The Thursday Ride

Last Thursday I joined the Trailspinners for their Thursday night advanced ride out of the Fair Hill North Appleton lot.  I was a little apprehensive because I'd never ridden with a large group and I wasn't sure how fast these guys would be going.  Or whether I would be able to keep pace.  The Trailspinners post info about group rides on their Yahoo Groups message board and the post said nobody gets dropped so I figured why not. 

I got out of work 20 minutes later than I wanted and of course traffic was jammed up.  The Yahoo post also said rollout at 5:30, be prompt.  Well I rolled in at 5:15 and hustled to put my gear on.  I wasn't expecting to know anyone but I got to meet Fatmarc and Shane, a couple guys that I really only knew from their online posts on Strava.com.  Actually I met Shane last year at the one and only mountain bike race I have ever run at Bear Creek Resort.  So Fatmarc was leading and we rolled out at 5:30 sharp as promised.  I wasn't quite ready - my Strava app on my phone wasn't running so it took me a minute and suddenly I was pulling out last out of about 12 guys.

The 10 guys in front were just gone.  The guy in front of me wasn't quite that fast and when we got to a right turn, where the group ahead was just about long gone already, he let me by.  I didn't see him again.  I'm not sure if he was just there with someone else or realized these guys were flying and this was not for him.  As it turns out there was another guy behind me - I just didn't realize it until later - but he turned up at the top of the hill later and that was our group for the night.

I eventually got shuffled up towards the front and found myself following the lead 3 or 4 for most of the night.  I was doing okay holding my own and had a great time testing my legs and bike handling skills against these guys.  But these guys were riding fast.  Real fast.  In fact on two hill climb segments they were going fast enough to take the King of the Mountain honors on Strava.com.  But really these guys were just awesome all around riders.  Fatmarc showed us some cool trails that don't get ridden often and the new route for the Bike Line race over on the Little Egypt side.  It doesn't stay light out too late yet so Fatmarc brought us back to the lot by 7:00.  We had ridden, I mean hammered, 14 miles.  It was an awesome night weather-wise and the ride was equally awesome.

I'm already plotting my early exit from work for this Thursday...and the next.  Because the Thursday ride is truly, a gnarly ride dude.