- It gets cold here sometimes. I left at 6:45 this morning and it was in the low 50s. Not cold for November by Wisconsin standards, but pretty chilly when you have shorts and a short-sleeved jersey on. So glad I left my arm warmers back inside the locked house. When I showed up for the ride, some guys had toe warmers and beanies on, no one had bare arms, few had bare legs… except me. I wore them like a Sconnie badge of courage.
- An 85 mile “group ride” in San Antonio, Florida is actually a training ride. I lined up with about 30 Spanish-speaking South American Cat 1s to take off. They weighed about a buck-thirty and their thighs were the size of pumpkins. I was starting to feel like the minnow in a shark tank. We took off and I was in the “A” group which meant once we got rolling, an average speed in the high 20’s. I’m pretty sure I spit out my heart and at least 1 lung by mile 30. Thankfully, we stopped to refill bottles at 43 miles, and the South American freaks of nature kept going. Even though I was able to hang on up to that point, I was pretty sure I would have been left behind shortly afterward if I had stayed with them. We re-formed an “A-” group, took the pace down a couple notches for 5 or 6 miles, then ramped it back up.
- Central Florida is hilly. Not Colorado hilly, but Minnesota hilly. We had over 2,500 feet of climbing in 60 miles. I had no idea. I just assumed the whole state was flat.
- There’s a giant douche-bag in every big, open group ride, and Florida is no exception. Mr. Steroid McSprintalot was not there to make friends today, he was there to slowly zig-zag his way up hills and then crush the sprints. Nothing like a guy who can’t hold a line dropping F-bombs on me as I pass him because I didn’t call out “on your right!”. Whatever. Douche-bag. Everyone else was pretty cool, except the South Americans might have been calling me the douche-bag and I just didn’t understand them…
- Pacelines have not made their way to Florida yet. 70+ people, and the whole group rides 1,2,3 & 4 up with the strong guys just staying in front, sometimes way over the centerline. It was bizarre. I would tuck in behind someone, waiting to take a pull, and then 3 or 4 guys would eventually just pull around and spread out. No organization, no working together.
- Sitting up and blocking HAVE made their way here. This was a group ride, but anytime a teammate went off the front, the other guys on the team would block. WTF? This is a group ride, not Superweek.
- All in all, it’s pretty cool to show up to a parking lot at dawn a thousand miles from home and have more than 70 other people there ready to get after it. Cycling is cycling, and almost everyone I talked to today (when I could talk) was really cool and there for the same reason as me.
...Faster than Last 
Welcome to South Florida !! Not all rides here are as exciting as the one you joined.
srcycler
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