Chapter 4

With all the emotional energy that had been expended in the last, what, less than 24 hours? Asking Melody to marry me, dealing with the whole slow roll of her answer, and the need to ‘talk to the other women in my life’, then getting that letter from Amaury Sport Organization (the dinosaurs that run/own the Tour de France, thus setting the rules for the ‘femmes’ version of it!) and talking myself, and now most of the riders that I trained, into riding in two of the biggest women’s cycling events in Europe for more than a month next summer (without actually talking to our prime sponsor Starbucks or having any clue how to find somewhere between one and three million euros worth of funding for something so quixotic!) I hadn’t really taken in the weather conditions, or fully processed that I was out on the road for the first meaningful time in close to two frickin’ months!

Here it is mid-October (following the Olympics and the oh so fun media circus!) and the sky is still a brilliant blue, perfect wispy white clouds and no noticeable head or tailwind to contend with. The University of Washington has been in session for Fall quarter for a couple of weeks, so this ride would also serve as the first “get to know you!” Ride for the UW Cycling squad. It marked the end of the professional women’s season, most of which I had missed because of the Olympics and the true start of meaningful fall sports events (i.e., American Football!). So, once I got my head out of my least favorite point of contact, I realized that it was a glorious day for a bike ride!

While I had been wool-gathering and chasing my thoughts down various and sundry rabbit holes, we had ridden all the way to the north end of Lake Washington and our little parade was coming to an end as the dogs were starting to get restless ... It was almost as if they were simply waiting for me to get my head into the game, and seeing me finally take in my surroundings and regroup, they decided it was time for the ‘fun and games’ portion of the ride to commence! We pulled into this nice little bike trail side park area, used the facilities and then sort of circled up the wagons before getting back on the road again!

This time, Beth took on the leadership role and stepped up into the center of the group. Holding her hand up to get everyone’s attention, she said “Okay, now that Nate has worked his way through to the other side of his thoughts, it’s time for the real ride to get started! So, we are going to divide this event into four sections, essentially cutting the lake route into four quarters. The 1st of these quarters has just been completed, and we will henceforth refer to it as “the section where Nate pulls his head out!”” This announcement was met with considerable laughter by all, and I made a big production out of saluting all of them while simultaneously bowing and blowing kisses! Which made the laughter even louder!

“From here, we are going to work on rolling pace lines for the 2nd quarter of the loop. Basically, until we hit the Leschi area and the very edge of the Arboretum.” This was met with considerable head nodding and side eye glances from many of the more experienced riders, and a little bit of trepidation by the new to racing Huskies on the UW team.

“We’re going to do this in a couple of ways, so that those of you with little or no pace line riding don’t get dropped or shelled out the back! And those of you with a LOT of experience can enjoy a wind in your face hammer fest, or ... you can step up and help train a new generation of fabulous women to understand the sheer joy of flying on your bike in a line!” Again, there was more head nodding and a bit of relief on the new faces. “If I can have all the professional riders to my left ... and the truly inexperienced riders to my right ... and, Joy, if you can circle up the triathlete riders, perhaps you guys can get sorted out, since you are not allowed to draft under triathlon rules, maybe you can just get some solo flying in on this section?” Joy nodded in understanding, and the six other triathlete riders in the black skin suits started to sort themselves into smaller subgroups. “We’ll get things sorted out and try to get onto the road again!” In fairly short order we had three lines of five or six riders in the pro ranks, who all wanted to try a bit of friendly race riding (meaning they wanted to try to ride the legs off each other!), and a couple of “Pace Line 101” groups, plus the two ‘trios’ of Triathlon riders. I added myself onto the “101” group since I would most likely still be trying to help coach the UW team, on an as yet to be decided ‘limited basis’ while sorting out all the bazillion and six other training things in my now crowded life! Monica and a couple of other more experienced UW riders were also in this group. Melody was up with the ‘big dogs’ group! Beth once again raised her hand and when the chatter subsided, said “Okay, the regroup is at the Starbucks in Leschi! Everybody knows where that is?” At the nearly universal nodding, and thumbs ups, we were ready to hit the road! The roll-out order was the ‘tri-trios’, followed by the three lines of pro riders, and finally the two lines of newbies, with a bit of experienced riders thrown in for herding and guidance.