Chapter 5 - June 1st, 2008- Otis With Newbies

OTIS!!!! The name must have some sort of meaning as in Mecca, OTIS!!! Does it mean anything to you? It doesn't me, but for some reason the ride to Otis attracted 18 people. The most we have ever had on one of these Duke Rides. There were people I've never met before. While I haven't met the world, I like to think that I met a lot of BCA Members, but not in this group. Willy brought a buddy from California, we will call him the California Guy. Bill Hart, showed up, Pat, Mary Lou, Karen Mills with her burn (see a pic in Notes section), Nicky and Jim Creer, Paula P., my buddy Deb Mc-I., Shaun, Alissa (yes Alissa, wow, the ride must be important)Duke, John C., Steve ( got me what his last name is, I can't write that fast, but good rider) Dudly and Deb Wetherall. If I missed anybody, I'm sorry, it was hard enough last weekend trying to count to 14, but 18 really screwed me up.

I was totally impressed with number of people, but what worried me is that 80% of them were strong riders. I figured that I would be riding by myself most of the time. Most said that this is longest ride for them this year. Like Deb Wetherall, telling me that she had only done 35 miles max this year. Crips, she was in front for the whole 60 flying. And she expected me to feel badly for her. Not going to happen, no sympathy here Deb. I would give alot to ride half as well as you do. By complaining about distance I think that they all expected me to feel sorry for them, fat chance, they were all very skinny and had very nice bikes, that equals, Bryan in the rear.

A lot happened before we took off. You will notice in the picture that Duke is setting fashion trend by biking in bluejeans (what me worry! I don't care about no stinkinig blisters in my croch.) I cringe when I think of Duke biking 60+ miles in Denims.
You talk about hamburger, man evne the thought of the seam rubbing hurts. We finally talked him into borrowing some pants from Willy. So I drove Willy and Duke to Willy's house to get some shorts, mission accomplished, as you can see from the after picture. If you look closly you will see that Willy didn't give Duke the best pair he had, the shorts are tatered, and worn. Good move Willy, you don't want Duke to wreck new ones.

I mentioned that I drove to Willy's. I got all kinds of grief about having my car at Wahconah that from Shaun, can you believe he called me a Girly Biker? (Ladies don't you think that is a bit of Chauvanism?) See he knows that I Live 2 miles from Wahconah and I drove. Well it's like this, I have all my clothes in the back of my mini hummer. And the weather was very changable, so I took my wardrobe to the start of the ride. It seemed logical to me, besides who would have driven to Willy's if I didn't have my car. Shaun was just trying to make a point that he and Alissa pedaled up 7.2 miles to the start and I drove 2 miles. Made sense to me to drive. Besides I'm older and the gas will last until I kick off so what do I care. Besides it only cost me $0.13 cents. I get 26 mph, 2 miles, = .13 cents. I think that I can afford that.

We finally took off once Duke got situated with very nice fitting bike shorts (see above,) a little worn, but nice fitting. The start was short lived, we didn't make it very far, 2.3 miles, before we had our first rest stop because Paula got a flat. You know Paula's tire looked like Swiss cheese, she has so many holes in it. There was a rip from a previous ride and this hole and bare spots, I found out that she carries Duct tape in her pack to patch the tire. Only a mtn biker would do that. At any rate the stop wasn't too long because while I supervised Shaun changed it . I'm good at supervising, proof is that Shaun got the tire done quickly in about 10 minutes. Good job Shaun. Don't worry bud, i won't take any credit.

I should note that I took my GPS on this ride . You can never be too careful when on long rides with Duke. He has a rep about making decisions about turns that make rides a lot longer. At any rate the GPS registers all kinds of data, like max speed, stop time, move time, distance, current speed, avg speed and most importantly ELEVATION. I want to point out that we started at 1170 feet at WRHS. After fixing Paula's tire, we continued up Route 8 to Becket center, Elevation 1300, then stopped for a rest stop at Becket Town hall at 1576 feet. Wow you would think that was flat, for 18 miles of riding, but nope, it was all up and down. Kind of fun, lots of barnes, cows, funky chickens to see and other stuff, did you Smell the Roses John, or were you with hammer heads, head down, just flying over hills?

We regrouped at the Becket Store for a break. The store is in good location because it has all the amenitites, all though the restroom rating is only 2 Flushes. None the less it had food and water and a portapotty.

