Geese on the Wing: Ride 4

Eventually it will snow and storm and turn the streets crappy and dangerous. That's what happens in winter in New England. But for now, all is bare and good. Still, the days are short and though I work from home two days a week and can be on the bike by 3:15, that still doesn't leave a lot of time for long rides; these days sunset is around 4:47 PM and trust me, you don't want to be riding around the city streets in the deep gloaming (even if you are festooned with blinking lights and are dressed in day-glo lime green).

But I make the most of the conditions. Yesterday, Tuesday, January 20, 2015, I set off a little after 3:15 with intentions of ascending to Green Hill Park and then, possibly, if I navigated unfamiliar streets with the proper guess work, I'd climb up to Holy Cross before circling back for an assault on Bancroft Tower.

As fate had it, I didn't navigate all that well and so spent a lot of time trying different neighborhood streets in my efforts to get to Green Hill Park. The good thing is, it was well worth it. First, because getting there involves a lot of climbing - serious inclines up crazy streets through deeply impoverished & totally sketchy neighborhoods. And second, because the streets are largely bereft of traffic; all the cars are on the main thoroughfares.

Coming to the top of Green Hill Park
January 20, 2015

And Green Hill Park, on a cold and sharp January afternoon with the sun going down and the buttery light washing over the long rolling dun-colored hills, is magnificent! I rode all over the public golf course on the tarmac paths and saw, at the far end, a herd of turkeys scrambling off one of the greens into the brushy thicket. But more than that were the geese. It being sundown, they kept coming in at intervals, honking and flapping, to land among a burgeoning colony of several hundred birds. I actually reversed course and rode back the way I came because I didn't want to disturb their hunkered-down-ness.

Green Hill Park
Geese on the Wing
January 20, 2015

So ultimately I had to eschew my assault on Holy Cross. Instead, I picked my way back through the neighborhood, found my way back under rt. 290, across Main St and then climbed George St for a second time. From the top, on Harvard St, with illuminated headlight and daylight fading quickly, I powered over to the Bancroft Tower neighborhood and hoofed it up up up to the tower's rocky monumental prominence. Then rode back to Team Shad HQ in the aforementioned to-be-avoided-gloaming.

Ride Summary: Ride # 4 on the year, Tuesday afternoon, January 20, 2015. Something like 10 miles but 800+ feet elevation gain. My bike computer didn't work because of the cold and at one point, I think in the park while videoing the geese, I lost my strava connection. The long and short of it is, there's plenty of climbing to be done in the Woo. Strava.

Parting Shot

Green Hill Park Pond
Virtually begging for skaters

Ride # 68: Team Shad Training Ride

Wachusett Mountain State Reservation
August 12

The Virginian came down from Conway today so Team Shad was two thirds intact. Our mission? Summit Wachusett one last time, departing from soon-to-be-vacated headquarters in Lemonstar. Mission accomplished.

Summit Style

Shad Men

Conditions? Humid, overcast, warm but comfortably so, a strong breeze that cooled you down. There's a front approaching, due at midnight, we ride under the advancing clouds and through the rich moist air.

Ride Details: 34.7 miles, 14.1 mph, 2 hrs 20 mins. Strava stats and map.

Ride # 66: To the Mountain

Heading for the hills
Lemonstar
August 9, 2014

The lure of the mountain is strong in the Princeton Hills. It pulls you toward it, even when you're telling yourself "not today." Yes, today.

Ride three since resuming riding. This was hard. Unlike June 19 when I returned from the 40 miler full of energy and not much affected, today's ride whupped me. Thoroughly knackered. Sore everywhere. Stiff-moving. Beat. Only 27 miles. And the D2R2 in two weeks is 180K (try 100+ miles). Hard to see how I'll be ready.

I did manage to catch, pass, and drop a rider heading up the summit road. That felt good even though we weren't competing and I didn't dig extra deep to do it, it just occurred in the flow of the pace I'd set for myself.

