April 13, 2010 Tuesday Night Ride Report

While John Barry is on the disabled list for the next few weeks I’ll be your contributing editor. Let me be the first to say that John’s editorial and literary skills are significantly better than mine. His will be a very tough act to follow.

John has some surgery last week and is home now recovering. Before the ride last night I stopped over to see him and he’s in very good spirits. Could it be the happy pills he taking? I brought over some of the TDF DVD’s that I had so he could fill in his recovery time watching cycling races. We all wish John a speedy recovery and that he’s back in the peloton very soon.

So here we are another Tuesday night ride on deck. I parked at the Global Fitness Gym just a few hundred yards from the shop. Lots of parking available there so it’s a good alternative to the shop’s parking.

57F at the start last night under partly cloudy skies with the winds light and variable. Once again as we were all queued up in the parking Daren did a good job balancing riders abilities and having them in the correct groups both “A” and “B”.

Launch took place a little after 6pm with about 25 riders in the “B” group. We headed over to Prospect Street and getting through all the traffic at the light was a little dicey but we all made it safely onto Prospect Street. From there we had a nice tempo going onto Leominster Shirley Road where we took a left onto Reservoir Road by Keating Gravel and onto a real bumpy section where I lost my water bottle. Not sure who but he offered me his “spare” bottle (many thanks!) so I was able to keep going and not disrupt the flow of the ride. A quick right then a left and we all gathered together on @A to re-group and our ace mechanic Daren helped a ride with a frame vibration issue.

Shortly thereafter we had lift off again heading East on 2A then a left on 225 over to West Groton center. From there we took 225 over to Groton and thundered up the climb to Route 111 where once again we re-grouped. Nice tempo along 111 to Ayer where we turned right onto Macpherson Road which basically rungs alongside the Nashua River. We come out here at Ayer road where we turn right and head to Shirley center where we turned left to go up by the prison. Another thundering bunch up the hill to Shirley Road where we turn left cross over Route 2 and then right and a fast run over to the Toyota dealer in Lancaster.

Ok now were in the home stretch with one last thundering bunch sprint to the firebox after you go by the shopping mall on the right. There was some swerving and bumping along here but everyone stayed upright which was a good thing.

All in all we had a really good ride last night thanks to Daren’s ride leadership keeping everyone together along our 30 mile loop.