Since the ride was done in groups, the expectation was that folks would stay together for the duration of the ride, but could move from one wave to another at the rest stops. For the first few miles our group did well staying together, but then one of the riders started falling off the back on each hill. After a few hills, I decided to hang back and ride with her so that she would not have to ride by herself. After a few more miles though, I inadvertently lost her on a hill as we got swept up by the wave behind us. That was right about the time that we started on the Minuteman bike trail, so I cranked it up and time-trialed the length of the trail, catching my wave right near the end.

After winding our way through Cambridge and part of Boston, we came to the Landry's shop on Commonwealth Ave. The ride came down a side street and then made a U-turn onto the sidewalk in front of the store. Just as I made the U-turn someone stopped abruptly in front of me, and before I knew it I went down hard on the cement. My bike was okay (thankfully I brought my old bike) but I banged up my left knee pretty badly. This happened around mile 30 of the ride.

After a quick stop at the store for something to eat and to get my bike checked over after crashing, we were on our way towards Norwood. The route was fine, but along the way we hit another patch of heavy rains, so were were soaked even more by the time we arrived at the next stop. When we got to the store we had covered around 50 miles in total.

By this time my injured knee was throbbing and we were only half done with the ride, so I was considering packing it up and taking the sag wagon back to Natick. Just then, though, they announced that they were forming groups to ride back to Natick since we would not make it to Westborough by the cutoff time they established due to impending darkness. So, I decided to grit it out and ride, but my knee was screaming the whole way. The last leg was around 22 miles, and halfway through my front derailleur stopped working, presumably because it was full of grit from the wet roads. At first it would not shift down to the smallest chainring, and then when it finally did it overshifted and dropped the chain. I was able to get the chain back on, but from there on I often found myself stuck on the wrong chainring for the terrain.

When we finally arrived back at Natick I was soaking wet, cold, and in a constant state of pain from my injured knee. Thankfully, by then the rain had stopped and they had a post-ride BBQ with free beer waiting for us. I hung out a bit and had some food, then headed home.


With better weather, this ride has the potential of being a great fall ride, although the way they have it structured in groups slows the pace down a bit. I was disappointed about not doing the whole distance (105 miles) but given the weather and my crash I was happy to be able to finish 72 miles.