Gotta love that Deb.
The Whitinsville Community Center where she works is a sponsor of a local competition called the Greenway Challenge. It's kind of a relay Tri-athalon through the local area with canoeing/kayaking instead of swimming to go along with running and cycling. You know where this is going don't you? Her boss mentioned that they didn't have anyone to fill the second bicycle leg, Deb said that we ride all the time on the tandem, he said...
Right. So today we did a test ride of the course. This, after I attempted to drive the course the other day. You know how the stereotypical New England directions center around "Ya caan't get theya from heeya"? Well, it's not because you can't physically get there, it's because they don't bother to put any freaking signs between here and there! The course is only 12 miles but I managed to spend about an hour trying to drive the thing. I never did find the last 3 miles of it.
We set out on the tandem to give it spin. Now, this bike is pretty nice - this ain't Daisy's bicycle built for two with baskets and bouncy seats - and we're not afraid to make it go fast but tandems are notoriously slow going uphill. You know where this is going don't you? Let's see, our leg follows a kayak leg. The kayak leg finishes at the Blackstone Gorge. Gorge? Perfect.
Right. So we start the ride with a gut wrenching climb out of the Gorge. Actually it wasn't that bad but we weren't warmed up at all and it put us into some Oxygen debt right off the bat. Note to self - warm up first on race day. Reply from self - since you are the 5th leg out of 7, and there are 70 teams that will be strung out all along the Blackstone Valley how in the Hell are you going to know when your kayak person is going to arrive at the freaking Gorge so you can time your warm up, huh Lance-boy?
Deb had pinned the route sheet to the back of my jersey so she could navigate and call out turns while I drive. We got this idea when we rode with another tandem group a couple months ago. Did I mention that she used two safety pins on the top of the sheet? Did I mention that the airflow over and around the Captain's back is not particularly smooth? You know where this is going don't you? Less than a mile down the road, after the route sheet has practically torn itself to shreds in the vortex, Deb unpins it and puts it in my back jersey pocket. I knew this part of the ride anyway so it wasn't a big deal. Anyway, we navigate a few turns and then start a moderate climb. It's not a big climb at all but when you are pushing hard, it starts to hurt. A lot.
I had been wondering how best to ride the course. As I mentioned, the tandem is tough to go uphill with but on the flats and especially on the downhills, it flies. We can easily drop strong singles when we get even a slight downhill. So I didn't know whether it made sense to give it everything we had on the climbs and recover on the easy part or to just pace it uphill and crank on the downs. I think it makes the most sense to push hard on the hills and recover on the downs because the speed differential between us an the singles is greater on the uphills and that differential lasts for a longer time. I still think that's true in theory but it's hard to do in practice. You don't want to "crack" - build up so much lactic acid in your muscles that they just shut down - and we got close to that a couple of times today. One of the great things about cycling is that you can be near total exhaustion one minute and then, after just a short recovery period where you just ease up a little, be back to full strength and ready to crank the next.
Well, we got to the part that I hadn't found on my driving tour. The name of the road is Woonsocket Hill Road. You know where this is going don't you? We actually stopped at a fire station to ask if this was the proper road. The guy there said it was and mentioned that "it has some pretty good hills too". Perfect. When motorists notice the hills, you know it's bad. It was bad. We struggled over the top imagining all the featherweight singles blowing by us. The fireman also said that the downhill payback was pretty good though too. He was right. We almost went supersonic coming down the other side. OK, we only hit 44 mph but I was taking it relatively easy since I wasn't sure if there was a stop sign or something at the bottom. There wasn't so I imagine we will approach about 50 on race day! As a bonus, Deb's shrieking should clear out all the small animals that might otherwise be tempted to run across the road in front of us. From there it was a short ride into the heart of downtown Woonsocket - to the Museum of Work and Culture. Doesn't that sound like a 5th grade field trip from Hell.
So we finished it in about 45 minutes for an average of about 16.5 miles per hour which isn't real good. The thing is, we are in the Recreational division. Not the Championship division. Not the Corporate division. Not the Tri-athlete division. The Recreational division. When I clarified this with Deb's boss he said yeah, we might get first or second in the Rec division but I'm interested in how we do overall. What? You've got middle aged, weekend athlete posers on this team and you want to compete for the overall? That kind of attitude and added pressure takes some of the fun out of it.
Oh, after we finished, we had to ride back to the car at the Gorge. Due to the layout of the course, it was only about 3 miles away but you've never ridden through the streets of Woonsocket have you?
Five miles later, back at the car, we put the tandem on the car and say hello to all the other competitors checking out the transition area at the Gorge. Did you see the legs on that guy!? We're gonna die.
Gotta love that Deb.
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