One man's D2R2 is another man's R2D2

As the New England cycling blogosphere is no doubt atwitter, D2R2 was yesterday. As you probably want to know, my gearing was (463:2973:9i)/y=mx+b; my tires were ovoid, 900m wide and filled with nitrogen and I tattooed the cue sheet to my tongue in Hebrew.

Actually, there is a funny story about my bike. No wait, it’s not that funny. The Jake the Snake had some weird flat tire problems. I don’t know why. It seemed like it was just a puncture and I removed the sharp, but Johanna and I went for a ride a month or so ago and she got three flat tires in five miles. That precipitated me picking her up and getting followed by the Wethersfield police for the very suspicious activity of picking someone up from Mill Woods Park. I wonder if the cops follow all the moms picking their kids up from Little League, too.

Anyway, I put in a new tube, it held air over night, so I took the bike for a longish ride on Thursday. It was working well and I was having a good time riding the Avon town forest trails, until I shifted my derailleur into the spokes. The derailleur was ok, but I bent the hanger somewhat. I got it back, though I couldn’t pedal backwards too well. Although, it’s rare that one needs to do very much back pedaling beyond a half a stroke or so. I pressed my luck and kept going out to Neapaug and then up Breezy Hill. I explored some of the Canton Land Trust trails, which are very cool. I should take some other people out that way. My hope was that Thursday was Benindorm’s late night and I was in luck. I was also in luck in that they’re a Kona dealer, so they’d probably have the hanger in stock and I wouldn’t need to get one of those stop gap universal hangers. They did and I rode home. I also ended up getting sort of lost, or at least on the wrong roads in Avon. I figured growing up there, I’d know better where to go.

I swapped out the hanger and everything seemed to be working ok drivetrain-wise when I rode up and down the driveway a few times Friday evening.

Johanna and I had pizza at Park Lane. Thankfully, she gave me a ride home, so I didn’t have to ride in that flash flood-inducing thunderstorm Friday night.

I drove up Saturday morning in the drizzle and the ride (with chip timing!!(??)) commenced with drizzle. As you may know, the first stage of the ride has like 7,000 feet of climbing. Drizzle and cool temperatures were perfect. The sun came out around a little before the first checkpoint in Heath. While there was some steam rising off the road on the climb to it, the temperature was still low and the effect was just pretty. Sadly, the sunflowers were gone from the Heath checkpoint.

The rest of the ride followed pleasantly enough. I ate a lot of pickles to avoid cramps and generally felt pretty good. I ate less than I thought I would, but I’ve been eating less on rides lately. Unless I ride with Salem, riding with him makes me wicked hungry and I’m always feeling like I’m going to bonk. I think that’s true for the most part, though, because if I ride the pace that my body is comfortable with me riding, I can manage food and fatigue better. This is probably why I’m a terrible racer.

Patten Hill is no longer my demon and I’m convinced that Hillman is the hardest climb on the course. It’s right  after Archambo and it just gets looser and sandier the deeper you get into the climb.

At times I rode with others and chatted, but I’ve never really got anything interesting to say.

I got back around twenty to four, drank a FLT Preservation Ale (not a porter day), ate some macncheese and a pulled pork sandwich, packed up and drove home. Even with a stop to pick up some miller lite, I was home at 5:15. Just felt like another day at work.

Thanks to the Franklin Land Trust & Sandy.

The end. I didn’t take any good pictures this year.