I've been riding 40-50 miles on Saturdays since completing the Lake Tahoe century in June so this isn't that big of a deal. I decided to work on my pace line skills and continue working on my pedaling cadence. I've been trying to get used to pedaling at a higher cadence that I am used to as it is more of an aerobic workout and I'm told that it is a more efficient style of riding. I have been more of a gear masher my whole life up until now so this is a big adjustment. Below is a graphic taken from my bike computer showing heart rate (red) vs cadence (orange). I tried to stay up around 90-100 rpm the entire route.
Today's route includes the Faraday Loop, which is a very nice route in Carlsbad and I rode with the "C" group, which is comprised of the fastest most experienced riders. We are lead by the Chad, who is a lightning fast racer with loads of experience.
We started out as a bigger group which included the advanced intermediate group (B3's) and practiced pace-lining and maintaining a constant speed of around 18 MPH. Today was the first real hill work we had in the program so far. Climbing seems to be the real dividing line between riders. The rule is you ride with whichever groups you can climb with. After the first big hill, the groups divides into a two pretty distinct groups. 4 of us break away from the rest of the group and pretty much ride by ourselves the rest of the session.
I felt fairly comfortable riding at the increased cadence and I found that it didn't really slow me down much. I felt strong the entire session and my legs felt great afterwards. There might be something to this high cadence pedaling technique.
After the session, Kevin, Captain Jack and myself decided to get some more mileage in. I've got the Lighthouse Century Ride at the end of the month so I was hoping for 80+ miles. Well, the weather didn't cooperate as it was very hot. Kevin had a shorter mileage goal so dropped off after about 15 miles. Jack and I continued on and made the mistake of heading inland towards San Elijo. Not a good idea. We soon found ourselves climbing a respectable hill in the stifling heat with no shade or breeze to be founds. After about 20 miles of this I started to overheat. I was also down to the last few drops of my water bottle. A convenience store was nearby and I considered pushing on but I remembered the lesson I learned during the Scipps Old Pros ride on July 4th, where I overheated and promptly bonked. I decided to listen to my body and asked Jack to pull over. We rested in the shade of the only tree in sight as I took of my helmet, gloves and cooled down. After 5 minutes or so I felt much better and we headed towards the convenience store where I promptly headed for the restroom to douse my head with cold water in the sink. We refilled the water bottles, eat some salt and vinegar chips, drank tons of Gatorade and decided to head back.
We rode a total of just over 65 miles and I was on the road for nearly 6 hours. I'm going to suggest an earlier start time for next week.
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