Wednesday morning brought with it a highly anticipated training ride with my Peachtree City friends, Jared, John, and Chad. For clarity, I was looking forward to the ride, I'm not sure if anyone else was because I didn't get a hug when I got there. Maybe they forgot! I was 15 minutes late. This was our second or third long ride together (see
Naked Lady Ride and
Peachtree City Training Day). They already know each other and have ridden together quite a lot, I'm the newcomer. Chad, Jared, and I are competing in the 2013 Ironman Florida triathlon in November. John is a pro rider with the Beck Janitorial cycling team. On our way to Atlanta we picked up the winner of the 2013 Tour de Quebec, Emile Abraham. He was trying to get this baby snake out of the road when we rolled up. Emile was unsuccessful which is okay because, I'm no expert but, it looks poisonous to me.
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| S-N-A-K-E ! |
Just after we picked up Emile it started to rain lightly. Our route took us from the peaceful tree lined streets in Fayette County to the pot-holed, traffic laden, construction detoured, graffiti lined streets of Atlanta. Wet brakes, fogged up glasses, slippery roads, I was a nervous wreck as we coursed through the busy Atlanta city streets. The sprinkling turned to into a deluge on the return trip back to Peachtree City.
We stopped in Piedmont Park for a few pictures.
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| Jared, John, and Chad at Piedmont Park |
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| Jared, Neil (me), and Chad at Piedmont Park |
I don't know how many rail road tracks we crossed over but there were a lot. One of them got the best of me. I, in turn, took Jared and Chad to the asphalt with me.
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| My boo-boo |
I was rarely at the front during the ride. But I was in front for a brief moment when I tried to bunny hop over the tracks in the picture below. I was unsuccessful.
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| Bike check after mishap |
Chad frowns as he displays his new road rash.
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| Chad has a boo-boo! |
The course probably was something like the famous winter Airport Ride.
So, that's my experience of riding with some pretty tough guys and in an area where I felt completely out of my element. Maybe we should wait until a clear day to try that again.
Thanks for reading.
