On Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:52:11 -0700 Larry Colen <[email protected]> wrote:
> Interesting that you call that a century. The one ride I did of that > length they called a metric double. Larry, hereabouts a 100km ride is a called century ride and a 160km (100 miles) ride is called an imperial century. > I've never drafted a truck, but back in college when I did longer > rides, I did a lot of wheelsucking. > > Perhaps the best one was the time I rode the Davis Double Century > solo. My goal was to be back by dark, and when I was about 50 miles > out it looked like there was no way I was going to make it. Then a > tandem went past like I was standing still, so I asked if I could > draft. They said "no problem" and I jumped in behind them. Within a > couple of miles the draft line had grown to about 30 bikes. > > The reason the tandem was running so late was that at the start of > the ride there are all these huge packs and draft lines of 50, maybe > 150 bikes. Every year, someone will see a cop car at one of the farm > road intersections and before they notice the cop is controlling > traffic will slam on their brakes to keep from running the stop sign > that they were going to blow off. It is not a good thing when > someone suddenly slams on their brakes in the middle of a draft line. > > On another ride (I think it was the metric double that I did without > training, on a bike without a front derailleur, I was chatting up a > girl I had caught up with and she said she needed to back off the > pace. I said she could draft me if she wanted. With her back there I > slipped into the zone and pretty much forgot about everything until a > while later, I heard a voice saying "you've pulled the line for a > quite a while, I can lead if you want". I looked back and there was a > long draft line behind me. nice story. thanks for sharing. when we do group rides here, it is usually about six to eight people and within the 20th km we are all spread out far and wide.... so never done something like that... :) -- regards, subash -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
