Saturday 7/16/11 Ride Report – Blacksburg Va loop

Blacksburg Virgina, if you enjoy cycling like I know you all do, and you enjoy the beauty of nature, miles and miles of near perfect roads, good food, friendly people and of course ice cream, you need to plan a couple of days in this perfect bike riding local and soak it all in.

So here's the entire report, the good the bad and the really ugly.

There are some family issues I needed to attend to in Florida. Instead of flying down as I have been doing, I decided to drive down, mostly because I don't know how long I'll be down for and I wanted to have my bike to get some rides in.

The decision to stay in Blacksburg was mostly arbitrary, it was around the halfway point between home and my destination and I love college football, although VT isn't my favorite team, I had heard the campus was beautiful and I had wanted to see the memorial for the student victims of the tragedy back in 2007.
But it wasn't completely arbitrary. I had also heard that Blacksburg was a pretty cool town with great restaurants, good beer and wine, neat little stores and great people.
And it was all of this and more. All of the larger college towns I've been to in Florida, mostly Gainsville, don't have the same feel as say the college towns in New England (Northampton and Hanover NH), it's a lot of sprawl with no real charm. But Blacksburg had the exact same feel as a small new England College town so that was really neat.
But that wasn't the real reason I chose Blacksburg. It was because someone on Bike Forums had tipped me off that it had some of the best bike riding in the southern Virgina, northern Carolinas area, great roads and spectacular scenary.
And they were spot on!
So the decision was made.
And the decision was a good one.

I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, just in case I ran into any mechanical problems on my ride the next day I'd be prepared. Noah knows how bad my mechanical skills are, especially when it comes to anything to do with a bike, so I didn't want to take any chances.

I went to bed a later than I wanted to, but was able to sleep in until 6:30 (a treat for me) and then fill up on the breakfast buffet before getting kitted up and heading out on my ride.
One problem.
I’m in Blacksburg and had no idea of where to ride. I'm not adventurous enough to just pull up a map of the area and start riding. I've been riding in Florida enough to know there are some streets and roads you want to avoid mostly because of traffic and drivers who pay no attention to anything other than the car in front of them.
Actually two problems, my rear tire was toast from locking up on the breaks two weeks ago and burning a section of rubber off. I've been riding the tire for a couple of weeks without any problems, but I didn't want to tempt fate and get stranded with no team support vehicle to pick me up.
Both problems were solved when I went on line and found this place http://eastcoasters.com/
Perfect, a great bike shop right up the street from my hotel. The only problem was they didn’t have the P3R tire in blue so I had to settle for red, which I knew riding a bike with tires that didn't match was really going to upset my OCD but in a pinch I had no choice because I didn’t want to ride the damaged tire over a 50+ mile route on roads I didn’t know.
Did I ever mention my love of run on sentences like the one above? I think they actually reveal the inner workings of a person's mind in that the person must suffer from ADD if they can't stop to enter a period or a comma or some form of punctuation to break up their stream of thought and now everyone knows I suffer from both OCD and ADD and that I probably need some major help but I wasn't going to worry about that before my ride it would be one more thing I can deal with when I return back home .
While the tire was being changed they hooked me up with a cue sheet for a great 56 mile ride which by getting lost at the end of the ride turned into a 71 mile ride.
Nonetheless, itzallgood.

The numbers I ended up with were:
Time: 3:58
Distance: 70.1 miles
Elevation gain: 4594

The forecast called for mostly sunny skis with highs around 83, almost ideal except for the sun part (I had no sunscreen). Fortunatly weather prognosticators are prone to being wrong.
When I left the hotel it was 67 and misting (which stopped as soon as I rolled out of the bike shop), I didn’t see the sun all day which kept the temps relatively low in the mid 70s, so it really was near perfect conditions for a long ride.

The ride started at the bike shop.
4 extra caffeinated gel packs, $6.
New Tire $54.
71 miles of pure beauty and AWE, priceless.

What made this ride so spectacular is I love riding new areas and experiencing unexpected beauty, and the ride today was full of unexpected beauty and surprises around every turn.
And what made this ride truely epic was I went out without any goals in mind, other than riding roads I've never ridden, and stopping often to take lots and lots of photos. Of course it’s difficult to capture all the beauty around you with a camera, but hopefully you'll get the idea of some of the beauty around this area.

The first couple of miles were pretty unspectacular, sort of like the tuesday night ride out of the shop up Hamilton over to Washington before getting onto Pleasant, so I started out with low expectations on what I was going to experience on this loop.
And then at mile 4 I turned onto Lusters Gate Rd and a big smile came across my face that stayed with me the entire ride when I realized how great this ride was going to be.


And this was just the beginning.

And then this at the end of the first stretch, the railroad brige looking into the little village ahead.


It didn't take me long to start calculating in my head how I could sell enough bike parts to afford a house down here. I know this might come as a shocking surprise to anyone who knows me, but I do have big plans of someday moving out of Fitchburg. Before it was to move to Gardner or Leominster, or maybe live in Gene's garage with his massive bike collection.
But riding along I realized I'd much rather live down here, even more than Gene's garage. Especially considering they get very little snow, and you can for the most part ride year round.
And as I later found out they also have excellent group rides, and a great racing scene with races most every weekend from February all the way into November.
And the fall races are real races, on roads. Not these pseudo cyclocross races where you have to dismount and actually run with your bike on your shoulder, up steps and through mud.
But I'm not knocking "cross" racing, to each their own I suppose.

From there the loop had me turn left onto Den Hill Road that begins the descent into the valley.
A left onto North Fork Rd is the beginning of the stretch that runs along a river, I think the Roanoke River, but I couldn't find the name on a map. The road was very reminiscent of the COVAC ride, mostly flat with a couple of climbs, but nothing too difficult.
Coming down one of the short little hills I amost got taken out by a couple of the local residents. I wish I had my camera ready, but you can't capture everything. There was a couple of deer on the side of the road having lunch, I spooked them and they jumped directly across my path which thinking about it would have been a lot like my last COVAC, only I wouldn't have had the team support vehicle (Lisa Lemconte's minivan) to come and rescue me.
Itzallgood though.

After my adrenaline slowed, I started rolling along when I noticed a sign, it made me think of ice cream (if you click to enlarge you might be able to read Blue Bell Road).


