Day 12: Fredericksburg to Mechanicsville, Virginia 0 miles, 2800 feet elevation

The early morning view of last night's dinner locale, across the parking lot from our hotel.  The riders revolted last night, refusing to go to Golden Corral and opted, instead, for this burgers & beer biker bar (alliteration not intended).  The bikers  (those on Harley's, not Cannondale's) quickly adopted us as kindred spirits and rounds of beers were bought for all.  The music, piped outside on that terrace, made for a very long night if you didn't have earplugs!

Yes, you read that correctly.  Zero miles.  I woke up this morning with a fever and a sore throat.  The latter was no big deal, but the fever and chest congestion immediately ruled out riding today.  And I really wish I had ridden because it was a nice ride.  Not much elevation.  No steep climbs.  Just gentle rolling hills as we headed south towards Richmond.

This morning's departure took us through parts of the Fredericksburg Battlefield.  These long-range cannons were brought in by General Lee to rain holy hell down on the Union positions over a mile away.  The battles were fierce and deadly.

Instead of cycling, I rode with Shane in one of the SAG vans.  As a result, I got a very close up look at the day in the life of a tour ride leader.

Shane likes to take pictures as much if not more than I do.  When we passed this sign, we turned around to get a better look at what it said.

From the rider's perspective, we see the vans passing along the route us to check if we're okay.  Or, we see them at the SAG stops every 25-30 miles for water and food refueling.  Once inside the van, I got to see things from the leader's point of view.  It's a lot harder than it looks.

The signage was great.  The inside of this old rambling house containing antiques didn't live up to our expectations.  But it was still worth the stop, if nothing else than for that image of two frogs on a bike.

The two vans play hopscotch along the route.  The SAG van with the luggage will always handle the first SAG stop of the day while the second van (mechanics van), unencumbered by the luggage trailer, can drive around, make quick turns to rescue or retrieve a lost rider, and just scope out the chain of riders along the route.  And that chain is often what's most difficult to manage.  At the second SAG stop, the mechanics van will serve as host, allowing the van with the luggage trailer to proceed to the evening's hotel site.  That's if all goes normal.

As the late morning temperatures started to climb, nearly everyone took advantage of a Subway/Dairy Queen shop along the route.  Some had sandwiches.  Most had something cold and sweet from DQ.

We are not a homogenous group of riders.  We don't all ride at the same pace or with the same degree of talent and experience.  Some of our riders speed along, hell bent for leather, at above a 20 miles per hour pace.  Others will ride, either in small groups or as individuals, in a moderate 14-17 miles per hour pace.  Still others take more time and cruise at a 10-12 mile per hour pace.  If you think about our now 25 riders (plus three guests today) going along a common route, within one hour from our start hotel, we could be over five to seven miles apart.  That means either one or both vans must keep track of all those riders along that accordion-like chain.  Now multiply that by three or four hours and you see how the challenges of managing our group become compounded.

If a rider goes down or has a flat (which I finally did yesterday morning), that holds up the chain (as usually one or more riders will stop to help a fellow rider change a flat tire).  And, if the van shows up, that's longer that the lead riders will have separated themselves from the remaining riders.  Coordination can be a nightmare.

That nightmare is further compounded when the slowest riders are also those who stop to take more pictures along the way (there's an inverse correlation between the riders speed and their desire to take photos -- the faster they are, the less inclined for sightseeing).  Or if they are slow and they want to stop for a leisurely lunch en route.  Either way (or both in some cases!), it puts more pressure on the ride crew to manage all riders.  Add a very hot day (as was the case on our very first day of riding) and you'll double the pressure as the crew want to add mini-stops in between scheduled SAG stops to refill water bottles.  After spending the day with Shane, and later Mike, I had a new found respect for their efforts.

Going to take some NyQuil and hope for the best in the morning.