I went on a 36 mile club ride on the Cape. Left at 8 AM to drive down and barely got there in time for the 10 AM start. Usually this is a 90 minute drive, but there was rush hour traffic. I didn't want to stop to pee, and consequently, I had to wait until a stop at the 8 mile point of the ride . We left from Osterville and rode around there for about 12 miles; then we headed toward Hyannisport, along Craigville beach. The roads were blocked because of Ted Kennedy's death, but we went through the barricades and the police were nice and waved us on. There were at least 50 mobile TV trucks parked along the road, with rubber plates, wires, and other stuff across the road. I jumped over them and we then went up a small hill to a view at the Hyannisport Golf Club. Very nice, but the place gave me the creeps, since it's a restricted club that I wasn't allowed into at a dance when I was a kid. Then we went on to Kalmus Beach and when we turned around in the lot, wow. The wind hit us right in the face, along with blowing sand. I struggled to keep my bike upright! We went about a mile to a park, refilled our bottles and had a snack and headed back. The wind was brutal, so the leader took us a little ways back from the shore; right through the conference center retreat place I went to last year for grad school orientation. There were tons of speed bumps in there. We got back to the parking lot and then drove over to leader's house for a great lunch spread that he and his wife put on every year.
There were quite a few people I didn't know on the ride. I was able to stay up front with the big boys, too. This was a flat ride, but with this group, any little rise, everyone falls back. It was hot, but the wind cooled us a lot, despite the fact that there were a few strong gusts.
My drive home sucked, but I recovered with a beer and a shower.