McCafe

Last night involved a late-ish night and good wine at a good friends' house in Lexington. In turn, the plan to get up at 5, leave at 5.30 and meet Patricio at 6.00 for a Sunday-in-the-dark ride was daunting one. But we did it, we had a great ride, and that's what counts. We decided that we needed a "tempo" ride, a hard ride with some hills thrown in and do so on our road bikes- no racks and fat rubber- with him on his A.Homer.Hilsen and me on the IF (with white "pro" shoes, mind you).

A few observations:

• Patricio is a strong dude on the flats. He would regularly wind it up in the 20mph+ range, which is a decidedly fresh tempo compared to our usual meanderings. The 24mph flourish on the Lexington Rd. return almost popped me, but I hung in there.
• I went way too macho on an early climb up Indian Hills and blew like tea kettle.
• On subsequent climbs I went hard too early and couldn't sustain the tempo. I separated from Pat b/c I had a smaller, spinnier gear, but invariably he caught back up when the grade flattened out. 
• We visited the start of the swim of the Louisville Ironman. Lots of thin, muscular people in small suits. 
• I had plans to ride all the way out to Pat's and looping back via River Rd. to give me 40m+ on the day, but the lack of sleep and non-lack of tempo meant I was done for the day at the finish at Heine's.
• That said, my 2 best splits of the day were the last two first leaving the "finish" and looping back via Rudy Ln  and then into the parks over to Norris. Tailwinds are awesome, aren't, they?
• The IF is one sick climbing machine. I'd hate to see a real rider on it, or love it. One or the other.
• 'Z' the crosscountry/soccer player and I rode over to my mom's on Friday, I on the (slow) Ute and he on the SS Monocog. When we got to the short, steep Lakeside hill he literally danced away from me, like a rocket. I'd be interested to see him on the IF doing a real hill. It would be a thing of beauty, a skinny fit dude dancing on the pedals. But he doesn't like to ride much.
• It's too bad Patricio lives in "McCafe World". Some people make such poor decisions.