Norwell Circuit Race (August 19, 2007)

Here is Ari's recap of the Norwell Circuit Race, where Ari, James, and Smooth flew the colors:

James and I raced in the 3/4's yesterday afternoon. There ended up being quite a few walkups, as the starter said the 3/4 field was @ 45 riders deep.
James and I were happy to sit in for the first 3 laps. An IBC rider went out solo on the only climb at the beginning of lap 4. I bridged up to him and realized no one else followed. We worked together for a few miles and openened up a pretty good gap until the peleton came charging back. I sat up and by the time we were caught, James was on the front controlling the pace and allowing me to sit on his wheel to recover - this was very much appreciated!

The pace seemed to ramp up every lap to the finish. With two laps to go, there was an acceleration on the climb and then again on the false flat that split the field in half. I was lucky enough to be in the front group and continued to follow the attacks leading into the last lap. I worked my way to the front in preperation for the 90 degree right turn into the uphill finish, but had to sprint repeatedly to hold my position. This was hard work and left me with very little gas in the tank for uphill sprint to the finish. I couldn't eek much of an acceleration out of the legs for the sprint and rolled through at 13th.

James looked strong and relaxed all through the race, but got caught on the wrong end of the split in the second to last lap. (Moore flatted and could take no part in the finish).

The course was good and the roads were in excellent condition - no potholes! The road closure is a bonus, too, as it allows the opportunity to actually manuever in the field.

2007 PMC Recap: On Your Left!

Once again, BHCC was well represented at this year's Pan Mass Challenge -- and represented well -- by an outstanding group of riders:

John Diesel Peterson
Dylan "Capt.-She's-Got-No-Power" Sanders
James Power Tap Scott
Ari Hook Shocket
Eric Viking Thorbahn
Andy Ace Willet, and Julie "She must be a Saint" Willet
Bill Zucker & Lolly Delli Boui

Before we start with the recap of the fun 'n floggin, it is important to remember and acknowledge what PMC is really about. You can't pedal a mile of the long ride without seeing the battles that families go through when fighting all forms of cancer, the loved ones lost, the tragic and the miraculous stories, and most of all the courage, love, will power, and life that cancer patients and their families demonstrate every day of their lives. It's not PMC's motto, but applies all the same: they teach us all how to LiveStrong.

It also should be said, as much as we are enamored with our own ride, the volunteers work even harder, and with amazing cheer. They are what make the PMC the best fund raising vehicle in the nation. And without them, we would not have the fun we do.

And now, on with our story:

Prologue

The ride had humble beginnings, when JP and Dylan met at Glover Elementary School Friday morning, and began turning the small ring to pick up Shocket, who was enjoying a last-minute espresso on the side of Route 109 in Westwood. That's right. In true Blue Hills fashion, these three knuckle heads were not content with 190 miles, but had to tack on another 63 by riding out to Sturbridge on the hottest day of the year. Obviously the heat, already stifling, had quickly gone to our brains.

It was all fun in games in the beginning, as we never missed a chance to sprint for a town or state line. However, doubts about the wisdom of the prologue had set in between Medfield and Medway, where a steady, strong headwind and 95 plus degree temperatures started taking their toll. But there was no turning back, rational as that might be. Unfortunately, the route had not been reconn'ed. We expected big, rollers, but beginning with Uxbridge, we ascended approximately 25 miles of climbing with rarely a rest. Every crest or corner brought no relief, just more ridiculous climbing. Whose idea was this?

After a short detour into Connecticut, we spun the last 10 miles to the door of the Hampton Inn. There we quickly showered, met up with the rest of the crew. Together we picked up our registration and, more importantly, our first of many Harpoons of the weekend. (Later, it was Viking who pointed out that Peterson, Sanders, and Shocket seem to have a Pavlovian need to get on their bikes to cycle to any town where they hear Harpoon is giving out free UFOs. See, e.g., Windsor, Vt. - Sturbridge - Bourne - Provincetown. Further testing, however, is needed.)

Day One

The first official stage began with a 4:30 am wake up and the traditional thick Assos apply. The Hampton served a great breakfast, so much so that by the time we arrived at the start line there were thousands of cyclists ready to roll. But that didn't stop our heroes from using a little argy-bargy to claim their rightful spot at the front and strategically near the Porto-Potties. (And a big thanks to Andy's mom for carrying our luggage to the start.)

