Noon Ride Recap

Considering all of the trash talk going on the last couple of days it was surprising that only eight riders showed up. The rest of you all (except for young Tom and anyone who was with him) are now officially wusses!

On a nice sunny day with calm winds Tom Aga, Hef 1, Doug M, Mike Wagner, myself, and new club members Steve Wahl, and Christine Wehlburg set off on the normal Saturday ride. We were soon joined by Iain who had ridden from home. Doug, Tom, Iain, and Steve Wahl were on their fixies. The ride started out fairly fixie friendly until Wagner got on the front, and took a monster pull. Then things started to fall apart in other ways. Hef 1 broke his chain. Then Iain had to bail due to time constraints. Shortly thereafter Doug bailed. The rumor is that he was upset that no one had shown up for his breakfast. Actually Wagner showed up, but couldn't find the house although I think Mike was having one of those days as he mistook Christine for a man in the parking lot.

Steve Wahl was having some problems clipping in, but that seemed to settle down as the ride went on. The ride would surge every so often and break apart, but then would eventually regroup. We fought a headwind all the way to the rest stop, and decided we'd head back via the Boyd's Turn route as Tom's thermometer was reading 21 degrees, and it was starting to cloud up. We did have a nice tailwind on much of the return trip. Just as we turned onto Fairhaven Rd Steve Wahl's pedal issue suddenly got a lot worse. In fact part of his left pedal literally fell off, and he was unable to clip in completely. This was made even worse by the fact that he was on a fixie. Undeterred he continued the ride, and rode rather strongly in sections.

Shortly after we crossed 258 Mike, and I took off and did a nice long interval through the rollers. Once we reached Route 2 we backtracked to join up with the rest of the group. Apparently some woman had offered them warm pie. I'm still kind of unclear as to exactly what was offered, and how it was offered, but Tom, Steve, and Christine seemed to be happy with the exchange.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful, and needless to say we didn't stand around chatting in the parking lot!

Mike and I both agreed that even though it was colder the weather overall was better than last year's Rite Aid ride.

Kudos to both Steve, and Christine for coming out on a day like today especially for their first Saturday Davidsonville experience. I learned some interesting things from both of them, and it is nice to know there is another Monty Python fan on the squad.

Next Saturday the ride moves back to 10AM unless something really unusual happens. Hopefully some of you wusses will get off the couch, and we'll have a better turnout. Remember the Navy team is starting their trash talking already!

Slip Sliding Away: Sunday in Philadelphia

The wheelsucker's scheduled Sunday workout was:

Ride fixed gear bike on a rolling course. Ride mostly in heart rate 2-3 zones with some 4-5a on small uphills.

The wheelsucker thought this should be easy enough to do in the Philadelphia area, and he thought the standard Sunday ride 8:45AM starting at the dog statue would work well. Besides, Sunday was warmer and sunnier than Saturday, and the wintry mix forecast for Saturday had been mostly a no-show, and the roads appeared bare. However, when the wheelsucker rolled up to the little park with the dog statue, he was only the third rider there, one of the others being Super Brit¹. After waiting a few minutes for other riders to turn up, the three decided to roll over to the Italian fountain behind the Art Museum to see if there was a ride starting there to hook up with.
On the way there, the third rider disappeared leaving Super Brit and the wheelsucker -- neither of whom knew any routes -- wondering what to do. Super Brit and the wheelsucker decided to see if they could remember the Vino Velo ride route, but problems started pulling out of the parking lot when they disagreed regarding whether the Vino Velo route went straight across Kelly Drive, or was a right turn onto Kelly Drive. While this particular issue was resolved in favor of going straight, it did not take long for Super Brit and the wheelsucker to find themselves beyond their known world, clearly off the normal Vino Velo route. But this was not too bad, as the day was nicer than Saturday, the road they were on did have a bicycle lane, and looking at the brightest area of the sky, they figured they were heading Northwest.