Dubstoevsky back on the summit

About 15 minutes into the ride with pain already developing in my knee and back I decided to try adjusting my seat so I stopped and raised it a fraction. For sometime now I've been unable to use my calves and the better part of my quads in my pedal stroke. Consequently, I aggravated other muscles/tendons by being badly positioned. That's my latest reasoning. So I lifted my seat a tad and felt a difference immediately. Suddenly my calves and quads were back in the pedal stroke and, though over the rest of the ride other groin/lower right glute areas became somewhat sore and aggravated, it seemed to take the strain off of the patella tendons. My knee felt fine the rest of the ride.

And finally, breaking news! Pine Hill Rd has been paved!

Pine Hill Rd., newly paved

Ride Details: 27 miles, 13 mph, a spittle over two hours. Strava stats. Definitely hard today. Sapped by the end.

Ride # 65: Mile By Mile

Elm St, the gateway to the Princeton Hills
Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Here's the chronology on the return to cycling. Last Thursday I rode for the first time since June 19, 41 days off the bike. The day after that ride, Friday afternoon actually, the knee began to get sore. By that night I was hobbling around again and I was convinced that I had precipitated another episode of whatever it is I've been dealing with. If I woke up drastically worse, I told myself, that would be it, I would shut down the season and get off the bike for the foreseeable future.

I woke Saturday feeling really good, no residual soreness just a little stiffness and that feeling that "it's not exactly right but it doesn't seem completely messed up." So there was hope!

Today was the second test.

Hot, upper 80s. Humid. Booming sun. I loved it. I was instantly moist. Tentative, yes, but slightly more confident than last week. I had a protein shake this morning, part of my focus on re-building some goddamn muscle on this sinewy frame. Fuck. I'm weak as a fucking teenager, it's appalling. But that's the next six month focus. Right now, it's mile by mile, up hills and down.

So how'd it go? Great! Felt weak but full of energy, plenty of stamina. I almost had a go at The Mountain but at the juncture where I had to make that decision, I thought better of it. Stupid to push it on ride # 2 of the recovery period. If I feel okay tomorrow - and that is the crucial IF - then I'll ride Saturday and go for the summit.

Unless I can summit Wachusett I can't see even trying the D2R2. In fact, summitting Wachusett would mean only that I can climb and complete a 28 mile ride. The D2R2 is 180K, that's 107 miles give or take. It seems unlikely I'll be fit and able to take it on ... but I haven't given up hope yet. We'll see how the weekend goes.

I'm actually wondering if I need to be re-fitted for the road bike. In fact, it's been six years since I bought the bike and I'm pretty sure I've shrunk some in that time, maybe as much as a half an inch. If that's the case, the frame could be off. My problems could stem from a bad fit on the bike, the wrong frame size, a poor adjustment of the seat. Perhaps I'm simply riding in the wrong configuration and overtaxing certain muscles, tendons, and ligaments.

The height of summer

Ride Stats: 19.57 miles (31 K), 13.7 mph, almost a 90 minute ride. Plenty of climbing for a short ride. Strava Details.

Road Kill: One large milk snake, though it might have died yesterday. I didn't photograph it.

Ride # 63: Drumlin to Summit

Dexter Drumlin, Lancaster, MA

Ride # 63, on Thursday, June 19 (my late brother's birthday - OM AH HUM), unfolded on a classic late June afternoon, the sun bright in a radiant blue sky, no humidity. And given the ensuing Friday vacation day followed by a weekend of celebratory festivities (my own belated wedding reception!), I was light of spirit (and light of frame to boot). I felt great and sought to go for the giant ride, and did.

In fact, I ripped it up. Powered to Sholan Farm gulping down the Breath of Fire all the way up; then like an arrow across the long agricultural landscape toward Lancaster, the orchards and the Dexter Drumlin. From there, desirous of climbing, I turned north and west toward Wachusett. I had the summit in mind.

Rt 62 out of Sterling, before it turns nice

But not via the direct route. Instead I persevered along rt. 62, a rural commuter road with much cracked pavement and no shoulder. A dangerous road but only with traffic; when bereft of cars, 62 can be sublime. Great forest trees shade it, it rolls and rises, dips and climbs. Today, I got lucky and encountered few cars. But instead of taking the Osgood or Nelson St jump offs, or heading up Redemption Rock Rd, I hammered right down to the base of the climb into Princeton, a well-paved, super steep road to the intersection where you pick up Mountain Rd. I sped up that incline with the Niceness, took a right onto Mountain Rd, and started to make my way along the ride. I'd ridden 27 miles to that point.

