Tuesday night ride report - 8/10/10

After a few weeks away from the blog I promised myself if I did tonight’s ride I would post a ride report.
All I had to do was show up.
When I got in the car in Andover it was 86, hot and humid but manageable.
When I got to Littleton it went up to 90. Do I really want to do this?
When I got to Leominster it was 92 and there were these 2 really dark clouds overhead. I thought I saw rotation in one of them.
It might be safer to take refuge at home.
On the couch.
With the weather channel on, just in case.
I was slowly talking myself out of this ride.
But then I thought to myself, “what would Chet do?”…. He would call me out, and verbally abuse me and beat me down if I missed another Tuesday night ride.
You see, I have a verbal agreement with him to join FCC (the new and improved FCC) – and even though my doctor advised against it, I still want to get a couple of races in before the end of the season while doing my little bit to help support this club with a long history of racing and many years of supporting one of the biggest races in the country (Longsjo).
And anyone interested in racing, maybe not this year but definitely next year, and wants to help support this historic club should contact Chet chetfortier@comcast.net
This is a grassroots organization with little funding, but well worth supporting.
And there’s no doubt several guys and gals on the Tuesday night ride who could easily hold their own in the 4/5s and work their way to the 3/4s (all it takes is 10 mass starts).
And then you’re on your way to the “ultimate cat” (the 3s).
Racing is a blast, and it’s better training than you can get in a spin class at Orchard Hills, or even on the Tuesday night ride.

Oh well, on with the report:
The stats from somewhere near the front.
Time 1:51:16
Distance 37.63
Average speed 20.3

As we were hanging in the parking lot I was nervous when it was mentioned there’d be no A ride.
Let’s see, A Ride Gregg Vigneaux with his freshly shaven glistening legs, Luchiano, Natalie, Big Dustin.
This ride was going to hurt.
Daren picked a route out, which again avoiding almost all of the rain that fell on the area. Lunenburg to JFHW in Fitchburg, then up Rindge Rd to 119, down the Brook and then up Leominster/ Townsend Rd.
Heading up Prospect St the ride split up – most of us took the ride that goes up towards Monosnock CC, while several riders went straight up Prospect to do this super stealth ride… After a while I figured out it was the racers only ride warming up for a race in Salem Wednesday night. Natalie, A Ride Gregg with the glistening legs, Luch, Big Dustin and maybe one or two others intent on keeping a relaxed pace (it was a C ride and I wish I went with them rather than enduring the suffering endured by the rest of us).
As usual it always starts out nice, catching up on old times with some guys I hadn’t seen in a while, Mark Muzzi, Steve Zemei, and several others as we went up past the golf course.
But all the chit chat stopped when we took the right onto Day/ Leominster Rd and started toward Lunenburg Center.
The pain isn’t too bad at the beginning, but about a mile into it with that first small climb the pain starts, and gets worse and worse with each successive small climb. The troublemakers started pushing the pace on the first climb and continued turning it up on each of the following ones. The heat and humidity didn’t help – pick a wheel, hang on, watch the riders in front flick off and pull to the left and wait your turn for your pull, hope you can survive the 30-90 second pull, bail and hope you have enough to catch back on to the end of the train.
At least there are a couple of flats and even downhills for the recovery.
Survived to Lunenburg Center and waited for the regroup.
I finally got to meet the “New kid”, and I mean kid, Tom(?), a Chet Fortier protégé, 15 years old, strong and fast. The “kid” is going to be a force, strong and fast and a quick learner (hopefully Chet will go easy on him, at least through the learning process, the yelling only makes you a better rider). Anyways, introduce yourself to him between hills, he’s riding a red Tarmac. He’s easy to pick out, he’s one of the few under 20’s on our ride.
Heading out towards Townsend, across 13 and onto Northfield Rd, Daren was drooling when we passed Maplewood GC, I could tell he’d rather be out slamming a golf ball with his Big Bertha than suffering in the heat and humidity on another Tuesday night ride.
Suck it up Daren, the honeymoon’s over (haha!), time to get back to work as the Tuesday night ride leader.
We headed right onto Townsend Rd. into Fitchburg.
Took a right onto JFHW, I’ve grown accustom to the cheering of the local residents as we ride through Fitchburg, no cheering last night, only the fear of what was coming up at the end of JFHW.
Which was a roundabout (in France it’s a roundabout, in the US it’s a rotary) which led us onto Rindge Rd.
The road that never seems to end. The last time I marked it it was something like 7.5 miles end to end.
I was in no shape to confirm this tonight.
What the hell, somewhere around the first ½ mile of the road I found myself on the front, and not to stroke my ego because it always fails in the end, I was off the front.
Off the front on the old Longsjo TT course, might as well suffer it alone, for as long as I could.
Pick out signs, landmarks, count pedal strokes, sing songs, anything to take the mind away from the pain and suffering of the slow grinding never ending climb.
Somewhere far past the pain and suffering of Rindge Road, Re’ mentioned to me he kept waiting, and waiting and waiting some more for the climb to end, but every time he crested what he thought was the summit, there was another hill in front of him.
Frank Zappa has a tune “The Torture Never Stops”
HR had been pegged for a long time, and I know HR is only part of the equation, the other part of the equation is the saliva spilling out of the bottom of my mouth when I’m suffering, and last night I was slobbering like a St. Bernard on the hottest most humid night of the year. It was pretty disgusting.
Probably 2 miles into the climb I knew I was doomed.
I don’t pretend to remember all of them, but at first it was Dave “the Fin”, Folsom, Paul Skerry who reeled me in.
No worries, let them come up, pick a wheel and try and hold on.
Yep, survival mode.
Looked over my shoulder, others on their way, this could be a good thing.
Before long it was 5 or 6 of us, Steve Z and John C caught on.
But these riders had been working together while I was suffering my TT. I was screwed.
Dropped.
Recover.
Bridge.
Repeat.
Dropped, recover, bridge, repeat.
Finally I was able to hold on.
And then I cracked –
Looked back, no help coming up.
I gave up.
The mind works in strange ways, “Black Betty” slipped into my head, I managed to find a rhythm to my pedal stroke, looked down at the pavement and just pedaled not thinking about the never ending climb.
The lead group let up on the pace.
And whadda ya know, before I knew what happened I found myself back on.
And the road leveled out a bit, or at least the gradient wasn’t as bad.
The pavement changed from really bad to really good.
The end was approaching.
I heard the hallelujah chorus break out.
And then we were there.
Rindge Rd. The road that never ends!

