About 30 sub5 riders from various teams showed up to do 2-3 laps. 459 express had Steve, Larry, Mike, John, Ron, and myself. This was Ron's first ride with the group and his first recon ride on the course. The plan was to ride 3 shortened laps and solidify the pacing plan, get to know each other better, and have some fun.
We started with the main group, but turned off the course at Payne and Harmony road and the six of us completed 3 laps. We cut off 6 miles of flatness on each lap. No garmin, no watt-o-meter, and we nailed the pace plan. Each lap time was within a minute of each other. We did the hills 32 times and finished with 82 miles with a rolling average or 20.7mph. We did 2 leisurely stops for a total of 13 minutes. Our total average was 19.6. We were only 4 minutes over a sub4 80. Just tidy up the pit stops, and we're sub4.
Roughtly we averaged 21.8 on the flat portion (first 16 miles), and 19.5 on the hilly section (last 11 miles) of each lap. The kicker was that Steve and I both noticed that we RECOVERED on the hill portion of the course! I think the pace plan is going to work well.
With just the 6 of us we did a single pace line, learned to swing wide approaching the turns, communicate the pace up the hills, and that all the turns have gravel in them. After the first lap everybody figured out not to yell gravel at every turn. It just wasn't fun without Rene' there to annoy.
The team has solid legs, great teamwork, and a plan that will keep up together for 100 miles. We are going to rock the sub5!
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