Except for one (okay, maybe 2) outlier(s), times for the "Race of Truth" tonight were unusually tight, only 2 minutes separated 2nd from 10th. We had a pretty respectable tailwind heading north to the McClellan Farm Road turnaround point (and one fairly slow moving tractor that all of us needed to get around). The headwind on the way back was as expected.

However, Chas Mathers did the TT at some other time today and, as he has in the past, blew the time standard deviation out the window. Frank S, just back from basking in Germany all summer, returned to clock a great time for second. Madeline and I traded attacks on the return trip and passed each other more times than I can accurately remember.

No PRs tonight. However, the men's TT leaderboard sees a three way tie between Frank, Jonathan and Andy (51 points) and will be decided in two weeks at the short TT. The women's leaderboard is pretty much wrapped up with Madeline amassing 43 points to Melissa's 34.

In the Overall men's race, Andy has a decent lock on first with 139 points with Jonathan a distant 124. In the women's race, Madeline also is sitting pretty with 97 points to Melissa's 90.

Here are today's results:

1. Charles Mathers; Time: 30:03; 25.16 mph; 11 points

2. Frank Sleegers; Time: 33:10; 22.79 mph; 10 points

3. Andy MacDonald; Time: 33:22; 22.66 mph; 9 points

4. Shawn Lakota; Time: 33:59; 22.25 mph; 8 points

5. Jonathan O'Keeffe; Time: 34:05; 22.18 mph; 7 points

6. Madeline Nagy; Time: 34:43; 21.78 mph; 6 points

7. Richard McWalter; Time: 34:45; 21.76 mph; 5 points

8. Melissa Warwick; Time: 34:57; 21.63 mph; 4 points

9. Joe Lellman; Time: 35:12; 21.48 mph; 3 points

10. David Goodwin; Time: 35:23; 21.37 mph; 2 points

11. Roberto Ludovico; Time: 38:42; 19.53 mph; 1 points

Next week is the last hillclimb of the series and is the short but sweet Skinner Mountain climb.

Winter is coming, the dark is rising, the seasons are turning, and the 2025 Monday Night Intro Ride season comes to an end tonight. But not before we eat a bunch of ice cream!

I threw a wrench in our normally orderly progression of ride routes tonight by altering our Northampton loop to include a season-ending ice cream stop. This had a bunch of cascading consequences that I had not really anticipated:

1. On unfamiliar roads west of downtown NoHo, a sudden stop caught Tony by surprise and dropped him to the pavement. "Just a flesh wound", he literally cried, and rallied onward.
2. A couple of big hills westbound on Route 66 were too much for Beth, and she pulled the plug and decided to turn around and return on her own.
3. My slowing down to ride with Beth broke the group apart, and they disappeared up the road ahead of me. "Turn left on Old Wilson", I shouted, but it was far too late.
4. Old Wilson -- turn left or continue on? I think Shelby had the route in her computer, maybe she turned them left? Or maybe they all missed the turn and went straight?
5. I'm gonna go left on Old Wilson. And continue on to the ice cream place. Maybe they stopped there.
6. They didn't.
7. OK, retrace my steps. Maybe they're still circulating somewhere between here and Route 66. This seems increasingly unlikely, but it's all I've got at this point.
8. They're here! At the intersection of Old Wilson and Florence Rd. Angels sang!

Now we're back on track. We proceed onward to Sips & Scoops in Easthampton, which has the most patient ice cream server in New England, as we overwhelm her with nine simultaneous orders.

I go first, and order a "medium" cone. This is a mistake. I wish I had a picture, but it is simply not possible to extract my phone from my jersey pocket while balancing this ridiculous tower of ice cream in my other hand.

The others in our group take notice, and the rest of the orders are "small" and "kids" and "baby-size". Some struggle with those as well.

Suffice it to say that Sips & Scoops offers an outstanding value proposition, and their ice cream is excellent as well (I heartily recommend the chocolate chip cookie dough). I'd link to them, but it looks like they just opened this summer and don't have a website yet, so you can find them on Google here.

