Saturday April 7th Rock Creek 10:00am Training Ride

The Wheelsucker’s coach was suggesting the Morgantown Road Race, but the Wheelsucker did not feel ready for racing, or ready for the four-plus-hour-each-way drive, so was not enthusiastic about it. But the Wheelsucker WAS interested in the Saturday Rock Creek park ride. And his coach was OK with a training ride provided he got some race intensity in.

Despite what it is called, the Rock Creek 10:00am is NOT a training ride; this is a race! This ride makes a typical ABRT Saturday ride look like a training ride. A large group starts the ride, but in the Wheelsucker’s experience it is a small lead group at the finish with riders scattered all over Montgomery County, and a large grupetto some distance back from the leaders (the Wheelsucker has finished with the lead group once before, and been scattered somewhere in Montgomery county, several times).

At least it is civilized and controlled at the start and the end. The ride starts at a closed gate on Beach Drive, well within the DC line, and rides easily north on Beach Drive. Riders jump on, en route. By the time the group is rolling up Tuckerman lane there may be more than 40 riders.

The group looks like a number of MABRA cat 1-2s with a few more trying to hang on. It is technically a DC Velo ride, but Battley Harley is always well represented. The ride does not “go” until a left turn at a last traffic light and a sweeping right. From there it is “game on” with steady attrition at the back and then it usually splits on the first set of rollers. If one survives the first rollers one is OK for a little while, but then there are more short climbs. There are numerous attacks.

The Wheelsucker was not the only ABRTer on the ride; ABRT was strongly represented with Ace, Ryan, Matt and The Wheelsucker. One rider commented to the Wheelsucker early in the ride, “Why did you bring Ace?” Ace does this ride frequently and is well known to most and dreaded by many.

ABRT was in all – or nearly all – the moves, typically with Ace or Ryan. During one early attack a Battley Harley rider was working to bridge up to Ace and another rider who had a small gap. The Wheelsucker latched on to the Battley rider’s rear wheel. Two thirds of the way across the gap the Battley rider looked behind him for help, but the Wheelsucker declined. What did the Battley rider think this was, a training ride? There is no way the Wheelsucker was going to help a Battley rider chase down an ABRTer in a break! That break – and all the others – was brought back.

Ryan also pulled so hard and so long, that once the ride slowed down back in the built up-with-traffic-light area, riders were asking the Wheelsucker if it had been him pulling that hard on the front. Apparently Ryan had been pulling so hard these riders were going blind with the effort and could not tell the difference between Ryan and the Wheelsucker …

Not long before the hard part of the ride ended there was a left turn at a traffic light, after a shallow climb. The group bunched up a little at the end of the climb, positioning in the left lane for the turn. Coming the other way, down a hill was a large truck carrying logs. Most of the group jumped through the intersection, but about a third of the group were too far back and were caught waiting for the truck and several cars following it, to clear the intersection. The front two thirds of the group were disappearing up the road. Finally the intersection cleared and the remaining group, which included Matt and the Wheelsucker, made the turn and gave chase. It was desperate.

Matt took a good hard pull. The Wheelsucker was riding second wheel, but was working very hard just to stay on Matt’s wheel, so pulled through. Two other riders in the small group took pulls. The Wheelsucker took the fourth pull. The gap to the group ahead was shrinking, but at considerable cost to the riders chasing. The Wheelsucker pulled off after a short hard pull, but before he was able to recover there was a small bump. Matt and one other rider hammered up the bump and made it on to the back of the group. The Wheelsucker had nothing left and couldn’t hammer the bump. He continued to chase at above threshold, desperately trying to close a gap that was really only a few bike lengths. There was a gap behind him, too. Not long after the bump was a right turn, then a couple of rollers, and then a longer descent. A few bike lengths in front of him the Wheelsucker could see riders coasting at the back of the group. He sprinted up the rollers and hammered the descents, and then finally, just before the end of the longer descent, latched onto the back of the group. He was the last rider to make it across.

There was a very quick right over a small creek and then an immediate left, and then another climb. The Wheelsucker was able to move past a couple of riders, but part way up the climb a female Battley Harley rider was coming unstuck from the wheel ahead of her. The Wheelsucker gave her a quick push on her back which put her back on the wheel. She stayed on and finished the climb on the wheel. But that minimal effort, a friendly push for less than two seconds, finished the Wheelsucker. The gap opened and despite giving it everything he had left – darn little – the Wheelsucker could not get back on. After a short and hard chase the Wheelsucker gave up, and sat up to recover. “Aww, CR**!”, thought the Wheelsucker. But then he looked behind him and saw a rider on a TT bike approaching. The Wheelsucker was not sure if this was another rider from the group that had been split off by the logging truck, or a rider he had passed earlier on the climb, but the Wheelsucker was blown and this rider was still going, so the Wheelsucker got on his wheel and recovered. It took awhile to recover, the Wheelsucker had chased with everything he had for 7:45 from the left turn, to giving up and sitting up. But just as the Wheelsucker was about to pull around the rider on the TT bike, he looked up and saw the group stopped at a red traffic light. Both riders caught the group and used the long red to recover. It was also the end of the hard part of the ride. With the exception of one or two more longish not-too-steep climbs there were no more hard efforts.

The ABRTers – except Ryan – rode all the way to the gate and official end of the ride, before turning around and riding easy back to their cars.

In the end a larger-than-normal group made it to that red light, together. It is usually more like 3-6 riders in the lead group.