Goin' Where?

The horror, the horror.....
After spending the day before (following the RATL race) observing Gary's birthday and Cinco De Mayo, we were going to do the Emerald Necklace ride and I was going to get a chance to evaluate the long distance ride characteristics of my new Titus. Well, we showed up to the meeting spot and nobody else was there....np, we will leave some maps of the route and take off. I found out that my power meter & cadence wasn't working, bummer, but let's go head. It's like 9:15am and we start the climb out of the metro park on Riverview to R82 and bam! I look back and Gary is going nowhere fast. I'm thinking (hoping) that his chain just popped off, but a quick check with him and it had broken. Damn. Well the car is a short coast back so what the heck, we can fix it and then take off. Well, it looks like we now have another issue; my back tire on my car is flat. Double damn. Long story, short - we change the tire out for the deluxe donut, go to NTB to drop off the tire to get fixed cause no bike shops are open yet, go twice to BA for a chain link, find out they will not work....then decide to have Gary ride my Ritchey Ti cross bike and I'll do the Titus from my house. Finally, it's freak'n 12:30 by now. Jeese.
After 12-14 miles I noticed that Gary is having NO FUN AT ALL. I start thinking and then offer to switch bikes with him. Well, let's just say the Titus and him bonded, that I wasn't able to blow by him on the descents anymore and that he was a happy camper. We get into Chagrin Falls with smiles on our faces glad we could salvage the ride and that we should be able to get in more miles b/f turning around. We meet Lou (a nice guy riding around that says he likes to climb hills) in town and jump up the little steep climb out of town and then head for Riverview.....fantastic views....sweet ride.

Stats for the day (two separate charts)
3:48 time
56 miles
avg HR 131, max is messed up....
14.4-15.6 avg speed, 47.6 max
CAD avg 93 - max 124
3160' of climbing
no power due to failure of sending unit cable


Thanks for reading,
Rick