Originally Posted by waterrockets
I love rides like that. I always suffer and ride hard on my rides, but sometimes I'm just in the zone --- and it's totally different.
There was a solo loop I did from downtown Denver up to Evergreen and back (85 miles). I was hit by a massive thunderstorm that was rolling off the mountains. I got into that zone and was just tearing it up for the whole ride. On the way back, I was descending 285 at 40mph in a downpour. It was just awesome.
I have found that watching lighting strikes off in the somewhat near distance while you're fairly close to home (less than 3 miles) gives you a lot of incentive to pedal really hard. One day I saw a line of thunderstorms moving in, and figured I had a good hour or so before they hit (I was wrong), so I did my 16 mile loop....set a new personal best that particular day...