Peach Peloton #5

Today was the 5th Peach Peloton ride. The weather was a bit cool at the start, but it was going to warm up during the ride. The plan was to ride 77 miles with an attack zone. At the start of the ride, Chad told us there would be no attack zone (thankfully). The route was going to be hard. It was the hilliest route we've done so far. We left Howard Middle School and headed towards Byron using the climb on Boy Scout Rd. I hadn't ridden that road in quite sometime & forgot how hard the climb was. We stayed together the entire climb so it wasn't that bad. Once we hit the top of the climb, we took a quick break to let someone who dropped off time to catch up. That gave me time to lose some of the gear I had on seeing as it was warming up & I was starting to get a bit on the warm side. We hit Hwy 42 & divided into 2 groups to practice rotating pacelines. I was with Chad, Christian, Doug, another Chad as we started out. Chad told me to do what I could and if I couldn't take my turn up front to just sit on the back and hang on. I told him I would do what I could & if I couldn't pull, I'd just sit in. We started out quite smoothly and once we hit a stretch of flat road, Chad started to pick up the pace. I was doing 29 mph & he was pulling away from me. Just at that moment, the second group caught up to us & the pace really started to pick up. I knew where the store stop was and what the road was like, seeing as I've ridden it before, so I just stayed within my limits & kept up a good pace that I was comfortable with. I was able to make it to the store & I wasn't the last one there. We waited for everyone to arrive and take a break. Some of the group had to head back to Macon for something, so they headed out on their way. The rest of us started back out on the back side of the route. We just kept up a comfortable pace until we hit Hopewell Rd. Once we made the turn onto Hopewell, we started a rolling paceline again. We kept this up the entire time we were on Hopewell, being nice and smooth and not leaving anyone behind. We then turned onto Montpelier Station Rd & just rolled on until we hit Maynard Mill Rd. Once on that road, the pace picked up & I stayed with them as best as I could, but was dropped. I did catch up to Robert Jordan, who was backing off a bit and the two of us just rode together until we got to Zebulon Rd where we saw the rest of the group. The climbs on Zebulon really hurt after all the riding I did, so needless to say I was left a bit behind, but they slowed up and let me catch them before returning to the school. It was a great ride today. I learned alot along the ride and my average speed was the highest it's been on a Peach Peloton ride. I was actually able to average 20 mph for the entire ride. I'm looking forward to the next ride. Stay tuned for more updates.......