You see, I have this friend who lives down around Dallas and she claims that Blue Bell ice cream is the best ice cream evah! I wouldn't disagree, I had their Bananna Split ice cream the last time I was in Florida and it was pretty good.
But she believes that the best ice cream is that which contains nuts, which I completely disagree with. Nuts don't belong in ice cream, or baked goods (especially brownies and toll house cookies) or any other food consumed by humans. Nuts, especially almonds, cashews, and pistachios are meant to be eaten by rodants, squirrils, chipmunks, and rats.
But whatevah, to each their own and if you like nuts in your ice cream or baked goods, that's your problem. (and remember this for anyone thinking of baking me some toll house cookies as payment for all this free entertainment I've been providing you over the past several years, this is hard work coming up with new material most every week for the past 3 years).
Oh yeah, one last note, one of our bike riding friends with lots of tattoos has a most excellent brownie recipe (or so I've been told) which I'd someday like to try :)

okay, enough about ice cream and baked goods, back to the ride.
At mile 16 is the left that takes you onto Bradshaw road, which has a lot of short punchy rollers for the first 10 or so miles. It's kind of tough but not like the stuff on 119 heading into Ringe NH that can wear you down when trying to hold the wheel of someone like Tattoo Dave which happened during a group earlier in the season. This road was actually tree lined and very scenic unlike the wasteland of 119 from Ashburnham into Rindge NH where the sun beats down on you for 15 straight miles.
Around mile 20 I heard the first clap of thunder which is never a good thing, especially when you still have another 35 miles to go (not counting the additional miles that came at the end when I got lost).
And the climbing hadn't even started.
There isn't a lot of population around this stretch of road and I started to panic just a little thinking about where I was going to find cover if a thunderstorm opened up. Before I left my hotel i didn't stop to think, this is the mountains and like the Whites in NH, storms probably pop up all the time down here. I don't mind riding in the rain at all, but throw in some lightening? That's alltogether different, electricity coming down from the sky scares the hell out of me.
And then it occured to me, there aren't a lot of houses on this road, but there seems to be a church every couple of miles (this is the bible belt, so one way or another God was going to save me if or when the skies opened up).
Thank God though, that single clap of thunder was the only threat of a storm I heard over the entire 4 hours.
BTW all the churches along the road had these clever little sayings out front, my favorite was "God doesn't care about email, only knee mail", which I found ironic since I didn't even know She had a computer up there in heaven, but I suppose She needs someway of keeping track of the good from the bad, me from everyone else who does the tuesday night ride. Hopefully She's keeping track of all my charitable giving because if I can't earn my way into heaven by being good, I'm going to try my best to buy my way in by charitiable giving to such nobel causes as the Gear Works Trust Fund which covers most of my bike related purchases throughout the year. Pastor Gene and associate pastor Daren do a most excellent job of preaching the good word to me everytime i walk into the shop.
Speaking of Daren, I wonder how his little Specialized boondoggle to Monterey California went. Did Mike hook you up with a free Specialized tee shirt Daren, or did he try and sell you one for $24.99 like Jay did to me when I was needed a tee shirt a couple weeks ago?
Daren seemed a little ambivilant when he was telling me about the trip. And then I told him Pebble Beach was only 10 miles away and his whole face lit up. I could see the wheels start turning on which one of his customers he could call on to try and hook him up with a tee time. Screw the vineyard tour, wine is good, but golf is better. I'm the opposite, but whetevah, to each their own and if people like hitting a ball and then chasing it and hitting it over and over again and again, 105 times over the course of 18 holes, more power to you.

So somewhere around mile 25 things got really good and really fast, it was a slight descent that went on for about 5 miles, I don't have my Garmin data, but most of the time I was averaging around 25-35 mph with the smile still intact.
Life was good.
But then I started thinking about what the ride was going to be like on the other side. Every downhill has an upside to it, right? I should coin that phrase, almost like every cloud has a silver lining?
And I knew exactly where the upside was coming.
But fortuntely before it did I had a chance to stop at the gas station for a quick bite to eat before the climb out of the valley.



They didn't have much of a selection, but I have to admit the Rice Krispies Treats were an excellent choice, the Oreos were in case I needed backup to help me finish the ride.
And while I was there I asked to use the rest room. I hate using gas station rest rooms because of a phobia I have about gas station rest rooms from watching the movie Trainspotting (if you've seen the movie you know what I'm talking about). Well this one wasn't quite as bad, but it wasn't good either. I should've left the light off, but I didn't, I just closed my eyes and tried not to think about the situation but my olfactory neurons were completely overtaken to the point where closing my eyes weren't helping matters.
You migth want to close your eyes now, this is the only part of the ride that wasn't particulary beautiful. In fact this is the "really ugly" part of the ride lol:



I was glad to be out of there, eating my rice krispies treats and then heading to the only way out of the valley:



Actually the climb up Catawaba Mtn wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, definately not as brutal as the guys at the bike shop described it. It reminded me of riding up the Pack, there were about 6 switchbacks, kind of steep (about 800 feet of elevation gain over a little more than a mile), but it didn't have the finishing 200 meters at 20% like the Pack has so I got out of there mostly unscathed and feeling pretty good.



After a quick stop for some well needed caffine and my Oreos, I started on the best part of the ride, the last 25 miles on Blacksburg Rd which takes you back into Blacksburg (in case you didn't figure this out on your own). But it only takes you into Blacksburg if you don't deviate from the cue sheet the local bike shop provides you with.
This stretch of road was completely deserted, and I loved it. Over the first 10 miles I don't think I passed one car.
And the beauty of the area was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before (I keep saying that a lot). I could've used up all 10,000 terabytes on my memory card taking photos of everything I saw on this stretch.
Like the "orchard house" I someday want to live in (because there are no neighbors and I happen to like apples):



And this place, again, no neighbors, no problems:



And then out of the blue I saw a flash of yellow pull out onto the road.



One of the best things about cycling is you never know who you're going to meet when out on the road, but almost inevitably you're going to run into another cyclist somewhere along the way.
This guy's name was Robert, he was a local racer who races for a Big Team down here, I didn't catch the name, sounded like SOYLA, but I checked on USA Cycling and couldn't find the club.
Anyways, we had a great time chatting it up over the next 20 miles, everything from the local racing scene, to his dislike for nuts in ice cream and baked goods, so naturally we bonded and he told me to look him up next time I'm down here. The problem is he told me his last name, but I don't know how to spell it and can't find him on FB. If anyone recognizes him please let me know.



