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Hardest Ride Ever
- SlingShot
08/04/08

this page last updated: 01/05/2013 11:29:58 AM

Today Leah showed up from California looking for a few (as she calls them), "...good rides while I'm in town."

The problem: Leah is a Cat 2 Racer and in just about the best shape of her life, so when she says "good ride," she might be referring to something altogether different from what I might call a good ride.

In any case, the likelihood of excruciating pain on my part aside, I still was not that excited to find myself on a ride with her and the Widder slapping the shit out of each other while I was trying to get Mary to focus on her training.

In fact, I had complained to Widder that I wasn't happy about spending another ride trying to explain stuff about the 23+ Widder's Hump once more to another person who didn't get it, wasn't about to get it, and would deny getting it even if they ever did get it.

Oh, by the way, below is a photo of Leah showing up for the ride, just so you get the idea in case my thousand words don't paint the picture correctly.

In any case, I was already bent out of shape about wasting another ride trying to explain what Mary is doing, when Leah showed up looking her standard sleek, strong, and fast self. That put me in even less of a mood to get hurt for no particular reason.

Things were stacking up for this to be the hardest ride of my life.

Then we were at the Chester Train Station when it happened, and I was so shocked I almost fell off my bike.

I said something about the warmup exercise Mary was doing, how we had developed it, how it fit into the overall plan, how much improvement we have already seen, plus some more stuff.

Then I just sat back a little, took a breath and braced myself for the standard, "Have you guys lost your minds. Who the fuck do you think you are? Why don't you just say Mary's going to try out for the Olympics? What idiotic bravado! A 23+ Hump? Get real!"

Except, it never happened.

Leah only said, "Sounds like a pretty good goal to me, and the things you are doing are..."

Well, she was so impressed with our approach that she just started going on and on about how every little detail was just exactly like all the top trainers in California are doing as they train all the world class athletes living there.

I guess she knows it to be true, because that is who she rides with. She lives down the street from Floyd and all, so there's that.

Don't forget, back in the day Leah rode with Turtle Boy and that crew. She was also pretty clear on knowing who Lauren Warren is. Finally she started going on and on about how wonderful she just got treated by Frank at Bryan's Bikes in Cornwall.

Apparently, Frank tweaked her back-up bike (that she had shipped here from California), so she can leave it at her mom's to ride when she's in town. She said he glued on her sew ups and made the whole thing way past ready to ride, and showed an incredible command of the details of racing and performance cycling while he did it.

Plus he did it all for a pittance and made her feel special at the same time.

Well, Leah is special, but this has been a bit of an aside. and I would post  a link to Bryan's Bikes, if I could have found one. Maybe on Leah's say so, we'll have to do for Frank what we did for the doctor... all for free of course.

Back on the ride, Leah noticed how Mary was restricting movement in her ankles, and mentioned that was part of the problem with her bouncing around when she's over 150 rpm cadence. I showed her how that is one of the things we are trying to fix with the Three Over Easy Zero G Rollovers, and by golly she got it.

She also had some great suggestions for a few other things, but we ain't telling you what they were.

The only thing she found odd was the weird names I've been making up for the ad hoc exercises I come up with for Mary, and also how our approach training with the power meter has shifted almost every standard practice to the almost exact opposite of how it was done before.

Still, when Mary tried her max jump in Monroe, and Leah said, "But doesn't the wind change all this...," she got to the next point on her own, and well before my saying, "No, the wind has nothing to do with it. In fact the wind helps her bring her wattage up."

The look of stark realization of truth on Leah's face was breathtaking. And like I said, she got to the punch-line before I delivered it, "Oh, right. It's about the watts, and those don't change!."

I went on to mention how the first several chapters in the book are titled, 1) Impossible, and yet..., 2) Everything You Ever Heard about Cycling is Wrong, 3) Don't Chase: catch, 4) There is No Wind, 5) There are No Hills.

She questioned each title in turn, understood each as totally rational, and ended by saying, "That is exactly just the way all the top time trialists are training. It makes perfect sense. You guys are doing great."

She asked, "But doesn't everybody's body dictate changes in approach?"

I said, "Here are the basics: Fewer watts for every mph. Fewer heart beats for every watt. Less effort for every heart beat. How could you want to do that differently for anybody?"

She got it. Maybe you do, too.

Then she tried to understand how it is that so many people are treating us like we are out of our minds for doing this. She never did get that one.

Unfortunately, all the lovey dovey shit had to come to an end, and she finally pissed me off big time.

We tried to get her to stay in town long enough to do the Hump, so I gave her a run down of how fast the FRONT of the FRONT GROUP was doing it. I figured a little challenge would get her interested.

The bitch only snickered and said, "What? That is as fast as they can do it. Are you kidding me? Only 24+? And nobody's ever gone over 25+... even working together?! Look, I don't mean to be insulting, but I have better things to do."

Then she told me about her upcoming race schedule, and her recent accomplishments, but I really didn't care. Barely listened.

"Look," I said, "Those guys on the Hump ain't no chumps. They are doing the best they can."

Just because Leah is some fancy pants rider from California, where they never have to worry about the weather fucking up their training, and where a whole motherfucking culture has sprouted up around cycling, mountains, and hard competitive riding (and power meters now), that is no fucking reason for her to insult the riders here.

Look, the locals have all got jobs. Leah gets to take the whole motherfucking summer off just because she has a Masters Degree in Fine Art and gets to teach High School Art classes for fun for part of the year.

Fuck her.

On the way back from Monroe, I put Mary on a 3 minute 200 watt interval (that's an easy 21 mph pace, for those of you without meters) in order to test if she should ride tomorrow or not. Leah decided to brush me off Mary's wheel... just in case.

At first I thought, "Oh, good. Extra draft," but then I realized, "I've got work to do. I'm not going to get another opportunity like this to have a top notch rider pacing next to the Widder, so I can compare, and make sure I'm not out of my mind with regard to Mary constantly rocking her hips too much."

I settled into watching their two butts, and let me tell you, if you ever want a world class exercise for focus and concentration under extreme distraction, just get behind these two women and try to concentrate on whether or not the Widder's ass is moving correctly, or Leah's ass is moving even more correctly, or whatever.

It was the hardest ride of my life.

Well, at least Leah got to learn a new stretching exercise that Mary found online for her piriformis, and tomorrow we are all going to do the Hump on our own (what fun), because Leah is really interested to find out just exactly what I mean about the technique we will be using to overcome inertia at all the turns for the (now a certainty) 23+ Widder's Hump.

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