1 weekend, 2 types of cycling

1) Oh the humanity--Group Riding

I ride with Critracer and SMCC on Saturdays when I am in Maine which thankfully will be full time. Saturday was my first group ride of the year and I had about 150 miles on the bike prior to this. I knew this wasn't enough of a base but apparently I like getting my ass handed to me.

This is the ride where I am the fat guy doing a fairly good imitation of a cyclist until the group decides to climb.

This is how these rides generally go: work my way to the front on the flats fall to the back going up hill and then coast by everyone downhill knowing there must be another hill to climb soon.

It was a small group as we headed out Commercial Street towards the bridge to South Portland. I felt ok and caught a break in traffic as we took the left off of Broadway up the hill towards Highland Ave. Yup I was in the front when the hill started and at the back when it ended.

Cruising down Highland I quickly realized that this was a disorganized ride and although I worked hard to move up I kept getting yo yo'ed by stronger riders who didn't seem to care the draft was my friend and frankly my only hope.

I hung in there though and when we turned onto Blackpoint I was doing pretty well. As we headed toward the hill to the fire station I realized that Blackpoint might be my Blackout or my Pukeout. I was at the back so I coasted down Blackpoint and pulled over and puked. Perhaps I was working too hard? Hmmm let me think here...heart beating out of chest, stars in eyes, puke on ground. Yup working just a tad too hard.

The ride back was fairly uneventful as I took off early assuming the pack would drag me back but according to Critracer they were still very disorganized and my 10 minute head start was enough to keep me out front so I decided to stop at Key Bank and wait so I could once again get my ass handed to me on Shore Road. Good times.

Footnote:
Another example of karma or this simply physics? I am currently riding at about 215 and the lightest I have ever been with this group is 195. The average weight of the guys in the group is around 150 pounds. Most of these guy can shop in the junior miss section or as Critracer says they wear extra-medium. Trust me, these guys are built more like figure skaters than football players. Gravity is like karma....it is ultimately fair so I use it to my advantage when I can which is only descending

I also walked 18 holes that afternoon which was great until about the 14th hole.


2) Towing the homeys

I did a hilly 33 miles with Slim and BF on Sunday. This was a fairly relaxed ride for me. I am the stronger road cyclist and actually pulled them basically the entire way. I can even ride these guys off my wheel and I don't fall to the back of the pack when we go up hill. That is a nice change for me. Admittedly I cycle on the road more than Slim and BF plus Slim would kick my ass mountain biking but still. I enjoy these rides and we have a good time without killing our legs.

Plus it is always fun to see BF slip all over the place on his nose-less seat. You would have to see it to believe it. The seat was mandated by LF after a "package" issue last year. I will spare you the details as I don't want you to go numb like he did. We all suspect that his issue arose (or didn't as the case may be) from not riding at all and then being on the saddle for 3.5 hours but whatever the cause his new seat is a great sense of humor for us.

Slim could be a lot stronger on the road (as you might suspect from the name he is built for cycling) but with 2 kids and an entire night dedicated to mountain biking it is tough for him to get out and do more than 1 or 2 rides every couple of weeks or months. (Read Slims view of our ride) He hung tough on this ride as he was fighting a hell of head cold and actually pulled once, which is once more than BF.

BF on the other hand has plenty of time on his hands and he is trying to get stronger on the bike. I will give him credit for actually training for our 62 mile charity ride this year. He has rode about 110 miles in the past couple of weeks which is usually his yearly total. His bike is too small for him and we can not convince him to spend $2k on a new bike other than that he needs to suck it up and ride harder! The other benefit to riding with BF besides humor is at 6' 6" and weighing 230 pounds he is one of the only people I can draft off going downhill.

So those are my 2 types of riding. One is really F'ing hard which makes the other one much easier.

I will say this, without the Critracer rides the rides with Slim and BF probably wouldn't seem so easy.