Well, this was an interesting experience for me, being my first group ride and all.
As it turned out I was one of the most familiar with the park. So, I got the caboose - aka "sweeper". It didn't take long before we had a "mechanical" and a "physical", so the group got split in half fairly quickly. That left 7 of us at the back half. I reached a point where I had to send 5 ahead and go back-track to get someone that had run back to make a repair at the car. Once I got him, the 2 of us rode our asses off trying to catch-up.
We thought about a short-cut to catch the others, but I worried we'd miss them and leave them lost. So, we stuck with the planned route. We never caught up, but somehow we rolled into the furnace area first. How the fuck did that happen? After hanging with Pete for awhile, my lone riding buddy had to split, so I was suddenly in my usual space - riding solo.
Just as I went to head off for some more miles, 3 of the other 5 rolled in. They had taken a wrong turn and ended up doing one of the toughest trails in the park - Rockadendron. Ironically, this is the cut-off that I had considered earlier. The other 2 had split off from them after that. I'm not sure where they ended up, but from reading the posts above - they survived. I offered to take the last few for a few more miles. One joined, while the others took a bail-out option pretty soon.
All in all, we did about 13 miles - well I did. That included the back-track. I guess I learned what the role of "the sweeper" is yesterday. I think I also learned that a big group is destined to be shattered. I also learned that exchanging some more phone numbers might be a wise idea if somehow you want to try and regroup at some point.
I'm glad to hear everybody made it. I'd be glad to show people around Waway a little more if this time wasn't all you hoped it would be. This park is awesome and we only skimmed the surface. So, PM if you want to try and coordinate.
