Day 56: The Mighty Mighty Peloton

Course: Niles, OH to Pittsburgh, PA

Distance:

Terrain: Hills

Conditions: Humidity

Today I rode with Matt and Saurabh (SAR-ubb). I was feeling pretty good out of the gate, but we had some trouble early on. Saurabh kept having bike troubles, so we fell back to about fifth pace line. We kept cooking though, and eventually made our way to third. We joined up with the second pace line, and were riding pretty close to them for a while. Soon our two pace lines caught up with the first pace line, and before we knew it we were essentially a peloton. A car behind us wouldn’t dare pass us, and a truck in front of us was going relatively slowly, so we were pretty much boxed in. We couldn’t ride single file since the cars were so close, so some of us were forced to take the lane. We stayed in peloton formation for about 3 miles until we were able to split up a bit. After all, if a crew van saw us we’d probably be racked on account of the terrible moods the crew has been in lately. That and because peloton formation is way against the policies and procedures.

We all got red flagged at the next stop since there were about 27 turns for the crew to mark. There, we decided to try a six-man pace line out of the gate. My pace line left first, and we slowed a bit to wait for the second pace line. When they finally caught up, we made one giant pace line and began rocketing down the road at a steady 25-30 mph, depending on who was pulling. There was so much time to rest that a one mile pull was nothing. If you were sitting in the back, you could hardly pedal but still draft and remain at the speed of the person in front. We did that for about 12 miles until we hit hills and separated. My pace line wanted to finish first pretty badly since we all hadn’t in a while, so we pushed ourselves pretty hard and came out on top in front of some pretty good riders.

After the ride, we staged up and did an arrival at the Three Rivers Association for people with developmental disabilities. It finds ways to keep them active. Build America was there so we got to see those guys again. They’re goofy, but all pretty nice.

Later that night we went to a pretty cool bowling alley to just have fun with the team itself. It wasn’t a friendship visit, so guys got pretty competitive. The alley was really cool, too. It was sort of old-timey and the balls were returned above ground. That’s something I’ve never seen before, so if you’re reading this and thinking, “That’s not that ‘old-timey’….” then I’m sorry.