Frank Stark Celebration Ride - 7/10/2011...

Yesterday, I did my second Metric Century at the 22nd Annual Frank Stark Celebration Ride.  Overall, it was a good event and I would do it again.  I rode with two friends.  The hubby's bike is still on layaway, which sucked, but he'll definitely ride it with me next year.  


The route did a loop in East Boca, then went north on A1A.  First rest stop was in Boynton Beach.  We continued on A1A onto Palm Beach and then crossed over into West Palm Beach for the next rest stop.  That's where we turned around and rode south along A1A, back to Boca Raton City Hall to finish.  


The parts along A1A by the beach and mansions were fabulous!  Now I understand why people love to ride over there!  My usual routes out west have less traffic lights and fewer cars whizzing by, but you can't beat that view of the ocean along A1A!  I felt safer over there riding in a group but now that I've done it once, I would probably take my bike over there to ride on my own (if I ever have the time!)  We had great weather, but we definitely fried in the sauna created by July's South Florida sun, heat and humidity!  We also had a headwind *the entire* way south.  Fighting a headwind for 30 miles was tough, but we did it.  Another big challenge were the overpasses by the Intracoastal Waterway.  Yeah, it's flat here, folks!  So those overpasses were like mini-mountains for us!  But, we rode over all of them.  No one in my group got off to walk over!  We did encounter a few nasty motorists who apparently had no idea that the bike lane was ours, let alone the car lane if we wanted or needed it!  They honked relentlessly and were obviously cursing us, but thankfully no one got hurt (meaning both us and them because if I had caught up to them, who knows?!!)  LOL!


In summary, great ride and I plan on doing it again next year!  ;-D