We left for the Cape at 6:15 AM, to eat breakfast at one of our fav places before a 10 AM ride. All was well, good food and perfect weather. When we got to the start, we found out that this ride was a ride for BOTH of our clubs, because of scheduling issues and the original leader being out with back stuff. Now, club A, which we lead for has a different set of people in most cases. The leader was from this club, and we knew him. He leads many rides. Club B is known for hammering, but this ride was advertised as following the style of the specific sub group I ride with. We use "human arrows" to denote turns and you stay there until the sweep goes by... There was obviously an extremely wide range of riders. Some had bikes more useful for tooling around on the path. I was already nervous about riding in a beach area, but I knew most of this ride was on back roads. It was advertised as a tour of Dennis beaches.
So, all was well for about 10 miles. I was able to stick with the front group, even when the leader told us to go ahead on a long straight a way. The cars were mostly respectful. The scenery-- gorgeous. Then we came to a crowded area where there was a town fair. There was a stop sign and a huge truck was letting us turn left. For some reason, the woman (rider) ahead of me, decided, no, she would stop and let the truck go. Down I went. My foot was in the up position and I couldn't get unclipped. I knew it would happen. She didn't even say "sorry." I was furious. I spent the rest of a 36 mile ride with blood on my knee and getting stiffer by the minute. Thankfully, I had my leader supplies and washed it and applied antibiotic stuff.
Several people left the ride as they couldn't keep up. One woman told my DH to "get off of her wheel." She was pretty mean. This wasn't a paceline. The riding etiquette was horrible, no signals and the leader didn't announce that he needed a rider to stop to arrow soon enough. I stayed as close to the front as I could. On the second "go ahead if you want," I was maintaining 23 mph for about 2 miles, but a hill came and my DH went with the big boys. I was exhausted and stiff and had to slow down.
Lunch was at a great outdoor cafe overlooking Sesuit Harbor. The water was so green, it looked tropical. All in all, nice, but on the 1.5 mile ride back to the car, I was cranky; I dropped everyone except my DH and one other guy.
We went and had soft serve ice cream at the Kreme N' Kone (mmmm) and headed to the beach we used to go to with our kids.It was very windy, but we relaxed for an hour and headed home.
I am now drinking a beer and sitting with an ice pack on my knee.