Tuesday night report 5/25/10

In case anyone missed it, was HOT last night, probably about 90 when we lined up.
I couldn’t wait for the ride to kick off. I don’t know about everyone else, but I love riding in the heat, toss in some humidity and I’m real happy.

It was nice to see some riders who’d been MIA since last season. Brandt, John on the black R5000, and several others who’s names escape me because I’m especially terrible at remembering things like people’s names, and what actually took place on the Tuesday night ride – which is why when I can’t remember stuff, I usually make it up as I go along.
There was also a new guy Duncan who showed up with Amy. I was intimidated as I always am by anyone who shows up on the ride on a circa 1980 steel frame Huffy with down tube shifters running a 5 speed cassette on the back. These riders are usually known to drop guys on their Giant TCR carbon bikes. 5 gears on a steel frame always seems > than 10 on a carbon frame.
Someone to keep an eye on when things picked up. Noah pointed out he was riding Sean Kelly’s bike, hopefully he wasn’t going to crush us like Sean Kelly.



Daren picked a great route for the first hot night of the year, lots and lots of climbing. Fortunately most of it was at the beginning of the ride and not in the middle and end.
The ride:
40 miles
2 hours
20mph average (if we take the first 3-4 miles out of the equation, where we’re warming up as we move out of the city, the speed goes up considerably). Maybe we should wait and turn the computers on after the first 5 miles to get a better idea of the real average speed of the ride.

Pulling out of GW we headed up Hamilton, left onto 12 past the Hospital to Washington and all the back roads that take us to Pleasant St..
Once we hit Pleasant St the race was on – everyone was fighting to be near the front before the climbs started, the usual suspects were well positioned, Paul Skerry, Aaron, Andrew, Natalie, Dawn, and a few others.
As we took the right onto Wachusett St, the battle was on – the climbers opened up a quick gap as the real climbing towards the golf course started. Slowly but surely riders were lost through attrition, several riders quickly moved up ahead of me, I was holding Noah’s wheel as best I could (he can really climb with his new compact 50/30 and the 28 in the rear), it wasn’t long before 3 riders were way off the front, Andrew, Natalie and one other.
The rest of us went into survival mode trying like hell to get to the top.
Nat and Andrew won the KOM points beating everyone else to the top by probably a minute.
Time to regroup and recover as the rest of the ride made it to the top.
Thank god the climbing was over.
Not really though – we were heading over to Princeton and there’s always hills on the way over to Princeton.
Not sure what I hate more, the long grinding climbs, or the fast descents down some pretty sketchy roads with riders coming at you from all sides.
The rest of the ride to Rt. 31 followed the same formula, the ride would pull back together on the down hills, Natalie and Andrew would be off the front on the climbs, repeat 3x before we finally ended up on 31.
Regrouped once again before heading down 31. (late edit: I've never seen so many guys get so excited over the female manniquen set up outside the roadside diner where 31 splits from 140 - sickos!).
Once we passed the sexy mannequin we stayed left onto 140 towards Sterling and then taking the right down all the roads I don’t know, the same riders always seemed to be at the front including John on the R5000, JR, Beth on the “Yellow Pinerello” Daren showing a glimmer of his former Cat 2 self, and Dave L (I’m seeking his permission to call him “the Fin” since I still can’t spell his name after 4 years of riding together) - we eventually come back out to the road that takes us to the store in West Boylston where we stopped for water.
As we pulled out I noticed John Roche and Big Dave were again way off the front in a hurry, I can’t figure out how they do it. No worries, 30 vs. 2 on a slight downhill, that gap got shut down quick.
Taking more roads that I have no idea, the pace was definitely fast as we headed towards Sterling, eventually coming out to Rt. 12.
After a quick regroup we headed south on 12, took the left onto Gates for more climbing.
I’ve yet to do a group ride in either direction on Gates Rd. where there hasn’t been at least one flat going over those tracks, and last night was no exception.
Those in the front made it over the tracks, and then started racing up the hill, trying to hold the wheels on Dawn, Natalie, Andrew and a couple others – when 3 quarters of the way up someone from behind yelled “Flat!”
Riders started slowing, I can’t be sure, but someone from behind yelled out “No stopping until you get to the top of this f’en hill!!!!!!” It sounded like coach Brandt, but I couldn’t be sure, so we finished the hill and waited.
I spun back to see what the problem was.
Of all the people to get a flat on the ride, the one who probably wanted it the least was Aaron riding his 404 tubulars. In the sidewall no less.
Noah (McGuyver) was already at work with his can of “fix a flat” filling the tire to see if he could seal up the puncture. Once he had it in there he picked up the wheel and pulled a Tom Stevens swinging it over his head trying to get the fix a flat to find the hole, he reminded me one of the Soviet women winding up for the hammer throw, only difference is Noah has less muscle mass and not quite as much body hair as the Soviet women’s Olympic team.
What he didn’t notice was Brandt standing right behind him, he came pretty damn close to taking Brandt’s head off with the 404 – that would’ve been a nice “welcome back to the ride” gift to Brant.
Finally was able to get a little success where the tire would hold some air, we moved on up Campground, a little more climbing as we turned up Chace Hill Rd, and then people began taking flyers down the hill, riders all over the road while it was getting dark, I think we should implement the double yellow rule because one of these nights the vehicles coming in the opposite direction aren’t going to see riders who cross over, especially when it begins getting dark out.
Crossed over to Deershorn and this is where I think we lost about 10 riders who were up front and went right instead of the quick left and right onto George Hill Rd.
More fastness going down George Hill, again the need for a double yellow rule on the ride – especially considering how dark that road gets.
At the bottom of the hill we waited up for the missing riders.
And waited and waited – I know we were missing Noah, Sean Kelly on the Huffy, John on the R5000, Aaron and a couple others.
I never saw them the rest of the ride, I sincerely hope they all made it safely back to the shop, whatever route they ended up doing.
Finally Daren needed to get the ride moving, “Let’s Roll” as Andi put it no longer means a gradual increase in speed – it really means “let’s get the hell moving as fast as we can”, and we did a fast clip, Nat noticed I was wearing my pain face, but I assured her the real suffering was waiting for me when we started the route 70 sprint.
We rolled onto 70 and slowed things up, letting everyone catch on in case they were interested in participating in the spint.

