My first peloton

Sunday morning I awoke to the sound of my cell phone buzzing…my alarm clock. It was 8am on a Sunday morning. WHAT AM I DOING AWAKE SO EARLY AFTER A NIGHT OF DRINKING?!?!? Ahh….I remember. It’s the morning of my first group bike ride!

So I get up, chug down some water…and get geared up for the big ride. Alex and I do a warm-up ride into Clarendon to the shop to meet the group. Francis and Spicy were both already at the shop getting suited up, and there were a few others outside waiting to ride.

Once Jess (the group leader) showed up, it was time to ride! She introduced all the staff members and then it was off to Georgetown. Click, Click, Click went the sound of about 30 riders clipping in and taking off for our next stop. I took an easy pace in, and chatted with a few of the riders around me that I knew.

When our peloton got into Georgetown, we met with the group out there. The group would break off here and we could either do the “beginners ride” of about 17 miles on the trails or the “more experienced ride” of about 30 miles at a 17mph pace on roads. Of course me being me, I decided to hang with the big dogs and do the 30 miler.

Click, Click, Click goes everyone clipping into their pedals and heading off. Up comes the first hill…kicking my butt and putting me way into the back. I can still see the whole group, so maybe I can eventually catch up. Then comes hill number 2. HA, there’s NO CHANCE of catching up. Luckily Alex stayed with me and we did our own ride. Jess came back looking for us, but I told her not to worry about dropping us, Alex was safe since he was “with a staff member” – which apparently means we can get any of the riders back to the starting point. Ha! So off she went to catch up to the group.

Alex and I stayed on MacArthur Blvd. on the way to Maryland and passed the Glen Echo Park (apparently used to be an amusement park) and rode for about 15 miles. Then we turned back around and he taught me how to “ride out of my saddle” (not sitting), how to “climb” (pedal while out of my saddle while going uphill) since I was always too scared of falling over to try it before. Now that I had THAT mastered, going uphill wasn’t so bad!

On the way back other cyclists kept passing us in their race line and I said “I just want to pass SOMEONE!” and later, I did it! I passed Alex. We ended up playing a game of leap frog and I got to work on sprinting. Alex clocked us on his bike computer at getting up to 21mph!

Once at the key bridge I hear some familiar voices “How’d it go April?!?” – what do you know, it was part of the original group! They caught up to us on the bridge, and we stuck with them a little on the way back to the store. Once at the store (and exhausted after 30 miles!) we biked over to Robek’s for some after-riding-smoothie. A smoothie has NEVER tasted so good!

Back at my place (almost noon!) it was time to muster up the energy to make it to the pool to nap. I don’t know how I found the energy, but I didn’t last too long at the pool before I was napping in the sun!

I can’t wait to take Black Stallion out on another group ride (but this time I may stick with the Georgetown group till I get good enough to do that 30 miler again).

- apes -