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