Saturday June 30th Southern High School Training RideThe Wheelsucker Sneaks Away

The ride was the morning after a violent storm, power was out in many areas and cell phone coverage was spotty, perhaps due to no power to some area cell towers? Some local roads were covered with debris, and trees, power and phone wires, and guy wires were down.

A small group including Tom Aga, C Kick, Jeff Chun, three juniors and the Wheelsucker rolled out. Tom had to short cut early as he had another commitment and one of the juniors wisely decided road conditions were not suitable to hammering and turned around.

Before the ride started, the Wheelsucker had given the juniors instructions to ride at the front and do all the work, and the two remaining juniors, Devon Baumer and Aidan Palmer, apparently took him at his word and spent their day on the front, taking massive pulls at high cadence. The Wheelsucker was sitting in feeling tired (i.e Wheelsucking). Part way through the route, before the rest stop, a rider in ABRT kit was spotted up the road. The energizer bunnies, Devon and Aidan, reeled him in and it turned out to be Mike Wagner, who had arrived at Southern High School apparently moments after the group rolled out, and had short cut down the route 2 shoulder before getting back on the route.

The pace was quite easy a lot of the time, because it wasn’t safe to ride hard over all the debris, and it was risky to follow closely as some debris would be flicked up by the tires of the leading rider, right into the next rider’s spokes. The Wheelsucker recalls climbing over at least three trees, having one lane blocked numerous times, and carefully going around downed wires two or three times.

The Wheelsucker took a few turns at the front, but each time he did he was reminded that he was not feeling fresh. On the Leitch road climb he road steady/hard at the front thinking he had the situation under control, only to have everyone else sprint around and passed him near the top, leaving him gasping and chasing hard to get back on before the drop leading to the wall. But he recovered on the drop and challenged Jeff Chun on the wall. Two thirds of the way up the two were level. The Wheelsucker called down to the engine room for full Wheelsucker sprint power, but nothing happened, and then Jeff put the hammer down and rode away, with the group catching him halfway to the next intersection. Jeff then asked the Wheelsucker why he had not sprinted …

The last road block (tree down) was at Sudley road (just after the intersection where Nutwell Sudley becomes Sudley. The group had stopped for awhile while C adjusted his rear derailleur, so the Wheelsucker was well rested. One of the juniors was first over the tree and went up the climb. The Wheelsucker was second over the tree and thinking the junior was making a move for the finish, the Wheelsucker chased after him. It turned out the junior was not actually trying to ride away, but the Wheelsucker kept going after catching him. The Wheelsucker decided the debris covered road was not ideal for an organized chase and decided to go hard for the finish line on his own. The Wheelsucker never saw a chase and crossed the line first. Of course the Wheelsucker's effort started while everyone else was still trying to clamber over the downed tree ...

The juniors were riding junior gears that forced them to spin high on the flats and descents. While ostensibly junior gearing is intended to prevent juniors from pedaling too hard (they have to spin rather than push hard on the pedals) the Wheelsucker is convinced the real reason for junior gearing is to make it harder for them to embarrass senior riders on flats and descents. In this respect junior gearing is not working well and the Wheelsucker would be in favor of further junior gearing restrictions.

Some of the group made it to Parvilla Cycle and Multisport in time to watch the last riders do the TdF prologue, and then enjoy a pannini and drinks at Kahve coffee.