Just 99 miles to go

Friday, September 14, 2007

God-damned roadie.

Oh yeah, I'm just on a "I hate roadies kick" this week.

Thursday I join the weekly , Oxon Hill Rosaryville ride.
Normal crew is there with the exception of a guy I haven't met before.
They send me out first in the lead cause they "still" think I'm fast.
They obvisously didn't see my performance at the 100, but lets stay on subject.
I'm taking a pretty easy pace, trying to get a judge on how fast this new guy can go.
I hated when I was a new rider and would practically have a heart attack trying to keep up with a group. I didn't wanna do this to this guy.

Everytime I pick the pace up to moderate I'd lose the group so I'd speed up a little than back the pace way back to let them catch up.

I get to the largest hill and can see them back in the distance. Its just a straight smooth ascent with absolutley nothing techy about it.
For Rosey regulars, this is the hill about 2 miles in after the bridge going clockwise.
I crank up the hill at my normal push myself-but don't blow up pace. I get to the top and stop expecting to have to wait a minute or two for them to catch up.
The new guy is right there on my ass!
I look at him and say " Your a roadie, aren't ya?"
Yup, he tells me.
We got a good little laugh outta that.
He could spin away on the smooth straight shots but throw some tight curves and roots at him and all of sudden he sweeping.
I learned my lesson on the remaining part of the ride.
He never got a chance to catch back up.

I don't get it.
I put quite a few road miles in over the summer, 2 centuries in 4 weeks plus alot of mid week training.
I didn't see any huge ass gains.
I gotta figure what I'm doing wrong and get it fixed by next year.
I think I'm at a genetic dis-advantage for road riding and climbing ANY hills.

I'm debating on how badly I wanna ride fast.
I could get down to under 200lbs and look like some of these sickly looking, flat chested, fast guys.
I'm sorry fast guys but you gotta admit, your not the best looking things to see walking on the beach in the summer.
Hmmm, look Ok and be real slow or look like a walking skeleton and just be slow.

All this trash talk about roadies is just that , trash talk in good fun.
I know I've got more road miles in this year than MTB.
Although the skinny bastards could wave when they see me on the road.

2 comments:

Jim said...

I don't think loosing muscle is a wise thing to do. Its too important to your health and too difficult to get back as you get older. I also think its underestimated how important upper body strength is in biking (mountain that is). If your going to focus on your body, shed any fat you have and make sure your core is rock solid to make use of that upper body strength. Lift for endurance (lots of reps) instead of building.

I would guess those skinny biker guys would also drop you on a flat even where weight doesn't matter. I know they do it to me when I try to hang with the B/BB riders. I think the reason roadies are so much better in those cases is the training is better. You (meaning me) need to add intervals and hill training on a road bike. Mountain biking just provides way too many breaks. Concentrate on increasing your usable power.

Just my thoughts... not that I will do them myself.

Unknown said...

I pretty much agree with Jim! The biggest disadvantage you have is the extra O2 needed to support your muscle mass being higher. You have advantages over them in basic control and just plain being able to horse the bike around offroad. ;)

I also think it would be detrimental for you to shed muscle mass. Don't sweat it, different tools for different jobs and this applies to bodies as well :)