Don't take it personally, but after five glorious computer-free days, I'm just not ready to get back into the 'sphere. I spent some time to try and catch up this morning, but after twenty minutes it's already time to sit up, unpin the numbers and climb into the broom wagon. Good thing I got some practice doing just that at Sunapee on Saturday. That's right folks, after a mixed week of sickness and dumb training sessions, your hero topped it off with a stiff day/night of packing, driving in the rain, and sleeplessness Friday, and all this added up to one shitty day (more like an hour) on bike Saturday morning. After making it over the first few climbs without difficulty, the Cat 3 field strung it out on a flat in a little valley and I was gone. File this one under "just a bad day." The remaining ten miles back to the start were spent in typical 40 degrees and pouring rain solo at Sunapee hypothermic fashion. At least I had plenty of company shivering back at the base lodge struggling to produce the motor skills needed to peel off the layers and get dry. The first, and hopefully only miserable failure of the racing season.
Logistical challenges (such as wet bike, wet car, wet clothes, empty wallet, and frozen body) led me to forego the trip to the Glastonbury duathlon. At least I'd entered on a two for one deal and KL, who'd wisely skipped the Sunapee deluge, went down alone and took full advantage, finishing sixth overal and first female. I opted to caravan with the team mates over to bro Armand's family vacation home in Ludlow Vt for our three day mini camp. JWR4, Dick Ring look-and-soundalike Les, and Armand were the only ones to keep the date and brave the weather. Well, the jokes on you Chumleys, because after the dire forecast Saturday night (which we took in whilst dining on superb, prepared by Nona Pantalone, who Armand had flown in to be our resident chef and Italian Mom about the house) cuisine, the clouds broke Sunday and we managed a 3.5 hour, 100k cafe ride over to Woodstock and back.
The only roads that seem to be paved in Vermont are the state highways, but since this was supposed to be a rainy weekend, and this was the off season anyway, there were no locals nor tourists to share with. Even normally busy Route 4 allowed us to double file all the way into town. To the BOBers who stayed home to either ride the couch or get a repeat of the soaking NH rains from Saturday, hah! to you. After our ride, we quickly got cleaned up and booked it over to Okemo Valley Golf Club to play nine holes on an absolutely deserted, yet fabulous mountain course. After a rough start I finished birdie-par-par-par, skinning the other duffers by 11 strokes! Kind of made up for Sunapee. Back at the ranch, Nona had prepped us a fresh salad to go with the hot dogs and beans we grilled out on the porch, and Armand had stocked the fridge with Otter Creek Stovepipe Porter to wash it down. Oh yeah.
JWR4 had to head home Sunday night to meet with a client, but Les hung with us for Monday's epic. The day dawned cloudless, but a bit chilly, so we stayed in for a bit and loaded up on omelettes and pancakes before hitting the road at 11:30 am. Vermont is hilly, but most of the state roads follow the floors of the valleys, so the dominant feature was the constant 15 mph breeze out of the north. Nothing like three mile grades of 3% into a steady wind to make you work on your seated technique. We looped down to Chester before crossing the state heading west on Route 11. We then picked up 100 North (straight on wind here) where we hit the first categorized climb, a stretch of three miles or so at 5-7% that climbed back to Ludlow. We refueled at a convenient store and kept going up 100, then to 4 west. Destination - Killington Access Road and the base lodge. We had 3:50 on the stopwatch and 1100 meters of climbing already behind us when we hit the white church. Rather than take the longer, and not so steep main road, we cut up the 15% West Hill Road. Twelve minutes of anaerobic suffering later, I was on the access road at the start of the old stage race prologue, where I hit the lap counter again just for old times sake. The mates were back there somewhere... The really good news was the wind was blowing straight up the mountain. My 16:30 TT time to the end of the road was about four minutes slower than my best ever in the race (a decade and a half ago), but maybe my four hour warmup had something to do with that. Haven't downloaded anything yet, but I think from the church to the top is 5-600 meters of total ascent.
The boys showed up about five minutes later and after a photo op we put on the jackets and started the fast and frozen ride down. We made the mountain variety store the second fuel stop and I scarfed down a sleeve of my secret weapon, powdered mini-donuts. Rolling out, we did another three miles of descending before hitting Sherburne Flats, where the donuts kicked in. It's alway a good idea to finish your long rides strong, and we had 4.5 hours on the watch in the past, and 22 miles of rolling 100 with a ripping tailwind in our futures. Those guys fought gamely, but I lost them on the climb up the old Pepsi road race finish and then TT'd solo all the way back to Ludlow, covering the distance in just under an hour. Now, the Casa Pantalone sits at the top of a one mile climb that is over 10% at the bottom before turning to dirt during the latter half. Just the way to finish a 152k ride. Feeling bad for dropping those guys, I did my best to make time, and quickly jumped into the car to retrieve them at the bottom and spare them the effort. Alas, they were already more than halfway up by the time I got there, so they obviously didn't soft pedal it in. Good job guys.
Afterwards we made three racks of ribs and a two pound London broil dissappear. We even amazed ourselves. Les then had to split as he had a 24 hour shift at the firehouse awaiting on Tuesday morning. A-man and I stuck it out and rode again on another cloudless day, but our par-boiled legs prevented any heroics. This was a day for exploring scenic back roads (yes, we even found one that was paved) taking photos, stopping to pat friendly dogs, and just spinning along. After three hours of that it was back to Okemo Valley to play the back nine, but without functioning legs, the knees were buckling at impact and the errant shots were many. Dinner and ale on the outdoor patio and training camp was over. Now I've got a couple more days to relax and ride here at the KL north. Thanks for reading, will post photos soon.
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