An hour into the ride things were looking good; Super Brit was looking for an easier ride, so the wheelsucker and his fixie were not pushing as hard to stay with him, but still the wheelsucker WAS following Super Brit down a hill when all of a sudden Super Brit went down, parting company with his bike and sliding down the shoulder on ice. The wheelsucker's first thought was to avoid hitting Super Brit, but this rapidly became moot as the wheelsucker went down two seconds later and slid with his fixie down the hill. When both riders finally came to a stop, they slowly picked themselves up, leaned against the guardrail and assessed the damage. Super Brit's folding bicycle was more than thirty feet back up the hill. Super Brit was sighing in pain. Both riders had fallen to the left, and the wheelsucker had hit his head (and helmet) on the ground and was shaken up. After some assessment it was determined that neither rider was hurt badly, but both were a little beat up. Jackets were scarred on the elbow and both riders were covered in salt stains on their left sides.

Continuing the ride out of town (where it seemed to be colder than in town) with the possibility of more ice seemed foolish, so the two turned around and carefully retraced their steps. But it was less than five minutes later than the wheelsucker found himself in the bike lane (which was generally less salted than the car lanes) avoiding car traffic, and suddenly on ice. The wheelsucker very carefully tried to ease the bike over to the left towards the traffic lane, but the bike lane was sloping right to left. This effort lasted a short while until the wheelsucker went down on his left side again, but not as hard as the first fall.

After picking himself up again the wheelsucker reverted to survival mode, riding easily in the traffic lane, trying to spot icy patches before he rode over them.
It did seem to be warming up slightly as they headed back towards Philadelphia, and eventually the two decided to head over to Manayunk either for some hills if they could find a dry patch, or for a coffee. Once in Manayunk the coffee won out and Super Brit and the wheelsucker holed up with large latte's (note to Lance and Kyle - these were skinny lattes) and an almond croissant.

After waiting what seemed like sufficient time for some more ice patches to melt, Super Brit and the wheelsucker carefully rode back to the Art Museum area, going easy on Super Brit's pulled groin muscle and their tender hips, knees and shoulders.

The ride back was uneventful, and after a nice hot shower at his girlfriend's home, the wheelsucker assessed the total damage as a headache, a slightly sprained neck, banged elbow, a bruised and sore hip and some mild road rash on his hip and knee. It could have been a lot worse.

Another Vino Velo Ride

Nearly all group rides in the Philadelphia area start from the Art Museum, actually the fountain behind the Art Museum. Of those that do not, most start from the dog statue across the street in a small triangular one block park. There are a few other locations listed on various websites, but on the two occasions the wheelsucker tried those, no one else showed up. While there are multiple rides a day -- nearly hourly -- going from the fountain behind the Art Museum, the 9:00AM Saturday Vino Velo ride is well known and popular. And the tough Philadelphia cyclists are renowned for doing the ride almost regardless of conditions. So it was quite a surprise for the wheelsucker to be parked near the fountain at 8:55AM, getting ready to ride, and not seeing another rider. Surely the Philadelphians could not have been scared off by the somewhat-below-freezing temperatures, the ice in the gutter, or the forecast of "wintry mix"? Finally another rider rolled by and stopped to chat. It was a rider the wheelsucker had ridden with before, on a previous Vino Velo a few weeks ago.

"Super Brit"¹ is staying in a hotel in Philadelphia on weekends and doing consulting work during the week in various other cities. Since he is flying all the time, he rides a neat folding bicycle. While this may not sound like the greatest road bike, the bicycle has an SRM and drop handlerbars, and comes close to duplicating the position he has on his various road bikes (which are still in England).

One of the "rules" of the Vino velo ride is that one circles the fountain counter clockwise while waiting for other riders to arrive.

