Prior to leaving the water tower meeting point, one of the guys snapped a seat binder and so off he and Pat went to Body Driven to see if there was a spare. The rest of the riders then decided to meet them at the shop and so I thought I had a minute or two to spare to get something from home, which was only 2 houses off the route. Well, I was wrong. Upon reaching the deserted bike shop I realized that the group had gone on and as I gazed down Main Street I couldn't see them at all. Uh oh, panic started to set in as I realized that a solo rider heading into a strong West wind didn't stand much of a chance of catching a group of 11 riders. I was right. I did my own personal time trial and managed to get them within eyesight about 1km up the road, but that's how the gap stayed, them comfortably drafting into the breeze, me dangling agonizingly out of earshot. My chase lasted a full 20k's from Steinbach to a quonset hut in Kleefeld where they stopped to assess the weather. I've never been very good at taking hints, I guess they'll have to be a little less subtle about letting me know they don't want me on their rides... ;-)
The tough start paid off with the awesome feeling of riding with the wind on the way home and getting in a pace line that managed to maintain 48km/hr and at one point was doing 53km/hr. That is a great feeling. And so ended another great ride with the MIT boys.
