It's All About the SPEED

Sunday: Qualcomm Million Dollar Challenge ride. To tell you the truth I was concerned that I wouldn't have the legs today after yesterdays Trek ride. However, I ate, napped, ate some more, drank a ton of water and was feeling pretty good when I got up this morning. Maybe I could hang with the Group 2.

First off you have got to see the Immunity Pump. Check it out. Todd, last weeks winner, added the cape, hat, and horse on the tap. But the real kicker is the back side of the cape. He ironed on the Scott & BR logo along with CAF and QMDC. This thing is really getting competitive but mostly on who has creative talents.

The ride went out fast but before too long one of the girls, she will remain nameless, needed to go potty. She asked me if I could jump up front and pace her ahead of the group to the Starbucks in Oceanside. I said sure but man did I pay for that later.

We were cruising at about 22 MPH in the group but I cranked it up to 27 MPH as pulled out of the group. After about a mile a wheel came up front to help which I was thankful for. In stead of stopping at Starbucks further on I knew of a port-a-potty in a park coming up. We stopped there. A few more people stopped with us. This was good for help but bad because it took longer to get back on the road.

We finally caught up to some people at the entrance into the Marine base who had fallen off group 2. Now we had about 10 riders to work with including Scott Bailey. That guy has some legs and today I'm glad he was using them.

We finally caught our gang at the rest stop on the outside the base on the other side. Just enough time to get some water, refuel and get back on the road. I was able to capture a clip of us riding up the air strip that parallels the 5. Perfect place to see a good shot of Group 2 riding.



We turned around in San Clemente and on our ride back through the park just north of the base I saw Greg Ramos heading to the turn around point all on his own. I decided to drop out and check in to see how he was doing. I caught up to him but there was no need. He was peddling along just fine on his own. Of course now I had to Time Trail it back to my group. Peddle, Peddle, Peddle.

I caught them just as they were getting ready to pull out of the rest stop. I filled one bottle grabbed a few pretzels and hit the road.

Once we got into Oceanside the pace came down from 25 MPH to 19 or so. It was nice to just cruise the rest of the way. It gave me a chance to chat with Ajit Raisinghani. I rode with him some last week. We talked about family, training and riding. Ajit is new to cycling. He has already finished with his fund raising.

End of the day we averaged 19.5 MPH. I was surprised it was that high when you take into consideration that we brought down the pace for the last 20 miles.

Cookies: I had cooked up some cookies and frosted some with CAF. Unfortunately only a few people where able to share in them. After waiting for 30 minutes in the parking lot I decided I needed to head for home to my lovely wife.