i leave for New Orleans at o’dark’thirty on Thursday, which means a busy day Wednesday and 1.5 hour workout at best. thurs-sat i will be lucky to do some yoga in my room, though i will fret conscientiously about the hotel gym, and Sunday i have G all day – 2 hours tops in the trailer. Today had to be productive. it was looking very unlikely dealing with the maids , the hard-sell A/C guys , and the subtleties of perl equality operators on strings in JSON format . None left me feeling good, but i finally got out at 5 to ride the roadie with brand-spankin’ new bar tape and a nice new back tire with color co-ordinated blue walls.

I’ve done Usery Loop like 5 times in the past 2ish weeks, so my roadie legs are starting to come back but i needed a big ride which really meant the whole Saguaro Lake\Usery 42ish miles and 2.5 hrs of hills. Oh well, i could take some bailouts and make it a 1:50ish if needed. So i set out with no intentions of hammering, and didn’t, even so far as to stop on the climb up Recker to double check my wheel. it felt weird, but i stopped thinking about it after 30 minutes or so. I didn’t all-out bomb down Power for fear of the new-tire weirdness and only reached about 38mph, last time i was at 43mph. It seemed like the tone of 90% effort was set.

Anywho, arriving at the Butcher Jones turnoff i was only at 47 min which is several minutes below my usual split of about 50 there. weird cause i had no tailwind. the bar tape and tire made me feel pretty, but hardly worth 3 minutes.

Anywho, to the B-line and back and dropping another smidge off the split. I gave a bunch of it back on the last part of the climb out of the beach, then just focused on good solid spinning arriving back at the stop sign in 1:42. My normal split from here on the Usery Loop of 41-43 minutes would get me just about at my best time on this route, that is, if my normal time from here would not be affected by the previous 1:42.

i tried not to think too much beyond 41-43 more minutes of finishing-the-hell up and ending my stressful day, the wind on this route can make or break a ride pretty easily depending on how it is blowing. But I was right on pace at the Hawes turnoff 25 minutes later. I shot my wad up that hill. y’know…why the hell not i was in position for a PR…i’d be pissed at myself if i didn’t try. And i did, in 2:20. go figure? doing it again next time should be my next goal, but the 3 days in New Orleans make me afraid to nut-up to it for at least a week after i get back so i can work off the gumbo and Turbo Dogs.