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BIKE GUY: THE MILE LEAD OUT
Bill Humphreys
July 31, 2008
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My birthday fell on a Saturday this year, and most of my junior team and other riding friends were off racing somewhere as I sent out a last minute email blast in desperation for some guys to help me through this yearly ordeal. This ride my age thing started way back on my 50th birthday when I was a reincarnated student at Umass Amherst and had just purchased a new GT Zaskar Mountain Bike from my old Raleigh Boy teammate Doug Dale who still owned Peleton Sports in Northampton at the time. I put road slicks on it and asked him to point me in the direction of a 50-mile ride.
So now 14 years later a few pounds heavier, married with a healthy nine year old boy, a honey-do list, and a full time job, I needed some help to maintain my traditional 18+ mph average. Departure time was unconditionally set at 8am, the sooner we started the sooner we could be back in time to watch the Tour time trial, drink some cold beer and do cannonballs off the dock.
Two local riders on their way to work, Mark and his dad David Jameson showed up along with my one junior Nate Etchells. After a brisk 15-mile start with the warmed up commuters, Nate and I were left to finish the remaining 49 miles. We took it slow at first until my peanut butter & jelly sandwich had a chance to settle, and then with the war stories and coaching advice over, it was time to get to work, for Nate that is.
As much as I wanted to hug the flat roads along the shoreline, it was a Saturday and the traffic was unbearable on the beach roads. So, off we went to the beautiful back roads, the hilly back roads of Devil’s Hopyard and Mount Parnassus Road where our average speed and I suffered. Several times I would put Nate on the front with instructions to keep it at about 17 to 18mph only to hall him back and readjust the speed to more like 16 mph on the false flats, headwind and rollers until we reached the far end of the ride.
If my calculations from riding these roads for over 36 years were right, we had smooth sailing of flat to slightly rolling terrain for the remaining 25 miles. At this point Nate had already done a “Jens Voight” job for the day and I was now going to ask even more from my first year racing 15-year-old junior. He had already learned more than he needed to know in his young career about how to keep his captain from missing the time limit in the gruppetto.
With my heart rate already pegged at 168 to 171 we began the serious work of getting our average speed up from 17.9 to 18. 5 and I was determined to help and I had to I we were going to get the job done. I could smell the barn at this point and had pushed myself hard on this section of road for many years. Muscle memories and synapses reconnected the tempo increased, the heart rate settled down and we finished up on Whippoorwill Road with the 18.5 average speed goal I am determined to maintain for a few more years.
We had both had a light week of training, and this effort had left us both a little on the toasted side to say the least. Back at the lake, we went for a refreshing but short swim, then watched the tour and spent the next few hours resting in the shade.
Nate was my man this 64th birthday ride. I could have done the ride alone like I have in previous years, but it would not have been the same. I must begin building towards the next 20 years of birthday rides and for those I will need help and that is what this year’s ride was all about.
What are the chances that everyone was busy accept this 15-year-old kid who until this year had never raced a bike? How fortunate am I, this old cowboy, road warrior, that I have managed to keep himself involved with the youth movement enough that one of those up and comer’s would take the opportunity to ride with the coach for 64 miles on his birthday? If this event grows over the coming years, (it will always be held on the actual day, which will include weekdays as the years go by) Nate will always have the bragging rights to being the first official “worker” to get me through this transitional year.
I checked the calendar and next year my 65th will be on a Sunday, s o recruiting gregarious will still be a problem. I will put out a reminder email blast in January and another one in April and June. Maybe I can enforce a mid season break for my Juniors and some of the Master’s will take pity on my situation, knowing that I am buying the beer, and that with the right riders we could possibly up the average speed with less wear and tear. (I might not have to go to the front.) There may also be a true Most Valuable Domestique Award and it will be called the Nate Etchells Trophy.
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