Twenty eight centuries in one season?!!!!! A sub-five hour century?!!!!!

You guys are making me feel like a slug. Seriously; that's impressive.

My weekend ride was rather interesting. I went to Chicago with my BF to meet up with some people from RoadBikeReview's online forum. A rather "popular" member of the forum was in Chicago for a conference and that apparently motivated the get-together.

We met one of the fourm members for lunch on Fridya and then took our bikes on the train to Evanston on Saturday morning to ride. There were 8 or so of us altogether--three women and five men. We met up at a bike shop called Turin Bicycle in Evanston (great shop, btw) because one of the gang is the sales/marketing manager there. From there, we had breakfast at a bakery and finally got rolling after a delicious if not nutritious carrot muffin!

I think the ride itself was about 30 miles at a fairly social pace. From what I gathered, it went through several Chicago suburbs and we were mostly on fairly well-traveled streets. We stopped at a scenic overlook of Lake Michigan, which was very pretty (sorry; I don't have pictures). It was chilly that day, but sunny.

After the ride, we stopped for lunch in Evanston and chatted for a while. Everyone was very nice and very, very funny. While it was a bit awkward for me since I don't participate as much on that forum as I do this one, everyone was more than welcoming. We then hung out at the bike shop for a bit and later met up with a few of them on Saturday night for dinner in the city.

The only downside to the trip was having to cart our bikes around on the train. It was fine in the morning, but the ride home was a pain. They unfortunately don't have a dedicated space on the trains for people with bikes or larger items like strollers. I was exhausted by the time we returned to our hotel.

On Sunday, my BF and I kept to ourselves and went to the Art Institute of Chicago before heading home. It was definitely a fun weekend, althoug I'm tired today.

I've had various opportunities over the last couple of years to meet people from this and other cycling forums. I've thoroughly enjoyed those experiences. Cyclists, by and large, are just good people!