Eventful group ride

[tuco]

Third big group ride today.

It appears more than one person had their weet bix today and unfortunately they happened to be on the front.
We were riding along for about 5km at 48km/h. "Oh look, slight decline, lets go faster.", "Look, a slight rise, lets keep up the pace." Bloody A graders!

The guy in front of me went over the handle bars pulling up at a set of lights. He crossed wheels with the guy in front. Fortunately for me I had just moved over to the left milliseconds before it happened. I've never seen someone jump up and get onto a bike faster than this guy did. It was like he was hoping if he got back on the bike fast enough then no one would notice he fell off.

Anyway, the pace, remember it was high, too high. I dropped off after only 8kms. I was almost embarrassed but then I'm only D grade and these guys are mostly A and B. The swines slowed after that but the best I could do out on my own was to match their pace. To my credit I didn't take the first short cut I normally take but I did take the second almost accidentally because they did a small run (800m) out to the Sheraton hotel and back and they caught up with me.

Kept up with them for another 7 or 8 kms then, after dropping a little behind, the red light timing got the better of me as I caught a red and they got a green one set ahead. Forgot to mention, I almost left a tyre mark up the back of the Australian road race champion. I was riding behind her not getting a lot of draft because she's only little and from up the front there were yells of STOP. Everyone mid pack hit the brakes (luckily I had replaced my brake pads the night before). A couple of us braked hard right over sand on the road. The Champ locked her back wheel, I thought wholly crap, I won't be popular if I run over the club's best rider! and hit the brakes locking my back wheel, being much bigger than her I would have hit her except all that training instinctively made me turn away from her back wheel. That got the adrenaline going, front wheel (still spinning) out to the left heading the right direction and the back wheel (locked up) a foot over to the right sliding in the right direction. Still don't know why STOP was yelled out. You should have heard the abuse from behind me.

Here's where it got weird, after they dropped me (actually I like to think of it as me letting them go) I really struggled to keep up a meagre 28 km/h then I saw two other D graders heading towards me (they took a massive, massive short cut at the beginning of the ride and a smaller one ahead of me to be heading my way) so I crossed the road and let them catch me. What was weird you ask, I struggled by myself to get to 28km/h and when riding back up the road with these two I was on 29 - 30 km/h without any trouble at all, if fact it was almost too slow and we weren't drafting, we were three wide across the parking lane (It's a very, very wide parking lane) and there was no breeze at all.

Was it the physical short break I had slowing down to let them catch me or was it the mental aspect of talking to these two and my mind being taken off the fact my legs were rooted?
Where's that "Why is it so?" guy when you need him? Showing my age there, I remember watching that when it was on TV.

Details :
Distance : 30kms
Average : 30km/h
Max : 48.5 km/h
Ave HR : 155
Max HR : 176
Calories : 950

[MichaelB]

Eventful indeed. Sounds like a good ride, but the pace is scary to me !!

I had a ride on the weekend and was managing about 34km/hr when a guy on a tri-bike blitzed past me at about 45 + km/hr I can go that fast in a very short sprint or downhill, but that is it.

Mindyou, in a ride with some mates, got to 59.12km/hr down Old Belair road in Adealide which was good. Also know why fast cyclists wear glasses too

Cheers

Michael B

[tuco]

Eventful indeed. Sounds like a good ride, but the pace is scary to me !!

I had a ride on the weekend and was managing about 34km/hr when a guy on a tri-bike blitzed past me at about 45 + km/hr I can go that fast in a very short sprint or downhill, but that is it.

Mindyou, in a ride with some mates, got to 59.12km/hr down Old Belair road in Adealide which was good. Also know why fast cyclists wear glasses too

Cheers

Michael B

Got a laugh out of the fast cyclist and glasses. I just bought I pair with interchangeable lens, dark tint for day, yellow tint for early morning/evening and clear for night. I never ride without them.

Believe me, I couldn't do more than 35km/h for more than one or two kms on my own so it gives you an idea of the advantage group riding gives to your top average speed and the length of time it can be maintained. Last week was slower at 43km/h and I managed about 12km with them.

I've been plotting my group ride stats and that last ride was the same average speed with a 0.8km/h higher max but my max heart rate was down by 8 bpm and my average by 5bpm.
Also the calories used has increased.
I hope that's the start of a trend.

[seddo]

Tuco -by the results given decrease in max/avg HR sounds as if your fitness level has increased - many congrats


cheers
Seddo

[LuckyPierre]

Your ride sounds like my Sunday experience, Tuco. The Vets 'Lodge Ride' is meant to be a recovery ride, but there I was, a poor little F-grader with six others (all but 1 of them from A-grade). I lasted about 8 km too, but we were only averaging mid-30's. As soon as a bit of a slope appeared, I went further and further backwards. I sent them off (it was good while it lasted, but I didn't want to hold them back for another 30 kms) at about the 12 km mark, then continued on on my own. I didn't run into any others, but I agree that having people around you makes riding easier. As you can see on my route, I took a little detour on the way home. It was very windy on the top slopes - bad enough that I couldn't just let the girlie bike roll on the way down (the max. I recorded for the ride was only 45.2 km/hr). I posted my time on www.cycle2max.com - but it's the slowest recorded for Mt Stromlo

[531db]

LuckyPierre wrote:

"but there I was, a poor little F-grader"

Ah, but a winning F Grader! - for those who don't know - Peter trounced F Grade for a win at Saturday's ACTVCC road race in the pouring rain at Dalton.

Myself, I could only manage a third in E Grade on the 'Italian Stallion' (lugged Oria steel and 14 spd down tube shifters - of course) for which the club handicappers have decided I must be promoted to a higher form of suffering - D Grade

I should also mention that another bloke by the name of Peter (we have heaps of Peter's in the ACTVCC!) finished fourth in E Grade on lugged Columbus steel with 12 speed down tube gears.

[mikesbytes]

Congratulations Peter, Peter & 531.

Does Peter now get booted to E grade ?

Burn plenty of Glycogen
Frame Size Calculator

training log

[LuckyPierre]

... Peter trounced F Grade ...

That Peter is very tongue-in-cheek, because this Peter was dragged all the way through the ride by another rider (who can't be named, because his name's not Peter) who then ducked the win because he doesn't want to go up a grade just yet. And, by Peter's definition, 'trounced' means less than a second, because we were both given the same finishing time. Don't worry, I'll be back with the stragglers when the rest of F-grade shows up next week - most of the regular (and stronger) riders must have been scared off by the prospect of rain.