East Providence, Rhode Island left "the zen of cycling" via o-pearl.comI'm always happy to broaden the horizons of others.
But tonight, as I'm sitting here being painfully bored by olympic diving, waiting for coverage of track and field, I decided to post the data from a portion of my ride home from work.
I had planned for 30 miles, but at the 9 mile point I was in georgetown center preparing to head west on rte. 97 and came upon a box truck at the light (jct of 97/133).
So I hop in the truck draft and and quickly brought up to 40 mph. As I approached my turn (~1.5 miles later - salem st), I decided to sit in, and ended up riding the draft all the way to the groveland bridge in haverhill (pic is from the floods of '06). I averaged just shy of 40 mph for the leg. I'm glad I have the 11 on the back.
The section of interest is between the 9 and 12 mile marks. The road is very flat, just a few little rises that, even without a draft or tailwind, really don't push your HR much above where you're currently working, so staying in a smooth steady truck draft isn't really difficult. Still, 3 miles at 40 mph in a draft is pretty close to a record. I do remember during a commute to work at MEEI 15 years ago that I drafted a semi-trailer all the way from lexington center to arlington center, though the speed was much slower.
It was Just Plain Fun.
