The goal for Saturday and Sunday was to get in 8 hours of riding... no structure or intensity, just find a way to ride for a total of 8 hours. It was a base mile weekend and necessary to prepare properly for the upcoming season. Saturday was easy enough and I enjoyed a great day riding around Lake Maumelle with a couple of friends joining me along the way. Legs and back were understandably "achy" after 4:15 of riding time but not bad considering it's been since October since I've ridden 4 hours.
Sunday's ride would prove to be a little less pleasant. Hunter and I were planning to ride together and he had some catching up to do after returning from a Cotton Bowl fun fest with Jerry Jones and crew on Saturday and only getting a couple hours in rather than the 4 he had originally planned. We were to ride around the back side of Lake Maumelle and then out to Thornburg, back on Hwy 10 to Williams Junction then on to Paron and back into Little Rock via Ferndale. We started off with Hunter's son Evan, and Michael Lasiter, who both turned back for LR before we reached the foot of Wye Mtn. Hunter and I were on our own now and enjoyed a nice steady tempo and good conversation which was the way I was hoping the ride would go for the remainder of the day. We rode through Little Italy and turned right to head down the back (West side) of Wye Mtn. We were looking forward to what is arguably the funnest descent in the area. We drilled it at the top of the mtn and got up to speed quickly and flowing nicely down the hill until we noticed an 18 wheeler stuck on the inside of the sharp right hand turn that is the crux of the descent. Unfortunately we had to break hard to get around the truck which forced us into the oncoming lane along with a couple of other vehicles. Now we were stuck behind a pick-up truck who couldn't get down the mtn nearly as fast as we could and we ended up riding our brakes for the final disappointing mile of the mountain. Bummer!!
Now that we were down the hill we turned west and rode towards Hwy 10. No longer were we riding at a moderate conversational tempo. Hunter was feeling strong and so we began what would be a lopsided two man time trial for 3 hours back to Little Rock with a short nutrition break at William's Junction. So onward we rode and no sooner had we begun the hard efforts than I look up and we're already at Hwy 10 and turning left over the Thornburg climb. Hunter immediately starts putting even more pressure on the pedals and now I'm in trouble. My legs and back are hurting from the previous day's efforts and I'm already in survival mode with almost three hours left to ride... not good! Got to the top of the climb and Hunter pulls me into Williams Junction for some much needed refueling.
Food and drink now consumed and back on the bike, the rain starts to fall. Great, I guess 8+ hours in the saddle wasn't going to be enough suffering this weekend, now I'm going to have to put on my man pants and go all "Belgian hard man" on this ride. The good news is, I'm feeling really good again and riding well up the Paron hill. We hit the top and start forcing the pace to Paron where we made our turn east towards Ferndale. My back is starting to ache again (lovely) and the legs aren't much better. It's not easy putting pressure on the pedals when the back is suffering, so I nut-up, and do my pulls to the top of the next long hill before we begin our gradual descent into Ferndale. It's raining off and on and the road is soaked. To make matters worse, I'm in trouble and not sure how I'm going to keep this pace. I'm secretly hoping Hunter is going to start hurting and let up a little. In the mean time, we get a call from his daughter, his wife Dustin is not feeling well and he's needed at home... maybe he'll want to stop and call Donnie Van Patter to pick us up and drive us back. Heck, I have over 8 hours already for the weekend, I don't have any need to ride further. "Hunter, want to stop and call Donnie when we get to Ferndale?" He shakes his head.... "Are you sure!?" "I know he's sitting at home watching football and he'd be happy to pick us up, he lives just a few miles from here." Hunter - bastard son of the devil - East, wants nothing of it. He's on a roll and not about to let me throw in the towel. So now that Dustin isn't feeling well, Hunter goes into "rescue the family" mode and really starts riding hard, because, well, he wasn't riding hard enough before! There is nothing I can do but hang on for dear life. I can't pull through so I focus on his rear wheel so hard that I have no idea where we are. I have water spraying into my eyes and mouth and I have to move to the side and partially out of Hunter's draft which makes hanging on even more challenging. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to let up and just ride easy home, which was still over an hour away at this point. I'm out of water again so Hunter gives me his bottle and gets back to his hero ride. I'm taking this day one pedal stroke at a time now as we power through Ferndale. I'm sure my facial expression resembled that of someone being tortured in the dungeon of some medieval castle...because that's exactly the way it was feeling at this point.
We finally make it back to Pinnacle mtn for a short water bottle break and the hammer fest begins again in earnest as Hunter can smell home. I'm absolutely amazed I'm still on his wheel. Hunter promises he'll let up once we hit the park leading to Two River's bridge. The park is only a mile away now but I can feel cramps about to happen and thinking this is just stupid, ease up, let him go take care of his family. He looks back at me and says just a little longer. WTF! I'm toast dude! Put my head down again and the next thing I know, he sits up. Hallelujah!!!! We ride easy the rest of the way but still have to make it up Overlook before I crawl home. I remark how this was definitely a "blog worthy" ride but we didn't have any pictures to commemorate it. Hunter pulls out his phone as we begin Overlook hill and we snap a few shots. I even manage a smile.
The Garmin rarely lies
Hunter - Bastard son of the devil - East
Me
