Aug-8: Stagecoach Express

Aug-8:

PUE: BR #1-Huntsboro/Stagecoach-Kelly-Dabney-OldWatkins-CharlieGrissom-Mt.Olivet-GordonMoore-Pokomoke, etc.; w/ Lt. Dave, Iva, Smitty, LeeD + Barry for 15 m. @ begin + Lash for ~ 13 m. near end; 86.9 miles; est 3170 ft climbed ---> effort index = 118; 5hrs, 19min; 16.3 mph avg pace.

1st Qt. tot: 20 rides; 755.3 m.; 47 hrs, 31 min; 15.9 mph.
2nd Qt. tot: 43 rides; 2124.3 m.; 134 hrs, 59 min; 15.7 mph.
Jul tot: 16 rides; 732.2 m.; 45 hrs, 3 min; 16.2 mph.
Aug tot: 3 rides; 215.8 m.; 13 hrs, 24 min; 16.1 mph
YTD: 82 rides; 3827.6. m.; 240 hrs, 58 min; 15.9 mph.

Rolling 12-mos.: 119 rides; 5665.4 m.; 353 hrs, 7 min; 16.0 mph.

Norris no show. BigWaveDave no show -- but he was "uncertain". WrongWayFrank no show.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Pre-ride" discussion:

The route is a bit more than 80 miles, but well within a 10% variance (NCBC Road Dogs give themselves +/- 20%). Besides, we are planning a 200k in the semi-near future, so 86 miles is good training. The last 30 or so miles is the intended return route for the 200k -- I've lately had enough Cannady Mill Rd homebound.

There are no Walls. I think the steepest climbs are crossing the Tar River and a short bit on Old Watkins, and Ghoston, Peed, MVC, of course. Most everything else should be small to big rollers, except for the flat parts.

I know of no "emergency" Refueling Stations on course other than the one at NC-98 / Peed Rd, which is quite late in the ride. The two RS noted on 158 (& the stores near / at Grissom) are IT as far as useful stations on the core of the ride.

We will ride a sensible pace, taking into account the heat and humidity. Fast dudes will be dropped off the front; we won't worry about them getting lost.

Ba-room! says he will join the start of the ride. I expect him to U-turn near Wilton. He will start with the group, and we will ride with Barry until he U-turns. I expect to hear lively "hunters" conversation any time I am riding within earshot of Ba-room. This will keep his mind off the work of pedaling and the minds of the other hunters off the idea of going too fast too early.

If Barry starts early, the rest of us will each find an appropriate stick to use between his spokes.

Frank "said" he would ride 50 on Saturday.
If he shows, anyone that has had second thoughts about doing 80 may want to group with Frank for a 50 miler.
50-milers should wait until they U-turn to hit their after-burners.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post-ride write-up:

Ah, there's the rub. What to write?

Hey, Dave, the veloroutes "profile" included in the map of the route seems reasonable, but the ".gif" file that supposedly could be download -- not so good. I think I can discern the several creek/river crossings we made today.

http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=37868

And for the curious, this route was designed as a test of the 200k finish route. It is just that we had to have enough miles in our legs to make the test meaningful, and we took the quickest way to get to the finish route. (For those that thought this route had been a "loop", ha. The heavy overcast may have helped confuse you. I think Dave said he thought we were east-bound on Dabney Rd when we were west-bound. Oh, yeah, he blamed that on Lee's toxic expulsions.)
Actually, I had not been on Huntsboro --> Stagecoach Rd, certainly not on a bike, and I had never been on Kelly (how could we have missed that sign? - haha), nor had I been on Dabney Rd east of Glebe Rd. Other than Dabney, which got a bit of traffic, great roads (well, Kelly was only okay) with no traffic. How great was that!


Other thoughts:

No one contested the first CL on NewLight / BruceGarner. Instead, we rode through it just as if we were a group on a seriously long group day-ride.

The second CL, on Huntsboro / Stagecoach, Lee instigated the "trouble"; Lt. Dave went with him; and after it was WAY to late to possibly be productive, Smitty decided to chase.

