Westerville Ride Report

Now I know what it's like to be a "Marty", a "Dave C", a "Shannon", a....well you get the image.  The Westerville Cycling Club puts on a Wednesday ride out of the parking lot beside the dam on Hoover Lake.  Oh, true story, a couple of guys I know from England, visiting the area, took a taxi ride to the dam and asked a local if this was "it", the real Hoover Dam?  No but it is a dam and it is above Hoover Lake.  Anyway, there is always a good turnout of 50+ and the routes are always flat, real flat.

Some of the characters that populate our Tuesday and Thursday rides, ride here too, such as Poobah, shown above.  In a first for me, I had a conversation about the benefits of the Golden Buckeye card.  Poobah was salivating at the chance to whip that out and get the 10% discount, as soon as he would qualify.  Dennis reminded Todd that Retro George was probably already in possession of the card and with that, Todd set off into the parking lot to find George.  Dennis and I speculated Todd intends to use George and his card, for major purchases.  

So, an A group was called out and it was kind of small, only 7 of us, Dennis, Joe Bonnel (spl?), Steve Collet, Phil, some squirrelly riding dude that some how managed to hang on and 1-2 others.  There were other A caliber cyclists present, such as Danny A but probably they are saving themselves for the New Albany ride and so they departed with the B group.  Dennis has been sunning himself in Florida so he was not expecting to hang for long and he pulled out and soon we were down to Joe, Steve, Phil, squirrelly dude and me.  We got on to some road that had it all, sections of asphalt, chip and seal, sticky tar, macadam, brick, Roman, planks...ok I'm exaggerating but we were on this road so long I wondered if we were in Canada.  

Then, after going North for roughly 10 miles, we went west and guess what, after about 10 miles we went south too!  Good group of guys with Joe B and Steve C putting in long, hard pulls and it seemed I had the misfortune of finding myself behind Joe each time he pulled and did so in the aero tuck position.  So, I was usually beat when it was my turn to take over.  When I returned to the back, the pace was so reasonable that sometimes I pulled a "Patrick" riding out of the slipstream just cause I could, hah!  When I got guttered by squirrelly dude, it was no big deal!!!!  When I lost focus and drifted off the back a couple of bike lengths....get this.....I could ride back on to the group!!!!!!!!  I was living large just like Marty, Dave, Jon M, etc...   Truth in advertising moment, with about a mile to go, I had a calf cramp and had to pull out with only Joe and Steve remaining.

I'm getting a little silly so we finished with a 22.6avg, 38 miles and a whopping 650 feet of climbing!  I am ready for Mountain Mama for sure.  Oh, so the season is roughly half over and I stand by my observation of last year.  The New Albany gang is analgous to baseball's New York Yankees.  Star studded line-up and deep bench.  The Tuesday Canal gang are like the Kansas City Royals, a couple of guys in that line-up can play on the Yankess but probably have to bat 8th or maybe DH, in the batting order.  Then there is the Wednesday Westerville gang, more like the AAA Toledo Mudhens where maybe one guy ought to be playing at the major league level.  Just my opinion.