Kick-off Ride

Today was the training ride kick-off starting at Helen’s cycles near Manhattan Beach. Ryan and I arrived at 7:30 am (still half asleep, but excited) along with 400 other riders. I was intimidated—very cindee. This was the first ride I have done with more than one other person. It was strange riding with so many people around me. It was comforting from a safety standpoint, but it was also, well…annoying to have so many other people surrounding me. Keep in mind that the actual ride will have approximately 3,000 riders. This is something I will need to get use to!!


Ryan taught me a few tricks, which by the end of the ride I had mastered.

1) Get out early and ahead of the pack – this will give you some space to ride at your own pace

2) When stopping at stop signs, use the curb which allows you to not get off your bike fully, yet you are still coming to a complete stop

3) Down shift, down shift, down shift on those hills and if your chain falls off, keep shifting and riding and it usually corrects itself

4) Fold your route map on top and bottom to avoid it falling off (oops – today I littered unintentionally because I didn’t follow this tip correctly – sorry beloved CA)

5) You can park your bike on the curb by aligning the pedal correctly (hard to explain, but genius when I figured it out)

6) Call out all obstacles ---- and HOT surfers

Things didn’t go quiet as planned; we got off the route a bit. However, all in all this was a fantastic day riding in southern California. Ryan and I had interesting conversation about “bears” and I did three unexpected hills and survived them without complaining. Overall we went about 25 miles (a guess) and I felt really good.