And here’s another new rule for us to contemplate – once we roll onto 70 and we’re together, and things get moving, NO ONE TAKE A PULL FOR MORE THAN 1 MINUTE.
There were a couple who I think would’ve been content to spend the 4 miles on the front, but it’s screws up the speed of the sprint.
So someone yelled at the guy in the front to “get the F off the front and begin rotating” – which he quickly did.
And we got a pace line going, but it sucked, I don’t know if it was the heat and everyone was beat, or the fact that I had in mind a double pace line while the rest of the group wanted to ride a single line and take longer pulls.
Whatever the case as soon as I hit the front I peeled off letting the rider behind me pull up – this was a bad move and something I almost never do, pulling off at the start of an uphill, I left Natalie out to dry having to begin her pull on the uphill and this probably screwed things up more than anything on the sprint.
We still worked it pretty hard, about 6-10 riders off the front, once we were able to get the line going the speed picked up and for the first time this year I was able to finish the sprint in the lead pack.
Of course a lot of the powerhouses were missing.
Taking the left onto Mechanic St. things usually slow down, but it remained fast – I wanted to redeem myself of my prior transgression so I took a hard pull, finished the small climb before finally flicking off and letting Nat move up on a downhill.
I think there were 5 of us, Andrew, Nat, Dave (the Fin), Brandt and myself hammering away past Orchard Hills towards the shopping center.
And there wasn’t a one of us disappointed that we hit the red light.
A lot of times we’ll run this one, but we were all good citizens adhering to the laws of the road, even though there were no cars at the intersection, we waited.
And recovered.
I figured the race was over, we’d take it easy up the last couple of hills before Prospect.
As we hit the first one we were all together when Dave (the Fin) decided to attack – Andrew and Natalie had no problems responding, I was caught off guard but managed to catch on, I think Brandt just said F it and let us go (because I know he can shut these attacks down with little problem).
Hung with the 3 to the top of the first climb, and then they went again up the 2nd climb, I didn’t have it in me and that’s when I threw in the towel and said F it and rode my own pace to the top.
Doesn’t matter, we all came back together on Prospect all the way to the shop.

