Saturday Morning B Ride Report – 03/19/2011

by jonathanbrody » Sat Mar 19, 2011 3:56 pm
We had a great ride today! It was overcast when 12 of us met at the Academy this morning. We were: Jonarhan B, Max, Joe L., Rich W., Dave L., Ian M., Ivan, Mike Y., Jeff B., Eddie, Jay and Roberto who caught us after a chase from downtown around the HS. We essentially followed the Thursday Night Hillclimb route out of Northampton, through Florence, Leeds, Williamsburg,and up Ashfeld Rd. to 116, down to Whately, then Mountain then North Farms Rd. back to town. Max and Ian were setting a strong pace to Williamsburg where we regrouped. Out of Williamsburg we climbed at the leadership of Joe L. who was puching hard along with Ian and Max once again. Oh, by the way, have I mentioned that Ian is on a cross bike with knobby tires – yeah, knobby tires and tearing it up! We regrouped and headed north to 116 to avoid the sand traps on Poland Rd. We had some fast descents as we did after we regrouped at 116. Ivan and Roberto pushed us down the road and we must have been reaching close to 30mph at points. We climbed out of Conway and dialed it back a bit at the top of the climb as Rich was starting to cramp. He held strong though and we descended into the rollers. As we turned onto North Farms, Ivan took off and clearly Ian had one last trick up his sleeve. As we approached the climb as a group, Ian took off with Max trying to keep pace. Myself, Jay and Joe L. were behind and once Joe was able to stearnly admonsih Jay and I for blocking him, he took off on a really impressive chase. I tried my bestto stay close, but these guys were unmatchable. Ian clearly takes the hero award for the day, but Joe’s and Max’s efforts were really remarkable – nice work guys! I have no idea what our average was, but we were moving pretty quick and working hard up the hills, we did about 38 miles with about 2000 ft of climbing. If anyone has any better stats then these, please post them below.