Quote Originally Posted by SheFly View Post
Like Robyn, after a week of returning to the basement to ride, I had to get outside in yesterday's warm (ok, only low 50s, but warm for us) temps. It felt really good just to be outside, pedaling, and GOING SOMEWHERE!

Robyn also mentioned that the roads were wet. Well, it was more like riding through torrential streams riding on the roads here - all the snow from last Friday is melting (YAY!). Although we all had fenders on the bikes, I still looked pretty grungy after 36 miles... Can't wait to go out and do it again today!

SheFly

Note: those are NOT freckles on my face...
Wow, looks like you ate some mud! That can be fun though.

I had my second group ride yesterday. After checking out everyone in the group, I decided to try riding with the A's. I knew I was stronger than everyone going in the B's, I also knew I would get dropped by the A's about halfway--but I really wanted to push myself and besides, the B's would be there to pick me up. Well, a bossy guy that I haven't ridden with since I was pregnant literally held me back and said that I had to ride in his group I started to protest, but it was too late, the A's had already left.

Just as my group was about to leave, a new guy shows up and announces that it's his first group ride ever. Bossy guy tells him to "Stay in the back and stay out of the way." And then we leave. He gives new guy no more instruction! I never saw new guy again after we left the parking lot. I couldn't sleep last night because I had guilt issues.

So I rode with the B's. It was a nice ride but it didn't challenge me at all. About halfway in we picked up a few guys that had been dropped from the A group. I started riding with them and we got ahead of the B's. Mr. Bossy comes riding up and tells us we need to reign it in. I can understand where he was coming from, but there were 9 people left in the B's--plenty of people for a pace line. We hit another climb and we got ahead of the B's again. This time we ignored Bossy and rode it in by ourselves.

I ended up with 19.5 average--not too bad!