Benchmark

There is no better way to start your day than to suffer in the hills with your friends. What today's Bleed From Your Eyes (BFYE) ride lacked in attendance (apparently, there are finals this week or something), it more than made up for in aggression.

HardtailJay, SideshowKevin (he looks like Barry Wicks! I stand by the nickname), and I took to the hills this morning. In last night's email, I explicitly defined the nature of today's ride:

"let's attack the hell out of each other."

and so we did. Kevin dropped his chain at the bottom of Washington Rd., denying him the chance to go toe-to-toe with the old guys. Jay and I watched each other up the first half of the climb, then pushed the pace through the switchback all the way to the top. Brutal.

View from Washington Rd...
this is as elevated as it gets in Central NJ
Kevin flatted in the valley, where he revealed that he had neglected to bring a pump. Or levers. Or a tube. Freshmen. While Kevin was busy fixing the flat (thanks to Jay's generosity), the Hardtail-Afficionado and I conspired to stick it to Kevin. It's not cruel if you advertise it in advance, right?

As we hit the lower slopes (oddly enough, the steepest part of the climb), I jumped hard, and Jay followed. Sorry, Kevin! We duked it out rather aggressively on the shallower stretch at the top. That one hurt, and there was a lot of fish-out-of-water gasping on the descent.

Once we regrouped, it was time for the 5k sprint of doom. The nature of this road makes it just as conducive to last-minute sprints as to suicidal solo attacks... it all depends on who's willing to play.

Jay commenced hostilities with an abrupt opening salvo at 4k to go. I think he was just trying to test our legs and see how we would respond. With 3 to go, I put in an attack, recovered as best I could, then attacked again (a one-two punch patented by the Jenksster). Both times, Jay chased me down... Kevin sat in, showing some real racing savvy.

To put things in perspective for my non-racing friends, these flat-road attacks were well in excess of 30mph. The SpikyHairWills and ElSalvadorean-StageRacers in my audience (did you know that a National Champion reads my blog? true story) are probably yawning, but every once in a while it's nice to step back and appreciate the utter ridiculousness of propelling ourselves that quickly, and on tires measured in millimeters! Alas, no speeding tickets today.

Jay put in a vicious attack with about 1k to go. He caught me by surprise, forcing me to dig deep and plow through the wind. I clawed my way back to his wheel, fighting for every inch and the increased draft it afforded me, until finally I was hiding from the wind. Jay glanced back at me, and when he turned forward again I shifted up and counterattacked.

So yeah. That hurt. It was fast, and it was every masochist's dream. That'll get the blood flowing, that's for sure.

Morning Glory is one of those deceptively tricky hills to climb. It is shallow enough to be a big ring climb, but it is still steep. We ride it fast enough to let wind resistance significant factor into the tactics, but the grind can sap the energy out of your legs if you let yourself get pushed to hard. The best part about it, frankly, is the very steep, very straight descent back to Bound Brook. Weeee!

As far as I can tell, I've earned the BFYE overall leader's jersey. And by "as far as I can tell", I mean that I announced last night that today would yield a new overall leader, because I've lost track of everyone's points and I like being arbitrary.

So, yeah... benchmarks. Being the sort of guy who's not averse to monotony in his routes, I have a few favorite rides, of which this loop is one. When I rode hill repeats last fall, not 8 months ago, I would do so on Washington Rd. 5:00 became my benchmark. On one particularly brutal ride with Will and Charlie, I had to turn myself inside out to chase them, yielding a new Personal Record of 4:30. I thought I would die.

This morning, I clocked myself at 4:04.

Benchmark.