On Friday afternoon, I had an errand across campus so I took Roosevelt Road home instead of my usual route. Roosevelt is awful with traffic and little in the way of bike lanes, but it was the most direct way so I braved it. While there are bike lanes, they end abruptly west of Independence, leaving bicycles on their own to navigate the west side industrial corridor's heavy traffic. As I rode west, really cruising with a tail wind, going about 21-22 mph, I caught up with a guy on mountain bike. He had a ball cap on, a vest with a bottle of water in his pocket sticking out, jeans and work boots. He was moving pretty well, but I humped it up and passed him, nearly getting smashed by one of those stupid huge Lincoln Navigator SUVS, driven by someone talking on their cell phone. I peddled on, keeping the pace up and when all of a sudden mister mountain bike blew past me. It was all I could do to keep up with him. We cruised about 2 miles with me on his tail. I decided to follow him and not try and pass again, and it was pretty fun having company. I was impressed that he could muster so much speed on such a beater bike with huge knobby tires. Made me wonder about my riding buddies who are hard pressed to make 18 mph on their commuter bikes. I paced with him until nearly Cicero and then he peeled off, and we gave each other thumbs up. I didn't realize this at the time but this was an omen for my scheduled ride on Saturday morning.
Though I have ridden over 1000 miles this year, it has mostly been in 8 mile chunks with lots of stop and go in the city. My goal is to used distance bike riding to help train for running a marathon, to save my knees, so I thought I better get out and start putting some miles in. I hooked up with my friend Giulia who is quite an avid biker, and she invited me to join her two friends who wanted to get a hill ride in-- 50 miles. So I showed up at 5:30 as the first light of the dawn was gathering, and Giulia and I rode to Chris' house, just as John was unloading his bike. My first impression was one of pure intimidation. These guys were total stud triathletes on $4000 bikes. 5% body fat and chiseled physiques, sleeveless skin tight bike jerseys-- yikes, what was I thinking. They were very nice guys and we had a great ride for about 15 miles, I had no problem keeping up with them on the flat as we headed west and south, and then we got to the hills. Poof. they were gone. I died! At one point Giulia looped back an picked me up and finally we made it 22 miles out to Waterfall Glenn. It was just 7 AM and the huge groups of runners were massing getting ready to run. Other bikers showed up. I was the only guy on a commuter bike with fenders, and amazingly, Giulia was the only woman on a bike. They chatted with the other bikers and took some calories in. I sucked down two gel packs and drank water. The ride home was good, Giulia coached me, gave me advice about keeping my rpms up and perhaps raising my seat etc and then told me to draft her, to sit right on her rear wheel and she would carry me up the hills. This was a new experience for me and I found that it took a lot of concentration but definitely helped. We got to some bigger hills and I couldn't keep right on her wheel, but fortunately did not drop off too much. once we were back in town I had no problem keeping up and we cruised happily along 19-22 mph. I finished the 45 miles in 2:45, 16.6 mph average and 32 mph top speed. I very much appreciate how generous those guys were to not drop me and let me tag along. A very humbling experience, indeed. This weekend I will repeat the route and do the metric 100 in the Wright Ride, but I do not plan on trying to keep up with Adonis on a tri-bike this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment