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A couple weeks ago Anthony said he had the opportunity to get Monday and Tuesday off and wondered if anyone was interested in some weekday riding. Well, I threw my hand up and said, “Sure, I’ll take a couple days off… I’ve got some bonus days I haven’t used yet.” Initially we had grand aspirations for maybe back-to-back centuries, or massive climbing, or some such craziness.

Today we rode 56. It felt about right.

We certainly could have done more, but we were tempting the weather gods as it was–the skies were ominous and threatening, though never cast their rainy gaze upon us. We did feel a few drops, as though the clouds were flexing their muscles and getting ready for walloping us tomorrow. The temperature never seemed to feel right–that is, it felt warmer than it actually was, a cloudy and very windy 45 degrees. The wind also didn’t seem to adversely affect our performance either. Weird. But in a good way.

Not more than 2 or 3 miles out, a church-goer cuts us off on 9W. Great. Sometimes I wish I could just do a controlled body slam into an idiot cutting me off. Go for a good dent in a body panel. I’d keep the car-side pedal high and try to grind the paint. Maybe even carry some fake blood with me and splash it about for added effect. (pausing to daydream…) I mentioned this to Steph and she said that it wouldn’t work ’cause the people who cut us off don’t care about cyclists to begin with and would think it was my fault for hitting them regardless of whatever boneheaded maneuver they pulled. She’s probably right. Plus, now that I’ve written about this right here, it wouldn’t be too good if I actually DID get into a situation like that what with me premeditating my car attack. You lawyers out there know I’m joking, right?

Anthony innocently e-mailed me and said that without excessive planning and lots of backtracking, we wouldn’t be able to have a “truly flat course.” I replied and said that “truly flat” certainly wasn’t necessary. Little did I know, he plotted a course that had us climb such a whopper that I regretted ever forcing Ormsbee on him. This was my penitence. Check out the spike on that profile. You could kill a good-sized vampire on that spike. And maybe some little baby-vampires on the mini spikes in the second half.
After the climbing, I noticed I was sitting on a low-rider again. Damn. Seatpost is sliding down. Pulled over and adjusted it. A couple miles later, same thing. This time Anthony MacGyvered a solution for me out of a used PowerBar gel wrapper, a clothespin and some duct tape. Well, OK, only the PowerBar wrapper. This worked well for the remainder of the ride. (I’m taking the faithful carbon steed to the shop Thursday after work for a major tune-up and hopefully a seatpost solution.)

Now, let me break for a minute and talk about audio books. I love listening to audio books. I’ve listed to well over a hundred, probably close to 200 (thanks to my years at the bookstore). The one I’m listening to now is by Tami Hoag, Kill the Messenger. (And, by the way, my cell phone accidentally introduced Anthony to this audio book. Bad cell phone, bad! Don’t dial unless I want you to dial!) It’s about a bike messenger in LA who gets tangled in a murder mystery. Pretty good so far. However, it suffers from a flaw I’ve come to despise. Not the story, mind you, but the production itself. It doesn’t have any audible cues when the disc is complete. My car stereo just innocently loops back to the beginning like every other car stereo on the planet and repeats. Unfortunately my car stereo is very new and apparently doesn’t suffer from any lag time when re-cueing to the beginning from the end and nary a beat is skipped in the reader’s dialog. Several minutes go by before I notice “Hey, I’ve already heard this! Smeg! Frak!” So out comes the disc and in goes the next one. Listening to disc two, I start thinking, “Wow, this story really moves along.” A lot has happened quickly. On the ride home from Anthony’s disc two finishes and I open the case looking for #3. Oops. Turns out I was listening to disc FOUR! Balls. The CD case is a flip-out kinda thingy and I didn’t pay close attention while I was driving to the actual number printed on the sleeve or on the disc itself. Aargh!

Now, I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but…

Anyway, before I digress too much and loose my readers (I know, it’s too late), we finished our ride safely, no more close calls unless you want to consider the dachshund and pekinese barking at us from behind their chainlink fence a threat. My host treated me to some hot chocolate and a delicious slice of cake.

I head home and pick up Steph from work. We head to Panera’s for dinner–and, I get a yummy Tomato and Basil Crispani pizza. I pound that down and notice a group of three sitting nearby with two crispanis. They don’t finish them, but take the leftovers home in a box. How can they NOT finish two lousy crispanis? I could still go for another couple slices. Oh well. They must have read the nutritional content on the Panera website (using Panera’s free wifi, no doubt) and learned that one pizza is actually TWO servings and contains 840 calories, 40 mg of cholesterol, 32 grams of fat and a third of my daily allowance of sodium.

Google map.

Statistics

Distance: 56.7 miles
Avg speed: 13.1 mph
Total climbing: 2631′

Uphill time: 1:32
Downhill time: 58
Flat time: 1:37

Uphill distance: 14.25
Downhill distance: 15.74
Flat distance: 26.67

Uphill grade: 3.6%
Downhill grade: 2.9%
Difficulty index: 13.44
Effort index: 60.56

For comparison, the Difficulty index and Effort index of two other recent rides:

A little 40 miler around my in-laws’ house in Round Lake:
Difficulty index: 7.95
Effort index: 48.1

The ADK540:
Difficulty index: 44.20
Effort index: 233.60

This entry was posted Monday, October 23rd, 2006 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Cycling. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.