Upcoming rides

9/9 GZ 6:30 am
The Green Zone (Thursday morning) is a steady pace – keep the heart rates at 125bpm continously – for 30 miles. This is VP Hanover 50 A 7:30 AM
The faster drop ride will head for roll on the coastal look CCW and visit Hull.

9/10 Friendy Friday 7:00 AM A group 21 mph

9/11 Hanover 50 A/B 8:00 AM
The faster drop ride will head for roll on the coastal look CCW and visit Hull.

9/12 Hanover 37 B/C 8:00 AM
The Hanover ride (no-drop) will follow the coastal loop clockwise. Avg pace is expected to be 16 to 18

9/12 Marsh 30 C 8:00 am
The C group on Sunday has a great turn-out and is a good place to start riding. Ride Leader Jack runs this group. They make two stops and tour a flat route. This rolls at 8 AM from the Marshfield Town Hall.

Paceline Tips

SSB runs different rides with the touring group and more structured rides from casual riding along the road to 8,000-mile-per-year riders that crave paceline riding.

  • Stay on the right side of the road way. If you see an upcoming obstacle slowly move to the left of the obstacle.
  • Keep your speed smooth and steady. Don’t jam on the brakes – feather them. Don’t coast – soft pedal. Be predictable in everything you do.
  • Stay about half a wheel back from the rider in front. If you don’t trust the rider in front – or yourself – increase the gap a bit.
  • Don’t overlap wheels. In other words, don’t let your front wheel be alongside another rider’s rear wheel. Stay behind their wheel. Don’t be off to the side.
  • Listen and watch for signals, especially in larger groups:
    • “Car up” means there’s a car ahead in the opposite lane; “car back” means one is about to overtake.
    • “Runner up” means there is someone running towards the paceline.
    • Left and right turns are indicated by the standard hand signals: left hand out for left turn, left hand up or right hand out for right turn. Stop or slowing are indicated by right hand down, palm back.
    • Pointing down means “road hazard”: a hole, storm drain, or whatever. Sand and glass usually elicit verbal comment. A rider to the left of the paceline pointing to a space between bikes is saying “Lemme in!”
  • If the situation does call for increasing speed, do it gradually. Speeding up quickly stretches out the line like a spring, stressing everybody as it comes back together.
  • Turn the pedals 30 times at the front. More is not necessary and perhaps counterproductive.
  • Stay out there too long and you’ll find that it’s the most common way to get dropped from your pack; you’ll be too tired to stay connected to the end of the train, and you’re history.
  • When you’re making your way back, stay close to the line – you’ll still get some benefit from the draft. Soft pedal. Keep pedaling but easy.
  • When you’re pulling off the front, do not slow or stop pedaling as you begin to pull off, lest the person behind you run into your wheel. Save enough energy to make sure you’re continuing to “pull” off the front of the line.
  • Finally, you made it to the back again. Time to sit in, eat and drink, shake out your hands.

Wompy

The 2021 Racing Season is coming to end. The Last Wompatuck of the season was held on 8/31/21.

Mass Bay Road Club held the weekly training races (USAC sanctioned) within Wompatuck State Park on Tuesday nights. These are the closest sanctioned races that occur on a weekly basis.

Club P2P

We are going to have a great P2P for 2021. Everything is on the way back to normal. Please register! We must have a headcount for this ride.

https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/862039

The club’s annual ride to Provincetown. We ride through the Cape and the take ferry back to Plymouth. Parking is at the Jenny Grist Mill parking lot. This ride is for all abilities. You must be able to reach Provincetown by 4PM. We will ride in groups, together.

There will be a SAG.

Ride starts promptly at 7 AM. Please be in the parking lot by 6:45am. You need to have your bag in the SAG car. You will get your bag at the beach at the end of the ride. We ride past Ptown to the end of the land. We will reach the beach. The swim is worth it. Watch for sharks !!

There will be several different speed groups. You should be able to maintain a 16mph average in order to make this an enjoyable ride for you to experience. Slower riders will be in smaller groups. The ferry leaves later and allows you more time to complete the ride. We expect to have 2 major groups with rotating pacelines at 16 and 18 mph.

