The day started out with a pancake breakfast as a reward for filling out the recommitment forms and agreeing to complete the program. This is good, what was bad was having to be there ready to eat before 6:30am. Very early start but those fresh flapjacks, crispy bacon and freshly sliced fruit were sure tasty.
Great team ride today. We had most of the gang ride today with the exception of Tammy who wasn't able to make it. We also added a new face, Mary and had the pleasure of having Coach Jack ride with us. This made for a pretty big group (Kent, Jeff, Natalie, Joan, Susan, Mary, Kirsten, me, mentor Tom, and Coach Jack for a total of 11 riders.
We started up the coast, rode inland through Rancho Santa Fe before looping around and making it back to home base. Here's a map of the route.
Rancho Santa Fe is a beautiful area of San Diego, with orange orchards, a nice lake, horse ranches and million dollar homes. The route was very scenic and nicely rolling and a great place to ride.
With the rolling terrain, the lesson for the day was momentum. Momentum is the friend of a century riding cyclist. The concept is simple...pedal on the downhills to pick up speed so that your momentum carries you a significant way up the following hill. You don't even have to pedal very hard. A very common mistake that inexperienced cyclists make is not pedaling on the downhills, instead electing to coast and rest. The only problem is that, resting at that time just means that you have to work that much harder when you eventually get to the uphill.
I kept harping on this from the back of the paceline but I guess the message wasn't really getting through and it looked like a few of the riders were working too hard on the climbs. Cycling is a team sport, so if one of the riders tires too quickly it slows the whole Team down. I decided that is was best to just demonstrate what I meant instead of trying to explain it. On the next decent sized downhill, I make a move from the very back of the pace line, pedaling and picking up speed and just blow past everyone, huffing and puffing on the uphill. Point made.
Oveall, the group continues to make major strides and are really starting to gel as a team.
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