Own The Peleton

Saturday March 27th, 2010 Road Ride GPS Data
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/28212627

How is it that random musings can turn into a long suffer ride?

I was joking a few weeks ago when I riding around with Brent that we haven't had a ride where someone was begging for food in a ditch on the side of the highway, so what happens? An e-mail sent out for a 150km group ride.

This was going to be my longest ride yet...so I prepped for worst. The next morning after running around getting ready while trying to cram food into my mouth I made my way down to the ride meetup place. As I had never done a ride this long before I decided to pack more energy food then I probably needed. But still, there were many jokes during the ride about my vest pockets becoming the group vending machine.

After meeting up with Brent and Andrew, we did a quick ride over to the meetup spot. There were 4 other riders ready to go, among them Canadian Olympian Jason Myslicki. After everyone finished getting ready, we rode out and were met up by two other riders. We now had a group of 10 which is the largest group ride I've been involved with so far. We rode out to highway 8 and quickly organized ourselves into a paceline to go against the strong headwind. The paceline worked really well and was great to get break from the wind as everyone did their time at the front. The few times I went up front, I may have gone out a little more then I should have as I was trying to do some significant pulls even though with my size they probably weren't benefiting the group. When we hit highway 22, we had a wider shoulder to work with so we morphed into a rotating double paceline. I've had never done this type of paceline before so I had disrupted the tempo a couple times trying to learn the system on the go. After a few mistakes and some advice from the guys, I think I got it down for the last few kms. As we approached Bragg Creek, I saw everyone go into their drops and this time I decided to join in on the town sign sprint.  Then we stopped for our customary coffee stop.

 After a quick break a few riders decided to head back to Calgary but we were soon joined by another rider from Bici. We regrouped and seven of us headed out towards Millarville. After doing a scenic climb out of Bragg we hit the 22X and then headed south on the 762. The road was awesome. There was tons of scenery, little traffic and some pretty decent climbs.  Yuri from Bici was pushing the pace pretty hard the group split into a faster gorup and a slower group with a few of us hanging back to ride at a more relaxed pace to take in the views...there's no cellphone reception in Milarville so we wanted to make sure we had enough enegy to make it back home...or at least to Bragg Creek.

When we finally met made it to Millarville we met up with the faster group and had another quick stop. We met up with another rider from Bici but she was coming from another direction. Yuri also decided to go his own way as he wanted o make a loop and go back to Calgary via the 22X. Now there was just 6 of us remaining. After refueling and topping off our water bottles we set out back towards Bragg Creek. This time we opted to take a slightly different route which was some backcountry road with a few gravel sections. As we headed up the road we ran into Craig, Gerry, Ed and Gabor from my team who also managed to drag Jeff Nielsen from Terrascape along on their crazy adventure. Jeff didn't stand out nearly as much as his Terrascape kit as has their kit  has the same colors as us. My team kit completely clashed with Bicisport...so I stuck out like sore thumb, but despite their feeble attempts...I did not go over to the Blue Side.

After the long uphill climb on Plumber's Road, we regrouped again before heading back out on the 762 towards Bragg Creek. As soon as we got to another big climb, Jason started turning the screws. I wanted to keep up but had to keep in mind that this was supposed to be a fun ride...not a hammer. So again we broke into two groups and I rode in a pack with Brent and Andrew.  I could tell some of us were getting a little tired...

Apparently, I learned that it's bad form to take self-shots during long climbs. Especially when there could be photo evidence of roadies suffering.

After we got back to Bragg Creek, we stopped at the coffee shop quickly for bathroom breaks and refill our water bottles. Then we re-grouped and prepared a nice easy ride home with a tailwind. Once again on highway 22 we formed a rotating double paceline. I was able to keep tempo a lot better this time although there were a couple times I had trouble trying to push past Jason. As soon as we hit highway 8 we all took a turn at the front but then Jason decided he would pull us all the way back to Calgary. For me, it was incredible to be riding with an Olympian and seeing how much fitter these guys are. He didn't seem have an issue with pulling us and we had a bit of a tailwind so it's not like anyone was going out ultra-hard on the front.

We finally got back to Andrew's house and surprisingly...I felt pretty good. I was tired but not shattered like when I did my long CX ride with Craig and Thomas. It felt awesome to get this kind of long ride under my belt and not have to call home from Bragg Creek to get a ride back home. Despite my earlier musings...no one bonked...and no one had to beg me for food...so it was a pretty awesome ride. I put this ride in the epic category as well because how many times do you get to go out for a ride with an Olympic Athlete???

