in the spirit of the thread:

this weekend i went out on a group ride w/ a bunch of local racers, i think they're referred to as the "a group". i usually ride w/ the b's. so i was able to hang w/ them for 90% of the ride(god bless drafting). unbeknownedst to me, there's a designated sprint near the end of the ride from the hill after the bikepath ends to the beginning of manayunk. mind you, this sprint starts off up a hill. so when we got to the hill, the other 5 guys took off like i smelled rotten or something and w/in a minute i couldn't even see them anymore. they were just gone. this is after a pretty long ride (40 miles) on which the pace was faster than any pace i'd ridden before on a similar, hilly ride. it was like gravity and wind resistance just weren't a factor. i thought i was a pretty strong rider(still do, kind of), but now i know there are whole different levels of riders between myself and the guys who race not even on tv but in those big crits in philly and chicago and whatnot. it's like, i just look silly when they decide they want to ride hard. humbling, but lots of fun. can't wait to go again.