No ride Saturday. I was saving my legs for a 75 mile organized ride today. There were 7,200 participants spread over 6 distances and routes, with varying start times. Some friends and I rode the 75 mile route, which was the earliest start at 7:00 a.m. The highlight of the ride was at the beginning, and was an opportunity to ride across a 2.5 mile bridge near the city lakefront that is normally closed to bicycle and pedestrian traffic. The bridge was closed to motorized traffic for several hours for this to happen. For the entire ride there was great traffic control, streets (urban, suburban, and country) that were in good riding condition, volunteers at every turn (saw some of them doing some gravel sweeping in a turn as we passed through), ride marshals on bicycles patrolling the route, sag wagons patrolling the route, good rest stops with decent refreshments, etc. The peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at mile 48 really hit the spot! On top of that, we had perfect weather – 65 at the start and 79 by the end of the ride, sunny with a few passing clouds, and winds of only 10-12 mph for a change And most importantly of all, I got to ride with good friends!