After the mechanical difficulties I had on Saturday, I went to the bike shop during my lunch hour on Monday. Don't know if it was the cute little skirt I was wearing or that the shop wasn't busy, but they managed to replace my spoke and tighten my cables without me having to leave my bike overnight! I rode back to work and then home after the work day was over.
I did a bunch of longer rides after work this week to try and up my miles, this being the last week before the ride itself. I was also hoping to do a big push over the weekend, but that ended up not happening.
There were mixed forecasts for Saturday, although most included predictions for severe thunderstorms. We started of around 9a and everyone was doing well. The first pit stop was a delight - a nice woman told us about a brunch they do at the firehouse the first Sunday of the month and invited us all out to join them after our ride next month!
By the time we got to the second pit, we had lost a duo. Figuring they had made a wrong turn, we left a voicemail message for them and fueled up for the next stretch. While we were eating, two of our other riders came in. One had snapped a cable and we attempted to fix it. During this process, our lost duo came back to the fold. Turns out one of them got stung by a bee. Being allergic, he jammed his Epipen into his leg and hit a vein! He bled quite profusely. And on top of that, they missed a turn so they went 5 miles out of their way.
Since we ultimately couldn't get the cable fixed and our bee sting accident didn't have any more Epipens on him, we had to leave two riders at the second pit stop. And since we were only a third of the way done, we decided to cut our ride short and do the 60 mile route. It wouldn't have been fair to make those two wait for us to finish another 55 miles! Besides, the storm could have hit any time and we certainly didn't want to be caught in a thunderstorm.
We tried to hustle, but Warrenton is VERY hilly and it was very hot and humid. It was a tough 60 mile ride. And to make matters worse, we had some unsavory run-ins with the motorists who threw things at us from their cars. One of them even hit one of our riders! He was not seriously hurt, but definitely stung, bruised, and a little scared. Hopefully this is an isolated incident and we can return to Warrenton in the future for good riding conditions.
We got back to the parking lot around 3 and packed up quickly so that we could drive to the second pit and pick up our 2 stranded riders. They were (understandably) happy to see us. It was about 3 hours that they were hanging around, unable to coerce a local to give them a ride back to the parking lot. After everything that had happened, I think we were all pretty happy to have this ride over.
I was hoping to go riding on Sunday, but there was a vicious storm on Saturday night that knocked out the power in my building from 6p to 3:30a and the threat of more storms on Sunday so I took it easy. Besides after the heat and hills, my legs were jelly.
Next weekend is the official ride! I'm really excited and look forward to sharing the experience with you all. I promise to take a lot of pictures and hopefully there will be a ton of good stories to tell.
Rachael