Inside Out Sports Group Bike Ride

Yesterday afternoon, I emailed Melinda Yelton from Inside Out Sports to learn more about their Store Group rides.

Her email came back pretty quickly and I learn that their group rides were at a pretty quick pace. Not being deterred, I replied that I still wanted to try it.

The Inside Out Sports guys hand out turn by turn directions because their rides are "NOT" no drop rides. So I showed up early met and met Melinda. She was kind of enough to give the directions for yesterday's ride.

I looked at the directions and while I didn't know every road on the ride, I was familiar with the general area and if I got dropped, I figured I could still find my way back to the store.

The ride leaves the store around 6pm and everyone heads out together. However, it doesn't take long to see the groups forming.

The "A" group rolls through a yellow light while the "B" waits. Or this is how I characterized it.

Heading out and around the air port, I thought my brakes must be rubbing until I realized it was my tongue dragging the ground. Sorry, my poor attempt at humor.

These guys indeed ride very fast. When we finally stopped at a light somewhere on the SW side of Charlotte, I looked at my Garmin. We had been riding for an hour and ten minutes and had already covered 25 miles. One thing to be prepared for is sprint points. I wasn't told about this before the ride, but I learned about it pretty quickly. At certain points along the course, they just take off sprinting. You will realize it quite easily. They open a 10 to 15 meter gap on you before you know it. Lucky for me, they don't do this for very long and I am able to ride back up to them. Next time, I am going to ask where the sprint points are located so I can be a little more prepared to keep up.

Most of the time, I rode from the middle to the back of the pack. These guys ride together every week and I didn't want to screw up their ride. Nor, did I want to cause a wreck that might get me disinvited back to their future rides.

We caught a little rain just before West Blvd but it wasn't anything that would affect our ride.

Back at the store, I hung out for a while before heading out.

Overall, the ride was fast but pretty good. The roads were not busy for being in the Charlotte which made the ride even better.

I definitely want to do a few more of these rides. Maybe they will toughen me up.

 

Here's a breakdown of my ride.

 

 

 

Thoughts from the Cool Down Runner.