I Peadled for Peace!!

I just finished my first full group ride, through city streets and everything! Once again, I almost backed out, but I donated money so I felt I should give it a try - and I really do need to work on my fear of biking in the city.

Well, this ride took care of that! We started on East Capital street and biked through the city. There is something kind of neat about biking around the monuments. However, there is also a lot of stop lights, stop signs and cars - and this was at 9 in the morning. We are on Pennsylvania Ave, approaching a stop light, I clip out on the right (just as I have been the past 20 stop lights/signs) and in slow motion, fall to the left. I was pretty much at a stop so it didn't hurt as bad as the one 2.5 weeks ago, but still... the ego is just as hurt. And my left knee a bit. Everyone was again nice, those with clips said it has happened to them, those without say that is why they won't get them. Carlos was fine, I hoped back on and kept going. It almost happened again in Georgetown, but some how I managed to shift my entire body weight to the right to keep from falling.

The rest the ride went pretty well. There was one girl who stayed back with me so technically, I was draft the entire first half of the ride. But all went pretty well. The second half had a few more rolling hills so I was able to keep up the group and that made me feel much better.

Then we got back to the city. It was 80 degrees, sunny, beautiful at noon. That means LOTS OF TOURISTS!! But we had a larger group which is very helpful when you are biking on Independence Ave by the White House. Everyone was so supportive on being in my first city riding, giving me pointers and making sure I was okay.

So 36 miles, a few hours, one fall and a lot of lessons learned. In my book, that is a great day.