Let’s face it, we all live in our own little fishbowls. Especially on our local group rides. We get to know every little bump in the road, rise in gradient, and where the pack surges and backs off. We know the tendencies of our fellow group riders, who likes to punch it and where, who’s a good wheel to follow and who’s squirrely. Every Group Ride has it’s qualities, characteristics, and idiosyncrasies.
Ever wonder what it would be like to drop in on a Group Ride on the other side of the world? How would it be similar or different to your local spin? Thanks to GoPro and other makers of on-board video cameras, it’s getting more common to see footage from Group Rides all over the world. Youtube is full of them.
Here’s a video courtesy of World Wide Cycles, a bike shop in southern Ireland. A few observations on this Group Ride:
- It looks cold and wet. Guessing that if you ride a bike in Ireland then you’ve got to make friends with less-than-perfect weather or else you’re not getting on your bike very much. Realizing I’m a wimp when I complain about a little rain and colder temps. This is how most of the world rides.
- If I’m hearing it right (I can only pick up every other word through the strong Irish accent), that’s the current Irish national time-trial champ on the front.
- Coldplay is universally awesome. And is that the first few bars of “Tomorrow” by Silverchair at the end? Haven’t heard that in years.
- The old dude on the back is awesome – hope I’m still riding a bike at his age.
- The two-up organization, steady pace, and hierarchy, I’m thinking this is a regular spin with the same regular riders.
What do you notice?
I love finding videos of Group Rides from around the world and will share more as I come across them. A little closer to home, I shared a video from the Spectrum Ride a while back, one of our local Group Rides in this area.
Ride on…
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