how i'm livin

Friday night about midnight I get a call from my bicycling companion, Dave E, who wants to let me know that he's not going to be attending Saturday's scheduled ride, The B&O somethingorother, because he's still wide awake, and drinking.

I didn't know much about this B&O ride, because it wasn't my idea. It was Dave's. We both had looked at CIBA's calendar, saw the ride, thought "hmm, maybe we should join CIBA"... but Dave made the call. I thought I was showing up for just a normal CIBA ride, where a bunch of people just show up, ride a marked course, and then go home. I brought along a $20 bill to join CIBA, because I've been riding courses they've marked all summer, and I thought maybe I should compensate someone for all the work.

When I arrived at the ride, by myself, I found a large crowd, a bunch of tables, and no way to join CIBA. As it turns out, the B&O ride is a charity ride for some sort of trail. And it's $20 to ride. So instead of $20 to CIBA for a year's worth of rides, I paid $20 to ride one day. Oh well.

I jumped on the bike and started a bit early (maybe 15 minutes?) from the scheduled start time, but once on the course I saw plenty of other riders. I pushed the pace quite a bit and ended up riding by myself for the first 30 miles (at around 20 mph, I guess) and then, when rolling into a little town (I have no idea where I was, I was just following marks on the road), I noticed a rest stop (or a SAG - Stop and Go). There were two guys with bikes at the SAG, an old woman, a table with nothing on it...

"We're not set up yet. Sorry."

I had worked my way through one water bottle, but I still had a second full bottle. Whatever. I paid $20 for this?

Back on the bike.

I had food with me, so I wasn't concerned about bonking (in which you burn up all the fuel in your body and end up riding at about 10 mph for 30 miles), but I was a little flustered none-the-less.

Down a hill, across a wooden bridge, up a gravel covered road... dogs. 3 of them, running next to me, barking. They didn't get in front of me, so... phone call.

"Hi Dave. Nice ride choice. Here comes a paceline... I'll call you back."

3 folks ride by - one of them says "Jump in". I do. There are 3 more folks behind him.

We fall into a pretty tight paceline - 7 of us now - all of them on bikes that cost at least twice what mine did. I always enjoy keeping up with people who spent more money than me.

And now we're pushing 25 mph... and I'm with them for about 3 miles, I guess, and then I'm spit out the back. I hadn't planned for 25 mph. I might have eaten first.

Eventually I arrive at the last SAG, and there's a line of people 100 deep (the SAG was for both the short and long routes - these were people doing the short route). I didn't want to wait. Back on the bike.

I do another 15 miles with some other guy who's just out riding around, then 3 into a headwind and I'm dying... and here comes the group that passed me earlier. They must have actually stopped at the SAG.

They go around, say hello again... Stop sign. And now I'm sticking with them. 20+ mph for the last 10 miles (which were about 8 more than I thought we were supposed to be riding).

Anyway. You read all of that? Must be bored.

70 miles, 19.5 average, stops included. Not bad at all.

I didn't ride sunday. I was tired.