Saturday evening I was sitting on the couch with the laptop trying to decide what was on the schedule for Sunday. More just comfy on the couch with TV and laptop. I remembered Pat at Brauns Bicycles had told me I should do Tour de Grande as a good weekend ride. "Sunday is supposed to be an awesome day". I opened the page and read the info and that was it. I shall ride.
The odd story here is my little-no road riding experience. I have pedalled bikes on pavement yes, but never ridden in a proper group road ride with all of the intricacies. I just installed slick tires on my CX bike on Thursday so this was a good way to test them out. The closest I have done is the Paris to Ancaster race twice. I know little about pulling or riding in a group who are pulling you. I am just amazed at how a strong guy can bridge the gap between groups and all you have to do is get in behind (oh and take your turn every so often too).
I was lucky to ride with an awesome group of strong riders who helped me ride faster than I would have expected I could. There was an unfortunate bail around 50K though that got in my head. The guy beside me wiped out on a water bottle and a nasty chain reaction from there. A few of us stopped until we knew things were under control. We then started back up not thinking we would find the pack again. Someone then took the lead and pulled us back up. I was amazed that this was possible. Later in the ride I found myself falling off the back of the group and was perplexed by how difficult it was to just make up a couple bike lengths afterwards. I fought back on and made sure not to do that again. In the end I was happy with the time on my cyclocomputer of 4:28:05 for my first century. The Blackberry GPS is slightly off this time and I am ok with that too :-). What a great day on the bike!!
I could ramble on all day but that's all for now... I'm out...
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