| Duration | 7:09:12 | - | Distance | 167.2 miles |
| Rolling time | 7:02:38 | - | Avg Speed | 23.8 mph |
The first 20 miles of the ride was speed controlled by the cops leading us through town so that heavily skewed the power data since I was averaging somewhere under 30 watts on my Bacchetta CA2 "Rib Splitter".
At 20 miles we turned south onto Nova Rd and the group was poking along into the wind out of the SE so I rolled off the front at about 26-27 mph and Chris Evans in a Quest velomobile pulled out and rolled up beside me and we chatted a bit before he took off and I jumped on his wheel. This was on a 30 mile stretch of empty road that turns back west after the first 10 miles. My power was the most consistent during this stretch as I tried to hang on for the first 10 miles of it but I was having to average 240-250 Watts to sit on his wheel and it was a little too expensive. I wasn't getting enough benefit to expend that much energy so I let him go and dropped back down to about 220 watts. That was when I realized I was getting almost no benefit from trying to draft him and when I fell off, he slowed down to about 1/2 mph faster than I was going on the flats.
As we approached St Cloud I started gaining on him and after we pulled onto Hwy 192 I passed him. He stayed behind me going through town and almost all of the way through Kissimmee, Campbell and Loughman. A couple of stretches that were flat and open he'd roll on past but I'd pass again on the gentle climbs that were more than a couple of blocks long. I missed the left turn onto Lakeshore Blvd at Kissimmee and yelled to him that I had missed it but was too late and he overran it also. We looped around but had to cross two extra really nasty speed bumps which slowed him down a lot. I apologised when he caught up but he was ok with it.
Once we got in the open on Loughman Road he rolled past again but I kept him in sight. As we approached Hwy 25 at the end of Loughman Road there was a little hill rolling up to an intersection and I passed him on the hill. Jim Dibble (who provided the above picture) was sitting at the corner, waiting for me on his Corsa. Jim had warned me that he might get a chance to try to ride with me for a while. He later said he had just pulled up, so good timing. I had told him that I expected to still be riding in a pack as happened last year so it might not be conducive to riding along. Luckily it was not the case. We rode along side-by-side and talked a bit but then Chris started hitting it a bit harder and rolled past us, I guess to show off for Jim. I was getting a tiny bit stressed so I jumped on Jim's wheel and we pulled around 28 for a few miles to catch the velo, trading off pulls here ('only' so Jim could catch some video) and there but since I was hoping for a little relief so I could recover a bit, I mainly sat on Jim's wheel. As we approached the hills, Jim pulled off at Hwy 98 and I was on my own again.
I made my first fuel stop at about mile 110 right off of Hwy 98 on CR 54 where my wife was waiting for me. Chris passed, taking the turn at speed. I passed him again somewhere around Clinton Ave. and I apparently pulled far enough ahead somewhere on Prospect that I didn't see him again until after the ride. I made one more fuel stop around mile 140 after turning onto Spring Lake Hwy according to my fueling plan. There were only a few hills that slowed me down much and I was hitting 40+ coasting on the descents. I was keeping the speeds down a bit because it was pretty gusty and the bike with an 808 front wheel was getting thrown around enough to keep it a little exciting.
With the wind out of the SE, on some stretches heading that way I was cruising at 30mph pulling 240 watts. It felt good to be making decent power again because it's been a while since I could open it up a bit on longer runs with the injury problems I've had the past couple of years. My left glute was still giving me some trouble and threatening to lock up but it held, though I was pushing it with the 450-500W climbs on the steeper hills.
On the stretch coming up to Weekie Wachee with the little hills I started passing the 2-day riders. Since it was getting close to the finish and I was feeling pretty good still, I started putting on a little show for them, blowing past doing 26-27 mph uphill. I wasn't close when I passed but I kept hearing these little shrieks a couple of seconds after I'd pass each group. :^)
I had been hitting the traffic lights pretty well up to then, catching yellow on about 5 of them in a row as I was cranking it hard to make the light. Then the light on Cortez and the next were both close to 5 minutes long. A lot of the 2-day riders caught me and we talked a bit. On the second light one of the guys asked if I would slow down so they could sit on my wheel but one of the other riders nixed that saying "There's no way we could stay up with him! Did you see how fast he was going?".
From the last light at Weekie Watchee until the finish I didn't run across any more riders so just rolled on in by myself. The wind shifted around to somewhat of a headwind so I backed off on the speed a bit and rolled into the park at about 2:11 PM.
It was a good, strong ride and the bike and I performed better than I expected. My fueling plan worked perfectly and my wife did great, stopping at just the correct two planned fueling stops, ready to hand off to me. I had about one third of a bottle of fuel left at the end of the ride, so Yeah! And yet again the splitter rib seat proved itself. It was nice to ride along with Chris in his Quest velo the little bit we did but it was a little difficult to communicate at speed with the cockpit lid mounted on his Quest so I basically rode by myself most of the time and really missed my fellow Vite teammates, John, Jacquie and Kristy who did this ride with me last year, but I sure appreciated having our new teammate, Jim cruise along for a while.
Apr 10, 2013