Yesterday's Shootout.

Time again for the Shootout. Today had the pleasure of riding out with Anton and the Jak for a little taste of Ontario, along with the rest of the Canadian contingent that shows up for the ride.

On the way to the university meeting spot we saw the sun rising over Mt. Lemmon, and not to get all mushy on you but it was something to see - vivid colors and the city in the valley below lit up by that light. mmmhhm. Seeing it all by bike, not a bad way to start any day.

The ride rolls out of town, notice a guy has a go-pro digital camera mounted on his seat post, facing backwards. Showtime? As we get out of town the pace picks up as usual, a few flyers go off the front but nothing special for a while.

An older and rather pro looking gent comments to me from over my shoulder that 'that woman up there was mixing it up pretty well up at the front'. Turns out the guy was Gord Frasier, some of you may have heard of him. If not, one of the most successful pro cyclists ever to come out of North America, and yet another Canadian down here.

So I eventually start launching some attacks, usually drawing some guys out for a while before we got eaten up by the pack again. In another move I bridged up to the guy who had the camera, we traded pulls for a few mins before some guy on the US national team from the peloton pulled us back for 'training' purposes, no doubt. Probably won't ever see it but its on film somewhere. There were other moves I went with, but this is getting repetitive already, so later, in what would be my last attempt to get a beakaway going, bridged up to three guys who looked like they were going well and one of them turned out to be Garneau guy from Ontario. To my frying brain, we were drilling it full out and making a solid pace, but after a few km, if that, swallowed up again. Some ppl were on a mission to chase today!

Coming up to the first sprint about 70km in, it was all together and I goofed up the 'finish' by not knowing exactly where the hill/finish was throughout all the twists the road takes at that point. So came into the sprint with a bad position like 30 back, but finished in the top handful after just givin' er for kicks.

Onto the climb, SOMEONE didn't get the memo about turning off, and carried on with the short-route pack into town, so I had to chase him down and tell him to come back for the Madera turn. That left the three of us chasing for a while to latch onto the smaller group going the whole shootout distance. Finally we make contact, and start the longest, hardest slog up the climb you could imagine. Some headwind sent from the devil made the whole 22km up feel like we were in one big trainer party, all jamming away and going nowhere fast.

Onto the brutal final section of the climb, some OTHER Canadian guy dragged Anton and I up the final few km's behind the front group of 4 guys who just rode away, trying to drop us all the way, and was just insane. We were riding 11km/hr, still in the headwind up the 12% grades, and we all just about blew some gaskets. After an eternity, it seemed, of this near explosion state, got to the top, 6th, meh, but glad it was donneee! Anton rode like a champ, especially for not knowing the climb and when exactly the sufferfest would be over, and taking extra long pulls at the bottom before it really kicked up.

Then on the downhill the universe balanced itself out - we had the tailwind and once out of the steep section the road straightens out and you can FLY. It was between 75-80 km/hr for ~15km, and once I looked down at the computer and saw 87.5km/hr. So it was like driving a car while sitting on the hood for a little while. The same guy with the camera took this video last week of the decent, same group pretty much, so just picture me there and this was it yesterday:

After doing 50km/hr with the tailwind, no joke, the entire 70km back to town, we went to watch a crit going on at the Uni, and some guy in the cat 1 race solo'ed the final 20 mins to win by half a lap. That was just impressive. 

Just two more days left here, it has definitely been a very interesting training camp. I also woke up this morning to the sight of snow on the ground! Maybe when I get back to Guelph it will have become a desert?

Don't forget your debatable sunscreen.