So while I’m at it, I might point out a few basic rules of group riding:
1. When someone yells “Car Back”, open up some space between you and the rider in front of you so the riders on the outside can pull in – and the riders who are 2, 3, 4 out in the road need to pull it in to let the traffic go by.
2. Ride the pace line – don’t be all over the place, moving from the outside to the inside to the outside all so you can move up a few places.
3. When you flick off from your pull and move to the left, drift back to the end of the pace line instead of trying to force yourself into an opening that’s a half a bike length too small. And don't point to the half bike length spot you want to pull into because the person in the line is going to have to hit the brakes and slow everyone else down.
4. Stay to the right of the double yellow – especially when flying on the down hills. I've never seen a rider get hit head on by a car and it's nothing I'm interested in seeing either.
5. No long pulls on the Rt. 70 sprint, once the group's together take a quick pull, flick off and let the next person pull through to keep things as efficent as possible. If you want to pull a Fabien Cancellara and ride everyone off your wheel, that’s okay, and even encouraged.

Okay, I’m off my soapbox –
All in all it was a great ride. Looking forward to more hot nights., and making the ride longer and faster as we move closer to Summer.

Tuesday night ride report - 5/18/10

If anyone went out in the rain, please let me know so I can post a report.

In other news I was playing around with the blog and somehow managed to delete all 11 of the "Followers", including myself. I'm going to try and fix my mistake, but in case I can't and you still want to follow it, you might have to sign up again.

Next week's ride promises to be the best of the season.
And from there they're only going to get better and faster.
Eventually I expect the B ride to overtake the A ride - we'll race them near the end of the season to prove the point.

So train hard, hone up on those race tactics (they're going to come in handy), and remember to ride smart so we don't have any problems with the local authorities this summer.

Roll Call - help needed

As I've stated numerous times, I am terrible with names. I'm better at describing the guy riding the Blue Pinerello FP7 than I am at remembering his name.
So I started a list of regulars on the right side of the blog.
I know there are a lot of people's names I am missing (like the guy on the blue Pinerello).
Some other's that come to mind:
There are 2 women who ride blue Steven's bikes and kits and are fast as hell.
There is a woman who rides a yellow Giant (tri girl?) - don't know her name.
There was a guy in a green kit (I think he was riding a Cyclenauts kit last year) - he has an accent, but he's a good rider.

I guess I just want to know the names of people missing from the list so I can call them out in the blog when they do something heroic.
Or Stupid.
Or most importantly, funny.
It'd be most helpful if anyone can let me know who I'm missing. Names are good. Bikes and kits are more helpful.
email me at john.barry@hp.com

thanks!

Tuesday night ride report 5/11/10

I think the Mavic rep who rode with us last night summed things up when along the ride he said “For a B ride, this is pretty fast”.
I thought it was a bit of an understatement, but he was impressed with how fast the ride was and how well people worked together "almost like in a race" he added.
I'd been off the tuesday night ride for a few weeks, but yeah, we do ride well together - almost like a race.


I forgot to reset my computer before the ride, so I don’t have the exact numbers. I think it was probably around 35 miles which averaged about 20mph.
But the way my legs are feeling today it felt more like 50 miles at 25mph.
That ride hurt!

So when I got to the shop everyone was getting their aero wheels so I figured I’d better too or I was going to get dropped hard.
Charlie was right when he warned me about the wheel candy. His analogy was riding those wheels was going to be like test driving a BMW M5 after riding a beat up Subaru for the past 5 years. In the end you’re going to want new wheels just like you would want the BMW M5.
I should’ve listened to him, because now I want a set.
Shamelessly I will ask Natalie if she wants to part with her 404s, I will pay you twice what you paid for them!

Oh well, carbon wheels are the real deal. They are nice, and it seems like once you hit a certain speed it’s a lot easier to hold it. But when people like Andrew, Noah and Suzanne are riding the same wheels it's still painful trying to hang on.

