Sunday, July 19, 2009

Springs Sat Training Ride: Part Deux

A week into my Colorado life, making the ride in downtown Colorado Springs less fraught with anxiety and anticipation; I knew what was coming.  Knowing where I was going and where to park was also reassuring.  Less comforting was the tread on my rear tire.  Unloading the bike, I noticed the Gatorskin I glued the day before the Quad Cities criterium on Memorial Day was finally showing some threads.  Not bad service, I just hoped it would last the ride.

Cruising past the Starbucks on Tejon, no riders are there yet: 9:50am.  Looks like the 10am start is an approximation. 

The ride starts easy as it heads east.  We navigate the city streets, stopping for stop lights and moving in and out of the traffic.  A couple of small climbs before we turn south and hit race pace.  There are a number of new riders this week: a couple of professional women with aussie accents, a Kelly Benefits rider, a fellow from the Ride Clean squad and the usual squadron of Air Force team guys.

We hit the turn south.  There’s a stiff headwind and I’ve been telling myself just to hang in there.  The legs don’t feel that great and my head feels like it’s covered in gauze, perhaps the afterglow of the margueritas I had last night at Christi’s?  But I’m up in the first six and driving the pace, taking my turn.  The road has a slight downhill pitch and the wind takes care of any sweat. 

New today: a recumbent blasts by, probably about 32mph.  The big sprinter in green kit tries to keep the wheel, but there’s no draft and it’s like pulling on your own.  Our pace settles in at about 29mph and we pick up the recumbent on a slight incline.  I move over to the inside position, and soon the recumbent sweeps backward through the group, taking the riders sandwiched against the road’s edge with him.  Soon he’s back, coming past fast on the outside.  We learn to leave him to do his thing.

The first hill sprint comes and I stay in the front of the first group this time, pleased that my acclimation to the altitude is coming along.  A tiny girl from the AWB team with that funny accent is right there as well and the big green sprinter is pipped at the line by a smaller rider who comes by in his wake.

I call off the second sprint; it comes right after the nasty railroad crossing and I don’t want to hit the rocks too fast with my dicey rear tread.  Half the group takes off and I do an easy pace.  We’ll meet up when they do the turn-around.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Sunday is for riding

“meet at Vindicator and Centennial, just north of the Walgreens.”  so said the email from Ed King this week, organizer of a local ride near Ute Park and fellow poster on Roadbikereview.com.  A twelve mile ride down from our friends’ home across the interstate from the Air Force Academy, passing through suburban, urban and beautiful red rock country, led me to the Walgreen’s parking lot.

A bit early.  Forty five minutes early.  A ubiquitous Starbucks beckoned at the end of Allegheny Rd and a tall skinny late later, I was only twenty minutes early, but feeling much better about it.  A Toyota Land Cruiser rolls into the parking lot with a Merlin attached.  I go over to say ‘hi’ and meet Carl, who helps folks visualize their mountain cabin dreams by rendering said dreams on the computer, complete with virtual walk-through rooms.  I ask if there was a way to render the reality of forest fires in his mockups and he laughs, ‘Don’t think that would sell well with the vendors.’ 

Soon a group of eight riders has gathered.  Dominic and Elaine own a local restaurant that has been written up in Zagat’s guides; Eric owns a furniture store that having a going out of business sale, ‘couldn’t resist selling the building’; Amy is a DoD contracter and an avid cyclist with a good sense of humor.  Eric and I chat as we head south and asks how I’m adapting to the elevation.  ‘Fine except for the climbs.’  He asks if he can call me Thor and soon we’re heading out to do some climbs.

The sign for Seven Falls says that it is three miles away, but twenty minutes down, or actually up, the road, I know this is a lie.  There isn’t any Seven Falls; there’s just this road that keeps ascending.  Alternating thrusts of 12 percent then 7 percent, then 14 percent, prevent a rhythm from developing.  It’s just about staring at the road a few feet in front of the wheel.  I glance at the wattage numbers and we’re staying constant in the upper 300’s, sometimes jumping to 500 on a steep ramp, or sprinting up to 6 mph to get around a dead deer that is only half there (the other half in the belly of a mountain lion) but smells like a herd of dead deer.

It’s just Dominic and I suffering together.  Eric is up the road a few hundred feet and I try to cross up to him, but succeed in only burning that last match.  A cool rock beckons and I totter over to it to get my breath.  Twenty minutes later, Dominic is a few hundred feet away and I get back on the bike to catch him.  We’re near the top and Eric is coming back down.  Screw it, I turn the bike and pull up with him and we hurtle down the narrow road, between the red rocks, the creek and probably under the gaze of some very stuffed mountain lion.

