Flying Wheels

Decisions, decisions, decisions. Flying Wheels or the RAMROD training ride? Both a good ride. RAMROD training was 75 miles with 4200 ft of climbing. Flying Wheels is a century with 3400 ft of climbing. Do I want to climb or get distance? Well, the decision was made when I was invited to ride Flying Wheels with a bunch of fast guys. My secret goal...do a sub 5 hour century. I arrive at Marymoor at the scheduled time and find out that the main group was leaving at 8, not meeting at 8 so the person who invited me, another member of his team and I head out at 8:15. We do a pretty good pace, working well together, skipping the first few rest stops. We finally catch the group at mile 55 at the Monroe rest stop. We averaged 20.4 mph during this leg. Now the fun begins. We are in a large group of 30+ riders and sitting in and rolling at 25 mph feels like nothing. Well that is until you take your turn at the front. But you have plenty of time to recover in such a large group. The pace goes up a bit and the hills begin and the group weeds down to about 8 by the top is the big climb. We roll along to the last rest stop and spend a bit too much time there. When we roll out I feel like lead has been put in my legs, saddle pack, frame and wheels. After a few miles they warm up again and we hit the lake road and roll in a small group back to the park. 4:41 for 98 miles. 20.9 mph avg pace. Goal achieved...Mostly. 2 darn miles short of the century. So being the uber nerd I extrapolate our average pace for the last 2 miles we should have gotten and come up with 4:47 for a century. My previous fastest century was flying wheels 2 years ago. It was a 5:10. That was Flying Wheels also. I'm super happy to pull 19 minutes off my previous Flying Wheels. At this rate by the time I'm 60 I'll be fast enough to go pro! :-)