He told me to follow him back to Blacksburg, but i wanted to head in another direction to get some more photos, which in hindsight was a big mistake.
I caputued this one which is one of my favorites, just a stream in the middle of nowhere, but it must be somewhere because someone had recently cut the grass.



So riding along I thought I had a good idea of how to get back to my hotel (I'm a guy after all and we have a very keen sense of direction and an aversion to asking people for directions). I felt especially confident once I found Ellet Rd which I knew was a super steep climb that went right to Main St in Blacksburg.
I was right about it being super steep.
But wrong about where I thought it was going to come out (it sure wasn't Blacksburg).
Instand I eneded up in Cleatusville (which isn't really the name of the town, but it sounds good).
When I realized I was lost and extremely tired, I broke the number one rule of being a guy when I stopped into the local antique shop and asked for directions. The owner was busy with a customer, so instead I got her 93 year old mother who was a very nice woman by the way and invited me over for tea and crackers (uh thanks for the offer, but I really want to get back to my hotel for a beer and my leftover Pizza from "The Cellar" the night before).
I asked he if she knew the way back to Blacksburg and she stared at me with a blank look on her face before telling me "Well, tuh be perfuhtly honest with yah, I really doun't believe yah kin ahget thar from a hereh". WOW!, I knew I was off track but how he he^^ did I get transported from somewhere in Virginia 800 miles back to Maine?
Finally the owner came over shaking her head and set me straight, she basically said I had a pretty bad sense of direction (nice little dig, probably for not indulging her mother with the tea and crackers offer), that I was about 15 miles away from Blacksburg. She finally set me straight, telling me the way to get back to town.
Those last 15 miles were the worst, I basically ended up going through the business section of Blacksburg which is like riding along a double lane highway with large shopping centers on both sides of the road and people not paying any attention to the guy on the bike.

The final numbers:



This ride was special for several reasons. One of them being the beauty of the roads I was on. Another was it was great medicine to clear my head of all the not so great stuff I've been dealing with over the past several weeks. Meeting up with another rider and spending some 25 miles chatting about everything under the sun is one of the best surprises about riding a bike.
But mostly I think it was that I was riding my bike for all the reasons I originally got into riding. I love the training, the tuesday night hammer fests, and the occassional race.
But I much more enjoy just getting on the bike and pedaling effortlessly on beautiful roads where you feel like you're one with the bike and the environment around you, completely lost to everything else, riding along and just watching life unfold before you.
That to me is the best part of riding.
Thanks Blacksburg for a ride I'll never forget!

Cheers!

Tuesday 7/5/11

First off I’d like to thank Daren for offering me up all of the Torpedo IPAs stowed away in the Gear Works secret vault. This was especially nice of him since these were the same beers I gifted Noah for some work he did making my bikes right again this past weekend. “Just don’t drink the Coronas, those are mine”. Don't worry Daren, your yellow beers are safe from all who have access to the vault!
BTW - that refrigerator looks like some sort of lab experiment with all the green stuff you guys have growing in there. Maybe you can get Syracuse to clean it since he's got nothing better to do than tell everyone what a great ride he is.
(Just kidding Steve!)
I have to say though, that Torpedo was damn tasty, and the 2nd and 3rd ones were even better! Thanks Noah!
So what’s to say, I was nervous as hell driving down to the shop last night. Not for any other reason than I’ve been off the bike for 3 weeks and didn’t know how my fitness would hold up against the regulars on the Tuesday ride.
As I’ve noted before, and maybe it’s because I’m getting older and have a penchant for certain flavors on Ben and Jerry’s, this ride has gotten exceptionally fast and painful this year. And I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to hang on before getting spit out the back.
The only hope I had was all the fast guys (and girls) would be at the beach this week and only the old guys like myself would be out there riding a 17-18mph pace.
One thing was true about this, a lot of the fast guys were missing, including troublemakers Tom Stevens, his cat2 protégé Young Greg, and the rest of his teammates. I keep wanting him to bring Paul Curley out to the ride again so I can see how really slow I am. Paul rode with us once last year and it was a trip seeing him do his thing.
So Tom’s teammates were missing
And the girl on the tri bike was missing too.
Things were looking up.
But there were a lot of new faces in the parking lot, and most everyone was wearing different team jerseys, which is never a good sign unless they’re going on the A ride, which most of them weren’t.
And we had the Worcester contingent there including the guys with the Barney Cycling Kits. Those were really cool!




According to fearless ride leader (FRL), it was suppose to be a fairly flat route, but it really wasn’t.

I don’t have the exact stats, but it was something like this:
47 miles
Average: 20.3mph
So the ride time was somewhere in the neighborhood of 2:20.
And the climbing, according to Garmin was 2700 feet, but it seemed like a hell of a lot more, especially the climb from Holden into Princeton which seems like 2000 feet of elevation gain on that one stretch alone.

