Last night I had an absolutely soul-sucking ride with Alastair. We headed out early into a 15mph headwind to catch the weekly Thursday night ride out of Crump Park. I have the bigger engine, so I let him sit in my draft while I plowed through 14.5 miles of misery in HR zone 4 to arrive a minute early. The whole way down I felt drained, but was looking forward to the group ride because it would let me shelter, recover, and most importantly: run downwind!
Alas, when we got to Crump Park, there were only 2 other riders ready for the earlier 5:30 start time, so my opportunities to shelter would be greatly reduced, but at least we'd still be running downwind.
But I never felt like I could recover. I'd come off the front and just feel miserable, way out of spec for the level of exertion. My heart rate wasn't crazy high, and neither was my power, but it was becoming more of a mental struggle to stay focused, and even though it wasn't particularly hot, I was thoroughly drenched with sweat as we rode between two lumbering storm fronts.
As we got closer to home, I made the call to pull us both out of the tiny group and head home. Alastair wasn't feeling super great, and I had no desire to get rain-wet as the fronts closed in.
By the time we got off, we were both so exhausted we could barely stand. We'd only done 38 miles with barely any efforts into Z5, no crazy power numbers, but my back was DONE and his face was red with wind-burn.
And it vexed me all night as to why I felt so awful for what should have just been considered a moderately tough ride. I was ready to pull the plug on the whole weekend and just call it a recovery period, except I'd just done that last weekend. And my recovery indicators suggested I should be feeling much fresher, so what the heck?
This morning I glanced over at the bike and noticed the hoods were pointed down at the floor: the handlebar had rotated about 15-degrees downward, probably over a series of jarring bumps over the past week or so. Since I prefer to ride with my hands on the hoods, that meant I was stretched out by at least 1/2" farther than I usually am, so my whole upper-body position was off. That explains the pain in my back.
I grabbed a wrench to fix it and found the lower stem bolts were almost loose enough to turn by hand. Yikes. Another couple of rides in that position and (assuming I didn't throw the bike over a bridge and walk home) I'd have had an exciting moment with the bars coming loose.
With racing season under way, check your stuff. Bolts, lubes, bearings, brake pads, everything. Check it before you wreck it. This is already the 2nd time this season I've found parts on the bike where the condition did not match my expectation.
