Was carless today, so I decided to ride to the starting point of a club ride which was advertised as a "classic"/heavy/unusual bike ride around town from the library down to the waterfront and back. Ten miles down and ten miles to back to join a 12 mile ride! I don't have a classic bike, so I rode my hybrid, thinking there would be simply loads of old heavy clunkers at the ride. Turned out there were a lot of beautifully maintained classic racing bikes. I almost turned around and went back home! But I did manage to keep up-- even on the hills-- and made it over the scairyiest bridge I've ever seen without getting off and walking. It would have been scairy either way, but it was faster just to stay on the bike. One of the beautiful racing bikes was ruined, unfortunately, and the rider thrown over her handle bars when her front tire got wedged in between the boards as we rode around the marina. So tragic! The woman landed on her face, but arose worrying that her front wheel (which was irreplacable) was permanently damaged. Such dedication; I would have been worried that my face was permanently damaged--but then I'm a wuss...
I was so pleased with myself for managing to keep up with the speedy people. At one point I noticed that we were going 18-20 mph (on a flat stretch). This time last year, I was lucky to reach 10-12 mph on that hybrid. I was pretty darned wiped out when I got home, though.