Friday Follies ~~ The Horde

After I discovered road bikes and road riding, I quickly found myself getting into group rides.  In Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s a large group ride might consist of 10 or even as many as fifteen riders.

When I started attending these things, I had an experience that was fairly common.  I would start out with the group, and find myself working hard to stay with them through town, and throughout the “warm up” part of the ride.  We would hit the edge of town, make a couple of turns, and invariably, climb some awful thing.  I would, by the top of the climb, be at the back of the group.  Shortly after that, I’d get dropped.  From that point on, I would be riding alone.

With time, I gained skill, fitness, and technique.  My equipment improved too.  In relatively short order, I was staying with the main body throughout the ride.  I enjoyed those early “training rides.”  There was something about being with a group of like-minded oddballs, out on the bike, moving through the landscape.

Advance the time by about six years.  I had begun what I refer to as the longest sentence I’ve ever served.  I was living in southeastern Pennsylvania.  After a brief period of bikelessness, I was again saddled up.  I had employment and a new road bike.  Life was, if not wonderful, at least good.

When time permitted, I got on the bike and started exploring my surroundings.  Gradually, I expanded my range.  I found ways to ride from my apartment, into urban Philadelphia, the very belly of the beast.

Philly can be one rough city.  But it does have its charming points.  One of the most amazing is an incredible park system.  The centerpiece of that system is Fairmount Park.  This is a positively huge park.  There are a large number of roads through and around the park, and I enjoyed exploring them.  Usually these exploration trips took place on weekends.

Spring came.  The days grew longer and warmer.  Work at the plant slacked off a bit, and I’d moved to another apartment, one closer to Philly.  I began to include weekday evening excursions into the city.

There was an evening in early June.  It was warm and sultry.  I was on the bike, and just cruising along.  I’d was just making a turn from one of the park’s cross-streets, when a motion to my left caught my eye.  I completed the turn, and looked back.  I almost fell off the bike.

Behind me (and closing fast, I might add) was a mass of humanity.  It actually took me a moment to resolve this mass as being mounted on bicycles.  I had never see so many people on bikes.  It looked like photos I’d seen in Velonews, of the peloton at major elite races.  The street was filled, from curb to curb with riders, and they were moving!

It occurred to me that I was in the path of this two-wheeled onslaught.  My survival urge dictated that I must get out of the way!  NOW!

I applied power to the pedals, shifted, and accelerated as hard and as fast as I could.  Bad move!  I was now going too fast to hop one of the tall curbs, and there was a considerable distance to the next cross street.  I risked a glance back.  They were still gaining on me.  In fact, they were closing at an alarming rate

I up-shifted again, and redoubled my efforts.  I was thinking that I would, at the very least, want to lessen the velocity of the impact.

The road crested the rise at about that point, and I found more speed on the downhill side.  That was when the group engulfed me.

Surprisingly, there was no crash.  Riders were on all sides of me, smoothly passing me.  Occasionally I took a slight jostle, as the huge pack passed around me.  And as abruptly as it had started, it was over.  Sort of…

I’d been spit out the back of a huge group of riders.  I glanced back to see another group, about two hundred yards behind me, and closing.  This pack looked just like the first one, and it was also coming on fast.

I kept my speed up, to no real avail.  The massive group closed, surrounded me, and again spit me out the back.  In the process I’d been carried out of the park, and onto one of the city streets.

Again, I looked back, and again I saw a huge group of riders.  This group was about a quarter mile back.  I experimented, and discovered that I could stay ahead of the third group, but could not gain distance on them.  I slowed a bit and let the group catch up to me, surround me.

I let the group pass for a bit, and then matched speed with them, moving along quite briskly.  I asked some of the riders around me the question that was burning in my brain.  “What’s going on?  What is this thing!?”

I was informed that this was “The Drives!”  It was a huge group ride, one that had been going on since the beginning of time.  That it formed in The Park, on Tuesday evenings, starting on the first Tuesday After Memorial Day, and continuing until the last Tuesday before Labor Day.  Typically “The Drives” ride attracted something like 300 riders…  Sometimes more!

I made a point to be there again.  It took me several weeks to find the exact start location.  Once I did, I found that joining the ride at the beginning was a lot less stressful.  From that point on, I was a regular member of “the horde.”

I don’t know if this ride still exists.  It’s been over 30 years since I left that area.  But for a time, it was possible for me to ride in a monster group, on a regular basis.  It’s an experience, it is!