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01-11-09, 08:43 PM
There were two annual organized rides in the area this weekend-both sponsored by local bike clubs and called Polar Bears. The first one was a metric century that drew at least 400-500 riders-maybe even 600. It was a sunny day with good temps in the low 50's but a pretty good headwind for the last 20+ miles which was tough for me. I rode over to the event on my bike so I was able to get in around 80 miles.
Today was another Polar Bear ride sponsored by a different bike club and it had a nice turnout of probably 150 riders. It was a tad warmer but cloudy and thankfully not nearly as much breeze. It was a great day to ride and today's distance was 50 miles with only 1900 ft of climbing-a very flat and fast course. I settled into a group of around 20 riders and we averaged 21 mph for the day. I give a lot of credit to the R4 recovery drink allowing me ride that well the day after a longer ride.
Here are a few pictures from today's ride-this particular area is southwest of Charlotte about 20 miles.
This is me. I had not planned to ride too hard but after a mile or so I decided to try and catch some riders up the road. I'm just about on after time trialing for a few miles. The riding easy plan went out the window pretty quickly.......there's just something about seeing other riders up the road......
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa36/jppe/GCCPolarBear20091.jpg
This is the first of what would become about 20-25 riders and the folks I was initally trying to catch. I eventually towed them up to the next group.
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa36/jppe/GCCPolarBear20092.jpg
Here some photos of what it looked like a little later as we got more organized-but these pics were taken in stretches where we eased up for a bit and were able to take some pics. We did a number of miles in both single and double pace lines.
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa36/jppe/GCCPolarBear20094.jpg
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa36/jppe/GCCPolarBear20093.jpg
Today was another Polar Bear ride sponsored by a different bike club and it had a nice turnout of probably 150 riders. It was a tad warmer but cloudy and thankfully not nearly as much breeze. It was a great day to ride and today's distance was 50 miles with only 1900 ft of climbing-a very flat and fast course. I settled into a group of around 20 riders and we averaged 21 mph for the day. I give a lot of credit to the R4 recovery drink allowing me ride that well the day after a longer ride.
Here are a few pictures from today's ride-this particular area is southwest of Charlotte about 20 miles.
This is me. I had not planned to ride too hard but after a mile or so I decided to try and catch some riders up the road. I'm just about on after time trialing for a few miles. The riding easy plan went out the window pretty quickly.......there's just something about seeing other riders up the road......
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa36/jppe/GCCPolarBear20091.jpg
This is the first of what would become about 20-25 riders and the folks I was initally trying to catch. I eventually towed them up to the next group.
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa36/jppe/GCCPolarBear20092.jpg
Here some photos of what it looked like a little later as we got more organized-but these pics were taken in stretches where we eased up for a bit and were able to take some pics. We did a number of miles in both single and double pace lines.
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa36/jppe/GCCPolarBear20094.jpg
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa36/jppe/GCCPolarBear20093.jpg