48.2 Miles
6:00 am - Wake up and drive my father to the airport.8:00 am - Get back in the area where my ride starts
9:30 am- Ride leaves...
I decided to go on a ride today with the Willimantic Cycle group. They left from Eastford, CT which is about 25 min from my house. There were two groups, the A group which was going about 50 miles, and the C group which was going about 23 miles. On a whim, and knowing I needed to be push my self went with the A group, 9 lean/mean looking guys. About 2 miles into it we lost one guy who turned around cause we were going to fast. We were left with 8. I prayed I wouldn't be next to drop off. At the start I was more then a little nervous, they were flying and I was falling a little behind.
There was this one awesome guy named Bob who was riding a Mt. Bike if you believe it and he somehow kept up with us. Not with the pack but he was never far behind, just amazing. Mad props to Bob. I eventually got into the rhythm of things and could keep up fairly well. We went on a beautiful ride around Northeastern CT. The only time I had a little trouble was with hills but I would always push my self and catch up with the group.
Group riding is an amazing experience. I learned an enormous amount, and I want to thank Glen for giving me a heads up with a lot of the jargon and riding techniques. We even did a pace line on a back road where there were no cars. A pace line is when everyone follows in a line really close to each other then the first guy moves to the left and the next guy takes over keeping the same pace. The original guy slowly makes his way to the back of the line. It's a great way to keep everyone rested. It was nice to experience and learn firsthand. Here is a link on how to ride in a pace line.
To try to keep this short here's what else happened, I inhaled a huge bug, a dragon fly landed on my leg and amazingly stayed there for about 3 miles, and we finished by going on a little detour past Renée Zellweger's house. She recently bought a old farm house in the area. It was a beautiful house, but didn't see her.
To sum up we kept about an average 16 mph pace and the whole 48.2 miles took us about 3 hours to ride. Not bad, and I'm glad I not only survived but held my own in the A group. What an amazing experience, I think I'm falling in love with road riding.
PS- I'm more in love with drafting!
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posted by Todd Johnson @ 10:01 AM
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