too soon to tell, but suggestive, nonetheless

To satisfy a nagging little suspicion, I had my doctor send me the heights they had on file for me for the last three years.

There was no change in that little bit of time, but I'm an inch shorter (about 25mm) than I was in college. I'd thought I was still that height, but I'm not.

Over the past two weeks, I've lowered my saddle height by 10mm. Today, with no carbs for breakfast (just a couple hard-boiled eggs, and the quart-and-a-half of coffee I have every day), I turned in this ride:

Holy bananas; 15.6 average. That about a mile-an-hour faster than any ride I've done recently.

The sample size is too small, of course, and correlation is not cause, but this result is suggestive, nonetheless.

before the superbowl ride

 Well, if you had a picture that good, wouldn't you lead off with it?

There are riders who won't come on my C+ rides (average pace 13.0-14.9mph) because even though I ride within the average pace (unless everyone else is way off the front), they don't want to be left behind. I don't leave riders behind.

Sometimes I get left behind.

And sometimes, the fellow riders who could leave me behind, don't, and make sure that I catch up with 'em, and even let me lead for a bit. I'm sure it's partly to make sure that I keep listing some of these rides. (Mine was the fastest-paced club ride listed for today, for example).

Today's was over one of my usual routes. I call it "annoying hills adjusted". One of the riders asked about the "adjusted" in the name; I said I had adjusted the route to avoid one of the riskier turns from the original route. Another rider wondered if I'd adjusted out any of the annoying hills.

I had not. There's only about 1100' of climb on this ride, but much of it is steeper than you'd like, or otherwise unnecessarily unpleasant. (I'll have to think for a bit about "necessary unpleasantness.")

Above, my view for a substantial part of the ride. Below, one of the occasions when the riders were displaying politeness.

We stopped at Thomas Sweet, where I got out-of-focus indoor pictures.

And back. The riders were a bit more mellow after the stop... but I was still the last one in.

Ride page.

I'm hoping that as the weather warms, some of you club members who ride at a pace closer to mine will come out, so I can have some company, and so I won't try to show off to these faster folks. Maybe you can help save me from my worst instincts.

short ride on a cold day

 That was my view for much of today's ride.

The weather today was predicted to be even colder than yesterday, so instead of my usual 35-to-40 mile-ride-with-a-planned-rest-stop, I decided to list another of those shorter rides, with no rest stop planned; this route 25 miles. I only had one registrant by yesterday morning, but I had seven for today. 

They were strong riders. I was only nominally a leader; by about halfway, most of 'em were ahead of me, and by the last quarter, they all were. They were cheerful about it, and waited at turns if any of us were way behind... but, with my lower-than-the-posted-range average (see the ride page), it may be time to re-think my posted pace for the New Year.

It was cold, too; while my trunk, and even my hands, were warm enough, my feet were cold, and after I got home, even when my feet had warmed up, the tingling affected my walking for almost an hour. I may need to re-do my shoe protection for these cold temperatures, or avoid riding when it's this cold.

This is likely the last ride I'll lead for the year. I generally lead on Sundays, and next Sunday is the day we celebrate the Saturnalia and Sol Invictus, or Yule for those (like me) whose ancestry is from south of Caledonia. The following Sunday starts the new year. I got in 35 leads this year; weather and other responsibilities got in the way, so I couldn't match my record of 45 club rides led last year. But I'm close to 4,000 miles for this year, which is good for a guy who doesn't bike commute.

playin' hooky

 

I generally lead rides on Sundays, and I'll go out as long as the precipitation holds off, and conditions are such that I won't expect ice on the roads. I like my rides to come in with an average between 14.5-15.5mph (for my club, the Princeton Free Wheelers, that's the high end of the C+ range or the low end of the B range).

Last year, many of my cold-weather rides ran faster than that range, and I've heard that some club members have decided not to come on my rides when they see the faster folks who sign up; these club members are afraid they'll be dropped. After last week's ride (which was fast, but that was, I think, partly due to the inclement weather), I decided to take a while to think about what I wanted to do about the rides I lead. I suspect the faster riders come out on my rides because there aren't a lot of rides at faster paces scheduled for the club at this time of year... but the sensible answer to that is, I think, for some of these faster riders to lead rides at the paces at which they want to ride, not for me to have my ride run away with by faster folks, or to have club members who should be able to come on my rides, intimidated by the others who register.

I haven't got an answer yet, and, while I'm thinking of how to manage this, I decided to take a week off from leading. Laura OLPH, seeing the absence of my listing (and wanting to lead a ride this weekend, which she could not do yesterday), listed a ride for today... and I registered.

