The Tribe ROCKS!
Jul. 13th, 2008 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threadwalkerI'm part of a few tribes. There's Villa Luna. There's my sassy-smart co-workers. And there's the other cyclists on the road. This is about them and they rock.
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hrj and I did "Three Bears" today. It rocked hard. It took us 3+ hrs last time and somewhere around 2 to 2-1/2 this time.
Towards the end I got a flat from a piece of glass in my rear. We pulled into a driveway to deal with this (I carry tools, spare and pump). What was really cool was as I was fixing it, members of the tribe were slowing down to see if we needed help. That's so cool. We didn't, but the checking-in part was pretty slick.
Unfortunately, I snapped the pin out of the replacement tube. I was standing there contemplating the pierced tube and the now-busted spare with no other tube prospects and wondering how I was going to explain that to F. Seriously - he's been sleeping poorly and I wasn't sure he was actually awake.... and that's when the Benicia Bicycle Club rolled up.
Them: Do you need help?
Me, muttering: I need to wake up Strike-Force Alpha and call in a rescue. I'm so screwed.
HRJ, loudly: Yes, we do.
They swarmed us in their bright yellow jerseys and in less than 2 minutes some very veteran cyclists are replacing my tire, showing me a superior pump, and exchanging e-mail so I can network with some ladies tri-team training group.
wow! Most Excellent!
The ride started in bed, as they do. I am glad I'm the type of person who can go from sleeping to 100 miles a second in no time flat. I didn't crash until 6: 30 this morning and my eyes popped open at 8 am. With less than 2 hours of sleep I registered that the place I needed to be was leaving the house to catch my BART train and not in bed. I litterly snapped out of bed, popped in contact lenses, raced through the house grabbing gear and clothes, swallowed oatmeal, yanked bike out of rafters and was out the door in 10 minutes. There was no "enjoying the sense" of the ride. There was adreniline, thudding heart beats, sweaty hands, and total focus on getting my ass to the train station.
I missed my train by 10 minutes. Go figure. Fortunately, I had less than 5 for the next. I think my "fast out the door" time can be credited to a lot of practice lately. And so glad the biking clothes I washed the night before (which don't go through the dryer) were dry. Nothing like clammy lycra to ruin your day.
HRJ was my rabbit. We hit Bear Creek and she was in the lead. She is a dynamo - she takes off and keeps on going like a wild woman. I was thinking my energy was low (lack of sleep does that), so I was glad she was in the lead. I wasn't feeling very "leaderly".
I caught up to her at the bottom of the base on our way up the first bear, I said something like "you are totally rocking" and then dropped back. I let her get 100-150 ft ahead and then started to chase her until I was 50ft behind, then I'd drop my speed and repeat. (Yeah.. that first hill really is long enough to do that a few times). That totally pushed my quads. And it woke everything up; lack of sleep really didn't seem to be a problem after that. Besides, it's a good simulator for the tri in September.
We broke for water at the top and then went for the 2nd bear. I don't know what happened to me, but on the way up the 2nd bear, I put on some speed. I was going faster uphill than I was on flat several months ago. Were my legs on crack? Or maybe the onboard AI was on the fritz? But I passed HRJ and said I was going to keep pushing it. It was awesome. What I think was going on was my Wildcat days are having real results. Yay!
The rest of the ride was just as great. I spent my downhills focusing on keeping speed up to 25-30 mph and leaning a bit into the curves despite having forgotten first-aid kit. I have a tendency to want to back off because leaning forward into the wind at 32 mph downhill on tires that are less than 1 inch wide while wearing a lycra skin-suit does not create mental pictures of a soft landing if I hit a piece of gravel. Nope. Two words: Road rash... yum!
But I pushed it and it's all good.
hrj and I did "Three Bears" today. It rocked hard. It took us 3+ hrs last time and somewhere around 2 to 2-1/2 this time. Towards the end I got a flat from a piece of glass in my rear. We pulled into a driveway to deal with this (I carry tools, spare and pump). What was really cool was as I was fixing it, members of the tribe were slowing down to see if we needed help. That's so cool. We didn't, but the checking-in part was pretty slick.
Unfortunately, I snapped the pin out of the replacement tube. I was standing there contemplating the pierced tube and the now-busted spare with no other tube prospects and wondering how I was going to explain that to F. Seriously - he's been sleeping poorly and I wasn't sure he was actually awake.... and that's when the Benicia Bicycle Club rolled up.
Them: Do you need help?
Me, muttering: I need to wake up Strike-Force Alpha and call in a rescue. I'm so screwed.
HRJ, loudly: Yes, we do.
They swarmed us in their bright yellow jerseys and in less than 2 minutes some very veteran cyclists are replacing my tire, showing me a superior pump, and exchanging e-mail so I can network with some ladies tri-team training group.
wow! Most Excellent!
The ride started in bed, as they do. I am glad I'm the type of person who can go from sleeping to 100 miles a second in no time flat. I didn't crash until 6: 30 this morning and my eyes popped open at 8 am. With less than 2 hours of sleep I registered that the place I needed to be was leaving the house to catch my BART train and not in bed. I litterly snapped out of bed, popped in contact lenses, raced through the house grabbing gear and clothes, swallowed oatmeal, yanked bike out of rafters and was out the door in 10 minutes. There was no "enjoying the sense" of the ride. There was adreniline, thudding heart beats, sweaty hands, and total focus on getting my ass to the train station.
I missed my train by 10 minutes. Go figure. Fortunately, I had less than 5 for the next. I think my "fast out the door" time can be credited to a lot of practice lately. And so glad the biking clothes I washed the night before (which don't go through the dryer) were dry. Nothing like clammy lycra to ruin your day.
HRJ was my rabbit. We hit Bear Creek and she was in the lead. She is a dynamo - she takes off and keeps on going like a wild woman. I was thinking my energy was low (lack of sleep does that), so I was glad she was in the lead. I wasn't feeling very "leaderly".
I caught up to her at the bottom of the base on our way up the first bear, I said something like "you are totally rocking" and then dropped back. I let her get 100-150 ft ahead and then started to chase her until I was 50ft behind, then I'd drop my speed and repeat. (Yeah.. that first hill really is long enough to do that a few times). That totally pushed my quads. And it woke everything up; lack of sleep really didn't seem to be a problem after that. Besides, it's a good simulator for the tri in September.
We broke for water at the top and then went for the 2nd bear. I don't know what happened to me, but on the way up the 2nd bear, I put on some speed. I was going faster uphill than I was on flat several months ago. Were my legs on crack? Or maybe the onboard AI was on the fritz? But I passed HRJ and said I was going to keep pushing it. It was awesome. What I think was going on was my Wildcat days are having real results. Yay!
The rest of the ride was just as great. I spent my downhills focusing on keeping speed up to 25-30 mph and leaning a bit into the curves despite having forgotten first-aid kit. I have a tendency to want to back off because leaning forward into the wind at 32 mph downhill on tires that are less than 1 inch wide while wearing a lycra skin-suit does not create mental pictures of a soft landing if I hit a piece of gravel. Nope. Two words: Road rash... yum!
But I pushed it and it's all good.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-14 12:37 am (UTC)I'm glad you got help. =)
no subject
Date: 2008-07-14 12:42 am (UTC)I loved my bike group, and now I can't do it any more. I am so hoping to get into enough shape so I can at least take a grannie ride from time to time.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-14 01:41 am (UTC)Rigth on!
Date: 2008-07-14 06:48 am (UTC)