Later I ask Carl if the Seven Falls climb was a regular feature of their rides.  ‘No,’ he says, ‘we’ve never ridden up there.’ 

Thanks a lot for that Eric!

Sunday, July 12, 2009

A Saturday morning ride

I was as nervous coming to my first training ride in Colorado Springs as I’ll be meeting my first UCCS class on Monday.  Was I fit enough, would the altitude be too much for me, and, most critically, would I fit in?  In the end, I share the same anxieties about finding friends, fitting in with the group and being accepted as my ten year old. 

The old stoic, Epictetus, comes to my aid.  “Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.” 

That, and a couple shots of espresso, and I’m good to go.

We meet at the Starbucks on Tejon, in downtown Colorado Springs.  I decide that the goal of the ride is to not get dropped, and if that is not a worry, to stay near the front.  A group of about 35 riders pedals off at 10:15 and I also make a note to find a good wheel.  Two guys I talk to before the ride starts are likely candidates.  Steve is a retired Air Force vet now doing Christian ministry and doesn’t have more than a few grams of fat on him.  Wiry with chiseled features and a good smile (I make a special note to avoid religion at all costs).  The other fellow is also new to ride but is the new Air Force team’s coach and is a Cat 1 rider from New Mexico.  His wheel does turn out to be the one to follow.

Now, hours later, other riders also come to mind.  A surly guy, built like myself, a nice woman, rail thin, a rider dressed in dark blue US Postal kit and a camelback strapped on (mental note to avoid).  We sort ourselves into a peloton and navigate the city streets of the Springs, heading east.  The pace is easy for the first 8 miles or so, until we turn south and suddenly I’m sprinting out of the turn to close a gap. 

The group strings out into a long paceline and I move up through the pack to take one of the front wheels.  I don’t know where we’re going, so I can’t be on the front, but I can be upfront and avoid the riders falling off the back.  We’re cruising along at a constant 29 mph with surges into the low 30’s, but I’m pleased that I’m breathing well and not under too much stress.  We’re in the flats and I feel like I’ve got power to spare yet.  The first spring comes about twenty miles in.  It’s up a hill and I get the first hint that I’m not 100 percent when I’m winded half way up.  I gapped the field, can’t hold it and fade right through to the back chasing on with the other slow guys.

We head south to another sprint and then back track north to Ft. Carson, cross it (bring your ID) and head north back towards the Springs.  The group splits and I opt to take the flatter route to town and finish with about 55 miles in.  Good miles and the body feels stressed.  One of the guys slaps me on the back and says I rode well today.  ‘How long have you been in Colorado?’

‘One day.’

‘Shit, you’re going to kick our asses in two months.’  Probably not, but I would like to do better in those sprints…

Thursday, July 09, 2009

No longer an Iowan: Day 1

Kearney, Nebraska: Just past Grandpa’s Steakhouse, across I-80, W Road heads west along the Platte River.

To say it’s flat here is an understatement.  After a quick twist in the road, W continues to the horizon, a lean, smooth ribbon slicing through endless green fields of green corn stalks, a testament to American monoculture.  Most of the world’s religions seem to have grown from flat, featureless landscapes like this.  Will the next be some type of corn worshiper sect?  These random thoughts flit in and out of my head, with nothing outside of myself pushing in, everything is leaking out.

Yesterday was an emotional day.  Packing the house, moving a lifetime of things onto an auctioneer’s moving van, layers of our life together peeling away.  After loading a sink we never installed, the planer and table saw that helped rebuild our old farm house and sorting through the detritus of our honey business, it didn’t take much to let hot tears stream down.  What it took was seeing my ten year old son cry as I prepared to hit the road.  How did I help create this being who loves me so much?  He fought to hold back the emotion, struggling to be manly, to be brave, and it all occurred to me at once, a strange combination of leaving, loss and the promise of something new, yet unknown.  I cried till my eyes hurt.

The wind is from the south and, at 32 minutes I turn around on a non-descript point on the infinite line that is W Road.  I’ve climbed 42 feet in 9 miles.  Half of that must have been the overpass.  My legs are gummy; I can feel the blood pushing through the muscles stiff from sitting yesterday in a Japanese car seat, and it’s uncomfortable.  A couple of sprints (but where is the sprint point?) and the feeling goes away for awhile.

Tuesday, Janet and I rode as a couple on the Tuesday morning ride for the last time.  Amidst the green waste I ride through, it occurs to me that a good friend is someone I can disagree with openly without feeling a threat to our friendship.  I haven’t met many folks like that in my life; we tend to gravitate towards people we are unlikely to have disagreement.  I’ve made some real friends on my rides with the local club…

And the ride ends and it’s time to reload.  Four bikes on the roof, loads of boxes stuffed in the car and a crucial box of wine from France, stuff we’re saving…