FLCC Sunday Ride, Attempt 2

After our somewhat sucky experience with last week's FLCC Sunday Ride, I thought I'd give it another shot, this time not with the accomplice, but with my German riding buddy Tim. We met downtown at 9:45 and rode up the hill to the East Hill Plaza meeting place. There were about 8 people there already, once again all in Spandex and on road bikes. Well, this time I was prepared and had brought Gunnar (no spandex, though). We got going just a bit after ten and the pace was fairly fast, but not too fast for my (or Tim's) taste. We dropped a few people during the first part of the ride but re-congregated at the Warren Rd post office where we met another rider. From the airport on, we had to struggle with a fierce wind from the North and at some point I was feeling a little bonked. Well, fortunately the Clif Bar consumed during the stop at the post office kicked in quickly and I was feeling fine again. So fine that I actually did quite a bit of pulling and ended up in a breakaway group of three people. Our only other stop was at the gas station at the intersection of NY 90 and 34, where we waited for most of the other riders. From there on, the riding-into-the-wind was mostly over and we zoomed down Salmon Creek valley into Ludlowville, up the hill to Lansing and back to campus on Warren Road. After about 3.5 hours we were back at the East Hill Plaza parking lot. Verdict: great ride, awesome route! But don't come to a Sunday Ride if you're not well trained and want a truly relaxing ride on your non-road bike. Unless you don't mind being dropped quickly.