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My First Group Ride of the Year!

I met up with my buddies in the Charles River Wheelmen Bicycling Club. This is a social bicycling club open to everyone. We met at a member’s house and had a choice between a supershort (25 miles), short (about 36 miles) and a long ride (around 54 miles). Since I had ridden 4 miles to get there and about 4 miles to get back I opted for the short ride, which would give me close to 33 miles for the year. This was the first group ride of the year for a few riders. Despite temperatures in the low 40’s at the start, I guess the snow discouraged a lot of potential riders as there were about 10 of us at the start.

I had ridden parts of this route this past Monday. So I knew where the the nasty hills were. It also helped that this route was practically in my back yard so I knew what to expect. A few riders went out fast maybe too fast. I guess they were excited for the first ride of the season. I was beginning to feel discouraged a bit almost resigning myself to be tail-end-charlie or pretty close. However, as the ride went on I started to reel back in some the riders that took off early. I passed a couple of riders before the big hill on this ride and by the time I topped the big hill, I was up with a few more. At the halfway point of the super short route we were all riding together. With a few miles to go there were just me another guy up front. By the time we got back to the finish we all were within a minute of each other and sat around and chatted about the ride and biking in general. It was a good time with good friends. I am looking forward to more rides this season. BTW I had a friend take a picture of me to show what it takes to ride in cold weather.

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