Pulled out of GW at 6:00.
It was hot.
It was humid.
This was going to hurt, of that I was sure.
We rolled up Hamilton to the lights on Rt. 12. Half the group made it through, the other half didn’t. FRL wanted to attack, but we blocked him in while we soft pedaled up Washington until we were all together.
Usually the warm up last until we turn onto Pleasant St. before the pace picks up. But last night it got real fast as soon as we hit Pond St. By the time we hit Pleasant we were rolling fast enough that I was having difficulty holding a conversation with all my bike riding friends I hadn’t seen in several weeks.
Oh well, the conversations would have to wait, right where the gradient picks up is where riders started attacking, going for those KOM points, but it’s not even a categorized climb so there are no KOM points. Nonetheless it didn’t stop the usual suspects from putting the hurt on the rest of the group, I hate it when I think I’m riding strong and then one by one the other riders are passing me to the summit of Sholan Farms.
At the farm the ride slowed, for a couple of seconds before the pace went back up as we rode to N. Row where we stopped to regroup.
N. Row is fun ever since it’s been repaved. But there were a lot of riders up front making me nervous by the way they were riding the double yellow, and sometimes going over it. I don’t know about everyone else, but have no interest in seeing who would win the Bike versus Car competition because I’m pretty sure I know the outcome and it’s not going to be pretty.
Once we got to the bottom of N. Row we rolled right onto Rt. 12, well most of us did – there were several riders who didn’t understand what “Go Right!” meant and stopped in the middle of the intersection and then when they realized their mistake tried to squeeze themselves back into the group.
So what’s up with the noobs? The juniors, one on a lime green bike, the other sporting a Livestrong kit, these kids were fast. And strong. But they had no skills whatsoever so they were reprimanded for their sins. They seemed to get the message, a little anyway, but they’re going to be a Tuesday Night project for the rest of the year, getting these guys to ride smarter.
Once on 12 the train got rolling. The best, and fastest stretch of road on most of our rides, pure pain and suffering trying to hold the wheel in front of you, and then when you’re on the front it becomes even more fun trying to pull the train without letting up on the gas.
Everything was working perfectly as we rolled through Sterling Center and past my personal favorite package store “House of a 1000 nips” (whoever came up with that name is a genius and should be working at Los Alamos Laboratories instead of bagging nips in Sterling), but you’ve gotta pull for the underachievers in life.
Once we got past the House of 1000 nips someone pulled off with a flat. Right in front of the 2 Sterling cops hanging out on Rt. 12 with nothing better to do than watch 40 cyclist hanging out waiting on a flat repair. I bring this up only because one of the same cruisers would be hanging out in the same spot on our return back to the shop.
On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again – it’s a Willie Nelson song, but it was what I was feeling after what seemed like a 20 minute flat change.
And then we were rolling again, this would be the one and only flat of the night.
Rt. 12 taking the right past the Stone Church we rode into West Boylston and then took the left that would lead us up to Rt. 31 in Holden.
This is where the carnage began – one by one riders were getting spit off the back as we made our way up the 3 or so miles to 31. And the sad part was knowing this wasn’t even going to be the difficult part of the evening.
We all made it to the store at 31, rehydrated before the lonnnnnnnnnnnng climb up 31 into Princeton.
It started easy enough, the guy in the Yellow Jersey went off the front a bit, but no worries, he wasn’t going far.
And then I bridged up to him and chatted a bit,.
And then I heard Dr. Natalie say something about how civil everyone was being.
So me and Yellow Jersey looked at each other and started to pick up the pace, but no one was biting, they were all staying back.
And then the hill starts.
And I heard the unmistakable sound of carbon wheels rocking back and forth on the pavement.
Me and Yellow Jersey – “This can’t be good, I guess the civility is over”, as it was. I lost track of how many riders effortlessly rode past me, making fun of the slow guy going backwards – I really need to spend more time training on hills instead of in front of the television.
The one good thing about that climb is it levels out in certain places, and in one place it even goes downhill for a bit, but that’s just cruel because then you have even more climbing to make it into the center of Princeton.
Once in Princeton center we regrouped. It was hotter than he^^ so I decided to ride for a bit with my jersey unzipped.
That was dumb.
I didn’t stop to think the next 4 miles down 62 are all downhill and average about 45mph the entire way,.
Once I realized my mistake I panicked as I tried to stay away from the group, but not too far off so I could get back on the train as I worked to get my jersey zipped.
Success! Managed to bridge up to the back of the group and sat in enjoying the 3-4 miles of downhill into Sterling where we crossed 140 and then took that right that brings us out to the airport and eventually Rt. 12.
So we come to 12, take a right, it’s déjà vu all over again.
Really, the same portion of road we rode and the same cop is still sitting there talking to the same guy in a truck an hour since we’d last passed him. I didn’t know if it was real or if I was having a flashback from the 70’s. But others saw it too so it must’ve been reality.
So the next 10 or so miles were uneventful, hurt ourselves climbing up Chase Hill.
And then there was Dr. Natalie complaining like she always does, this time about being shit on.
I get shit on all the time, but I don’t let it get to me.
But the doctor wasn’t talking figuratively, she literally got shit on – like she thought a bug flew into her helmet, but when she reach up to get it out it was all gooey and slimy when she realized some bird dung came down from up above and hit her square in the helmet.
It’s supposed to bring good luck, so maybe you’ll come into an extra 4 weeks of vacation time at work so you can actually have some fun this summer.
Ho hum, the ride went on as we crossed 62 and then went down the road with the “Do Not Enter” sign at the top, that was good fun, flying down this twisty hill at 30mph, I think we scared the runner coming up the hill, he sure as heck jumped out of the way when he saw the 30 bikes coming at him.
And then onto Langden at a nice easy pace, everyone saving themselves for the finishing sprint.
I toyed with the idea of contesting it.
But I didn’t have the legs to go all in, and if you can’t go all in you’re better off staying out of it because if you’re like me the only thing I ever think about is if I lose contact with the wheel in front of me I’m going to get yelled at in a major way for splitting up the group.
So as the speed picked up I stayed on the back for as long as I could, no pressure to hold a wheel to prevent a gap from opening.
And then the gap in front of me opened.
And that was my night.
Until I found Peter a little up the road.
And then Mike the mechanic hooked on and there were three of us riding in a nice even rotation, no pressure, 10 second pulls, the group up the road looked close enough to catch, and they weren’t working together, and for a moment in time I actually had visions of grandeur that we could pull back the breakaway and win the green jersey.
And then I woke up and remembered the juniors were up ahead and they weren’t going to be caught by 3 Masters.
Hopefully the weather will continue to be nice and we can get a couple more 40 mile rides in before the days begin growing shorter, which of course they already are, but I’m not going to think about that for now.

Tuesday 5/10

Here’s a clue for you all (and no, it’s not “The Walrus was Paul”).
The Tuesday night B ride is not a training ride for all you racers or racer wannabees.
That’s the A ride.
(yes, I know I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone).
And things tend to work better in a group ride if the fast guys don’t spend all night at the front setting a pace that not everyone in the group can maintain (yes, I’ve been guilty of this as well). There’s something wrong with the pace when long time riders who are fit are getting dropped out of sight from the rest of the group because of the testosterone up front.
Again, A ride.
One more helpful hint to make things more efficient and less stoppage. Short pulls (< two minutes at the front), pull off to your left, let the group pass by, latch onto the back, rinse and repeat.
Again, short pulls, pull off to your left, let the group pass you by, latch onto the back, again and again and again.
If you get stuck behind someone's behind you don't particulary care for, physically or olfactory, then pull off, fall to the back again until you find the right ass for you. I know you all want to ride behind ME, but there's only one of me to go around, so you'll have to work it out amoung the pelaton who the lucky rider is. Maybe you can take turns each week, I don't care as long as it isn't Daren, he worries me with that pink saddle of his.

