another fun and wild ride

For something different, I got to the WCCC ride early with a queue sheet for the A- ride. I'll go out easy, and pick it up in the last 10 miles of a 65 miler - good plan.

So my friend Joel was running late and wasn't ready as the large group of 30 riders took off, so I waited for him to help him catch up. Well, it only took 5 minutes for him to get ready, but the group was really moving. So we saw them in the distance a few times and thought we were making up some ground, but Joel just wasn't feeling the hills climbs, so we would pull them close, then they would drift off again.

10 hard miles later, we caught them stopped at a traffic light. The next few miles were easy pedaling in the draft of the pack, talking to a few few folks here and there.

Eventually I found myself near the front of the group again, charging the hills.

After our mid ride break, the ride leader decided to divert us from a long stretch of a major road. This detour wasn't on the queue sheet, so I wasn't quite sure where I was.

I found myself at the front of this run away train with 30 passengers going downhill at 30 mph, when suddenly a gap revealed itself in the road, which I had to bunny hop over, which in turn dislodged my water bottle, which I was bobbling between my legs as I tried to keep it from landing in the spokes of one of the hapless 30 riders behind me, just as the road dropped into a steeper, shady descent full of potholes. Okay, are you following this so far?

At this point I decide to move into the oncoming traffic lane and let the rest of the group pass as my water bottle falls to the ground and rolls who-knows-where, and I hit the breaks. Of course there was no on-coming traffic, but not a very sophisticated ride move and probably shocked the crap out of several of the riders behind me, who where holding on for dear life down this sharp descent full of pot holes moving at high speeds.

Well it didn't take long for the train to pass and for me to begin to search for my water bottle. I found another one before I found mine and thought it was nice for the group to wait for me at the top of the next hill.

As I rode up to the group, it turns out that 3 people got flats along that nasty little section of road, and much grumbling from the ride leader.

Eventually we regrouped, got our nerve back, and attacked the last 10 miles of the course, of which we were all familiar.