2020 Jefferson City
9th Annual Big Ride
May 1-2, 2021
88 miles - 33 Participants
ReCap:
We did the 9th annual ride in our 10th year because of COVID. I had to reschedule our fall ride for spring which gave us 2 big rides for the 1st time ever. Giving us a spring and a fall in 2021. Kind of perfect to have bonus for our 10th year. I was curious what kind of attendance I would have considering I did not open the Biker Chicks up until March for open rides. That gave riders less than 2 months to build up for an 88 mile weekend. To my surprise we had attendance right in line with any other year. At one point I even was up over 40 people booked. I always lose people as the date nears but 33 participants on Saturday and 28 on Sunday was amazing. We even had a few new couples never before on our big ride. Impressive.
FLASHBACK TO THE YEAR OF COVID RIDING…
I want to flash back a minute and give some background to the riding that happened in COVID. When everything shut down March 16, 2020 so did the Biker Chicks. I was not comfortable planning rides with sometimes 20 girls in the COVID environment. But I also did not want to stop riding myself. So the 3 first months of hard shut down, Molly and I rode 3 times a week. My life of 50 people socially a week paired down to my neighbor Donna for daily neighborhood walks, Molly for weekly rides and Mark got to play with me the rest of the time. Friends would call concerned how I was handling this lock-down new life and surprisingly to everyone and mostly myself “I loved it!” My world of three completely filled me up. I have come to realize I love just love whatever I have. After May things started to open up a bit for the summer and I decided to reach out by text to those core girls to include selectively on rides giving me the ability to control group size. These girls where picked from those who attended my Big Rides. My riding group reverted back to how it began a very boutique intimate riding group. I was loving this. No recaps, no pics posted, no lengthy eblast consuming hours of my week. Just a text from my couch to 7 girls the night before producing amazing turn outs. Everyone needed this outlet more than ever in our isolated environment. Heck, no one had ANYTHING else to do. This is the year that the group took on its biggest transformation. We went from a casual social riding group focused on the beer, wine and/or lunch as the carrot destination to a group out to ONLY RIDE and ride harder and faster. There was no social stopping it was no acceptable to be in restaurants or hanging out. This is the year Molly and I decided to set a personal goal of 100 miles in one day. That goal drove planning longer, harder rides and at a much faster pace. For me personally riding use to be all about the social talk time on the bike. Not anymore I just wanted to put on my headphone and ride. I became obsessed to beat my personal best on speed and endurance.
