Let's go for a spin

September 1, 2006

I had to head into Lethbridge to visit with some clients today - didn't think it would take too long, so called John and asked him if he'd be interested in catching lunch. He suggested I bring my bike in and we go for a spin. Sounds good, I've been feeling a little unmotivated to ride lately and thought this might be a good chance, weather was nice (about 27C) and very little wind. John's always fun to ride with, so yeah, I'll bring my bike.

Client meetings go a little longer than planned. I'm finally down to the last one, and call John at 3pm - he's got one meeting left. I agree to call him when I'm done and we can head out.

4:30pm and I'm finally done - John's running late, so I meet him at his office. He didn't bring his bike! So, it's off to Magrath to suit up and ride. While there we decide to call Bart, and the plan quickly becomes "we'll ride towards Cardston, you ride towards us, we'll turn around and ride back to Magrath together - then Bart and I will leave our bikes there, John and his wife can bring them up in the morning when we go for a spin in the morning." Great.

6:15pm - John and I are on the road heading towards Cardston. No wind, this is great! I haven't been on the bike since HHH, so my legs aren't feeling really active. We're cruising along at a comfy 30km/hr, nothing too hard. Riding side-by-side and chatting. Then we hit Shearer's Hill. It's about 2.5km long, and averages about 5%, with a couple of kicks up to 8%. John picks up the pace.

Now, generally I slow down a little while going up hill. Apparantly John hasn't figured this out yet, and drops the hammer. We're climbing at 32km/hr. OUCH! This hurts. I manage to hold John's wheel until the first ease of grade, and then I take the pull. I pull pretty hard the first third of the next climb - and then I just can't hold it, so John comes around. I grab his wheel again - for about the 2nd third, and then I pop. John hammers up to the top and then waits for me on the descent.

We alternate back and forth for the next 15km or so with some pretty good hammering along the way. At the 22km mark we're both looking for Bart, but don't see him yet. Man. This is getting hard! Finally, at the top of the climb at km #25 we see Bart and swing around to meet him.

Now we find out that there's actually been a bit of an East wind pushing us, 'cause now we're fighting it. It doesn't make sense, 'cause the grass isn't moving, the flags are hanging limp, and the windmills ain't turnin' - but the resistance is sure there! You'd think that Bart would be a little tired and not want to hammer too hard after fighting that by himself for the previous 20km he'd riddin' - or that John and I wouldn't want to hammer to hard after having laid it down against each other for the last 25km - and it seemed to be going that way for the first couple of km while we grouped and chatted.

Then we hit a coulee - nothing really steep, but a good descent to pick up speed, and then a climb back out. Somehow I ended up pulling on the climb. I was only trying to maintain pace, but by the time we got to the top the game was on - John hammered around me and I was struggling to hold a wheel. This went on for the next 10km.

Then we hit the false flats coming into Magrath. I can usually pull at around 55km/hr through here, and love the feeling of speed while pulling my friends along, so as I came around to the front I called out "hop on the Barfuss train, boys, I'll pull ya home." I hammered for the next kilometer at a lowly 44km/hr and had to give it up. Bart was next, and he ratched it up more than just a notch. He admitted later he was trying to ride us off his wheel, just to see if he could. I didn't have my HR monitor on, but I"m sure it must have been around 185 - I wasn't getting dizzy yet, but I knew I wasn't far from it. The only thing that kept me holding on through the pain was the fact that I knew it would hurt more if I got dropped and tried to catch back on.

Finally pulled into town, and Bart absolutely killed us. Great, I thought, I'm dead. No more pain. In the morning John's wife and my wife is gonna ride with us, so it should be a nice easy spin, which after this effort I'm really gonna need. A spin in John's book really means a hammerfest these days! Thanx for ripping my legs off and feeding them to me boys!