The Classic

Well. It's been a very long, long day - but what a phenomenal time.

The day started out with an endless cup of delicious black coffee and some downright good waffles made by Captain Sebastian. We had planned on doing The Classic ride with a few options thrown in to get the mileage up a bit. The Classic refers to a long ride that Sebastian and I used to do regularly during the hot summer months in CT that takes us through an endless number of classic New England towns, down to the shoreline, and then back up north. With a few purposeful detours thrown in, we were looking at about 4 hours of riding ahead of us for the day.

Not all was sugar and spice today, however. First off, I was banking on the temperatures being a little bit warmer than they were today when I woke up. Temperatures above 40 would have been nice, in fact, I would have even found a grin seeing the very high thirties. As it turns out, at 9:15 when we rolled on out, the mercury was still under the blankets and refusing to show more than 23 degrees. You have no idea, people, how much I hate riding in temperatures below 30. But the sun was out, and the company was good, so no big deal. That, plus Sebastian was raised by a pack of wild Huskies, so I always feel extremely beta when admitting to being cold.

Right about here I should mention that for Lent I was going to give up cursing. That lasted 7 minutes.

Seven minutes into our ride, disaster struck as I found myself looking for a higher gear to accommodate the little rise in the road and with a tap of the index and middle finger... Nothing. No click. No engagement. No shift. Nothing. A dozen or so subsequent attempts yielded nothing. Suddenly I had a vision of riding, just about a year ago, in 30 degree weather with Nathan and going through the same thing. In a moment of instant recollection, I remember thinking one year ago that the very first thing I was going to do when I returned from that ride with Nathan was replace my finicky rear shifter. You can guess what I forgot to do. Suffice it to say, the first 3 hours of the ride today were spent jockeying between my 2 functional gears, desperately trying to hang on to Sebastian's wheel, and the fourth hour (after my shifter finally decided to start working again) trying to salvage my over-blown legs to finish up the ride with some juice left over. I'd love to say that I was burning through the matches one by one throughout the day, but honestly, by the end of the ride... My matchbook was soaking wet and useless. Seriously though, despite these somewhat less than perfect riding conditions, today's Classic ride was one for the books. Just about 70 miles in around about 4 hours in the bright Connecticut sun. At one point, Sebastian mentioned something about having a brief bit of tailwind, but if you ask me, we fought the early spring wind the whole way head on, and we finished up all the stronger from it.

The day was only halfway through after the ride, and things just kept getting better and better after the feeling in my quads came back. After a shower and some lunch, it was off to another work-related appointment, but before we got down to business... Yup. Starbucks. The night before I got a call from another good friend (and training buddy) of mine from back in my CT days. It was my man Isaac who was keen to grab a cup of Joe and catch up while I was in town. And so the three of us, Isaac, myself and Sebastian took in some more of that ol' black magic together while jointly reminiscing about the day's events and the happenings during my time away from the state.

Buzzed and hazy from the mix of the coffee and the miles, I eventually made my way back up to Hartford to finish up my business for the day, and then headed out of the state later that evening and back to my beloved New York. With a tuna sandwich and a totally kick-ass chocolate chip muffin from Panera, I made my way along that long and lonely stretch of pitch-black I-90 just thinking about the past couple of days, and the beauty of the mid-week road trip. Replaying parts of The Classic ride from earlier in the day, and remembering that post-ride bliss felt sitting in the warm sun at Starbucks with Isaac and Sebastian, I also counted myself lucky for having such good friends to visit and to share these great times with.

Thanks for reading. And if you have a spare 9-spd shifter, send it my way will ya?