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!