Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Story of the Irregulars, Chpt 1, vignettes, part b

A few weeks later, Frank brings Sean. And Sean's signature phrase "how far on this road" surfaces almost instantly. Along with a propensity to zip ahead of the other two of us. I never realized until the moment of typing this, but Sean's "protege", Snapper, suffered the same affliction when he surfaced the following year (Snapper claims that he is afraid he still suffers from the affliction, and prefers to avoid leading the "irregulars" line; his concern over leading out too fast is perhaps a contributing cause of his "Cheeta" penalty problem in triathlons; hmmn).

Anyway, Sean informed that he had never done more than 30 or 35 miles in a single ride; we cured him of that on his first ride with Frank and me, as we did the Creedmoor-Grissom loop (but cut across on Olive Chapel or perhaps Kemp Rd rather than going across to Doc Nichols Rd as we do now, so the ride was 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 miles shorter then). By that time, the Columbian mtn goat, aka, Frank, had found his climbing legs, and Sean was fast, and the two of them beat the crap out of me. I recall telling Sean as we trudged up Lawrence Rd toward Grissom that "I used to think Frank ran out of gas on this climb and that was why I could reel him by the end; now I know that he slows down to wait".

As I noted, they had ridden me into the ground instead of the other way round. I had ridden from home to the meeting place at PUE, and as we headed to Peed Rd from Ghoston Rd, I begged a ride home from PUE. Ugh.


The next week, I figured that if I couldn't keep up speed-wise, maybe I could make them climb so many hills they would be the ones coming home hurting. Katrina had hit, and gas prices had gone above $3 a gallon for the first time. I suggested we start the ride from my place just south of Ravenscroft as a money-saving device. But I knew I how tough the climbs on Honeycutt, Six Forks, Raven Ridge and Norwood were -- oh, maybe not so tough at the start of a ride, but at the end of ride, when one is tired and hot and sweaty and HOT. Oh, yeah!

So, I tricked Frank and Sean into their first ever 100k rides. The Columbian mtn goat had his climbing down pat by then, and on that ride Sean learned to seduce the climbs instead of trying to overpower them. And all three of us came out on the short end of the stick from the "Revenge Ride". Sean may have come out the shortest, though, as I think I got him in trouble with his better half. Uh, oh.


A couple weeks later, I went to be "spousal support" at the MS-150. Frank and Sean rode from Finley Y with a cue sheet I had provided. If you want a chuckle, get Frank to describe and re-enact their actions at each turn. If Sean ever makes another appearance, maybe he can recall the ride and add his own take to the story.

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