Super Brit and the wheelsucker accordingly circled the fountain and eventually Alex² turned up. While three riders -- two of them visitors -- was hardly representative of a Vino Velo ride, this did give the group one rider who actually knew the route, a key requirement. Alex, "Myrig" and the wheelsucker set off. Given the forecast the wheelsucker had brought his rain bike, his old Trek 1220 upgraded to 105 ten speed and a Powertap wired wheel, not one of his weight weenie race bikes. It took a while to warmup, as though Super Brit's SRM was reporting 1 degree C above freezing this was while riding past puddles that were clearly frozen solid. Once warmed up, and one the riders realized the crunching sound was from riding over salt, not crunching through ice, the pace increased, with Super Brit driving the pace most of the time, Alex taking over from time to time, and the wheelsucker working harder than he cared to and increasingly concerned about being dropped in some middle-of-nowhere spot somewhere northwest of Philadelphia. The wheelsucker is very good at wheelsucking, but it is probably worth pointing out that the salt on the roads was melting the snow and ice, so there was a lot of dirty water on the roads, and this dirty water was being flung up by the rear tires of Super Brit and Alex. The wheelsucker was turning brown/grey from all of this, and his sunglasses were slowly being covered. But the risks of being dropped in some middle-of-nowhere spot somewhere northwest of Philadelphia outweighed the risks of being completely covered in salt and grit spray, so the wheelsucker hung on, wheelsucking, breathing hard, and taking one or two very short pulls in case anyone was counting.

After riding back through Manayunk onto Kelly Drive, the three crossed the river and rode back to the Art Museum on a particuarly flat -- actually slightly downhill section. By this time Super Brit and Alex had been chatting awhile, and the wheelsucker overheard snippets to the effect that Super Brit was the equivalent of a cat 1 in England, and had a 52 minute 49k TT time. This was enough for the wheelsucker to accelerate enough to pull along side and ask how many watts Super Brit had averaged for those 52 minutes, "340 watts", was the answer! And Super Brit weighs about 130-135 pounds! Super Brit was driving the pace back to the Art Museum and the wheelsucker finally cracked and decided he HAD to take a pull or would not be able to live with himself, so after waiting sufficient time to hope that Super Brit might be tiring, the wheelsucker accelerated, pulled out, passed Super Brit and took a pull. The trouble was that to accelerate and get in front of Super Brit required northwards of 500 watts, and the wheelsucker felt obliged to hold at least 400 while at the front, and as you all know, the wheelsucker's time at 400+ watts is limited, severely limited actually!
A very short pull later, the wheelsucker pulled over, and Super Brit happily pulled through and continued. After waiting a considerable time for Super Brit to tire for real, the wheelsucker had another go; after all, they were close to the Art Museum, how bad could it be? The wheelsucker quickly found out when he slowed on a false flat and suddenly saw Super Brit go by easily, with Alex sprinting to stay on his wheel. The wheelsucker called down to the engine room for flank speed, but nothing noticeable happened, the gap opened and the wheelsucker watched Super Brit and Alex easily ride away. The only good news was that the end of the ride was another three hundred feet further, so the wheelsucker could claim to himself that he was merely cooling down after the ride.

1. Super Brit is actually a mid thirties Welshman named something that sounds like "Myrig" but is probably 27 letters long like many Welsh names. Super Brit started racing as a nine year old, stopped racing while at University, then took it up again. He is the UK equivalent of a cat 1. His TT time is apparently good enough that he has a shot of getting on the podium at the UK TT Nationals if he can ever make the race. Super Brit lives in a downtown Philadelphia hotel on weekends, and in hotels wherever his clients are, the rest of the week.

2. Alex is a mid thirties cat 3 who did not race last year. He rides for Chesapeake Wheelmen. He has won Memorial Hall in a lone breakaway. He is moving to Washington DC soon.

Saturday in Frederick County

Great ride with some AVC members!

Lots of climbing (some long ones) including Harp Hill and High Rock, lots of time on the bike, great scenery, some FAAST descents, and if that wasn't enough lots of yellow sign sprints for those who were so inclined. Stephen wrote 5700 feet of climbing and 67 miles in his e-mail; I have not pulled the data from my Powertap yet. Over five hours, but riding time was actually closer to four. The faster climbers had more rest as they waited at the top of the climbs, and we also had a couple of other rest stops, including a stop to assist an older lady who was having car trouble and was stranded in rural Maryland.