Summit style on the perfect June afternoon

Then the climbing began, the assent of Wachusett from the park base headquarters. Despite logging so many miles already, my legs kept the rhythm and betrayed little fatigue. Fantastic views of Mt. Monadnock off to the north, and views of Boston and Worcester. Into the blue sky and the sun. Followed by a high speed volley back down again.

The Tsar, Dubstoevsky

The last 12 miles back fell away with little resistance and after nearly three hours, I was back home, giant and happy.

Except it was a wretched day for exotic road kill. Among numerous chipmunks and squirrel carcasses I came upon a small 10" milk snake freshly run over, and an even more freshly killed scarlet tanager. If fact, the tanager must have been struck moments before I happened on the scene. The little body was warm and limp and its beak still held the remnants of a worm if had been plucking from the road side.

Ride details: 41.2 miles (65 K), 15.1 mph, 3700 feet elevation. Strava stats.

Road Kill: Several chipmunks, a milk snake, a scarlet tanager, a bunny, a couple squirrels. Massacre day. And this is just the fresh kill, it doesn't include carcasses that have been dead more than 24 hours (by my estimate).

So young

If I'd have arrived a few minutes sooner
I would have saved this scarlet tanager

The sad truth

Ride # 62: Hot and Humid to the Top

Tuesday, June 17
Westminster

Hot and humid. Late afternoon, the sun is lower but riding west I ride directly into it. I relish it, though I begin sweating very soon after setting out. Today is about heading for the summit via the Westminster side. That means Mile Hill, a climb that equals its name, steady and fairly steep and it goes on for a long time.

Feel outstanding today. Get out of the saddle and hammer up at about 8 mph, and sustain that for the entire climb. Then the actual mountain side climb commences and I keep feeling strong. Get to the the Wachusett Summit Sprint, the final .2 miles of the climb, 9% grade, and set a personal best time of 1.04 minutes. Thigh churning power without fatigue.

Westminster/Princeton Line
and the onset of Mile Hill

Despite making my ascent via the Westminster approach, a route that adds a couple extra miles overall to the ride (and that skips including the nearly-washed-away Pine Hill Rd.), I still make the summit in 1 hour and 11 minutes. From home, that is, some 13 miles distant. I don't linger at the top.

Ride Summary: 28.3 miles (48 K), 14.9 mph, 2830 ft elevation, just under 2 hours. I'm happy with that time on a hilly ride like this one. My strava stats show lots of interesting segment times.

Road Kill: Numerous chipmunks, and a bunny.

Sad Bunny

Ride # 61: A Week Later; Part III: Last Thoughts on the Tour de Heifer

The General's blessing at the outset of ride # 61
Sunday morning, June 15

The Tour de Heifer was a week ago today and I haven't ridden since then. Interestingly, my weight went up a half pound or so following the pounding of the heifer, and then over the course of the (non-riding) week it dropped two pounds. Without trying, I went under 144 lbs for the first time since ... a long time ago. The point being that I'm confounded and psyched at once. Despite ice cream, beer, and sea salt caramel chocolates. 144.5 three days in a row. As if my body came up shocked in the wake of the Tour de Heifer and after a couple days of recovery took stock, regrouped, and decided to cinch up a little tighter. Inhaled. Decided to settle at a lower-than-usual weight. Under 145 lbs is gravy, the Lack of Heft.

I digress.

Today was the perfect weather on the perfect June Sunday. I was completely pumped riding. Which is interesting because as this last week went along and I didn't ride my back and hips became progressively sore, the proverbial 'tightening up,' and I wasn't all that comfortable. Yet in no time after setting out I began to feel really good. I took pains to shift around on the bike, stretching my back and my legs, gulping huge breaths from the largess of the planet, imagining myself a low weight insect husk with sinewy muscle astride aluminum geometry. A flesh concept hurtling along on tangible circles.

But let's finish off The Heifer. Last images and impressions.

A challenging ride! Not one you want to undertake if you're not pretty fit already. The relentless climbing was to my advantage and to my liking. It's amazing to feel light on the bike and not get thrashed by the hills.

