The Antithesis of Last Week's Hell Ride

After last week's route caused one guy to quit cycling forever, another to turn around half way up Pickerington and head directly back to the parking lot, 2 people to spew vomit and only a handful of cyclists to actually finish the route (not including the route maker) Ryan was sufficiently cowed to this week unveil a flatish, rolling route. 

Jeff spends lots of time polishing and rubbing his new bike, sometimes bending over mid-ride to remove a spot from the frame.  He has also been seen adjusting his helmet mirror so it reflects the bike frame for constant frame blemish monitoring.

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A smallish group showed up, perhaps last week's experience caused many to look elsewhere for a ride or maybe the slight chance of rain kept them away but Kevin observed, "There aren't any C riders here."

The Boss said he did not want to ride hard and so with that pronouncement and the flatter route, it appeared a very large group would start and hang together.  After a few miles of moderately paced riding, Rick Holt said his ATTD was being padded.  When questioned what the acronym meant, he said his Average Time Til Dropped, funny. We headed out Basil Western, dropped south and got on a nice rolling road with a couple of short steep climbs but the group shed only 3 riders that I could see.  At mile 14 I noticed a funny squishy feeling to my front tire and yelled "Flat".  Someone in the group shouted if I had everything, to which I yelled "No" and hearing this, the group appeared to pick up the pace.  I had forgotten my pump but....

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....no worries, a couple of the dropped A's stopped and offered assistance.  Soon we were back on the road and in a mile I flatted again.  This time more riders stopped and with the help of Recumbent Dude, Rick, Amanda, Mark R and another guy shown in the image in the background whose name I missed, collectively we got the flat fixed again.  Also helping was this very friendly dog.  We continued on the route and had a great time, finishing with 39 miles and a 21.3 average, but about 30 minutes of down time for flat repair.

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Steve O showed up with a new helmet.  Note the almost perfect color co-ordination.  White helmet with matching shirt, black accents on shirt matching black helmet accents.  Black sunglass frame perfectly hides his cross eyes and the jersey is sleeveless, if not to show off guns, at least to show off pistols.  ALERT!: Group Killer says he is going to show up for the Saturday Blue Jay ride, the primary route having 6500" of climbing on 67 miles with an additional loop available to bring the total to 95 miles.  If the pavement drys today I'm headed out to mark the route and add many inspirational messages, including the usual, "Oxley Sucks", "Swim Tuna Swim" and similar, good natured markings.  If anyone can think of additional markings please comment.

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