John’s Ramblings

The night-riding crowd gathered at the appointed hour last night to do our usual 20 mile jaunt somewhere through the valley. Once the group was finally assembled, the usual shoulder-shrugging started as we decided which route to ride. As soon as I suggested something resembling a flat recovery ride (after my efforts of Sunday), my proposed route was overridden with “Hey, let’s do that hilly ride we did last week!”. The gauntlet was laid at my feet when a fellow rider, just having heard of my painful century ride 48 hours ago, looked at me with a sly smile and said “You know, you’ve had one whole day to recover.”

I understood immediately that the selection of this more strenuous route was a form of payback. You see, a few days prior I was guilty of inserting a picture of this same fellow into a dancing leprechaun in a Jib-Jab “Sendable” cartoon (and forwarded same dancing leprechaun to most of the free world). I clicked in to my pedals and hoped to get dropped quickly. For the sake of future route selections, I will resist the temptation to post the cartoon here.

Getting dropped in the headwinds of the 8 mile run to hill #1 was not in the cards (in last week’s episode, Russ and I were blown off the back at about mile 4). Nobody let anyone fall too far back, and if someone started to falter a wheel would be offered for the sucking. Consequently, I was soon delivered to the bottom of “Little Italy”, where I gave directions and a regroup point to the speedsters. Much grunting and wheezing later, I too reached the top.

“We’re lost, you lead, Calnan”. I led the group through the next couple of turns, which would drop them down to familiar territory near the bottom of Peasley Canyon for climb #2. I lingered at the last turn so that the trailing rider would not miss it, and the others were soon gone. Down Peasley Way, left and up Peasley Canyon to 321st, and the last regroup was waiting. The faster group was soon gone again, this time for good as they missed our turn at 296th. A nice fellow walking his dog advised me that the other riders had continued straight, but Russ and I elected to make the turn anyway, as the 7% downgrade in the dark sounded more reasonable than the 15% or so that the others were bound to encounter as they made their way down to the bottom of 272nd via 55th Ave.

I survived better than I expected with only one day of recovery, which is a good sign. Also of note, there was still a hint of sunset color in the western sky as we rode the last few miles, shortly after 8 p.m. I’m looking forward to putting the bike headlights away in the next few weeks.

My good friend and riding partner Kevin has promised me 70 or so miles of punishment for this coming Saturday, however, including excerpts of the SOB route. It’s good to have friends that are looking out for me. Maybe.

Tags: Cycling, green_river_riders, group_ride, little_italy, night_riding, peer_pressure

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