Anyway, the epiphany came to me last night (after almost 2 years of trying to make this ride as fast as possible), that’s it’s a group ride, not a race.
I don’t know why it took me so long to get it.
I suppose I'll start treating it like a group ride and help those in the back instead of going for the tuesday night hero status.
The stats I have from last nights ride (from another rider):
34.7 miles
102 minutes or thereabout.
20.1 average (felt faster)

Things started out bad and got worse.
I was on the front going up Prospect St. It’s usually Big Dave’s job to set the pace going up this street but he wasn't there so I was left to do his job and I had no clue what I was doing but I was apparently going too fast and drop one or two before the top of the hill.
Mea Culpa.
I think we pulled it back together when we got to the golf center, and again as we turned onto 70.
You all know Tattoo Dave, well we had Cat2 Greg (get it? Tattoo, Cat2? Clever, huh?) on last night’s ride giving us great entertainment as we were all struggling to keep our HR out of the red while he was cracking Cat 2 jokes for the 4 miles to Rt. 117. Unfortunately he’s non stop and my brain can only retain so much, I forgot most of what he said.
The one I did remember was “Surges in the pace are the price we pay for other’s mistakes”.
How apropos for last night’s ride.
Rode down 117 to Langden and then a left leading across 70.
I think we’re missing a rider or 2.
Regroup, head over towards the 6 corners, take a left on 110 and head out towards Bolton, staying right at the fork and heading up to the high school. I hate this route, it’s not terribly long, but it gets tough once we come up on the ball park and gets worse all the way to the top at 117.
When we reached 117 is where I realized things weren’t working well.
And I knew they weren’t going to get better as we headed towards Harvard.
And they didn’t.
Decision time, try and hang on with the fast guys, or fall off and help those who’ve fallen off.
I chose option B. Let the rest of the group continue their pseudo A ride.
Worked in the back as we climbed up into Harvard.
Mike slowed up and waited to join.
We rode to the intersection of Green and Harvard where the group was waiting.
Before riding off again.
Regrouped again in Harvard.
Before the group rode off again.
Regrouped at 110, turned and headed toward the rotary and then off to Devens.
This is what confused me most about last night.
We were together (at least I think we were). It was flat. I think we had a tail wind.
And we were going slow all the way into Devens before taking the left onto Patton Rd heading by the golf course.
Things got heated up a little bit going up one of the hills before regrouping and then heading towards Shirley.
Regrouped again in Shirley and then the entire group rode right and headed towards Keating.
Some attacks on the hill up to Keating, I think Billy Baggins took the sprint points on that one.
Cat2 Greg let it go, biding his time, and then somewhere around Powell he whispered in my ear “this is how it’s done”, the attack was launched and he was gone and I was left wiping Cat2 Greg’s spit off my ear.
Rode back to the shop.
The consensus in the parking lot was the ride sucked.
Maybe things will go better with more riders.

Tuesday 5/3

Another Tuesday night ride, another Tuesday night without any sleep.
For whatever reason I can’t get the HR back down after the ride.
No matter how many beers and benzodiazepines I take after the ride I can't get to sleep.
Maybe some yoga.
Or maybe another valium!
Wednesdays are beginning to be a very unproductive work day for me, and the season has just started. Hopefully this problem goes away.
Or maybe I can work at the shop every wednesday and take power naps in Daren’s new office.

Tuesday night and there were lots of rumors and accusations flying throughout the Peloton.
An anonymous source was cited as claiming one of the riders in the group was doping. At this time it’s nothing more than an unsubstantiated rumor, but said rider was pulling like a beast all night long. I’m not at liberty to drop names until the A and B samples come back from the lab, but the story will eventually come out in Velonews. But I can say HE riders a red Specialized S-Works, a red Bicycle Stop cycling kit (Michigan City Indiana), and sports a nice pair of white Mavic cycling shoes.
I was able to get a short rebuttal from the said doper and he told me it’s nothing more than jealously from the French riders and in the end he will be exonerated of all charges.
And I believe him.

The other talk flying around the Peloton was around Daren’s pink saddle. Would any self respecting member of the male species really ride a pink (of as Andi said, more of a fuchsia color).
Regardless, there was a lot of speculation about a man that rides a pink/ fuchsia saddle.
I checked the ultimate source of all information (Wikipedia) and I think I found the answer,
Metrosexual:
The term originated in an article by Mark Simpson[2] published on November 15, 1994, in The Independent. Simpson wrote:
Metrosexual man, a young straight man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city (because a bustling metropolis like Fitchburg is where all the best clothing and barber shops are), is perhaps the most promising consumer market of the decade. In the Eighties and Nineties he was only to be found inside fashion magazines such as GQ and Vogue, in television advertisements for Levi's jeans or in gay bars. In the 2000’s, he’s everywhere and he’s going shopping for everything from pink/ fuchsia bike saddles to a pair of fine Italian tasseled loafers, to the best Dominican barber shops for that perfectly coiffed hair cut.
Oh well, you gotta give a guy credit for having the fortitude to ride a pink/fuchsia saddle on the Tuesday night ride. (Yeah, I know, it was a Fiz:k demo saddle – the guy gets to demo all the best stuff, but I’m next on the list to demo those Profile Design aero wheels he’s been rolling on for the last couple of weeks).
But enough about Daren, onto the ride!
So my Garmin crapped the bed and I needed to rely on John C’s and Tyler’s numbers for the ride numbers.
Miles: 37.5
Avg. Speed 20.5
So that would make our time somewhere around 110 minutes, or 1:50.

