Here’s a picture of Sarah and I at the Hampton “Tour de Cure” (aka diabetes ride).  As this was the first event of the year I elected to ride the short 35 mile course.  I’ve been training pretty hard so I’m in good enough shape to pull it off.  It started pretty early so we went down the night before and spent the night.

The days festivities and the start/finish line were at the local High School and the parking lot was absolutely packed full!  However, the organizers had done their homework and despite the large number of people, the check-in went fast.  I got my jersey – a “Red Rider” jersey that the American Diabetes Association provides to indicate that you are a diabetic and “why we ride”.  It’s the first cycling jersey I’ve owned.  Having some inclination that these things tend to run small, I ordered an XXL.  I’m a pretty big guy and a normal XXL T-shirt is too big for me.  I’m here to tell you, a XXL cycling jersey isn’t.  I pulled it on and asked my daughter: “do I look like a sausage in this thing”?  She smiled and carefully answered that she “was not authorized to answer that question”. 

As the time for the ride to start came near, all of the Red Riders went to the front of the pack (ok with me, I was planning on starting at the front), there was a short speech, the horn blew and off we went.  Being in the coastal plain, the course was reasonably flat – some slight undulation here and there as it wound through soy bean and peanut fields.  The only hills came as we climbed out of a half-mile stretch through a swamp that was still wreathed in early-morning mist.  Overall it was a beautiful ride even if the wind did start to come up strong out of the north during the last 30 minutes.

One smart move the organizers made was to involve the local motorcycle clubs with the ride.  The motorcyclists were mixed in with the groups of cyclists and it helped keep the threat from the cars to a minimum.  My impression is that there are a decent number of riders in that area so motorists are used to seeing them but something substatial always helps.

I was in the lead group the whole way.  Initially I had some concern about my conditioning but as the peloton moved out and our speed hit 25-28 mph, I wasn’t having any trouble keeping up.  I even took a couple of pulls at the front.  After about 5 miles, the lead group was down to about 10 and at 14 miles there were 3 of us.  We took turns leading as the headwind was pretty tough.  As we approached the 15 mile turnaround, there was a very well orgainized rest stop that had drinks, a bathroom and a bike mechanic.  It was almost exactly at this rest stop that I broke a spoke.  This was very dissapointing as I wanted to finish strong and post a great time – even if I’m the only one keeping track!  It took a few minutes but I got  the mechanic to look at the spoke and he simply removed it, advised me to keep an eye on it and said take off.  From there I rode, more or less, alone back to the finish line.  I was second out of the group that rode the 30 miler.

Now, I have had some people ask me wether or not this is a “race”.  They went and looked at the website or they have done a ride like this in the past and they don’t recall it being a “race”.  To this I reply that everytime you put a guy on a bike in the vicinity of other cyclists, it’s a race…:)  I don’t care if you are riding alone on the Parkway and see someone at the top of the next hill or you’re in a group of 50.  It’s a race.  My wife finds this ridiculous.  According to her it’s a “ride”.  In fact, she doesn’t want to ride the Alzheimers ride with me as she is positive that I’ll be badgering her the whole time to pick up the pace.  I have assured her that this simply won’t be the case but she ain’t buying it.

If you are interested in supporting me there is another Diabetes ride on June 20th.  If you want to join my team and ride, just give a donation or check out our page (it’s pretty vanilla), the link is here.