alliance ride report

Alliance Ride - 50 mile road ride (turns out it was not a timed race after all).

It was a two loop course and definitely NOT as advertised.  The website said it was a closed course, but it was a "rules of the road" ride.  During the first loop we had some assistance from the police through major intersections, but zero support in the 2nd loop (and there were a lot of traffic lights).  There were a lot of riders that just did one loop.  The good news, my coach told me to "go all out" for the day and so i tried :).  I basically led the pack the for most of the ride, i was first to finish the first loop and was passed by some whippersnapper with about 7 miles to go, he made a light, i missed it, and i never saw him again (not sure i could have kept up with him at any rate, but i would have tried :) )  still felt pretty great on the day.  my av. moving speed according to the garmin was 19.9, it was 18.8 all together.  my strategy of carrying 4 bottles was spot on and two gels during for nutrition.  there were small to medium rollers for most of the ride, the last couple of miles of the loop were pretty hilly the finish line was after a bit of a climb.

Details if interested:  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/84032763

Congratulations! Sounds like you had a great ride, even with all the lights. What a bummer they didn't give you more support. Still, you did great!

Isn't it nice when the strategy we set up works so well.
Jan

Congrats! Thanks for doing this ride to support service members. Sorry it ended up not being a race, and its really sucks it wasn't supported more, especially when it benefits our service members. Glad carrying 4 bottles worked out for you, does that mean you have 2 mounted behind the seat?

it may not have been an official race, but i was still racing :)

it was fun, even with the annoying traffic issues.  and i've never led in a big ride like this before, so that was really cool (on the first lap as we were finishing up the last couple of miles, i had a personal police escort... way cool).

i only have two cages on the frame, none behind the seat, so i took a couple of throw away squeeze top water bottles and filled them w/ poweraide zero and put them in my bike jersey pockets.  worked pretty well.

Great job with your finish. There always seems to be rabbit in every race. Too bad they couldn't provide more support on the second lap. Sounds like ou were movng pretty well the whole way.
Rob

 once again    I am not worthy bro.  Awesome ride.  

Great Job,

Sounds like you have a good nutrition, hydration plan going.

Any idea on why they changed the ride/race format?  That doesn't sound very cool to do especially when people pay to enter the events.

At least you got some good experience out of it and it sounds like you had a good day.

Scott

i think it was just a poor advertising ploy, i should have known better.  the ride was in a very densly populated suburb of Atlanta (Alpharetta and Roswell), so to pull off a closed course, it would have had to be a massive event.  still very positive day, and got to meet Scott Rigsby, look him up on google, pretty amazing story.

Awesome Bill !