New ride, new route, new rules

I went on a new local ride through Birmingham this week, and made the realization, that I an nowhere near the cyclist I thought I was.

I joined the Vulcan Triathletes for a ride on Tuesday and learned real quickly, in a race, they would have absolutely smoked me. And smoked me bad.

We took out from the parking lot on a 30mi medium intensity ride. When we left, there were close to 30 of us heading out. As we progressed further and further, the group started dwindling as they took different routes through the city. I stuck with the original group, and this is where I probably went wrong.

Once out of traffic, we started climbing. I'm weak in the climb, so I tucked in behind a fellow rider and just held in the draft. As I looked down, I noticed we were moving pretty close to 17mph, which was pretty tough. Just as I realized this, the ride leader makes the announcement "Now is generally where we pick up the pace some..." Great.

Less than halfway through and they've picked up the pace to near 18mph in a climb. It was all I could do to keep 10ft between me and the next cyclist. The struggling was obvious.

As we pushed on, yes, the distance increased. I just realized I needed to pedal, pedal hard, and try to at least keep the others in my sights. And this is where this ride differs from the other rides. Most of the other rides I go on are sponsored by the bike shop. They are determined to keep everyone together and keep an easy pace. The Vulcan guys, not so much.

After the climb, we even out, get on a nice 4 lane and I manage to recover a little. A little! I start closing the gap, feeling good, only to realize I'm closing the gap on a different group of cyclist and these folks aren't heading back to my starting point.

I've been dropped. Somewhere out by the Birmingham race course, and I'm by myself. Halfway knowledgeable about where I'm going and desperately hoping to beat the dark. After a few wrong turns, some backtracking, and luckily catching up with the original group again, I was back on track and heading home.

I pulled into the parking lot probably 10-15mins after the main group and happy to have completed the ride.

Total - 30 miles, 1hr 35mins,

Call me crazy, but I'm going to do it again this week....