Nine of us went out. Laura had picked a route to Sergeantsville on some roads I didn't know (and others that were familiar). The ride was hilly, and with the roads wet to start (there was rain when I left my house, although it had stopped 90 minutes later when the ride started), I was cautious on the downhills (and I'm not a courageous descender at the best of times).

It was good to get out with club members, many of whom I knew, although I wasn't chatty (there may be another blog post about some internal wranglings). Laura had added an unusual warning about ride pace to her usual pre-ride speech; perhaps this was why we mostly rode behind her until the stop (Laura thought it was so that people could draft her in the headwind; perhaps she's right - but the first half of the ride was a mile-per-hour slower than the average at which I finished).

We stopped at the bagel place in Sergenatsville.

I think it's a better stop than the general store, which has just gotten too odd.

We returned through Mount Airy, and stopped to say hello to the cows.

Len said that that cow in the middle of the picture had her eye on me. I said I think I dated her, and Laura asked which one of us broke up first. (Note: In general, except for TEW, it's safe to presume that the girl in question broke up with me. They generally had more sense, and a better idea of what they wanted, than I did.)

So home, and laundry and chores now, and back to the week. I still don't know what I plan to do about listing rides through the colder weather. I'm glad I did this ride today, though.

Ride page.

easy job, unexpectedly fast ride

 

My excuse for going on Christine R's (nominally) C ride today was that I'd agreed to do a bit of mechanical work on one of Herb C's bikes, and since he was planning to do this ride, that was a good occasion for us to meet so I could do it. But it didn't hurt that it was scheduled to be a less-demanding ride than I often do, since I'll be doing three rides in as many days, including leading one tomorrow.

The work for Herb was a stem replacement. Herb got a great deal on a bike that was just a little too big for him. He's dropped the seatpost, but the stem was far too long and too low. He finally decided to go with a shorter, higher stem. The one we found was aluminum rather than his preferred carbon fiber, and the handlebar clamp section was a larger specification than his bars... but with the proper shims, carbon paste, and a torque wrench set down to six newton-meters, we got it to work. Herb is just delighted with the way the bike fits now.

We did the job in the parking lot waiting for the ride start. The B+ fast boys got in and out, and the riders for Christine's ride started to show up, along with some of the other rides going out of Cranbury Village Park.

Eighteen to start. We took off at a fast clip. Soon, some were falling off the back; at about 12 miles, my average was 15.2, and I was not setting the pace. I had fallen back to see what was going on with the riders in the back. A few were having real trouble keeping up, and one decided to go back; Robert S agreed to accompany him.

We slowed down some after that... but the final average was still too high for the posted range.

We stopped at Woody's in Allentown, which is a better stop than I remembered; they had better choices for ride drinks and quick food, and treated us like folks (which is a real attractor to me!) 

On the way back, we kept meeting club members on other rides: first Bruce K... then about a half-dozen or so from Dennis W's ride... and, as we were coming back along Old Cranbury Road, Dom C's group from the B ride that had gone out 30 minutes after we did. Those were pleasant surprises (if a bit confusing when Dennis's ride turned at a location that Christine did not).

So maybe you'll come out on my ride tomorrow, and see just how decrepit I am after all this exertion?

more like what i had in mind

 So after thinking about what I wanted to do about pace on my rides (because the pace has not been creeping up, it's been galloping), I posted this verbiage in the description:

Faster riders are welcome to go off the front; you can either wait at turns or not. I intend to ride within the stated pace range. Nobody dropped. This might work as a recovery or training ride. Let's see how this works.

I wound up with six: Jin A (new to me), Rickety, Eric H, Laura OLPH, John O (also new to me), and John W. 

 Eric contacted me during the week about a mechanical weirdness on his bike, so I brought the stand and tools. When Jin arrived, she had a brake bind, that turned out to be easily fixed; we popped her bike on the stand to make sure the fix would hold. When Eric came, it turned out his issue was not so easily managed - we'll make an appointment for some attention to his bike. (Ramblin' Wrench, to the rescue...)

We went on one of my regular routes (Laura's least favorite of them, and I'm not at all surprised).

Despite awful humidity, and some serious winds (and how can we have both wind and humidity?), we had a good ride; both of the new-to-me folks enjoyed it. We stopped at Thomas Sweet.

Laura warned us about getting too acclimated to the air-conditioning, but I'm not sorry for even one second that I spent inside!

Most important to me, we brought the ride in as the Low B that I intended: the ride page shows 15.3mph average.

Part of the success, I'm sure, is having a group who were interested in keeping to the pace. I'm eager to see how I do at maintaining this. As noted in the description, I intend this to be a recovery ride, or training for those who want to try the B pace. I'm glad I could keep to that today.