Gulp - Gone and done it now!

[SnappyPix]

Gone and entered for my first official event - a century next weekend! :rolleyes:
The event was over-subscribed and myself and a friend managed to squeeze in by the skin of our teeth.
Scary thing is, we've been placed with a team of 20 triathletes (groups are in small packs, as easier to organise), who are supposed to be averaging 12.5mph, but are apparently always champing at the bit to go that bit faster!
I managed 82 miles last weekend, in absolutely torrential rain and horrible conditions. Averaged 14.7mph in 5 and a half hours, so I think I should be ok.
Just have visions of me in amongst all these amazonian goddesses, with my squidgy little body trying hard to catch up! :(
Just one quick question - I know nothing about the etiquette of pack riding - how do you know when it's your turn to take to the front (especially when it's windy). :confused: Don't want to do the wrong thing! Not that I'll be taking the lead much, but want to do my bit if it's expected of me!
Plan to do a couple of 50 milers this weekend to get me going!
Quite excited, but scared too! :eek:

[CorsairMac]

Snappy I LOVED your signature line!!......Just too cute!!....as for your ??...sorry kiddo can't do a thing there for ya!....but what I can do is congratulate you on entering your race and wishing you all the best!!.......keeping you in my thoughts, let us know how it turns out!

[slinkedog]

Good for you to sign up and be so brave!!

You may want to let them know this is your first group ride and just never pull on the paceline. Sucking a wheel the whole way sounds good to me!! :) (Do you feel comfortable being close enough to draft?) You'll know when it's your turn to pull when the person in front of you peels off and you're in front!!! ;) Just watch the line to see how long others are pulling and do the same, or as much as you can do, if you decide to do the paceline thing.

Also, one thing I've learned riding with others is that it's so important to listen to my body and pace myself. It's very easy to try to keep up with stronger riders and then end up with nothing left at the end of your ride, or worse, totally bonk. You go at your own pace and if you can keep up comfortably, great. If not, just keep going!! You're going to have SO much fun!!!

[SadieKate]

I agree with Slinke. If you've never ridden in a pack, you should let them know. They would rather take the time to help you learn and keep everyone upright. Ask a lot of questions, try keep a straight line, don't make sudden moves (including braking) and don't touch the tire in front of you. For a ride of this length, everyone should pull whatever time they feel is right for them. Don't over do it. The other thing, don't sprint off the front when you find yourself in front. I suspect that by the end you'll have the hang of it and pull like a pro, but don't be afraid to say you're new to it. You'll have so much fun with a group of 20 pulling together. It can be a heady experience!

By the way, could you educate us ignorant yanks? Is a century miles or kilometers for you? And, I've always been curious about A and B roads. I read Martha Grimes' novels and I'm never sure what she means when her characters are motoring around the countryside.

[SnappyPix]

Thanks everyone for all your advice - and support!
I've absorbed it all and will follow your wise words.
I don't intend to try and impress, as I know my limits and am aiming to go for stamina, rather than speed, I guess that honesty is the best policy and admitting your gaps in knowledge is far better than behaving as if you know the score and falling flat on your a$$ (quite literally!).

Sadiekate - our roads have a strange and wonderful numbering system, which is a mystery to everyone but the city planners. "A" roads are major roads (often dual carriageways, but not always), while "B" roads are quieter, more rural roads - windy-bendy country roads. Of course, this is not always the norm. The A167 can suddenly metamorphosise into the B123, only to become the A138 and then continue as the A167 as if nothing had happened!
During the war we also took down all our road signs to confuse the Germans if we ever got invaded. Unfortunately, it seems that no-one ever remembered to replace them, so a trip out is often a magical mystery tour!
I kid ye not! We also have "C" roads, but no-one ever talks about them!