The route leaving the store is a long down hill to route 20, then a tough climb up Hiawatha Hill on Bonnie Riggs Road. After I caught my breath, we turned onto Alger Road. Well I would give you the Elevation but I was gasping so much I couldn't see my GPS and it was covered with sweat from dripping off my forehead any way (sorry ladies, gross.) Along Alger, we split into 5 groups. The fast ones that are in a hurry to get somewhere, the ones who just meander along, the ones that are socializing, and then me. I had to die about the fast people, they really didn't know where they were going so they went fast till they had to stop for directions. And guess what? The direction guys were in last Group. I laughed my ass off as I toodled along at 14 mph and they did 18mph. Directions are a great equalizer when time is concered.

When Paula, Jim and I caught them we turned onto Rt 23 and went to the best Restrooms in the county. They are full 5 Flushers, Duke attests to that. It was the final rest stop of the day for the hammer heads. You could see them chaffing to leave, to hit the road, to get on the saddle, to bust out and fly. While the rest of us were enjoying the Air Hand dryer in the bathroom. Man that hand dryer was powerful. Blew the money out of John C.'s hand. (What were you doing with money in your hand in the bath room John?) Also poor deb had an accident She is a bit gun shy as to telling me how it happened, and she swore Paula to secrecy so all I have is a pic of bandaids. Boy she gets to be a star in last weeks blog, great stories, and now she won't talk. Wonder why?

After a short ( for me) and long for ( fast folks) rest stop, off we went around the Otis Reservoir. It was nice tooling around the lake like a parade, the natives were impressed. I know they admired my spandex. We turned left on a road that lead to route 8 then almost immediately turned right onto Cold Springs road.

I love Cold Springs road, it is a very long uphill which allows me to look at the sights. For example, in the last picture there are bed springs being used as fences. (I wonder where he got all those bed springs? Do you thing there is a red light district around?) At any rate on this road we got seperated for good, the fast ones took off, and the rest of us hung togeather. Did you see this Blue Barn John?

There were some comments about the fact that the group split up vs if it should have stayed togeather. You know I figure it really doesn't matter as long as everybody gets back safely what the heck had a great time. I'm certainly not going to bond with fast folks, they don't have patience for me. I will just stay back Smell the Roses, and enjoy the day. So for all those who thought that they sould have stayed with us, nah. They need to have fun too. I enjoyed their company for the little time I saw them. It's OK, we were good. Besides, I knew where I was going. Laugh My Ass Off.

When the remaining riders got togeather on route 23 the ride back was pretty uneventful. We did pass the Ginger Bread House on Tryingham Road. and stopped to enjoy it. It's funny Paula remarked that she had never seen it before. Even though she's a native of Berkshire county I don't find this strange. You really don't see stuff around here unless your on a bike. And how would you know to look for this in your local paper. I've seen so much of the county on a bike, it's truly amazing. I think I know more about the roads in Berkshire County than people who lived here all their lives. I have to thank John Y and Duke for that, getting me on a bike and sticking with me all these years. Thanks Guys.

And we scooted through Lee until we hit Lenoxdale where we took a break to discuss the next turn. What would be a Duke ride with out discussing the next turn.

We decided to do a little Mtn biking on Road bikes. I swear Paula's eyes lit up. She was in her element as soon as we touched dirt. Wouldn't you know it, since I was last I got stuck at RR crossing waiting for a train to go buy. Bummer I had to rest for 10 minutes. Finally after I could cross the crossing I spotted the route.


It was a pretty knarly route, and Paula was in her element. If she hadn't stayed with Deb and I would would have both killed ourselves. I can still hear Paula yelling at us "get your ass back!!!!" Ok, OK!!!! She's a dirt bike Nazi!!! Wow, don't mess with her. But she got Deb and I though some nasty climbs and down hills with out injury.

The rest of the ride was quiet and hot. We finished is about all I can say. My GPS stats say the ride was 60.9 miles. (Sorry Shaun,no metric century.) My average speed was 12.9 mph, Max 39.6. Net Elevation Change was 0 but if you ask my legs, we climbed a lot.

Finally, John did you see the fish?