Stop me if you've heard this before: The "plan" was the usual one. Find a good group and sit in for at least the first half of the 110 miles to Bourne. Alas, BHCC training kicked in quickly, and it only took the first seven miles -- i.e., until the first significant hill -- for the BHCC pace line to form at the front and start driving the peloton up and down the big rollers. The work was spread evenly, everyone anxious for a turn at point. "Now that's a train," one non-club rider was heard to say as the express went by. At one point I turned around and saw over 20 other riders sitting in, with less than five trying to help. That didn't last long. A 44.7 mph descent down the largest roller separated the Blue-crew from the crowd. Average for the first 40 miles: 21.7 mph.


For the next 30, we settled into a steady, rhythmic pace line. Again, each took their turn at point, and lunch at mile 70 arrived quickly. After lunch, few passed the velo-infernos, and most of those were quickly brought back by the steady pace, content to hitchhike. At one point a guy jumped in to say he knew us because Sean used to be his boss. (We doubted his credibility instantly. Can't be the Sean we know.) Feeling so good, we skipped the last rest stop at 100 miles. The group then broke up around mile 105, with attacks, gaps, chasing, bridging, and everyone doing generally whatever it took to empty the tank before the free beer. The massage tables came none too early.





Day Two: "On your left."

The second day will forever be revered and celebrated in BHCC lore as "On your left Sunday."

As in the prior year, the crew slept late, not so much from the Harpoons as much as from Viking's....Well, I don't need to tell you what kept him or us up.

We woke, however, to a catastrophic, cluster f-k of Biblical proportions. A dust storm had covered the thoroughbreds with a complete coat of sand. There was much profanity; Dylan was handing out his attorney's card left and right. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and we located hoses that were intended to fill water bottles, and shoved the insulted steeds under the shower. Ari had the foresight to pack the lube, so that we could saddle up without too much anxiety that the Campy would rebel from grinding pedal strokes.

We hit the road, shaking off the effects, or lack thereof, of bad coffee. The pace line missed Andy's strength. He is obviously in shape to be the first BHCC'er to tackle Mt. Washington! He said was going to ride the second day with Julie but . . . more about that later, or maybe you should just ask Julie about Andy's chivalrous conduct in the headwinds.


Sleeping late has one other advantage: unlike everyone else (and 1900 of the 2000 other riders set off before us), we could watch the sunrise from the Bourne Bridge and the Cape Code Canal as we warmed to the task. After navigating the Bourne Bridge, which is the closest we came to crashing (due to an inability to track stand), we re-formed the pace line along the Canal. Ari gradually ramped the pace up. As we left the water Viking (making up for making us all stop for a nature break after only 5 miles) led the squad inland and, followed in turn by the rest, pushed the group up and down the troughs and peaks of the big first rollers. You could not tell the difference in speed from the uphills and down hills.

And there the infamous moniker attached. See, we had received a rather pointed email from Billy Star warning riders not to play loose with the yellow line, and we certainly got the message. However, with 1900 riders on the road and free UFOs ahead of us at the end, this made compliance somewhat of a challenge. And so, there began the chorus of "on your left," one we never stopped singing until Provincetown. Estimated repeats: 500 times.

For Day Two we had ditched the defective PMC jerseys (one of the few things they don't do right) and broke out the BHCC kit. And fly the colors well we did. We caught a rather strong group of 20 or so riders from the same club. Everyone but Eric took the opportunity to sit in comfortably at a 22 mph pace. (Eric was riding strongly, but we still don't know what he was doing or who he was working for.) This lasted about 8 miles, when Diesel, Shocket and James decided the pace, strong as it was, left something to be desired. They made their way to the front. (I, giving a preview of coming attractions, continued to sit-in to, uhh, record the reaction. Yeah, that's it.) As they pushed forward, I heard more than once, "Hey, Blue Hills, let's sit in with these guys for a while." The club's -gang's --reputation preceded us. You guessed it, the strong pace quickened even more, and now I heard from more than one tongue hanging in the wind, "This is killing me." After doing several strong turns, James floated back with Sanders and Viking. Big mistake, because the pace being set by Hook and Diesel kept opening gaps in the line 5 riders back. They would turn around and look at us, as if to say, "They're your friends, you close the gap." Of course, we did. Following the 40 mile rest stop, and a few dangerous but uneventful miles on the bicycle trail, we found some open road on the trail and went in the drops for some solid team trialing.

