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

Tour de Heifer Part II: American Toads, Summer Cyberia, Holy Shit Descents

Beware the gentle amphibian

At several points riding along the Green River we heard a distinct ringing/singing sound, sort of a cross between a cicada, a cricket, and the lightly struck note of a xylophone. If Ben hadn't just encountered this same ringing phenomenon a few days earlier while kayaking down the Deerfield River we might not have know what it was. But because he did, and because he investigated then, he informed me that what we were hearing was a hatching of American toads, an amphibious birthing of considerable volume. And tasty to some apparently as at one point above us flutter'd and croaked a pair of ravens that, I assumed, were making a meal of the newly hatched.

Raven  in the hunt for the hatchlings

There were several sections of today's ride that traversed wood roads and worse; wannabe Cyberias that recalled the infamous stretch of the Rasputitsa dubbed "Cyberia"(which proved to be a cruel section of icy mountain run-off that couldn't be ridden and that went on for close to a mile, mostly UP). Today's offerings, though bereft of ice and snow, offered challenges of their own: rutted woods paths, rocky dray carts, petered out dead end roads beyond the "road closed" indicators. We met them straight on, determinedly, craftily, warily, precariously.

Craftily

Warily

Precariously

Much of the wood road mileage was, of course, up hill. That was great actually because it required that you be fully in the moment and to practice a disciplined attention at all times. Of course with the off road climbing too came some friendly competition between The Virginian and I, friendly being the operative word here. We tested each other and pushed ourselves. The below sequence shows The Virginian moving off the front on one of the big climbs after lunch, either Old County Rd or just after that when the route lead into woods.

"Turn right onto woods road. BE CAREFUL ON THIS SECTION 36.08"

The Virginian on the attack

The Virginian seeming to pull away

Only to be reeled in and passed

There were sections (and I forget where these were, which dray paths they might have been a part of) that we couldn't traverse. Perhaps with mountain bikes we could have conquered the rockiest sections but, for my own part, I wasn't risking injury by taking mad chances on my fitness and latent mountain biking skills to get me through the gnarliest sections. So we hoofed it a couple times for short distances.

Leaving Tucker Rd for the wood road ramble

Daunting

The section Dubstoevsky failed to conquer

The age old truism "what goes up, must come down" aptly suits the ride today because as much climbing as there was, we enjoyed a surfeit of downhills as well, some of which I came to categorize as "HOLY SHIT downhills." Screaming fast, ridiculous long-running descents on dirt roads. The kind of descents that, when you get to the bottom, your forearms and hands are sore from maintaining control and you're exhilarated with the rush of plummeting 40 miles per hour into the unknown. No margin of error. You get to the bottom and shout.

Whoosh canopy as I streak past, descending

End of Part II
Go to Part III
See Part I

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

The Shad, the Heifer and Cosmic Communiques

With the bad news out of Germany last week, with a surfeit of riding, and with the demands of what is now looking like the move of Chez Shad from Lemonstar to Wormtown, I've given scant attention to the second organized event of the season in which Team Shad has a role, namely the Tour de Heifer. Unlike the Rasputitsa, that fiercely contested race of 400 or so cyclists in northern Vermont two months ago, the Tour de Heifer is a "friendly" (to borrow some soccer parlance); that is, it's an organized ride but not a timed race. Two of Team Shad's three team members will be at the starting line: Shaddy Dubstoevsky and The Virginian. I-Ward, though training hard for the last few months, will miss this ramble due to prior commitments.

The human animal, though imbued with the capacity for reason and logical thinking, nevertheless seems predisposed to interpreting events & occurrences as possible predictors or influencers of future events. Superstition, omens, signs, hunches, intuition, "gut feelings," all of these are familiar to most sports enthusiasts and participants. Shaddy Dub is no different.

A beautiful Saturday morning of what promises to be a hot sunny weekend, I sit down on the back porch of team HQ with a one pint latte and the Boston Globe crossword puzzle. Clue # 1 across? "Deep-bodied herring," four letters. S-H-A-D. Allez! An auspicious portent! This little wink & nod from the Unfathomable Vast Otherness buoys me, excites me. I immediately think that the Cosmos have sent me a small message of encouragement, a sign that says "Go forth, deep-bodied Shadness, and conquer the Heifer."

