Last Tuesday I happened upon a group ride during my morning jaunt through Patapsco State Park. I had no idea what was going on as I delicately stepped through the 25 or so riders during a re-group at the entrance to the park. I gave a polite "excuse me" and "hello, there" as I passed through - they looked at me the same way I was probably looking at them ... as in, what the heck is going on there?
I continued on, knowing they'd catch me at some point on Lawyers Hill. They did, about 3/4 of the way up. Everyone was very polite as they cruised past me -cyclists can be total jerks in that position so I appreciated it. After I crested the top/caught my breath, I chased up to the guy nearest me and asked what was going on. Oscar (as I found out his name later) patiently answered my questions as we pedaled and while caught at the stoplight on Montgomery Road, I got a little more information/encouragement to check out this group, known as The Morning Ride.
I continued on my way, solo, absolutely astounded. I've been jealous of the DC/VA crowd as you guys have so many options for group rides just about any time or anyplace you can sneak out on your bike. I've been here for almost 9 years (no idea how this happened) and always traveled to DC/VA group rides, traveled to Davidsonville rides or trained relatively solo. How is it possible that this many cyclists live in my general vicinity and organize rides in my backyard and I never knew about it?!
After getting all the relevant info, I posted up for the Thursday morning ride. I am not racing right now (and thereby have not been specifically training) but I have been riding. That said, training relatively solo or marching up survival climbs does NOT amount to group-ride fitness. Also, I haven't been on a group ride since my last little ... incident ... so I had no idea how comfy I would be on unfamiliar wheels. All this I knew this going in but I had to face it at some point, so why not now?
The alarm went off at 515. The meeting point is about 35-40mins away by bike and I just couldn't stomach seeing 4 o'clock twice in one day so I drove to the meeting point. I felt like a total wuss because everyone else rode in. Ah, well ... I've gotta ease into this! A nice size group showed up and we picked up more along the way. The ride was fast but relatively safe - I know the roads but I don't know the acceleration or sprint points so I was caught out a few times. More than one person paced me back to the group during the ride (thank you!!) but overall, I was pretty happy (given all my excuses above) with the ride.
Maybe this isn't such a local "underground" cycling community - maybe it's been right there and I just haven't been looking. Either way, I'm absolutely stoked at the option of doing this ride once or twice a week and discovering all-new motivation for riding and training.
1 comment:
Nice to have you along for the ride. - w
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