Relatively Shortish Rides over the Weekend

Since a couple of weeks back I find myself spending at least one of my cycling weekend days with a new cyclist OR returning cyclist. Felix, who's just got his road bike about 2 months ago (yes, I did cucuk him about how a road bike is so much better than a hybrid), JM, a budding ex-triathlete who's gotten back into cycling (no thanks to my rambling) and Ryo, my training partner or last year, returning to the saddle after a good 8 months hiatus on a personal mission.

So normally, I will try to help out a bit to bring them back to their previous potential or upcoming potential by organizing one ride, and put them all in. Its difficult to maintain a standard pace as the level of fitness is varying between the guys. This week, both days I had the pleasure of doing a 'service' to my fellow cycling friends.

On Saturday, JM joined me and KL on the clockwise 80km loop. We started out slow and steady and when we went up the viaduct at West Coast, I led through to the end, averaging between 38-42km/h....that really set the pace for the entire ride UP. JM was amazing in that this is just his 2nd long distance ride and he managed to keep up....and he was in his running shoes!! My garmin registered average of 30km/h after the viaduct...which is the fastest for me on this route (normally the target is Jalan Buroh, going solo) KL did a good job leading until Jalan Buroh where we picked up the draft of a group of 6-7 cyclists. Thereafter, it was a breeze doing post 35km/h speeds. JM also enjoyed this. Until Mandai along the long slope at the zoo, he got dropped. KL and me stopped and we got back via Thomson-Ah-Soo-Eunos route. Good ride...averaged 30km/h over 80km. Thanks for drafting!

On Sunday, went for a short 40km with Ryo. Did good speed at coastal (35+km/h average) and at Loyang, wow, this guy is still strong. When Ryo stands up to pedal, its bye bye to him. I struggle to keep up despite the fact that he has not been riding for a long while! I think I still have the slight edge interms of pedalling fitness but boy, this guy will surpass me on the hills slopes with another 2-3 rides! Anyway its great to have someone to push me yet again. Sounds masochistic but my best riding improvements came from the training bouts I had with him. We are normally taunting or shouting at each other "let's go!" "come on!" "you can do it!" at the peak of our limits. In a very weird way, I miss that and I got a niggling feeling he does too.

So I will probably start torturing myself to try to keep to his running pace for the weekend runs and in return I'll try torturing him on the bike. Symbiotic existence!