A century to me would be miles - 100! Metric? Spit spit, we must resist metric to the death! In the 70s we were all forced in school to suddenly become metric - our currency changed and so did our measurements. I'm now kind of in limbo as I understand centimetres (inches are a mystery!), but can only judge in feet. I understand the bottom half of centrigrade and the top half of farenheit! And our weight is measured in "stones"!! One stone is 14lbs! Everyone usually will express their weight as 8stone 7 or the like, lbs are for our yankie cousins, kilos are for those weird Europeans!

Glad I made all that clear for you!

[snapdragen]

:confused: :) :D snapdragen wanders off, shaking her spinning head :D :) :confused:


Snappypix sez: "Glad I made all that clear for you!"

[SadieKate]

Glad I made all that clear for you!
Uh, glad I asked! :p I'll look forward to my next British who-dunnit and think of you.

[nuthatch]

Gosh, I'd much rather weigh 10 stone than 140 lbs. Sounds so svelte!!! But the fahrenheit/centigrade mix sounds totally confusing. Fahrenheit may be familiar to us but it's totally silly and arbitrary!

Have fun on your paceline!

[MightyMitre]

We also have "C" roads, but no-one ever talks about them!

Yeh - what's a C road when it's at home? I must have been on one at some point. Maybe it's a road that's only one car wide?

Great to hear I'm not the only one who has a confusing mix of metric and imperial. My understanding is as follows:

weight : stones and lbs. It's much easier to loose 2 lbs than a kilogram :p
distance: miles, unless in Europe when I use kms - 6kms to go is so much more welcome than 6 miles to go.
Inches and feet I get, but couldn't give you an estimate the length of a yard, where as I could easily estimate 100m.
Cooking - easy to roughly guess how much 4 oz of butter is, but have no idea how much 200g looks like.

Eeek - that's seriously confussed.

Anyway, have a great time on you imperial centuary ride. It should be excellent. I agree with the others, if you let them all know you're new to chaingains then they'll all help, but.... hoping not to offend any of the triathletes out there..... there's a bit of an unofficial consensus of oppinion amongst some of the club riders down here that generally triathletes bike handling skills are not all that great, compared to pure cycling roadies. ( Me thinks there could be a bit of snobbery in there. :) )

But on saying that , most bike legs of a tri are out and back along a straight coned off routes. A lot of triathletes also often put cycling as the discipline they'd most like to improve on. ( BTW - my brother does tri and agrees with me on a lot of this stuff :)

So, you never know, you might even be able to teach them a thing or two.

TOP TIP for riding in a pace line - keep an ear out for the freewheel clicking on the bike in front of you, as the rider in front eases off. If you do the same it means you won't need to grab for your brakes to slow yourself down.

Best of luck!

[MightyMitre]

Ok - so after being so critical of triathletes bike skills, I think I should mention that my swimming style could be described as 'individual ' and any triathletes out there could swim circles round me any day of the week.

My brother would also agree with me on this too :p

[SnappyPix]

MM

Thanks for the advice - the event is being organised by a traditional cycling road club, and the bloke in charge has been very disparaging about the group of triathletes, so much so that he keeps trying to persuade me to ride with a different group.
As you say, I think it's pure snobbery on the bike club's part.
No road skills, no team ethos, no idea how to collectively fix a puncture fast, etc. etc. However I did point out to him that a collective group of women will instinctively look out for one another, pull together and work as a team, which is apparently what the leader of the triathletes said to him too!
I'll bear in mind the top tip about the freewheel.

[nuthatch]

Well, I think I've solved the mystery of the C-Road, MM. I watched the Tour of Flanders yesterday (replay with Phil Liggett/Bob Sherwin on OLN here in the US) and those roads the boys were riding HAD to be C-Roads!! They looked no more than 6 feet across in some sections!! Those Belgians had too many bricks on their hands, too - cobblestone everywhere!!

[Adventure Girl]

I thought you couldn't draft in triathlons. Maybe you can in some and can't in others... If drafting is not allowed, then I wouldn't expect the triathletes to train in pace lines much. I agree with what a few others have said here, talk it over with the others before the ride. Find out what their plans are and what they expect from you. And find out what to expect from them!

