Shad Week: Heat of the Dub

It was all good from the start. 

May 28, 2016
En route to Amherst, MA

The plan was ambitious and my anxiety was elevated: Leave Team Shad HQ in Woo City by 7:30 AM Saturday morning and arrive in Amherst by 9:00 when the Amherst College Mead Art Museum opened; see the Shakespeare First Folio; then meet with Wing Nut in Sunderland at 10:00 with the intention of satisfying two goals:

First, the Strava Gran Fondo challenge that both Wing Nut and Dubstoevsky were on the books for: a single day 115k ride (approximately 71 miles) during the month of May.

First Folio! 1623
To be! or fucking not to be!

Second, the small matter of the Tour de Heifer, ride number 2 of Team Shad's Big Three events for the team's 2016 season. The Tour de Heifer (or, as we like to think of it as, the Tour de Filet Mignon), is next week, Sunday, June 5th. That's 60+ dirt road miles in hilly southern Vermont (key word "hilly"). While we've both been training separately and are both in viable mid-season form, it seemed prudent to get together in advance of Big Number Two and do a ride together, one longer than the Tour de Flank Steak itself.

These were serious undertakings.

And we took them as such.

I was standing before the Shakespeare First Folio by 9:05 AM, no one else in the gallery except the guard who cautioned me about leaning too close lest I set off the alarm. 1623. The first folio was published seven years after Shakespeare's death and collected many of his plays and poems. If not for the first folio, perhaps no Shakespeare! That's the gravity of this book.

Then off I went to Sunderland, which sounds like a bucolic land of candy and mashed potatoes with butter but was really just a point of convenient rendezvous. Though it be hereby noted that Sunderland has one of the largest sycamore trees in the country, a tree that predates the revolution of 1776. And we rode past it and inhaled its karma and honored its longevity and hoped that, as we passed, we would be imbued with its stalwart certainty.

Wing Nut and the Big Sycamore in Sunderland

Stalwart certainty. A desperately needed trait in the maw of Hades' fire.

Because the day was WICKED HOT (New England inflection intended).

We left Sunderland around 10:30 AM when the day's baby Chernobyl heat pulses were reasonably contained, a wee bit of heat leaking through the concrete tomb. But that would not last.

Across the river into Whately, into the rolling shaded hills of Conway and Ashfield we rode and the temperature rose as the day unfolded.

Climbing out of forested hillsides into open farm road hillsides, the sun boomed down like Jah's Breath of Judgment, a furnace-like blast of torturous purity and frustrating fuck-nattiness. Like all moral reckoning, the heat could not be ignored.

But we didn't care! We are Team Shad and we ride in all conditions and under all circumstances and when pressed to produce, we do so. To wit:

Through shaded forest:

Reservoir Style

And the watery reminder of the ever possible:

Deerfield River, May 28, 2016

To the Bridge of Team and the maw forward, the sweaty heat pulse cracked-tarmac way forward, the raw sun slap and mockery, grit and pebble way forward, the inevitable shad splash fin surge forward:

Wing Nut and Dubstoevsky, Shad Style

Until finally we come around full circle to Sunderland and it's only 63 miles and we still need 10 more miles so there's nothing to be done but to ride north along River Rd to Montague and loop back around and notch the requisite mileage. and we do! 73+ miles, the May Gran Fondo.

Scenes from the Road

Somewhere above Bardwells Ferry

Riding into one's own destiny

Ka-ching!

Shad Week: May 23rd and 25th: Training Camp for the Tour de Heifer

Dubstoevsky in the saddle, a big week approaching the Tour de Heifer on Sunday, June 5th. Two weeks of intensive riding.

Jesus blessing cyclists from the field of welcome

Kicked off the week with a solo Monday afternoon ride into the hills north and west of Woo City, 30+ miles on a languid, humid day. Jesus himself blessed ole' Dub'stoy from an alabaster perch in the Great Christian Meadow alongside rt 56 just north of Paxton Center. Sacred light and the blessing of winged heels.

Long farm roads free of cars. Threatening skies thick with flinty steel cloud gauze. The rich green emergence. Farmland edged in gray rock walls, gnarled oaks and maples anchoring hillsides like old friends.

