Tired Legs All Around

I was in the middle of the lake at sunrise, ten miles from either shore on my way over to a little training ride on the northshore. I watched the sun climb above the horizon and then glanced down at the outdoor thermometer on the dashboard. Eighty-three degrees at sunrise and nothing but clear skies ahead. It was going to be a hot one. The plan was to get on the road by 7 am for a quick 65 miles, finishing up well before the temperatures got entirely out of hand. It was a nice plan, but the reality was that only six guys showed up, most arrived a bit late, and our 7am schedule experienced some significant slippage right from the start.

Although I thought I'd taken it fairly easy during yesterday's Giro Ride, my legs felt tired and stiff, and it was clear early on that I wasn't the only one with that problem. It seemed like everyone had done a pretty long and fast ride on Saturday. As if that wasn't bad enough, the ride turned out to be a series of unexpected problems interspersed with good but interrupted riding.

There had been a rumor that a bridge was out just north of Enon, and indeed it was. It crossed more of a swampy area than an actual stream, so we shouldered our bikes, threaded our way around the heavy equipment, jumped a few gaps, and made it to the other side with dry but dirty shoes. Then we had a flat. About half-way through the ride we decided to add a few out-and-back miles so we could stop at the store in Pine. It was already starting to get hot. I sucked down a can of cold lemonade and we headed back to our original loop. Jason and I somehow rode off the front for a few miles until we got back on course, we regrouped, and finally resumed the ride, only to stop a mile or two later when Jason noticed a problem with his rear wheel. It turned out that one of the hub flanges on his Neuvation wheel had broken off, leaving one spoke dangling in the breeze and the wheel dramatically out of true -- dramatic enough that it was hitting both the chainstay and brake quite badly. Naturally, we were at about the farthest point from the start. A couple of the guys had multi-tools with rather bad emergency spoke wrenches, and so after much stripping of nipples we finally got a couple of the opposing spokes loosened enough that, if we cocked the wheel over in the dropout just right, and loosened the brake cable completely, it would clear the chainstays. I asked Jason to make sure that when he talked with the Neuvation folks he point out that the mangled spoke nipples were the result of our emergency fix and not someone's incompetent attempt to overtighten the spokes. Anyway, needless to say, Jason wasn't going to be doing any out-of-the-saddle climbing today, so I dropped back after a couple of climbs to help pace him and Jack back up to the group.

We ended up stopping again in Enon for more water, although it wasn't enough to keep Jay's legs from cramping up toward the end. The last five miles felt like the classic mid-summer road ride death march. I wasn't feeling all that terrible during the ride, but by the time I got home and finished a few hours of painting my legs were hurting. Tomorrow's going to have to be easy!

So right now it's around 10 pm, my legs ache, my right calf is twitching, the temperature outside is around 85F, and the air is filled with the sound of a/c compressors. It must be summer!