Completed Spectrum

Finally, I made it all the way through Spectrum!

Well, kinda… I was getting cold at the meeting point, so I decided to start on my own and to let me get caught up. I had started to doubt they keep to the route, so it was to no surprise that I hadn’t seen them all the way to Canada. But I was pretty sure that I had taken the usual route:

Foothill to Page Mill to Arastradero to Alpine to Portola Valley to Portola to La Honda to Tripp to Kings Mountain to Manuella to Albion to Olive Hill to Canada to 92 and back.

So I ended up being by myself most of the time, until some guy with a Stanford outfit passed me shortly before reaching the top of Canada. I tried catching up with him, but you know my sprinting skills… I followed at a short distance (his sprinting skills not being the best, either), racing up the Aqueduct hill. By then, the main group had reached me (and him) and I was surrounded by fellow Spectrites.

We turned around, and started going back. It turns out they burn themselves out completely before getting to Canada, and they were really tired at that point. I started an escape, by myself for quite a while, and was caught up around the short hill on the way to Filoli. By the time we got to Edgewood, the mass had caught up and they were giving me a hard time.

From there on, I was in the last section of the team all the way up Sand Hill, where I moved forward to the top. And there I held my position all the way to Loyola Corners. So when you see yesterday’s entry in the training log: it is (a) the exact route of the Spectrum ride (minus the parts before Loyola), and (b) the return is the top speed of the group.

Proud? Yes, a lot, even though I didn’t do the first (and most difficult) part. But I am catching up with them, finally, after such a long time of trying.