It’s not much fun when Kevin’s having kidney stone issues. Why? Because one way he deals with them is to get mad and ride even harder than normal. That’s what he did this morning, on our way to the start. Going over the top of Jefferson, the part where I’m gradually trying to warm up and convince my body to move, he took off. I mean really took off. As in, he’s no 39th out of 2,667 for that segment (I’m 43rd, one second behind). And now I’m thinking, hmm, just 17 seconds faster and I can own that segment. 17 seconds. Doesn’t sound like much, but I’d have to be well warmed up ahead of time to pull it off. My heart rate only got to 153; hard to expect it could get much higher than that, just 5 minutes into a ride.

The rest of the ride? A bit warmer than I expected; leg warmers weren’t a bad idea but I probably could have dispensed with the base layer. I hung onto Kevin & Marcus & JR for as long as I could, but Kevin was already pulling away from the start. I found out later that he blew up around the archery range, allowing Marcus to move in for the kill. I rode the last third of the climb with Eric, at a conversational pace for him but certainly not for me.

Still waiting for the relatively-hot weather we’d normally see during the summer. I don’t enjoy riding when it’s hot, but I ride faster, and in the end, I prefer to enjoy riding faster when it’s hotter than I like, rather than riding slower when it’s nicer.