Just Who Was that Mystery Latitude Rider

Several members of the 20-20 club (20 degrees, 20+ mph winds) gathered at the Dville park and ride to set off for a few hours of misery. Ace rolled in a bit late having been the only one to show up for the 45 mile Annapolis ride. Dave B rolled in with a couple of friends, and several other riders rounded out the group. It was a pretty good turnout given the weather. Notably absent was Lance who was supposed to be there collecting money.

The ride set off at a pretty good clip. There is significant motivation to go fast when the weather is so nice. Just before we got to the light there was a yell about riders off the back. Ace, Dave, and possibily a few others doubled back. The rest of the group sat up for awhile, but they never rejoined. Adding to the confusion was Kyle who's coach had told him to go fairly hard today (where have we heard that one before?) We rolled at a fairly good clip into the rest stop. At that point there were five of us left. Tom "fixie" Aga, Michel, Rick P, Kyle, and myself waited around for the others to join us. No one else showed, and we made our way back into the impending doom of a stiff headwind. The group did some pretty hard pulls into the wind even on the downhills, and Rick P finished it off with a nice piece of tempo work up Leetch Rd. It was at that point just before the wall that we encountered the "mystery Latitude" rider. He had to be fresh because both bottles were full. He did a quick 180 and joined the group up the wall. Actually he drove the group up the wall, and then doubled back at the next intersection. Rumor had it that it was Heff 2, but that was impossible since he was out with Chris "the ice man cometh" Harshman several miles away. Perhaps it was Heff 1, perhaps we'll never know. It is hard to recognize anyone in this weather when they've got 20 layers on.

The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful with Kyle taking the sprint just ahead of Rick P. Then the one legged pedaling drill competition started.

The parking lot was empty when we returned so we're assuming everyone else got back safely, and took shorter routes.

The weather is bound to get better. This would have been a marginal day for January, and was totally unexpected for November. The good news is that the long range forecast calls for a cold early start to winter with a much warmer ending. This means we might actually see Fabrizio in January this year!