globecanvas

I think that means you are the danger?

TheKillerPenguin

I am the one who...falls down for no reason!

caloso

My concept of the A ride is that it's the fastest guys in town going as fast as they can. And maybe it's just my perspective of how rides here in Sacramento formed. There were no A or B rides, just rides. After a while there formed a critical mass of riders who were pretty strong but just couldn't hang on and got tired of killing themselves every week only to be dropped, so they formed a B group that did more or less the same ride but left 15 minutes early or later.

But since the A group is always going to be the strongest riders going pretty damn hard, I don't know how you can get a + version of that without importing even faster riders or motorpacing or doping.

TheKillerPenguin

Why not advertise it as thunderdome pace?

TheKillerPenguin

Oh and as for my actual training crap, I'm doing like an hour easy spin today. My throat felt like garbage when I woke up but it feels pretty dang good right now, so with some luck it'll clear itself up before I do some openers tomorrow.

hack

My guess is that an A+ ride would be like just the top 10-15 guys that are always in the rotation/attacking (e.g., chuck, byron, etc) getting together and doing the South River Ride on thursday instead of tuesday while the rest of us did the regular A ride on thursday and wondered why the ride got so easy. So, the rest of us on the A ride bring down the average of the A+'ers.

caloso

Okay, got it. Tuesday night is the A+ ride by that metric. And it's interesting that some of the old time River Riders complain that the Thursday Airport Ride has gotten too hard. It was meant to be a mellowish spin to keep the legs fresh for the weekend, but instead it morphed into a weeknight version of the Saturday ride. Too hard to be recovery or tempo, but too long to be the all-out hypoxia-fest like Tuesday.

Well, all this goes to show you can't please everybody. Especially not bike racers.

Yep

Nope, this is where I haul out some old chesnut like, "it's a small world..." Same guy.

Flatballer

I'll throw in something our ride does that might be useful. Our Thursday ride is no drop and goes whatever pace it needs to to stay together (generally regrouping at the top of climbs, I'm sure it's boring for strong people). Our Sunday morning ride is the long one, and it is also no drop. It starts out in one big group and is flattish and quick but not flying until we get out of town and to the first main climb (30 minutes in maybe? For a speed gauge, I can hang no problem). At that point it's allowed to split into an A/B group. Most people hang on the A as long as possible (this climb is somewhat steep and a few minutes long, and then followed immediately by a couple more exactly like it) and then drift back into a B group. A few team members are designated as sweep, and they'll ride at the back and start dropping back with the first dropped riders (read: my fat ass). The A group continues to hammer as much as they'd like the rest of the time, slowly shedding people, who will drift back and get caught up in the B group. The ride is relatively rural and the roads are all very well marked on the pavement with multiple arrows and a good icon of the team. B group rides no drop with a sweep, stopping at the top of hills if necessary to regroup.

Our rides also stop at every red light and stop sign and obey all traffic laws, center lines, etc. You're asked nicely to obey the rules, and if it keeps happening you're asked not to return. The team has a very strong leader who is nice but doesn't take any crap, especially if you're endangering people or being an *******.

Well, I guess not every person at the stop sign. The group rides as an amoeba, so the first people stop, and everyone else stops, and then once it's clear people roll the stop sign, until it's not clear anymore and then they stop again. If every single person stopped individually, the group would never get through the stop sign and back together. If the group gets split by a red light, it waits and rejoins after the light, we don't run lights.

wens

I had some random guy sort of suck my wheel Sunday. He got dropped regularly as iv was riding endurance, but made up for it by bombing intersections.

He acted super confused when I stayed yelling at him and asked what his problem was. The yelling was very satisfying.

Also made a new acquaintance earlier, rode with another random for a while, but he said hi and want riding like he had a death wish.

hack

Interesting, I know little to nothing about the history of the rides as I'm still pretty new out there. I try to make nice and take my pulls, but it seems there are enough salty personalities out there that you're gonna piss someone off just by existing. In general, I try to make it out there if my workout calendar says "smash your face in today", like it does today. Still haven't done the Tuesday ride, it's just too far for me to go against traffic to make the start.

rideaz

^^ I basically did that ride this morning, except "it's Thursday" :-)

TheKillerPenguin

You have it worse, fast girls might as well have targets painted on their backs with "please half wheel me" written below.

I was seeing a Cat 1 for a long time and the **** people would pull to try and stay in front of her was just silly.

globecanvas

I picked up a set of body fat calipers from the drug store on a whim. I followed the directions and took the measurements a bunch of times and it said 7-8% body fat. I would have thought it was more than twice that, not that I have any real frame of reference for these numbers.

The internet says calipers are not terribly accurate, but factor of 2? This will sound weird, but anyone who knows me, is 7-8% anywhere near possible? Am I that deluded about what body fat should look like?

Grumpy McTrumpy

yes it's possible

TheKillerPenguin

Seems possible. I'd wager if you shaved your face you'd look more like a standard issue biker bobblehead.

Hermes

It may be possible but that is pretty low for an, ahem, older dude. After you measured your skin in the various places, did you have to look in a chart for age brackets to get your body fat? For example, I had my BF done at the gym with skin calipers. After the three skin folds were measured, the trainer looked at a chart for my age bracket. As I remember, it was 15%. If I were 35, it would have been 6%.

I put a BS stamp on the age crap because that assumes that one has visceral fat around the organs which is typical for sedentary people as they age. It is different for athletes. Most systems that measure body fat do some type of flim flam to adjust for age and athleticism.

The trainer agreed that I did not have much fat and it was probably below 10%.

Anyway, if you have ripped abs, you are good to go. If not, you have work to do.

Ygduf

The death on HoP most recently was not anything that couldn't have happened on any centerline-enforced road race. It wasn't a traffic control, it was someone touching the dirt on the outside and bouncing back onto the road, pushing guys left. Wrong place, wrong time. Not so much a factor of it being a group ride.

Ygduf

I have abs but a fat back and legs. Probably 13%bf.

shovelhd

It's probably a little low but not more than a few percent. You look good. Gotta be real careful on the body fat edge.

globecanvas

Yeah, if I were 35 it would have been under 5%. Anyway I'm embarrassed for the post it because it's basically asking "does my butt look big?" And also I just think it's not accurate. Or maybe cyclists all just have fashion model type body image disorders. ygduf is probably like 2% but thinks he's 13%.

spdntrxi

I did the HOP right after the last accident. We had a big talking to from off duty CHP at the beginning (he is a cyclist as well)... I did the medium/light ride..yes they still blew though red lights and passed a farm vehicle on the left. Hard to change people.

aaronmcd

No training today, just 30 miles of easy to moderate commuting. Last night was really late and I was sore from workout+racing, so I set my alarm for a full nights sleep. Other than my wife interupting me at 12:30 coming home from a concert, and waking me up at 6 getting ready for work. Looks like I won't even hit 200 miles for the week. Maybe I'll keep the volume lowish until after Pescadero RR in June.

aaronmcd

I don't understand why whoever is at the front would do that ****. At least the peninsula rides don't run lights unless it's a huge group and it changes mid group.

canuckbelle

Thursday night flogging. New 40km best (67min). I got dropped a couple times, but that's the point. Weighted avg power 178w over 1hr45min.