It’s early in the year, but Texas weather is already so much hotter than, say, April in Chicago, or June in Minnesota (when winter officially ends there, by the way).  So shop rides are back in swing and I’m already getting thrashed or shelled — pick whichever verb you prefer.  Or schelacked.  Or pooped out the back.  Anyway, I’m running short of worthy descriptions, but you’re invited to offer any of your favorites in the comment box below.

But getting back to the point, our local shop offers a couple of Saturday rides.  There’s the beginner’s no-drop special departing at 830a for maybe 20-30 miles in the low to mid teens, which I’m pretty sure I could do on my mountain bike.  Then there’s the “intermediate/advanced” ride that launches a half hour later for 50+ miles at an average speed that starts with a “2″ and gets led out by various guys who ride P1/2, others who have won state championships at the master’s level for road and TTs, and guys who discuss the merits of puking during interval training.  And drops?  That’s kinda the point, isn’t it?

So what do I get out of all this?

I get to revisit my max heart-rate.  I get to see how long I can keep pedaling with a pulse stuck in the proverbial redzone.  I get the chance to try to go even farther before the pack chooses to congregate up the road without me.  Then I get to follow my Garmin’s instructions on how to get back home when suddenly I’m all alone out there.

What I clearly need is a better-than-beginner-but-damnsure-no-pro ride.  But that’s not what they’ve got.  So I can either lead out the kiddy ride and get home sweat-free, or I can step up and BE one of the kiddies.  The upside is that riding with better riders will make me, eventually, one of them.

So how we roll out is with about a half dozen miles of working our way around Grapevine lake, near DFW airport.  The trip out of the suburbs is a relatively civil warm-up, made testy only by the frequent slowing/accelerating as we snake through neighborhoods heading out toward cattle ranch country.  About the first time you see longhorns, the ride formally gets underway.

Although the roads are by most standards flat, or nearly so, there’s just enough roller in them to make you nervous about what the lead riders are going to do at each incline.  Whether or not they attack, the pack dutifully burns energy unnecessarily by getting ready to respond.  As a courtesy, the lead riders miss few chances to make the energy burn worthwhile by giving us something real to chase.  Last weekend I managed to suck it up for 30 miles of repeated lunges of this sort before I figured out that I didn’t have a thirty first one in the legs.  That was the bad news.  The good news is that I lasted maybe (and I do mean maybe) five miles longer than the last time I went out with the group.  Alas, improvement!

As I turned tail from the quickly fading pack and coaxed my Garmin to lead me home, I kept in mind that while it may suck to be shucked, at least I wasn’t somewhere a bit colder, looking out the window at snow and wet roads.  And with each turn of the pedals, I committed to ever more evenings of intervals on the spin bike, and some more running to get some of the excess baggage off my carcass.

I finished the ride with fifty miles at 20 mph, helped home by a tail wind that made for pleasant company, absent any other.  Anyway, I’ll let you know when I manage to get back to the shop with the pack.