Long rides, such as brevets, tend to spread riders out. The small differences in ability and speed can amount to huge distances over the course of a long ride. Let’s say you average just 0.3 mph faster than me. If we are riding the same course, after three hours, you will be most of a mile ahead of me. Just about anywhere east of the Mississippi that means you will be completely out of sight.
Strange things happen on a long ride. Take the example above. I’m chugging along, aware that you are somewhere ahead of me, likely a long way ahead, since I haven’t seen you in over two hours. Now suppose you suddenly feel a desperate need to take a “nature break.” You pull off the road, lean your bike against a tree, and discretely slip into the bushes. I’m chugging along at an average of, say, 15 mph. That means I will cover the 0.9 miles between us in three minutes and 36 seconds. If you are off the bike for a total of seven minutes, I’ve just gotten far enough down the road so that you won’t catch me for another three hours.
Now, let’s suppose that it’s late in the day. I know we are going to be riding into the night, and I would like for us to be together to share lights and companionship in the coming darkness. So I increase my speed. I’m using a lot of effort to try and catch you, but I don’t know that you are now behind me.
You have reached a similar conclusion, and you think that I am still “back there somewhere.” So you slow down to let me catch up. Oops!
A few years back, I was riding a brevet in the Florida panhandle. The route went into southern Alabama. The road was a series of long, very low rollers. It was a beautiful day. This was a 200K, one of the shorter brevets, and I expected to do it well before dark, so I was riding it on my light and fast bike. I was feeling good and a bit frisky.
After the first control stop, I got in with a group. We were riding well, pacelining, exchanging leads often enough. Each of us took a few minutes on the front. The group was really cooking right along. It came to be my turn to lead, just as the route turned from heading west, to a south bound road. The road character changed. Suddenly the “rollers” were a bit shorter, and a lot steeper. (Bear in mind, most of my companions were Florida riders, and not used to hill work.) We had also picked up a stiff headwind. I’m a fairly large guy. Folks like to draft me in the wind. I didn’t want to let the group down. I wanted to keep up the pace we’d established.
As chance would have it, the second biggest rider in the group was right behind me. I couldn’t see around him. He was right on my wheel, so I figured the whole group was back there. I watched my computer, and focused on keeping up the pace.
I thought things were going well. I was getting a bit tired, but there was one more big hill ahead, and I didn’t want to hand off the lead with that ahead. I figured I’d give folks the courtesy of a lead exchange on the downhill side, so I redoubled my efforts to keep the pace up.
At the top of the hill I signaled I was pulling off, and moved out to the side. That was when I was able to see the road behind well for the first time in quite a while. The group was nowhere around! I looked farther back. They were broken into a very loose collection of stragglers, and were just then topping the previous hill, over a half mile back! Yikes! I’d cracked the group. Completely unintentionally. I felt like a complete jerk.
I spent the next half hour dropping all the way back and collecting everyone in the group, pulling them up to each other, and re-establishing the unit. That was tiring.
We hit the lunch stop just after I’d gotten us all back together. I’d like to think that what happened next was just chance. The group left the stop while I was inside the store, in the restroom. I left the lunch controle alone.
As I rode through the afternoon, I was looking for some company. I’m nearsighted. I can’t resolve objects at a distance well. This is especially true of objects at a distance in my mirror.
The route flattened out. The afternoon sun shone down and the glare was pretty bright. I thought I saw another rider, well out ahead of me. At almost the same time I spotted a small dark shape at the edge of the road, well behind me. (Remember, this is rural north Forida.) I thought to increase my speed slightly and maybe catch up to that rider ahead. I reasoned, I could talk to him or her, and maybe persuade them to have us slow and let that following rider join up.
I’d seem to be gaining on that distant rider a bit. Then I’d look down at my computer, or check my cue sheet and cross-check it with my GPS. Each time, when I looked up, that rider was again off in the distance. I never seemed to get closer than about 0.1 mile, or farther back than about a quarter mile. The rider behind seemed to be doing about the same.
Late in the day, I reached a decision. “To heck with that guy ahead!” I thought. I’m going to stop and wait for the one behind me. I slowed the bike to a stop and put a foot down. As I did, I watched that small dark shape off in the forward distance, expecting it to rapidly disappear. It didn’t. I checked the following rider. He seemed to be stopped too! What was going on here?
After a few minutes of standing, waiting for the other two to make a move, I decided to turn around and ride back to the follower. I did so, keeping a careful eye on that shape. I thought, “This way I will be certain to connect with at least one of these guys!” As I drew closer I came to a sudden realization. That “following rider,” now resolving into clarity as the distance lessened, was not a rider. It was a mail box! And sure enough, there, farther back down the road, was another small, dark, indistinct shape. Just in front of the next farmstead back. I turned around, facing again in my direction of travel. The place where I’d stopped, in front of a small house, had a shape standing on it. That shape could be another rider, or another mail box. I rode back to my turn around point, eyes fixed on that shape. Mailbox. And there, off in the distance ahead? That “leading rider” was still there, just in front of the next house. I fixed my eyes firmly on that shape and rode up to it, never taking my eyes from it. And it was… You guessed it. A mail box. I’d spent several hours of the afternoon, pursuing and being pursued by, rural mailboxes.
Late in the afternoon, I stopped at the last on-course-controle. I was tired from the day’s shenanigans. It was only 10 more miles to the end of the route. I had over three hours to complete the trip. I decided to avail myself of the opportunity, and take a good long rest and re-hydration break. While I was sitting there, eating, drinking, and resting up, an odd thing happened. The group rode up. Yes, the same group that had left me at the lunch stop. They had made a wrong turn, and added a good 10 or 12 miles to their ride.
They were happy to let me take the lead to the end of the course. I did it slower. Turns out I’m a better navigator than they were, and besides, there weren’t any hills to speak of in that last ten miles.
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