Trees' lives on a vastly different rhythm than our own, I whir by them in their huge-trunked and stalwart glory, and bellow a greeting that dissipates in the flash of passing. Idyllic! The deserted New England hillsides and the sense that some sort of unflappable spirit pervades this landscape, the spirit that refuses to be cowed by granite or glacial moraine, the spirit of the perpetually revolving sphere, be it planet or bicycle wheel.

Bellow a greeting to the vast passing

Wednesday night, the group ride
out of West Boylston. My second ride with these guys. Fourteen of us. There's an undercurrent of competition in this group, an edge to the grupetto that's tangible. Collaborative competition. We roll out of West Boylston and head up toward Sterling and into terrain well-traveled by Dubstoevsky. We end up on roads that were once the grist and gruel of Team Shad's diet, roads we consumed like charcuterie and buttered bread. Justice Hill Rd. Bullard Rd. Redstone Hill Rd. The Princeton Hills.

Frantic, Don, and the rainbow atop Justice Hill

Dubstoevsky got at it and made sure to be at or near the front the whole ride, a feat not easily accomplished as three or four powerful and remorseless riders pushed the pace, challenging the rest to keep up or drop behind. I opted to keep up, but it cost me a great effort. On the pitiless Justice Hill climb, despite knowing the climb well and having launched on it in front of the entire grupetto, my nemesis Frantic caught me out and surged ahead, putting distance between us that I would never make up.

Toward the very top, in second place, I had to fend off the surging force of Don, perhaps the strongest rider of these rides, a racer and a competitor, he tried to heave by me as we crested the climb. Perhaps he'd perceived my slackening effort and thought to rush past me. Whatever his plan or intention was, I squashed it by digging into my suitcase of courage and accelerating with disdain at the bitter fucking last-gasp end of the climb. I powered forward with a steady rhythm that Don, having spent everything he had trying to catch me, couldn't match. A small but encouraging triumph for Dubstoevsky.

Let's be clear; the good thing about the group rides is the friendly competition they spur. It's friendly because there's nothing really on the line. Though it's weird too. I overheard Don and Frantic discuss attacking a guy new to this ride on the last climb of the day. The new guy had been aggressive and out in front with Don and Frantic and me, with myself hunkered down in fourth place, watching and waiting and listening. I overheard Frantic and Don whisper their plan as we hit the last huge climb of the day, so I was ready when they accelerated past the new dude. I grabbed Don's wheel and went with him, powered past Frantic on he far left, and ended up topping the hill in second spot.

Minor triumphs but movement forward. Always concerned with moving forward. The test of mettle when head-to-head with other riders, the challenge of the grupetto, the measuring stick of pace. You either stay in the front, or you drift into arrears.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016, Sterling, Ma

Me and My Uncle

Call him Uncle Steve. A septuagenarian from New Jersey, he's a sinewy, wiry dynamo of cycling enthusiasm. He's family and doesn't visit often but when he does he becomes an honorary rider for Team Shad.

The ringer from NJ and Dubstoevsky

He got a new bike a month ago, a carbon fiber Cannondale with some kind of extraordinarily expensive and incredible wheels. It was last year's model so he paid half price for it in Florida (where he lives and rides during the winter months). It still cost $6,000. The bike weighs next to nothing and is completely matte black, like a Bat Mobile or something. I mounted my trusty seven year old Specialized Allez Comp (with carbon fiber forks), and off we went, the summit of Mt. Wachusett our target.

The way I devised to the mountain led us on a circuitous route through Paxton and Rutland over classic central Mass terrain - rolling hills, ridges, hardwood forests, farmland, reservoirs, sparsely-traveled country roads. Plenty of climbing, plenty of newly-paved surfaces, a veritable sylvan dérive over farmland and rural byways. But here's the thing - because he wanted to get in some serious mileage, he rode solo earlier this morning ; he put in twenty miles before he even came to Team Shad HQ. Virginian-esque, a real cycling animal.

Uncle Steve, the cycling animal

We rocked it. At one point, we espied a white-jersey'd cyclist far ahead of us. A quarry, I thought. Gradually, doggedly, we roped him in. Steve caught him first (because he was already powering 10 yards or so ahead of me). I reached the guy's rear wheel, rode there for a minute or so, then pulled alongside him.

He looked across at me and said "I have that jersey, I almost wore it today."

Steal your face.

"When was your first show?" I asked, knowing immediately he was on the bus.

