Surprised by Speed!
I have to report my best ride of the year last night.
I couldn’t believe it.
In the spring and early summer I thought that my 42-15 was a good stout gear. I couldn’t imagine riding the bigring.
I’d haven’t ridden the bigring hardly at all for a few years and thought that maybe I should get a 50 to be a more
effective commuter : ) .
Well, I’ve ridden on and off all summer now. Some hard rides. Some recumbent rides. Pulling my kid in the trailer while riding slow with the wife. No plan. No real mileage, maybe 500 total. Gradual natural increase (with plenty of glum setbacks and being pasted by the training racers!).
Last night I pulled the gang for 25 miles out and back in strong sidewinds while often in my 52-13! I just kept looking down in disbelief, kept feeling my shiftlever: forward. Was I on the 42?
No, 52. Crazy!
We normally take minute pulls. But I need to lose weight and really wanted to ride. I hope they don’t think I was a hog, but the ride was too long (30mis) so my hogging got us home in regular time anyway. I kept an eye that they all stayed in my nice big sidedraft. Once a guy said ‘You can pull off if you want’ when I looked back, I said I was just making sure we were all here and that I wanted to go faster.
I also kept wondering if the 15mph quarteringheadwind section hadn’t turned into a tailwind. Where’s the resistance?
14 on upgrades, 16 on hills, then back to 14 at the crest and 13 again. Wow! What fun!
I pulled off for a couple miles just to do it in case someone wanted to pull but we seemed to crawl even tho the others were in bigring, too. Then we hit a true headwind section and same guy kept leading,
slower, no one really interested, so…. And it was easy all over again!
I have no watch (for cadence) or speedo. At the end I was curious. I had no idea really how I was doing. I wasn’t spun out by any means, just comfy rolling. Was I just slow rolling? They said 25 on headwind flats, 28 elsewhere. COOL!
Man, will it happen again? Maybe I’m finally ready for REAL COMMUTING! : ) Blast those errands! (Enter a race?)
It just goes to show: if you ride and TRY long enuf it will happen!
