Harpeth River Ride

The Harpeth River ride (HRR) might be one of the biggest organized rides in Nashville. It happens once a year and caps out around 1500 people. It’s not a race…. It’s a ride that offers many different course options. As with any large ride, it turns into a race for some. Last year, I did the 100 mile loop with Chechu Rubiera. This year, my coach indicated I didn’t need to ride more than 3.5 hrs, so I did the Metric instead. As luck would have it, Lance Armstrong showed up to do the full century. Well crap, finally when someone fast enough to ride with me shows up, I’m not doing the same course… I can only assume that he’s too scared to ride the metric with me (if you couldn’t tell, that was a joke). That’s ok because I had Robert Reeves and a guy from Memphis, John Owen, with me today.

The day started as most events do; Robert showed up at my house at some ungodly hour and we packed up and started driving. Fortunately, the HRR start/finish isn’t that far away, so maybe it wasn’t all that early. Once we exited the interstate, traffic to the start/finish was a mess. Like many others, we pulled into the first parking lot we saw. As we were getting ready, I got a flat. Just sitting there… flat. I fixed that, called John to find him, ran into my buddy Patrick, and then we finally made our way to the start.


1500 people crammed into one start area is rather congested. Plus, since we were doing the metric, we were the second group (100 milers are the first group). Also, since we were a little behind schedule, we didn’t get a good place… we were about 75% of the way back in the start group. Lance said a few words, gave a car away to a fellow teammate, and then the ride started. 10 mins later, we crossed the start line (it takes a long time for lots of bikes to get going). We spent the first hour going 14mph; well within my HR zones prescribed for the day. I like this pace.

After 14 or so miles, it started to thin out but I couldn’t get anyone to pace line with me. Everyone was all over the place. We pulled into the first stop (really? Are we stopping already) and found Mark Miller, Troy Dover, and their whole crew. I knew right then a pace line would form because Mark Miller loves snapping the reins on a fast group. I stepped around the corner to use the bathroom (wow, lots of my post include me taking a leak, huh?) and then I turned around and Mark Miller was GONE! Troy had waited up for me so I told the guys with me “let’s go, get on my wheel, I’ll get on Troy’s, and we’ll catch those guys and start pacing.” No less than thirty seconds later I looked back and Troy had destroyed everyone. It was just us. He road like a possessed man. 26mph and no less. We caught Mark, David, Kevin, and others. Tucked in, recovered, and then started making my way to the front.

Kevin Crossman is a badass. Hands down badass. He was pulling a quick pace and I was on his wheel. He pulled off to take a quick break and I knew I had to match his pace (mostly to keep the group moving consistently down the road, not because I’m at all competitive, right?). Kevin and I are a lot alike, I think anyway, in that we like to pull… we like to pull for a long time and at a high effort. At several points we were cruising along at 28-30mph. These guys are fun to ride with. No matter how hard you pull them (thinking you’ll wear them out), they pull even harder and keep your ass working even though you’re drafting. I guess that’s why they’re all Ironmen… you get into a group of people used to pulling for 112 miles, and they just pull HARD.

Second Rest Stop (am I wrong… aren’t we only doing a metric)? We regroup with my guys. Now we have Mark, Troy, David, Kevin and their posse and we also have Robert and John. Finally, can we get a BIG pace line going? Turns out we can’t. We get a flat just a couple miles out from the rest stop. The group separates and we fix the flat and get going again. We’ve got Kevin, Troy, David, John, Robert and me… we can catch the others right?

Kevin and I just hammer on the front. Taking turns going hard. We come up on a pace line of a well know strong group in town and blow by them at 28-30mph. Smart? Idk, I just knew I wanted to keep this up. It felt good. They didn’t catch on. Kevin and I kept our efforts up and not meaning to, we drop our group. After realizing we were pretty far up, we just kept going. We kept the pace high all the way in. Kevin went straight to his car to run I believe. I went thru the finish line to get my finisher’s medal (really cool that HRR gave out medals for the ride). I then made my way to the car, hooked up with Robert, and went for a run.

As always with these guys, a great day of training and fun. I averaged 21.2mph and kept my HR in high zone 2. I guess the 180+ HRs at the end were offset by the 14mph and HR of 52 in the beginning. The weather couldn’t have been better for the Metric. Really glad I didn’t do the full century… it got HOT on those guys.