Rides 57 & 58: Awful News from Scrod, Climbing Wachusett from a Different Direction, OM AH HUM Allen Ginsberg

Princeton Town Hall Parking Lot
June 3, 2014
Happy Birthday Heidi and AG.

Must dispense with narrative in a concession to time. I can't write it all down, I can't narrate both rides, a Monday and a Tuesday (four days in a row), I'm stretched in many directions, but the road unfolds the same.

The Black News under which both rides were taken was the development out of Frankfurt, Germany that the Mighty Scrod, just back in the saddle 4 rides after a bad femur break last November, fell on a training ride and, trying to catch himself with his left arm, broke the arm bone just below the elbow. No operation this time, but in a cast for 4 weeks minimum and then who knows? As any rider (and sane person?) might at such a low point, he doubts his future as a Wheelman. I have some work to do guiding him through these dark weeks and bringing him out of the understandable funk he's in. Scrod has been a mentor and signature inspiration for moi, I Shad, Shaddy Dubstoevsky, I am a mere minion to the power of Ventoux Calls.

Cut to the details Monday, June 2, Ride # 57. A routine power-pedal to Shirley to check on the childhood home/property-I've-inherited, a rudimentary meander, hammered it as best I could. Strictly utilitarian. I mourned Scrod's broken wing the entire ride. I tried not to let the burden of sorrowful heart weigh me down too much on the moderate climbs.

Ride # 57 Summary: 23.2 miles (37 K), 15.8 mph, I saw a squashed snake, I'm not sure what else. Strava details.

Ride # 58, June 3, 2014
Allen Ginsberg's Birthday
Princeton, Ma
OM AH HUM

For reasons not worth going into, I drove to Princeton Center, parked my car in the small parking lot of the town hall & library, and rode from there. The first 6 miles I'd never ridden before; rt. 62 west for three miles, then a right onto Gates Rd and another three miles, all six of which were terrific (photo above of rt. 62).

A mountain circumnavigation. Interlaken, Switzerland, the Causeway. Westminster. The hot sun. Rt. 140 and the crappy road surface and the fast cars. A rabbit on the slopes leading past the ski lodge. A dogged churning to the summit. Hazy. Humid. Monadnock to the north, indistinct in the humid air. Worcester, future headquarters of Team I Shad, also a hazy smear in the smudge of humid green to the south.

Interlaken, Switzerland

Rabbit up the road (on right)
The ascent
from Westminster

The key to climbing is to maintain your own pace. It's fine to try to catch some rider up the road but more important is to ride within yourself, to find your own rhythm and comfort zone and then be able to maintain that rhythm for extended time. I'm practicing that awareness, trying to pedal steadily, evenly, trying to distribute the stress on any one muscle group across a broader spectrum, trying to breathe.

Wachusett Summit June 3, 2014

The I in Iration

Ride Summary:  23.3 miles (37 K), 15.4, 90 minutes of head wind, reservoirs, mountains, the wafting scent of honeysuckle, of laurel, of blossom. Glorious sun. Heat. Sweating on the Big Climb from Westminster to the summit, but otherwise cool, pleasant, the niceness. Strava details.

It was a terrible day for road kill but there was an early triumph, I saved a moderately-sized (and quite sedate) snapping turtle. At first I passed it by but then circled back around, plucked it from the road and put it on the gravelly roadside embankment.

Road Un-kill
This One Made It

Alas, unfortunately later on I saw the exploded and blackened crushed remains of an elder snapper slain in the road (un-photographed, it was on the other side of the road and I didn't have the stomach for looking at it closely), as well as two dead birds. I don't usually encounter dead birds.

Songbird Unknown

Robin just across the road
from the dead and
Unknown Songbird