By Allan Edmonds and Keith Vogelsang
We had a tremendous turnout for Saturday’s ride to Ellettsville. There were lots of familiar faces and some new ones too. But the group was too big to go around introducing everyone. Riders were still pulling into Bryan Park and assembling their bikes after our scheduled 11:00 start time, so we started a bit late to give all 35 riders an opportunity to join the first club ride of the 2009 season.
Eventually ride leader Keith Vogelsang got everyone organized and away we went. Naturally with a group this size we soon split up into at least three smaller groups.
With so many riders, staying together as a group to get out of town would not be possible. Nearly all riders successfully re-grouped after crossing State Highway 37 at Vernal Pike. Two new riders, however, were struggling a bit, so Keith and Ethan, his 8 year old stoker on their tandem, stayed with them to make sure they had an opportunity to complete the route.
Everyone regrouped two or three times more times. But one group decided to add an extra five miles or so on their own. (At least that was their plan…we didn’t go along!) By the end people trickled back in small groups to the park.
As the trailing group made its way out of Ellettsville, one of the riders (Mark) stopped to assist a motorist in distress. The motorist was having car trouble, and was in tears because she couldn’t get in touch with anyone to help her. Mark, who happens to be the minister at First Baptist Church in Ellettsville, suggested she pull her car into the nearby church parking lot and wait there until help could arrive. While Mark escorted the woman to the church lot, Keith, Ethan, and Kevin continued at Mark’s request.
While pedaling back into town, the sweep group encountered other riders that began with us at Bryan Park. Were these riders doing the Ellettsville loop a second time while we were still on our first loop? No–but they were the ones who had decided to add extra miles, and were now catching up to us, which was easy to do at our leisurely pace. When it’s early March and the weather is as pleasant as it was on Saturday, however, any pace is the right pace for a bike ride.
Overall one rider’s GPS recorded an average speed of 12.3 mph from home, not too bad for the first ride of the season, especially given the strong winds. The GPS recorded a total climb of 1815 ft.
Included with this report are both a small map of the route and an elevation chart. We leave it to interested people who weren’t on the ride to puzzle out whether we did the route clockwise or counterclockwise, using only the map and chart.
