Venge Day!!!

That’s right, friends. Every year, after the roads are cleansed with a decent rain and the temp warms up to “leg warmers and long sleeve jersey”, with some sun, I celebrate Venge Day; The first glorious day of the new cycling season nice enough to ride the Venge.

Mmmm, I do love the “A” bike.

We had four for the evening’s festivities, clipped in and rolling shortly after five o’clock. The first three-quarters of a mile was tame. Everything after that, Katie bar the door… it was dėjá vu all over again. And I was ready. That bike is pure, unadulterated speed in the form of a bicycle. There’s no doubt my Trek is a great bike, but the Specialized is something special.

We’d been turning in times between 16.5 – 17.5 mph for the last month, and working hard to do it in the cold. Last night’s average was 19, and we had to slow up a couple of times to let guys catch up.

Every year I fall into a different variation of the same mental trap…  We get into March and it’s still cold enough to have an affect on speed.  We turn in a bunch of 16-18 mph averages and I get to thinking this is finally the year everything catches up to me and I’m going to start slowing down.  Then Venge Day hits, a 19 mph average is easy, and everything comes back to me.  It’s just the cold.  Surprising how much of an impact it has on the speed of a ride, every year.  It’s not that I don’t know it’s coming, I just can’t help but thinking maybe I lost a step.  I have to tell you, finding out I didn’t is exceptionally gratifying.

It was a perfect Venge Day 2018.  More later.