2008 Zimmerman MS Bike Ride

Thursday, January 8, 2009

ZMotion Masters Team Training - 01/08/09

We had over 16 guys (with Lisa representing the women) show up at 6am at Atlantic/A1A for the Masters Team Training. Someone gave Jeff the sadistic idea of not only doing our team pacelines but to add a multi-group pursuit ride in there.

After we warmed up with a double paceline and turned around at Palmetto, we broke into 3 groups which were supposed to start 20 seconds apart ending in a lead-out for the designated group sprinter.

Group one was 6 or 7 guys and made the light, so group two started more than 20 seconds behind. We never saw group one again until the turn around at Hillsboro inlet. Group two consisting of 6 riders was off. Somehow I got stuck in group three with some big guns like Chris, Jeff, Steve and Raife and 20 seconds later we were off. We immediately got into a very smooth rotating paceline after Chris pulled us up to speed and we were moving out at between 28-30mph and slowly started catching group two. Just before the sprint line we did our lead-out and Jeff was the designated sprinter, but I was between Chris and him. Chris pulled and pulled and pulled until he managed to just drop me from his wheel and Jeff had to come around. By this time, we had passed group two and Chris and Jeff took it. Wow that hurt.

But unfortunately the pain wasn't over since we rode back up north again so that we could do it a second time. This time we broke into two groups with a 25 second gap. As group one took off, I was wondering who was left for group two. We ended up having five guys and again worked smoothly together. We slowly gained on group one with big pulls from Julio and Vinny getting us really close until group one blew apart near the end with Amir going off of the front. Jeff dragged me behind him and we ended in that order.

The best part of this whole thing is that it really feels like we are starting to work together as a real team. Our single pacelines are getting really smooth and we are starting to understand each others strengths and weaknesses.

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