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.
Hiatus
11 years ago
