Time to start preparing for cross season
Tuesday's training was to do a group ride. Group rides can mean a lot of different things but for me it always means the Tuesday Night "Alt Bomb" ride. These Tuesday night group rides with the boys were my introduction to real group riding. I started doing them after my mini retirement from mountain bike racing. Back then these were official Bombay Bicycle Club rides and because they were advertised they often drew a big group of mostly guys and a core group of about 5 women.
Bombay dropped these rides from their schedule eventually because they were seen as too dangerous, too reckless, too law breaking, too whatever. Some of that reputation was deserved and some wasn't. However, the ride has lived on but now that they aren't advertised they are much safer.
Anyway, I haven't really been doing the Tuesday rides this year because of my Tuesday Practice Crit duties and frankly I have done very few group rides this year. I actually have been doing more mountain biking this year which is a big change for me (but a fun one). I definitely felt a little rusty and I've never really liked the fact that sometimes to get the good draft you have to be out into the roadway pretty far. I think that's because I have a job that is related to transportation safety.
However, the ride was great. I was totally worked by the end and finally at Dorferville I had to let the group go as I just didn't have the legs to chase up that last hill before home. Luckily John M. hung out with me so I would have someone to draft down Seminole Hwy as it was crazy windy.
I also had a nice little group of guys to pace me up when I got dropped at an earlier point in the ride on the longest hill. I really wanted them to just let me off the hook so I didn't have to chase so hard but it wouldn't be the Tuesday ride if I didn't suffer intensely. I think they wanted to relive the Tour de France and pretend they were on Predictor-Lotto and I was Robbie McEwen and needed to get back to the group for the sprint. Unfortunately I wasn't with the group for the final sign sprint right before town but apparently Dirk lead out Dave for the win. I'm sure if I would have been there someone would have made me sprint at which point I was tired enough that I would have had to send for the team car to come get me.
It was nice to be back to the Tuesday ride though. It reminds me of how far I've come. After "retiring" from racing (which really means retiring from WORS racing) I decided to start doing these rides. When I started I was riding a heavy touring bike and was completely intimidated by the speed of the ride. It was an accomplishment just to make it out of town with the group. However, I slowly improved and then I bought a real road bike and improved more. I slowly became a more aggressive rider and learned how to know who had a good wheel to follow and who didn't. Eventually I realized that maybe I wasn't the worst racer in the world and had the confidence to give racing another try. I'm not as strong as I was when Tuesday night rides were my main riding goal but it is always nice to be back. If I rode nearly as hard in races as I do on these rides . . . . I'm going to try this year.
And for the record I did not write this post . . . overall I think the sport women are all really cool gals and I'm not just saying that because some of them are my teammates! I did have one woman who yelled at me and was perhaps a little too caught up in the excitement of racing to think clearly. I certainly hope that early on when I was passing people that I was polite. I tried to be nice to the guys i passed and I really didn't have a problem waiting for an open area as they seemed to be interspersed frequently enough.
Bombay dropped these rides from their schedule eventually because they were seen as too dangerous, too reckless, too law breaking, too whatever. Some of that reputation was deserved and some wasn't. However, the ride has lived on but now that they aren't advertised they are much safer.
Anyway, I haven't really been doing the Tuesday rides this year because of my Tuesday Practice Crit duties and frankly I have done very few group rides this year. I actually have been doing more mountain biking this year which is a big change for me (but a fun one). I definitely felt a little rusty and I've never really liked the fact that sometimes to get the good draft you have to be out into the roadway pretty far. I think that's because I have a job that is related to transportation safety.
However, the ride was great. I was totally worked by the end and finally at Dorferville I had to let the group go as I just didn't have the legs to chase up that last hill before home. Luckily John M. hung out with me so I would have someone to draft down Seminole Hwy as it was crazy windy.
I also had a nice little group of guys to pace me up when I got dropped at an earlier point in the ride on the longest hill. I really wanted them to just let me off the hook so I didn't have to chase so hard but it wouldn't be the Tuesday ride if I didn't suffer intensely. I think they wanted to relive the Tour de France and pretend they were on Predictor-Lotto and I was Robbie McEwen and needed to get back to the group for the sprint. Unfortunately I wasn't with the group for the final sign sprint right before town but apparently Dirk lead out Dave for the win. I'm sure if I would have been there someone would have made me sprint at which point I was tired enough that I would have had to send for the team car to come get me.
It was nice to be back to the Tuesday ride though. It reminds me of how far I've come. After "retiring" from racing (which really means retiring from WORS racing) I decided to start doing these rides. When I started I was riding a heavy touring bike and was completely intimidated by the speed of the ride. It was an accomplishment just to make it out of town with the group. However, I slowly improved and then I bought a real road bike and improved more. I slowly became a more aggressive rider and learned how to know who had a good wheel to follow and who didn't. Eventually I realized that maybe I wasn't the worst racer in the world and had the confidence to give racing another try. I'm not as strong as I was when Tuesday night rides were my main riding goal but it is always nice to be back. If I rode nearly as hard in races as I do on these rides . . . . I'm going to try this year.
And for the record I did not write this post . . . overall I think the sport women are all really cool gals and I'm not just saying that because some of them are my teammates! I did have one woman who yelled at me and was perhaps a little too caught up in the excitement of racing to think clearly. I certainly hope that early on when I was passing people that I was polite. I tried to be nice to the guys i passed and I really didn't have a problem waiting for an open area as they seemed to be interspersed frequently enough.
posted by MadCross at 9:37 AM
1 Comments:
Yeah, Renee, you never did get around to explaining your "retirement" from WORS and sudden reappearance. I'm still dying to know the story.
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