Thursday October 2 Training Ride: The Wheelsucker Report

Thursday was a beautiful fall day, windy with temps in the mid 60s. For this wheelsucker, that means arm warmers, knee warmers and wind vest. The usual small 5pm group was assembled: Ace, Stu, Tom A, Rick P, Ty, Amanda, Aaron, Russ, and Alex. Sorry to anyone I may have missed as it was, thanks to ACE, a "high watts" ride, at least for me: Must focus on the wheel in front of me....

The ride started out as a "Low watts: I wonder what kind of tree that is? Funny I don't remember seeing that mailbox there before" kind of ride until near the end of Rt 2. Aaron, practicing for Saturday's TT with TT clipons, got the pace up for most of Rt 2 until after the false flat. I took over (ok, I'm not like the REAL wheelsucker) at a reasonable tempo. It must have been a little too reasonable, because after a minute Stu with Ace, Rick and Ty on his wheel came screaming by. I jumped as hard as I could and eventually caught on. The first instance of "Must focus on the wheel in front of me..." We slowed at the circle and the group reassembled.

We got into a nice rotating paceline on Bayard ala last week, but again at the downhill section just before Polling House comes back into Bayard (we skipped Polling House due to light constraints), Ace put in attack number two, again with the usual suspects on his wheel. I went as hard as I could to get on and was able to even take a pull or two. At Sands, we again regrouped, but Ace had enough of that and took off really hard. We organized a chase that whittled down to Stu, Tom, Rick and me. Must focus on the wheel in front of me... We eventually reeled him in just at Harwood.

Not sure who all got back on after the turn but we ran into the incredible shrinking Doug Shapter. It cranked up again, down around the flood area and up the hill at which point the incredible Shrinking Doug Shapter "Seagulled" up to 214.

"Seagulling" - a phase used to indicate the behavior of someone who comes into a group, flaps their wings, craps all over the place and leaves.

Doug, being relatively fresh, egged Ace on and ramped it up for Ace attack number 3 which pretty much split the group for good. At 214, we had to wait a second for the light - the incredible shrinking Doug Shapter went his own way - but once again put the hammer down up Patuxent River Road. With 2 more rollers to go, Ace took control. Must focus on the wheel in front of me... with the finish in sight, I took over for 2 pedal stokes and Tom and Rick shot by with Tom taking the sprint.