider came up behind me, chatted a sec, and then dropped me faster than H&M dropped Kate Moss after the cocaine scandal.

As he approached Pink I could see my man pick up his pace to hang with this guy a little longer and then Pink let him go as he waited for me to catch back up.

As we made the turn to take the access back (completely uphill) our climbing skills, albeit in their infancy, helped us close the gap. Eventually, Pink made his move and reeled him in. I believe this was the conversation that ensued.

Pink: Hey there, Basso.
Rider: I thought I dropped you.
Pink: I have my tactics.

At that point we split off to go home, Pink satisified that some of his forgotten cycling prowess is starting to return.

my poor Beak

The two most perfect days for riding in Atlanta happened, consecutively, too! I am proud to say that I took advantage of both of them (the Pink only one).

With yesterday's ride, though, I had a taste of what I think the Beak must suffer through trying to ride in the N of the Y of the C. I was in traffic hell.

I thought I planned out this great ride and the first part was fantastic, except for the semi that was holding up traffic so awfully that even I was waiting, coasting with the car right behind, for him to turn off somewhere, anywhere, please, for the love of all that is right in this world. When that finally happened the railroad tracks forced all the cars to come to a near dead stop to cross them, which of course I too had to slow for since these jerks were so far to the right that I couldn't get by them. This of course killed any momentum I had for the impending hill.

And then the absolute worst. Traffic was so backed up that I had one foot out of the pedal for about 5 minutes, just coasting a few feet at a time between red lights. It was awful. Beak, how do you do it? Light after light after light...all freakin red for 2 minutes, green for 10 seconds.

But, all ended well. After my halfway point things started to ease up and I got a good rhythm going. I even bumped up my average speed from the day before, despite all the coasting at 3 mph.

Today I rest. Tomorrow afternoon Pink and I will ride before celebrating his birthday with a nice dinner. Yes, the Pink turns 29 tomorrow and he still gets an ice cream cake. Isn't is great to still be a kid?

rally the troops

And so it begins.

Huggy Bear and Helix hit the road today and I don't think the driveway has ever been such a challenge. It's been 2 1/2 months since we last rode, together at least. Huggy Bear saw some game time earlier this week.

Pink averaged 2 miles an hour faster than Cupcake. I've already missed my 1-2 ride window where I am faster than him. It's going to be a long, hard 3 months before we put ourselves in Papa's hands.

Disaster is afoot.