Or perhaps I should say “53:45, bitches.” That’s right, I beat my previous best time on the hill climbing circuit by almost two minutes. And I beat the time I posted back in April by a full 5 minutes. Factor in a fair amount of rain today, which had me braking most of the way down 123, and I could have cut that down by at least another 15 seconds. Overall, I didn’t really feel like I was pushing that hard, at least not until Wipple. I tried to moderate my pace as much as possible on Cullen Hill and Wilbur. That is, I tried to ride a high but steady tempo from top to bottom, and avoid going too hard too soon. It seemed to help. As usual, I didn’t look at my time until sometime in the last fast section approaching Wipple. When I saw 48 minutes and change, I was pretty sure I was going to set a new best time. No point in conserving energy for Wipple at that point. I rode as hard as possible before hitting the climb. And there, I pushed myself way into the red, but I knew it’d be over in a matter of a minute or two…hit the top of the climb and watched the clock roll over 53:45. I was thinking my previous best was 54-something, but turns out it was 55:34, so I’m feeling even better about my form.

Add to that, I went back to Mount Tom again over the weekend, and this time managed to ride it from top to bottom without stopping. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. Now if only I could ride back down w/o stopping (for the brakes to cool off). 10 days left to Ascutney.