Mark B
Zen MBB Master
Last night,I was talking to a friend about today's ride, discussing what we were going to do. He was talking about taking it easy; I said I wanted to push hard and "pedal 'til I puked". Not really, as there is nothing I hate worse than the technicolor yawn. I just meant I wanted to be fairly well exhausted by the time we got done. My friend said he guessed he could do that, sure, why not?
He met me here at my house so that we could ride over to the ride together. When we got to the ride, there was one main group that was going to do a serious climbing ride. I would have loved to do that, but I know I'm not there fitness-wise yet. Instead, a group of 8 of us decided to do an easier climbing ride out to Calimesa and stop for coffee at a restaurant out there. Our group consisted of five ladies and three men. I only mention this because it's kind of cool and somewhat unusual for the gals to outnumber the guys on these rides. The ride out to Calimesa is pretty steady climbing. One guy had a Garmin and he said we were pulling 5 & 6 percent grades a lot with some 8-10 mixed in for brief moments. I felt really strong and rode way out off the front of the pack most of the way. My friend hung with me as did one of the ladies. At our regroups, we were waiting awhile for the main pack to catch back on. At the first regroup, a few people were commenting on my bike and asking the usual questions. When asked if my bike was harder to ride than an upright, I went into the spiel about the moving bottom bracket and how you have to get your upper body involved and it becomes somewhat of a dance to propel the bike along. One guy quipped that it looked like I could get it going pretty good. He seemed genuinely interested in my bike and once we arrived at our destination, looked even closer and enquired as to where I got it. I told him I bought it on the Internet and he asked again who had them so he could go try one. I told him he's looking at one of only two Silvios I'm aware of in the entire Southern California region. I offered to let him try my bike, but we never got around to it.
After our break, we headed further up the hill so that we might head back down San Timoteo Canyon. It's kind of a narrow and rough road, but it's pretty much a straight run, somewhat downhill, but usually into a stiff headwind that cancels out the downhill part. While most of the group hunkered down and got a little paceline action going, I spent the first part of the ride helping a lady that was struggling a little. I was trying to get her to jump on my back wheel and take advantage of my slipstream, but she seemed reluctant. Then, it occured to me she wasn't hip to the whole paceline thing, so I talked to her and told her to get right up on my tire. I told her not to worry, I'm a steady pace guy, just get on and hold on. She did and was amazed at how much that helped. In no time, we closed the gap to the rest of the group. I told her that I would pull her up alongside the bigger paceline of about four and as we went past, to drop off my wheel and get on the back of the group so I could go up and pull the entire group up to the two off the front. Well, that worked for just a few minutes. I gave up and powered up to the front riders and we got a real good pace going, maintaining a pace in the mid to high 20's most of the way. When we got to the end of the ride, a few people wanted to get some more miles. We only had about 35 miles and they wanted 50. Being a sucker and nowhere near exhausted, I agreed to get them the extra miles. My friend, myself, the guy that was interested in my bike and two ladies headed out for more. My friend sissied out after just a couple miles. I have to remember to rib him about that. We did a nice little loop that got us exactly fifty miles. I had more, of course, because I rode to the ride and back home from the ride. Speaking of which, as I was riding home, I kind of got the feeling that I was indeed finished. I got home and was pretty beat. That seems to be my threshold, for now, about 55-60 miles riding pretty hard.
Mark
He met me here at my house so that we could ride over to the ride together. When we got to the ride, there was one main group that was going to do a serious climbing ride. I would have loved to do that, but I know I'm not there fitness-wise yet. Instead, a group of 8 of us decided to do an easier climbing ride out to Calimesa and stop for coffee at a restaurant out there. Our group consisted of five ladies and three men. I only mention this because it's kind of cool and somewhat unusual for the gals to outnumber the guys on these rides. The ride out to Calimesa is pretty steady climbing. One guy had a Garmin and he said we were pulling 5 & 6 percent grades a lot with some 8-10 mixed in for brief moments. I felt really strong and rode way out off the front of the pack most of the way. My friend hung with me as did one of the ladies. At our regroups, we were waiting awhile for the main pack to catch back on. At the first regroup, a few people were commenting on my bike and asking the usual questions. When asked if my bike was harder to ride than an upright, I went into the spiel about the moving bottom bracket and how you have to get your upper body involved and it becomes somewhat of a dance to propel the bike along. One guy quipped that it looked like I could get it going pretty good. He seemed genuinely interested in my bike and once we arrived at our destination, looked even closer and enquired as to where I got it. I told him I bought it on the Internet and he asked again who had them so he could go try one. I told him he's looking at one of only two Silvios I'm aware of in the entire Southern California region. I offered to let him try my bike, but we never got around to it.
After our break, we headed further up the hill so that we might head back down San Timoteo Canyon. It's kind of a narrow and rough road, but it's pretty much a straight run, somewhat downhill, but usually into a stiff headwind that cancels out the downhill part. While most of the group hunkered down and got a little paceline action going, I spent the first part of the ride helping a lady that was struggling a little. I was trying to get her to jump on my back wheel and take advantage of my slipstream, but she seemed reluctant. Then, it occured to me she wasn't hip to the whole paceline thing, so I talked to her and told her to get right up on my tire. I told her not to worry, I'm a steady pace guy, just get on and hold on. She did and was amazed at how much that helped. In no time, we closed the gap to the rest of the group. I told her that I would pull her up alongside the bigger paceline of about four and as we went past, to drop off my wheel and get on the back of the group so I could go up and pull the entire group up to the two off the front. Well, that worked for just a few minutes. I gave up and powered up to the front riders and we got a real good pace going, maintaining a pace in the mid to high 20's most of the way. When we got to the end of the ride, a few people wanted to get some more miles. We only had about 35 miles and they wanted 50. Being a sucker and nowhere near exhausted, I agreed to get them the extra miles. My friend, myself, the guy that was interested in my bike and two ladies headed out for more. My friend sissied out after just a couple miles. I have to remember to rib him about that. We did a nice little loop that got us exactly fifty miles. I had more, of course, because I rode to the ride and back home from the ride. Speaking of which, as I was riding home, I kind of got the feeling that I was indeed finished. I got home and was pretty beat. That seems to be my threshold, for now, about 55-60 miles riding pretty hard.
Mark
