We had warm weather and a 8-10mph South winds for a double pace line training ride. With a bit of coaching and strategy talk, the group got so we could ride a fairly tight pace line rotating both clock-and-counter clock depending on the wind direction.We did a great job pacing up the hill, only popping off some riders on the last 'warrenville road' climb. On the downhills the riders in the back were using brakes (wasting energy), so we need remind ourselves to pedal the 'normal' effort when on the front going downhill. Until we got a bit fatigued near the end, we didn't have much trouble with accordion pacing. I was impressed with how we kept the two lines rotating smoothly. It took us a while to get the two lines close to each other, but that takes practice and confidence in the others riders. We were pretty tight on the way home.
In the future, we'll need some more training rides to work on maintaining an echelon while rotating the paceline. We also need to work on turns next time we are out in Hampshire on the course. The suburban roads don't give us much opportunity to make turns at speed. There's 16 turns per lap on the course, so any energy/time savings we do on a turn will be multiplied by 48 for the 100 miles.
I didn't get a Garmin ride summary from anyone, but I think we averaged somewhere in the 17mph range for 50 miles. This wasn't a speed run, just working on an efficient double line. Everybody seemed to have a great time. I know I did... it was very rewarding to see us keep a tight rotating paceline going.
Gary, Larry, Mike J, Mike E, Loni, Dave M., Scott T., Tony, Craig, Phil, Brad, and Paul rode this ride.
