riding through May....National Bike Month!!!

[Crankin]

DH and I plan the ride with Ride with GPS. It generates a cue sheet, but at this point, unless it's one of the 2 big rides we lead (one is already done and the other is next Saturday), we are at the point where for show and go rides like last night, we assume they either download the file to their gps or phone, or print out the cue sheet. For weekend rides where I screen people I bring a few. We have to keep our group fairly together, as in between me and DH, so in the pre-ride talk, we go over the issues like the tracks. Since it was only 17 miles, they can remember the name of the street it's on, or the area. We do put stuff like this on cue sheets for bigger rides where there are a higher proportion of people from outside the area.
It actually was pleasant out by the time the ride started. There were no incidents and everyone seemed happy, but I was annoyed the whole time. I felt great, as opposed to Wednesday, but there was a guy on DH's azz, which drove the pace up a bit. DH is good at controlling this, saying "it's a group ride," and re-iterating why we stay together, but, it puts pressure on me as the sweep in a couple of ways. Last night, the slower people weren't terribly slower, which was good, but I am the one who gets the line of cars behind me, afraid to pass 12 people. And the guy who was behind DH had a friend, who went out fast then ended up in front of me, after a bit of humble bragging. They both were jerks, but we just smile. Everyone else were people we knew, except the 2, who of course, came late.
Next one of these we do, will start from Acton, just 5 miles west, but far enough so people who live in the city won't attempt to get here by 5:45, in horrible traffic, for a 17 mile ride.

[ny biker]

The kind of behavior from those two guys is similar to my reason for not doing the huge traditional Memorial Day ride. With that many people it's hard to avoid some sort of jerk behavior. And drivers will have their patience tested with so many cyclists on the roads, which can be an issue for slower folks like me.

I love Ride with GPS overall, I think their site is fantastic and has revolutionized ride planning. But I hate the format of their printed cue sheets. The layout wastes paper and you end up having to stop and turn it over at inconvenient times. Luckily someone in our bike club shared a scripting tool that makes it easy to copy and paste all the cues into a spreadsheet, which allows you to add notes and change the formatting, font, margins, etc. so that you can set it up to be flipped when you're stopped at a rest stop. (One thing that ticks me off with large organized rides, like centuries and charity rides, is that they all use the RWGPS cue sheets now. So I end up plotting the ride myself and creating my own cue sheet. I feel like this should not be necessary when I'm paying a registration fee.)