Saturday riding

The Saturday ride. Man...I can be a tough morning person and this morning was no different. I got to the determined point to meet up with the tri club and this morning was an inland option of riding. 47 miles of wonderful hills or 32 miles of hills. And while a friend just convinced to do the bike leg of the Oly relay at Wildflower, (WHAT was I thinking?...me and hills need to become friends)I wasn't extremely keen to do hills mainly because I still haven't spent much time in the saddle. There was a small contingent that was looking to ride the coast and considering that my time in the saddle is woefully small I was thinking of doing the coastal ride with the few people that were going to do that. Fortunately the hills chose me in the end. I say fortunately because the last 5-10 miles of the loop we did was on the coast and by the time we got to coast it was gusting like no other and I was having a heck of a time not getting blown all over. I was thankful that I only had to endure that for the last bit of the ride and not the whole thing.

Both the 47 miles and 32 milers started off together and would break off down the road. Less than 10 miles into the ride one of the guys who was in the 32 mile group got a flat and those that were going to do this ride stopped and grouped up. It was a smaller group, which I am fond of smaller groups, but a small group going the shorter distance does not mean a slower group by any stretch of the imagination. This week I would like to blame the fact I kept getting dropped the whole time on traffic lights, like last week..but well...that would be lying.

We regrouped few times as the first flatter in the group had a few more issues with the tire so a lot of tire changing was happening on this ride. We would regroup, take off on the hills...which I could at least kinda sorta keep up...sorta and not get too far behind, but triathletes have this nasty habit of on straight aways and down hills of getting all aero and gunning it. And considering that I just got my aero bars and my bike fitted yesterday I did have a few points where I could try them out...but for the most part I stayed out of them...still getting used to the squirrelly nature of them. One person did loop back and keep me company most of the time which was very nice and will have to 'pay it forward' in the future when I'm a stronger biker and someone is struggling in a group I'm in.

The 'funny' thing about the situation was when I was getting slightly frustrated on the flatter parts due to not keeping up very well...I looked down at my speedometer only to read:

18-20mph

Err...That's pretty fast for me on flats...so at that point I just stopped giving myself a hard time. It's not like I was on a beach cruiser going 8 miles an hour. Another thing that may have made things a wee little bit more difficult was when I got home I realized I hadn't pumped my tires up that morning. I checked my rear tire...um, yea...less than 80 psi. I'm sure that didn't help the situation.

It was a good day overall. I learned a few things:

-Be well stocked with tires and tubes, you or your riding mates may need more of them than you think.

-Know how much of a CO2 cartridge your tubes need...I offered my puny 12.5 gram cartridge which they couldn't use and then was informed that since I don't have 650 tires I need a bigger cartridge. Glad I didn't find that out the hard way.

-Have more calories than you might need for the actual ride. I didn't bonk, but I was woefully low on calories by the end of the ride.

-Always pump your tires before your ride. Always.

-At the end of the day...it is always your own ride...enjoy it...even if you can't see the people you are with any more. Take in the scenery...enjoy the feel of the road...being out there and taking it all in really is an awesome thing that so many people don't do.