Not Quite Rockin' the Moose

I rode the Blue Moose ride this evening, perfect weather, my slick new back tire, I felt ready to set another personal best.

I wasn't fully recovered from Tuesday, but I wasn't very sore, I'd call it 97%. Nowhere near as sore as I was a week ago Tuesday when I set that new Personal Record 15.9 mph on the Mission Farms ride.

The Moose is a more challenging route. Especially Rosedale coming up from Mill Street. It's not the steepest road, but it's a long climb and it does seem to get steeper at the end. Roe Lane isn't steep at all, but it goes on forever and then does get kinda steep when it hooks over to cross Roe. Belinder, near the end, it's sort of a climb, too, I guess, though it pays huge dividends when you're flying down Cherokee to the finish.

For that matter, descending Puckett in KCK is worth the price of admission. That is a scary motherfucker of a hill to go down, winding, narrow, wooded, with some dodgy pavement and maybe a little gravel at the turn where it T's with Rosedale (the road the heads up to the arch). Oh, and two sharp turns at the bottom, a left followed by a right. I have made it down Puckett with no brakes precisely once in the probably ten or twelve times I've taken it, and tonight was not one of those nights.

And even being cautious, I still managed 38.7 miles per hour going down it. On a freakin' hybrid.

My finishing average, though, was a lowly 12.8 mph. Time was, I'd have been proud of that pace, but we have passed was.

Part of that is I managed to keep up with the main group for about four miles, and then I was lost except for a smaller group that was taking a shortcut that eliminates that glorious descent down Puckett. So when I parted ways with them, it was a solo flight. Roj is apparently doing weird tricks with his sleep to make it natural to get up three hours before Bike MS. I saw Sarah and Aaron coming the other way on Lamar, but they were obviously just out as a couple riding. Cute kids, Aaron totally outkicked his coverage when he married that girl.

With nobody to try and keep up with, I probably acquitted myself well doing a bit under 13.