Daren picked the perfect route for our ride. I call it going around the reservoir backwards, since most of my rides around the reservoir go the opposite direction.
So we headed out of the shop, about a 15 minute warm-up before we hit the climb up Pleasant St. It wasn’t so bad at the bottom, and for a couple of minutes I actually had this delusion that my fitness was better than I though.
And then the climb kept going.
And going.
And going.
And then it gets a little steeper.
I wanted the king of the mountain points, but there were 2 riders well up the road. Nonetheless I had hopes of bagging points for 3rd place.
I was paying attention to shadows, especially the one looming just behind me.
I couldn’t look back to see who it was lest the person think I was giving him “The Look”, but I don’t have all the advantages Lance had when he was racing and I didn’t want to embarrass myself so I just watched the shadow get larger and larger.
Push it harder if you want the points, but I couldn’t, all I could feel was the lights going out.
And then it happened, the shadow moved up next to me.
And then past me.
And then up the road finishing the climb a good 10 bike lengths ahead of me.
Nice work John C.
At the Farm Natalie asked if she was just out of shape, or if it was exceptionally hard last night.
It was hard!

We regrouped at the top of N. Row.
And then we headed down N. Row.
All I can say is anyone doing the Sterling RR this weekend is in for a treat. Apparently Sterling got some Stimulus Money to fix that road. After 5 years of suffering the 3-4 mile stretch of bad pavement, it was like a dream (more like one of those Raquel Welch/ Charlie’s Angels dreams I had as a kid…. BTW, Cheryl Ladd, not Farrah was the best Angel). That road was smooth and FAST!
And where I had my first nit of the night with Billy (Frodo) Baggins – he was up the road in between myself and the 2 guys off the front. I was able to bridge up to Frodo, completely out of gas hoping to work with him to bridge up to the other 2 riders, as soon as I got within a bike length of him Frodo decides to drill it and drop me!
Dude, if you’re racing Sterling this weekend, do yourself a favor and take some help bridging up to the guys up the road. It’s easier if you have help than to try going it alone.
There are guys who go it alone (read Fabian Cancellara).
And then there’s the rest of us.
Nuff said.

No stopping as we turned onto Rt. 12.
Edit: (I thought we were all together, but Charlie later told me there was a group that fell slightly off and once you’re slightly off you’re all the way off - sorry!)
Daren noticed things were about to break up when some of the riders fell slightly off. He encouraged them not to fall off, but once a small gap opens on that stretch of 12 it’s very difficult to close it down.
Adding to the breakage was a mechanical where one rider lost his light (I think) and some riders stopped to help him find it.
So it was a group of about 10, I’d like to say we were all taking our turns at the front, but truth be told Tom Stevens was the locomotive pulling the train for 3-5 minutes at a time.
Other’s took their turns.
And then the alleged doper was at the front….. drilling it.
I was behind him, I enjoyed the shelter much more than I do riding behind Nat, Daren and a couple of others who can make themselves real small. But Ed (ooops, I wasn’t supposed to leak names) was killing it. And I was suffering like hell trying to hold on.
Ed bailed at the bottom of the Rt. 12 hill, but no matter his job was done pulling us up to it.
And then I was on the front.
I wanted the KOM points I missed on Pleasant St.
I needed a distraction from the pain of the lactate acid, burning lungs and the heart attack I could feel coming on. And this isn’t even a real hill, but it is where the attacks come on fast and furious.
So as a distraction I started counting frost heaves.
I could do this.
1, 2, 5, 7 frost heaves.
Getting closer to the top, but there was still a long way to go.
I think I made it ½ way to the top.
And then 1, 2, 5, 7 riders swallowed me up and spit me out the back like I was sitting still.
Oh well no KOM jersey for me, time to sit up and conserve the energy before the regroup at the West Boylston package store.
After the regroup things calmed down, a little bit, as we headed up 12 to 140 before making our way towards Boylston.
Everything was going well.
I made it over the bad RR tracks without having to walk my bike over them.
Faster and faster as we had the slight downhill and a wicked tail wind leading to the town line, it was awesome!
And then it suddenly came to an end.
“Flat!”
Damn!
Turned back, rider EC was already checking Folsom’s wheel while Folsom was picking through his saddle bag for the tools to fix it. Mike the mechanic holding the bike giving the tips he’s learned over the years, Duncan trying to get some air into the tube with his frame pump, but I think Duncan might want to purchase a new pump, that thing has seen it’s better days. Ed took over, blew some air into the tube, got it on the rim, a quick check and everything seemed to be in order.
And then we were off where we met the group at the base of 70.
Once we rolled out, as Natalie predicted back in Sterling, things were going to get real fast on the other side of the pond when we’d have a tail wind to push us along, and as sure as the sun rises in the east things got really fast to the point where I think we set a Tuesday night time record making it from one end of 70 all the way to the meet up point in Clinton.
There was a point when things were getting really heated – riders hanging on by a thread as the strong guys (Re’ Davis, Tom and Ed) set the pace, but our group of about 5 or 6 were still together.
And then an unnamed rider on a blue and silver Trek 2300 committed the cardinal sin of letting a gap open without giving notice to the rider behind him that he was going to drop.
Fortunately the group leader was paying attention. But it was too late, the leaders were about to drop the rest of us.
Or were they?
The ride leader was obviously perturbed at this rookie mistake. To put it another way he was pissed.
I was in world of pain watching this unfold when suddenly the voices of Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwin began going through my head,
“I can’t believe it Paul, never before do I recall ever seen a rider turn the pedals in such anger”
“Phil, you’re absolutely right, the team leader is obviously not happy over the gap that’s opened up in front of him, I think he just called the rider an f’en something or other as he blew by him. It’s almost as if he’s trying his hardest to rip the cranks right off his bike”
“Right you are Paul, this has to be the most amazing demonstration of pure power I think I have ever seen. And as you well know I’ve seen it all, having been around this sport since Major Taylor was winning track races back in the 20’s.
“Yes Phil, I think everyone would agree that you are just about the oldest person alive today”
“But enough about my age, what this rider just did was truly remarkable, perhaps one of the strongest moves I’ve ever seen in my 87 years of covering this sport – he completely shut that gap down and pulled the riders behind him right up to the lead group.
And so on and so on, Phil and Paul are like a bad song, once they get in my head I can’t get them out. And thanks to Daren’s hard work our group was able to stay together all the way to the meet up in Clinton.

