Fuck the Bike Club Philadelphia

Obviously, I am in the early stages of blogging where I have the enthusiasm to add entries frequently. Might as well take advantage.

Anyway, I have been an avid bicyclist for some time. I try to bike commute to work three times a week (I do not always succeed). This gives me needed exercise and with the price of gas around $3.50 a gallon, as well as getting to avoid the $3 bridge toll, it makes modest economic sense too. (Some of the savings are lost from the gym club membership I need to shower before the final 1/4 mile to work).

Anyway, in the days before I was able to bike commute to work (I was not able to do this when working for the museum outreach), I got rides in sporadically. Usually I would just ride out on the Multi-Use trail on the West River Drive (sorry... Martin Luther King drive) cross the Falls river bridge over the Schuylkill River and return via the trail on East River Drive (sorry..Kelly Drive). It was a small 10 mile ride that I would do after work when the weather was good.

Unfortunately, it was not very long a ride. So developed a tradition of making sure I did a long ride of 50 miles or so at least once a year. The weekend chosen was Memorial Day weekend, I soon added Labor day as well to make a twice annual thing. The idea was to make this ride just to be certain I could do it. Typically, what I would do is ride out the Schuylkill towpath to Valley Forge. This was a straightforward ride, but kind of dull. When I returned from California, I felt I needed new options. My brother suggested joining the Bike Club Philadelphia. I did and went on a group ride with, and it was good. I did a couple more rides on the weekends.

Flash forward to yesterday, things were not so good. I wanted to do my long ride and went down to join the "B Ramble: ride. Well, first they decided to go to Bryn Mayr, a route I am already tired of. But the real problem was that some of the ride crew were really punching it at "A" ride levels and others were going really, really slow. I was smack dab between the groups. When the group was split by a red light we stopped and they decided to split the group fully into two groups and go by their own means. This pissed me off since I had no way of keeping up with the hypercompetitive fast group, and the slow group was not exactly giving me much to work with. So I said "Fuck it" and found y way home. Since I have to be in shape to ride to work on Tuesday, I could not do my own ride today. I've lost the long ride for this part of the year. Thanks guys!

Now, sometimes I wonder why I bother with the long ride anymore. When I went to California my bikes skills went way up (due to the large number of hills). Combine that with the frequent commuting that is 24 miles per day, and I wonder if I really have anything to prove. Still, perhaps I just need to find a decent ride to do on my own, without the hypercompetitive bikeclub folks. I fucking well rode up Santa Cruz mountain on one of these rides, I so don't think I have anything to prove to guys who attack 100 foot long hills like it is the Pyrenees.

Part of yesterday's revelation is that I am a bike commuter, not a club rider. My mindset is to take the most direct (and safe) route to where it is I wish to go. Bike club rides tend to roll around in circles, trying to find interesting hills to attack and such. Not the way I think at all.

I'm not certain what I will do for next year, I may give the BCP another chance, or I may just go solo out a road in NJ I have been looking at on the bike map. Time will tell.