RiderZstar hung back at the crib, with Grandma M supervising over hot coffee and English breakfast.
While it can be said that base training has gone awry this winter with competing priorities of work and family, Ridermama gnashed her teeth and latched on to the rear wheel of the Condor fixed wheel peloton circling around the park.
Despite the best efforts of the group to summarily drop the Ranch crew, Turbo and Mama refused to go off the back, instead hanging lick for lick, pedal stroke for pedal stroke.
Cranky derailleurs were the order of the day. Dead batteries rendered heart rate monitors inoperative, and cycling computers offered only blank screens due to a long winter with no maintenance.
But the Ranch pushed on.
While true that suboptimal training leads to suboptimal results, the Ranch proves again that it can deliver the goods when put to the test, giving up nothing when the other undeserved teams only try to take.
Yes, we're Back on the Streets and back in the mix.
And what we lose in conditioning, we gain back with heart, soul, a little postpartum relaxin, and a blue-eyed cheering section rooting us on from the bathtub at home.