After regrouping, the hero of the B Ride decided to go down Clinton Main St. to the 8 corners in Lancaster.
It seemed like a good idea.
But really it wasn’t.
It’s spring and they were draining every fire hydrant on Main St.
All I could think of was why did I take those fenders off?
Big Dave was the smart one, riding up front and staying dry (and clean).
The rest of us got showered.
And to think I just washed my kit this weekend. And I was especially proud of how white my PI Arm Warmers came out.
Now I’m going to have to rewash the kit for the second time in a week.
Everything calmed down as we headed to rt. 70 in Lancaster.
We all knew what was coming up.
I’m pretty sure things were together as we took the right onto 70.
The pace was manageable.
For about the first mile.
And then it picked up.
And finally someone made the move and it was game on.
The paceline formed and we were off.
Faster and faster, and for the first time since I can remember we actually had what felt like a tailwind.
One by one riders took their turn on the front.
And then the Bicycle Ally rider was in front of me, going down the dip in the road before the uphill.
He flicked off at the bottom.
I was pissed – “don’t bail at the bottom!”
And then he schooled me.
“But you have the momentum and the fresh legs to keep the pace going.
Lesson learned – flicking off at the bottom of a hill isn’t always a bad thing when you have riders behind you.
It was actually easy keeping the pace on the up hill..
Bailed off shortly after the top and then let the group do their work, watched the riders pass me (of course Charlie was right in the middle of all the action, I still don’t know how he does it, he tries having me believe he’s still trying to get his form back, but he’s already there).
I caught the last rider and latched back on to the back.
Somewhere along the way I ended up back on the front.
With a problem.
There was a lone rider (maybe another victim of the A Ride) and I didn’t know whether to go left or right, I stressed too much about what to do and forgot to signal the riders behind me and completely messed things up.
Fortunately we all managed to recover from my mistake and the paceline reformed as we ended the Rt. 70 sprint in a bunch finish.
The ride kept going pretty hard, there were a couple riders off the front, they made the light at the shopping center.
I was never so glad to catch the red light. Several of us waited and recovered before those last two climbs up to Prospect St. Those 2 little hills always seem to hurt the most.
Everyone taking flyers down Prospect St.
And before we knew what happened, we found ourselves with the A ride. Unbelievable, we managed to chase down the A ride!
It didn’t matter that they had 5 extra miles on us.

All in all another great night of riding.

*I forgot to mention Duncan was back on the ride and riding out in the wind as strong as ever. I learned from him that it’s his training technique, getting stronger by not drafting. And the steel framed Huffy is looking as good as ever.
**and to set the record straight on the guy riding the red Specialized, the doping comments were all in jest – it appears you’ve been doing a lot of hard work during the off season. Rider of the night award!!!!

Tuesday night 4/25/11

My first Tuesday night ride of 2011. It was fun.
Until we hit Shirley Center, I rode up to the front group of 4, we went right while everyone else went left.
It was all good though, finishing the last 6 miles of the ride with the crème de la crème of the group including Peter C, Mike the Mechanic, and Big Dave.
It wasn’t until we hit the base of the hill leading up to Keating, when there was no attack group behind us, that we realized our mistake.
Nonetheless without the rest of the group to slow us down we were free to do our own thing which including drilling it at an average speed of 35mph all the way from Shirley Center back to the shop.
And not only is Mike the best mechanic at Gear Works, he’s also the fastest rider from the shop as well.
He was a beast riding an aluminum Specialized with what looked like 32 spoke wheels (at 35mph it's really difficult to count the number of spokes on a wheel), he spent his time in the drops drilling it on the front, reminding me of Fabian Cancellara powering the pedals into Roubaix, for several miles he did all the work helping us to hold our 35mph pace, the 3 of us behind him were dying a slow death trying our best to hold his wheel.
Seriously, we were going so fast that it was actually getting lighter out as we were catching the setting sun heading west back to the shop.
At the pace we were riding there was a good chance we were going to end the ride in a different time zone.
Alas the pace finally slowed to a manageable 32mph as we began the climb towards Keating and then up the hill to Prospect.
Thankfully the suffering finally ended when we crested the top of the hill leading to the downhill of Prospect where we hit a top speed of 53mph flying to the lights at 13.
It was quite incredible actually, more fun than Tyler had on the A ride, that’s for sure.
Mike’s the man, hope to see more of him on future rides.

So that’s how things ended. Here’s the rest of the story.
Here are the stats from my crummy 5 year old Cateye Computer. Next week I’ll have one of those fancy Garmin Edge 500s so the data will be much more accurate, and I can shut it off when we slow pedal waiting for those who get stuck at the intersection of Hamilton and Rt. 13 (more on that later).
Distance: 32.91
Time: 1:39
Average speed: 19.9
*I took off the data from the last 6 miles of the ride so it wouldn’t screw up everyone else’s numbers.

It was a perfect night for a ride, partly sunny with game time temperatures near 70.
Nice to see a lot of familiar faces as well as some new ones.
The call up for the A ride surprised me, it’s definitely grown since last year, lots of OP guys, Bicycle Ally kits, several unknown kits and a couple of unattached riders.
Oh yeah, and Rwanda (Tyler).
Dude, let me ask you a question. What the hell were you thinking? The B ride is bad enough, but the A ride is a take no prisoners kind of ride where they intentionally try and hurt each other, inflict as much pain as possible, and then spit the weak out the back leaving them for dead. Survival of the fittest and all. I’ve even heard rumors of riders spontaneously combusting on a couple of the climbs through Princeton.
But you would’ve never had known the fun you were missing unless you gave it a go.
Good job!

And for the rest of us, which was about 20 riders, here’s how it went down.

Rolled right out of the parking lot and headed towards Rt. 13. For once the light was green, well it was green when we were coming up on the fire station, we’d have to ride quick if we wanted to make it.
But just as the group was hitting the light it went from yellow to red, no worries, in situations such as this the peloton has the right of way much the same way a funeral procession has a right of way.
And to prove my point I’ve attached the section of Massachusetts General Law pertaining to Group Bicycle Rides:

(c)(1) Except as provided in paragraph (4) of this subsection, pedestrians and operators of all vehicles shall yield the right-of-way to any bicycle which is part of a group bicycle ride being led by a group ride leader or a group lead bicycle.
(2) Whenever the group ride escort bicycle or group lead bicycle in a bicycle group ride lawfully enters an intersection, either by reason of a traffic control device or at the direction of law enforcement personnel, the remaining cyclists as part of the ride may continue to follow the groups fearless leader through the intersection despite any traffic control device, general law or ordinance to the contrary relative to right-of-way, if the operator of each bicycle exercises reasonable care toward other vehicles and any pedestrians on the roadway.

