Laura OLPH knows me well enough to know that I'll likely be the first person to the ride start (beauty may be skin-deep, but that Anglo-Saxon hyper-responsibility goes right to the bone), so it's not a surprise that she chose to call me to let the other riders know that she was running late. When she'd gone out to the car, she found it had a flat tire, so she called Heddy for a ride to the start at Woodfield Park in Hillsborough.
Heddy was already en route, but she turned back to get Laura. In the meantime, the other riders showed up at the start.
Laura had planned a route to Round Valley Reservoir: nearly 50 miles, and 2500' of climb, on a hot and humid day. I would feel it later and, truth to tell, I probably wasn't in my best shape even at the ride start. But off we went: ten of us.
We were just about to start the demanding climb to the reservoir when Laura asked me to look at her rear tire. It looked soft, but not flat. Laura pulled over and the gang opined; at this point, I think she decided to try just pumping it up... but not much further on, it was flat again.
The diagnosis was that a short piece of wire (likely from the belt of a car tire) had worked its way into Laura's tire. It took some doing for some of our old eyes to find it, and even more to get it out; a few of us have resolved to carry some type of tweezers or pliers to address this situation in future.
Laura mentioned she had tire anxiety through much of the rest of the ride. I've been there; I know what she's talking about.
But up we went to the reservoir.
The road along the reservoir, which has been closed for years, is open again. And the water is still low; in the top picture, you can see the bottom of the concrete boat launch on the left is still far above the waterline. Information among the members on the ride suggested that the level had been kept low so that construction could be done, but with the construction now over, the water is still low.
On we went to the Jerry's Brooklyn in Whitehouse Station, where I got that picture at top of Heddy beaming away.
When we started again, I just couldn't get my strength back; I kept falling further and further behind. The group was good enough to wait at turns, but at one point, I offered that they should go ahead and I would proceed at my own pace. This would not do, and a few of the riders fell back to escort me the remainder of the way.
One of those was Tom H, who admitted he didn't mind letting the rest of the group go on ahead, for various reasons. He'd had concerns about coming out on this one, and spoke about a term new to me: "pace anxiety."
PACE ANXIETY: noun: the concern that a ride you've agreed to go on will proceed at a pace you can't maintain (or, perhaps, even achieve), and you'll be the one holding the ride back.
I think most of us who ride with others (certainly most of us who have ridden with the club for a while) have felt it, and have, perhaps, cancelled registrations for, or not signed up for, rides when we see others who have signed up, whose presence might induce this anxiety. Just sayin'.
However, I did finish the ride, with the wheels on the ground and my helmet in the air. I got back to the car, and blasted the air-conditioning while I packed up the bike and my other gear, and sat in the now-cooled car for a while after the others had driven away. I suspect it was a combination of the heat, the humidity, the demanding climb, and my not being in my best shape even from the start, as I've noted. I'm planning to eat junk and stay in the air conditioning tomorrow.
Ride page. 13.9 average speed? I did better than I thought I did. Most of that must have been from the first half.
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