The wheelsucker’s Tuesday workout was:
Group ride. Treat parts of this as a race. Ride aggressively. Experiment with race strategies and test yourself. And,
if you can get there early - 2x15 min efforts at threshold power. The 2x15 intervals at threshold went fine. The wheelsucker rolled out on the Tuesday/Thursday ride route, warmed up and started the first interval before 214, picked a spot on Sands Road to turn around and rolled back, taking a long rest interval, so the second threshold interval started at the 214 light and would not be interrupted.
Riding back on the same road, the wheelsucker was well positioned to intercept the ride, but then thought his car might not be locked (two things go when you get old, the first is memory and the wheelsucker cannot remember the second), so the wheelsucker was rolling one way on Davidsonville Road toward the Park & Ride as the group was riding the other way, leaving.
The car was locked, so all the wheelsucker had to do was chase back on. "How hard could this be?", the wheelsucker thought; he was only two or three minutes behind.
Knowing the sooner he caught the group the better, and the catch had to be before the group started to ramp the pace up, the wheelsucker went to full wheelsucker TT power, trying to hold threshold. Despite no wait at the 214 light, and never easing up, the wheelsucker never saw the welcome site of the back of a peleton up ahead.
Finally as the wheelsucker started climbing Harwood Hill he saw two team mates near the top. "Where are they?", gasped the wheelsucker as he went by Will and John K. "Half way to route 2", was the answer from John. This was NOT good news for the wheelsucker, but he ramped up the speed off the top of Harwood Hill and continued the chase. There was still no sign of the back of the peleton as the wheelsucker rolled up to the right turn onto route 2, and no sign of them down route 2. The wheelsucker decided the chase was over. The group hammers down route 2 and there was no way the wheelsucker was going to gain any further ground, so he took the right turn shortcut and then the quick left onto South Polling House, riding that portion of the route backwards.
The wheelsucker backed off the effort after turning off of route 2, knowing he needed to recover a bit before jumping in with the group. After riding most of the way down South Polling House, the lead group appeared all of a sudden. They sped by, with the wheelsucker turning around and sprinting hard to get on the back. The wheelsucker was either tired, or the group was flying, or both; it took just about all the wheelsucker had left to catch on at the back. Riding "on the rivet" the wheelsucker gasped "Skip!" a couple of times to miss a turn in the rotating paceline, hoping to recover slightly, but was soon taking his turns. For one brief moment the wheelsucker considered how he was to follow his instructions:
Treat parts of this as a race. Ride aggressively. Experiment with race strategies and test yourself, and then decided hanging on for a few more seconds was all he would be able to do.
Each time the wheelsucker pulled through it seemed to take everything he had to actually pass the rider who had pulled off, and then at the back it seemed to take everything he had to catch on again. This continued up South Polling House, along Polling House and into the Fat Man’s sprint, with the wheelsucker wondering if he was ever going to get a chance to recover. The climb after the Fat Man’s Sprint looked like it would be the end of the wheelsucker, but he pushed further into the red zone and hung on to Ace’s wheel, while Jay jeered at him "I’m going to be pissed off if I took your pulls and now you drop me." Needless to say Jay was not dropped, and as the group accelerated off the top of the climb, the wheelsucker struggled to stay on. He tried to skip a pull, but the Doetsch was having none of it and told him to get his ass up there, so the wheelsucker gasped a little harder, went a little further into the red zone, and took his pull.
He nearly went OTB at the right turn onto Bayard. He was hoping for some respite on Bayard, but it wasn’t to be. After the right turn on Sands, the wheelsucker was in a daze, he could not ride the bike straight. Other riders were making helpful suggestions about pulling through neatly and gently and staying tucked in close, but the wheelsucker was past hearing them.
Finally, unable to hang on, the wheelsucker gasped "Good bye", and sat up. While the group rolled away, the wheelsucker slowed up, caught his breath, and then as some blood flow returned to his brain, considered that he had been dropped, and the possible implications. It was depressing. After recovering a bit the wheelsucker tried to cheer himself up by deciding he would hold threshold all the way back, but by this time even holding threshold consistently was a struggle, and besides the gathering darkness – or maybe it was the wheelsucker’s poor eyesight – made it very hard to read the numbers on the power meter; was that 211 or 277?
You might think the wheelsucker would be disappointed in being dropped, and would have gone home sulking, perhaps considering quitting bike racing, selling some bikes, returning his elite team kit, and going back to sailboat – 505 – racing. But the wheelsucker’s ego is a little more resilient than that. He figures he put in a hard effort, and could have hung longer or maybe even all the way, but for exhausting himself in the chase first. This may well be complete fiction, but as the memories of the ride fade, the wheelsucker is working hard to convince himself.
