“Ride #68: Half Century, Half Solo, and Another PMC Rider”

I arrived at Mystic Cycle for the Tuesday Night HIll Ride just a couple minutes after 5 PM. One other rider, Timmy, was there. The shop was closed, as Rick and Rob had taken the whole crew to Martha's Vineyard for a couple days, so there wasn't much chance of anyone else showing up. After waiting a few minutes to be sure, we left.

It was good to have someone else to ride with for a change, but I had no idea how strong Timmy was. He looked familiar, and said he'd seen me in a "lot of rides," but that's about as far as our knowledge of each other went.

When we made our right onto River Road, we saw five other riders coming our way from the left. "Cool, maybe they're going our way," he said. They looked strong enough, individually, but were all strung out shoulder-to-shoulder across the road rather than riding in a line, which was extremely weird. We slowed down so they could catch up, and we all said hi.

I rode next to one of the newcomers for a minute and said, "Hard to believe it's been a month already!" He looked at me in confusion for a couple seconds, and I just stared at him, offering no further clues. Eventually he realized what happened exactly a month ago: the PMC. (He was wearing this year's jersey, I wasn't.) "You rode!?" he asked. "Sure did," I responded. He then told me that was the best weekend of his life. Wow! I have no problem saying it was my best weekend on the bike, but the best weekend of my life!? Nope.

Timmy set the pace at about 27 mph for the whole length of River Road. At the end it was just he and I again, as we'd dropped the rest of them one-by-one with that crazy speed. "For somebody who wanted to ride with a group, you did an awfully good job of blowing it apart," I said. Timmy looked around, surprised I was the only one left (or perhaps surprised I was there at all), said, "oops," and just shrugged.

Route 201 (North Stonington Road) has always been where I lose touch with the stronger riders, as it has a couple miles of very shallow incline. Not today, though... we kept the pace at about 21 mph, and I stuck with him all the way to the end of it. That was the most gratifying thing to happen on this ride all year.

The "official" route takes you off of 201 to the left, on some farm road that hits a couple more decent hills before dumping you onto Route 2. You then have to ride on 2 for a couple miles to get back onto 201 again and make the climb up Cossaduck Hill. I don't mind the farm road, it's a nice ride, but not nice enough to make up for risking your life on Route 2 so close to the casino. I usually skip that part of the route and stay on 201 (which does merge with 2 for about 1/2 mile, but it's further from the casino).

Anyway, I told Timmy that I was taking my shortcut, and that he'd probably catch up with me on Wyassup. He was ok with that, and we went our separate ways.

Cossaduck was no real problem, which was a pleasant change, nor were any of the other hills until I reached Route 49. Then, I seemed to lose my ability to focus on the ride. I'd look at the spedometer and it would say 12 mph, so I'd pick it back up to 20. Then I'd look again a few minutes later, and it would say "15" but my cadence was only 55. I had this problem all the way home, I just couldn't seem to shake it.

Timmy never caught up with me. I waited at the top of the last hill on Wyassup Road for a few minutes but he never showed. With my crazy lack of concentration, I decided not to do the last three hills, and went home with just 40-something miles.

Stats: 41.35 miles (66.57 km) in 2h 13' 44" for an average speed of 18.55 mph (29.86 kph).