Bonus Miles

I had been looking forward to a nice ride in the country, and this morning I wasn't disappointed. As I drove out to Starbucks, though, I was a little worried about the weather. It was cloudy and the streets were wet, and although the temperature was warm I wondered if there might be some serious rain. I arrived at Starbucks just as Viv did, and as it turned out we were the only ones, so we headed across the lake under somewhat ominous skies.

The northshore ride had a particularly good and very diverse turnout this morning and we rolled out around 8:15 with almost twenty riders for a planned 60 miles. It felt odd to be riding in just shorts and a single short-sleeved jersey in December, but I didn't hear anyone complaining. I think the temperature eventually hit about 80F. The first half of the ride stayed pretty controlled, but as expected the pace started creeping upward once the road got hillier and the loop started to turn back toward home. Although the group split a few times, everybody would wait at the intersections to regroup. Instead of waiting at Plainview, I turned around and rode back to meet the riders who were off the back. Then on the rolling hills heading west the group split again.

When we got to the left-hand turn back toward Enon the front group, perhaps assuming that everyone else was riding safely in a second pack, didn't wait and instead kept going all the way to the sprint for the Enon sign. At Enon we waited for the rest of the group, but there was one rider missing. We waited a little longer, but it soon became obvious we'd need to mount a search and rescue operation because he'd either had a mechanical or had missed the last turn. Two of us headed west down the road he'd end up on if he'd missed the turn, and two backtracked the way we'd come. The rest of the group continued on.

Well, Jorge and I were three or four miles down the road when we found him, so by the time we all met up again at Enon, he and I had accumulated close to fifteen "bonus miles" already. The ride back in from Enon was kind of painful because our prodigal rider was battling cramping legs that kept our speed down to around 15 mph. On the other hand, the weather was just beautiful, so I didn't mind the extra miles at all. Colder weather is supposed to be moving in soon, so I was glad I'd made the trip across the lake today.