Stealth Fast?

Whatchoo lookin' at?

6 January 2013

It's 6 p.m.  I feel like crap. I came home from today's ride and slept for an hour.  Every time I stand up I get dizzy. Perfect setup for blogging.

Yesterday I was leading from behind.  This happens in the off-season.  In the spring, I get some of the the Fastboys who come out of hibernation and shake the rust off by taking it easy with me.  In the winter, I get the Fastboys who don't hibernate.  Sometimes my rides are the only thing going.

So it was yesterday, with five people who can kick my ass in their sleep, and one who would if he hadn't found himself on the ground with his left leg under his motorcycle not too long ago.


We went to Lambertville.  I remembered my camera.

Mount Airy, the location of many of my winter photographs:

Alexauken Creek Road is one of our favorites.  This time I noticed something I hadn't seen before:  a little tunnel for a stream feeding into Alexauken Creek, making space for what was probably once a railway.

The Rojo's mocha gave me enough energy to keep up a little better, and to talk to Linda about cats who fetch (mine, mostly toys; hers, peanuts).  Still, in Pennington, where we dropped off a couple of riders, I had to say, "I don't know why you guys ride with me," alluding to their speed and my lack thereof.

Dave H. said, "You're stealth fast."

"Stealth fast?"

He tried to explain it, but I neither understood it at the time nor remember it now.  Ed cited our average during the Event century.  "Yeah, but there was a big group." I was still puzzled.

Four of us rode back to my house, mostly downhill.  Plain Jim said, "You wanna know what 'stealth fast' means?  It means going 20 miles per hour down 206!"

"It's downhill!"

Plain Jim says I have "yeah, but" disease.  Yeah, but if I trash myself before anyone else does, it's easier to take.  Duh.

Half an hour after I stopped pedaling, everything hurt.  Jack was already feeling out of sorts.  Maybe I'd caught what he had.  I stretched, but it did nothing.  Later I did more stretches, more PT, and stumbled into bed unsure if I'd be riding with Winter Larry in the morning.


At 7:00 a.m. I shut off the alarm and checked email from my phone.  Winter Larry's ride was on, and Plain Jim and Ed would be there.  I was half dressed before I looked out of a front window.

There was a dusting of snow in the driveway, snow on the car, snow on the side of the wet road.  I wasn't feeling great, but I wasn't feeling bad enough to stay home, and, besides, if they're going, I'm going.

It was just the four of us.  I warned the guys that I wasn't feeling quite right. 

There are two main ways not to feel quite right on a bike:  one, the legs are willing but the motivation just isn't there; and two, the motivation is there but the legs are still in bed.  The former happens to me in Spinning class.  The latter happens outside.  The latter was happening today.  If I'd been a car, I'd not have been able to get out of second gear. 

Winter Larry took us to Hornerstown via Walnford and Hill Road.  This is the Walnford Mill, where the Event century had its last rest stop, where Ed studied the clouds.

Larry saw the horses on Hill Road first.  Normally, I have a thing about not stopping on hills for pictures.  Today I waived the rule.

The melting snow put a haze around us.  I faced into the sun for a silhouette.

Jim was waiting for me at the top, staring into a field at a barn.

He asked, "Is that a Chevrolet logo?"

"Yep."

"Y'know, if there were a god," the former seminarian, Unitarian, atheist said to me, "this is what he'd be about:  beauty and peace." 

I was looking past him, to his left, at something nearer to us on the ground.

I asked, "Should I take a picture of the dead deer?"

I didn't.

We stopped in Hornerstown and had a lively conversation over coffee and pastries at the Dunkin' Donuts there.  Larry, truly earnest, suggested to me that he take Jack canoeing on Lake Carnegie.

Jim let out a guffaw and doubled over with laughter.  I wasn't far behind.  Larry was confused.

Before we left, I texted Jack, ending it with, "Jim knows you."

We were thirty miles in, already on our way home, when I started feeling genuinely crappy. 

That's also when we started hitting the shady roads where the snow hadn't melted.  I'm not allowed to mountain bike anymore because of my spine, but knowing how to ride on a slippery surface came in handy.  Hold your line, hold your pace, don't hold the brakes, and, as Chris likes to remind us, don't fart.  Nobody slipped.  Nobody fell.

Near the end I apologized for my slow pace.  "You can blame me in your blog," I told Jim. 

He dismissed it.   "If I'm not complaining, I'm not happy," he said.

"I read that somewhere," I replied.  He'd already left the parking lot, having parked elsewhere for his usual extra miles, when I checked my phone.

"Jim is a wise man," Jack wrote.

It's 11 p.m. now.  I'd written half of this post, gone away, came back, and scrapped most of it.  It's better now, and, I think, so am I.  Good night, and see you next Sunday.