Magnificent or Mundane May Rides!

[ny biker]

I had a great ride today. It was a big multi-class club ride with three distances to choose from, and I lead the B group on the metric route. Except I rode sweep at the low end of the B pace while most everyone else was a high-B rider. And I was delayed leaving two of the rest stops (trying to get my wool Kneekers off over my bike shoes at one and needing eye drops for my pollen-irritated contact lenses at another). So most of my group were too far up the road for me to see for most of the ride, and I rode alone for some of it. But the weather was near perfect and we had fun. There were 23 of us in all -- too many for one person to manage, but there were enough experienced ride leaders in the group to help make sure everyone rode without any major incidents.

I took a couple of short-cuts so I ended up riding 58 miles rather than 62. It was still my longest ride of the year so far. My legs were a bit tired mid-way through the ride but at the end they actually felt pretty good. And I averaged 14.2 mph, which is faster than most of the rides I've done lately.

With our club, you earn a ride leader's jersey if you lead at least six rides in a year. Today was my first day wearing the jersey that I earned last year. It's a nice Louis Garneau jersey.