"1974" A fellow head, and a real veteran.

We rode as a threesome for a while, racing at considerable speed down Hillside Rd and Causeway Rd. When we hit 122A and asked him if he wanted to accompany us to the mountain, he opted out saying that he had to turn toward home. Adieu, Jack Straw!

My Steal Your Face jersey elicited many comments over the course of the ride, from the guy who leaned out his pick-up truck window driving toward us and shouted 'Dig your shirt!" to the several cyclists on Wachusett Mountain who commented on it and asked where I got it.

It's interesting. Occasionally I encounter the total dickhead driver, like last evening for example when, toward the end of a euphoric 43 mile ride, I was beeped at and swerved at by an asshole in a pick-up truck. This kind of harassment doesn't happen to me often, but it does happen.

Steal Your Face, Mount Wachusett Summit

Though never when I'm wearing the Grateful Dead shirt. Every comment or acknowledgement I've ever gotten by a passing motorist or fellow cyclist has been positive. Today proved no different when, filling our water bottles at the park HQs after climbing to the summit, several different cyclists expressed their connection to and approval of the Dead. It's an informal club of comfortable familiarity.

Uncle Steve and I climbed the mountain, he on his feather weight marvel and me on my aluminum idea of lightness. I followed him as best as I could and in a final surge after turning left at the Summit marker, I hove alongside him then pushed ahead, powering on to the lookout tower summit.

We could see Woo City miles away across the clouded horizon and knew that much of the way back there would be downhill, the descent from the mountain first and foremost. We zoomed downward, cautious of hikers but wildly exceeding the universal speed limit (for cars and bikes) of 20 mph. We killed no one.

And then plunged further downward on old familiar roads from the days when Team Shad was based in Lemonstar - Pine Hill Rd, Mirick Rd, rt. 62. Eventually, we picked up Mason Rd and enjoyed that long, bucolic stretch of car-free spinning. Uncle Steve is used to riding out of Elizabeth, NJ, a busy, urban environment, so a stretch like Mason Rd is a cyclist's glory.

Uncle Steve and the Mason Rd Glory

Notes: Cardinals, crows, chipmunks and squirrels, sparrows, blue jays, turkey vultures; we heard birdsong everywhere, we inhaled the abundant scent of lilac throughout the ride, we smelled the freshly-lain red mulch in the mega church's landscaping, at one point several Baltimore orioles burst across our path rapturously orange-y gold.

Fox on the prowl in Rutland

And on a ride yesterday afternoon/evening up into Rutland, I noticed a red fox in a green and sunny field. I pulled over to watch it as he lay like a cat in the grass, almost fully hidden, except occasionally he sat up to look stealthily around and sniff the air. Surely he was hunting mice and moles

But the sad thing is that spring, as much as it's a time of rejuvenation and rebirth, is also a time of slaughter. Wildlife slaughter by automobiles. Small mammals, snakes, songbirds, these account for the lion's share (no pun intended) of the road kill. Turtles crawling across the roadways to reach sandy berms are routinely crushed, though I haven't seen one yet this year. But yesterday I came upon a chipmunk still flapping from the impact of the car wheel that had crushed its back half. Last week I whooshed past a three foot water snake that had just been run over. I circled back to remove its body from the roadway for the sake of its animal dignity and to my horror its front half lurched upwards, mouth agape as if both snapping and gasping for air. It was still alive! But doomed and dying, it offered no resistance when I lifted it with a stick from the tarmac and laid it in the shade on the roadside.

OM AH HUM

Parting Shot

Racing down the row of oaks on Jefferson St

Got Lucky

I got lucky today and didn't get rained on, though I rode under threatening skies the whole time. A relatively short but reasonably hilly ride up past the airport and down the other side on Goddard Memorial Dr to Apricot St.

23 miles and a thousand feet of climbing. And this lovely scene on the way out of Woo City.

Just setting out

From Grim to Glorious

Four rides in four days, from grim to glorious, none of the rides particularly big by DS Mawg's standards. Today's was actually the longest at 30 miles.

Saturday's outing distinguishes itself for being treacherous (the "Grim" in the title of this post), and for me for being a gampas.

[Note: "Gampas" is a made-up word that means fool or dingbat or moron. It might mean "shrimp" in Spanish.]

Here's what happened.

