Shop Ride on Saturday

We met at the shop today at 7:30am for the Saturday ride. We decided to ride down to Zilker Park and hook up with the Austin Tricyclist ride that would be leaving at 8:30. I have never done one of the ATC rides before and was told there would be a lot of people. That was an understatement. There had to be close to 100 riders including some of the best riders in Austin. We rode up the Mopac Access Road heading for Southwest Parkway. There is a small hill right before the exit to Southwest Parkway and it caused a split in the group. I got stuck in the rear split. I went off the front when we turned onto Southwest Parkway and tried to catch my buddies who made the front split, but it was futile. 1 rider can't ride as fast as 50. What surprised me was the pace of that group. Usually when you get a bunch of people together to ride, the pace is moderate. Not that front group. They were hauling ass and I couldn't catch up. It was still a blast. My buddies told me that the front group split into 3 smaller groups on the way the Southwest Parkway. We headed North on 71 for a few miles and then turned onto Bee Cave Road for the last mile back to the shop. We ended up right at 28 miles.

5 minutes from Southwest Cycle Sport this morning I got a flat. I checked the tire, put in a new tube, blew it up with an inflator and took off. 2 minutes later the same tire was flat. Jump off, go through the same process blah blah. This time it held. There must have been something that I missed on the first change even though I saw nothing wrong on the second change. Just one of those days I guess.

I was too busy pedaling my ass off today to remember to take pictures. I will make sure I get some on my next ride.