Proton is a world-class scientist, and a crafty, experienced cyclist. He is a good wheel for me to follow in many instances, and I often do follow him, except in one particular instance: the Thursday Hill Ride.
For much of the time I have been suffering through Thursday climbing agonies, Proton has ridden his own personally modified route. Instead of going up Mountain Gate (the second climb; and a hard one), he continues out MacArthur, up Anglers, and then rides the rest of the regular Hill route (down and back up Great Falls Park, down Anglers, left on Stable Lane, left on River Falls, left on Brickyard back up to Falls, and on). At some point the main pack catches him and he is back in the peloton, much less worse for wear than some of us.
In my hubris and masochism, I have always eschewed the Proton Variant, and dedicated myself to trying to hang on as long as I can to the main pack. Sometimes I would survive. More often I would spit a lung. Either way. It hurt. A lot.
This past Tuesday, instead of joining the group for the weekly speed ride, I felt like going off on my own, and riding my own pace. It was thoroughly enjoyable, and I had a revelation: I want to suffer less on my bike. To put it another way, which will seem obvious to non-cyclists: suffering less will mean enjoying more.
With that revelation in mind, today I set out with the Thursday Group and decided to join Proton when he peeled off at Mountain Gate. I was planning to do it anyway, but there was a lot of firepower in the group (The Mayor, Hulk, TCR Bro, The Professor, Paddler, Bam Bam). Plus, The Mayor and Bam Bam got away at the One-Lane Bridge (riding the pedestrian crossing while the rest of us waited for the light), and I figured there would be pressure at the front to catch them up. So when the group went right on Mountain Gate, I went straight on Mac with Proton.
It was great. We rode medium-hard, swapping pulls, until Anglers. Up Anglers I felt pretty good and cranked out a steady tempo. It was good, hard work, but since we weren’t in the group, there were no killing surges. On the way down into GFP I asked Proton where the pack usually catches him. He replied that they mostly come up to him on River Falls (the last hard climb, really) that takes the group back to Falls, leading to Oaklyn and then the Bradley home stretch. I figured it would be a lot better to be caught at the top of River Falls than at the bottom, and Proton said he could usually tell how he is doing by where he is on the climb out of GFP when the pack is on the descent.
We U-turned at the Gatehouse, and I went medium-hard up GFP, because now I wanted to be sure to get to the top of River Falls before getting caught. As we went through the S-turn at the top of the first pitch, the lead group came flying past in the other direction. The Mayor was right behind them. And then Stoker. And on the VFW section both Sparky and Sweetness U-turned. I thought they might join us, which would have made for a solid gruppetto, but they sat up to wait for the main pack. I was a little skeptical we had enough of a lead to hold off the main group until the top of River Falls, but Proton—who has been making this calculation for a while—said we were fine.
And he was totally correct. We flew down Anglers, went left on Stable Lane, and were just at the top of the River Falls climb when the pack caught us. It was a perfect reunion, and we latched on the back as the train roared up the final gradient to Brickyard, and then up Brickyard to Falls. Stoker came out of the neighborhood to join, having apparently become unhitched on the GFP climb. And Paddler had short-cutted to Brickyard, where he got picked up, which tells you all you need to know about how hard the efforts in the main pack had been. I would have died, I think.
I rode the caboose all the way down Oaklyn, which required plenty of additional effort but was eminently survivable, and then peeled off onto Persimmon Tree to spin home. I had suffered, but not suffered greatly. And wondered why it had taken me so long to try Proton’s Variant.
Since Proton is a scientist, in my head on the way home I tried to express his route as an equation: ABTZ x (ANG + GFP) = PEL x (MTG + STBL + .5ANG +GFP) + RIVFALLS. Whatever the real math, it is a favorable solution. I’ll try it again.
Old Mantra: Ease Into Everything
New Mantra: Suffer Less, Enjoy More
Relative Effort: 162 (“Massive”)
Miles Ridden This Year: 1627
Strava Fitness #: 52 (-10—which is what happens when you take ten days off!)
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