A Ride on the "D" Train

"D" is for "Donald."

There's this guy, you see, who's a regular on the morning levee training rides. In a way, this particular training ride owes its existence, if not its character, to this guy. For years, I had been in the habit of leaving the house at 6 a.m. every weekday, riding out to the lakefront, doing a 10-mile lap along the water, and returning home. It was all a very solitary routine.

Then, the Levee Board decided to start "improving" Lakeshore Drive and began ripping out bridges, tearing up roads and generally making it impossible to ride the full lap. About the same time, the city started ripping up a section of Carrollton Avenue, the road I use to get to the Lakefront, leaving it temporarily shoulderless and covered with debris. So, a few days a week, when I needed an easy day, I would go out to the levee instead. The group then tended to be a bit kinder and gentler than it is today, and it was always a nice, smooth ride at a moderate pace. More often than not, Donald would sit on the front and pull the short train of riders at a steady 23-24 mph most of the 11 miles out and most of the 11 miles back.

Eventually, I changed my routine and started riding with the levee group every day, since it wasn't worth dealing with all of the traffic and torn up roads just for a few miles on the lakefront. If I needed more of a workout than the group was offering, I would do catch-up intervals, dropping off way off the back and then sprinting back up to the group.

Despite my best efforts to keep the secret, word of the morning rides leaked out and the size of the group began to swell. Strong riders like Matt, Todd, Eddie, Rob, and of course "The Howard" started to show up on a regular basis. By early last year, the Tuesday ride, which was now up to 44 miles, had started to become a little more of a hammerfest.

Donald was still spending inordinate amounts of time on the front, but with speeds often well above 27 mph, nobody owned the front any more. But it was all good and guys were getting stronger and faster and it became what it has become - a Real(tm) group training ride.

So this morning, in keeping with the time of year and respectful of a rather brisk wind, the group was heading out at a pretty easy pace when, and after a few miles, Donald came past everyone and just started motoring. I waited for a second and then started to gradually bridge up, the rest of the group strung out behind me. We weren't going particularly hard like we would during the season; just a bit harder than most were hoping for. Soon enough I made up the gap and tucked in behind Donald.

For the next 10 miles or so, it was just like old times as Donald pulled the long train of riders at a steady 24 or 25 mph. It was nice to be aboard the D Train again, looking out the window at the ships on the river, lounging in Donald's ample draft and enjoying the ride.

The return trip seemed a bit harder for some reason as the group reverted to a regular paceline rotation to battle the wind.

The train was almost derailed near the end of the ride. Up near the front, big Ronnie started to swing off to the right and caught Con overlapping his wheel. They traded a bit of rubber and from my vantage point two riders back it looked like Con was going down for sure. That's when Todd, who was in front of me, bailed out onto the grass. I was about to do the same, and had already grapped a handful of brakes, but then Con got it back under control.

Whew! Didn't need that.