Ron S and I agreed to go, and we hoped some others might. I met Laura before the start to get in a few extra miles (her husband, Professor Jack, says that work on his survey book on reference works is proceeding; I can hardly wait, and I have promised him at least one sale!). We picked up Ron S at the usual Pennington site... and no one else came.
So the three of us did this route. Not too hilly; we went up Poor Farm, but we went DOWN Rileyville (I didn't know you were ALLOWED to go down Rileyville). Here's Ron coming around an early turn.
... and Laura, just long enough later for me to have the camera ready:
Here's the two of 'em:
And just because sometimes I need to get all "meta" and self-referential, here's me taking a picture of Laura taking a picture.
I asked Laura a few times whether she thought the fit made a difference. Early on, she thought if she were as fast as Ron going up Poor Farm, that would make the difference (she wasn't), but at the end of the ride, she noticed that she was riding on the hoods of the handlebars much more than she had in the past (she usually used to ride on the "flats", which is what I call the sections of the handlebar immediately adjacent to the stem). The careful eye will note in the picture above of both Laura and Ron that she is doing a tuck, which she rarely does. At at the end, the back pain which seems to be a regular post-ride event for her was not so strongly in evidence. I came to the conclusion that she thought the fit was a success... but we'll see how she does on the McBride Ride tomorrow. (Are you comin'? Wear red - Joe's favorite color.)
OK, so, the crouch thing was so that I could send the picture to Tom and say, "Do I look fast yet?" This blog post would put that answer at a firm "no."
ReplyDeleteThe photo is on Wertsville Road, when you charged ahead. I did to you what I used to do to Tom when I had enough time to get into a crouch: I tried to look as if I were descending even though we were on a flat road.
When the weekend is winding down I'll go on at great, boring, length about the Guru road test over at the Hill Slug Chronicles. For now, I'll defend myself by saying that no, I didn't pass Ron on Poor Farm, but I did keep up with him better than I have recently, and I even passed him on a few climbs. Not that it matters. You I'll never catch.
The "early turn" photos are me and Ron at the top of Poor Farm, so the "long enough later" is how far behind him I was, whatever that was.