Alissa told me that there is a rule pertaining to ride leaders, you aren't alowed to whine about the ride; you can't whine about the climbs, or the roads or the potholes or anything. Let me tell you that rule is unfair and it almost killed me. The route was one of the hardest I've done in a while. To prove it, I took a picture of Karen at the end of the day (thanks for allowing it Kap.) She's a strong biker and she was pooped. It must have killed her when we pedaled by her house about 4 miles before the end of the ride. How tempted was she when she went by, she wouldn't say, couldn't catch her breath. Then before we even started, Alissa also nagged on me about driving my car from home to Wahconah, 2.7 miles. Last time a ride started there I drove the 2.7 miles from home. This time I got an email from Shaun warning me that I would catch hell from her if I drove. He was right, she barely stopped pedaling and she was on my case about driving my car, which I didn't thank God. Talk about a bike Mom.I really don't know how to start this Blog. When I write one of these I usually have a game plan on what I want to highlight, explain, or comment too. For this Blog, I don't know what thread I want to weave in because todays ride was pretty tough, I think I fried my brain climbing out of Bancroft. Either that or I got nailed by a slug off the back of Pat's bike. Also it was so hot the little note pad I keep in the back pocket of my jersey was soaked with sweat and I couldn't read it when I got home. Another problem is that Duke is gone for the next couple of weeks so the usual puzzel that makes the ride fun was missing a key piece. Duke is in Italy bonding with Carol. What I don't get is why he needed a vacation. He's retired and that means he's on vacation all the time. At any rate the trip should be interesting for him. I wonder if he got to rent a bike over there and climb some of the roads made famous by the Giro. Nah, he's probably sipping on Red Wine Beer ( is there such a thing??) practicing his Eyetalian, and ordering pizza!! I have to admit without his enthusiasm to lead rides, the weekend rides were in sereous trouble, he has some great rides in his mind, and the most important thing is that he knows where those rides go. Todays experience about ride leadership made me appreciate Dukes effort all the more.
I really didn't want to post the ride. I didn't want the responsibility. I spent days wondering if I should post a ride. I waited and waited for someone else to do it. I didn't feel qualified to lead a ride, heck I have no idea where one road goes to another. Oh I'm a good follower and I can manage 20 milers, but a 50+ miler I would get lost after 20 miles. So I hesitated for days. Finally, after getting a couple of emails about what is going on with rides, I decided what the heck I will post a ride and ask for directions along the way. Besides that's what Duke does. And if I get grief from the group JUST RIDE!! All I can do is get lost. So I posted the ride and asked for help. Sure enough I got a couple of emails right away, Shaun said not to worry, and Paula said she had a map.
That was a nice gesture from Paula but she forgets one thing, I'm an old guy and I need reading glasses. Do you see how small the print is on that map!!! And whats up with a 11x14 book? Where am I supposed to carry that thing? You know Paula is to maps like John Yuill is to maps, so I've decided to name Paula a Yuillette. Congratualtions. When John comes back you can get lessons from the master. Oh and you will have to get Software that Prints out elevations.So now Shaun arrives with Alissa, the Creers, and John Chaves, all in tow. With Shaun is a Que sheet. Wow, and he even has options, one 52 miles and one 48 miles. Yeah Shaun!!! But I still can't read the bloody thing!!! Does Geratric mean anything to you two youngsters??? Let me tell you, your eyesight it the second thing to go and I'm on my 5th thing that's gone( Not counting hair.) So what does that tell you. OK, enough of that, how did I solve this delema of abdacating ride leadership without telling anybody? Easy, I just let Shaun lead the ride out of parking lot, and by doing that he's the defacto ride leader. You go Shaun. The group that he lead out of the lot is a great group, a good group to ride with. In fact as I pedaled up Middlefield road at 3 mph, I figured I was the weakest rider. Pick out the guys in the picture. Paula, John C., The Animal, Karen, Shaun, Alissa, Jim, Nicki, Pat, and Dudly.
We didn't make it 299 yards before John C, got a flat. If you remember the last time we left this parking lot, Paula got a flat, now John. We didn't have to wait long, Shaun only took 14 minutes, but that encludes the time he biked to John. Did he do a good job John? Not only Shaun a good defacto ride leader but it's nice to have somebody who likes to change tires.
You know, as a ride leader it's my job to choose the route. So I decided that I was tired of all the 60 mile rides and thought I would do a shorter one. You know, go to Middlefield and come home. How easy is that? Pretty good really, all we have to do is climb up Middlefield Road and then come back down into Bancroft and find away home. Cake I thought. The only issue is finding a way out of Bancroft and get on route 8, to rt 20 then to Lee then vola! Back home, how cool is that. This ride leader stuff is easy. So off we went, we climbed Middlefield Road. Not a bad climb it was cool and in the shade, we climbed about 800 feet from Dalton to Middlefield. Thats ok. The only problem is that when we got to top, in Middlefield, the store was still closed. No pie stop!!!