After regrouping on 119 a couple riders decided Rindge Rd wasn’t enough, they drilled it, fortunately I found myself behind Chris (how come he doesn’t have to ride a GW kit?)….. Anyways, a good person to draft off of.
Until he pulls off and you’re left out hanging. At least the wind wasn’t there as it had been on my last several rides.
It got real fast and furious heading down 119, riders all over the road, I still worry about those oncoming cars.
But we made it safely to Willard Brook.
And then I worry about the Ashby cops, someone told me they patrol Willard Brook on Tuesday nights hoping to someday bag the elusive Tuesday Night GW ride, but they ain’t no Ashburnham cops, or Harvard or Princeton cops either.
We were into Townsend before their radar even registered the 50mph we were doing down through “the Brook”.
Yeah, it was fast all the way from 101 down 119 into Townsend.
Not much to report from 101 all the way down the Brook, it was just fast, especially on the down hills, which is most of that stretch of the ride. Get aero, stay to the right, out of trouble watching riders go flying by. And then trying to catch on when the road at the bottom of the Brook.
Another regroup at the Brick Store in Townsend, thank you to all who bought water – I needed it and had no cash.
Next time it’s on me.
Me and Peter were the last ones out of the parking lot, not a good place to be with the climbing in front of us.
We worked up to the back group.
Sat in for a bit.
Time to move up to the next group.
Caught them, sat on the back.
And then the big hill started, time to work.
Ride my own pace, lift my pace, recover, lift the pace, recover, until I finally made it up to the chase group.
There was still a group of 4 or 5 away.
There were 6 or so of us in the chase group, perfect for working together and reeling the lead group back in. All we needed was a little cooperation, work together and the riders up the road would be toast.
Leon tried to set it up, work together, short pulls, pull off and let the line pull through before jumping back on.
Apparently no one in our chase group understood because there were riders going off the left on their own, others took long pulls - and 2 or 3 of us were riding trying to figure out wtf was going on.
It was a mess, we were never able to get it working, too many riders not paying attention, doing their own thing.
In the Army this is what’s called a cluster ****.
Needless to say we never caught the lead group.
Things kind of came back together in Lunenburg Center before heading back down Leominster Rd.
And then it got crazy, darkness and fast aren’t a good combination.
Riders pulling off to the left and attacking on down hills is not heroic, especially on scetchy dark roads. In fact it's kind of dumb (imo).
A nice pace line would've made more sense to moi, but by then I was just a spectator trying to stay out of trouble so my opinion is crap.
We made it back to 13, took the left and the suffering of the night was over.
Finally.

After being off the ride for a couple of weeks it was really good to be back.
I had another of those shit eating grins on my face throughout most of the ride.
The days are getting shorter, but the rides aren’t getting any easier.
And only 1 month to COVAC.
Time to start getting some long rides in between the Tuesday night rides.