Lars Anderson Ride

So today was gorgeous and I got to go biking. Even though I commute most every day by bike, today was my first solid, long ride of the year. It was time to dust off the road bike, put pedals back on it (I have three bikes and two pairs of pedals... long story), change a flat tire and take it for a spin. Since this was the first time on the road bike for the year, there is one instant realization... The road bike is much much faster than my commuter bike. Its like driving a Ferrari after spending all your time in a pickup. My road bike is a fifteen year old Speciallized Epic. It is an old school carbon fiber frame that was too flexible for larger riders, but a joy for lightweight shits like myself. It has aged very well and still feels like the same bike I bought with money from my paper route as a teenager in Illinois.
Boston is fortunate to have the Charles River Wheelmen. The CRW is a wonderful bike club with very regular rides planned. Today was the Lars Anderson ride (named after the park it begins in). Its very close to our house in JP and I get to ride to the start of this ride. The Lars Anderson ride is roughly 20 miles long. While non-cyclist would concider this long, its just an early season warm up. Perfect for building miles for longer and harder rides later in the year. The best part of the Lars Anderson ride is we go through numerous traffic rotaries. While this is normally a very dangerous thing to do on a bike, there is power in numbers and we get to take over the road, for just a few fleeting moments. Shorty after the rotaries is a super fun downhill through Stony Brook Reservation. After that, the memory fails me and the rest of the ride is just relaxing and enjoyable.
Last years ride was a very large ride with maybe 50 if not more riders. We took over the city streets of West Roxbury in a long fast line of cyclits. When I sleep and dream about riding, I am often re-living last years ride going through the rotaries and barreling down through Stony Brook. This year however... There was confusion as to where it started but eventually about 15 riders left Lars Anderson Park. One of the riders was one of my heros... Century Joe Repole. Joe is an older cyclist who has the odd habit of riding a 100 mile ride once a month, every month for a few years now. Joe can definately not be described as fast, but he is super freindly and carries a lot of respect. Unlike most CRW rides, no one actually remembered the exact route this year and we needed to use paper cue sheets. Needless to say, we got lost a few times. The ride definatly felt like a scavenger hunt. We stayed together as a group, mostly because no one wanted to get left behind and lost. Every now and then someone would point out we missed a turn and we would turn around. Ironically, the best hill was an "oops" up a dead end street followed by a relaxing spin down the hill we just climbed. The ride ended very anti-clamatically and as far as I know everyone made it back.
While the zenlike nature of last years ride was simply not there it was a nice ride and I will not complain about that. I'm looking forward to another enjoyable season of biking and today was just the beggining.