[BVC-CHAT] A newbie's $0.02 re. today's Pole Ride

[Gary Varner]

Kevin Baker wrote:
> Well, keeping people from getting dropped is a shared responsibility. 
> The riders in front should take care not to ride too hard, but if you 
> are being dropped, it's your responsibility to let the people in front 
> of you know that you're in difficulty. Some people might not want to 
> slow down alot due to time constraints, but I, and lots of other 
> folks, are happy to slow down to keep someone from having to ride home 
> alone.
>   

FWIW, after being dropped initially, I worked hard to catch the lead 
group and shouted to Chris (him being half deaf and all), "What's with 
this pace? People are being dropped." To which he replied with a chuckle 
and said (roughly): "It's steady. You can do it. Circular peddle." (That 
last sentence might not be quite accurate, but I took him to be 
counseling me to use all of my leg muscles instead of relying so heavily 
on my hams.)

And before that Brother Menzel wrote:
> After Varner wrote:
>
>  
>> 1. I think that two "portages" necessitated by the construction on  
>> Rte 166 are preferable to the longish stretch of pot-holes and dirt  
>> that we rode during today's detour route.
>>     
>
> I strongly disagree.  One portage might be tolerable, but two are way  
> too disruptive, especially for people at the front who are working  
> harder than the folks sitting in.  

Which kinda made me feel small.

> Plus, it  takes time to get the group back together after the 
> portage.  And it's  especially irksome to have to portage *again* 
> after the first one;  there's not enough distance between them to get 
> back into any sort of  groove.  We might as well just do a pleasant 
> spin between the two,  which is just not what this ride is all about.  
> Finally, there will  be, if there isn't already, yet another culvert 
> being replaced, which  would mean a third portage.  This ride, for the 
> faster group, is  supposed to be *hard steady* until a couple miles 
> outside Caldwell, at  which point it turns more race-pace.  The 
> portages basically destroy  the nature of the ride on the Caldwell leg.
>   

But if folks just treated the portages as momentary re-groups, rather 
than a momentary galloping biathlon, wouldn't that be OK as a short-term 
(how long can the construction last) solution?

> That said, as long as we're riding that dirt stretch, I *do* think we  
> ought to make more of an effort to keep the group together.  A lot of  
> people aren't comfortable riding dirt at speed, and there are a 
> couple  of pretty sketchy sections.  I myself took that first right 
> hand turn  too far on the inside where the gravel was quite deep and I 
> was really  ice skating.  I'm not saying dirt lovers like Baker can't 
> go off the  front, but those who want to ride that section with a 
> little less  derring-do should perhaps make an effort to keep those 
> who aren't off  the front together, and we can all regroup at 3058 for 
> a nice  hammerfest back to 166.
>   

Except us small people.

>> Remember also that your fitness level has a lot to do with  how 
>> comfortable you are, especially at that point in the ride.   
>> Honestly, people really were not hammering today on the return leg 
>> at  all; the folks in the front group there were just riding steady, 
>> but  are at a pretty high level of fitness right now.  The usual 
>> practice  for folks who don't like the speed on this section (and 
>> this often  includes longtime participants) is just to drop off and 
>> ride your  preferred pace home.
>>     

Which made me feel tiny.

But I knew that folks weren't hammering on that leg.

I just thought that the assumption on that leg was that we'd ride about 
the pace that the group rides out to Twisters. But now I see that 
http://www.brazoscyclists.org/train.htm describes the outbound leg as 
"moderate" and the return leg as "steady."

Having now grokked Chris' vocabulary:

         talking pace < moderate < steady < hammering

I now see that I misunderstood.

(BTW, insert numerous smileys above!)

-- 
 ____________________________________________________________________
|    |  |____      Gary Varner                                       |
| ___|       |     Philosophy       "Fighting entropy since 1957"    |
| \       .  |     Texas A&M                                         |
|  \/\_     /      Director of Graduate Studies                      |
|      \  /        (979) 845-8499, 845-0458 (FAX) g-varner at tamu.edu  |
|       \(         Home page: http://philosophy.tamu.edu/~gary/      |
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