Weekly Ride Report - 2/24/14 - 3/1/14

Date	Route	Course	Ride Time	Total Time	Distance	Avg Speed	Altitude	Max Altitude	Max Speed	Odometer
02/24/14	Rose Bowl Ramps	Climb	00:55:27	00:57:26	15.3	16.6	788	968	30.6	31399
02/25/14	Rose Bowl Laps	Flat	00:55:37	01:01:05	16.4	17.7	645	945	29.7	31415
02/26/14	Glenoaks Blvd	Climb	00:54:01	00:58:29	13.6	15.1	1046	1379	32.2	31429
02/27/14	Rose Bowl Laps	Flat	00:57:38	01:01:14	16.4	17.1	640	946	28.3	31445
		Total Time	03:42:43	Total Distance	61.7	Total Climb	3119

This was a rain shortened week. Normally, I don't mind riding in the rain, but when it's a heavy thunderstorm, and stuff can fall on you, I stay home. I saw a huge discrepancy in times between two sets of laps this week, over 2 minutes slower on a flat course, but that's easy to explain from environmental conditions. It was kind of drizzly, and the winds were gusting, so I had to put on my windbreaker jacket. Unfortunately, this jacket fills up like a parachute in a headwind, making my work even more difficult.

Well, I can feel better about myself by looking at my climbing progress from last Saturday. I'd been chasing 3 guys on Royal Oaks in Duarte and was slowly reeling them in. I wanted to see if I could catch them on the Winston climb in Bradbury, but 2 of the guys looked pretty light and would be good climbers. I needed some extra motivation near the top.

If you watch the end of the video, you'll see we had a man and his dog as spectators, along with a sheriff's car. This particular intersection is on the route many of the Montrose riders take on the way back to Sierra Madre, and the problem here is not the stop sign. In a big peloton, the cyclists end up taking both lanes on quiet streets, but this poses a problem for cars meeting them at the top of the climb. The Sheriff wasn't handing out tickets for slowly blowing through the stop sign, but for riding on the wrong side of the road. Something to watch out for when I go through Bradbury next time.