It rains here?

The weather at the start of this summer has been anything but summer-like, and this week has not failed to continue the trend. Today was the third day in a row that I've had to break out the rain slicker and brave the elements in the hopes of building some serious form ahead of Fitchburg and a few other big races that I plan to use to close the books on my Cat 3 racing career. But at least I've had some company every day.

It started Tuesday with an ass-crack-of-dawn TT workout with Roger and Andreas. We started with the jackets on, but as we started to ride harder and began to heat up, we stopped to peel them off. It was wet out, but only lightly drizzling at times. Inevitably, not fifteen minutes after we had peeled off our waterproof gear, the sky turned completely black and it began to piss on us, literally. It was an epic downpour. Except for not being able to see anything it was kind of fun, and weren't too far from home, so it was not so bad. Or at least it wouldn't have been if I had seen that hole in the road as we took a corner 5 minutes from the house. But I dind't, so rode straight into it and ate it in the middle of the road. Not so fun. Fortunately, I and my bike were both fine, and I washed off at home with nothing but a few cuts and bruises.

Yesterday and today I joined the shop rides to Bear, both times in equally wet conditions that left me with some awesome mud lines and road grime on myself and my bike when I got home. Tuesday's early morning adventure was pretty civil until we got to Bear, where Andreas decided he would try to take off early. That was a bad idea Andreas. You know Roger is going to chase you down...and he did. Roger towed Alex and I up to Andreas, and the 3 of us just hung on for dear life. After climbing around the gate, Roger put in some accelerations that shook Alex and Andreas, and then it was up to me to hold on, which I failed at several times only for him to wait for me to chase back on so I could get dropped again. Everyone regrouped at the top, and then we basically motored home. As is customary of most of my 4+ hour rides, I feasted on stawberry and blueberry pancakes to make it an awesome day.

Today was essentially rinse and repeat, with the emphasis on rinse. Today's ride was a little wetter, a little longer, and definitely hillier, featuring a new route to Bear that I hadn't taken before but definitely enjoyed. We also had a differnt crew today, including Kyle and his awesome green bartape that I am seriously jealous of, and were riding at the much saner hour of 9 am rather than 6. I am happy to say that this time up Bear I was the one to reel back in the earlier attacker, Jim, and then set the pace up to the gate. Once again, Roger played his cards on Perkins and shook the rest of the crew, and once again I was the last man standing. Only this time I actually held on until the last bend, where he put in one big, never-ending acceleration, which I guess just means he started riding faster than I could over the last 500m or so. I was pleased with myself for almost marking him all the way up. We then motored home once again, only this time no pancakes...not even eggs as we were out and I am way to lazy to go to the grocery store. Lots of cereal had to suffice.

So that's now 8.5 hours on the bike in 2 days, with a TT bike ride tomorrow and another 4 hours Saturday followed by some easier rides before I prep for the Giro di NJ and Housatonic, which should all set me up really well for Fitchburg. The goal is to win or at least podium at one of these road races and finish Top 10 on GC at Fitchburg before I upgrade to Cat 2 and start to take a beating. Now for some sleep before I probably get rained on tomorrow...again.