The Virginian taking his ease

Forward

Dubstoevsky
Photo by The Virginian

Tour de Heifer summary: 66.88 miles (106 K), 12.4 mph, about 5 hours. Road kill included five or six chipmunks.

Ride # 61: Sunday, June 15, 2014

A real pleasure to get back in the saddle, to stretch tightened muscles after a week of not-riding, to SOAR (inasmuch as one can soar while anchored to pavement by two rubber wheels, and gravity). Felt great getting out of the saddle, was able to get into a rhythmic pedal turning meditation, an ease, a dancing almost, no weariness go UP. Except today the ride was rolling and involved only moderate climbing. Strava stats indicate 1700 feet of climbing.

Regardless, the day was utterly stellar - low 70s, brilliant sun and blue skies, soft breeze, the epitome of classic New England June weather. Wafts of sweet air perfumed with the scent of flowering trees, shrubs, plants. Sun-dappled roadways.

I saved another turtle. This time a small, timid fellow, a painted turtle with little drive.

Mr. Docility

In a better place

This is how the ride goes on an ordinary ex-urbia Sunday morning when the weather is perfect and the only thing you have to do is pedal.

Snapshots from the meander.

The running of the bulls

With the Niceness

Arrow of Jah

Ride Summary: 30.35 miles (48 K), 14.9, 2 hours+2.

Tour de Heifer Part I
Tour de Heifer Part II

Ride # 60: Tour de Heifer; with Team Shad in the Hills of Southern Vermont: Part I

Two thirds of Team Shad 
Tour de Heifer
Sunday, June 8, 2014

The fourth iteration of the Tour de Heifer out of Brattleboro, Vermont. Sunday, June 8. A big booming sky of sun and blue, a perfect day for cycling. Better be in shape! This isn't a race, it's a course upon which you challenge yourself. The challenge? Climbing! Huge climbs, relentless climbs, stupid steep inclines. Up Up and Away!

Team Shad was there, albeit without the third cog, Master I-Ward whose presence was excused due to family matters. The Virginian, back in the good graces of the team after the insubordination at the Rasputitsa, was early to the shaggy field where the team cars and cyclists gathered in the rough, dew-soaked grass. I showed up shortly thereafter. Suggested start time was 8:00 but, as it was not a bunch start, riders could set out at their own time. Knowing the day would be hot our goal was to start by 7:30. We'd get a jump on the heat and, who knows, maybe the other riders as well.

7:00 AM
Lilac Ridge Farm

And we would have started by 7:30 if The Virginian, uncharacteristically, hadn't locked his keys in his car. That development set us back ten minutes or so while he made calls for back-up. Once arrangements were made for someone to come with a spare key and leave it under the left front wheel, we were off.

Despite the sense of controversy that my blog entry Rasputitsa At Last: The Narrative engendered vis a vis my pique at The Virginian's predilection for attacking when the team strategy doesn't call for it, and for various other (probably imagined) transgressions, I hereby declare that The Virginian, aka Nut (short for Wingnut; the origin of that moniker deserves its own telling another time), is, in every sense, a rock solid teammate, a loyal wing man, and a dogged, unflappable cyclist. While Team Shad's brass considered fining, suspending, even firing him following The Rasp, cooler heads prevailed and Nut remained on the squad. Praise Jah for that.

It's worth contrasting these two organized Vermont rides briefly. The Rasputitsa, approximately 47 miles, takes place in mid April in the Northeast Kingdom and its panache comes from "mud season," that time of the spring when the dirt roads thaw and everything becomes soft, spongy, mucky. Snow lingers in places, icy mountain side run-offs force riders from their bikes, rain, snow, and hail all fell during the ride. Plus, it's a timed race with an official start, declared winners, a Lantern Rouge.

The Tour de Heifer, on the other hand, takes place in early June, the month that produces arguably New England's finest weather. This event is not a race, it's a loosely-supported ride with an organized lunch stop, intermittent water stations, and an air of laid-backness that runs counter to competitive cycling. Longer than The Rasp at 62 miles, the Tour de Heifer proved to be, when all was said and done, harder. Harder owing mostly to the amount of climbing. In fact, though my phone's battery died 3/4s of the way through and I wasn't able to track the entire ride by Strava, after 48 miles we'd climbed 5,965 feet already. I don't recall longer or harder climbs during the Rasputitsa.

