Wow, it's Monday already. Not just any Monday, but the last Monday in March. You know what that means - The Three days of da 'Pan, my traditional beginning of the season training soire around the Blue Hills and Mattapan Square, run in conjunction with the Driedaagse van De Panne professional race in Belgium. It also means The Ronde is next Sunday; the real bike racing season has finally arrived.
I'm working the day job this week, so this might need to be the Three Evenings of da 'Pan. One way or another, benchmarking my first ascent of Big Blue this riding season needs to happen. Should any of my faithful readers be up for it, I can try to work a group ride into my busy schedule. The weather looks good Tues-Thurs. jellysidedown at gmail.
This past Saturday I rode with the Cronoman again. For most of the six hour, 180k flatland adventure it was just the two of us, save for the middle 40k which were ridden in the fast company of every swinging dick (and a few women) who races bikes in New England at the Charge Pond training race. And when I say "in the company of" I mean just friggin' barely, as I nearly got popped in the first ten laps. That's why we do these things -- my body needed the wake up call. It did not help that in my noble quest to minimize the trip distance back and forth to the venue, a few navigational errors were made. Kind of funny as last week in Crono's stomping grounds I knew exactly where I was the entire time. Now this week, traveling over roads frequently ridden virtually as long as I've had a bike, I took us off course. Excuses are many; all the roads look the same once you get into the cranberry bogs. Typically though, we don't have a destination when riding down there -- who worries about which road leads where when you're on a joyride? This time we had a place to go and a time to be there, and I tried to cut a few kilometers along the way by plotting a straight line, rather than sticking to the roads I know best. End result was a total zigzag all over Middleboro, providing a generous addition of distance, and culminating in a two man team time trial across Plympton in order to make the start. At least we were warmed up.
But we made it, with a few seconds to spare. Way Fast Whitey had driven his car down with his kids, and we'd pre-arranged to have him bring donuts. Good thing, as I'd forgotten to pocket any gels. With a breakfast of just toaster pastries, I was already suffering hunger knock when we were still 10k from the race. I scarfed down a donut while pinning up my number, swallowing the last bite about a minute before Christine gave the A field the "roll off" command. The course went the opposite direction from when we raced here last year, so it took me a few laps to get my bearings. It was pretty flat out for a few laps until a break finally got some time and it settled down (both the pace and the donut in my belly). After that I just sat on as best I could, weathering the surges. With 3 to go, there was a dozen-rider takedown at the front of the pack, and that was that. The ride home was uneventful, nice little tailwind, and it was warmer by then. We rode the old district time trial course to get back to Middleboro center. This entire route had only about 30 meters elevation difference from the low point to the highest, which is the corner at the top of my street. Yeah, it's flat around here. Don't fret; some of the best climbers in history come from Holland. Riding flats means you never get to coast.
Busy week ahead, I'll try to post something, but no promises. I've been working hard on duplicating the riding position from my Slim Chance to my other road bikes. The Slim feels perfect. I thought the others were a lot closer than they are, but I devised a high-tech measuring system and it turns out they're way off. Last year while waiting out a rain delay at Wompatuck, I joked to AFM (a stickler regarding position) that I subscribed to "muscle confusion theory" and he laughed. Now I've got some reasons to try to get it correct on more than one machine. Thanks for reading.
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