Lance's workout had him trying to stay under 300 watts, which made the long climbs a challenge. For extra "difficulty" points Lance was riding an 11-23 (I use an 11-26 and was wishing I had brought a 10-28 (does that even exist?)). Seems like a good way for Lance to get a big gear workout! How about a fixed gear, Lance! I thought Kyle was doing a similar workout to Lance, but given the climbs and yellow line sprints I don't think he stayed below 300 watts much :-)

Nat was having an easy day except for a few climbs and sprints where something tempted Nat to actually turn it on. New Latitude member Brian makes long climbs look incredibly easy (well, he was making it look easy for the relatively short times I could stay in sight of him), despite riding an old heavy aluminum bike. He's going to be even faster on a light CAAD9. New Latitude member Stephen also climbs really well, rolls really well, and apparently LOVES to sprint too. Kyle just loves to sprint, and then sprint some more. There are WAY TOO MANY yellow signs in Frederick County! And Kyle and the AVC guys seem to know where each of them is, especially the ones just around a corner!

AVC'er John Olinski goes downhill like a missile, he uses an interesting aero position, sitting on the top tube underneath the seat. I have no idea where his knees and hands go, or how he steers.

Wheelsucker data:
Ride time: 3:57:16 (slightly shorter than Kyle, 'cause I was waiting at the top of the climbs while he was still riding up)
67.1 miles
2736 calories burned
climbing ~ 5700 feet
watts average = 195 watts, max = 977 watts
speed average = 15.7 mph, max = 49.8 mph
number of yellow sign sprints > 10

Fixie=Russian Roulette?

Question: When is riding a Fixie like playing Russian Roulette?
Answer: When you ride it for the Saturday D'ville group ride.

Yesterday after ACE asked about who was riding today, there were a few exchanges about the possible pace for the D'ville ride. I think I proposed "sane and steady", whatever that means, but Ian responded correctly with "Give it up, old habits die hard". Having been riding my fixie a bit, I think sure, I'm ready to give it a try, especially if others are doing the same (Ian, Doug, Greg et al). I'll just take my chances with the pace - Russian Roulette.

So I show up at the park and ride with my Steamroller. Given that I have a Corolla and no rack, I can only bring one bike, so I am comitted. At this point, I'm feeling like I have a revolver against my head with 1 bullet somewhere in the rotation. I'm looking around and not seeing any other fixies. I try to talk Tom Aga into riding his fixie (he's smart, he brings 2 bikes). No dice. Uh oh. Luckily Ian and Doug roll in on theirs. Click. Nothing. Whew.

We roll out down the hill and onto Patuxent River Road. Then the pace starts to ramp up with some of the ususal "we have to go at some ungodly power level (for me anyway) beacause that's what my coach says" types on the front. Uh oh. Then as the gap opens up they go off the front and the rest of the groups sits back, "steady and sane". Click. Nothing. Whew.

The pace continues sane and steady, even Bill Neumann appears to be enjoying it! Then we get to Brooks Woods; towards the latter part of it, I'm starting to spin pretty hard, some gaps start. Uh oh. After the turn, it slows and regroups, and I make it comfortably to the store. Click. Nothing. Whew.

We leave the store with ACE leading the charge. All of a sudden I realize that I'm working really hard to keep the wheel in front of me. ACE is doing an interval. Uh oh. He finishes before we get to Boyds turn and I catch my breath. Click. Nothing. Whew.

At Boyds Turn, there is some quick talk about who, if anyone, is doing the shorter route. Looks like no one is, so I keep following. The tandem goes by and I'm on the wheel. We start going down the first big roller, I'm spinning at a gazillion rpms and about 37 mph. Uh oh. Big gap. Click. BANG!