I have one more tip that I didn't see mentioned before. Don't overlap wheels with the bike in front of you. SadieKate said, "don't touch the tire in front of you." But actually keeping your wheel behind the the one in front is important. If you are overlapped and they move laterally, they may take you down. And if you go down in a pace line, EVERYONE is going to go down!

Good luck!

[MightyMitre]

Hi Nuthatch - wasn't Flanders great, and my fave Tom Boonen won! I was on the edge of my seat as he tore off down the road.

As far as C roads go - you've got it! Perfect example. Thing is, they're not as rare as you might think. My parents live down a lane one car wide and even the larger B road is so narrow in places you have to slow down to pass each other. Not much room on this little island of ours but sure is pretty in the spring when all the hedges start to turn green.

Snappypix - you should have a great day. It's good fun riding in a bunch and you'll be amazed at how much easier it is with a whole load of you for shelter. Enjoy.

Adventure Girl - I believe drafting is allowed in officially recognised triathlons, which I think is a bit daft. It means you might as well do away with the swim as it gives you no advantage, if someone last out of the water is just going to sit on your wheel the whole way round, resting, then beat you in the run.

At the end of the day I s'pose it's all people-on-bikes which has got to be good. :)

[slinkedog]

My friend who does tons of tri's every year says that drafting is MOST DEFINITELY NOT allowed on the bike. You can't really avoid it on the swim portion, but apparently most events are pretty closely patrolled for drafting violations on the bike. She told me one time what the allowable distance is on the bike, but I can't remember what it was. Blaine (my husband) did a tri with her just two years ago (the Wildflower in central CA) and she did the swim and the run and he did the bike. He said everyone was very good and no one tried to draft off of anyone.

However, that said, a couple of weeks ago Beth (my tri friend) and I were out riding together and we went past (going the opposite direction) her tri team that were out for a training ride, and they were in a huge paceline. There were like 30 of them, I think. So, I guess the rules don't apply for training!! ;)

[nuthatch]

Say, where's MightyMitre been lately? Her buddy Tom Boonen went and stole the Paris-Roubaix win from big Georgie. I expected her to be posting a "woohoo"! Poor ole George looked like he was going to weep at the post-race interview!

[SnappyPix]

Well, I’m still on a high after cycling my first imperial century yesterday! :cool:
It was a great day out, and the group of triathlete ladies I was cycling with were quite a set of characters!
The winds must have been around 30mph, as at one point we were battling against a headwind, changed course and found ourselves coasting on the flat, completely free-wheeling at 33.5mph (without so much as a pedal stroke!).
I was really nervous before the event, thinking I’d be the weakest of the bunch, but in the end, I surprised myself completely by being one of the strongest! The hill climbs were hard but a small group of us found ourselves waiting at the top of each hill for the rest of the group to catch up. I’m used to averaging around 15-17mph, so the pace seemed slow for me at 12.5mph, but it was a wonderful experience cycling as a group (especially a group of 15 women!), having something to judge your fitness against - and having other people who share your passion!
We’d actually on managed 95 miles when we got back, so had to cycle 2.5miles up the road and back to make it a century!
I thought I’d be really dead on my feet at the end of the ride, but could have actually gone on about another 20 – and today I feel fantastic!
Obviously the long training rides prior, and fuelling up properly did the trick(can definitely recommend SIS PSP22 http://www.scienceinsport.com/)
I’m now on a complete high, and already thinking about entering my next event! The ladies suggested I try time trialling, so it might be fun to give it a try!
I’m so excited – cycling is just brilliant! :D

[spazzdog]

The tri-grrls may be using the ride as a trianer for a different ride. My ex that did Ride the Rockies used to paceline practice... maybe these grrls regularly enter straight bike events as a team.

[nuthatch]

Yaa Snappy!!! How exciting - and just think, you were the inspiration for all those other riders to train and ride harder!

