Rites of Spring ride
I just returned from the Rites of Spring bike ride 2009. I did the 40 mile variant. They offered a 62 mile, but I feel that is still just a teensy bit out of my reach at the moment. Perhaps a little later in the season. I need to start getting in more rides per week and not just a longer ride every weekend or two, but as soon as I start riding the bike to work again that will take care of that.
Anyway, it turned out to be a bit overcast, but it never actually rained, which made it a fairly pleasant day out. Overall I felt like we had tailwind for more of the route than we did headwind, which is a very unusual development, but it made the ride feel fast even though my average speed was still nothing to crow about.
Speaking of stats: I show a distance of 36.9 miles, which is a little less than planned, although I did start my computer late and there was a little bit of confusion about how we finished the route. There may have been a side path we were supposed to take that looped around the start/finish area and I think we took the slightly more direct path. In short, perhaps we trimmed a mile off by accident just not knowing which way to go. Average speed was 15.9 mph. Maximum speed was 32.6 mph.
This was a bigger group than the ride I did two weeks ago. I would say there were a good hundred people at the start. I don’t know the breakdown of people doing the 20, 40 or 62. We seemed to be finished in good time though. I didn’t feel like we were laggards any and the post ride lunch—bananas, ham & turkey sandwiches, and chips—definitely became more crowded after we had made it back.
The route was pleasant. Less hilly than some of my recent rides, and those hills that we did encounter tended to be longer gradual climbs rather steep killers. That’s not to say there weren’t a few where we really had to work. And I did feel like the wind was much less of an obstacle today than it usually seems.
The organizers did have a couple of rest stops arranged where there was somebody with coolers full of gatorade as well as fig newtons and cereal bars and such to eat along the way. We stopped twice briefly. That kind of support is definitely different from my usual solo rides where I need to be sure to carry everything I might want on my person, and where I rarely stop at all.
All in all, a very satisfying ride.
