Tuesday night report 6/23/10

The last thing I remember was pulling up to the light ¼ mile from the shop and taking a GU, Daren laughing at me letting me know I wasn’t going to need a GU for the ride, we were only going to do the Reservoir route, nice and easy.
He was right about one thing, I wasn’t going to need a GU. I was going to need a six pack of them.
The part about it being an easy ride was another lie of his.

The ride:
Distance: 38 miles
Time 1:50
Average: 21.6mph

There were many regulars missing from last night’s ride, I hope it wasn’t because of the threat of rain. I counted 6 rain drops the entire ride. Maybe a few more, but not much.
It took a lot of coaxing to get the ride leader out of the shop, and into his kit (a nice new shiny Optimum Performance kit with brand new matching shoes – spend it while you can Daren, kids aren’t cheap).
And even more work to get him on his bike and get the ride going.
“We’re going to get soaked” he kept telling everyone.
I wonder if Eddy Mercyx or Fausto Coppi ever decided to sit out a race because of rain.
Or what about Andy Hampsten’s ride up the Gavia in a blinding snowstorm in the 1988 Giro.
Suck it up, let’s get the ride going.
We finally shamed him into it.
The original plan was to ride out to Princeton, down 62 to Hubbardston to 68 and then 2A through Westminster, Fitchburg, and finish with the Airport Rd. sprint.
But the threat of rain changed the route to around the Reservoir backwards, Lancaster, Clinton, Boylston and that route. To me that’s not backwards, it clockwise and therefore forward.

In theory this week’s ride was going to be easier than all the hills we did last week, but it was anything but easy.
We got to the lights at 13, I sucked down my GU.
I love GU, I’ve replaced most of my meals with GU. I eat GU all day long, I like the Blackberry in my morning coffee, Triple Berry for my mid morning snack. Peanut butter and GU sandwich for lunch, more GU to avoid the 2:00 crash from all the GU’s I had earlier in the day. Before the ride, during the ride, after the ride. GU has made me the most productive worker in my organization, possibly even the corporation I work for. It’s GUUUUD stuff.
It also makes it difficult getting to sleep after the Tuesday night ride.
This week we got in a little bit more of a warm up which lasted about ½ way up Prospect St before the pace began picking up. Fast as usual down the road that leads us past the shopping plaza to Mechanic St.
Mechanic St. wasn’t too bad before we took the turn onto 70 and then as expected things opened up.
Several riders on the front set a fast pace. A new guy up front was drilling it, Dr. Robert Trent Jones (when he isn’t designing golf courses he’s doing the Tuesday night ride, who knew?) Nice pull to set the pace.
I sat in about 4th wheel, I couldn’t see who was 2nd and 3rd because I had Chris from the shop in front of me, this was intentional because my legs weren’t feeling well and Chris is fast and a good person to hide behind.
As we rode I kept waiting for my legs to wake up, and it wasn’t happening.
At least we were doing the easy route.
One, two, three riders peeled off until Chris was on the front, Chris took a nice long pull before I found myself on the front, tried to keep the pace fast, by this point my legs are usually good, but last night they still felt like rubber. I knew this wasn’t good.
Took the pull as far as I could before bailing and falling back.
Whoever took over from there slowed things down just a little, it was still fast but it allowed us to keep the ride together and close up some of the gaps that had opened up.
We pretty much held a single line all the way to 117, headed right to Langden, no close calls this week, once on Landgen the pace kind of picked up again.
Passed the A ride on the side of the road helping someone who flatted.
Came close to making another dumbass move again this week when 2 other A riders were a little ways up on the side of the road, I didn’t see them until I was on top of them giving me no time to warn the riders behind me.
Fortunately the group made it around them without taking any other riders out in the process.
The pace remained sane as we made our way to the 6 corners in Lancaster.
Took the right leading us towards Clinton through downtown, hit the downhill hard, everyone trying to get their momentum to carry them up the other side of the hill to the dam.
Last night, with my rubber legs I was second guessing my decision to jump and get myself near the front for the long painful 5 or so miles to 140.
Coming up the hill it was Dr. Robert Trent Jones taking the KOM points by being the first to the damn dam.
The next 6 miles of Rt. 70 through Boylston always suck when you’re in the lead group. The pressure to hold the wheel in front of you is overwhelming, you don’t want to leave a gap for the person behind you to have to fill, yet you don’t want to throw up all over your bike either.
Andrew led things off by taking an epic pull for almost a mile, fueled I’m sure by the Eggplant Parm he had for lunch. Being on his wheel was tough, not so much trying to hold on, but more so by the smell of garlic sweating out of his jersey made me feeling like throwing up just a little more than I had already felt like throwing up from climbing to the dam, then trying to hold a wheel while trying to get into a recovery zone all at the same time.
He peeled off and I did what I could to put an effort in, but it was weak at best.
Several other riders came up inside me, I managed to grab the last wheel, a chance to recover a bit, but the pace just kept getting faster and faster, all those little hills along 70 were killing me, legs, lungs, heart all hurt like hell.
By the time we passed my old high school I wanted to sit up and wait for the cavalry to come up from behind, but someone in our group told me to suck it up and finish the GD stretch of road we were on.
Thanks whoever that was…..
The last little climb leading up to and beyond the center of town seemed like it would never end.
But once over the top we had a chance to recover on the downhill.
And more time to recover waiting for the regroup.
Which is where trouble began.
It was all innocent when I asked John on the Red Tarmac about his power meter, and if he could send me the profile from the night’s ride, and then he tried explaining that his power would be a lot lower than say (insert person’s name here) because of their size difference.
(insert person’s name here) asked if he was calling him fat, and John told him “if the shoe fits”, and then (insert person’s name here) called John a wuss for not being able to maintain 700 watts for more than a minute, John called (insert person's name here) a lard ass and that's when punches were thrown.
Everyone will be glad to know it all ended with a handshake and a promise to discuss over a couple of beers.
After all that Natalie joined in (the discussion, not the fisticuffs) as did a couple others, and then the discussion went from power to watts per kilogram as the best way to measure these things, and I quickly got lost in the discussion, all I know is there was less debate over Obama’s health care plan than there was over watts per kilogram.
I thought my head was going to explode listening to them discuss all this power stuff.
Save it for the classroom, here’s a chart to study for next week’s ride:
(click on the chart to enlarge, and then click on it again to make it larger)



3 miles up the road they were still talking about it!
Once we got past the store in W. Boylston things ramped up again, and got really fast along Rt 12 all the way to Sterling Center, and fast again after Sterling Center all the way to N. Row. It seemed like every time I looked over Duncan on the steel Huffy was by himself on the outside, I don’t know if he was practicing his time trialing, or just couldn’t get into the slipstream. Whatever the case he probably cranked out more watts than anyone on last night’s ride and he doesn’t need a power meter on that bike of his.
Regrouped and then began the final climb of the night all the way up to Sholan Farms where we regrouped one last time before the crazy descent down Pleasant St. through downtown Leominster to 13, once over Rt. 2 there were some crazy moves to get over to Hamilton St.

Not the ride I wanted to do on the longest Tuesday night of the year, I would’ve preferred doing more miles, but it was good that Daren picked out the route he did, it kept us pretty dry and the ride really fast.

And in all my pain and suffering I forgot to stop at the shop to pick something up I promised someone I would pick up after the ride. I’ll stop in tomorrow, I promise.

late edit; here are a couple of profiles from last night's ride. Both make me realize I suck!

JC:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/37853981

Dr. Robert: