That killed me, I gotta say. I cannot believe how awful the music was at pretty much every rest stop. Also, don't know if you guys went & got spaghetti on the boardwalk at the end of day one, but the big Kenny Rogers-ish dude singing along to a karaoke machine was.. something to behold. Almost made the whole thing worthwhile.

We never did get in a good paceline.. kept either getting stuck behind people going slow or being blown past by spandexy dudes going 25. And I agree with you about the rest stops.. all those breaks to eat as many PowerBars as I could stomach killed my time. Also kinda killed my desire to ever eat a PowerBar again.

No, my girlfriend bought us a home cooked meal to Ocean City, so we only stopped by the spag. dinner for ice cream.

you bastards! Man, that cracked me up when you did the dedication. We looked around because we wanted to dedicate something back to you... something even worse, but you cut out. BASTARDS!!! It was great meeting you, be prepared to get kicked in the neck next year!

As this blurry picture will attest, you guys missed out.

http://frantic.org/IMG_2932.jpg

Note that the sign proclaims him to be "Paul Big Bear." Indeed.

haha, yeah we expected to see an army of powder blue tuxedo tees heading towards the train station with u-locks and chains swinging.

it was great to meet you guys too, hopefully next year we can coax a few more folks out, and you'll get your revenge for that song dedication.

babychris lives in philly, so when you see his fuji track you should do something like put his saddle on backwards or flip his bars up bum style. we wanted to do that at every rest stop, request that song then leave. then we were like "ok, we need to request this song" at the finish and i was like "no, lets dedicate it."

in philly news, are you guys going to the search for the holy grail race september 30th? unfortunately, i am trapped in dc that weekend for work.

the ride was fun. got to meet lots of new people. got to push ryan into a fence. took lots of pictures.(i'll post a link to my flickr as soon as I stop being lazy) we also realized that we are fast on the road, just really slow at the rest stops.

day 1 I ate about 20 of those fruit leather things, day 2 at the first rest stop thing, I tried to eat one and almost threw up everywhere. I had to take like a 40 minute break.

mile 8 and the kid needed a rest. what a tool.

you know, if i hadnt filled my bottle with coffee, that whole fruit leather experience would have never happened because we wouldnt be stopping to put water in my now empty bottle. thats my pay back for the fence.

Also, based on running 72.6 gear inches for 156 miles, I figured I pedaled 136,145 times this weekend.

i run 46x15. i should figure out how many gear inches im pushing, but i dont know how and dont feel like searching.

As usual, Sheldon Brown to the rescue -- http://sheldonbrown.com/gears/

apparently i am at 80.6 gear inches.

I get 122,632 pedals for you, then (156 miles * 5280 feet/mile * 12 inches/foot / number of gear inches, if my math is right).

we had a little bit of a detour day one. we went a couple miles out of the way from missing a turn. now re-do it with another 4 miles.

Gives you another 3144 pedals, for a grand total of 125,776.

I mapped out the route (well, Saturday's route) on GMaps a while back, if anyone's interested in reliving the fun -- http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=369136.

it was a good route. best part everybody is talking about these HUUUGGGEEEE bridges. they were like rollers. i think it was just to help make the people feel good about themselves. i think next year we may do the century ride day one.

edit: also, what was up with all the people getting flats?

^ sweet, thanks for posting that

no problem.

whats up with the mechanics blowing so many tubes up at rest stops...

whats up with the 90something year old lady riding in heels and being awesome? it was new jersey, there are no answer to these questions...

90 something? I thought we agreed they said 93. it was your idea to go with 93.

no it wasnt. i was hoping that maybe one of the other people would have known her age. ok, lets reagree on 93. i cant believe we made up an age for her because we knew she was in her 90s.