great escape ride report

Man, we only thought the wind on the Spring Breakaway was bad. Yesterday? Worst wind I have ever had the misfortune to ride in. You know it's bad when, in the crosswinds, you notice the bike ahead of you is tilted at about 60-70 degrees just to stay upright. Let's not even talk about riding straight into the wind. It was so bad, we cut off the 2nd loop for 86 miles, opting for 70 instead.

Still, our average speed wasn't terrible--16.6 mph for 71 miles. Top speed for me was 30.9, on a completely flat stretch of road in a wicked tailwind. :) McSpeedy's was somewhere around 33, because he helped some guy bridge a gap to his group later, then came back for me (at that point I couldn't even break 25 anymore, even with the wind in my favor). I'm not sure when we started, but we finished at exactly 1:00. Since we were in the 2nd wave of starters, I'm going to say we left the parking lot at 8:10, for a total time of 4:50.

So, if I compare this to last year, average speed improved by 1.6 mph, high speed by 4.6, w/stops average by 1.5 mph. Not what I was hoping for, but considering the killer wind and McSpeedy's mechanical problems (he had some spontaneous unclipping issues w/his pedals, and dropped his chain once...he was in a spectacularly bad mood by the middle of the ride), not so bad.

Next up is Space Race on April 6th. 100 miles, baby.