Blog

Group rides

When I first started cycling in early 2005 – and for the next four years of riding – I saw cycling mostly as a necessary evil that I had to work at in order to race triathlons. In those four years, I did pretty much every ride by myself on my triathlon bike. Despite the fact that I didn’t really like riding, I never skipped workouts; not the 10 laps around Central Park in sub-freezing temps, not the six hour+ mile rides in Lake Placid and not even the long, boring trainer rides when the weather was just too crappy to get outside. I rarely really enjoyed it though.

That’s changed since we moved to LA. The first change was that I started riding consistently with other people. Last spring and summer, while training for Canada, I rode nearly every Saturday with a group from the LA Tri Club, led by Mike “Sexy Kits Only” Ireland. Mike was also training for Canada, so the rides were tailored for prep for that race. Sometimes it was just the two of us, sometimes, it was a group of five or six of us. I quickly found that riding with other people was great – it made the time go by more quickly, I made some new friends and, of course, it’s nice to know that friends are around in case something were to happen out there. I was still riding with the goal of racing triathlon, but at least I wasn’t riding alone.

The second change happened more recently. Since the North Face 50, while recovering from the race and dealing with my achilles issue, I’ve been riding most Saturdays with a group from a LA Tri Club. We meet at Ocean Ave and San Vicente at 7:30 and pick a route then.

Sometimes we go out onto the PCH and ride hard and hit a canyon climb, but recently, we’ve been taking it a little easier. Riding for fun. On my road bike. And, you know what, I enjoy cycling. Riding without a “purpose” – other than an excuse to put on a nice kit, spending time with friends, getting in a workout (but not trying to kill ourselves) and hopefully increasing bike fitness. My tri bike is still at Guru, so I’m riding exclusively on my Felt road bike. The Felt’s not as fast or as comfortable as the Guru, but that doesn’t matter. The last few Saturdays, we’ve gone from San Vicente down to Marina del Rey, then back and over to Mandeville for a climb to the top.

Sure, I’ve got a triathlon coming up. (Too soon, I might add…) But when I go out for these Saturday rides, I’m not thinking too much about that race. More on that, and my attitude surrounding California 70.3 soon.