Rides Since the Rasputitsa: Back on the Road

Old Stone Church, West Boylston
April 27, 2016
On the shore of Wachusett Reservoir

Dubstoevsky and Team Shad have not been idle since completing the Rasputitsa. The Conweegian Hammer has returned to the hills of western Mass, joined Strava as Wing Nut, and has turned his full attention to the road and to the svelte goodness of his brand new Cervelo frame. I, Dubstoevsky, am back in Woo City and have also shifted focus to the road bike, and to availing myself of the evening light and the surfeit of riding opportunities inside and outside the city limits.

Cases in point - the Monday night group ride from Barney's Bikeshop, a spirited 18 mile loop around Holden Reservoir; and the Wednesday night group ride out of West Boylston that meets on the shore of Wachusett Reservoir. I rode with each group this past week and acquitted myself well each time by managing to stay with the advanced group of riders and even attacking occasionally, particularly toward the top of arduous climbs.

Getting underway

Here's the thing I'm learning about group rides - they are friendly, supportive, and .... competitive. It's all nicey nice in the beginning and at the end but once you're out on the road, it's every rider for him/herself. And there are some strong riders that like to push the pace.

Take the Wednesday night ride for example, my first time with this group. Wednesday night is a longer ride than Monday night, and goes through West Boylston, Sterling, Princeton with a fair amount of rolling terrain but not a lot of climbing. Of the group of ten, two active racers (including a guy named Tiago) set the pace and stayed pretty far out in front; a gruppetto of six (myself included) stayed mostly together, cruising between 15 and 17 mph; and two guys dropped off the back and rode the course on their own.

I happened to be feeling pretty strong Wednesday and so attempted several times to bridge the gap between the gruppetto and the two Big Dawgs. I succeeded at least once but it's an amazing thing to make a giant successful effort to hook up with a pair of steadily fast riders only to realize "Holy shit, now I havta' maintain this fuckin' pace!"

So despite the modest accomplishment of launching off the front of the gruppetto, any back-patting I gave myself was swiftly quashed and I found myself laboring mightily to stay attached. That didn't last for long. One slip of concentration, one hesitation on a downhill curve, and whoosh! they were gone and I was alone in no man's land.

At times it was exasperating to be heaving and hammering with everything in the tank and not make up any ground at all. Not to mention the fact that when I was maxing out in the red zone the two riders ahead pedaled with a steady but nonchalant cadence that suggested that they might just be warming up. I kept willing myself to pedal harder, to find the right rhythm and stick with it, yet my physical self ignored my mental edicts. "Fuck it," my body said, "you're getting everything outa' me that you're gonna' get!"

At the end of the ride, I'd averaged 17.1 mph, by far one of the fastest extended efforts in Dubstoevsky's database of average ride speeds, so I was content.

So what comes next?

Dub trout

I was supposed to drive to Brooklyn tomorrow to take in the Red Hook Crit as a spectator but those plans have been scrapped and the weekend now yawns wide open in front of me. It's a no brainer. Tomorrow's forecast is 60 degrees with no precip and there's nothing on the schedule, so .... maybe I'll have a go at the May Gran Fondo Challenge from Strava. Or maybe I'll head up to the Mont Vonchusett and see if the road to the summit is open yet.

Whatever ends up happening will surely involve a bicycle, a Dubstoevskian shad, and an imaginary world of cycling hubris.

Notes

On a 32 mile solo ride Thursday (Rutland Loop), I noticed lots of birds, most exciting of which was a an eastern bluebird which flew beside me along the edge of a field before coming to light in a tree. But many of the usual ornithological suspects made their presence known including Canada geese, red-winged blackbirds, crows, grackles, starlings, mallard ducks, blue jays, house sparrows, and cardinals.

Spring awakens. Lime green hues blush the hardwoods but you can still see deep into the forest along the roadside. You can still see the rock walls that stitch up craggy slopes toward higher ridges. You can sense the coming density, the closing in, the landscape filling out.

Wachusett Reservoir
April 27, 2016