Bloomin’ metric

 

Fairfield County, ct

Sunday, 23rd May 2010

62.83 miles, total climb 3,720ft, average speed 15mph


6.30am and the alarm goes off.  Out of bed and to the living room.  Pop open the Mac, urgh, Lucia has bailed.  Has Kimberly?  She’s on the fence.  Urgh, Alan has bailed too.  Abraham, how about Abe?  Surely not Abe.  Dialled his number, he’s in, of course he’s in.  The chance of a little rain isn’t going to stop Abe.  Maybe Kim can be swayed now.  Lucia too.  Urgh, Neile has bailed, now Kim back on the fence.  Lucia thinking about it, maybe we’ll see her in CT she says.  Maybe I’ll see Kim at the train station.  Fingers crossed.


Get to Grand Central, the Dunkin’ guy has put sugar in my coffee.  I hate sugar in my coffee.  My legs are sore from yesterday’s A-Sig grad ride.  Am I making a mistake here? Ahh, but wait a minute, friendly NYCC faces, Chuck and Liz, both of whom i met last year in the B-Sig.  They’re smiling, excited for the ride, gets me excited too.  They tell me Neil, not to be confused with Neile is coming too.  Great.  Pals to ride with.  Happy days.


I turn round and there’s Kimberly and next Abraham, and yes, Lucia meets us in East Norwalk, things are looking up!  We run into Jon and it’s game on.


We’ll take it easy we all agree, but before you know it we have a pretty steady rotating paceline going, instinct kicking in courtesy of the A-Sig training hammered into us over the last three months or so.  The weather improves steadily to a full on gorgeous day, the worry of sunburn taking over from the worry of a soaking and we have a ride on our hands.


A fantastic day then?  Yeah, but not without hiccups.  Did I mention Lucia had brought the wrong shoes for her pedals?  Nothing a quick, expensive change of pedals won’t fix.  And Liz who managed to stretch her chain to constant slipping which cost her and Chuck a section of the ride and a ferry to the next rest stop in the SAG wagon, and my chain, which suffered the same fate as Liz’s but as luck would have was fixed courtesy of a spare link and a lucky passing from friendly NYCC member Jacques.


The fix was not without issue though as it cost me my climbing and hammering gears, so I laboured for the last forty two miles, still managing to beat last years average speed, but that’s another story...