The Bataan Death Ride

Went on my first Shabbos ride today, though it was combined with the Bike Masters Saturday ride. Munson was kind enough to let me borrow his kickass LeMond, which rides surprisingly well for aluminum and is also super responsive. It was particularly kind of him because it meant he had to ride his commuter Bianchi, which weights a shade under a metric ton. And it's a 1x9, which must have hurt.

The first half of the ride when pretty well, considering it was the usual cast of characters for a Saturday ride: a bunch of guys who aren't really accustomed to riding in groups, some squirrely dudes with aero bars, a few guys who like to hammer off and on. For the most part, Brian, Jon, Mike and I left those guys alone. I would prefer not to break a collarbone at the hands of an inexperienced rider on aero bars again. I contested some sprints with Bryan, all of which I lost. In general, I did better in the sprints than I thought I would, so that was good news. Did a terrible job on the hills, though, and it didn't help that I haven't ridden or slept enough in the last 10 days because of midterms. Bryan did a great job getting me up through the pack in the sprint around the lake, but I just didn't have it in the end.

Got dropped going with the wind back from Two Rivers, when I just didn't have anything left in the tank. Rode back on King Lake with Jon, Bryan, and Munson, just clipping along and talking. That was the best part of the ride, hands down.

But then we hit the hills and wind on the way back, and it blew. Hard. I had no energy, no drive, and I lost all my motivation to do well after I started to crack. It was as much a psychological battle as a physical one on the way back, and I lost both.

It was a tough ride, but I'm glad I did it. Really glad.