Tour de Foothills, that is!
We decided to commute to our grandson's baseball game this morning, about 12 miles from home. As we got to the end of our street and started to turn onto the main cross-street, a group of cyclists rode by. Spotting Hubby in his bolt-upright position on his Trek 7500 hybrid, they didn't greet us. We met them again at the next red light and turned the corner with them. Turns out, we were sharing the metric century route of the Tour de Foothills, and the route includes the first main street we turn onto leading from our house.
We were still with the group when we started the climb of about 1 mile, a climb we've done many times -- me on my Surly LHT and he on his Trek hybrid. He sped up to the front of the pack. I found myself next to another rider near the back so I asked him about his route. By now, we were easily keeping pace with this group of roadies. He told me he was doing the metric century... "That's 62 miles", he explained. I told him we were heading for our grandson's baseball game in Rancho Cucamonga. "Oh, no wonder you can do this!", he said. I told him we rode a metric a few weeks ago to Long Beach -- to which he replied "Your friend up there didn't to that on THAT bike did he?" Yep, he did!
They turned at a light and we continued to the park to see the game, after which we rode further to lunch. The ride home was 18 miles of continuous headwind. Unfortunately, I wore my other shoes (not my Sidis) and by now my foot was starting to flame. About 2 miles from home when I thought I couldn't stand it (my foot) anymore, we reached our last hill. At the same time, a guy wearing a club jersey and riding a fancy mountain bike began the climb with us. I passed him on my Surly; at the top, he caught up and stayed with me all the way down the other side. As bad as I dearly wanted to coast, he gave me the incentive to pedal on. Suddenly, I forgot about my foot. I pushed down the hill, into the headwind, while he drafted me. Up ahead, Hubby still was cruising along on his big heavy Trek hybrid......
At the bottom of the hill I stopped pedaling and stood to give my seat a rest, and the unknown cyclist turned down another street. Little did he know he'd given me the shot of adrenalin I needed to shoot down the last hill.
33.33 miles and we were home and I could finally remove my shoes. Just another ride on yet another beautiful, warm, sunny Southern California day!