The three of us started out at a good pace but we where still caught up by another rider about 5km into the ride. He asked if he could join us and Beathe told him he could, but we might go to slow for him. However he decided to join us and with him taking the lead, the pace went up and it made it easier to keep an higher pace as well.
On the flats I can still out-ride Beathe but I stand no chance in the climbs, so in the climb up Lifjellet the three of them, Beathe, Terje and the rider with-no-name pulled ahead of me. Even So I set a new person best in the climb by 15 seconds doing it in 5:41.
Going down from Lifjellet towards Manger I was struggling to catch up on the trio ahead and did not catch up to them until we passed the gas station at Manger as they slowed down slightly to wait for me. Up from Manger we kept going at a much quicker pace then I though we would do, and although I was struggling to keep up with them in the small climbs I managed to get back to them in the descents.
As we got to the top of the last climb and only had the flats passing Austamarka left of the ride I knew I would set a very good personal best which gave me tons of extra energy and together with Terje and the rider-with-no-name taking the lead a third of the time each, we managed to keep a speed of 40+ km/h, which for me is maximum of what I can do on the flats at the moment.
As we turned off from the main road towards my house we waved goodbye to the rider-with-no-name and pulled up in front of the house with a finishing time of 1 hour 13 minutes and 30 seconds giving an average speed of 27.2km/h. This was 14 minutes and 30 second faster then my seasonal best and 8 minutes and 30 seconds faster then my personal best from last year and that was a VERY GOOD FEELING :)
Todays ride gave me a lot of confidence that I will be able to improve my finishing time for Bergen - Voss this year, and I am now really looking forward to the race on June 2nd. I will be crossing my fingers the we will get as good a weather as we did to day, and according to the forecast we might just get lucky :)
Today's ride also meant I passed 700km on the bike this season, which is 300km less then I hoped for but more then I did last season, so all in all I think I should still feel good about the amount of km I have managed to put in this spring.
Today's ride also meant I passed 700km on the bike this season, which is 300km less then I hoped for but more then I did last season, so all in all I think I should still feel good about the amount of km I have managed to put in this spring.
Stats of today's ride: www.strava.com
Godt jobbet, Knut!!
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