I guess we picked the wrong day to ride the Wildflower Long Course. It started to rain as we crested the hill out of Lynch and it started coming down pretty good in places out on Interlake until after mile 16. Then all we had to deal with was buffeting, swirling winds down to Jolon rd. Jolon road was a barrel of fun, strong crosswinds from the right that made it impossible to stay out on the aerobars is spots turning right onto Nacimiento drive toward nasty grade 10 mph on the aerobars into the head wind was a good pace. Needless to say nasty grade really sucks when getting hit by stong headwinds. the descent from nasty back towards the park was bad, swirling winds bufferted us from random directions and then it got wet… speed control became a serious issue. it was nice to hit the rollers back into the park and get back to the boat launch. The fasted time in our group was 3:30 I finished in 3:40 some people were out there for 4:45 or more . I would bring two sets of wheels if I had them for the race, disc if the weather is good and spoked wheels if the forcast is for winds as a disc would have been out of the question yesterday
sorry I know I said I would post photos but no way was I carrying a $500 digital camera in the rain. oh and I used a 39 /27 for nasty and boy was I glad I did!!!
Hey Eric, see my similarly bitter post below about “character building” at the lake. Were you riding yesterday or today? I hope you weren’t out there this morning because it sure was dumping rain as we left the park at 9am. We didn’t see a single bike on the course. The weather all weekend was pretty brutal.
Rode Saturday, had a huge BBQ in Lynch in the drizzle for 110 tired riders. We were the huge goup from Silcon Valley Triathlon club. Those were our coaches out there on the motorscooters.
I saw your post after I wrote this one. I dont know which was worse cross winds on Jolon or the Headwind out to and up nasty grade. it was hard but not awfull
I was glad I had my 4 season tent last night, stayed completely dry.