Robert, myself, Martin and his posse road the Populaire last
Sunday. We rode out from Robert's place about 7:30 to meet the rest of
the crew at the Shell gas station at the bottom of Cap Rd. Robert's day
didn't start off very well. Upon leaving his house
he noticed his computer was dead and arriving at the gas station
promptly got a flat. Not a good way to start our 140K day. With some
help from Robin and a second tube later we were on our way. After sign
on we Jammed ourselves as close to the front of 500+
riders as we could. As my luck would have it I missed two lights. (Bad
positioning) Everyone of our group were up the road. There was no sense
of urgency in the group left two lights behind. I pretty much had to TT
from 4th and McDonald to the beginning of
Spanish Banks. Great a couple of matches burned and barely 5K into the
ride. Martin and his crew separated themselves from Robert and myself as
we climbed up to UBC. Bob waited for me at the top of the climb. I have
to admit that Bob did most of the work getting
us back on to a quicker moving group. There were about eight of us
working well together. I was at the edge of my comfort zone all the way
to the first checkpoint. Martin and his crew had arrived there a good
five minutes ahead of us. As luck wood have it they
were just leaving as we turned up and decided to wait for us. Robert and
his group showed up just as we were leaving. Robert must have burnt the
whole pack of matches TTing to get back on. An unbelievable effort to
say the least. We were all back together as
a group, plus at least ten others. We were moving at a pretty good pace.
Fast enough for me to start praying I would be able to hang on for the
last forty K. Martin and his crew were by far the stronger of our group.
They were doing all the work into the head
wind along River Rd. it wasn't long before we were two groups with the
second group starting to really string out. By the the time we had made
it to the Canada Line Bridge we were all back together again. Some of us
a little worse for ware. Martin and his crew
were still pushing the pace back up the hill to UBC, shedding riders all
the way to 16th street. As I rounded the corner onto 16th Martin and
his crew were about half a block ahead of me with a traffic light coming
up. I prayed for and got a red light. Just
what I needed to catch back on, but I was gassed from riding in the red
up the long drag. The light turned green and they were gone. Ten K to go
and I couldn't hold the pace any longer. I rolled in five minutes
behind Martin. Robert was still a few minutes
behind. We were all wet and cold as it had started to rain. So we texted
Robert and off to the Musette Cafe for a coffee and warm up. Robert
dropped by the cafe to let us know he was heading straight home, said if
he stopped he might not get started again.
All in all a great ride. Met a few more roadies from the North Shore.
(Martins Crew). Looks like there will be a few more on the Baker Ride
this year. Can't wait:)
Martin held the KOM from the start of the Populaire to the check
point. That's a good chunk of real-estate. He must have posted first,
because by the end of the day he had been dethroned:(
I have to say Martin has turned into a true Diesel. Seems like he can pull all day long.
No comments:
Post a Comment