Bam-B Ride

Isaac and I both woke up and made it out for the ride down to the Art Museum yesterday. I had forgotten how little you work when riding in a large enough group and was surprised at how quickly and easily we were moving. We sat in the group until the hills outside Manayunk, when Isaac and a few other people sprinted off the front. I increased my pace until I found a nice sweet spot and then caught everyone halfway up the hill. I thought about passing everyone to prove that I was faster, but I decided to just hang on to the back in an attempt to show some restraint. Once we got down to West River Drive (sorry, but I'm not going to call it MLK) this one guy took off. Isaac and I were still feeling pretty good and upped our pace to what was comfortable for us. About halfway down the Drive we could see the guy who shot off slowing a little bit, and like total ass clowns, we decided to bring him back. I did the majority of the pace making and the second I got Isaac to him, I got spit off the back. In my defense, I did feel like hot garbage when I woke up yesterday. The night before I ate like shit and had some beer and I had given a serious thought about not riding at all. My letting my man-pride get the better of me and crushing myself to catch a guy for no reason other than to prove I could is indefensible. That was just stupid.

On the way back, I couldn't even hitch myself to the group for the first half of WRD. Eventually, Isaac just pulled me up. I ate half a Larabar while we rested because I couldn't stomach eating anything. Once I was hitched though, I started to feel a little better, and by the time we got to Manayunk and stopped at Saxoby's, I felt okay again. Isaac was nice enough to buy me an orange juice and we waited for the majority of the group to eat. Half of the group left about ten minutes after we got there, and Isaac and I wanted to leave with them, but we had just gotten our drinks when they were going, so we waited with the second group. So we sat in the shade and enjoyed a beautiful morning, watching people on nice bikes ride by.

I have two major problems with stopping in Manayunk on the way back. 1) We just stopped ten minutes ago at the Art Museum and rested for fifteen minutes. 2) You've cooled down and haven't had enough time to warm up again before you hit the hills on the way back. Because of these two reasons, the group always splits and it always Splits on the largest hill on the way back. The first hill is longer, but not as steep. It flattens out and there are stop signs to slow the pace a little. Then there's a nice down hill that most people will fly down so they can use the momentum to get them up the second hill. It's a short but steeper hill that seems to drain everyone. Isaac went flying down the down hill and as soon as he passed everyone, some other guy jumped on behind him to race up the hill with him. I didn't even start the hill until the two of them were almost halfway up it. By the top, I had caught and passed Isaac. Easily. I'm not sure if it was the sugar rush from the o.j. but I normally would have sprinted up, been out of breathe and gone to shit in a hurry once I was over the top and then soft pedal the rest of the way home. This time I cleared the top with a ton of energy, my breathing hadn't really changed and I pulled anyone who could stay with me back to the bike path. I set such a pace that There was no one but Isaac. We slowed our pace, but even by the time we got to Conshohocken, they still hadn't caught up. We waited a few minutes, but Isaac had to get going, so we left. He lives in West Conshy so Conshy is his stop. I, obviously, just rode home.

While all of that may seem like me bragging about how much faster I can shoot up hills than the people I'm riding with, there are two reasons why I'm excited about it. I can recover now. The past two years, if I had blown myself up at any point, I wouldn't have had the strength to make it back at anything other than a crawl. Steep hills would put me so far into the red that I couldn't come back after making it up. I've also got some legs under me now, I have the strength to ride in a higher gear on hills and can handle the pain better. It became really obvious when the group hit the first hill coming back through Manayunk that I accelerate so much faster than I used to. Not only can i accelerate now, but I can change my pace either faster or slower and handle the change without blowing myself up. I've never been able to do that before and it feels great. Because there are mostly rolling hills and not longer climbs, It's hard for me to test how much longer I can go while on a hill. I'm going to see if I can talk Isaac into doing the "Mother Fucker" hill (see post dated July 2008, I Don't Waste Any Time, Do I?) with me on Thursday, because that's a longer hill with gradation changes that has hills before and after it. If I can make it up that without much incident and make it home, I will feel really proud of myself.