Wellington Warmup

[tharley]

I am off to Wellington for my "1st" team ride/race. Ok, ok... my 1st team ride was Tour De Fat in Ft Collins last year, but that was a mass of ppl (17,000?) tooting along at 5 mph or so. This one is only 15 miles long, but I am anxious. I am fairly slow and it is single file, so I'm not sure what to expect, besides being passed a lot. On that note, off I go!

[Catrin]

I am off to Wellington for my "1st" team ride/race. Ok, ok... my 1st team ride was Tour De Fat in Ft Collins last year, but that was a mass of ppl (17,000?) tooting along at 5 mph or so. This one is only 15 miles long, but I am anxious. I am fairly slow and it is single file, so I'm not sure what to expect, besides being passed a lot. On that note, off I go!

Have lots of fun and let us know how it goes!

[sarahkonamojo]

Hope it went well.
It wasn't warming up on my ride and I hope the wind was at your back....

[tharley]

Hope it went well.
It wasn't warming up on my ride and I hope the wind was at your back....

Oh no, the wind was head on and side.

DH & I got off to a BAD start. DH had to use the restroom about 10 minutes before the rode started, so he ran inside a grocery store real quick. However, the volunteers decided to start the ride early. 4 minutes later, DH & I were off! Luckily there were only about 20 riders who decided to come out for the 15 mi ride and let me tell you, they were not speed racers. DH & I caught up to the pack pretty quick and passed about 6 or 7 of them. Then, 1.5 mi into the ride, my tire got a flat. Before I could even grab my pump and stopped fighting w/ DH (nice, huh?) a SAG wagon pulled up and fixed my tire pronto. By then we were probably about 10-15 minutes behind the pack, but decided to keep going- long/steep hills and super strong winds made me curse like a sailor the 1st 1/2 of the ride . Volunteers stationed at the turns and SAG drivers had walki-talkies and had definitely been conversing with each other about our issues. One specific SAG guy was shouting encouragement to us on every time he drove passed and asked a few times if the tire was ok. When we finally caught up to the end of the staggered group, we passed the first 3 riders and continued on our way. We ended up passing several of the other riders through the last 1/2 of the ride, even up some steep hills. No technical problems on the way back in and I think we ended up getting to the finish before most of our group. Some of the ppl in our group, that I know we passed while riding, were at the finish/start area before we were- DH & I are positive several got a ride back from the SAG mobiles.

[sarahkonamojo]

Well, you can't spend too much energy on what other riders are doing. (getting a sag ride, etc.) Soooo nice that the SAG was there to fix your flat. I wish that happened every time I got a flat.

Good for you for keeping at it. Hope it was fun.