obiwan kenobi

HOP lite has its own FB page?

pelikan

Oh, sorry I meant to say a couple 'friends' of mine who were there posted about it being 'animated'.

obiwan kenobi

Wow the lite session was disappointing today, at the beginning of the ride they announce since it is Oct. blah blah there will be no sprinting or attacks, everyone agree on that? Guess its time to give regular HOP a try.

pelikan

That actually sounds appealing, I might show up tomorrow morning.

roundabout

Are these still going on in Dec-Jan? I'll be home from school over break and need to get in some good group riding.

rumbutter

Yes but it the weather is really bad you may find that nobody shows up.

davids0507

Went to the house of pain lite ride for the first time Saturday. It was a huge group, probably the largest I've ever been in. Close to 100 people?

Let me say up front that I got a fantastic workout, I think it's a great ride that people of many different abilities can enjoy. I should also say that my impressions only apply to the front group of a dozen or two riders, I'm sure things were different further back or in slower groups, my experience was probably a minority one.

It's hard to deal with such a big group. Someone got a flat after like 5 minutes of riding, and people started yelling... they wanted everyone to stop! But were we really going to stop every time someone got a flat or mechanical? With so many people it would have been more waiting than riding. The last time I did the regular HoP I got a flat and finished on my own. Bad luck, but it happens. Traffic lights were also a problem with a group that size, but we went slowly if the group got split up and it came back together.

The group waited after the hills (twice), and we also stopped at the rest stop before Collier (some people went ahead and waited at the top if they thought they might not keep up). I think it broke up into smaller groups at some point, but I'm not sure when or how... There were still a lot of people with us when we went through Livermore (maybe 50 people?), but I don't think they all passed the rest stop. Maybe they went a slightly different way?

The pack skills were a little frustrating. I'll be the first person to admit that I still make small mistakes, but I think I also know a little bit about how a pack should work, and I do try hard to be safe and reasonable, so I think it's fair to relay my impressions: There was a group of guys on the front who absolutely knew what they were doing, and I generally felt safe because of them. But there were also a few guys who really didn't have a clue. So we had trouble getting a consistent rotation going, people wouldn't pull through or they'd get in the way. People would also get dropped repeatedly and ride around to the front when the pace got slower. I know they're just trying to stay with the group, but even though I spent most of the ride in the first 10 riders or so, I felt like I was spending a lot of the time dodging riders who were getting dropped and shouldn't have been there. It didn't feel dangerous. People weren't making sudden moves or anything (well, only one guy). But there were a few people who didn't know where they were supposed to be.

As far as speed... it was quite easy in the pack. I'm not even going to give numbers, because there were different groups on the road and you could pretty much make it as hard or slow as you wanted to, which is the great thing about large group rides (although I suppose if you wanted to average 400 watts for an hour you would have been on your own).

Overall, like I said, it was a lot of fun, a great workout, and I'll go back when I get a chance.

Britpower

I was there on Saturday and the pace was a lot slower than normal especially on North Livermore avenue. Also the group split because there was a bad crash on Highland road involving several riders, some of us waited and then eventually rejoined the group.
The point of this ride is for everyone to start and finish together and have a good time.

davids0507

I didn't know there was a crash, what happened?

I didn't feel like the pace was terribly slow, except for the section when the group split apart at the light (and I would have preferred to have gone slower to allow for a faster regroup). The warmup on Camino Tassajara was slow but that wasn't surprising. If you wanted a harder workout, you could have spent more time in the wind.

pelikan

Holy Moly, 100 people? 2 years ago when I first started there were a few cyclists who really tried to keep it together and keep it from being the a place for people to hammer who can't hang/hammer in the regular HoP. They would stop the group for flats, pre-determined regroups, controlled paced, etc.. I thought it was a good idea, but even then it was hard to contain. A victim of it's own success? Post-Snelling things should get back to normal.

powpow

Beaker, dl33 and I will be at the HOP Lite tomorrow if anyone wants to join.

Beaker

Nice if odd ride today. Was warm and very windy. I got a strava KOM thanks to one of those superman tailwinds on N. Livermore (I had my 12-25 on today and was hamstering to the max). The group seemed to suffer from a lot of surging; not really difficult speed-wise, but annoying - for instance, starting off from a set of lights the lead guys would pour it on and sprint off and then coast. WTF? Of course, the usual cluster ensued at the gas station regroup point - half the riders went on while half stayed back. I pulled in, couldn't see powpow or dl33, so decided to head off to try to catch the first group. Bad move. Got caught by a couple of red lights, and then went solo up the Collier wind tunnel for half the distance until powpow and the rest of the group absorbed me. Feeling pretty toasted at that point. On the return leg, ran into britpower again as she was riding back along Tassajara, as she was trying to find the rest of her ride - good to chit-chat. I was lamenting how poor the pacelining skills seem to be in HOPlite - a few of us why try to start one, but invariably someone wouldn't pull through, or someone else would come up the wrong side, apparently oblivious to what we were trying to get going. Still, it was good if windy fun today.

obiwan kenobi

I'll catch this ride again some time in March, have races every weekend until the 19th of March...