Third CL on OldWatkins / PeacesChapel, I figured it would be Lt. Dave and Lee. Also figuring that Lee was a better climber, I tried to even the odds a bit by giving Lt. Dave a hint -- not too good of a hint, mind you. When the road finally descended into the creek valley, I went to the front just to get ahead of all the "tiny bodies", but also knowing that the only way I could "steal" the CL was to build momentum downhill and then work like the dickens to keep my speed back uphill until getting to the CL. Strange things happened. Lee and Smitty must have decided that my "go to the front on the downhill to get in front of the tiny-bodies" move was actually a move for the CL; next moment, they both came racing around me while I was still on the downslope; those move actually proved to be their downfalls because, although moving at the beginning of the descent was not too early for me and my strategy, moving when they did was way too early for them and they each ran out of gas. As they ran out of gas, I still had plenty of momentum, but as I check to make sure it was safe to go around, I found I was boxed in by Smitty and Lt. Dave. Dang it, Smitty! As a result, I had to let Lt. Dave - who had been marking me because he was sure that I knew where the CL was - go around Smitty first, and then try to regain my position and speed to attempt to challenge Lt. upslope -- not easy given our comparative abilites. Then I saw the road surface ahead change -- given the curve in the road at that point, the change in surface could be seen long before the sign -- so I sat up. Just after I sat up, Smitty made another "too late" charge. I knew Dave was almost at the CL, so I told Smitty "too late", but he charged on anyway.

After that CL, I craftily went into "spin mode" for the rest of Peaces Chapel Rd to Fairport. Iva tried to pull me up to the group, but I was unable to stick with him. Besides, I was already planning how to "steal" the fourth CL.

Fourth CL on Fairport Rd. The group was milling around or otherwise waiting for me to get to Fairport. I slid past the group in much the way as I often do when the group has had to wait after a climb; that is, I had no apparent urgency in my stroke, no undue speed. I was hoping that what often happens in these cases where I slide past the group at a stop sign would happen again. It did. That is, a gap between me and the group developed. Usually, I just semi-soft-pedal waiting for the group. This time, however, I kept slowly increasing my pace, checking the gap in my mirror or via quick glances over the shoulder. As the gap widened, I continued to slowly increase my pace. I was helped in this strategy by the terrain of Fairport Rd -- an almost flat, very slight downslope. When I got to where I could see the CL, two things: 1) I was shocked because the last time I had ridden through there the CL sign had been almost impossible to see because of overgrown weeds, and 2) I made sure the gap still existed and began steadily increasing my pace, no longer quite so slowly. When I was close enough to be pretty sure I had the CL in the bag, I checked the group again. Too late for them. I eased off (to conserve some energy to try to possibly "steal" the fifth CL, too) and as I approached the CL, I pointed in victory to the CL sign as I passed by. (I think I was helped in this slow break-away stealth of the CL by the fact that the group may still have been discussing the previous CL -- I certainly know I intended to throw in some "infusion" to a possible discussion when I had slid by.)

Fifth CL. I have given this CL, and how I might be able to "steal" it, quite considerable thought. The best strategy for me is probably to "sit-in" the line, and go to the front to get ahead of the "tiny-bodies" when the road descends down into the Tar River valley, use that descent and hold off challengers, saving my effort at a true sprint until others have tired themselves just catching me. However, 60 miles into the ride, the early strong riders seemed to be losing their desire to pull the group, so I pulled the three miles or so from Fairport Rd to the valley descent. I picked up my speed. Dave, Lee, and Smitty were all marking me. Dave was off my left shoulder and asked "is this it?" "Yep," I replied, and Dave went around, closely followed by Lee and Smitty. I sat up to conserve energy for the climb on the other side of the valley because I knew that after the break-away on Fairport and pull into the headwind (which more than offset the slight downslope) on CharlieGrissom, that I would not be able to successfully contest the sprint -- and taking my cue from the Tour de France, expenditure of energy without a payoff is a waste. However, after I sat up and even stood up to stretch my right leg, the other three were not pulling ahead of me -- what was up with that?! It turned out that Dave had also decided to save energy for the climb out of the valley, and was semi-sitting up, and Lee and Smitty, unable to see the CL, were apparently having second thoughts. They coulda' been had. They finally figured out where the CL was, and began their contest iin earnest. For once, Smitty, for once, did not wait until it was too late. He reportedly took Lee by a whisker.

The faux CL. We had a nice line working together to get up Mt. Olivet Ch Rd into the wind at 15 to 19 mph. Up, into the wind, 15 to 19 mph. Then Smitty saw a green sign. He went quickly to beside Lee from fourth in the line; I thought he had decided that Lee was perhaps tiring as Lee was doing most (practically all) the work up Mt. Olivet. Suddenly, Lee responded as if he didn't want to relenquish the lead of the line. But no, I realized they were sprinting for one of those "fire department area" signs. I yelled "that's not a CL." To no avail. Lee and Smitty were off the front of the other three of us. Now we were slogging at 10 to 12 mph; Lee and Smitty appeared to continue to set a fast pace. I commented to Dave that Lee and Smitty each would have one CL point deducted for sprinting for a non-CL, and another point deducted for splitting up the line. That put Smitty's score at negative one, and Lee's score at negative, leaving Dave and I each tied at +1.

