I recently got word of a local "Tuesday Evening Ride" from a neighbor. I just read an article about "Tuesday Evening Rides" in Bicycling Magazine and I wanted to find a way to get some riding in mid-week.
"Team Phat Tuesday is a cycling team based in Franklin, Massachusetts. We are a charitable group organized to fund raise for The Jimmy Fund, through the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge. Some of our riders have participated in the event for the past 20 years."
Tim Brightman, pictured below, is the contact for the ride. He was kind enough to pull me along after I dropped from the pack. He more-or-less told me "Don't kill your-self trying to maintain that pace…" as he pulled in front of me and allowed me to draft.
Tim Brightman
More about Phat Tuesday:
My goal for the evening was to not embarrass myself ;-) I hadn't been riding that quickly recently and I hoped I would be able to keep up.
Well, I didn't embarrass myself and I rode faster that I had ever ridden. To date, I had only had a 17.6 mph average for my fastest ride. Riding with this group, I averaged 18.1 mph. Granted, it wasn't as hilly as my usual rides, but still…!
UPDATE: Actually, it has a very similar profile to a number of my rides with 1279" of climbing over 25 miles.
I kept on remembering the tips from the latest issue of Bicycling. Essentially, do what the other riders are doing. If I saw someone drink, I drank. If the group wasn't "speeding along" on a flat section, then don't "jump out in front". Stay with the pack.
Determined to keep up with the pack I pushed myself. My calves were on the verge of cramping up. I drank, and rubbed them just enough to hold off any real cramping.
18.1 mph, Wow! It felt good. I'm hooked. I hope I can make it out every Tuesday…
NOTE: My GPS dropped the satellites for about a mile (the mile with the biggest climb), so no link to Motionbased.com for this ride...
1 comments:
We are neighbors, (kind of). I work in Taunton, just down the road. I used to ride the Blackstone Blvd pacelines with Narragansett Bay Wheelmen. We did 30+ miles in a double paceline. Very interesting riding.
Now I'm more a soloist.
See you around.
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