I think it's the nice weather that brings out the best in me. With the temps in the 70's with sunshine and light wind, who could resist going out again today? Not me.

This was a very different ride today, leaving at about 11:00 a.m. to head part way out on my lake route. The purpose here was to shoot some video with my phone to send to my sister in PA. I wanted to show her the hills on Sunny Slope as an example of how steep some of the typical climbs will be for her when she comes to visit and ride with me in the Tour of Wisconsin as I am calling it.

So after taking some video, I simply rode out ten miles to Highway 59 on Cleveland and back, where I actually joined onto my Loomis route from there. What the heck...so nice out...lets ride that too I figured.

Unlike yesterday when I was unprepared for 40 miles, today I had TWO water bottles filled and a bag of black cherry Bloks cut open and waiting in my jersey pocket.

Once again there was a chase today too! Again, in the Root River Parkway there was a guy riding in black on a black Trek with aero bars clipped on it. And he was going at a good clip too. We ended up together for a short time waiting at an intersection. He took off in front and started to pull away. Of course, even though I was tired from yesterday I decided to close the little gap and I rode behind him.

At this point I didn't want to be an uninvited wheel sucker but I didn't want to let him go either. I really wanted to just work together a bit perhaps. But the guy amped it up, going 22's steady now. I had no problem riding behind him, but it was going to take a bigger effort to pass him.

Finally I picked a spot and was able to up it a notch to put me next to him, when I looked over and said, "I'd be glad to pull for a while, but you were going right at my pace there." He replied, "Oh I'd be glad to share the load." So I took the point to return the favor for him. Wouldn't you know it ... just a few blocks or so and we turned a bit, just enough to now have some headwind I had to work now. It was tough going there for a bit.

I wish we could have taken a few turns together, but Loomis was upon us and it was time for me to turn around and head home finally.

I really felt surprisingly good under that sunshine today, despite just coming off 40 miles on Saturday.

When I was done I was surprised to see I had done the same 40 miles but even faster today than yesterday. What a great feeling. What a great weekend of riding. What a great week of riding to finally come back out of the winter doldrums from...seven days in a row of training. SWEET!