A day of great riding, new friends, and a great cause.
Last Sunday, I had an opportunity to ride with a group of about 20 riders in a charity event benefiting The Children's Clinic of Long Beach. The group raised money for the event and I joined in as the biking celebrity/ride leader for our 100 mile, (century) ride from the Amtrak station in Irvine to San Diego. It was a nice day and we had a great mix of people and abilities.
There were rest stops every 20 miles to allow everyone to rehydrate, grab some food, swap some road stories, and pedal it out to the next check point. We had some good hills along the way and when we reached the San Diego County line, the hills got a little bigger. There were tons of people riding the coast that day so our group seemed to flow in and out of other groups, helping to keep our team motivated given that fact that many of them were doing their first century ride or had little, if any, training beforehand. We did end up getting split up for a bit as we made our way towards downtown San Diego, but we managed to regroup and take it in together despite the fact that we rode the last hour in the dark.
All in all I had a great time making new friends, getting a great workout, and riding for a wonderful cause. It was really nice to see the determination that our group had on completing the ride, and I look forward to riding with all of them soon.....hopefully for our Tour of Long Beach charity ride on May 8th!
Ciao,
Tony Cruz
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Here are a couple of snapshots taken from that day. To view others, click here.
2.03.2010 at 1:35 PM
Hey Tony!
All of us had a great time this weekend. This century ride has been a constant topic of conversation. Thanks for helping make it such a success. Willing to do it again next year?
-Andrew