Italian Fountain 9am

I had heard about this informal ride consisting of mostly Quaker City guys and other local racer types and anyone else who wants to show up. There's no leader and no cue sheet, although this time someone kind of took charge and tried to lay down some ground rules like "no hammering till we get past Germantown Avenue." He asked everyone where they wanted to go and someone said Doylestown and I was like oh shit. A few people started grumbling about needing to get back so finally he said ok we'll go to Ambler like we always do. Phew!

I was confident I could hang with these guys but I was nervous and my heart rate was up around 85% even though we were just spinning up Poplar. There were probably 30-40 people there. At Poplar and Gerard I saw a guy I knew from BCP join us late. Ok, good, I know one person. We proceeded out to Ambler through Mt. Airy and I started to settle in and calm down. In general people seemed friendly, someone flatted and we stopped and waited.

After a bit the pace started to pick up and people got dropped. I felt good so I grabbed someone's wheel. I looked down a few times and I think we were doing anywhere from 23-27 on the flats. There were a couple of rolling hills and more people dropped off the back. At a red light I looked around and I think I managed to stay with the lead group. On the way home there were a few more attacks and I hung but I was in the back of the pack. The last I saw of the leaders was on the hairpin on Shawmont. There were a few guys behind me but we split up on somewhere on Umbria and I rode home solo through Manayunk and back on West River.

Overall good ride and workout.

Time: 2:22:02 WTD 2:22:02 YTD 215:57:10
Distance: 43.92 WTD 43.92 YTD 3146.25
Avg Speed: 18.5
Max 37.5
HR - varied, mostly around 90% but up to and over 100% at times