Earlier in the week there was talk about attending the weekly Saturday ride in Tucson called "The Shootout". This is a long standing ride were local cyclists and visiting pros "lay it down" in the early morning when the streets are empty. Our group wasn't even thinking about this ride after conquering Mt Lemmon yesterday.
We headed out to Madera Canyon. We took the shuttle to get on the south side of town and unloaded at a local gas station. We rolled out downhill straight into a strong headwind and stayed as group. We made a brief stop at the gelato shop before the climb.
We rolled out as a group and the climb started at a 1-2% grade. I threw out a "flyer" and held off a short solo break to get things rolling. I sat up and the chase group of 5 caught me and I jumped on the train. It was a worthy group and we did a rotating paceline for a few miles before I decided to save some for the rest of the climb. We made a big gap on the rest of the group.
I stopped at the van to top off the water bottles and watched 4-5 people catch up and pass on by. Owen was taking photos and got a couple that will definitely be on computer desktop for awhile. "Looks like I got some work to do to catch up", I said. Owen gave me the thumbs up to get it done. I held a sub threshold pace for 3-4 miles to catch them. I knew I had to do it before it got steep.
The road started to head up after I caught them. It was a "solo" hill for all of us. We all had 5 days of long rides in our legs and the road started to pitch up 10-15%. Everyone has their own method of keeping the cranks turning over on that type of climb. As I turned one corner I saw a fellow lounging on the deck of a bed and breakfast enjoying the sun. I was thinking, "that's what I really should be doing". However, the road kept climbing up.
I thought I was going to fall over at one point as the road got to it's steepest point. I made it around the next corner and saw Owen waving with the camera in hand. YES, the finish was in sight and that gave me the strength to stand on the pedals and finish it off for a few good photos.
We all gathered at the top - totally exhausted and so glad that was over. We refilled the bottles and put on the arm warmers for the decent down the hill. We all decided to end the ride at the gelato shop. The last stretch of the week. That meant..... GAME ON again.
The quick decenders headed down the hill and topped speeds at 53mph. I hit about 46mph in the steep section. I caught up to a couple guys when things started to flatten out at the 2-3% grade. One of the Cycling House boys blew by us after a few minutes. I knew that was the wheel I needed to catch. I jumped and punched those pedals to grab his wheel. I hung on and enjoyed the wind break for awhile as I catched my breath. We then started trading quick 30-60 second pulls. The power meter went from 340W at the front down to 100W when in the slipstream. We were making progress on the 2 guys ahead of us and we tried our best to catch them before the gelato shop. We didn't get them but it was a great effort to end the day. It was good to hear they were burying themselves to try to catch the group ahead of them.
Fantastic week of riding. No doubt the most hard miles I've done in a week. Should be an excellent base for the rest of the season.
Totals for the week.....
Elevation: ~21,000 feet
Ride Time: 15.5 hours
Distance: 260 miles
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