Margarita Ride VII Recap

This is going to be a short recap of Saturday's ride with more details to come later.

I rolled out of bed at 5:30 to the sound of a pretty steady rain. Not good. I went straight to the TV to the digital weather station which kindly showed that there was no rain in the area. Hmmmm...must be my imagination then. The wonderful world of the internet showed such little in the way of radar echos that there seemed no way it should be raining this hard. As I loaded Fordzilla the rain started to lighten up.

By the time I hit Pro's, the rain had become more of a heavy mist than rain, but still annoying nonetheless. We had 104 registered going into the day, and although I haven't touched the papers since getting home, I think we registered 28 day of the ride. We had a few no shows, but I think we were right at 130 riders.

We added a 75 mile loop this year, but due to the weather we only had about five takers on that route, which was probably good due to some nasty chip seal that was happening on Hwy 19 from Centerville south to Vermillion. The 45 milers hit it as well, but the sweeper had knocked a good deal of it off the road for that group.

It was different being on the SAG/Support side instead of riding. There were a few people that I want to yell out my window and say "SHIFT UP!!!!!!!" as they pounded along at about 50-60 RPM's. It was painful for me to watch. Other than that, everybody seemed to be doing great, the temp was right and there was literally NO wind during the ride. That in itself is a minor miracle for the plains of South Dakota.

Many recaps from other bloggers are out there. The Hooterville Mayor, CDV, Cathy Jo, Tez, Bald-n-Surly, all have already blogged about the ride much better than I could (especially since I didn't actually ride!).

I'll update the totals once I figure out. Early estimates, thanks to a couple very generous donations, is that we are going to have around $1300 to give to the MS Society! Thanks to all who rode and helped support the MS Society as well. Watch for potential changes next year as we continue to try to make the ride a top notch bicycling event!