In not having the full compliment of shad for the ride, we lacked a navigator, a voice of reason to reign in the ever full-steam-ahead Shaddy Dub and the I'm Easy Virginian. Consequently, at the five mile point we were feeling so good and cruising along at such a zippy pace that we missed the right turn onto Lee Rd. A mile or so later the road came to a T, we stopped and checked the cue sheet and the map and promptly misinterpreted both. We took a left and rode for a couple miles until we came to another T, this time with rt. 5. At that point we realized that we'd done something wrong and, groaning, returned the way we came. Eventually, after some 8 extra miles on pavement, we rejoined the course. And at the perfect spot, too.

"Guilford Center Rd forks left and becomes Sweet Pond RD 10.66 mi"

Sweet Pond Rd was sweet indeed! Several miles of tightly packed & slightly damp dirt road under forest canopy. Primordial! The sun explodes every dewy surface into diamondy sparkle, and dapples the road face with limb and trunk silhouettes. We sail along drifting in and out of quiet reveries. We know this stretch is long and comes to an end at a spot we're familiar with so we don't worry about missing a turn. We just zoom.

At the base of Sweet Pond Rd
After an awesome downhill run

Meditation Reservoir
Fresh off of Sweet Pond Rd

Conditions are stellar. Just the perfect dampness to the roads, they're all well-packed, not even that washboarded. And the air is brilliant! Cool, clean, crisp. You want to yell out loud it feels so good streaming over your body. And the sun, rising throughout the day, warming warming warming so that by late morning it's striking more directly from above and you get hot quickly in its sun wash. But it too is sharp and clean and you feel joy that you're riding through such sun-drenched landscapes.

The Virginian getting it going early on

On the great climb up Packers Corner you have plenty of time to consider such things as the climb goes up and up and up. At a water stop later on I overheard one of the volunteers say to a rider that he preferred the short steep climbs to the long drawn out grinds. I'm the opposite. I relish the relentless ascent. At my present level of fitness, and being twenty pounds lighter than I've ever been during a season, I can get out of the saddle and slip into a steady cadence that I can maintain for a long time going up. This gives me a huge advantage. Of course it's always the bigger guys laboring up the hill that I pass and most of them have no rhythm at all. They lug their thighs up and down, heave their shoulders, pull at the handle bars as if they could pull themselves up the hill.

Climbing Packers Corner Rd

In my richly absurd imagination, I am engaged in a game of hunter and prey. There are rabbits up the road. The slopes are teaming with them. Easy pickings. The key thing about hunting rabbits is that you must make sure that you have utterly dispatch your prey. You must devastate them, leave them quivering and cowering as you ride away from them and out of sight. If you don't do this? If you leave behind a wounded prey, do you know what happens? You become the hunted. You become the prey. Never take chances.

Setting the pace
The Virginian in arrears
Thinking about becoming the hunter

But today the vibe is positively fraternal and as my imagination returns to reality, the rabbit I'd ridden up to with the intention of dispatching turns into a mellow, jolly-faced dude I nod to and exchange pleasantries with. One guy in a Ben & Jerry's jersey we passed three times; once within the first couple miles, a second time after we got lost and rejoined; and the third time after we'd taken a tiny detour to explore a nearby reservoir. Each time we greeted each other civilly and continued on at our own paces.

The Rasp was different. It was every shad for himself that day and I took pleasure at the expense of those herring I left flapping ineffectual tails in my wake.

After 28 or so miles (because of our 'detour' our odometer was no longer in sync with the cue sheet) and after an absolutely delightful ride north along the Green River, we came to the lunch stop. Watermelon wedges and a Vermont beef stick. I mix organic green tea in with a half a bottle of water, yum! And get back on it. Actually, up it. Up Jacksonville Stage Rd for a good long steep way. Immediately glad I didn't opt for the turkey sandwich.

End of Part I
Go to Part II

Ride Summary: 66.88 miles (107 K), 12.4 mph, 5 hours and change. 5,965 feet elevation. Strava partial details.

