Rollin skinny - ThNNDRR

Today was Thursday and that meant it was time for the... ThNNDRR (Thursday Night No Drop Road Ride) hosted by Cycle Works, the same people who bring you the TNNDDR. That's right decided to partake in the road version of the group ride this week to see what it was all about.
Whoa, some people take these road rides serious, my wheels probably weigh as much as that entire bike.

Rolling out promptly at 5:30, headed out through town eventually picking up Folsom St then SW 12th to Satillo Rd out to Hwy 77 and eventually Sprague before turning back. Good to see I wasn't the only one not fully clad all in spandex, there are just certain size people that should never go near anything tight and stretchy.


Pretty decent view of Lincoln off in the distance from this vantage point, it's a bit hard to see in this picture but from the seat of your bike it's a whole other matter.

Ran into, not literally, the Joy Ride group on Denton road, looked like they were heading out to Denton on the temporarily closed road... those law breakers. Wind was a bit brutal on the way out coming out of the south/southwest at about 15-20 mph. For some reason we lost all the young guys at Satillo and Hwy 77, they all went straight across Hwy 77 instead of turning right back into the wind, not sure if they had places to go, had burned themselves out already or just had had enough of the wind. Either way our group was now down to 3 more "seasoned" riders.

We continued on to Sprague and looped back to Hwy 77, once we turned the corner so we were now riding north it was nice to have the wind at our backs finally. The cruise home was nice and easy, more than once or twice I ran out of gear coming back and had to just coast, I personally would rather struggle out and cruise back when I'm a bit more tired so this was ideal for my riding style.

Pulled into the gas station at Satillo and Hwy 77 for something a little cold and refreshing before cruising back to Lincoln via 14th St. I really need to look into a geared bike if I'm going to continue trying to get some rides in on the road, singlespeeds really show their weakness out on the open road where there aren't turns, obstacles and other things to slow you down and level the playing field a little bit like on a mountain bike. I've been looking around and this might be the year, been waiting for the cyclocross bikes to start coming with disc brakes and from the looks of the line ups that have been released it looks like most manufactures are equipping the 2014s with discs. Although there are a few 2013s that were also equipped with discs and if I could find one of those with discs I could save some bucks... or I could just put on my big boy pants, suck it up and just ride what I have and quit whining.