10/27/13 Racing Greyhounds Zimmerman's ride

Sometimes we hawk the Racing Greyhounds public ride announcements forum to see if there are rides we can make that suit our training needs.  There was a post for a ride to ride out to Zimmerman's in AA for coffee and back.  See below:

Join me for one of the final Sunday morning coffee rides of the 2013 season. The weather looks cold but dry for a beautiful ride to Ann Arbor for a hot cup of "joe" with friends. The fall colors should add to the serenity and Zingerman's is always happy to see a bunch of lunatics in spandex on a Sunday morning!!

No Drop - Moderate pace - this will be my second ride of the month

Leave from the shop @ 9am and we should be back around noon

Hope to see you out there,

Chlorinated

We showed up at C to F and were off for a pretty even paced ride out to AA.  Every now and then there was surge from Jackhammer that pushed the pace.  We arrived at Zimmerman's just shy of and hour and a half of riding.  Although a little pricey but the atmosphere is worth the ride;  there's even places to put bikes and tools and stuff if you need to fix something.  It was also nice to see bike lanes in AA.  I ate a delicious bagel and had a glass of tea.  Jimmie had hot chocolate and a bagel as well.

After eating, we got suited back up and headed out.  There's a pretty long climb not even a mile after you leave that left me way off the back.  I'm no good at taking breaks.  They all waited for me and I was hoping our pace would stay around 22 or so mph.  Not what happened though.  We were around 24 mph and when Jimmie would go on the front I was barely hanging on.  I took a 21/22 mph pull and was pretty cooked after that.  There was a surge up a hill just before Beck and if the light hadn't turned red I would have been dropped fo sho.  I did everything I could to hang on from there on and was grateful when we kind of chilled out when we hit Hines.  Of course that was short lived.  There was nice little surges here and there and eventually it was just too much for me.  I didn't even make it to Stark.  It was fun and spirited and I do look forward to joining that ride again in the future.  That group of Greyhounds are very cool. 

Here was the post last night after the ride:

Great ride this morning. A little more spirited than I thought it would be...but I can't blame anyone if I don't blame myself too

Thanks to everyone for coming out...

Jackhammer
Shoes
Miami
Bellringer
and to non GH's
Jim
Melissa

Coffee and scone at the turn were awesome...new favorite Cafe au Alla

Hope to get out to AA again real soon. Keep resting Old man Winter. Your turn will come soon enough.

Chlorinated