Scenic Route

I expected a small group for tonight’s Tuesday Night Urban Assault ride. It had rained on and off since yesterday afternoon, depending on which forecast you believed, we were in for just more rain or 5 inches of snow, and it was the day after a holiday.

Riding up Adams St I saw one rider circling the lot. When I pulled in, I was relieved to see several others getting ready by their cars. A couple of newbies—kids who looked like they were still in their teens—were pulling their mountain bikes of the rack on the back of an SUV. I was glad to see them because it meant that I wouldn’t be the only one without official bike clothes.

One-by-one more riders joined us. One guy, who also rides to the ride, pulled over and had to fix a flat. That didn’t bode well considering our ride leader hadn’t arrived yet. When Scott finally did arrive, he announced tonight would be a short ride. Sixteen of us set out. We were later joined by a 17th when we swung by the lot a few minutes later.

The ride was nice and easy—or so I thought. We cruised through Corn Hill a while, then turned north on Exchange to downtown where we showed-off a bit for the fans rushing into the Blue Cross Arena for hockey. We kept going north, detouring for a few laps of the parking lot at the old IBM building, and ended up in High Falls.

Those of us who have been around a bit, expected what was to come.

But before that, we rode over to the High Falls Center, up the wheelchair ramps and right over to the edge of the falls. Then back out, up Brown’s Race, which is paved in cobblestones and made my eyeballs vibrate, across the Pon du Rennes (a.k.a. the Platt St bridge) and back. I think this was to throw everyone off the scent. But I knew.

Coming off the Pon du Rennes we turned right on Mill St and then down the hill to Beebee Station. The newbies bailed out and stayed at the top of the gorge. At the bottom, Scott told us we’d do something different at the top. Hook a hard right and continue uphill into the back of some parking lots, before turning around and coming back down.

And he reminded us to go slow on the descent because it was wet and snow pellets were falling. As if we hadn’t noticed. They stung my face on the first descent.

We climbed out of the gorge, hooked right and the newbies fell in behind us. Then we looped back and down into the gorge again. The newbies followed this time.

I guess I’m writing about the newbies so much because they made me feel good about myself. Yeah, it’s nice to have new riders along. But last Tuesday was my 49½ birthday, and, if I were so inclined, were I to get a racing license next month for the 2007 season, my racing age would be 50.

I’m starting to feel that I’m old I guess. I don’t feel old, necessarily, but at nearly 50, I feel like I’m supposed to feel old, and it worries me (sort of) that I don’t. If that makes any sense. Maybe I’m just looking to my body for the signs of maturity I’m not finding in my head.

Anyway, it’s been on my mind lately that, in general, I don’t feel any different than I did 30 years ago, and tonight’s newbies were right around 30 years younger than me.

Maybe that was it. I spend a lot of thought comparing myself to the younger riders on the TNUA, wondering if I’m old and worn out, or if I can keep up with them. I generally can, and that usually makes me happy.

That the newbie kids tonight were in far worse shape than any of us on the ride tonight, made me feel good. I mean, I felt bad for them. It was like looking at myself eight months ago when I couldn’t ride more than a mile without stopping to rest.

I felt good that in nine months I’ve whipped my body into sufficient shape that I could keep up with hard-core TNUAers, and whup a couple of teenagers. And I tried not to think about it that if they’re typical teenagers, they spend most of their time in front of a PC or Xbox, so it’s not really a fair comparison anyway.

Back to the bottom of the gorge.

We climbed up again. I got better position this time and was able to stay at my own pace and pass riders who, by virtue of lower gearing or physical differences, climbed slower than I. We regrouped at the top and waited for the kids.

Scott instructed us to try something different on the third repeat. Typically when climbing, you pull back on the bars and somehow, anatomically, it gives you something for your legs to push against.

This time, he wanted us use our lowest gear and to rest our thumbs on top of the bars so that we couldn’t really pull on them. The idea was to relax the upper body and use the lowest gear to just spin up out of the gorge.

“Just find a nice, happy gear and spin it,” Scott concluded.

“My bike doesn’t have a happy gear,” complained the guy riding next to me.

“Must be something that comes with Campy,” I replied.

Of course, I traded my mountain cassette for a road cassette back in June, so my lowest gear now is a 28-23 instead of the 28-30 the bike came with. Climbing back out of the gorge the way Scott wanted, I really could have used that 28-30. By not pulling on the bars, it moved more of the effort to my glutes and the backs of my thighs.

I could use some work on the backs of my legs, and I’ll try that method again some time. But for my fourth climb out of the gorge, I returned to the bar-pulling method.

Yes. Last time I did three repeats of that climb, and this time I did four. Go me!

Regrouping on Mill St, the kids pulled up and one of them puked right in the street. I couldn’t help but to watch. Poor kid. We worked him so hard he puked. Not once either. And not easily. I think yesterday’s Christmas dinner came up.

But still, I gotta give him cred. He didn’t go off to hide and puke, just let ‘er rip right there in the street in front of the whole ride. Then he rinsed his mouth and rode on with us. I hope he shows next week. He’ll get mad props for that.

Our next stop was the main visitor’s parking lot at Kodak Office. Here we did a dozen or more meandering laps around cars and light poles. The turns and stuff are really helping me feel more a part of the bike. I’ve found I’m relaxing more in turns which makes them easier and increases the fun factor. I found myself cornering differently on my Christmas Eve ride because of it. Turns out, that’s the whole point of the meandering exercises.

After that, we went back to Adams St. Scott had some work back at the store, and he said he hadn’t really warmed-up all night either. He appointed another rider to lead if anyone wanted to keep riding. It seemed no-one did. I wished everyone a Happy New Year and came home, amazed to find 19 miles on the clock when I got here.

We hadn’t really gone anywhere, and yet, 19 miles? The numbers all add up, so it must be true, but it just doesn’t seem like we covered that much distance. I suppose, I’d rather be surprised at how many miles, rather than by how few.

By the numbers

• 17 riders
• 2 newbies
• 1 puking newbie
• 1 flat tire
• 0 crashes or injuries
• 37°F, 3°C
• 10 MPH (16 km/h) winds from the WNW
• 01:41:45 riding time
• 19.12 miles, 30.77 km
• 11.2 avg MPH, 18.0 avg km/h
• 27.6 max MPH, 44.4 max km/h
• 59 avg RPM cadence
• 116 max RPM cadence
• 6,040 crank revolutions

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 26th, 2006 at 11:41 pm EST and is filed under Bike, Tuesday Night Urban Assault. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.