Mashing

Upon arriving at the Miller Field parking lot this morning, Ed Dalton (seemingly the ride’s leader week after week) announced, “Tomorrow morning. Eight AM. Cheesequake, if anyone’s interested.” Later, about a third of the way through this morning’s group ride (Saturday), Ed asked me, “Coming out tomorrow?”

I had to think about that for a moment. “Maybe.”

It’s been almost a month since my first ride with Dr. Rob and his pedal-bending associates Brent, Anne, and Joe. It’s an experience that I look upon often with weary eyes, meaning that group ride that starts in the Cheesequake commuter parking lot and ends in the same place is a mother of a bitch, and that’s putting it lightly.

It’s a bitch for me, at least. With only a few months of riding under my legs, part of me feels as though I might do well to beg off tomorrow’s ride. These same legs are somewhat tired after this morning’s ride in Staten Island--a ride during which I found myself dropped on the last few miles across Hylan Boulevard due to a much higher than usual pace--as well as yesterday’s two-hour, thirty-four mile excursion in Prospect Park. At the same time, another part of me thinks, “No pain, no gain.” Isn’t that what they say (whoever the hell they are)?

Understandably, the benefit of group rides is that they push you in places when you typically wouldn’t push yourself and that’s a good thing. When racing season comes along, every guy and girl on that line is going to want to push the pace, so why not prepare myself?

Chances are I’ll end up going. I’ll end up going and once we hit the hills, I’ll start breathing hard while I wonder what the hell I was thinking. And then, if I’m lucky enough to even reach the top of the hill near the lighthouse, I’ll all but collapse off my bike and kindly request of my heart that it quit pumping at 300 beats-per-minute while the rest of the guys get stuck waiting for me (and my unprepared heart). Once my tongue retracts back into my mouth, we’ll again hammer the pace to the north end of Sandy Hook and if I’m really lucky, I’ll get dropped there as well. The pace will relax as we past the old army barracks and then it’ll pick up again as we speed out and away from the beach. Then we’re in the hills again for a long, steady climb past the Stewart’s fast food joint. Considering how shot to hell I felt on that first Cheesequake ride, I don’t remember much of the rest with the exception of two things. First, we stopped at a convenient store in a town. Which store? Which town? This reporter has no idea, but the stop was more than welcome. After the stop, I believe Dr. Rob said something to the effect of: “Only another fifteen miles to go. No problem.”

Maybe for him, but for me, those fifteen miles were long--damn long. Do I want to do it again tomorrow? Do I want to torture myself for another three-and-a-half hours first thing in the morning?

Might as well. According to the forecast, the temperature is supposed to hit the sixties tomorrow. That’s more than enough reason, right?

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Now it’s Sunday, a few minutes past five o’clock in the afternoon (or early evening, depending on what you normally consider five o’clock). There are another two hours to go before primetime TV begins because on Sundays, primetime begins at seven rather than eight (as it does Monday through Saturday), but that’s not the point. The point is that, after roughly 63 miles of riding through the hills of New Jersey this morning, I have survived, and while my legs might tell a different story if they had the ability to write their own blog, I survived somewhat better than I did the first time I rode the Cheesequake commuter parking lot ride.

Why? A few reasons, really. First, Dr. Rob and Brent were delayed this morning. Since Dr. Rob seems to know the route through Jersey like the back of his hand, the rest of us--Ed, Joe, Kelly, Tommy, and Lester (a quick word about this man later)--figured we’d hit the road at just a few minutes after eight.

Like so many other rides, those first miles usually express themselves so deceptively, much like that girl in the club wearing not more than a bikini top and skin-tight hot pants, the girl you think you’ll be leaving with later that night before her boyfriend walks in and rips her out from under you (figuratively speaking, of course). If you’re not careful, those first twenty miles will basically mess with your head. If you fail to conserve, the next thing you know you’re ready to hop out of the saddle and press the pace harder than it’s already moving. There you are, a content little smile covering your face, thinking you’ve got this, no big deal, piece of cake, right?

F#cking wrong. This morning, I was more than happy to sit in the draft during most of those twenty miles because I knew what lay ahead and I knew I was going to need every single ounce of energy on which I could lay my hands. When the hills came, the hills that kick you in the ass before Sandy Hook, I wouldn’t say I was ready, but I would say I knew what to expect, which doesn’t exactly make it easier, but somehow, it makes the pain a bit more bearable.

As we began nearing the apex of the third, biggest, and baddest of the three monsters, I couldn’t help but let out a quick: “Holy shit!” At the same time, I couldn’t help but hear Phil Liggett’s commentating voice in my head: “Would the top of [insert hill/mountain name here] please come as soon as possible.”

Once you’re in and out of the flats of Sandy Hook--those lovely, delicious flats where you can get behind the biggest guy in the paceline and sit happily in his glorious draft--there are more hills. There are hills all the way back to the parking lot, but to a certain degree, you almost feel that if you can take on the biggest of the three bitches and live through that, then you can live through the rest of them . . . granted the pace quietly slips back to sixteen-miles-per-hour or so.

Despite all the pontificating above, the real reason I survived this ride better today than I previously did is all due to the overall pace. The first time out, Dr. Rob & Company felt comfortable at a pace with which I was uncomfortable and, unfortunately, they had to wait on my sorry ass. Today, Dr. Rob and Backbreaker Brent (Backbreaker simply because they guy’s legs and lungs never seem to tire--I’m not even sure if he leaks a single drop of sweat on these 60+ mile rides) were late, which meant conserving a lot of energy over those first twenty miles. And after Sandy Hook, the pace was simply not as insane as it could have been.

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As an interesting side note: Lester. Who the hell is Lester? Understandably, Lester has probably glanced at me a few times these past two days and asked himself: “Who the hell is the dork with the neon yellow wind breaker riding the shitty Giant?”

Good question, Lester, but the people reading this already know who I am, so we get to talk about my impressions of you, big guy (how thrilling).

Yesterday morning, while sitting on the back of the line cruising down Fr. Capodanno Boulevard, I happened to glance over my shoulder and find something of a bulky character sitting on my wheel, a guy in a wind breaker almost as yellow as mine (a yellow a lot less harsh than mine, which should speak to the man’s elevated sense of style) and a spanking looking Trek of roughly the same color.

A few moments later, the rider in front of me also happened to glance over her shoulder and spot the hulking character behind me. “Hey,” she yelled toward the rest of the group, “look who it is. It’s Lester.”

Considering what I now know of Lester--which isn’t much--I can say this. According to Dr. Rob, Lester rode on the Polish National team for many years and has placed in the Tour of Poland (which sounds relatively amazing to a beginning cyclist such as myself). He also has leg muscles that, when watching them squeeze and contract from behind, the side, or in front (and don’t take that out of context because my tree definitely doesn’t swing that way), cause a casual observer to realize that if the man has a whim to jump out of the saddle and start hammering on the pedals, he will most likely tear the entire goddam road to pieces. Apart from that, the only other two pieces of information I have about Lester are (a) he is known to enjoy a beer or two during schedule stops on group rides, and (b) I can barely understand a word he says. After introducing myself this morning and offering a handshake, Lester asked me a question that I believe referred to Saturday morning’s ride. Never one to ask another man to repeat himself more than once, I just went ahead and answered the question as best as I could: “Those last few miles on Hylan, I sort of fell off the pace and dropped back.” Whether or not this was the answer Lester was looking for, who knows?