I started the day with no intentions of riding hard, just trying to get back into shape from a long hiatus. However, as we draw nearer to the time trials, I feel that the friendly competition is building and the mind begins to play tricks.
My choice of the "Moody" route today was somewhat of a test, so that I could gauge my aerobic capacity as well as leg strength. Both would be needed for the extended climb up Page Mill Road.
I felt awkward on the bike at first, like it didn't fit. Last week I had purposely moved my saddle forward and up, to try to use more quadricep while spinning. My previous setup for several years was the saddle far back, and lower, to use more calf and gluteals. It served me well for low RPM mashing, but I am trying to develop a better spin and higher RPM. The new saddle position actually may have been the cause of my near crash last week. I took a familiar corner way too fast, and the bike came out from under me, very abruptly. In a split second my line through the corner changed several degrees, and my bike wobbled and hopped around. Luckily some instinctive balancing or divine intervention kept me from falling over while still going 20mph through the turn. I was shaken more after the ride, just at the thought of crashing in that turn.
So as we rode up the steady grade of Page Mill Road, I found myself right next to Dino and keeping a good pace. There are two switchbacks that allow you to see down the hill how far of a gap you have on the people behind you. The first switchback showed us with a substantial gap over Kevin, Paige, and Hilario. With that, I could tell Dino and I were pushing it slightly. But I felt ok, so decided to keep it up. I could hear Dino breathing very loudly as we crawled up the hills, matching shift for shift. For most people, heavy breathing is an indication of suffering, but Dino is just a loud breather by nature (and sometimes uses it as an intimidation tactic) so I was more inclined to monitor his pace than breathing, to guage how well I was doing in the climb. My legs got heavy pretty early on, but my lungs were working well, so I stayed with him despite my loss of conditioning. There were a few times where I felt good enough to shoot ahead, but decided there need not be a challenge today.
This decision was not set in stone, however, as an opportunity to break came up. A car had passed both of us, and I decided to get a pull off the car. Not necessarily a draft, but more of a pace to match. I accelerated as soon as it passed me, to try to catch up to the car. Most people don't do this move, so I knew I could open a gap on Dino. The idea was to initiate a chase, and that would push me to climb the last bit hard to avoid him catching up. But what really happened once the gap opened, there was no chase, and so I was left to mentally battle myself to the top of the hill. And I think the mental struggle was more stressful than a physical challenger. Combined with a bit of trash talking right before the ride, I decided to release my agressions by cursing out Dino once he reached the top after me.
The ride down was very scary for me. Either it was my fatigue from the climb or my new saddle position, or loss of confidence from the near-crash last week. I felt the bike continuously coming out from under me on every switchback on the way down. It was like learning how to ride all over again. The farther forward position and higher saddle height might be putting less of my weight on the pedals and more on the saddle, which would not be good for a descent. I'll have to mess around with it more.