Mike's Bike Blog

I thought last years Le Burrito ride was well attended, but throw in free beer and the numbers went through the roof. I estimated last year that 70 people were at the ride and this year they more than doubled that number. Chris Carter @Roostertx sent out a tweet that 324 people had RSVPed for the ride. At the start Ray said that one of his buddies tried to RSVP but they were not taking any more reservations.

This year I was going out on the 60 mile route or the "Advanced" route. The 60 mile group was fairly large we had at least 30 people in our group and I'd say that number was very conservative. We rolled out pretty neutral, the ride leaders had asked that there be no racing till we got out of town.  The demographics of the group was made up of a lot of racers, apparent from their team jerseys and non racers I presume from solid jerseys or non sponsored jerseys. With the mix of riders it made the roll out somewhat interesting and I really had to be on my toes. There are a number of lights we had to stop at and the there were some issues of people not being able to get clipped in. Once we got out of town the pack sketchiness just got worse. Guys were bouncing off each other, when the pace picked up past 24 mph it got down right scary.  Not sure if  people were not accustomed to going that fast in a large group or what, but when the guy in front of me locked up his brakes and started to fishtail I decided a free burrito was not worth crashing for. I eased up and let the madness pass.

Up the road the pack was starting to get strung out so it gave me the chance to run down riders. I got into a pace line and we were cruising at 21-22. As we caught up to a few others it got disorganized and the pace slowed to 18-19 mph and I pulled out and made my way up to the next group of riders. After bridging up to the next 2 riders, I took a few minutes to catch my breath before launching off. I soloed to the rest stop. It was good to see Joe at the rest stop and catch up a bit.

After the rest stop the pace was a bit more relaxed, there didn't seem to be any extended sprints. The group seemed to calm down as well, it could be because I was more up to the front and at some point we lost a lot of folks. There was one crash in our group. I didn't see what happened only heard, but someone in the back of our group lost it on a sharp right hand turn. After the crash the pace really slowed, which was good because the roads were down right terrible. The entire route was littered with potholes and huge cracks in the road. At one point I thought I saw a Honda Civic down one of the gorges that ran down the middle of the road. When we were approaching Bicycle Sport Shop we hit some more gnarly roads. I was on the far right, up against the curb when the road took a turn for the worst. The guy next to me pointed out a pot hole and then went right into my line. The road in front of me was cracked and the shoulder dropped off. I swerved off the road way and tried to come back on but there was a lip. I momentarily hopped my front tire back on but then were good sized cracks of 3-4 inches that wouldn't be good to get into. I got back off onto a driveway and then road a short way in the dirt until I could get safely get back on.

Once we got back to Bicycle Sport Shop I quickly got my bike in the car and made my way to the burrito line for my much deserving burrito. They didn't have any chicken burritos only veggie. I think I was lucky there were only 3 burritos left when I got in line. I didn't partake in the beer drinking so I can't speak on how good that was or if they had enough.

Ride Stats:
    Duration:      2:59:49 (3:19:51)
    Work:          1852 kJ
    TSS:           192.4 (intensity factor 0.801)
    Norm Power:    233
    Distance:      57.265 mi
    Elevation Gain:        3794 ft
    Elevation Loss:       3772 ft
        Min    Max    Avg
    Power:           0    1065    172     watts
    Heart Rate:      87    177    143     bpm
    Cadence:         1    180    77     rpm
    Speed:           0    37.8    19.1     mph