We lead our second "Spring warm Up" ride. It was mostly the same people as last week, with a couple of additions. The day was beautiful; it started at about 50 and was about 55 and extremely bright and sunny at the end. But it was a hellish ride for me, as sweep. There was one woman who was so far below the ability of the others that I ended up riding most of the way alone with her. Why do people lie about their ability when I screen them? I swear, some people do not know what average speed means. This woman could barely climb at all and i clearly described the ride as a 25 mile ride, with 2 challenging climbs, with grades of 10%. We were not going fast, but I mean this person was dying on little rollers. So, with her permission, I went ahead a bit and waited for her at intersections. I did not get to interact with the rest of the group at all and Steve basically had them by himself. I have noticed that it is a certain type of person that comes on our rides when they are not really qualified; it's usually a woman (not always) who lives in the city and really has no experience riding the type of terrain that is clearly described. I know that if it was me, I would have turned around and gone back, or done the ride on my own. It had to have been miserable for her, but she made it , and so did I. My only other catastrophe is that i packed a pair or regular gloves to change into after wearing full fingered ones for the first 5 miles. i ended up packing 2 right hand gloves! My hands were hot, needless to say.
Hoping to do a nice ride later on today.