TurboNurse

yep.  47 miles and I'm still smiling, and sitting, and standing.  I'm ready for a nap though.  I have lunch cooking now.  I made a hamburger and am warming up some Athena potato wedges to go with it.

I rode with Women Riding Well this morning.  It was a fantastic ride.  The communication in the group is the best.  I thought we would have really spread out over the distance but we didn't.  On the way back several of us split off the group but for the most part they stayed together.

It was quite a big group.  19 riders in all.  I think 5 did the 25 mile and the rest of us did the 47.

I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about the group but for the most part the people were fantastic and really nice.  I did feel a little put off by a few people that were riding more my pace and that sucked.  I just ignored them and did my thing which happened to be the pace they were riding.

I was also a little frustrated at first.  When we turned off Rio Bravo onto Isleta, it seemed we kept slowing down but I couldn't figure out for the life of me why we were slowing.  We were also riding about 12mph.  Finally someone was able to break off and those of us who wanted to go faster were able.  Once we turned on Coors farther south I was able to break away from the group about halfway through the distance on that road.  That was nice.  Once we hit Los Lunas we slowed down again.  Why, I have no clue.

The way back home was the best part of it.  We were off the bikes for quite a while in Los Lunas because someone wrecked and got some road rash and needed to be patched up before we took off.  Since we had stopped so long, I had a major cramp going on in my right hip flexor so I stayed with the group for a few miles until that loosened up again and then I took off to our next meet up place.  That was fantastic.  I was doing 18-20mph and it felt so good!

We regrouped at a gas station and I ended up behind someone who was not so skilled at communication about things in the road.  It started off with her pointing to things on the right side with her left hand.  I could hardly see what she was trying to tell me.  The only reason I knew she was trying to signal was because I would see the shift in her shoulders.  Finally she started pointing to things on her right with her right hand.  By that point I was more watching the person in front of her than her though.

One point really got my blood boiling though.  There was a huge piece of wood in the middle of the shoulder we were all riding on and I couldn't see the person in front of her and she didn't signal that there was something there so I ran right over this huge piece of wood and damn near wrecked.  After that I waited for a clear spot and I passed that little group.  I just couldn't do it anymore.  I didn't feel safe.

Once I broke away from that small pack, about 3 of us, the rest of the ride home was benign.

I'm still a little fumed about the lack of signaling on the way home but other than that, the ride went without incident.

At the end of the ride I was asked to join the group.  I thought that was nice.

I don't know.  It was a GREAT experience and I had an overall excellent time and met some really nice people but I didn't walk away with that warm fuzzy feeling I had hoped for.

I think I will join anyway and see how it goes.  Every ride is different and each week different people show up so I'm taking that into strong consideration because the first time I rode with the group we did the crest ride and I walked away with that warm fuzzy feeling for sure.  That was a lot shorter ride.

Another thing that got me was when I was in part of the lead pack.  We all regrouped again at another gas station and were talking about our strategy for getting back on the path from Rio Bravo.  They were talking about cutting across traffic to get back and I piped up that there was a much much safer way of getting there.  I really got some cold looks over that.  We all ended up going the safe way but it was just odd.  I felt totally put off but whatever.   Luckily one of the guys that rode with us today (guys were invited today) also knew the way I was talking about so that  helped as well.  The conversation ended with "well we will all do our thing". 

What was funny is that I ended up riding with the person who said that at the end and it was OK.  She was talking to me so who knows.

It's always interesting when you get a group of women together.

The main ride people were really nice though and that is what counts.