We spent kind of a long time at S&S, so I had to alter the plans for the rest of our ride to get us home before dark. Tony had another little crash on the Old Wilson floodplain, without any visible injuries. We continued on through downtown Northampton, where the group did an excellent job safely navigating through traffic lights and pedestrian crosswalks and parked cars, arriving back at Sheldon Field at around 7:15 PM.

Thanks to everyone for a super-fun intro ride season!

After some pretty nasty weather while I was away the last three Tuesdays, I was happy to see a very pleasant night for a hillclimb. This resulted in a good turnout of 14 riders.

Thanks so much to Jonathan OK for doing a spectacular job of running these events in my absence. I tried to talk him into taking over the reporting duties while we were at the starting line tonight but he wasn't buying it. I even tried extreme flattery.

There were a whopping 6 PRs tonight - Luke by 3:04, Garret by 1:06, Ryan by 0:56, Richard and Shawn by 0:27 and Mitch by 0:10. Up until yesterday, I liked to tell anyone that would indulge me that I don't like to use my age to make excuses. Since yesterday was my big 70 and since I came in last place and was off my PR by 4:50, that all changes from this point onward!

Sam stays atop the men's hillclimb leaderboard (with Ryan a mere 3 points behind) while Melissa maintains a slim 2 point edge over Madeline. In the Overall men's series, Andy holds a substantial 21 point lead over second place while the women's competition is flipped - Madeline with a 5 point lead over Melissa. There are only 2 time trials and 1 hillclimb left in the season so it's probably going to come down to the wire.

Here are tonight's results:

1. Beau Guenther; Time: 18:30; 18.78 mph; 14 points

2. Ryan Davis; Time: 18:52; 18.41 mph; 13 points

3. Nicolas Amato; Time: 18:54; 18.38 mph; 12 points

4. Luke Sedor-Protti; Time: 19:00; 18.28 mph; 11 points

5. Garret Theberg; Time: 20:46; 16.73 mph; 10 points

6. Mitch Graves; Time: 21:09; 16.43 mph; 9 points

7. Louis Cote; Time: 22:09; 15.68 mph; 8 points

8. Richard McWalter; Time: 22:40; 15.33 mph; 7 points

9. Andy MacDonald; Time: 23:06; 15.04 mph; 6 points

10. Jonathan O'Keeffe; Time: 23:36; 14.72 mph; 5 points

11. Madeline Nagy; Time: 23:38; 14.7 mph; 4 points

12. Melissa Warwick; Time: 24:09; 14.39 mph; 3 points

13. Shawn Lakota; Time: 25:08; 13.82 mph; 2 points

14. David Goodwin; Time: 26:52; 12.93 mph; 1 points

Next Tuesday is the Deerfield time trial.

Justin Eichenlaub

Pronouns: he/him

Age: 43

Town: Easthampton

NCC Member Since: 2018

Justin: The History

Where are you from? 

Erie, PA

How did you first get into cycling?

Riding bikes from an early age in the City of Erie where I grew up thanks to my parents getting me started and teaching me how to ride. My house was on a gravel alleyway, which I loved, and the alley ran for several blocks. We ran alley races when I was young, stationing kids at each street crossing, so the racer wouldn’t have to stop and look for cars.

Why did you join NCC? 

To be a part of the recreational and competitive cycling community here in the Valley. And to work with NCC on a new cyclocross event, NCC Hydra Cross, which we first launched in 2019.

What type of riding do you do?

All kinds–from around town utility cycling, to community, to training and racing bikes. 

You’ve been putting on NCC’s Hydra Cross race in Holyoke for six years now. How did you get started with that? 

There’s so much cyclocross in Western Mass now (check out @rivervalleycx) but six or seven years ago there wasn’t so much–there was demand for more local races. Hydra Cross started with the desire to create a new race closer to home for our friends and community. Mike Marques (my co-promoter) and I had got into racing cross together in Hartford years before and decided to put our own event together in Holyoke. 

What do you want people to know about the event?  

Hydra Cross is such a special, grassroots event. The vibe is positive and supportive and welcoming. People really love our race and are always surprised by how fun (and hilly!) the course is. The City of Holyoke and its Parks and Rec Department have always been so welcoming and supportive of this event. If you haven’t been before, come on out and see for yourself this year! 