davids0507

I was there too. I thought the wind made it a lot of fun. That right-hand turn into Livermore was spectacular -- from a crosswind with bikes tilted over at a 30 degree angle just to stay upright to the most ridiculous tailwind! But the wind did contribute to the surging (guys on the front were often doing so much more work than the guys on the back). I wanted to get a rotation going but wasn't sure how to do so, there were a couple of guys on the front who seemed happy to sit there and I tried a couple times but couldn't make it work. And I was also really tired from the past week (highest mileage total ever), so I mostly stayed out of the way until we got to Collier. At the rest stop, after filling bottles the group sort of looked around and we all said... uh... where did everyone go? There were about 8 of us, and there were 60 to start. So we headed up Collier, I took a few pulls up Collier (I was the younger guy with the black and white kit with blue lettering and Cal shorts) and it was easy to recover in the back of the group -- the headwind was so strong. I think I might remember when we caught Beaker, but I have no idea what you look like or who powpow was. Let me know if you have any comments for me if you remember me doing something silly.

davids0507

Also -- I can send either of you some power numbers from the Collier climb if you're interested, send me a private message.

Beaker

I think we rode together at the front briefly on the way back along Highland after collieir; I was wearing a white Hammer jersey, black bibs&knee warmers and white helmet on a white CAAD10.

The surge stuff that I found odd was more on the sections that seemed less windy - having said that, it did seem that there wasn't much rotating out to take the pain off the guys up front. My pace lining comment was really focused on the ride back along Tassajara, when you're in smaller groups of say 5-10.

Fun ride though, as you say.

powpow

I think I was in your small group after the gas station "regroup." I was on the Lynskey with a generic black/blue jersey. I think I saw you up near the front toward the end of the ride.

davids0507

I thought it would be good to let everyone know that, as of two weeks ago, the "lite" ride was split in two (or three). So there is now a lite, medium, and fast ride. The medium ride started after the lite ride last week, but I was late so I'm not sure exactly when. The pace on the medium ride was pretty similar to the front end of the lite ride in the past. The easy ride was chill. Both rides had large packs, maybe 30-40 riders in each? Fun times were had. I'll probably go on the medium ride again tomorrow.

davids0507

If anyone knows more about the details or departure times that would be great to know.

Beaker

Cool, I'll definitely be in for trying the fast-lite soon (or whatever it's called). Right now I need to spend my Saturdays with more climbing.

motorider

I would like to join for tomorrow's medium lite too. Still 8:45am Peet's in Danville?

motorider

I went to this morning's HOP lite ride for the first time. As mentioned before, the original "lite" does split into 3 groups: lite, medium and "expresso". 8:45am is the starting time for lite. I think 80% of the people went to that group. So did I. There were about 50-60 people in the group and the pace was tame (16-18mph) along Camino Tassajara, until we turned left to Highland. Somebody in the front dropped a hammer and shattered the pack. I was caught between the first group and the 2nd group. Fortunately we regrouped soon after at Manning/Highland intersection. The rest of the story was all about wind. There was strong westly wind from that point on. When we traveled south on Livermore Ave, it created an echolon: everybody wanted to stay at the left, but the road was just that wide. I went to the front and started rotating with a few guys. Soon after we arrived at I-580. After some regrouping through Livermore downtown streets, the pace went up again. On the right turns, the cross wind became head winds all of sudden and the front guys started to hammer. That always created a gap and I had to dig a little deep to bridge it. Later on, most people regrouped at the Shell gas station at N. Canyon Pwky. Others went ahead. I hang around a bit, and had to go home directly from there coz' I had some other appointment to meet at noon. So I missed the 2nd part of the ride. When I was about to leave, the medium/expresso group just caught us.

Beaker

Sounds like a good ride. I'd love to try the new grouping. FWIW, I find there is a natural rhythm to this ride, it goes something like this:

-Tassajara to Highland - mellow pace/warm up. Don't be fooled.
-Highland to Manning - first interval. Good workout, save some for the gentle uphill rollers.

Regroup

-Manning to N. Livermore - warming up again
-N. Livermore to Livermore - hammer down - sometimes this feels like it should be faster - tests the ability of the group to rotate at the front
Through Livermore - more mellow
Isabelle/Kittyhawk - bring the pain again

Gas Station - regroup *sometimes* beware - often caught out/left out here

-Collier Canyon - *the hill* - a good workout that needs endurance - it really is like an outdoor trainer session

Summit of Collier - regroup

-Collier to highland - warm up again, battle the wind
-Highland/Tassajara to Danville - throw down anything you have left - esp. the gentle incline back to civilization and then see if you can find folks to paceline with on the home straight.

ROJA

Does anyone know the current status (start time and location) for HOP Lite? I'd like to give it a try again. Still 8:45 rollout from Peet's in Danville?

Looks like there is a HOP Medium now: https://app.strava.com/activities/57567718.

Thanks,
Justin

Beaker

HOP lite is now 8:45 from Danville Peet's, HOP med is 9, and HOP regular rolls through at ~9:15