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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

On the road again...

I went on my first ride on my road bike since the Palmetto Peloton. I hooked up with my nephew Paiton and a friend John. We met at the bottom of Paris Mountain. My goal was to set a benchmark for future rides.

We left from the CVS parking lot and headed up. Paiton led the way. Of course, he is a teenager. I got to thinking that he was going to up and leave me. Thankfully, he has only been riding for about a week. On the first big climb, I was able to drop him.

I crested the summit and started down the backside. I could have picked up some time there, but the road was a little wet. I had no desire to wipe out. So, I enjoyed a nice leisurely coast on down.

I made it over mountain in 23:30 minutes. Paiton was down about two minutes later. John wasn't there, so we decided to go ahead and start up and meet John as he was coming to us. As I was going up my cell phone rang. It was John. He had gotten sick and was on the side of the road waiting for us.

I made it to the top of the back side in 15 minutes. As I neared the "You made it!" paint, I ran into John. Paiton had caught up with me about two minutes after I reached the top. John had already started off before Paiton showed up.

The plan was to take off and see how fast I could make it down the front side. I was feeling really good. Just as I was reaching the stretch where I could get up some speed, I came up behind an SUV. I kept having to brake so I wouldn't come up on the back of it too quickly. Turns out the best maximum speed I could get was 45 mph. Had I been able to run free, I'm certain I could have hit 50 mph.

Overall, it was a good ride. I now have my target to beat. Also, I hit a max heart rate of 185. It happened just as I made the 15 mph hairpin turn near the top. I was able to stay on the pedals and keep driving as the monitor read 185.

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