[jobob]

That's great, snappy, brava! :D

[SnappyPix]

Yaa Snappy!!! How exciting - and just think, you were the inspiration for all those other riders to train and ride harder!

If only! It's just nice to know that I'm not quite the unfit blob I think I am sometimes! I only ever really have myself and my riding partner to compare with usually. It's a weird twist of fate that as I get older I seem to be getting slowly fitter! :rolleyes:

[jobob]

It's just nice to know that I'm not quite the unfit blob I think I am sometimes! LOL, not quite, indeed. :D It's so hard to shake those mental images of oneself though !


It's a weird twist of fate that as I get older I seem to be getting slowly fitter! Well, you're not alone - at age 45 I'm in the best shape of my life, and I'm even finally back down to the weight that is shown on my driver's license (which, if memory serves, was what I weighed in my early 20's - somehow I never "updated" that weight :rolleyes: )

- Jo.

[jobob]

Say, where's MightyMitre been lately? Her buddy Tom Boonen went and stole the Paris-Roubaix win from big Georgie. I expected her to be posting a "woohoo"! Poor ole George looked like he was going to weep at the post-race interview! Tee-hee, maybe she's afraid we'll flay her with flat tubes or something.

So I'll start - WooHoo for Tom Boonen, what an enormous accomplishment with back-to-back wins of Tour of Flanders and P-R at such a young age ! Watching the OLN coverage you could just tell once they got on to the track section, there was no way in creation he was going to let Hincapie or Flecha get the best of him.

And BooHoo for George, he was thiiiis close, that has to hurt. :( Poor bunkie, he just doesn't seem to have that killer instinct, does he?

[slinkedog]

I couldn't believe George didn't just attack on the track. He must not have had the legs. Did anyone get to hear his interview at the end? I didn't get to hear it. Did he say why he held back on the track so much?

[nuthatch]

Yes, I heard it (Bob Roll on OLN). He was still breathing hard and had mud on his face so it must have been immediately after he got done. He said he just didn't have the legs to grab Boonen in that last sprint. It was heartbreaking because you could tell he was having a hard time mastering himself. His baby was howling off to the side, too, so he was distracted. I was wondering how hard it is for them to blast it open on that banked track when they aren't used to riding on it. Boonen didn't seem to have any trouble, though!

[CorsairMac]

Makes ya kinda wonder why USPS let Boonan go eh?.......but I agree on the post-race interview. They say Hin is just a nice guy and he was on the interview. Gave nothing but praise to Tom and said it would just inspire him to come back again next year. But you could tell George really wanted that win! Congrats to All the riders that finished the nasty race!

and thank you whomever for asking: I was just thinking about MM last night and realized I hadn't seen her here in a bit. Anyone know anything about her or how we can find her?

(setting up search parties for MM and Smurf. Gonna have to teach my dogs to sniff out gears and frames)

[spazzdog]

I thought I just saw posts by her... hmmm, maybe they were older posts.


clueless as usual :confused:


But the race.... that was fab! I watched at a friend's house. Those cobbles are BRUTAL! My body hurt just watching....

[Melody]

What I thought was insane was that one mechanic. First climbing out of the window while the car was moving to work on one bike... then pulling alongside the one rider and working on the bike while they were both moving!. Insane. :eek:

Mel

[Veronica]

That's terrific! Unfit blob, my a**. :D You're miles ahead of me for the year. Thou shalt not call thyself an unfit blob.

V.

[nuthatch]

What I thought was insane was that one mechanic. First climbing out of the window while the car was moving to work on one bike... then pulling alongside the one rider and working on the bike while they were both moving!. Insane. :eek:

Mel

YES! I was just waiting for them to go over some cobbles and vibrate him right off the top.

I really can't see how they toughened up their bikes enough to still ride slim tires over those cobbles. It was crazy! And the way their arms were shaking - for over six hours! Now those are men! Is there a women's Hell of the North? We're probably to sensible!

P.S. I bet MightyMitre is busy working on her wedding plans!!!