I'm gone. Oh well, I made it 4 rounds. I figure its all for the better anyway as it will spare me the indignation of being left for dead over the wall. After the first roller, there's a cut in the road so I quickly do a 180 and high tail it for Boyds Turn as the north wind alone all the way from North Beach would not be pleasant. I'm enjoying my "sane and steady" pace through Fairhaven, up the horse farm, over the wall and as I come the stop, I see some ABRT jerseys up the road. Sweet, I guess some people DID take the short cut. I work hard to catch them. It's Ian, Doug, Heff and John. This will really help with the wind. Nice to have some company all the way back.

The "beach crowd" gets back a few minutes after us, so they must have been hauling the mail to make up 6 miles in a little over an hour as we were not lollygagging. All in all, a nice December ride, and I'm better for the bloody experience.

The NOT Bill Neumann Ride ;-)

After Bill posted an e-mail saying that while others might do the ride this week, he would not be leading it, I showed up anyway.

So I get up at 5:20am, drive 2.5 hours ... I was in NJ .... and at 9:00am I am sitting in my car in a snow and ice covered parking lot, watching the snow-driven wind....and no one else is there. Hmm. Plan B is a fixie ride at noon with Alex Pline.

Alex and I rode most of the Pete Penzell Saturday ride route, on our fixed gears, starting from Alex's home at around noon. The temperature was above freezing -- barely -- and it was windy. We made up for this by cutting the ride slightly short, and heading to downtown Annapolis and hot chocolate at The Hard Bean.

For those keeping score, both Alex and I are currently running close to 74 gear inches.

The Original Snow [Patapsco] Valley Ride

Greetings all, Today the MTB team banded together once more and made a terrible, windy, cold and brutal day into a very very solid ride opportunity.

After arriving at the CCBC tennis courts on my cross bike, the Raleigh RX1.0, I tried hard to tell myself the pain was just weakness leaving the body. After standing in the cold, we rolled and thankfully, gracious Mike did not take us on the technical loop right off. The technical stuff isn't a problem for me on my normal bike, but on a road bike, a little much.

After a few hard, hard diggers, I finally got into a rhythm. This is basically how the ride would go:

First the fat tire boys would fly down the hills like they were supposed to. The snow that was on the ground didn't seem to slow Kidd or anyone else down. I would find myself off the back, yes off the back of a mountain bike group.

Typacially I made great time on the climbs, even the technical ones and was actually clearing stuff on the 700x32's (in the snow) that I have trouble occasionally with on a nice day with my 29x2.2's. At one point on the ridge trail I was just tearing it up the side of the hill till my admittedly worn-out rear tire finally just refused to grab the earth any longer. I'm almost certin that I climbed better because this bike weighs 21 lbs, and my monocog flight 29er (SS I might add) weighs 27 on a good day.

Logs were of little problem for the RX1, the reasons I hate this bike on the road, were the very reasons it took so well to the dirt. Namely its very high bottom bracket gave mondo clearence over stupid stuff and the forward position made bunny hopping easy.

Biggest tip for riding a cyclocross bike at Patapsco-Avalon, THORN RESISTANT TUBES. Yes my cross bike has clinchers, cause I tend to break nice stuff. These tubes are 10x the thickness of what most recognize as a road tube, making it **Impossible** to pinchflat. I was actually bottoming out on my rims a few times (at 45psi) and still no problems. The one drawback is weight, they are very heavy but I noticed this less in the woods then I did in a cross race or on road.

Last point, cross bikes are slow as a turtle going down. Its their nature unless you're Jeremiah Bishop. Because of the carbon fork, high pressure tires and narrow contact with the ground (on a muddy snowy day) you have to just deal with it. The benefit, center pull brakes were the original anti-lock devices and I never skidded out, at all.

My wrists, forearms and neck all hurt from going over the bars about twice, crashing into a tree once. However I would certainly try riding out in the woods on my X bike again, let me just true my wheels up again first.

or

You Decide.