Revenge shall be mine!......muuuhahaha

Sorry got carried away with the title again ;)
Earlier in the year Big Jase has handing me my a$$ everytime we did a long endurance ride(+3hrs).
Now that I have more k's and racing in the legs I thought I would repay the favour today. The plan for the day was the Bakery ride (~80km) then head off for a top up and end up with about 5hrs for the day.
So I met up with Jase and Kev at 6.30 for a 7.00am start with the bakery bunch. The cruise through to the start of "The Gallop" went smoothly. I spent alot of time riding next to Kev and was impressed that for a MTBer, a) he can ride in a bunch without killing people and b) the level of effort he was putting in given the amount he's been training for 24hr worlds recently. We had a run in with a car about 1/2 way through...it got halfway up the side of the bunch saw the traffic island coming up then tried pulling into the side of the bunch to squeeze past the island....needless to say there was much swearing and gesturing from the riders...I think the driver got the point!
The Gallop was a bit more interesting, due to the amount of wind around. Wind can be a friend or foe depending on which way it's blowing. It takes years of experience till you get to the stage where it's second nature making corrects for it through bunch positioning, it almost gets to the stage where you ignore it.
Today was one of those days, watching people scrabble around in the wind wasting energy.
Talking to the other two after we regrouped, Kev made it through to the first sprint (I'm impressed!), Big Jase...well lets just say he decided to investigate the berm on one of the exits of a round-about (I'm sure he'll tell the world about this one)
After the we regrouped in Civic at the end of the Bunch ride, we decided to do a long loop home via Corin. Once we reached the turn off from Stromlo I thought it was time to turn the intensity up a couple of notches and test the other two to see where their fitness was at.
I was talking mental bets as to who would crack first, Jase or Kev? I thought Jase given Kev's superior drafting skills but it turns out I got it was Kev. By the time we reached the top of Pierce's Creek we crested and looked to be in la la land. Now this is a place I've been to many times, and it's never pleasent. Your emotions run riot one minute your focused and determined the next you just want to kill yourself and actually consider crashing just so you can stop pedalling.
It's always nice to have someone there and especially good if they'll pace you home! So this is what I decided to do while Jase went off up the road by him self. It's not an esay job doing this as you have to work out what pace the other person can maintain both on the flats and going up hill. After some trial and error I worked out about 200w was right and Kev could hold the wall and not drop it.
We caught back up with Jase just before the Corin turn-off, and Jase says "He's doing a lap to the top and who's coming?" I know I'm in, Kev he's off home. So at this point we go our seperate ways. It's about now I decide to really turn the screws and see what Jase has left. On the bottom portion of the climb I ramp it up and pull away and am soon out of sight. I decide to continue to the top pushing as hard as I can. All up it takes 30 minutes to crest the KOM line at the top of the climb and then I start the stopwatch on Jase. After about 6 minutes I start thinking, must be a flat tire so I start to turn around to head back down and Jase comes around the final corner. Back down and home, all up 160km for the day in 5.5hrs. A good effort! The forms starting to come...finally!