The Inaugural RICHMOND MIDNIGHT* MARATHON BIKE RIDE
Last night I did one of the coolest things I’ve done on my bike: the first-ever group ride of the Richmond marathon route. My pal John who posts over at useful.bike hatched this idea based on a long-running ride out of Boston. Ours was far smaller (smaller city/marathon, too), but for a first year it was pretty great! John said there were around 65 people in the 7 PM wave (that I rode), with at least a handful more in each of the midnight and 4:30 AM (!!!) waves after. The weather was chilly but the wind had died down, and the good mood seemed to keep everybody warm enough anyway.
I will not presume to know how truly representative the crowd was of the city or its cycling scene, but we did have a good variety of people, types of cyclists, and bikes. We even had a few roller bladers, one of whom had green lights on his skates and blasted some great tunes on a speaker as he ripped alongside us. There were full-kit roadies on carbon, folks on practical commuter rigs, fixed gear riders with stronger knees than mine, and plenty of folks on resto-mods or cool alt-cycling brands. I even saw a rider on a mini velo!
I went into the ride planning to take it easy, but I ended up with the fast group for the first few miles. This meant when I could no longer keep up I ended up riding alone for maybe 50-60% of the ride. Most of my riding is solitary so that’s no big deal, but I feel like this was a missed opportunity on my part. Next year (surely there will be a next year after this initial success) I’ll truly stay with the slower group so I can enjoy riding with other people for more of the route.