What cycling accomplishments mean the most to you? 

Helping others get into the sport has meant the most to me. I’ve had the opportunity to do that through our race and intro clinic, by helping organize skills clinics through the club, and in coaching others at humanisticcoaching.com. I really love using what I’ve learned to help others pursue their goals on the bike.

Justin’s Favorites

What’s your favorite place to ride?

Easthampton’s mountain bike trails are in my backyard and are often hard to beat. I’ve grown to love Sawmill as well, and my favorite road loop is up to Conway and back.

Favorite ride snack? 

1:1 glucose:fructose drink mix lol….no hmmm twizzlers

Favorite piece of cycling gear?

USWE hydration pack

What is your favorite NCC group ride or event?

Wednesday Night Ride

What do you want people to know about the event?  

Mr. Inbetween 

Who is your favorite professional cyclist? 

Evie Richards

Justin Off the Bike

What do you do when not on your bike? 

I teach English and research classes at a public high school in Springfield

What do you do for fun?

Spend time with my daughter and family

What is your favorite spot in the River Valley? 

Mt. Tom

What’s next for Justin?

What cycling goals do you have for the upcoming year? 

I’ve been focused on competing in the Race Day XC series this year, which has been fun.

What’s on your cycling bucket list? 

Always more mountain biking, and a mountain bike stage race some day

What are your hopes for NCC/the cycling community in the River Valley? 

To continue growing the sport among youth and adult riders

How can people connect with you?

Email: eichenlaub@gmail.com

Hydra Cross: bikereg.com/hydracross

Humanistic Coaching website 

Humanistic Coaching Instagram

Six of our Monday-night "regulars" joined me tonight on a gorgeous late-summer evening, with just a hint of fall crispness in the air. Adam, Beth, James, Jerome, Shelby, and Tony have been around the block a few times, so we skipped over the usual pre-ride road instructions, and instead spent some time talking about nutrition and hydration, along with emphasizing the importance of signing up for rides on the RideWithGPS Events Page (it helps the ride leader plan on who is coming, and it helps with getting in touch with people if anything goes wrong during the ride).

With all of that out of the way, we hit the road, rolling over the bike path bridge into Hadley, where we soon encountered a powered paraglider soaring overhead, a cool sight.

Further up Route 47, after hearing that Beth and James were preparing for next weekend's D2R2, I decided to give them a taste of dirt by taking a brief detour on Shattuck Road through Russelville. This featured some great farm scenery and a couple of nice tobacco barns, but I don't think Shelby approved of the dirt.

After rolling south on Maple Street, we tackled the short but steep climb on Breckinridge Road, where several PRs were set, including Shelby beating her best time on the climb by 15 seconds -- great work! We enjoyed the descent down to Rocky Hill Road, and then headed back to the start on the bike path, stopping for a quick photo op on the bridge.

We finished up back at Sheldon Field at about 7:05 PM with 17 miles, averaging about 12.5 mph.

Next week will be our last Monday night ride of the summer -- hope to see you there!

5 riders today, Justine, Jaime Davila, Jim B, Jonathan Wallender and Kent Johnson. We rode  40 miles and 1,000 feet of climbing from Keyes street in Florence to Old Deerfield, (where Jim had never been), and back. We took a break at the Deerfield convenience store:(really nice proprietor) and discussed the pros and cons of various protein bars ( scintillating!)

Jim B lives in Alexandria VA and is visiting his parents in West Springfield. He googled local riding clubs and found NCC!! He is also skilled at taking pictures from a moving bicycle ( I dont recommend this - but he got some good ones!).  the weather was amazing, fresh, sunny, 70 degrees, and though there was a head wind going out, we had a light tailwind the whole way home. Fast pace for this C ride, averaging 15.1 mph with lots of teamwork!

Just Tim and I rode Monday morning, a fun, relatively fast ride, 35 miles of 'Meandering Monday', averaging 14.8 mph with ~2,000 ft of climbing. Tim pulled essentially the whole way--he's stronger, and had fresher legs-- so I 'let' him.!  

