Euro Sunday and the Roger Hamond Ride

we gathered at the WS 'Bucks sunday for a big outing out west. The crew needed a good long one to prep for the Bone in less than 4 weeks now. Pete had great route west that took us out thru Fermi lab and then north into St Charles. Like almost every other time i have been on the Fermi lab ride - there was a headwind on the way out. We rolled bar to bar with some good turns taken by all. There was good conversation and not too many leg cracking efforts. King had to get back early, so he and Tom rolled back just after getting to the 7-11 on the west side of Fermi. We continued north to st charles where Pete put a huge turn in to crack some legs just as we rolled into town.. Glad he knew where the finish line was... lol. In town we took a mid ride 'Bucks stop; a rarity with the WS crew, but appreciated by myself. It allowed for a natural break and a refuel on fluids as well as caffeine. We talked about how it was the Euro ride as over there, many of the rids go from cafe to cafe en route. Chris McKenney told a story about how one year he was among the tourists to pre-ride the Roubaix route with Roger Hammond and how Roger planned the day around cafes and such. The group was asked if they were racing the coming weekend, apparently all pointed Rogers direction and acknowledged he was the real racer.
We rolled out of the 'Bucks and enjoyed a sweet tailwind towards home. Pete and Matt put in some monster pulls and i was quite content to sit on their wheels as one of the times i came through with Matt and said we needed to lift off a gear otherwise my pull would be about 2 minutes instead of 10. It always suprises me how cooked you can get with a big tailwind, it seems like it would be a cakewalk, but the HR goes up in a hurry and by the time i got home at the 4 hour mark, i was not very excited to stand up out of the saddle any more.

Great route, great ride and thanx to the guys for showing up for a big sunday effort.