Before we reached the next CL, we were joined by "the Lash", who had started riding at 5:30 to test her new headlamp -- it is reported to be "fantastic" -- and had ridden 40 miles before joining a small group at 8:10 for another 40 miles. She then had ridden another 16 out to meet us. So she had about 96 miles in her legs; we had about 70. Lash was not going to contest any CL's as she was riding 190 miles that day. I had told her that if she came out to meet us that she could sit-in and get a few more "easy" miles before she had to finish on her own.

The sixth CL. Lee was so far off the front that we thought he had decided to just ride on home ahead of us. So Lee clearly crossed from Franklin Cnty into Granville Cnty well ahead of the rest of us, but the committee is not sure that he was making a "CL move" or was just heading home. We came upon Lee waiting for us a mile or so up the road.

The seventh CL. Smitty and I had been exchanging leading the line. Smitty was leading, and I detected that he might need a bit of a break, so I rode from 6th in the line up to Dave (3rd in line) to ask if he any legs left. Just after Dave had replied that he was toast and I had started to move up give Smitty a break, Lee darted out of 4th position in the line to sprint for the Wake Cnty line. Dave responded, pulled out of line and tried to contest the sprint. Smitty may have made a move -- Smitty, it was too late, again, and frankly, when one has been pulling the line into a headwind such as we were experiencing, you got no legs for sprinting (unless you are the Mallet). As the line disintegrated, the Lash came around and casually closed up to Dave and Lee. It has been reported that Dave took the CL; darn, I was hoping Lee took it so that I could claim a tie for the green jersey for the day (based on 1 pt for each CL win, and taking the aforementioned penalties into account). Lee kept going followed by the Lash.

As the group re-formed into a line, I said to Dave "no legs to pull, only to sprint, eh!" He sheepishly allowed that he couldn't resist the challenge. I think I pulled the reduced foursome the rest of the way to Ghoston Rd -- if I am wrong in that memory, let me know and I'll edit this.

Upon reaching the bottom of Ghoston, Dave, Smitty, and then Iva all passed me and left me in the heat. I decided I had put in a good ride, had done a good bit of the pulling since Fairport, and that I would like to be able to walk during the rest of the day, so I took it easy on Ghoston, Peed, and MVC -- it was apparently one of my slowest performances on those climbs in quite some time (given what they did to my avg pace).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post-mortem:

Lee was still at the PUE parking lot. I thanked him for pulling the Lash in those last 9 or 10 miles, and noted that she will have really appreciated it as she would have to finish her 190 mile training ride from that point without further help. (I don't think Lee had known that Lynn was doing 190 miles.) Lee reported that Lash stayed on his tail the whole way down to Falls Lake; he had thought he might drop her when he reached 33 mph just before the lake, but no. He also reported that that when they turned onto Ghoston, he dropped a couple gears and thought he was going well, then Lynn went around him and dropped him like a bad habit. If I get an e-mail address for Lee, I'll send him links to some recent climbing results for the Lash -- he might feel better.

Iva commented “if we go back out and repeat the ride we just did, we will still need to ride another 15 or 20 miles to get in the miles that Lynn is doing today.” (By the time we all had finished the 87 mile ride once, Lynn was in excess of 112 miles; she finished at approx 5:39 pm.)

All in all, we had a good ride. New roads. A lot of smooth roads (outside Wake county). Very little traffic. Some fun CL action - but kept within bounds of everyone having the legs to get home, safely. And several "irregulars" now more fully understand, and can pass on and explain, the threat that is: "go ride with Lynn".

I had checked my avg pace at a few key locations. The Tar River crossing from Vance into Franklin county, 16.7+ mph. Nine-ish miles later, after all that steady slope climbing into the headwind, @ Pokomoke metropolis, 16.5+ mph. At the bottom of Ghoston, @ 82.2 miles, 16.6+ mph. Final avg, as reported above, 16.3 mph
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A true post-mortem:

Later in the day, I related the Wake county line sprint story / information to Lynn.
Her matter-of-fact deadpan response: "they weren't sprinting".
Zing! Yow-zah!