First ride with the Greyhounds: I did not know Strava Suffer Scores went to 'Epic'

Wow. I knew this was going to be hard, that's why I signed up. But Saturday was epic - even Strava says so. I've never really done group training rides before, and to get faster I need to consistently try to keep up with people faster than me. Judging from the ride on Saturday, finding people faster than me is NOT going to be a problem.

I did have an excuse - the rear brakes were dragging for the first half of the ride. The pads weren't retracting all the way, and every time I touched the rear brakes they dragged more. By the time we stopped for lunch I actually had to pedal going downhill to maintain speed - this is not something I usually have to do. The rear tire was coated in brake dust, so there was definitely a problem. I sort of fixed it by pressing the pads out as far as I could with a screwdriver and then not using the rear brakes for rest of the ride. This helped some and I was able to stay with the (possibly somewhat charitable) 'B' group for about half of the ride home. After that I dropped back to finish with the 'B-' group. 54 miles, just over 4 hours riding time. Not bad for me in March. I don't think I had 50 miles total by this time last year.

Everyone was really supportive during the ride - very much appreciated. I know how far I have to go, it's good having teammates that understand that too.

I've been through this process before - from getting lapped repeatedly at my first few kart races (I eventually figured it out how to go fast and win races), to spinning off the track multiple times on the first day of the  Waterford Hills drivers school in my new Formula V (until I figured out it wasn't a kart, and set the fastest time on the second day, and went on to win some races there too), to my first mountain bike race (Yankee Springs TT in 2000 - I didn't expect to win, but I thought all the road miles I was doing meant something on the trail - wrong!).

I'm still working on the mountain bike thing, and I'm sure riding with the Greyhounds this year will make me a better rider.

Today was a 17 mile test ride on some local dirt roads, getting ready for Barry-Roubaix in 2 weeks. The ideal bike for this might be my mountain bike with the wheels and cross tires from my Trek 7.5 FX Disk - after 17 miles today I'm not sure my back (or hands, arms, neck, or butt) would survive 36 miles of dirt roads on a rigid bike.