Good & Bad Rides

Some bike rides are just turn out great, others are far from it; in the past week I've had one of each.

Last Saturday I did the usual group ride at 8:00 am. As the first day of my week long break from work I wasn't too enthused to be getting up so early, but the ride is a good one and I rarely can sleep later than 8:00 or 9:00 anymore anyway. Well, this day that ride just went wonderfully. I think I've mentioned the ride here a few times before, about halfway through the ride there is a good climb and near the end a nice long flat stretch to a sprint point. As usual I was solid on the climb, cresting the hill fourth on a day that I really wasn't feeling all that much power at the start of the climb.

But the climb really isn't my favorite part of the ride, though I like it, the sprint is really what I love. It comes at the end of a nice long flat stretch, probably at least 5 km of solid hard pace lead up to the sprint. For those that have never done a sprint on a bicycle it is nothing like a track and field sprint, it is far more complicated, tactical, dangerous and fun! Unlike a running sprint, on the bike you get to use other riders to help you get across the line first. This means saving as much energy as possible for the time that you need to accelerate at the end. So you have to constantly be aware of your position in the bunch, the last place you want o be as on the front, where you do all the work pushing through the wind. But you also don't want to be at the very back, because gaps form and it's just too far to move all the way to front in time. Plus you have to think about the wind, what side you want to pass people on to avoid the wind as much as possible, but not to let yourself get boxed into a place you cannot get out of in time.

All in all, it's quite like a game of chess, only the pieces are moving around 50 km/h and touching someone else's wheel will cause a massive crash. So the times when you are setting up for the sprint and you see everything, know where everyone is and are just feeling fresh are really lots of fun. That was the case last Saturday, everything worked out perfectly, I made all the right choices and right moves to take a decisive win in the sprint. Not that I got more than a pat on the back from a friend after the fact, but the act itself is rewarding.

Today, however, I was at the other end of the spectrum. I thought that my week off from work would be a good time to ride up palomar mountain. I hadn't tried the ride before but I've done similar ones out in Jasper and figured this would be a nice ride to do on a weekday when the motorcycle enthusiasts aren't all over the climb as well. Unfortunately it also seems to be the day that my legs just decided that they really didn't want to do any work. Now part of the problem may have been the starting point for my ride, a casino at the very base of the climb, so I had only about 50 meters of flat road before things started going upwards. But there were no real alternative starting points. Anyway, after climbing the first 5.5 km of the over 25 km long route I had planed I realized I was never going to make it. My heart-rate was red-lining almost from the start and I just never felt like I was going to be able to get my legs to move smoothly enough to make the ride feasible. So I shamefully turned around and coasted all the way back to the car. In my defense I coasted down the 5.5 km at upwards of 70 km/h so it was pretty damn steep to start with.

Though I know that there isn't much I could do about it the whole thing was quite disappointing, it's very rare that I cannot accomplish something on my bike and to fail at this one so spectacularly and soon was really a shame. Not to mention that I had to drive an hour just to reach the starting point. Oh well, maybe I can try the ride on one of the furlough days that I won't be allowed to work this semester.