All roadies know they are supposed to have an off-season to rest and recuperate. For most roadies it was last Sunday, at 4:00PM
Being new to the sport (this is the wheelsucker's second year of racing and being a Latitude/ABRT member), the wheelsucker has heard many references to the "off season", but is confused as to when it occurs, how long it lasts, and what about one's cycling changes, during the off season.
Since the last MABRA race was this past Saturday, and some of the die-hards have switched to cyclecross, and the wheelsucker's coach has stopped giving him workouts and told him to do whatever he wants, the wheelsucker could perhaps be excused for concluding that we were in the off season. He even left his primary race bike at home and took out the ultra light but twitchy Scott CR1 SL (and it IS superlight), and left all instrumentation off. The sense that it was off season and was going to be an easy ride continued when, early in the ride, the peleton caught up with Doug Milliken who was riding a cross bike. So Doug thought it was off season, too!
Frankly the first part of the ride met the above description. With Doetsch yelling encouragement from the back (the wheelsucker does wonder why Doetsch rides at the back at lot early in a ride) about "single file!" and "car back!", the ride was steady, smooth and even relatively easy. Feeling relaxed and not worried about being dropped, the wheelsucker took a couple of good (well, good for the wheelsucker) pulls, and was rewarded for his efforts with Doetsch telling him, "that was a wussy pull!" Actually, that is not quite the wording Doetsch used, but it was similar sounding and rhymes. Now the wheelsucker knows that Doetsch usually only rags on the people he likes, so took this as a compliment, though he did have his doubts.
On his next pulls the wheelsucker went a little harder just to be sure he was not being a "rhymes with 'wussy' ", but the peleton simply let him roll off the front and kept its smooth steady pace. The second time this happened (soon after going through the circle and turning onto Bayard) the wheelsucker concluded the group simply did not want to go any faster and sat up to wait. But then there was a WOOOSH as Doetsch went by grinning, towing another two or three riders at a high rate of speed. The wheelsucker gave it everything he had and managed to latch on the back and wheelsuck for all he was worth. But Doetsch eased up, and the remains of the peleton (which was shrinking fast) caught back on, and the rest of ride down Bayard was fast, but not crazy. Doetsch was still leading as the peleton stayed straight on Bayard, skipping the right turn on to South Polling House. Then Ace hit it HARD at the turn onto Sands doing an 800 meter sprint out of the corner, with one rider (Steve Owens?) trying to stay on his wheel. The wheelsucker was at the back, but noticed that Doetsch was organizing a chase and made sure he was wheelsucking on the correct wheels and took the tow up. It took a little while for everyone to line up after the corner to start the pursuit, and Doetsch waited for the chase to form, while drafting the amazing Amanda Wu. The amazing Amanda Wu simply does not know that she is not supposed to be able to catch Ace by herself when he jumps (very few riders in MABRA can), and was trying to do just that, rather than get to the back of the line and recover for the chase. This effort must have been so far beyond what she could sustain, that when Doetsch got the chase moving, she went OTB. How fast was the chase going? The wheelsucker rides an 11-26 on his CAAD9 and has a 12-25 on his Scott CR1 SL. And he normally time trials with a cadence of 95-99, so is comfortable with a high cadence. But once Doetsch got going, the wheelsucker was riding at the back of the chase, spinning out in his 53-12 gear, and wishing he had an 11 or smaller! Ace was soon caught by the Doetsch-led chase. But the peleton was shrinking fast as more and more riders were OTB, typically in pairs.