So let’s see, last night’s ride took us around the reservoir the back way.
I’ve only done this route about 30 times, and up in the front I still end up bearing (edit) right instead of left off Pond Street.
1 match burnt turning and chasing to get back on the back of the group.
The pace was brisk heading up Pleasant St., but not punishing, at least not at the beginning and middle.
After a couple days off my legs felt fresh enough to start moving up.
As we got about ½ mile to Sholan Farms I decided to go for the King of the Mountain points and tried to break from the group.
The attack lasted about 10 seconds before 1, 2, 5, 10 riders went past my like I was standing still. I remember a green kit, YETI on the Felt, Daren, Natalie, Paul Skerry, Jeff St.Laurant, Noah, Andrew and a couple others I can't remember... some of these guys need to get back on the A ride, seriously.
Once I was off their wheels I couldn’t get back on.
Damn, 2 matches burnt!
Regrouped at N. Row in Sterling.
Fast and furious down the hill to Rt. 12, fast right onto Rt. 12.
About 4th wheel, just where I didn’t want to be.
I didn’t see who was up front, but they were pulling like a freight train for what seemed like forever.
Then Tom Stevens took his turn, I have this love hate thing with Tom pulling. He’s a great person to draft off of, but he’s strong and fast and makes things painful when trying to hold your position.
He pulled for a long way.
Nat’s turn.
I have a hate/ hate relationship with her (but only when trying to hold her wheel). She can make herself even smaller than she already is when she gets down on her bike giving me absolutely no cover to draft off of, and she’s fast as hell, even when recovering from a cold.
A quick look at my computer, I think we were around 23mph.
Deal time – when Natalie peeled off I set my sights on a landmark somewhere up the road, if I could maintain something close to 23mph to the landmark it would be a big bowl of Ben and Jerry’s Magic Brownies when I got home.
No prize for failing.
I had my Ben and Jerry’s.
And burned another match.
When I peeled off the group was still pretty much in tact – good news, maybe we could just keep riding without having to stop.
Not stopping seems to be the group’s new philosophy and I kind of like it. I can’t imagine too many rides where 2 water bottles and a couple of GU’s aren’t going to get someone through a 2-3 hour ride except maybe on the really long hot nights in June and July.
Passing Sterling Center we continued along Rt. 12.
As the ride went along I heard this really strange noise as a car was approaching us. No idea what that was.
But out of the corner of my eye I could see the car pacing alongside us.
And then the gray Taurus pulled up alongside my position, I had this creepy feeling he was stalking the ride.
And then I saw the shattered passenger’s side wind – damn! Someone must’ve launched a rock from their tire and scored a direct hit on the window. The guy looked seriously pissed. (edit, I could tell he wanted to roll down his window and yell at us, but he was f'ed because rolling down the window would've spilled the glass all over the inside of his car. This is what's called a lose lose situation for the driver).
And it was weird – he kept pacing himself with the ride, every once and a while falling off to let other cars go by, and then he’d be there again.
I started wondering if the guy wasn’t some sort of Christopher Walken whack job hunting us down. A cross bow, couple of axes, chainsaw and a wood chipper in the trunk, he could've chopped us and our bikes up, tossed the remains into the wood chipper before the cops even had time to finish their coffee and donut back at Dunkin' Donuts.
Nonetheless I tried turning my concentration back to the ride, the short hard climb in West Boylston was coming up, I marked a couple of wheels and tried like hell to hang on.
When the hell did Chet Fortier get so fast, I mean I know he was fast, but he was faster than I remember when I hurt myself trying to hold his wheel before falling back further and further, the adrenaline started pumping hard when I realized the Christpoher Walken guy with the wood chipper was still following us. I went into the red trying to get over the hill and to the convenience store parking lot where I would be a little safer.
One more match burnt…. I was beginning to wonder how many I had left in the book.
The weirdness really started when we pulled into the parking lot of the convenience store.
And Christopher Walken in his gray Taurus with the woodchipper in the trunk pulled up beside us.
He got out of the car, cell phone in hand, and started bitching about how someone in the group threw a rock and broke his window.
At that point it was still in one piece, not really broken, just shattered.
The guy didn’t think it was funny, but I laughed when he slammed his door and the shattered window fell out onto the parking lot..
A few people tried their best to reason with the guy, but there’s no reasoning with Christopher Walken, the guy’s a psycho!
And then he started pointing out people he noticed were mouthing off to him as he was riding alongside us.
He specifically pointed out Jason from the shop – this is the point where I expected him to go into his trunk and pull out the cross bow and start taking out the troublemakers. I really wanted to stick around to make sure Jason was going to be okay, but the ride was leaving and I didn’t want to have to work to hard to get back on so I left.
Does anyone know if he made it back to the shop okay?

