Fall, for those not racing cross, is a wonderful time for getting in those base miles: a chance to rest after spring and summer racing, and a time to build fitness with an eye towards next year’s goals. Its an especially nice way to reconnect with teammates after the summer hiatus, do some classic Northeast leaf-peeping, and hit up the coffee shops for a nice mid-ride brew. New routes have been forged, group rides enjoyed, turkeys spotted, and many a town line sprint contested.
A staple of the fall training diet are the Tuesday/Thursday evening spin workouts, diligently supplied by our coach Ian. We got lucky and somehow got a massive TV in the spin room, so we’ve started watching movies, races, and (a personal favorite) EF Gone Racing shorts. Jack and Yumeto seem to have caught the Zwift bug pretty badly, so spin sessions now have the added excitement of additional Zwift races. While the workouts always leave my legs feeling like cooked spaghetti, I can’t help but appreciate the variation in workout structure and the extra strength I feel when I go out on the road. When it rains, it also allows me to stay warm and dry (and catch up on movies)…
One of the things I appreciate the most about the NE cycling community is how welcoming and social it is– even with the temperatures dropping, there are still many group and shop rides going on reliably, and it always seems possible to get a couple people together. The shop ride put on by Apex Velo is a Sunday staple: Jack, Yumeto, and I often go, giving us a chance to test our legs on the race loops and learn new routes.
My favorite ride so far has been out to Harvard, to cheer on Arun at Fruitlands and subsequently explore the roads of MetroWest. Rolling out before sunrise, we arrived at Fruitlands just in time to help Arun pull his warm-up pants off frantically one minute before the start of his race. After watching and heckling his race, we headed out up the Nashua River Rail Trail, ended up in New Hampshire (Yumeto won the state line sprint), bonked, and rolled into Groton for some well-needed 1.5 ft long sub sandwiches. Realizing we still had to get back to Boston, we ended up riding on some kind of singletrack trail for a few miles to get to the main road. Mercifully, none of us got a mechanical.
Apart from the usual road riding, its possible (with a little digging) to find some nice, quiet trails. Though I do like riding on the road, I’ve found gravel to be ideal for weekday afternoons and evenings, particularly as the days get shorter and I want to minimize time on the road in the dark.
Besides the usual shenanigans (often documented on Instagram), we have a few big rides being planned before scattering for winter break. Perhaps most notably, there’s a plan to do a century around Mystic Lake– that’s 20 5-mile loops, in case anyone didn’t want to do the math.
Looking into the end of this year and into the next, I’m excited to continue spending time with my teammates and exploring Boston, all while building fitness and preparing for the racing season. First race on the horizon: BTT-ITT…
