First Group Ride of the Season

[Crankin]

And I lived.
As I mentioned in another thread, the group that I've ridden with the most is kind of unique is that they really are no drop and the "main" group keeps a moderate pace. And there's always lunch. Despite the lower average speed of this group, most of the riders are very accomplished athletes. So, last year I only joined them once. I've tried to clear my Wednesdays, but even if I have just one client late in the day, I sometimes have a time constraint. Today's ride started at a farm market near my house, so I rode there. The group has evolved, so now there's usually a group that goes a longer distance and faster. They don't always split off, though. But today, we had 2 different groups. One going 23 miles at a very leisurely pace (it was a lot of people's first ride of the season), and the other, going 34 miles at the regular pace, which usually averages around 13, as we ride in places with good hills most of the time. So I decided to go with this group... and so did all of the "fast" guys. Let's just say I did my suffering today and I'm ready for anything. When we were about 8 miles from my house, the fast guys split off, to do an extra 12 miles and more hills. The end of the ride went right by my street, so I peeled off there to get ready for work and eat. My average was a good deal higher than it is for this type of a hilly ride. I wasn't the last person, either.
Thankfully, this group stops a few times during a ride, so I could catch my breath and eat. There were a few new faces, a couple of younger women, but they were not too friendly. I rode my Guru, so the guys were all interested in asking me about the bike.
Now I remember, though, why I started hating group rides... having to watch out for other's bad riding and dealing with cars in a group of 40 people.

[tealtreak]

Ditto on the "others bad riding"...in addition to being dangerous it reflects badly on all of us out there when cyclists ignore/break rules. I was amazed to see riders refuse to go down to single file on a tour last year when traffic backed up (the packet, website, FB ect. all stated to do so...) It doesn't do much for our PR .....

[Miranda]

Thanks for posting this. First off, glad you survived your ride! And I know exactly what are you talking about.

I have spent more time being injured, and am now chronically in pain, from crash related things. And the thought of some careless crank head crashing me is seriously worrying me.

I haven't really done alot of group riding. But each season I start out with the goal: "this is the year!...I'm going to group ride more, make more cycling friends, and find my match for an event training partner...rah rah!". Then things happen, and I don't. Now I'm starting to think: wth am I really thinking lol?!

One of the most frustrating things is those "fast guys" that need to have their arses in their *correct speed group*. They screw it up for everyone by hanging back and killing everyone else.

Of course now too, all the gym instructor friends are crawling out of the woodwork asking me to take over their Spinning classes for summer. Everyone enjoys more summer time off. But geez guys, I'm a cyclists, I can't kill myself riding the bike inside and then ride outside. The kick is it makes money tho. And part of me wonders if this is a message that I am not meant to be outside as my next crash might be a car running me over and killing me. Be nice if there was some safe happy ride gurantee lol.