Riding with "The Punisher"

If you see this guy on the trail, just let him pass you.

The reason there was no blog post yesterday was because I was in recovery from an encounter with my own version of Racer X: Brian aka “The Punisher”. It all started out innocently enough. I had sent out an email to a local bike group letting them know that I was going to do a lunch ride and asked if anyone else was interested.  I didn’t get a response from anyone which didn’t surprise me.  The forecast had called for rain today and with Christmas coming up a lot of people are out of the office.  Even though the forecast called for rain I packed my bike just in case there was a break in the weather.  In this case, there was; only a 10% chance of rain until 3pm.  For me, that is a big enough opening to squeeze a ride in.

As I got my bike unloaded from the car I looked around and didn’t see anyone else running out or getting ready.  That was fine.  I was a little bit tired anyway so I figured I would see if my legs had anything.  If they didn’t, I would just do an easy recovery ride.  Just as I was going through the final steps to get ready, Brian showed up.  “Oh crap!” was the first thought in my head.  Brian is a Cat 2 racer.  On my good days it is punishing trying to keep his pace.  My best hope is that he isn’t looking to go that hard today.

As we do the warm-up part of the ride my legs are giving me mixed signals.  Quads are feeling pretty strong but my calf muscles are shot from doing some “cross training” during a recent winter storm.  I ask Brian what type of ride he is looking to do.  He responds with “hard endurance.”  Okay…  There is no way I am going to be able to take the lead and do a “pull” in my current condition and I let him know that I am just going to hang on to his wheel. 

As he starts picking up the pace, I am instantly on the ropes.  Making things worse is the gusty and variable winds.  I draft okay (should get closer than I do) when winds are calm, but in conditions like this, I can never figure out where I am supposed to be to optimize the draft.  Since I don’t follow as close as I should, I don’t get as much of a “pull.”  His pace is faster than I expected based on what he told me he was going to do.  No big deal, I figured he is going to get tired or settle down in a few minutes.  No such luck.  He kept going and going.  Like a frickin’ evil, lycra-clad energizer bunny. Only for the occasional turn or traffic conditions on the trial did he slow down.  The slow-down was never long enough and he accelerated pretty quickly back up to speed. 

We were taking the relatively flat part of the American River bike trail towards Sacramento.  Several times I started to lose the draft and had to catch back up.  I kept wondering when the torture was going to end.  As we get to a bridge that usually serves as a turn-around-point for the larger lunch group, I hope that Brian may be thinking of turning around.  History says “no” as he almost always continues down to Sac State.  Once again, he doesn’t turn around and he keeps going.  Over and over again I get dropped because I just don’t have it in me to match his accelerations out of curves or his continued high output up the little hills.  I have to work hard to get the wheel back which really starts to wear me out.  But Sac State isn’t much farther, so I keep pressing on. 

As we get to Sac State I sense some relief that the ride is half over.  That relief is quickly squashed when Brain turns to me and says something like “how about we go a little farther?”  I am exhausted, but I don’t like to back down from a challenge so I agree to continue.  Brian notices that I am not doing the best job drafting and relays some advice.  I had been focusing too much on his rear wheel and as a result I end up doing a lot of micro-adjustments.  Instead, look down the road or focus on what his legs are doing.  That can give me hints as to what Brian is doing without all of the micro-adjustments.  I followed his advice and things went much better down to the turn-around point.

As we start heading back I am still using the techniques that Brian relayed to me but now there is another problem.  My legs are blown-up.  I keep chugging along as best I can but I can’t keep the pace to maintain the draft.  To make things worse is that the wind is blowing against us more on the way back.  I try different drafting positions but I just can’t figure out the best place to line up.  The wind is shifting and our direction into the wind is shifting as well. 

I tell Brian that I just can’t keep up anymore and to go on ahead.  Brian responds with “This is a No Child Left Behind Ride”.   That is the worst news ever.  I am hoping to drop back, fall over and lay on the ground for a while.  Maybe ride the rest of the way home tomorrow.  I am done.  Finished.  But I keep plugging away.  He drops me a few more times and waits for me to catch up.  As soon as I do, he accelerates back to his previous pace.  As we go over a small rise I am feeling good that I kept up with him on the rise and that I didn’t get dropped.  The only problem is that he presses on the following descent and my legs are so thrashed from making the rise that I can’t catch back up. 

At this point I am in “time trail mode”.  For the most part, I am staying in my drops and just focusing on riding as hard as I can.  I am not sure if or when he is going to stop and wait.  Whether or not he stops, I feel the need to finish the ride as strong as I can.  A couple of miles before the “cool down” part of the ride I spot Brian at a rest stop.  I stop for a second and Brian mentions that he was only stopped for a few minutes and I should have just kept his draft.  I know what he means, it would have been less work overall, but I couldn’t do it. 

For the last couple of miles I keep up with Brian and then we do the cool down.  Total miles was 48.  Total ride time was 2.5 hours.  About 30 minutes was warm up and cool down.  So that leaves about 2 hours of punishment.  That was much more than I expected to ride, and as such, I only brought water with me.  I was starving by the time we got back and I noticed that a nagging scratchy throat was a lot worse.  When I got home I relayed to my wife what had happened and then told her I planned on riding with the Folsom High team that night. She gives me this exasperated look and says something to the effect that after the torture session with Brian and complaining of a worsening sore throat she doubted my sanity if I went. I figured that one dumb decision –taking on Brian when I was less than fresh- was enough self-punishment for one day.  As the night went on, I thought about trying to talk her out of the decision and ride anyway.  Fortunately, I never had to put my sanity in question because someone called about purchasing my motorcycle, which I desperately needed to sell to get money to fix my mountain bike.

All I can say is that someday, when I grow up, I want to be just like Brian The Punisher.