You just never know where you will find a new riding partner.  Sometimes you find them on the road going in the same direction as you are going. He overtakes you then you overtake him.  But then you find your paces are compatible and you ride the rest of the day together.  Sometimes you find them in an event as one of many other riders in the paceline.  But eventually that paceline thins out and here you are with just one other rider. It usually happens on a climb and you find that your climbing abilities are well matched with this rider subsequently you ride the rest of the event with him.   It turns out my new riding partner is a coworker.

RIDING PARTNERS

So let’s talk about what makes a good riding partner. I like riding partners that don’t talk much. I like to ride to ride. If I want to talk I’ll have coffee, breakfast or lunch with you.  When I ride I like to ride with music and again not talk much if at all– just the essentials “Left at the light…”  I like riding with riders that keep the intensity up but not hammer it so that you can’t keep the ride hard throughout the whole ride. I like riders that anticipate when I am just about to fall off the pace and come around and pull and keep the pace high- without surging and dropping me.  I like riders roll off when they are starting to fade and allow me to come around and take up the pacing duties.  I like riders that don’t stop on a 50 mile ride for anything other than traffic controls.

Today I did a workout in the morning of about 34 miles.  My legs felt ok but didn’t the  snap that I like to have on the rollers.  I wanted to ride after work for another couple of hours to shake out whatever funkiness was going on with my legs.  My performance in the morning was blah to say the least.  I was relating this to Yeshua,  a new-hire, and we made a plan to ride after work.  Sundays the shop closes at 4pm.  During the summer months we can ride for at least 3.5 hours after work.    We decided on 3 hours.  We kept a very solid pace for three hours and 55 miles with an average speed of 18mph and because of some lights our moving speed between them was almost 20pmh.  My Normalized Power was 223 watts or 3.32 w/kg, which for me is good for a 3 hour effort.

Meet Yeshua

There was a lot of minutes spent over 22 mph on this ride- weird how 20 mph and 21 mph are lower