How do you spell casual / recovery ride?

if you ride for roll: you spell it nineteen mph for forty-one miles. 

teamroll: Thursday Night Ride by fdaugherty at Garmin Connect - Details

 So I show up for the Thursday night ride with roll:  There were only six of us and as I was looking around I noticed that I was clearly the slowest.  This is never good, it was even more so today because Wednesday was pretty hard on me with a 38 mile day at 19 mph, 10 mph winds and 23 of those miles were on my own because I got dropped.  Why did I get dropped?  Easy I got 5 hours sleep, riding with fast people and I spent too much time on the front given the circumstances. 

New Rule: when riding with stronger people let them take long pulls, tuck in and try and stay on.


The Thursday night rides are the casual, no-one-gets-dropped ride.  These are the rides I like, because we do have a couple sprints to stretch the legs and get the HR up.  But at the end of the day the group stays together.  There were only six of us, Heidi had a problem with her rear tire, so we rode over to Jim's house to swap out the rear tire.  Then we were off on the ride heading up and through Galena at around 23-26 mph.

We rode over to Red Bank to climb the hill on Red Bank road.  I believe it is about 4.7% average grade, but only about 0.42 miles long.  I was up front on the decline heading on the base we hit base of the hill at 29 mph.  Its simple physics, the big guy goes down hill fast.  I was traveling at almost 30 mph and within 0.42 miles and about 2 minutes I was down to 10 mph with a HR at 171.  It is always amazing to me at how fast one's HR can peak.


We regrouped at the top, because I was the last one up.  The good news is my pull was over soon.  We continued to keep a brisk pace west hovering right around 20 mph only slowing for intersections. At one point, I was beginning to think that I needed a little breather to grab some water - then I heard the bark that sounded like it came from Cujo. I looked over and saw a Rottweiler coming out to greet us.  All of the sudden I had legs again. If only for a few moments to clear Cujo's property line.


Hartford Road heading west is probably one of the greatest road in Central Ohio.  It is a gradual down hill run when heading west.  Tonight there was no wind, we had Mike up front with a good strong cadence and we maintained a 24-25 mph pace.  It was at this point, were I had to laugh.  I was forth person back, tucked away nicely with a cadence round 100 with 33 miles behind me.  My thighs were starting to burn, breath was a little labored, and I think I heard my calves say,  "yeah have your fun now, but we're waking you ass up around 3:30 this morning and don't you dare say a word when we do."  Then I look up and see Heidi pull out her phone to read a text message.  I am hanging on, barely, and feeling good about it between gasps and she is planning a picnic via text.


Lessons learned: 
1) Fast riders make you faster. 
2) Strong riders make you stronger. 
3) Good teammates will smack you around a little if you are wussing out, but always have your back if you get in a spot of bother.
4) Strong riders who are humble and encouraging to others is rare, and we have a lot of them.

5) I am one lucky dude to know good people to ride with and this team even makes the pain fun.