Ride for the Arts

Last Sunday I joined my dad and my brother, Jeremy, to complete the 50 mile route of the Miller Ride for the Arts in Milwaukee. It turned out to be a great ride. The weather was perfect for riding, not too windy, w/ temps in the mid 70's.

Literally thousands of riders participate in this ride making it very exciting to join riders of all shapes and sizes on all types including mountain bikes, hybrids, road bikes, recumbents, and tandems. The best part was that this ensured we would not be the slowest on the route. My dad and I were on our road bikes while Jeremy was on my dad's old hybrid.

The start was rather anti-climatic. We were about half way back in the pack and once they announced "go" and started playing the Rocky theme song we stood there doing absolutely nothing waiting for the hundreds of riders ahead of us to get moving so we could finlly go. Some early comedy ensued when we saw not one but two female riders stall out in traffic and, unable to clip out in time, fell in slow motion.

Finally, we were off. Our initial goal was to average 10-12 mph but this was soon thrown out the window as the early stages had us cruising right along at around 16 mph. The route was great with a good portion of the early miles right down along Lake Michigan. The rest stops were also excellent w/ banananas, sliced apples, Gatorade, and some excellent fruit bars and granola/chocolate/nut bars.

Our pace did slow down some on the second half. For the most part the ride was an out and back with a few small deviations. It was Jeremy's first ride of the season - nothing like starting out w/ a 50 miler to get the blood going. He was definitely hurting towards the end but I'm very impressed he actually made it the whole ride.

As we rode along the lake towards the finish there was a nice mist rising off the beach and the water. Made for a pretty cool view.

Overall this was an excellent ride and I felt really good the whole ride. It definitely increased my confidence that I'll be ready for the Maywood Earth Century in September. We've already signed up for our next ride right here in Normal,IL July 7th. We signed up for the metric century for this one and chances are it will be both hotter and windier so it will be another good test.

See ya next blog!