It was damp and overcast all week, chilly days, several of them actually rainy. Saturday arrived and seemed to promise a respite from actual precipitation, even though the morning was heavily clouded. I decided to ride. But half way down the block, the sky visibly black and ominous in the distance and a brisk wind blowing, I realized that I'd under-dressed. So back I went to Shad HQ for warmer layers including a Pearl Izumi fleece top, a long sleeve windbreaker, and full length tights.

My plan was to climb to the airport, then take Bailey Rd to Mulberry Rd which wraps around the back of the airport and descends into Cherry Valley (Bailey Rd can be busy and dangerous during the week due to contractor traffic, i.e. a lot of pick-ups, but on Saturday it's not that bad). About four miles in, I hit the airport climb, a category four, and almost immediately began to sweat. I was overdressed but there was nothing to do but climb to the top, which I did, increasingly sodden.

Low visibility on Mulberry St

Along Airport Drive I stopped and, in the thickening mist and desperate for air, took off my bright orange, high vis windbreaker ... only to realize that I was now dressed completely in black. The only remotely bright thing I had going for me was a blinking tail light. Otherwise I was, under the circumstances (bad visibility, thick cloud cover, ground mist and fog) dressed as a basic gampas, which is to say foolishly. Obviously I didn't perish nor even have a close call, but I remain chastened by having been so boneheaded.

On Sunday, Mother's Day, I managed a one hour low intensity Reservoir Loop in between Mother's Day Brunch (French Toast, bacon, 4 berry fruit salad with creme fraiche, pear cider 2.5% alcohol, Presecco) and Greek Tapas dinner (lamb sausage, platters of bread and dips, fried smelts, chicken kebabs).

Waiting for the Monday Night Ride to get underway
Barney's Bike Shop, May 9, 2016

19 guys showed up for the Monday night ride with Barney's crew. It was a spirited ride, though tame in the early goings up Mill St. I rode with the advanced guys but, as usually happens because I'm still learning this game, I ended up getting schooled at various points along the way. I'm still basically a "new guy" among the regulars, many of whom have been riding together at this and other local group rides for years, and they know the nuances and the points of attack on this ride, whereas I don't yet.

Case in point, I was among a train of 7 guys out in front and racing along the reservoir, heading for two climbs (a short one followed by, after a little level ground and a small decent, a much steeper and longer one). Frantic Frank was among us and, as seems to happen too frequently between me and Frantic, he blocked my way forward on a climb. Hitting the first, smaller hill, Frantic, directly in front of me, mis-shifted and momentarily lost his momentum. That forced me to brake and lose my own momentum.

Frustrated, I put the hammer down, veered around him and around the phalanx of five others directly ahead, and shot up the hill like an angry moth. No one gave chase. Flutter flutter. Until after the level-off and the slight downhill right before the Big Hill - then one, then another, then all six had passed me, Frantic included. I gave game chase but couldn't catch anyone's wheel and labored up the climb 30 yards and more in arrears.

The lesson I learned is not to react in frustration. The point I proved in topping the small hill first was quickly negated by losing any chance at the Real Prize, the Big Fucking Climb, a climb that is actually kind of ideal for me and which I should own. I just need to learn patience. Unfortunately, this Monday night I had none and I blew my engine on the Small Pagoda. OM.

Alta Vista Farm, Rutland, Ma
May 10, 2016

Today's solo jaunt out to Rutland and the Prescott St/Hillside Rd/Emerald Rd/Causeway St loop, was utterly beautiful (the Glorious of the title). Finally, a warm, sunny May day, almost 70 degrees, though still remarkably dry, there's very little moisture in the air so it always feels just a little bit cooler than the actual temperature. I wore 3/4 tights, two shirts, and a paper bag between the shirts. Perfect. But not yet Early Summer.

The end of today's ride was excellent. I decided to do the climb to Bancroft Tower. As I rounded the corner on the last steep uphill part, I saw two guys walking up ahead. It was clear that we'd all reach the top at the same time, which we did.

Bancroft Tower May 10, 2016

"Hello!" I said, greeting the one who'd seen me at the last minute and turned toward me. The other guy hadn't heard me and turned around with a surprised, but smiling, look on his face. I don't think either of them spoke English and I don't know what nationality they were but we interacted warmly.

