There were about ten riders in the group. Some looked OK, but some appeared to lack experience. What was I getting in to? After introducing myself, I took a spot at the back of the line to observe. The ride leader and his companion were on a tandem... Luckily, they set a brisk pace 35-40 kph down the flat roads near the lake. This was not so bad. I think the ride was a mix of triathletes and old century riders. A few of them had just done the 140 mile B2B ride, so they couldn't be that bad. In a few places, apparently they have a "hot spot" where the strong riders blow the group apart, and then waste time waiting for a regroup. Oh well. I got in two hours with a few mild efforts and met at least one strong local guy whom I'll be happy to ride with in the future. After the ride broke up I rode over with him to Walpole before venturing off on my own. I had no plans so I went through Norfolk, Medway, and down into Franklin. Being a semi-holiday, the roads were delightfully deserted for the most part.
With about three and a half hours in it was decision time. The skies still looked reasonably sunny and I felt good, so I kept going across Franklin, briefly crossing into Rhode Island to zoom down Tower Hill Road the fun way. Unfortunately, the super narrow and twisty road was quite littered with storm debris, and it's difficult enough to avoid becoming a hood ornament on the occasional oncoming vehicle as it is. So I took it easy. Over by the resevoir the road was wet and dirty, like a heavy shower had passed though. I rode back toward home via Foxboro, got more food, and at the five hour mark the skies opened up and I got soaked. This was only about 15k from home. Funny thing was, even though it was hard enough to flash flood the roads inches deep in places, much of the time there was simultaneous bright sunshine angling through breaks in the clouds. It was almost like lightning the way things were going dark/light in an instant as the storm clouds maneuvered overhead.
You can only get so wet, so I just kept riding. A few k from my house the roads completely dried out. It had not rained there at all. Normally I never worry about rounding up ride time or mileage, but I kept circling the neighborhood for about twenty minutes just to air-dry my shoes and bring the day up to a nice even six hours, 177k. Now I started to wonder whether or not I could up my weekend goal to 500k? Murat and I had an email correspondence going about the feasibility of some riding together on Saturday. By 9 PM Friday, it was agreed we'd meet down in Rehoboth at 7am. Ughh. My bike was a mess. Instead of going to sleep, I got to stay up and clean my chain, wipe down my wheels, sponge off some of the grit, and generally make ready for an early departure. I still did not wake up at dawn, and when the 'rat called me at 6am, he was already on his bike riding to the designated spot. It would take him ninety minutes to get there. It would take me about the same unless I time trialed, and I wasn't even close to leaving. My legs felt fried too. I kitted up, had some food, and drove down to a big athletic complex in Taunton where I knew I could park. There was a huge softball tournament getting started, college women. Bonus! I was on the bike at 7:00 and after 15k or so of headwind on Tremont Street, got to the Chartley Store right as Murat rolled up at 7:30. We did a nice big leisurely flat loop around Cattleboro, Foxboro, and Norton, and I accompanied him back as far as the E. Pro line on his journey home before bidding farewell. BTW Murat, I forgot to thank you for the wool base layer. Very nice.
It was gorgeous weather by then so I criss-crossed Rehoboth a few times, doing the TT loop again before riding the big tailwind back to my car. Finished with 4:15, 124k, and a very squashed and numb sensation at the intersection of where I sit and plumbing central. Probably not a good thing... I was home by noon and cooking on the grill by 4 though, Samuel Smith's lager in hand, sweet. This holiday life is not too hard to take. The response from my Team BOB mates for a long Sunday ride was kind of underwhelming. With some prodding, Les agreed to ride out to Fitchburg with me. He is one of the few who does not hide under the covers when five hours gets mentioned. He had an overnight firefighting shift to deal with first, but luckily he still got some sleep and we met at his home in Chelmsford at 8:15, departing west more or less (pun-intended) at 8:30. We were met with a direct, constant headwind. WTF? Mornings are supposed to be calm. Our route was consistently uphill too, not so good for making time. The masters started at 9:30, so we need to get there by 10 at the latest in order to heckle the Cronoman before it finished. After plugging away for an hour at 25kph, we topped out in Lunenburg, plunging down 2A into Fitchburg back on schedule. There were thirteen laps to go when we got there, and Jonny Bold was killing it off the front in a solo break which lasted several laps before Westwood Velo hit the front and brought him back. We sauntered around while spectating, running into Les's Chelmsford neighbor Dick Ring, who introduced us to cycling legends John Howard and Bobby "the Baltimore Bullet" Phillips. That was wicked awesome.
This is for you Dougie. I had no speed sensor, so the x-axis is time, making the downhills look steeper. Only half the climbing needed for a 100x100 squared designation. But a fine loop just the same. We went out on the main roads to save time, but with some slight modification and an extension around Jaffrey, this could be an epic. Note that the intervals all come at the end.
We rode the cooldown lap with the Cronoman and Soups, then headed north up Rindge Road. We were still battling headwinds, which got even stronger on the wide-open and west heading Rt 119 up into West Rindge NH. Taking Cathedral road over to 123, we had almost three hours ride time at our northwesternmost point. I'd expected it to be further. Passing Windblown Ski area on the way back east was the highest point on the route too, so combining with the tailwind the elevation-losing way back would be much faster than the journey out. We'd need to improvise just to make sure we got our five hours in. After snacking on a homemade doughnut at the store in New Ipswich (there was a reason we took this route) we navigated the lumpy roads of Mason before plummeting down into Townsend. Now we were past four hours and we cranked up the power on some of the punchy climbs like Hog Hill that lead to Pepperell. That took us to Groton and old Les said he was hurting. I wanted to finish the weekend with some efforts, so after escorting him back toward the homestretch of Rt 40, I circled back solo to do (two) six minute pieces of work on a nice road with a gradual slope. That did the trick and now my legs were ready to call it a day. Doing my longer intervals deep into a day's ride is something I learned from riding with Markie Mark back when we were neighbors.
I limped back from Groton to Chelmsford on Route 40, but at least the traffic was still lighter than normal and the wind was at my back. Les's driveway came up at 5:40 ride time, 162k. That brought the weekend total to 16 hours, 464k, so a bit shy of 500, but 10,000+ kj just the same. For me this qualifies as "lots." Thanks for reading an exceptionally uneventful and boring "training" post. No fellow cyclists were yelled at, lectured, nor otherwise abused in the creation of this blog entry.
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