Silver Comet Sunday - June 7th

After a rough day doing the route from Jasper to Fort Mountain I needed active recovery to not only get some of the soreness out my legs, but to try to pick my spirits up as well. The start of the recovery ride wasn't too good as I arrived with my back up bike I realized I had taken the bottle cages off to put on the LOOK and the noise that I experienced yesterday I thought was the bottom bracket on the LOOK, but the noise was with me again on the Six13. It had to be the rear wheel so I stopped and checked the cassette and sure enough it was loose. I stopped at the Silver Comet Depot Cycle shop and the guys there helped me out and allowed me to come back later after the ride to settle up the fee as I had spent all my emergency money that I usually keep in my tool bag.

After the brief stop at the bike shop I was back on the trail with one bottle in my back pocket my legs were feeling pretty good cruising around 20 to 22 mph with not too much stress. I hear a couple of riders (Conn and Susan) come up behind me somewhere near the 10 mile marker. They drafted me for a number of miles and then Conn comes up front to pull until we get to the 20 mile marker and a place to refill the water bottles. Since I was only carrying one bottle I needed to refill. I was at my turning point for this "recovery" ride and was not sure if Conn and Susan was going further out, but after a few miles of riding fairly easy they pass by me so I joined in once again. The pace that they both held was consistent and smooth so I was very pleased to be sitting in their slipstream. Not only were we moving in the low 20's my stress level felt low in the draft. I could sense after many miles of Conn pulling us that he could use some relief so I went back up front, but I found my effort level going above what I was supposed to be doing. Now we are within the last 4 miles, which is the fast section so we put on a good pace in the mid 20's. In the last 1.6 miles we went more to a cooling down pace and that is when I got to learn Susan and Conn's names. (I hope I got their names correct)

I hear a lot of hardcore cyclist say they would never go to the Comet, but it is surprising at times the good people and talented cyclists that you can meet and ride with on occasion. Sometimes you run into the guy that is on an ego trip that needs to be challenged a bit, but today my recovery ride became pleasantly exciting because of the friendliness of Conn and Susan to let me join in with them for a number of miles.

At the end of the ride I suppose I went a little above recovery ride type of tempo, but I feel like the ride today was very nice and it picked up my spirits because yesterday performance was not so good.