I took off at 7:30 this morning to ride the FWBA Alvarado Adventure club ride. I had intentions of doing the 84 mile route, but that didn’t quite work out.

This route starts at the Alvarado High School and goes southwest to Sand Flat at mile 18, then on to Rio Vista at mile 30. The 84 mile route then does an 18 mile loop to the west before returning to the Rio Vista store, then does a more southerly loop through Grandview before returning to Alvarado.

I fell off the back of the A group after a few miles, but at around mile 12, an A group rider struck a dog. The rider was able to continue, the dog hobbled away on three legs, and the delay was enough that the A and B groups reunited, and we all rode together to Rio Vista.

It was a long stop, and figuring that most riders would turn around there and do the 68 mile route, 4 of us took off and continued on to do the 84 mile route. After we arrived back in Rio Vista, a good size group came in shortly behind us, so we waited for them and all took off together toward Grandview. I guess the cloudy day had everyone wanting to do more miles than usual. I’ve never seen this large a group doing an over 80 mile route on an FWBA ride.

A few miles into this leg of the ride, I found myself a little ways in front of the group, kicked up to a little more brisk pace, and never saw the group again. By the time I got to Grandview, there were storms to be seen off to the north and south. I decided to skip the Grandview stop, and take a shorter route back to the start than the club route called for. I managed to finish without getting rained on, and ended up with 75.7 miles.

I felt better than I figured I would, considering it’s only 8 days after my shoulder surgery. This is a fairly flat, low traffic route, and I like these roads. I’ll do this route again when the club rides it.

Modified version of the 84 mile Alvarado Adventure route.