brought to you by the letters R-I-D-E and R-A-I-N.
What a crazy day Saturday was! And not just because of the bike ride where a few people wiped out, one necessitating an ambulance call (more on that later), or the Missing Shoe Saga (more on that later too). There was also all the last minute stuff to take care of before the next morning's early flight to NY for Christmas. PHEW.
Saturday morning, 5:00 AM rolled around way too soon and I *almost* stayed in bed and skipped the group ride. The plan was to ride with the GNO Tri group for the first time and I was excited, but also a little nervous. I'd never ridden with more than two other people before, and what if I was the slowest one there? Or what if I did something stupid and caused a crash? But in the end, I knew that as good as the bed felt, I'd regret it if I didn't go, So up I got, packed Stella in the truck, and headed for the meeting point.
As everyone started showing up, it started to rain. Not hard, but enough to get the roads slicked up. The general consensus was that we'd ride anyway, since "what are you going to do on race day if it rains? DNS??" I saw some people that I knew and lots of people I didn't. I was surprised at how many people showed up- there had to be close to 50 of us. My friend said there's not usually that many.
When we finally rolled out of the parking lot at 7:00 sharp, it was kind of a rush! For the first time I was riding in a huge group of people. There were bikes all around me, and I knew I had better keep good control of Stella or there would be problems quick. It was also really cool though, this huge group of triathletes, and I was one of them! I already decided this group thing was much cooler than riding on the levee all by myself.
Kevin, the guy everyone calls Coach and who is one of the "leaders" of GNO Tri, knew that it was my first time. He rode over to me and told me not to worry, just stay on his wheel and he'd look out for me. And that's exactly what he did- I stuck right to his back wheel almost the whole time, caught a nice draft, and let him worry about the road ahead. It was so nice of him to take care of me like that. I was able to enjoy myself in what could otherwise have been a pretty intimidating experience.
Sticking close to his back wheel meant that I caught all his road spray though, and combined with my own spray hitting my back, I got pretty dirty pretty quickly. It was happening to everyone though. At least it wasn't cold.
On the way back, one of the guys in a group ahead of us wiped out. The group behind him came around a corner and found him laying in the road, unconscious. Totally scary. Kevin said he was a really experienced rider, and must have just caught a slick patch or hit one of those reflector things in the road. No one was around him when it happened and he doesn't remember, so no one knows for sure. He seemed OK after a few minutes, coherent and alert at least. A group of us waited until the ambulance showed up and then Kevin waited with his bike until someone came to pick it up. The rest of the ride was uneventful, thankfully, but I did hear of another friend of mine from the lead group who wrecked twice. Kevin made sure to tell me that this type of thing is very rare! I think he was afraid I'd get freaked out. I'm just glad everyone is OK.
It was my longest ride so far, about 45 miles I think. We were moving at a pretty good pace (for me anyway), had the rain and slick roads to deal with, and it was my first group ride, so I allowed myself to feel a little hardcore after we were done. Especially when I got back to the truck and was wiping all the dirt off my face. Aw yeah, bring it on!
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