Diablo Junction - 16 miles

Had trouble getting a group together today; people showing up at different times. Mark P and I met at the parking spot and we saw JB ride by so we followed him. Waited at the Gate for a while and Adam showed up. We were expecting Nicole and Jeff too but JB didn’t wait. Then a friend of Jeff’s showed up and introduced himself as Tim. So when Jeff finally did show up we all took off together but that didn’t last long.

Jeff and Mark stayed together, I hung on with Adam and Tim, who it turns out is an ex-pro who took a break from riding but is now back to racing Master 4’s. Adam and Tim had both raced Cat’s Hill Criterium last weekend so they were chatting about that while I was dragging my tongue trying to keep in their slipstream. We were really flying and zoomed past some other solo riders, but by the time we got near the bottom of the Bump I decided to back off (actually less of a decision than a capitulation).

So I rode the rest of the route by myself. I kept Adam and Tim in sight for a little while but by the Upper Washout they had a couple minutes on me. I was thinking I might be able to stay with them until we caught JB, but I didn’t have it. Then I started kicking myself for eating too much lunch (free sandwiches at vendor presentation) because I was getting that “I ate too much lunch” feeling and it was really slowing me down. Every time I do that I promise myself not to do it again, but free sandwiches are my weakness I guess.

Barely broke 21 minutes for the final three miles – pretty pathetic, but thanks to the fast start I still had an OK Junction time of 40m23s. No socializing; JB turned around right away, Adam and Tim had gone down South Gate, I waited for Jeff and Mark and then we went down together. Didn’t see Nicole until back at her car… she only made it to the first ranch.

Sure would be nice to have some bigger groups.