TNT Training Ride: Germantown, MD

Got up at the butt-crack of dawn to get ready--it would be about an hour's drive up to the ride-start. Eric was SAGging for us, which turned out to be extremely good (more on this later), and I got a ride up with him.

As soon as I stepped out of the car, I knew today's ride would be the suck: It felt like it was 35°F out, and damn was it windy. Undaunted (outwardly, anyways), we all prepped our bikes and mentally prepared for our 41-mile ride around Germantown and Poolesville. Today I'd be taking it a little slower, since my usual 'crew' of faster riders (Chuck, Chris, and Josh) weren't there (to be replaced by the maniacal and potty-mouthed Kelly), and I did 22 miles yesterday, and I had had only 4 hours of sleep after seething for a few hours yesternight before buckling down and cleaning out my bike from the week's wet rides.

We started, and I joined Sally and Coleman and we rode out, chatting it up as we (somehow) wove our way to the front of the pack (as much as I said I didn't want to go fast, we ended up going fast anyways). We had fun climbing hills and bombing it down the other side, only to have all of our speed evaporate as we climbed the next hill. Hill after annoying hill, we made our way to the SAG stop at mile-17. After stopping and munching on various complex carbohydrate-foods, we took off again with a renewed energy, helped along by the first appreciably flat stretch of road.

And then we hit the hills again. Another thing we fought against was the rough pavement--yet another reason I hate Maryland (aside from their drivers and asinine firearms laws)--none of it was smooth or uniform. Riding to the right (as we're supposed to do) left us in the super-bumpy margins, or less-traveled and therefore less well-maintained portions, and traveling in the center of the lane was bad because it forced cars to go around us on the wrong side of the road (which they did anyways, whether we were in the center or not).

Hill after hill, we climbed and bombed and climbed again, until we got to a turn on Fisher Road: we took a left and headed through Poolesville, and continued until Sally yelled that we missed a turn, according to her computer's mileage and its discrepancy with our cue sheet's directions. We turned back, intending to double-back and retrace our steps, but then we encountered Team Captain Jane and her husband Ned and Cathy, who were headed in the same direction we were headed. Figuring that, since she's a Captain she knew where we were going, we turned around again and followed her.

Lo and behold, we got more and more lost, riding all the way out to White's Ferry (which crosses the Potomac River back into Virginia). Then we were joined by two more riders, who were also lost.

After calling other team captains and our SAG support, we turned back and climbed the biggest hill ever--getting down to White's Ferry had been all-downhill, since it crosses at (practically) sea-level. Getting back up to Poolesville...sucked. A lot.

We regrouped in Poolesville and, after calling around a bit more and meeting up with still more lost riders, we discovered that the cue-sheet had been marked incorrectly: instead of a left on Fisher, we were supposed to make a right. We had just taken a 14-mile detour.

We rode on, furious about the cue sheet (which, apparently, had been mismarked in the same manner last season, and no one actually got around to fixing it). Stringing out, it became just me and Sally riding together at a slow, exhausted pace. Either of us could have physically ridden alone, but One Is The Loneliest Number, and we used each other as motivational support; I don't think either of us would've been able to finish the ride (mentally) without the other. I don't know about her, but I had something of a protective, don't-leave-your-wingman (Iceman and Maverick) mentality--I developed a habit of checking over my shoulder for her every few seconds, to make sure she was still there. If she wasn't, I'd look further back and slow to a more manageable pace until she caught up again(usually this happened on hills, which were made much harder for me because I was riding my 5200, which has a double-crankset, with no 'granny' 30-tooth chainring to make the hills easier).

After 54 cold, gruelling miles, which included hills of all sorts and sleet/freezing rain and snow pelting our faces, we made it back to our start area, and I symbolically and ceremoniously unclipped my cue sheet and threw it to the ground in mock disgust. We followed the cue sheet to the letter! Too bad the letter was "L" when it was supposed to be "R", which meant that we finished nearly last even though we had pulled to nearly the head of the pack.

Statistics:
Distance: 54.05mi
Saddle Time: 3h45m51s
Actual Time: 4h
Start Time: 8:45AM
End Time: 12:45PM
Start Outside Temp: Cold°F
End Outside Temp: Slightly-Less-Cold°F
Max Speed: 31.6mph
Avg Speed (saddle): 14.3mph
Avg Speed (actual): 13.5mph

The moral of the story? Don't blindly trust the cue-sheet--check it on a map (i.e. Google Maps) for sanity before clipping it to the bike.