Tuesday Climbing Ride

12 of us rolled out of down town Folsom for a 30 mile clockwise loop of the local climbs. We all stayed together more or less onto Green Valley and Sophia. I'm not sure what happened to Rowland and his two friends; I thought everyone made the light onto Green Valley.

Jeff was off the front up the first climbs of Sophia, Elmores, & Brittany starting the splits in the group. Oz, Jeff, new rider Jim, and I formed a small lead group and were happy to let Jeff pull on El Dorado Hills Blvd to the base of the Ridgeview climb. We all settled into our own personal pergatory up this climb, but the climbing gods were smiling on Big Ring Jeff; we wouldn't see him again until the park. Jim, Oz, & I were gruppo compacto at the bottom of Montridge and more or less were together up and over Powers. We met up with Kevin along Powers; I guess he had some route finding issues & happened to take a short cut. We all met up at the Park after dropping down Beatty at 50 mph. Bruce met up with us after a late ride start, and Tim was also able to catch back on.

Seven us rolled out of the park and into the head wind on Sophia/Empire Ranch with our sights set on Cote de Costco (Carpenter Hill). I knew Jeff would be knocking out another KOM on Carpenter Hill; I thought I'd do my best to sit on his wheel and draft considering the wind. He went over the top a ways ahead of me, but it was no holds barred on the descent to Serpa. The key is to carry your speed onto Serpa to roll over the next little hill. I put in a dig here and was able to go over the top of Jeff. I was hoping to keep the gap until the next pass of Cote de Costco, but just as I swung back onto the climb and looked over my shoulder, yup, there he was. So, for the second pass I tried to ride out of the wind and on his wheel.

We all regrouped at the top of Carpenter Hill for the run down Iron Point. I wanted the pace to be high, so I rode at the front and tried to keep the pace around 23-26 mph. Everyone was on board, but unfortunately the lights were not our friends. We cruised a moderate to high pace along the trail as the sun was setting.

This was a great ride with a lot of folks staying in the lead group. My ride stats were 29.6 miles in a ride time of 1:46 with a 16.6 mph average and about 2,275 feet of climbing. Jeff was the first one over every single climb and averaged 17.2 mph.

Krysta and Stan did the whole route and had a great ride doing the 29.6 miles in 2:06 for an average pace of 14.1 mph. Great riding guys!