Rolled out of the hotel into the cool clear air this morning. The road out of town was tree lined, perhaps the last set of trees that we will see for a several days.
The route today is mostly Northeast. The winds were coming mainly from the Northeast, so for most of the day we were heading into some pretty stiff headwinds.
During these conditions, it's tough for an individual rider to cover the required distance with out becoming exhausted. Riders tend to "clump" together in packs so that the riders up front can provide a wind break for the following riders. If you have every seen pictures of a bike race, most likely you have seen these packs or peloton.
As the ride goes on the riders will begin to be more confortable riding close together and rotating the positions so that each of the rideres will each have a chance to take a turn creating a wind break for the pack.
Today the first attempt was pretty ragged affair. With some stronger riders in the front and other riders tailing behind.
This kind of rinding is not really effective and can be very dangerous because no rules have been set up and actions of other riders can not be predicted. This went on until the first rest stop.
After a break we departed with Gerard, who is the ride's bike mechanic. Within a couple of minutes at the front of the group, he had all 15 of us riding in a much more organized fashion.
By the second rest stop at 46 miles the group was surprised how much easier it was and much more fun.
Ride Stats:
Miles; 73.7
Feet climbed: 791
Average Speed: 14.4 MPH
Today's Photos
2 comments:
Uh, I don't understand why the links all point to the same place. Shouldn't each link point to one day, not the cumulative? I was going to comment that all the photos looked the same, and the I realized that they are all the SAME photos. Kind of confusing to have many links for the same thing.
Yeah! You fixed the links!
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