Blog#3: Last Night was a Duesy!

My what big tires you have!

We have a few different group rides here in St. Cloud. I usually do the Thursday night ride that starts and ends from the local Beaver Island brewery but I wanted to change things up a bit and try the Tuesday night House of Pizza ride. It usually has two or three groups with the A group being the "fast group" followed by B and maybe C. These are pretty much straight up road rides so the odds of seeing someone on a mtb  dressed in non roadie garb with a Walmart name tag are pretty much nill...and that's where I come in! I did last weeks ride basically dressed like a clown but I had the Giant in road mode. So at least in that respect I wasn't fooling around...too much. 

"Road mode" An XC MTB with 25c tires: Your Zen moment of the day!

The B ride at that time was a tad tame as it was trying to be a bit more encompassing to riders of different skill levels. I ended up breaking away for the last ten miles. I also drove to the ride start and back. 

This week idiocy and penchant for outlandish bicycling behavior reared it's ugly head and although I dressed the part in skin tight jersey and shorts I left the bike in All Road mode! MTB gearing and wheels! I also road to start which is only an added 12 miles but it's through town. 

This time around it was decided that there would be three groups and that we would start and stay together for a certain amount of miles than split off. I rolled up just before the start and yeah there were more than a few odd looks! It's a good thing I'm used to that! 

Off we went and fast as well at about a 21mph pace. I stayed in the middle of the pack (the best place to be) and while I certainly was pushing more bike and three times as much tire as the others I am a smart rider and maintained efficiency. I am also down 15lbs in the last couple months, i.e. I lost a really expensive road bike.

Everything was going just fine and I was still, rightfully so, getting crazy looks and questions: "What is your name again?" which at time really meant "Who the hell are you?!" 

My ego being more than placated I spurned on ahead. Eventually we split and for a brief moment I was the A group. Realizing my mistake I turned back to regroup with B. One of the A riders remarked about my not staying with them but there is a fine line between bravery and foolishness and I although I was dabbing my toe on the wrong side I would not be crossing it, fully...at least not tonight. 

I joined back up with B and pedaled on. We came to a small town and the road we were going to take was under construction with nothing but gravel in sight. The group decided to turn back but I had the right tool for the job! "I'll see you all back at the ranch" and off I went on a little gravel grinder!

It turned out that the gravel was actually really nice and only a few miles but the tar road after really sucked. I pedaled on and just after getting back to the start point my group rolled in! I averaged 18mph+ for almost 40 miles! If I would have stayed with them it would have been 19! I make sure not to let numbers and averages rule my riding but that's pretty remarkable!

After some hang around and a few beers I headed out for a nice night ride back home but it wouldn't be without incident....grrr. I go back and forth between flat pedals and clippless, reserving clips for road rides as I tend to have accidents using them off road. I came up to an intersection that was under major construction and unclipped. Thinking I would go through unclipped and that my pedals would rotate quickly leaving the undersides up I unclipped then put my feet back down only to end up clipped right back in! (This never happens at a stop?!) I immediately hit a loose section and BAM! down I went on my left side. This has happened before so even though I wasn't happy I didn't get too mad. I brushed off the incident and the dirt and headed home. Given the overall ride I went to bed with a smile on my face! We'll see if it's still there tomorrow morning! Thanks for reading!