So there it is, keep this in mind the next time we approach a red light or stop sign or anything else that might slow our average MPH down. We have the right of way anywhere and everywhere as long as we exercise reasonable care as defined by the group leader.
As we rode up Prospect St. I became painfully aware that I secretly lust over stuff that other riders have, namely a set of decent aero wheels and a device to measure my power.
I think Daren rides new gear like the Profile Design aero wheels he was sporting last night to plant subliminal thoughts into my brain that I need to buy more.
And sadly it works.
And then the not so subtle attempts to sell me Natalie's powermeter and head unit.
He's always selling, bike stuff, cars, watches, if you want it he's got it.

The plan was to do the Fruitlands loop, so we took the usual roads over past the shopping center (the one red light we’re allowed to blow through), past OH, down to Mechanic Street and onto 70.
Once on 70 a paceline was formed – things worked well over the next 4 miles, the pace was brisk and I don’t believe anyone was dropped when we got to 117.
From there a right onto 117 and then a left onto Langden. Another paceline was formed, I was 3rd behind Natalie who was riding like she hadn’t missed a workout since her surgery.
I pulled for a bit before letting the guy in yellow leaders jersey took over. Sorry I don’t remember the name, but last year he rode a brown Gamache kit and was really fast (still is). Riding next to him I realized he must’ve spent a lot of his off season in the gym because the guy had bigger arms and quads than myself, his kit must’ve had reinforced stitching keeping it from splitting up the sides. A good guy, I’m not looking forward to seeing his sprint when he gets really fast later in the season.
Okay, enough ball busting, Noah wasn’t on the ride so I can’t bust on him, and neither was Chet so I can’t bust on him about his oversized vanity mirror hanging off his handlebar. But there’ll be time for that later in the season.
Over and across Rt 70 we headed for the 8 corners. They’re supposed to reconfigure that intersection sometime this year, hopefully they’ll make it safer for us to get through, it can’t get any worse actually.
And then things got cranked up again as we headed down 110 towards Bolton.
There was a group of several riders up the road so I did a 2 minute interval bridging up to them and then everyone behind was quickly on the train.
Across 117 we rode, Brandt kept things at a 21-23mph pace as we headed towards Harvard.
Natalie took another pull, still looking strong, and then I had my turn as the hills started coming.
I’m not sure because I don’t have a big honking mirror like Chet, but I think the ride started to split up around this point. I can understand how, it gets pretty painful grinding it up a lot of the hills leading closer to Fruitlands.
I don’t remember everyone, Brandt, John C, Paul, and a couple others of us were on Daren’s wheel as he led us to the last hard climb up to Fruitlands. He was going pretty good until he hit the base of the hill and bailed on us.
Yeah, I yelled at him.
And one by one we arrived at the last hard climb of the night (I don’t know about everyone else, but at the beginning of the ride I wanted a route with more hills, but after the climb up to Fruitlands I had had my fill).
Rode down to the intersection of 110 or 111, I always get confused. We regrouped down at the intersection and then headed towards Harvard and Ayer, Andi was at the front taking a long strong pull most of the way to the rotary.
Once we hit the rotary we decided to head towards Devens.
I started getting cold, as good a time any to pull the shell out of my back pocket and put it on.
No problem, I’ve done it a hundred times. I can do it blindfolded and still ride a paceline.
Pull it out, hold the sleeve and give it a flick and the hole shell unfolds, slip it on and voila, all’s good.
Except on a Tuesday night ride where you have an audience and the damn thing doesn’t unfold, and you have to fight to get it to unfold, but it’s not cooperating. And I’m trying to hold on to the train in front of me as I continue to fight with it, and then I start losing the wheel in front of me and have to grab my handlebars and the jacket finds it’s way into my spokes, fortunately I was able to pull it out before it ended up in my rear cassette.
Sometime later I was able to sit up and finally get the thing straightened out and managed to get it on.
And as soon as I did, as smooth as silk Brandt pulls his vest out of his back pocket and slips it on like one of the riders on the pro tour.
Four of us, Daren, Brandt, Darrin and myself ended up waiting for the guy in the CSC kit to catch back on.
But he wasn’t showing, don’t know if he got lost, but after about 5 minutes of waiting we pulled out.
We met the rest of the group in Shirley Center including Mr. CSC who found his own way to the intersection.
Once we regrouped we began the trek home.
I jumped up to Peter, Mike and Big Dave.
The end of the ride is at the beginning of the report.
Maybe someone else can fill us in on the rest of the ride we missed.

The Gearworks Tuesday night rides for 2011.

The Gearworks Tuesday night rides for 2011 kicked off last night.

As I’m driving to the gym all kinds of images flash by as I anticipate the start of these rides for 2011. Will I be able to hang on, get dropped, be on the rivet the whole way or have a mechanical? Did I remember to bring everything, helmet, shoes, socks, gloves, spare tubes and so forth? Maybe I should have a check list, ya think!

As I rolled out of the gym parking lot it was cloudy with a light Northeast wind and the temperature was around 59F.

About 26 riders were just about ready for launch at 6pm. This broke down to 18 riders for the “A” ride and 8 riders for the “B” ride. This was a first for me since I have been attending these rides. The “A” groups was bigger than the “B” group. My guess is a lot of folks did some serious training over the winter to graduate up the “A” ride.

Once again this year Daren provided guide service for the “B” ride. He indicated that there was only about 1.5 hours of daylight left so the ride would be a little shorter so that we could get back safely with a little light left. We could add a few miles onto the ride if rolled right along and did not have any mechanicals. Eight of us headed out over to Route 70 in Lancaster. A little regrouping at the end of Goss Lane then of we went into Sterling Junction. At this point Daren decided we could add a bit on so we went over by Sterling Airport. Then we went on some hilly back roads over in West Sterling (again some regrouping) that brought us out onto Pleasant Street. A long decent down Pleasant on into Leominster Center and back to the shop.

Daren did a nice job guiding us around and keeping the group together. We did 28 miles in 1:31 @18mph (stats from Big Dave’s computer. Very nice ride for the first one this year.

Saturday ride’s start this Saturday April 16th at 9am.

So naturally there we items I forgot. Food for the ride, chest strap for my heart rate monitor, shower flip flops, soap, shampoo. Should have made that check list!