I Thought It Would Be Warmer

Several months ago, Marty and I signed up for an organized group ride near us called the Raven Rock Ramble. We originally signed up for the 86 mile version. Obviously, I was under duress when this was decided since I've never ridden that far. Luckily, you can opt out and do whatever course you want the day of, so we did the 100K route instead. Which is actually 64 miles, not 100K, so why it's advertised as 100K is a mystery. They have 2 columns on their website: Route and Actual Distance, where they distinguish between what is advertised and what it really is. Okay.

We don't do a whole lot of these supported rides, but they are fun, particularly if you have a few people to do it with so you can have your own built in group within the great big group. I do love how these rides attract everyone from hardcore roadies to people on recumbents. And the stops usually have very yummy treats - like delicious brownies. I had two of those at one stop.

The weather sucked, though. We live in the south and it's supposed to be hot by now, not gloomy, super windy, and 56 degrees. This particular ride is really quite hilly (friend's garmin had 3300 feet of elevation gain) so we didn't really need the wind to make it any harder. But there you go and we survived. Not without a lot of grumbling among our group of 4 that rotated through most of the route. It was good natured grumbling, like 'omg this sucks hahaha what are we doing I want to be done we are so tough Marty quit your belly aching and get up here and pull us' type of stuff. Having friends with you to endure a workout like this really helps.

The last 15 or so miles were a tough grind, into the wind with lots of uphill/false flats. The 4 of us continued to rotate while a train drafted off of our group behind. We didn't care about that. But then we all cared a tiny bit when 3 of the guys who sucked our wheels for miles and miles surged in a clear manner to totally drop us all the last 2 miles, like it was the end of some stage race or something.

But despite all of this, it was a great ride and really fun and challenging. I'm glad we did it, and I'm REAL glad we did the 100k, err 64 mile version.