Riding in Greenville

Let's look at it this way, you remember what old TV used to look like.  Scratchy, blurry and hazy?  Little black and white with your picture?  Well compare that to HD TV you now look at.  That was the riding experience transformation I went through this weekend in Greenville.  There were Tour of Utah socks, Tour of California riders, Tour de France riders...  I think anyone that rides a lot should strive to get to ride with these guys.  It shows the difference between the everyday rider folks at everyone's hometown and the riders that are invited to leave that hometown to ride for a profession.  Here I was in a field of over 100 where most riders are good enough to have their bike given to them at cost, or better.

Saturday we took off on a rolling course that went 75 miles or so.  It was a pretty steady, intense ride. The surges were faster, the pedal went down a little further.  We(they) dropped 25% of the field and averaged about 25.5 mph.  If you try and eat at the wrong time and shove a powerbar in your mouth, you might get dropped because you can breath right.  If you don't eat, you might get dropped because you blood runs out of sugar.  There were some experienced riders telling me that I shouldn't expect anything in GaCup races that would be harder than that.

Just when you thought you were going fast, welcome to an upgrade on your TV again.  Let's take a 7 mile loop, pretty flat and add some wind...  100+ pro12 guys, 15-20 mph wind and a guy motivated to win some spring classics.  Ready, set, go... HOLY SH*t, your in your 12 cog.  About 75% of the way around the loop, we hit the cross wind.  That works like a grenade in the pack.  There were soon people falling out everywhere.  The 35- 40 people I was with or so were some elite badasses that had some serious power and motivation that were separated by about 20 feet by some more elite, badder badasses that were the top group of about 15.  I fell off that pack and ran for a while with a few folks that managed to find a tolerable heart rate.  We were close to averaging 28 with 8 miles in.  This got widdled down to less than 50 people that finished the race.  I finished closed to 23 mph avg, shattered and glad to be there.  I feel I should get a award or cereal box cover or something.

Well, I got experience.  It was a great time.  We all need some of that.  I'd encourage you all to go to a place that has that kind of talent at least once.  It's a eye opening ride and I have a result with my name mixed in with some worldwide talent.
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