Near mile 55 on Day 2, sits Col d'Beach Comber. The long climb may have been the club's finest moment of the weekend, as first Hook, then Diesel, then Hook again, drove the train up the incline, and into a wall-of-a headwind, at a murderous pace of over 20 mph avg. (The speed, I mean, not the headwind, which was gusting higher). No one in the pace line left the drops or broke line for the entire hill! Many of those we passed screaming up the hill appeared to be standing still, or going backwards. The long climb, however, emptied Crash's tank, and he had to be nursed into womb of the pace line, there to suffer in silence and humiliation for the last 20 miles. (At the top of one hill, Peterson tapped Viking on the shoulder and said, slow down, Dylan's being dropped. Viking, too focused on the red meat and free beer he couldpractically taste, didn't get the joke).

The home stretch down Route 6 featured yeoman pulls into a head-on gale by Peterson, Shockett, Scott and Viking, evoking Hincapie, Boogerd, etc. Diesel's pulls were epic efforts. Once we hit the last three miles of rollers in the dunes, the last fun began. Hook tried every trick in his book to solo into Provincetown, but he couldn't shake the grinning Diesel and slobbering Viking. Ari, however,definitely shared man of the weekend honors with the Diesel. After crossing the finish line and a needed shower, we hit the recovery drinks and celebrated a fantastic weekend.



Two Day Stats:
Distance: 190 miles
Avg.: 20.2 mph
Max Speed: 47 mph
The Zuckers' Tandem Avg over 2 days: 18.1 mph!!!

Three Day Stats:
253.8 miles
18.7 mph avg



THE END




Click Here For More Photos From The 2007 PMC



The Zuckers' Recap: A Tandem Odyssey

First time my wife and I have done the PMC and first time we have ever attempted anything like that with our tandem. It's quite an amazing ride. Anyone who hasn't done it should think about doing it. We thought of it initially as a personal challenge both in whether we could go the distance and whether we could raise the money. But it is really not about any individual effort. The challenge is to everyone.. It has become a community of effort that becomes clear as you ride and that makes it so spiritually uplifting--the thank you from the "bystanders" who are participants in their own way, the children, who are out there saying thanks because they are nine or eleven or whatever through funds that have been provided through the PMC, the people who want to help with your ride and actually setup their own little stand for sharing, and all of the volunteers. It leaves you speechless. Coming into the Rehoboth waterstop with the pictures of the kids lining the entrance really brings it home.

I thought we would do the ride once and probably not again. I have to say we are now hooked. On the second day, we got back to the MMA late (we had stayed with friends). The rest of the BHCCer's left by 6 per JP but it looked like everyone else was up and out soon after 5:15 am. When we got there the breakfast tent had closed and our bike was the last one in the field. When we started (probably around 6:30) there was no one around. It was eerily quiet and quite different from the start the day before. It turned out to be a good thing to ride from the very back of the pack. We started picking up riders over the Bourne Bridge, where we passed a couple of riders who must have been in their eighties. We rode leisurely down the canal warming up and started to pass some other riders. By the time we hit the service road, we had really started to move through the pack of riders. It is simply amazing the people who are doing the two day effort. They are not roadies. You really have to admire that they have decided to go the entire distance. You can see the motivation in the suffering that they are going through. That's when it really hit me that the PMC is not about your ride but about everyone's and everyone's participation is what makes it such an outstanding event.

Our ride started in Wellesley. We had thought about Sturbridge but wondered about the logistics with a tandem. On the first day, we felt the heat. Our tandem is a truck. It weighs 43-44 lbs. Great going downhill, good on the flats and good on the rollers once you have built up speed. Tough on the hills and it sure does not accelerate. We were lucky to ride for a while with a titanium tandem (it weighed only 26 lbs) and to take turns pulling. I'm not sure how but eventually they slipped back. The thing about riding a tandem is that everyone tries to duck into your draft and no one wants to share the load. It felt like we were continually riding into the wind on the first day. We had a train behind us for a long time. On the second day, riding through the pack was a little bit difficult especially on Route 6A as cars slow for the slower riders (the drivers were remarkably patient) but with a tandem you are stuck behind the cars. Enforced leisurely pace turned out to be nice because it gave you more of a chance to interact with the people along the road. Also we did some promotion for BHCC as a number of people asked us about it. We actually met Simon (I don't know his last name) who apparently is a member of BHCC and rode with his group during the long stretch before you hit the gradual up that goes into Ptown where we lost a mile or two in speed on the climb. There was a nice guy from Ventura, CA who had been drafting behind us and who also went by us on the climb. When we made the turn to the family finish (5.8 miles to go), my wife piped up- let's finish strong, how about if we go as fast as we can. I have to admit that I was starting to dog it and my response was - "glad you are feeling fresh" but we did pick up the pace to the finish line. What a ride!! To everyone at BHCC, I would say --if you haven't done it, you should!! Everyone could do it. We wound up averaging 18.1 mph for the two days.