Peloton

The "warm up" for a group ride in a neighboring town was maybe 15 miles in a brutal headwind. It's sunny, though, so this feels good.

It's officially spring, and you see a sign marked something like "Ye olde Towne of Wethersfield, 1640, so that pretty much rocks.

You are feeling tweaked today, still slightly burnt from a past hammering session, but right on the edge of full recovery. Like it could just be all in your mind. And you are slightly nervous because this group ride is in unfamiliar territory, and the fact that you rode all the way down there by yourself intensifies this feeling.

There is still a lot of early season debris and crap in the road, so you take the tankishly heavy 32 pound war-bike, a battered old Raleigh that you stupidly named "Squeaky" because the french Lyotard pedal on the right would chirp and squeak if you didn't use white lithium grease. No other lubricant would stop this noise.

The pedal finally died, and so the bike is quiet now with new Taiwanese pedals. But it's just not the same, you miss this exchange, and are still considering welding the pedal back together.

You have also installed a "slime strip" in the front tire, to prevent flats. This new experiment is working so far, but it makes the front wheel handle liks a truck tire, sluggish as hell. This is the poor-man's version of the modern flatproof tire. The tires are wide and beefy.

A true cyclist always lives in denial. They are never sore, injured, hungry, or thirsty. They always have the right tools and know everything about components, frame geometry, and, of course, etiquette.

Above all, they never do anything stupid.

And they are so full of shit. Everyone these days is now strutting around spouting Sheldon Brown-isms.

"Steel is Real!"

(yeah, "Clapton is God"!)

The group moves well, though, snaking down a fast two laner on the right shoulder. You marvel at how there is nothing but bike riders taking the lane all the way to the bend on the horizon.

You can tell that the drivers here are pretty much used to seeing this, so they don't even attempt to pass on the relatively narrow road. Or maybe they are silently seething, waiting to launch an attack. The horns are silent, however.

It is pretty funny, though watching an SUV try to suddenly accelerate to pass on a narrow double yellow, the engine growls almost like a frustrated two year old boy.

The whirring sound of 40 well lubed chains on sprockets, on the other hand, is pretty mesmerizing.

There were a couple hairy moments, the sudden red light as you cross the complex intersection.

Why do lights in CT have a two second yellow?

The driver in the oncoming lane waves the rider in front of you on to make his left, but he doesn't trust her, so he waves her on. The result is she starts up and almost cuts in front of you, but you react well enough.

Whew.

Left turns are a lot tougher in big groups.

Do not be a lemming.

Then there's the big rocks in the road which will make you crash when you hit them with your front wheel, so watch out for those, ok?

And cracks, and potholes, and sand patches, glass, metal shards, branches, dead squirrels, raccoons, opposums, cats, and (if you live in West Hartford), maybe even a dead fucking rat.

You probably won't crash from running over a dead squirrel but it's pretty nasty. A sickening Ker-crunch.

The ride rolls on....

Midway through the ride, you realize you have to break yourself of old bad habits.

Because you have an older bike, which is twice as heavy as everyone else's, you have to pay attention to shifting in conjunction with climbing smoothly when in tight formation.

Bikes these days have 30 sexy-smooth gears , and it's such a luxury to instantly pick exactly the smoothest one, the only problem is that turns you into a "shift junkie".

They also tend to not shift all by themselves in a climb. Some have speculated that this is because of better drivetrain technology, others say it's because the frames are stiffer. ( lateral frame flex allegedly causes rear derailleur jumps)

But yes these new bikes fly right up those hills. This is how the kid in the shop gets your credit card, right?

You do wanna fly up hills, now, doncha now?

On the old steelie, you just happily stomp away like you did when you were twelve, hoping the guy right behind you is ok with your slightly pulsing accelerations , and maybe he's even realized that it doesn't really do that much good to draft on a climb anyway.

So he'll back off maybe two feet. I mean, this is not a race, so what's the big deal?

Thanks!

(editor's note: this is only noticeable if you are two inches off my wheel and want to endanger yourself by rubbing wheels. This isn't an issue on my modern bike)

After about 40 minutes, you get tired of looking at some guys' ass, so you take the lead. The fast downhill feels wonderful. You get a break from his aftershave. He never spoke a word anyway.


You assume that the guy behind you can sort of call out directions.

"Go straight, right?"
"Yeah!"

After only two of these, you get...

"uh you do know where you are going, correct?"

This is hysterically funny, you are now lost. Or maybe not, no one has bothered to look at the cue sheet. The actual leader of the group has disappeared to go help someone with a breakdown.

He might just as well be sitting at the bar.

You apologize profusely. But the guys are cool about it.

Fortunately, there is a defeated warrior coming back from the A group, who knows where the hell we are, so we all happily follow him, listening to his lamentations about getting dropped by the masochist group.

"Uh, I got a lot more work to do, I guess".

Amazingly, the ride begins to improve a lot, he takes you through some pretty countryside, and the roads begin to mellow a bit. Things look brighter.

We now christen ourselves the B+ group.

In all, a good day, no hassles, everybody executed well.

The day ends with the ride back home in the dark, at a fast pace, past strip malls, turnpikes and such. The feeling of security of being home again is very real.



Peace out