Stealing Shelton’s Segment

Some days you’ve got it, some days you’ve got most of it, and some days you haven’t got it at all. The French say ‘un jour sans’ for an off day, and Saturday that was me.

I started from home and rode to Linden to meet the Stockton Bike Club ride at Orlando’s. My plan was to do a metric century (62 miles) to start getting trained for the long rides I plan to do in France in May and June. There is little chance that trip is going to happen, but I try willingly to suspend disbelief.

The wind was already blowing at 8 am. but it was mostly behind me. It was out of the Northwest, which meant that we were going to have quite a bit of headwind and crosswind to deal with.

When we got to Escalon Belota Road I almost turned around. Going downhill to the Shelton Road intersection is normally a fast stretch of riding, but there was such a big headwind that I could barely do 14 mph. I couldn’t hold anyone’s wheel and my friends disappeared up the road. A big double wheeled pickup passed me going at least 70 mph and less that 3 feet away from me, which didn’t help my mood even if he didn’t manage to knock me off the road.

Along Shelton Road I got dropped again. When we reached Weimer Road and Hwy 26, my companions continued up Ospital Road into more of that miserable wind, but I decided I’d had enough. To get home I have to do 25 miles and only 7 of those are downwind.

But part of that downwind riding included the Shelton Road Climb Strava Segment. My Garmin is programmed to automatically inform me when it starts and stops. With such a big tail wind I thought I could probably do a pretty good time and rescue something from what was turning out to be a very uncomfortable ride.

So I hit the hill hard and between my 311 watts and the big tailwind, I managed to get 3rd overall. If ever a record needed as asterisk that one certainly did. Drafting behind a car or motorbike or e-bike to set a PR seems like cheating, but the tailwind is just part of the course so I don’t feel guilty. Well perhaps a little.