The next attack, a team effort from Doetsch and Ace, had a couple of other riders (including the wheelsucker) bridge up, but was quickly countered by some of the chase, though it took a fair bit of work by the stronger chasers to bring them back, and the effort tired out the wheelsucker, who was at the front of Doetsch and Ace's paceline slowing up so someone else could pull through, when it was caught. Doetsch and Ace quickly rotated to the back, and a careless wheelsucker (still not quite realizing that the ride had completely changed) was taking a decent pull when WOOOSH!!... Ace and Doetsch went by at a VERY high rate of speed. The wheelsucker learned later that the two had started scheming as soon as they got to the back with Doetsch urging Ace to "hit them again!" Having been pulling for a little while after bridging up to Ace and Doetsch, the wheelsucker was in no condition to respond (the normal response would be to accelerate hard and either lead the chase or catch a wheel and go with them) and was left yelling S...! (expletive deleted) and then pulling off so someone fresher could start a chase. He nearly went OTB as the chase accelerated, but somehow stayed on the back. Ace and Doetsch were going hard, but were not very far ahead as the chase tried to organize itself. The chase had Steve Owens, Matt Albanese, Rick Paukstitus, Tom Aga, Aaron Canale and the wheelsucker (and perhaps one or two more), so working together pulling them back WAS possible. But the chase did not fully organize, and the rotations were not happening quickly enough, and the chase was tiring, and Ace and Doetsch were not coming back. The wheelsucker saw all this from the back of the chase (where he was wheelsucking HARD and trying to catch his breath), and then, just as Ace and Doetsch were part way up a roller, and the chase was slowing down as it started to climb it at the bottom, the wheelsucker saw Matt Albanese pull out of the middle of the line and HAMMER! The wheelsucker wishes he could jump and sprint like Matt. The wheelsucker, in a doomed-before-it-started attempt to catch Matt's wheel, launched a monster (by wheelsucker standards) sprint up the hill, and was rewarded by seeing Matt open the distance between them only slowly. Matt caught Ace and Doetsch not long after the top of the roller. It took the wheelsucker rather longer but he somehow made it up and grabbed a wheel, just as Ace pulled off and rotated back. A spent wheelsucker managed to mumble "skip" loud enough for Ace to understand, and Ace graciously pulled back in, in front of the wheelsucker. Hoping for a few more seconds to catch his breath, the wheelsucker tried again as the next rider rotated back, but this rider was Doetsch, who in response to the wheelsucker's plea, yelled "GET UP THERE!!", and then pushed the wheelsucker forward. The wheelsucker wobbled but did not fall, and accelerated just enough to keep his place in the rotation, take a pretend pull at the front, and rotate off. Ace and Doetsch were still keeping the hammer down, and the wheelsucker's effort to stay with them was so great that various wheelsucker body functions were starting to shut down, presumably so the oxygen the wheelsucker was extracting from air with his desperate gasps could be dedicated to the wheelsucker's quads. All the wheelsucker could think of was staying on a wheel, taking the shortest pretend pulls he could, and rotating back and grabbing a wheel. Given the very limited oxygen reaching his brain, it is perhaps understandable that the wheelsucker did not see what happened to Matt; at some point the wheelsucker realized he was gone, and the wheelsucker was by himself, trying to stay with two of the strongest riders in the region.
Ace pulled off shortly before the last dip before Sands rises to the Patuxent Parkway intersection, and the wheelsucker found himself leading down the dip, and up the other side. "This is it", thought the wheelsucker, "this is where I will be slowly, painfully, inexorably, unable to keep the small gap to the wheel in front of me, and the gap will open and I will struggle manfully for a few more seconds, go off the back, sit up, and the pain will end." But though the gap opened a little near the top, the wheelsucker was somehow able to stay on.
The wheelsucker was leading again down the last hill before the sweeping right at the low point that often floods and the wheelsucker's favorite climb, doing his best. He continued pulling around the sweeping right and part way up before rotating off and grabbing a wheel. "This is it", thought the wheelsucker, "this is where I will be slowly, painfully, inexorably, unable to keep the small gap to the wheel in front of me, and the gap will open and I will struggle manfully for a few more seconds, go off the back, sit up, and the pain will end." Sure enough the wheelsucker could not stay with Ace and Doetsch at the top where it gets steeper before starting to level off, and he muttered "So long, boys" as they accelerated off the top. But Ace and Doetsch decided to be merciful -- or maybe they were enjoying the wheelsucker's suffering and wanted to continue it -- and slowed up a little, forcing the wheelsucker -- who had pretty much given up -- to stand and accelerate as hard as he could and get back on. They took it easy on him for awhile, and then hearing the gasping rate slow slightly, ramped it back up. The three caught the green light at 214 and hammered across. The wheelsucker was taking only token pulls, and was feeling bad from the effort. It seemed like more body functions were shutting down; one second the wheelsucker was expecting to "toss his cookies", the next he was wondering if he really needed to stop NOW and run for the trees to go to the bathroom. Several more times the wheelsucker thought "This is it; this is where I will be slowly, painfully, inexorably, unable to keep the small gap to the wheel in front of me, and gap will open and I will struggle briefly, go off the back, sit up, and the pain will end, and I will run for the trees." But each time Doetsch and Ace slowed just enough, and yelled at the wheelsucker to get back on.
All the wheelsucker remembers of the ride from 214 to the finish is back wheels and jerseys from the back; it was all he could do to hang on; his token pulls were probably ten seconds long. Then, on the last flat before the dip and the sprint, a miracle happened. NO, not the "I can suddenly sustain 1300 watts for 30 seconds miracle", which the wheelsucker has often hoped for, but the miracle where Ace sits up, turns to the wheelsucker and says "lets go back and pick up the others." Given that the alternative would have been to try to close a gap to Doetsch and then sprint against him, the wheelsucker gratefully accepted Ace's offer, and rode slowly back towards 214 with him, seeing first the chase group charging by, then some stragglers, and then turning to ride in with two of the last stragglers.
Later that evening, as the wheelsucker poured himself his preferred recovery drink -- hot skim milk with chai tea powder and Goslings rum -- the wheelsucker wondered how fast he had been going, how many watts he had put out, and more. But this was an off season ride, and the wheelsucker had no instrumentation at all on the bike. So it will just have to go down as an epic ride, and the wheelsucker will just have to make something up about the numbers... How fast are you doing when you spin out with a 53-12?
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