As we pulled out of the parking lot 2 police cruisers came flying down the road, one with his lights on. I guess they take broken windows pretty seriously in West Boylston.

Riding on we came upon the store we usually stop at, I really didn’t want to stop because I hate stopping – and someone from the back either yelled “go on” or “hold up”, not sure which, but someone made an executive decision to roll on and so we did.
We were meandering along 140 and a nice safe 20 mph pace, I was checking out the houses and people’s nicely manicured yards, wildlife, the sounds of crickets chirping.
And then I got bored.
I moved up to the front.
I went off the front.
I still have a lot of fitness to regain so I was going to try a 3 minute interval.
My goal to take the town line sprint.
I won! And as far as I knew it was uncontested.
I assumed others from the group were holding my wheel because I’m not strong enough to go off the front, at least not very far.
So when my 3 minute interval was up I flicked off.
And that’s when Andrea came up on my inside and swore at me for peeling off when she just bridged the gap.
Sorry, I really had no idea.
Shortly thereafter someone flatted, rumor was it was Daren.
I hope the Mavic guys aren’t reading this because I knew Daren was trying his best to destroy those R-Sys wheels he was trying out. Version 1.0 of those wheels had a problem where they would spontaneously explode (you can google this if you don't believe me), I’ve seen pictures of this happening in races where guys were sprinting at 1000+ watts and the wheel would shatter like the window of Christopher Walken's Gray Taurus.
But I think this was just your ordinary run of the mill flat.
We waited at the intersection of 140 and 70.
Once the group was together we continued up towards Boylston Center.
More troublemakers going up that hill, I won’t mention names but 3 or 4 opened up a gap, I managed to get into the 2nd group, it took about a minute or 2 to close the gap when things got real fun!
I know it was fun because all I remember was things got real fast and everything started going black, the next several miles were a complete blur trying like hell to hang on.
We stayed together until the damn hole in the road came out of nowhere.
Some got around it.
Andrew did not and ended up blowing a tube.
Got it changed before he noticed the tire was trashed.
Noah to the rescue.
Noah has this McGuyver kit he keeps in his back pocket that has everything you need from fixing a flat to overhauling your bottom bracket and hubs. No shit, he even had a chain tool in there!
And some clear plastic mylar, perfect for patching a tire well enough to finish the last 15 miles of the ride.
Things again got fast as we headed for Clinton, people started riding off the front as we headed up towards the dam, and then down the hill, a couple of riders came damn close to going over the double yellow into oncoming traffic – I closed my eyes because I didn't want to see, and then sprinted back up the other side of the hill, where we regrouped for the last time before heading back to the shop.
Nothing very eventful happened all the way to Rt. 70.
Once onto Rt. 70 I was surprised at the nice leisurely B ride pace we were maintaining.
Of course I was waiting for it.
But it wasn’t coming.
Always stay near the front on 70, and I did, waiting.
Still nothing.
Still up near the front, still no attacks.
If I recall correctly there is a slight downhill, and then a slight uphill shortly before the new Kimball’s farm stand –
I saw it coming and I thought I had it in me to respond – the red NEBC kit, I called it an attack, she said she was just trying to lift the pace to what we usually do on Rt. 70.
Whatever it was, I wasn’t able to respond – I was a spectator watching 6-10 riders started pulling away. Along with the NEBC rider, I saw Daren, Noah, Andrew, Dave, Paul, Jeff and a couple of others who’s names I don’t yet know – they had it going on running away with the Rt. 70 sprint.
I caught onto a group of 3, I was pretty gassed but I think it was John on the white/ red Tarmac and Amy on the Giant, we were working it pretty good, but we were out of contention of finishing in the winning group.
Limped along for the last couple of miles – cursing the double hill climb just after the shopping center. It does make you appreciate the downhill on Prospect Street.

It was a tough decision to pull into the Gear Works parking lot instead of heading up to Global Fitness where I had my car parked. I didn’t want to give up those Mavic Cosmic Carbone wheels. But I didn’t want to end up getting arrested either, so I did the right thing and returned them.
Thanks Daren for the carbohydrate drink when we were done. It tasted pretty damn good.

Another great night of riding. Another shit eating grin on my face for most of the ride!
Hopefully we can all get together to kill ourselves again next Tuesday!