Over the River and Through the Woods

   Although the autumn weather has been a bit erratic, with rainy days coming in bunches and some blustery days mixed in, the temperatures have been reasonable enough that I’ve been staying in some semblance of cycling shape. It does take a bit longer to shake out the rust, but after a half hour or so I start to recall a bit of the form I was in around mid-September.

   I’m not fooling myself into thinking I could rip off a metric century, but anything around the 30 mile mark still feels pretty good. On some of the windier days I’ve turned to my ‘cross bike so that I could take advantage of some of the cover provided by the forests and rock cuts featured around the area rail trails.

   I received a surprise call from a friend returning earlier than expected from his Thanksgiving travels, and he suggested we get together for a ride Sunday afternoon. Scott was eager to put a new Cannondale through a test ride, so I created a kind of all-star route of some of my favorite circuits over the hilly topography around northern Chester County.

   Scott is about 20 years younger than me and is in very good shape, but I put in considerably more miles on a regular basis. He also is a couple inches taller with a more powerful build, so I had a bit of concern how he would handle my pace on this rolling terrain. I told him there were several places we could bail if it turned out too long, or we could simply back off the tempo if needed.

   The day was a bit overcast, but the scenery through the hills and across the farmlands in the region is always beautiful, as Scott pointed out several times, since it wasn’t an area he frequented. He insisted that I send along my MapMyRide details of the route, in case he would want try it out on his own.

   I don’t generally like to lead on rides for the duration, since I feel responsible to hold a pace with no rest, but since I was the one with (mental) directions, I really had no choice. It can also be a bit of a drag to check the location of rider(s) behind you. I was glad to find that he was right with me on all but the really tough sections, although Scott admitted at one point that he needed more hill work.

   The funny thing was that my young friend was a bit gun-shy about the downhills. I felt bad at one point when I turned around to find he was a few hundred yards behind. At least in this case, a fairly short brake application had him catching up easily. I told him that I was too used to following my crazy wife, who bombs down slopes at over 40 miles per hour. I think the image of me nervously following her down a steep descent eased any embarrassment he might have had.

   As we were nearing our return to Scott’s apartment and the bit of low sunlight that was filtering through the clouds began to fade, the temperature dropped noticeably. We both expressed a wise choice of full-fingered gloves, and I was glad to have slipped on some shoe covers to keep the chill from getting through the vented soles. Although we would have much preferred weather for shorts and short sleeves, we noted how it was nice to have such a great workout and not be sweating profusely afterwards!

   During the winter months I will be taking a break from my regular writing pace and will probably be checking in every other week or so. Things tend to slow down in the shop, and I’m determined to sell off a number of the bicycles I currently have in stock before starting any new projects. I did pick up the Monteverde frame from Bruce last week – it looks wonderful. However, the paint has to cure for about a month before applying the VeloCals in order to prevent bubbles from forming underneath the decals due to outgassing.

   I was waiting for the arrival of a few small parts before I could complete the Pinarello Prince, but I was able to put the finishing touches on that project a couple of days ago. I’ll leave you with a few photos of yet another bicycle waiting to find a new home…