For our route we will use the service road to Hyannis. When we reach Rt 132, there is actually a grade separated path that we will take to the next traffic light. We will cross route 132 at the traffic light. We will travel on lightly traveled roads from this point to the extension of the Rail Trail. We will take the new extension to the rail trail. The GPS file will go to the end of the cape at Herring Cove beach. The annual tradition as started by the V is to make a swim in the water. There are free showers at the beach.

The SAG wagon will transport 1 SMALL bag for each rider. You can have a change of clothes and a towel. When we reach the beach, then you grab your bag, swim in the ocean, shower, and organize for the luncheon in Ptown. We will roll to the Lobster Pot Express in town prior to boarding the return ferry.

The return ferry is at McMillian Pier.

You must purchase your own ticket from Cap. John’s Boats for the return ferry trip. You must register for the event prior to the ride on the Strava page. Please use the link.

4/17 Weekend

Rides on 4/17 & 4/18 will start at 8 AM. Traffic has been high on River Street. We are moving to an earlier start as the weather warms. Please register for all rides on Strava. Strava serves as our ride registry.

https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/916811 Saturday A/B

https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/926873 Saturday B/C

https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/926994 Sunday A/B/C

Bill

2021 Dues & Membership form

Welcome to a brand new year of cycling! We wanted to make the membership process really easy this year, so we’ve created an all-in-one online link where you can fill out your emergency contact information, digitally sign your liability waiver for the year AND pay your $10.00 membership fee. Here’s the link, and happy riding!

SSB 2021 Membership

Wendy

Upcoming Club Rides

COVID can put a damper on anything. We are trying to keep it organized and flowing. If COVID cancels a ride, then we cancel. You must pre-register for rides. Our Strava Events track attendance and can be used for contact tracing.

Membership renewals will start soon. We are developing a new integrated waiver/dues page for the website. The President requires people not to duplicate their rides on Strava. There are a number of people posting their rides twice. They have not been removing their second copy of the rides. This limits the capability of Strava to show the weekly leaderboard properly. In fairness to the others, she is removing people until they delete their extra rides.

Our first SAG ride of the year will be the Quabbin tour on 4/24. This is a way to test your legs. This is suitable for A and B group rides. The Martha’s Vineyard tour is a casual affair that will zoom around the island on 5/9.

We are having a training weekend on 5/15 & 5/16 in Northampton. Northampton actually has a lot of rail trails, which makes it suitable for the C group. We will also have a challenging century on 5/15 and a tough hill ride on 5/16 for the A&B groups.

Our P2P will be on 7/17. This is a SAG ride. A/B/C members will be succesful on this ride. We roll at 7 AM. You must be in Ptown by 4PM in order to ride the ferry home.

Please register for all events on Strava. If you decide that you will not attend, then you simply go to the event and opt out. When you click on the route from the event page, then you can save the route to your Garmin or Wahoo by clicking on the STAR button towards the top left of the page.

3/6 Coastal 37 A/B/C
https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/862048
3/7 Halifax 50 A/B/C
https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/862050

4/24 Quabbin Tour – A/B Groups SAG
https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/862020

5/9 SSB MV Spring Tour (A/B/C Groups)
https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/862035

5/15 SSB Training Weekend Day 1 Century (A/B Groups)
https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/862026
5/15 SSB Training Weekend Northampton Rail Trails (C Group)
https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/862061
5/16 SSB Training Weekend Day 2 Century (A/B Groups)
https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/862029

6/19 B2VT (Must Preregister with B2VT – Epic Ride A/B)
https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/847163

7/17 P2P (A/B/C Groups)
https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/862039

Zwift Racing

We want to get a Zwift Racing team, together. Events for Zwift are recorded at Zwift Power. If you want to join the Zwift Racing, then you need to join the SSB Zwift Racing Team on Zwift Power. Chris, VP, will be the Racing Team Captain.

Use this link. https://www.zwiftpower.com/team.php?id=5687

Only the best times are taken. We will use the top 4 riders in the Time Trial Teams. Everyone can participate and we will get better, together. It is a fun way to stay connected during the winter.

Bill

Riding!

The available hours of sunlight are starting to change and fall is here. This means a reduced schedule of rides for the club throughout the remaining months of the year.

We will have several upcoming touring rides: Martha’s Vineyard, Plymouth & the Canal, and Westport.

Regular Saturday rides continue through November. Every other Sunday the Halifax ride will run through November.

Liz