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What’s your cadence?

As we head up Kings, a pair of riders in front of us is turning left onto Tripp. I didn't know you could do that! Not climb Kings? That's un-American. Especially when you turn tail right in front of it.
As we head up Kings, a pair of riders in front of us is turning left onto Tripp. I didn’t know you could do that! Not climb Kings? That’s un-American. Especially when you turn tail right in front of it.

It’s January, getting pretty close to the middle of winter, so it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise if it’s 34 degrees in Woodside as we start the regular Tuesday/Thursday morning ride, but it really didn’t seem right that it was only up to 39 when we got back! Good thing modern cycling apparel lets you ride comfortably in weather like this without dressing up like an eskimo.

Kevin, Kevin, Eric, Marcus & Nigel joined me this morning for what all agreed ahead of time was going to be as easy ride up the hill, but younger Kevin decided to end the truce as soon as we started up through Huddart Park (via Greer). Things started coming apart after we got back onto Kings; I held on until about half-way up at which point Marcus, younger Kevin and Nigel rode away from me. Kind of getting used to that. Marcus was pretending to have a nasty cold but not pretending so much that he didn’t kick the pace up further, dropping Nigel and challenging Kevin to successfully charge past him on the final part of the climb. At least that’s what I’m told; I was quite a bit further down the hill at the time.

The high points were Kevin not having a seizure and noticing that he’s bringing his cadence to a literally-higher level. He’s always known that my too-low cadence can be improved upon, but today we joked that riding with the older Kevin, who’s cadence is ultra-slow, is convenient because he can use older Kevin’s cadence like a metronome. He just has to exactly match each of older Kevin’s pedal strokes with two of his own.

Another nice morning to ride!

kings_dec_4_14
Yes, a bit damp out there, but no real rain this morning. In fact, almost a bit on the balmy side, so I’d overdressed pretty badly, wearing my windfront tights and rain cap. Kevin (pilot), Karen and Mark P showed up this morning, all three of them just a bit faster than me up the hill which, of course, I blame on having to ride my “rain” bike. Never mind that Karen and Kevin were on their rain bikes too… but not Mark. Mark was out there on his current-model high-end road bike, thoroughly trashing it.

The other Kevin (my son) stayed away from the ride this morning, having some indigestion issues. He missed a really nice ride. I can’t even figure out why it was a nice ride. It’s not as if I was in such great shape I could ride people off my wheel; I was just barely hanging on! But just barely hanging on is more than good enough. It just feels so great to be on a bike, and not feel bad about eating too much afterward. –Mike–