Originally Posted by
ro-monster
I agree about tagging onto a larger ride being less desirable. It kind of defeats the main purpose of having a forum gathering, which is to meet and spend time with people you know from here, as opposed to spending time with masses of other random people.
On this year's 2nd Annual Fifty-Plus Ride held with the Great Finger Lakes Bike Tour with at least about 300 or more other riders, the BF crowd of about twelve found each other pretty readily and chose a table for meeting in the clubhouse. The interaction throughout the week-end was IMO well-described by the term "clustering"; we naturally gravitated together.
One new experience as a solo rider who does very few organized rides, was the informality of the event. There were several courses available for the main riding days of Saturday and Sunday, with a single, traditional Friday late afternoon ride. There were no massed starts that I was aware of, and eventually I lingered at breakfast and spontaneously switched to a longer ride on Saturday. I rode by myself or with pleasant strangers. Nonetheless, the BF'ers clustered Friday PM, Saturday AM and PM; and several did ride together. I left late Saturday night.
Many of us wrote of the experience on the sticky about the ride:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...-Thread)/page5
The posts about the departures begin at post #106, and the ride and social descriptions start at #121. You’ll find that everyone had a good time, even despite adversities, so I have no problem with joining a larger organized ride. It just seems most are one day events, unlike the GFLBT.