Misery Loves Company

10.08.08

Shooting blood out of your nose is no way to start a group ride…

The temps are dropping here in Boulder and the air is getting crisp and dry (explaining the rouge-rockets). Arm warmers, knee warmers and a vest are a must for the wardrobe this time of year. The colder it gets the better it is to ride with a partner or a group. Misery does love company.

The good folks at Velo News invited me on an “easy” ride road this afternoon. For those of you new to cycling there are no “easy” rides when it comes to industry rides. There is "I'm going to make you throw-up" rides, "Lungs coming out your throat" rides, and "Are you crying?" rides. An industry ride can be defined as a group of guys and girls who managed to trick their spouses into thinking a life of gram counting, carbon coveting and rolling resistance discussions (surrounded by a paycheck) is the way to live.

My legs already felt like dead lumber as we started down the road. I had accumulated climbing footage over the previous weekend to the tune of 14,000 feet. Having moved to Boulder recently I felt it was important to acclimate as fast as possible. A crash course in thin air. The goal was to spin out the weekend’s poisons from my legs. I soon found myself producing more. All aboard! Next stop: Bonk Town…

The Tommaso Forma was my weapon of choice on this fine fall day. When you roll with the big boys it is best to show up on some carbon and Dura-Ace bling. This particular Tommaso in my quiver is built with a 53/39 FSA SL-K Carbon crank. My other Forma is built up with a 50/34 compact crank. As the road pointed up I was looking for the 34 tooth ring when all I had was the 39 tooth ring.

To make matters worse, I was attempting to pull my arm warmers up and lost my grip and punched myself in the throat. That did not help with getting air into my lungs. We were soon headed up Old Stage road. Old Stage tops out at 6357 feet. The climb does not look so bad but it really takes it out of you when you are trying to hang on to the wheel in front of you…and that wheel is moving away.

At the top of the climb the fast ones were nice enough to wait. My Adam’s apple had reappeared and I was almost breathing normal again. The descent into town was more to my liking. We formed a pace line and rolled back to the wonderful town of Boulder. Soon I was back at my desk downloading the ride data from my Garmin Edge 305 and seeing just how close my heart was to exploding into pink bits of matter.

As for the Velo boys…I will be back next week with the compact crank and another week at altitude. It can only get easier right? Right? Hello…Anyone? Right?

Thanks for reading!

Max D.

Team Randall Scott