Wednesday, 2 May 2018, The Rooster (Dos de Mayo) Ride
Ride Leader: Jack Donohue
32 miles, 10:00 am start from Bikeway Source parking lot, Bedford, MA
Riders (36): Jack, Arthur Teepe, Barbara Jacobs, Barry Nelson, Bill Wachur, Bill Widnall, Bob Dangel, Butch Pemstein, Celia Donatio, Chip Ziering, Chuck McWilliams, Dave Balaban, David Cooper, David Wean, Fred Newton, Herb Kavet, Ilkka Suvanto, Kaz Zelny, Kevin Donnelly, Marie Keutmann, Mike Hanauer, Moshe Werba, Richard Vignoni, Rochelle Holman, Ron Beland, Ron Marland, Roy Westerberg, Selig Saltzman, Stuart Kaufman, Susan Sabin, Ted Nyder, Veronica Vedensky, Wing Chow, Winnie Parker, and first-timers Elizabeth Buschert and Paul Brandon.
Present at lunch: John Allen.
Seems the heat stored up, from all those cold days earlier in the season, was released all at once. It was quite a jolt to the system, but welcome nonetheless. I wanted to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but figured Dos was close enough.
Faced with a pretty large group, I tried to keep a pace that would spread the group out but keep most of them in sight. We probably should have regrouped more often, but it was hard finding spots to park all the riders for the regroup. Everyone was well behaved, being aware of traffic and letting cars go by.
We had a bit of excitement when a car passed us at breakneck speed and was immediately apprehended by the Carlisle police who seemed to be lying in wait. Felt somewhat guilty since the driver may have put it into warp speed just to get around our group.
I was happy to see a street sweeper out there clearing off the winter debris. That for me is one of the harbingers of summer. It was also nice to have something I was actually able to pass.
The scheduled rest stop at the ball field off Griffin Street had only one of the normal three portajohns deployed, but if sufficed. We had our mandatory photo op with a few opting out. Someone suggested doing a panorama, which I know my phone can do, and that would have been an excellent idea, but I've never tried it and now didn't seem like an ideal time to try.
After the rest stop, we had a few splinter groups. Bill Widnall decided to cut off a few miles by returning a more direct way. That basically involved chopping off the head of the rooster (I must point out that no actual roosters were harmed during the ride). Barbara, Ted, Marie and Richard also went their own way.
I told the rest of the group that, if they were chafing at the bit, they could also make a breakaway, as long as they knew where they were going. Most of the faster riders were GPS savvy, so I wasn't too worried about them.
Things got a bit confusing after that, since I had the breakaway group, who had thrown off the shackles of arrowdom, ahead of me, and no one behind me for a while. Finally the groups coalesced again and it was back to business as usual.
I had a final regroup, just before Bedford center, to make sure everyone knew where the lunch stop was, and then continued to the parking lot.
Thanks to Barry for sweeping.
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