Why not? Reason and logic are powerful tools in the human toolkit but superstition and the Great Unknown are important variables as well. Logic limits but the cautious acceptance of cosmic messaging expands the realm of possibility to the Infinite.

What better thought process to carry onto the rugged back country dirt roads of southern Vermont than one that says "you are being watched over by powers greater than yourself"? Indeed. The turn of the crank, the revolving Wheel of Shad, 62 miles of dirt road and steep hills, of heat and pollen, of farmland and woodland, the Tour de Heifer awaits.

"Deep-bodied herring"

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 # 56: Picture Perfect Day, Tempered By Disastrous News From Germany

Backyard Style, Sunday, June 1
70 degrees and dry

What a day. Perfect weather for cycling. 70 degrees, sunny, clear sky, dry air, not hot, not cool, just right. So what to do? Go to the mountain.

Today I opted for a slightly irregular approach. I headed out Pleasant St which presents a more gradual climb west than Elm St., the other option. But instead of going all the way out & up to Sholan Farm and down the other side, at the 3 mile point I took a right on Wachusett St, a road that climbs sharply upwards toward an eventual connection to Elm St just past Bartlett Pond. Wachusett St sets the stage for much climbing to come.

Because really, doing a mountain summit is all about climbing, though not the obvious climbing you'd expect. The mountain summit road is, yes, a challenging ascent, but (as mentioned previously) getting to the mountain's base involves serious climbing. Done regularly, it sort of becomes a badge of honor, like "yeah, another circuit up to Wachusett and back" the tacit understanding being that, holy crap, coming from the flats of Lemonstar, that is A LOT of uphill work.

At the 8 mile mark, you cross Redemption Rock Rd and head up a short and very steep Hobbs Rd extension. Then, at the 10 mile mark, it's the ridiculous uphill of the gutted, sandy, potholed Pine Hill Rd. Both climbs are savage, merciless, exquisite.

Today I spied a rabbit ahead on Pine Hill Rd so I went for him. Slew him in short order. Turns out, though, he was an older rider, (10 years older than me?) and obviously hasn't been riding much this year. He inched upward in slow motion. It was an easy conquering. I rode up to him, said hello, we chatted as I cruised by, and then I was past and gone and powering forward, upward, gone.

Pine Hill Rd.
There's a red dot rabbit up the road
but you have to look close
to see him

Shortly thereafter I dispatched the vicious Pine Hill Rd and then I was on the mountain and climbing. Being a gorgeous Sunday afternoon there were many hikers, walkers, occasional cars, numerous motorcycles, all either using Summit Rd for their activity, or crossing it as hikers who ascend on rocky, wooded trails from all sides. You can't lose focus, even ascending.

No worry of that or me today, I was dialed in and feeling Huge. I attacked the slopes repeatedly. I wended my way through walkers and picnickers, rode all the way to the left when cars or motorcycles came up from behind, and hammered straight up the center line the last half mile to the intersection where you turn left for the last 100 yards to the summit. And I hammered up those last 100 yards to boot.

Contrails over Wachusett Summit

Glorious view. Massachusetts unfolding in the four directions. Mount Monadnock in southern New Hampshire clear and sharp in profile to the north. Worcester a cluster of pointy buildings rising away to the south. I've seen it all before. So a quick turn around the crown and allez! back down the mountain I zoom (my speed hindered by a pickup truck, a senor driver in a Camry and a motorcycle).

I push it hard on the way back; I can do that now because I'm conditioned, I'm honed. I'm not thrashed on the last five or ten miles, I'm not knackered on the return climbs. Now it seems that I'm limited only by how much power I can muster.

Today, I managed enough power to sail along roads like this:

With the niceness
Heywood Rd

An over all day of great riding, tempered by disastrous news from the Mighty Scrod of Ventoux Calls that he has fallen and broken his arm while training. Garment rending and lamentation! A cruel and wicked and inexplicable occurrence! All of Team I Shad mourns tonight and sends collective positive vibes to our wounded comrade across the Atlantic.

Ride Summary: 36.4 miles (57 K), 14.8 mph. 3,560 elevation. Strava details.

Road Kill: A savaging. One big snake, two chipmunks, a gray squirrel, an opossum, a bunny rabbit. I only took a photo of the bunny.

Fresh dead bunny