Sunday Ride Recap (2/21/10)

Post date: Jul 18, 2010 2:34:10 AM

The new team members were out in force today with Natalie, Fred, Louis, Dan, Marc and Jesse braving the elements and heading out for a ride today. Temps in the mid-30's, arctic winds from the north, sky threatening to open up for a huge storm, bunch of people we've never ridden with...perfect time to throw down a metric century! Having completed a total of 1 road race between them we didn't really know what to expect as we got going. Most of the ride down was mostly spent with the team feeling things out. Everybody seemed hesitant to push the pace for fear of dropping the others (or maybe it was the fear of getting lost on the south side and Hammond, this was the first time doing the route for most of the team), gaps between members were large with everybody wondering how well the rider in front of them could hold their line (ride straight) maintain a consistent speed, how they would react to all the debris and potholes, and two members were even on fixed-gear bikes (which they both handled really well). Despite this we made it down to Schererville, Indiana in decent time and refueled at Starbucks/Quiznos before heading back out into the cold. Then, not even 5 miles into the ride back Jesse said he felt a raindrop, which I kind of just ignored partly because I figured it was just road-spray coming off my rear wheel (actually I thought it was condensate off my nose, but that's kinda gross so I wasn't going to share this with him), and partly because I didn't even want to contemplate the horror of doing 2 hours in near-freezing rain into a head-wind. Sure enough it was the sky starting to open up but luckily it was falling as snow and was brief so this wasn't really a problem. The bigger issue was when some of the guys started to recognize where their surroundings and dropped the hammer. Despite some suffering (and reported 3-hour post-ride naps), it was good to see the team open up the pace a bit, everybody looked much more comfortable, they closed up the gaps to draft off the rider in front of them, took turns out front pulling, and I think I even saw a bit of an echelon going on once or twice to battle the cross-winds. We ended up doing the ride back faster than the ride down despite a headwind, completing the 60 mile ride in just under four hours. A couple of us were dropped from the group once we were back on lakeshore trail but everybody hung tough and got through their longest ride of the season (ever?).

Illinois Tech Cycling is shaping up to have their strongest collegiate road season ever. The team has riders at a variety of skill-levels and for the first time our team contains at least one member in both women's categories and each of the four of the men's side. Chase, Elena and Waylon already have their target set on qualifying for nationals and if today's ride is any indication our Category D (beginner's class) riders will also be strong contenders for some time on the podium in their races and likely applying for category upgrades before the season is over! Good luck to Chase, Elena, Jesse, and Waylon at this weekends season-opening races at Murray State University in Murray, Ky!

-Bo