- Kyle

Road Riding Fun

The race season is in the horizon now. I’ve been able to stick to my training plan pretty well over the last few months and I can’t wait to see where I’ll be this year. The past few months I’ve been out on more than a few rides where I know people would smile, nod and back away slowly upon hearing what I decided would be a good time on the weekend.

Until about 2 years ago, I had been a pretty dedicated mountain biker, if you asked me 3 years ago if I’d would ever own a road bike, I probably would have thrown out a few choice words…but the overall message would have been “no”. I mean what could be so fun about:

- Riding on a (mostly) smooth road with a few hills thrown in
- Wearing spandex shorts and tight jerseys
- Shaving your legs
- Not having to dodge trees, jump over logs and clean technical sections

It’s now 3 years later and I love road riding. People ask me all the time where the fun in road biking is and why do we do it but I think I finally have an understanding. It’s really easy to knock something if you don’t try it first. Road biking is not for everyone, just like mountain biking isn’t for everyone. I do understand why people tend to stick to one or the other, but personally, I just love to ride and enjoy the variety. There are not many who race multiple disciplines, but I think competing in multiple disciplines really compliments the others without things getting too stale. I’m sure one day I’ll get to the point where I may start to favour one discipline over the others but right now I just want to go until I stop having fun.

This past weekend I had another ride which I would have to throw into the epic category now. The premise was simple. Ride out from Westhills to Bragg Creek and back on the highway with our ‘cross bikes. Estimated distance 90km, all highway road and one coffee stop. Andrew, Brent and I set out early in the moderately brisk, sunny morning and headed out to the west. Soon we were joined by Ryan and Greg with Bicisport and we got settled into a nice ‘relaxing’ paceline. I took a spot behind Ryan who is a Cat 2 racer with Bicisport and stayed on his wheel as he seemed to be going at a pretty relaxed pace and I usually ride near the front to avoid getting dropped. I checked my heart rate and it turns out that while he was pretty relaxed, I was pretty much redlined trying to keep up. After a quick stop for a few people to relieve themselves, Tom from my team rode by and joined up with our group, so we went from 3 to 6 riders in the span of about an hour. We regrouped and headed south on the 22x towards Bragg Creek for our ritual coffee stop where I finally realized that I might be involved in some sort of Bicisport recruiting campaign. As we were finishing up our break, the Calgary Cycle road contingent rolled in along with a few H&R and Bicisport guys. It was great to see so many familiar faces in a small coffee shop in Bragg Creek.

As we headed back towards Calgary, there were little specks of snow but we didn’t really think much about it. When we started heading north again it started to snow a little, it was pretty light and dry at first so we figured it wasn’t too bad so we kept riding. Then we went around a slight bend and into a full on snowstorm of wet heavy snow which of course was blowing in opposite direction we were headed. All of us were pretty much covered in snow as we continued to ride and could barely see 50m in front of us. Andrew was pacing really well on his heavy cross bike and that was good encouragement for me to keep pushing onward. As we turned west to head back to Calgary the snow started to clear up a little and just as soon as we were caught in a snowstorm, the clouds cleared and it was warm and sunny out. We had just experienced all 4 seasons in the span of 4 hours.

To me it’s these experiences which make road riding so interesting. The conversations are usually pretty good and most of the time people will help you reach past your self-imposed limits. I encourage everyone who has a road bike and is tired of riding alone to join a no-drop group ride and have a great experience riding a bike with others. I found that just by participating in rides and accepting invitations to ride that I’ve met a lot of new people and picked up a lot of new skills. A year ago 100km rides seemed impossible to me…now I’m doing 90-100km rides pretty regularly and rarely feel completely shattered when I get home. Having accomplished these long rides really early in the season has given me the confidence to want to do events like the Salty Dog 6 Hour Enduro, the Giver-8-er and the Bow 80 races. A few more years and maybe I’ll want to do events like the Breck Epic, BC Bike Race and the Transrockies…but only time will tell. I’m still a little nervous about racing this year but I feel that once I’m out again on the start line and the whistle blows…I’ll feel right at home…doing what I love and enjoying it.

- Kyle