Sonoma County Backroads

Somebody once told me that endurance riding of this sort is really about pain management. This weekend I discovered there's more truth than fiction in that statement.

We started off from the Cheese Factory in Novato. That's a rural landmark I've driven by repeatedly in past years when I used to live up in Marin, but I had never actually stopped there. It was fun to see the place first hand, check out the picnic grounds, meet up with the team and get psyched up for a ride out to the Pacific and back!

Unlike the last weekends that have been so rainy and windy, this ride promised to be nice: temperate and bucolic. That's a great word: "bucolic". I'm pretty sure it derives from the Greek for "Lots of Cows". It was a ride that certainly delivered maximum bucolicocity. Mooooooooo.

See? Bucolic! The cows in this field were ninja stealth cows.

When I first looked at the ride profile maps, I wasn't intimidated. That was odd. I really thought we were being softballed by the coaches, which kind of pissed me off. Here I just drove 90 minutes to get to the ride, only to have an easy day? Come on, what kind of team is this, anyway? Looking at the profile, the ride itself was a matter of many "little" hills. How different than our past rides, with their handful of major hills to bring the hurt. By now I've begun to understand how on climbs like Mt. Diablo you just put it in low gear, get your mind right, and grind it out for hour after hour. It's difficult, but constant. Doable. I get it.

The north end of Tomales Bay

Not this time. This ride was very different. Physically, I've had tougher rides. Mentally, however, this one was right up there.

We rode all the way from Novato out to Bodega Bay, got to spend a few miles riding along the beach, then turned back inland. Interestingly, the longer we went on, the more my conversations turned to discussing the relative merits of Percoset vs. Demerol. After awhile, I began to calculate how much money I could make if I first quit my job as a cyclist and instead started selling those drugs at SAG stops on rural routes every Saturday. But I was still thinking too small. So I started discussing franchising the operation out with the other members of my team to cover a whole swath of northern California. After determining the odds of whether I'd have enough money to retire in Costa Rica before the Feds got me, I finally put it all together and realized that this wasn't an easy day.

I saw signs like this more than once!

 We'd been suckered by the coaches.

That's me in yellow. Thinking "Ow" and
"God bless you, SAG"

With lots of big rollers and a few 1000' climbs, there really wasn't much of a chance to ever relax. I found the psychological demand to be significantly more wearying than just dealing with a few big hills. When you're facing real pain a few times an hour, with no end point clearly in sight - it takes a whole different level of mental fortitude to keep your head in the game. That, more than anything, made me realize why we train. We have to hone not just our strength and endurance, but our spirit. And there's no way to reach that except by pushing the boundaries of what you know you can do to discover what you are capable of achieving.

Americana

Fortunately, the wind was at our backs riding home. It was great to make it back through the legions of cows, past the rolling green hills, to return to the Cheese Factory. I do feel blessed to live in a place like this, where so much fantastic scenery can be experienced in a single, temperate day. We passed the cool green hills, cows and sheep, small towns, rode through eucalyptus and redwood groves, rolled down the beach to the crashing waves, took in fields of wildflowers, burbling creeks and so much more. For all the transitory suffering, rides like this leave beautiful memories that can never be forgotten.

Pacelining

One of the huge helps on this ride was that we could paceline for long periods! Pacelining is a great advantage to group endurance rides. What is Pacelining? If you see a group of riders riding nose-to-tail on the road, wheels too close together, they're Pacelining.

A small but effective Paceline

Why do they engage in such risky behavior? Because it cuts down significantly on wind resistance. You'd be surprised by what a difference that makes, but it really works. And it works better the closer you ride to the person in front of you. It doesn't work so well climbing significant hills (because of the slow speeds), but it is a tremendously efficient way to make distance for minimal effort at any real speed.

In previous seasons with TNT they taught us everything we needed to know about Pacelining. This came in quite handy with the Death Ride team, in that everyone is an experienced rider. We all know what to do on a Paceline. Everybody has a job. When you're in front, it's your job to pull hard. You have to work hard physically, set a constant pace, avoid obstacles and call them out (or point them out) so people behind know what is coming. You use hand signals to direct the group and to call out hazards as well.

A longer Paceline

After a few minutes at most, you rotate back to the end of the line. In this way, everybody pulls the group for just a few minutes, then gets to rest in the line and regain their strength for the next turn in front. When you're in back, you can eat and drink while you ride, because nobody is depending on you to be constant. You simply need to call out when cars come roaring up from behind, and make sure you don't fall too far behind the group, as you might not catch up again in time for the next rotation!

When you're in the middle of the line, you're passing information forward or back as signals and calls are made, so that everybody in the line stays aware of what's going on. There's a rhythm to it all, some great teamwork to be had. And when a line gets going really fast it takes a lot of mental energy to hold constant, keep your place and trust everyone else to do their job. Fun!

At the ride wrapup I received a TNT hoodie for my
successful fundraising efforts!
Huge thanks to all of my supporters!

Pacelining is one of the main things that keeps me coming back to riding with groups. Sure, I could do big rides, do Centuries even, by myself. But I don't want to. It's much more work to go it alone on long rides than to be on the line, doing your job and cruising at speed. Being alone is boring, too. There's nobody to help push you, nobody to help if you're falling behind, and nobody to talk to about all the cows. If you've never tried it, get yourself on a team and learn to Paceline! It just might change your whole perspective on the art of cycling.