The Poker R!de - Recap

It was an early morning for me. Up around 6 AM on a Saturday morning, didn’t sleep too well, but it looked to be a beautiful day for a ride. It was already warm and a little humid but I got the tandem ready and bottles prepared. Then made and ate breakfast. Woke Nicole up around 7:45 AM and left the house about 8:10 AM.

Arriving at Bicycles East of Matthews at 8:20 AM Nicole was put in charge of keeping the playing scorecards and we talked about the goal for the day. Since the route is just a bit shorter and a little less hillier than the Assault on Marion route, we decided to set a pace that would be faster than what we plan for that ride.

There were two other tandem couples riding that day. The Sisks, who we only say at the start, when the past us going up Chestnut Rd, then again at the finish. By the way, they finished before everyone else, including any of the hammerhead single riders. The other tandem couple who through a series of mechanical difficulties had to be sagged in and could not complete the ride.

There were a number of people I have ridden with on Saturday morning rides and also a large turnout of Bee Team members.

The route was nearly the same as the Veterans Day Ride of last year with the exception of the very end. Despite what Jeff V. and some others have said, we went the way the road was marked. Nicole and I did not use the cue sheet, it is possible that the cue sheet was they way they described it but the road was plainly marked with a right turn from Weddington-Matthews Road on to Chestnut Road, right turn on Potter Rd, then a right turn on Pleasant Plains Road into Matthews. The cue sheet may have said Weddington-Matthews to McKee Road but the road was marked differently. We double checked as we live at Potter and Chestnut! No matter it only adds about 3/4 of a mile and brings the true distance closer to a Metric Century.

Nicole and I with strategy in mind started off with the group at 9:02 AM. The Matthews Police escorted the group out of town and blocked traffic at a few intersections so the riders could proceed through Matthews unhindered. This was going to be our only chance to lead a group of riders this large so Nicole and I hit the front and we managed to catch some glory until just before the overpass to I-485.

Once out on the road toward the first rest stop in Mineral Springs things settled down and we got into a rhythm riding along at an average speed of just under 20 mph.  This was a little faster than plan but we were feeling good and decided that we should only slow about a mile or so until the next stop. Our plan was to try to maintain 20-24 mph on the flat sections and not push so hard on the climbing sections of road so that we did not wear ourselves out. Here I must point out that Nicole rode very well. There were many of the smaller inclines where we were passing single riders on the road, it seems that our power level is increasing at a slow but steady pace and we are able to power over some sections of road that last year we had to downshift for. As another note, we managed the entire route with only 4 shifts into the middle chain ring. I was very happy with our performance.

The section from the second rest stop back to Mineral Springs was much harder as the wind blew a little and was basically a headwind through the entire section. Our average was still pretty high at about 17.5 mph, please note that here I am counting the time of the rest stops, so the actual ride average will be higher and listed in the chart below. This put us on pace to finish the ride in less than 4 hours, which was our goal for the day.

The last section was much harder as it seems that both the temperature rose and the headwind got a little stronger. It was a chore to climb up Antioch Church Road but Nicole dug deep and pushed until her legs got rubbery. Near the very end we did a bad thing, I suggest that riders do not do this at all. coming down to the intersection of Pleasant Plains and Matthews-Weddington Road the light turned red about 500′ before we arrived. The road was clear to we ran the red light to avoid stopping and having to start up again just to climb up to the ball fields. We rolled into Bicycles East 3 hours and 48 minutes after we had started, our goals met.

Here is a breakdown of our performance: