Today I went out and joined the Slow Spokes ride. All told, there were seven riders. We headed out on a loop that should have been right around 17 miles. That is more than double my current YTD mileage. :p Of course, I’ve only commuted once, so that means that my YTD mileage is a paltry 8.4.
We headed out and things were going rather well. I wasn’t the slowest in the group, which is nice. For the first half of the ride, I was either at the front, or close to it. As we were at the intersection of Getty’s Creek and Kerr Creek regrouping, another cyclist came down and caught up with us and continued on ahead. We started back up, so I decided to catch the guy for a chat. It’s fun riding with riders who are faster than you are. He was definitely one of those riders. After about a mile of 18-20mph, I had to call it quits and drop back. In retrospect, riding with this guy was not the smartest idea in the world. About a mile after I started to drop back, we came upon the one big hill of the day. It was a doozy, too. I was not able to finish this hill and had to walk up it with another rider. It’s not like I was even close to finishing it. I gave up early and walked about a half mile uphill. I’m not horribly proud of this, but it is what it is.
After we caught up with the rest of the group, we headed back towards town. This particular route took us right down Smith Road and right by my apartment. Instead of riding the ~4 miles back into town with the rest of the group to pick up my car, which I had driven to Bryan Park, I decided to call it quits and just head home. This left me with a total of 13 miles in a little under an hour and a half.
All told, it wasn’t a complete disaster. I felt pretty good through most of the ride up until that large hill. I’m also sort of glad that I left my car over there since I now have to ride back over to pick it up. I’m considering just leaving it there until tomorrow since there is the Sunday Nice N’ Easy ride.
