Big, I say BIG IBC Team ride this past sunday. OK, in reality it was me (Thom P.) and esteemed member of the IBC team board of directors Julie Lefebvre, her boyfriend John, C Todd, and a friend we picked up along the way, Jim from Quad cycles. We set out for Concord, grinding into a vicious headwind, averaging all of 12 MPH up Mass Ave. We parted ways with C Todd just after Concord center and made our way up toward Strawberry Hill where we picked up Jim.
It's got to be annoying being a geared rider out with the fixed gear guys (John was fixed too),
we go so incredibly slow on the uphills only to spin away madly on the downs. On some of the rollers out on 225 I was like "get me off of this crazy thing called...a sweet fixie".
At the juncture of Strawberry Hill and Pope Rd. we opted to "go big" and continue on up to Nagog Hill...a first of the year for all of us. It was gorgeous up there, it generally is. The orchards full of leafless trees with their gnarled bodies protruding from the snow are somehow even more beautiful than their green, apple bearing counterparts of summer and fall...to me anyway.
From there it was over to Westford where we turned east, putting the wind at our backs. We blasted down 225, up over Chicken Hill in Bedford, through Lexington Center, and back down Mass Ave. Normally I think of Mass Ave. as a chute in Chutes and ladders, it just slides you right home effortlessly, downhill, invariably with a tailwind. However this is not really the case on a fixed gear. After three plus hours of sitting and spinning and bouncing along bombed out New England roads your butt is crying out for a respite. My double bib shorts style only forestalls the inevitable "Bonchial-Region" discomfort. Haven't felt pain like that since the paddling I took during my Fraternity hazing. Oh wait, I went to art school, that was made up.
Post-Ride we hit True Grounds for coffee and scones and all was not too shabby in the universe.
We're going to try to do the same or something similar next sunday, watch for an official announcement sometime this week.
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