All aboard for the Estrogen Express

Last weekend Bicycle World and Fitness added a third Saturday morning ride, an intermediate paced outing for those not strong enough for the International Liars' Club but too fast for Manny's ride. Jamie "Green Ears", who works as a sales associate at the shop, was leading and christened us "The Truth Squad", as we are like the ILC but with 10% more truthiness. The first ride included Jamie and Jeremy (who also works at BW&F), Denis and me, and we had a lot of fun on the short-ish run to Katy Mills Mall and back.

Yesterday we were joined by a few more riders, some of whom were refugees from the ILC and some poached from Manny. I persuaded Jolynne to come along and I think she had fun. At the first stop light I realised that there were more women than men in the group, whence "The Estrogen Express"'.

Unlike Manny's ride, we don't try to keep together as a group, and since the route includes numerous traffic lights, it's easy to get split up. That's exactly what happened fairly quickly and I found myself in a mini-peleton in front of the rest, with an English lady and a younger American woman, who turned out to be the strongest rider in the group by far.

We regrouped at the turn-around (Walgreens on Pin Oak road) but split off from the pack again, this time with Denis too. I pulled for a while but the pace was too hot and I had to drop back and draft. This gave me an opportunity to chat with the English lady, who rides with the ILC normally but tends to get dropped after 30-40 miles. She's still a pretty strong rider.

Back in the Park, we passed Manny's group, who were resting at the Cop Shop, and headed onto Wind Alley. The young American woman took off like a scalded cat and I let her go. She ran into traffic not far along though, and Denis, the English lady and I caught her, and latched on to her back wheel for the rest of the run.

I'll keep riding with The Truth Squad for now. If we get enough riders, Jamie will be able to go further than 30 miles (for now she has to be back by 10.00 am to open the shop), delaying my return to the Mules' Paddock and driving half an hour for a ride.