This was the point that Jim and Nicki decided to go back home, they road down, and climbed back up from their house. Three miles past this point. They offered that we should ride down and fill up with water or beer. I was sorely tempted but as ride leader I had to show some responsibility and so I gathered the troups and suggested that we continue to Bancroft. It was at this point that I descovered that I didn't pass the ride leader test. Jim pointed out that there were no water stops from here on. Fifty Miles without a water stop.. OMG I didn't figure that in the route. Sigh, where's Duke when you need him, he knows more about pie stops than anybody I know.
Without solving the delema we started downhill into the small town of Bancroft. This is a 4 mile down hill into the bottom of Massachusetts. No kidding, Bancroft is in a hole. A beautiful hole but a hole non-the- less. At the bottom of the downhill there is beautiful bridge.
that we all had to stop at on the way down. Oh and there were other points of interest on the down hill. I took this picture of the weather vane for for John, 
I'm sure he was watching the road and probably doing 50 mph.. John if you look closly you will see an indian for the weather vane. Pretty neat, huh. Oh and it's on a garage, not a barn. I got a pic of a barn for you too.
This is a brown one as you can see. It's in Bancroft if you want to go back and check it out. It's just as you climb out, you know that long, long, climb. The hard, long climb.I was the last rider out of Bancroft because of all my pics, and as last rider I was out of ear shot of Alissa, I swore, and whinned and complained the whole way up. Man was it painful. But not as painful as hearing Alissa yell at me for whinning.
While Painful it was interesting, there were some amazing sights to see. Check this house out.
I wonder if the guy got a deal at WalMart on Paint. Boy you can't miss this house. Check out the houses wall too. The reason that I could see this house was that I was doing max speed of 3 MPH climbing at this point. Everybody appeared to be suffering but Pat and John. Paula was really off her pace, and Karen and I just worked our way up. I thought badly for Paula, she partied to harty last night and was paying for it. Hey what am I saying, I did too, and oh my, it is painful. Sweat didn't come out of my glands, beer did.It was long haul to route 8 but we all made it. The sun was up now and it was now getting hot. Funny thing about that though, Paula said that rt 8 was full of slugs, and that they were flying off her wheel and on her legs, and her shoes, UGH.. She said that she tried to get a big one off the back of Pats bike shirt. Jeez I hope I don't have any slugs on me, I never saw them, YUCH!!! But I found out later that there were Slug guts all over my bike.. Yech..
The ride on rt 8 was fun, it was down hill most of the way to Becket where we found County Road. County Road is only the prelude to Yokun Pond Road. Yokun is a decent road with some small tough climbs. As this Newt found out, he must have run out of Goo.
Yokun is famous for Duke declaring "that there are no more climbs ahead" only to encounter 2 huge ones. And the down hill.. Yea a huge down hill. This descent is one of those that is so steep that as soon as you release your break you pick up 10 mph speed and then accelerate to even faster. It's the scariest descent that I've ever been on. I really took my time to the bottom. It was truly scary.
At the bottom of the hill we regrouped. It was there that Paula descovered that she had been ridding and climbing for 30 miles with her breaks on. She was biking yesterday along route 8 and had 3 flat tires. And I guess when she put her tire on she didn't center it correctly because the break was rubbing the whole morning. Poor Paula, no wonder she was dying on the climbs out of bancroft, she was riding with breaks on. Amazing.
It was here the group mutnied. They decided to break from the perscribed directions of the ride leader and went for water. So we took route 20 all the way into Lee to stop at Gulf station. Wow, we needed that and it was a nice stop. Poor Dudly, got a Power Aid, about a liter, and he descovered that there was a sale, buy one get 2 free. Poor guy hauled them all the way back home. And John, yes John is getting into the rides now, he came out with a bathroom rating. He was very pleased to find that the Shell station had Purell hand soap and it got the grease off his fingers. Yes John we will give it a 4. It didn't get a 5 because it didn't have a hand dryer.
The pedal from Lee to Dalton was hot and boring. We just did it a couple of weeks ago, and it hasn't changed at all. This time we avoided the dirt road because of recent rains, I think that I would have rather walked the road to give my legs a break.
The ride ended as it started, In WHRS parking lot. We started with 10 folks but ended up with 5. Everybody split off when they got close to home.
Next week I'm already panicing about what ride I'm going to do. I can't wait for duke to come home.
Oh and John, the obligatory animal picture at the end...
