Habitat for Humanty Bike Ride

On saturday I had my first group ride/race. It was a 31 mile ride from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park through north west Durham. I had been thinking about doing the 62 mile race (there was a 31, 62, and 100 miler options), but since the longest I had ridden for the past 2 months was 8 miles at a clip, I felt 62 was a bit too ambitious :P.

The weather for it wasn't too bad at all; a steady sprinkle to light rain and very little wind. It was in the 60s and no sun. I didn't need to worry about overheating at all. My biggest fear was crashing and endurance. The crashing part was close only once; going down a very steep hill at almost 37 mph, my back tire got a little loose on me and I had to slow down. The roads didn't have much standing water, but they were very slick.

Riding in a group wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. With 3 races going on and very different skill levels, people got broken up after about 5 miles or so. I started in the 11-13 mph group just because I didn't think I could hang in the 13-15 group. Well I passed all of the people in my group and most of the 13-15 group. My final average was 14.1 mph (not great by any stretch, but better than 3/4 of the 31 mile riders. I thought I would be much further back than that, but the better riders rode in the longer rides. The first group from the 62 miler came in about 5 minutes after I finished the 31; which puts them at around 28 mph in the rain (I could barely hold that down hill).

Friends from work did the race too, but are a good 1 to 2 mph faster than me, which makes a pretty big difference. They said that I finished only a minute or so behind them. I didn't even see them in the beginning of the race, because they started in the 18-20 mph group and I caught up to them at the halfway rest stop (around mile 17). Brad said that they were there about 30 seconds before me, but didn't see me also so they thought I had just wimped out on the race.

It was a lot of fun and I'll probably try to get in some riding before spring, when I expect to do my next race. I am bummed that I didn't do a 50 this year, but hopefully I'll get in a couple next year.