Ride 59: There and Back Again

Tiki Style
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Around noon

Today was supposed to be a day of rest in advance of the Tour de Heifer but the day turned out to be so stellar, so picture perfect, so Glorious-Day-in-June, that I couldn't NOT ride. What did I do? A summit ride, of course. These days, if the ride doesn't include a summit of Wachusett, the Little Argentine on my shoulder hisses in my ear "You're a baby! You should go to the summit, you slacker."

I did what I almost never do which is to ride to the mountain top taking the most direct route possible and then returning exactly the same way; it is, in essence, an arrow to the top. There and back again with no deviation.

The June Niceness from On High

Ride Summary: 25.88 miles to the top direct (41 K); there and back from Doyle Field in under 2 hours. With the sweetness! Strava details.

Road Kill: Chipmunks (a few), one pictured.

A bad day for chipmunk slaughter
One of three at least

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

Ride # 55: Another Day, Another Summit

Thursday, May 29, 4:00 in the afternoon

I snatched Time from the unyielding day. This is an impressionistic ramble. It was Thursday afternoon, I was working from home, I had a serious DEADLINE to meet, and I met it. I am writing in the past tense because I am writing the day after this ride occurred. I am in a time warp. I am neither heavier nor lighter than I was a day earlier. I am the same shad.

The thing is, I wasn't feeling very motivated, very energetic. I felt vaguely sore in the hips and the quads and I had to fight myself not to use that as an excuse not to ride. Feeling achy, I tried to talk myself into not riding, but the Little Argentine on my shoulder kept whispering in my ear "you'll feel fine once you get out on the road, once you start pedaling."

The little fucker was right.

When I finally garnered my forces, geared up (much yipping over what to wear because it was not a warm day, low 60s and increasingly overcast, possible showers), and set off, I quickly grew elated. YES! Of course. RIDE for heaven's sake. No, ride for SHAD's sake. That's what I did. And though a dash for the mountain seemed unlikely, I let the ride unfold as it would. Climbing with ease and comfort into the Sterling Hills, the debate over whether to assault the mountain or not quickly became irrelevant. OF COURSE I was going to the mountain top.

Most of the roads leading to the mountain are fine, albeit steep. Hobbs Rd on the other side of rt. 31 is a bitch but it's short and it's been essentially cleared of sand by now (either by design or by watery run-off, I'm not sure). But after Hobbs comes Beaman and Wilson, both moderately slopped. Off Wilson, you pick up Mirick Rd, a real sweet road through hardwood forest with sporadic rich people's houses on either side. But off Mirick, you turn onto Pine Hill Rd and that's where it gets really dicey. That road is a mess, a sand lot, a rutted, debris-strewn narrow path that just happens to be seriously fucking steep so not only do you have to lash yourself like a jockey lashing his steed but you have to be careful not to stand up at the wrong spot and spin your wheels in the ubiquitous sand. Climbing the short and very steep Pine Hill Rd is a total challenge, particularly after savaging yourself for close to an hour to GET to it.

Left onto Pine Hill Rd, a steep climb on cracked sandy tarmac

The good thing is, when you get to the top of Pine Hill Rd, you've basically arrived at the base of the mountain. Then it's time to do some CLIMBING!

No rabbits to slay this afternoon, just me and the road UP and so UP I go. At a fast clip. Not a strava personal record pace but pretty darn fast. Stats aside, I feel great in the ascent. It's all so good I want to cry. But I don't. I shout instead. FUCKIN' YEAH! It feels good! It's a Thursday afternoon, I'm sailing free on my bicycle, I'm climbing an old granitic New England mountain and I feel STRONG doing so, and I know that when I get home, I'll eat BIG and take a shower and accept myself for who I am. This is the ZEN of it all and I realize that NOW is the only reality we know for sure.

Zen Summit

Ride Summary: 27 miles (43 K), 14.2 mph, KICKIN' it up the hills today, strong like a goat, comfortable in my skin. Strava Details.

Road Kill: A snake apocalypse day. I only photographed one but I saw five squashed garter snakes, three on the slopes of The Wachusett, two on the hills leading there.

One of five on the day