We had a quick  stop at Outlook Farm at 20  miles, having completed most of our climbing and were back home before 11 am, beating the heat of the day.  ( Tim rode further having come from home to the Keyes street meeting spot) 

Maybe it was the hot weather, maybe it was busy August schedules, or maybe nobody just likes doing the long TT, but we had very light turnout for tonight's race in Hatfield/Whately. Melissa, Shawn, and I were the only ones at the start. We rolled north with the benefit of a light tailwind, which felt like a bit of a stronger headwind after the turnaround. Melissa had to contend with a couple of strange vehicle interactions, and everyone reported feeling sapped on the return leg.

Despite the heat, Shawn managed to beat his previous best time by 13 seconds, and edged me out by a couple of seconds to take the win. Madeline and Tim rode earlier in the day, when it was even hotter, and Tim managed to turn in an impressive PR, taking 1:20 off his best time.

Despite being out of town and not racing tonight, Andy retains the men's lead in the overall series, and Madeline maintains a slight edge over Melissa on the women's side. I have somehow managed to sneak into the lead in the TT series, a situation that won't last long once Andy and Frank get back, and Madeline also leads Melissa in the women's TT standings.

Next week is the Route 66 hillclimb, going up to the Huntington town line. Hope to see you there!

Full series results are available here.

We had four riders turn up tonight, with Beth & James, another Beth, and Stephanie joining Ari and me for our Easthampton loop on a lovely evening. We rolled through the bike path to Easthampton, appreciating the brush-clearing effort that has beaten back most of the vegetation that has been threatening to engulf the path for the last few weeks.

After a quick climb on Glendale Rd, we also enjoyed the nice fresh pavement and gradual descent on Pomeroy Meadow Rd, before turning onto Park Hill Rd for the climb up to the orchard. Beth was struggling with the heat by that point, and we had to take a bit of a break. The folks at Park Hill were super-friendly, with water and offers to assist. Mike, one of the artists from Art in the Orchard, was also on hand with a pickup truck, offering a ride. Eventually we decided to take him up on his offer, so we loaded up Beth's and my bikes into the truck for the ride back down to NoHo, while Ari continued with the rest of the group.

We all arrived back at Sheldon Field at around the same time, with Beth feeling better by that point. We didn't manage to take a group photo, so I'll leave you with a lovely shot of Mike Perusse's installation at the 2023 Art in the Orchard, called "Bird Show". He has an installation at this year's show as well, so be sure to check it out -- the 2025 Art in the Orchard opens this weekend, and runs through Thanksgiving (more info here). Thanks for your help, Mike!

Joe Lellman designed and led this week's SMR B ride.  This new NCC website is a bit of a challenge to navigate, so I am posting Joe's report he sent out via email below, and I am adding a couple of photos I took along the way. (I loved the route and especially enjoyed the new climb up Bush Rd.)

We had glorious weather for this demanding Hilltown SMR loop. We began the ride at JFK, which worked out very well in general, and for me in particular, as I live just about 1 mile from there. Since we were heading west, we avoided downtown roads and traffic.

We had nine riders at the start, including: Wendy K., Tim C, Madelyn N., Michael B, John and Robert Whalen (in their flashy Sleepy Hollow kit), yours truly, Shawn L., and a guy named Luca, who left the group during the climb on 143 to Chesterfield.

We took South St to Burgy, then the 143 climb to Chesterfield. We continued down to the bottom of the Gorge, and up 143 to Worthington. We stopped at the General Store there to refuel, and where Shawn changed a flat tire. Then, continued north on 143 to Rte 9. Left in Cummington and eventually Bush Rd and West Rd, which was a nice, rolling climb with minimal car traffic and lots of shade. None of us had ever been on this road before, so I suggested re-naming it Lellman Lane. From there, we climbed up 116 to Plainfield, then down 116 to 112. The two Whalen triplets continued on 116 from there, and we took Steady Lane and Creamery in Ashfield, then Ashfield Rd back to Burgy. Home on South St and Audubon. I had 58.5 miles, and 4,648 feet of elevation, and a ride time of 3:52:14. It was good.