The first guy pointed down the hill we'd both just come up and said something that I took to mean "You just rode up that fucking hill?? Praises unto you!"

I smiled broadly, nodding my head, and gave him a fist bump that he happily returned. So did his smiling friend.

Summit Style

Alta Vista Farm, April 30, 2016

Saturday. Weekends allow for prolonged exploration. It's hard to consider a really good & serious ride of 45 miles or more in the middle of the week, not for Dubstoevsky, at least. Wing Nut (formerly known as "The Virginian") is the exception. But consider the reality: to do 45 miles in three hours requires an average speed of 15 mph. I realize that that's not complicated math but the implications are simple - three hours required! Factor in daylight and work and you're hard-pressed to leverage that kind of window during the Monday thru Friday stretch. At least, I am. That's why Saturdays, for many cyclists et moi, are the Big Ride day.

The summit in the distance

This particular Saturday (yesterday) dawned bright and clear in Woo City. Though chilly early on, with the sun's ascent the temperature rose into the 50s and by 10:30 AM the promise of a mild spring day bloomed with certainty. Over the course of the ride, I passed many cyclists. Everyone was out taking advantage. One guy, at the water fountain at the base of Mt. Wachusett, answered my query about conditions on the road to the summit (clear). I thanked him and asked where he was riding from.

"Arlington" he replied.

"Holy shit!" I responded without thinking. The thought alarmed me, having to ride all the way back to Arlington. His ride would be more than 100 miles overall. "Hey, good luck, ride safe!" I shouted. He seemed as if he needed the well-wishing. Arlington to the summit of Mt Wachusett and back is a long fucking haul and he was only halfway.

To the mountain

Strava has a May Gran Fondo Challenge: on a single ride, cover 115km or more (that's 71.4 miles). I considered having a go at it but it was April 30 and the challenge hadn't kicked in yet. Still, I toyed with achieving the distance by covering 58.9 miles overall. But this ride was more about climbing than it was about distance and when all was said and done, I'd ridden upwards in excess of 3600 feet, a more than acceptable result.

"Be light on the bike" I kept reminding myself. I learned that from I Ward more than twenty years ago when we mountain biked together. Something about gripping the handlebars lightly, about inhaling and floating like a feather. Or today, like a titanium arrow. I tuck myself into the shape & essence of a blow dart gusted forth by the Divine Unknown and hurtle down the mountain. I imagine my inhalation a lightening of the body, a suffusing of weightlessness. I lay upon the bike like a shadow.

Summit Road

Still climbing toward the top

And then there's Form. Always thinking about form. Good form, bad form. Always trying to be conscious of bad form. Bad form is not paying attention, is missing something obvious, is losing your line, is somehow messing up a fluid situation, it's putting yourself & others in unnecessary danger. Bad form. It's obvious when it occurs. Cycling requires constant attention.

I notched but one incident of bad form on the 58 miler. Early in the ride, I saw a Verizon trucked parked along the roadside at the bottom of a hill and I whizzed by, but as I did I noticed a Vertizon technician standing behind the truck. I should have noticed him earlier. He could have stepped out without seeing me and I was too close and would have slammed into him. This was a small incident, one Bad Form point on the ride. Over 58 miles that's an acceptable outcome.

At one point about half way up the Mt Wachusett summit road a cyclist came upon me from behind and blew by me like a gust of wind. Diablo! I instinctively increased my pace but realized quickly I'd never catch the dude. He was an animal who, if I were prey, would have eaten me. He made rabbit stew of me. And was gone.

Mt. Wachusett Summit, looking toward Woo City

But just as I was a rabbit in the eyes of a predator, before the ride was over that role was reversed. A coney* appeared in the distance around mile 40 and I set to chasing him and subsequently toyed with him as a cat toys with a doomed rodent. He proved to be an amiable dude as I came alongside of him and he confessed that this was only his third ride of the season. Allez! I wished him well, and he wished the same to me, and off I rode.

Coney chasing (the small dot alongside the road sign)

* Note: "coney" is a little used (obsolete, some would argue) term for rabbit.

At the end of the Big Ride, back safely at Shad Quarters, nearly sixty miles under the wheels, the mandate came down to Eat BIG. This was obvious, and readily accommodated. The post ride Feed started and ended with steak. Beer was involved. As were potatoes and butter.

Before

After