Other Notes not Related to the Ride:

La Honda Tuesday Nighter
Rachel has a sister in California, that I met at Bousquet this winter. Laura. It turns out she is quite the jockette and is interesting in bike riding too. So interested that she likes to follow our rides and likes the stories and I've put her on distribution for Tuesday night rides. Who knows one day she may make it. Every once in awhile she shares some of her riding experiences with me. Since I'm a blogger I thought I would add her last email to me about her last ride. To set the location, she lives in La Honda, which is near Santa Cruz, South of San Fansico and she has a bike that is older than I am. She once inquired about buying a new bike, she asked the wrong guy, I love spending other peoples money and if I have anything to do with it she will end up with a Trek at about $2000. The following is a write up she sent me. I loved reading it so I thought I would share it with you all. She reports:

A 2.89 mile climbing ride, done in 29 minutes, 800 ft. elev. change from bottom (452 ft.) to top (1252ft.)average over whole ride is 5.25% grade, 6 MPH

My 3 mile trip break-down, featured "heartbreak hill" climbs:

starts off nice, avg. of 3.3% grade for 1.8 mi

13% grade for 0.1 mi, immediately followed by
9% grade for .26 mi, immediately followed by
8% grade for .23 mi, immediately followed by
15.25% grade for 0.1 mi (THAT is my Heartbreak Hill!! Believe me now??), immediately followed by
5.5% grade for .39 mi (with two steep short climbs to end the climb, admire the view down the valley out to the ocean, and back home
It's all downhill from here! (in the true sense of the phrase, 'ey?)
It was funny... I began my ride, and about 1 mile up is the horse farm where Dave the Horse is. ( Blogger note, I love Dave the Horse, he is often on the route with Laura, maybe she can take a pic and send it next time.) Across the street is another farm. The two "farm dogs" are at the bottom of their driveway, sniffing around. I can tell they are friendly (no barking, "smiling" faces) but you know how it is with dogs, one never knows. (Blogger note, I don't like Dogs!!!!)

I go all the way to top, turn around and head back down. 1 minute going downhill, I run into lady running downhill. She must have come from the other path, just at the right time, cuz I'd never passed her before! She had her 3 dogs. I hate coming up behind runners/walkers like I've mentioned. they just don't hear you. One of her dogs was completely freaked by me, Barney, who was a little puppy, australian shephard-type, cute, but insisted on not getting out of my way to let me pass, wanted to run in front of me making little frightened "wff! wff!" noises. "Barney! Barney!" his owner kept calling. I finally stopped, put my foot down, and coaxed him over... Barney finally went to "mom". Sheesh. (Blogger knows this feeling.)

I decide to bomb may way down Heartbreak Hill, top speed. Get to water tank area, lady's walking her big golden retriever or whatever it is. I slow down, so I don't raise too much dust (my path is mostly dirt road) going past them. Then I bomb down rest of way. This dog is fine, on a leash, which is actually the law in our County. But so far, out of 6 dogs, only 1 was on leash.

I get down now onto the La Honda residential streets. Come to intersection, two ladies are walking their dog on a leash. First lady says hi, so does second one, then I realize the leash was a good thing, with a snarling massive muscle of a dog on it, and it's a dark brown pit bull. greaaaaaat...

To round out my ride, I huff and puff up a very short but steep section of road (exactly like heartbreak hill, 15% grade, just before our driveway...). Nice way to end a tough climbing ride, with all downhill til the last 50 feet then it's straight up! Just as I get close to foot of my driveway, our contractor John is backing his huge 3/4-ton pickup down. No place to turn around but at the intersection where I am, so I wait patiently. He makes some comment about having to go up the last hill, couldn't hear him over the diesel engine, but I just laugh and wave.

[Bloggers notes: After reading this story, I thought she was more related to Duke than Rachel. Espicially with all the animals she came across. Wow. And what is it with Californians and Pit Bulls. The following Picture is a map of her route.] This is a 6 mile ride, and she plans to catch a thursday night ride with us while here. She wants to know if she can make it, I tell her in the pure spirit of Duke, If you can go 6 miles you can go 20.



Loosing Fight with Motor Cycle

Oh speaking of accident's, poor Karen, boy she leaned over her Motor Cycle to put something away, and look what happened. . I really think it was a burn from going so fast down hill on Route 8. But she assures me that it was an exhaust pipe from the motor cycle. Ouch is all I can say.