blind leading the...um, less blind

So, did I mention that I got lost on my last club ride? You know, the one I'm supposed to LEAD?!

Well, I did.

Oh, it started out easily enough. I got to the start area about 10 minutes early, and waited for my group to start showing up. They trickled in by ones and twos until there were five of us, three new faces, me, and one repeat from the week before. All were regular riders that I recognized from the Sunday ride, so I felt pretty at-ease. I gave a brief overview of the route we'd be taking, ran through the safety speech, and we were off.

The trouble started about 11 miles in. See, here is the route I was intending to take:

Note that loop at the top of the route, and how it hits the same road twice. To follow this route correctly, we would cross that road the first time, and turn right onto it the second time. Due to my dumbassery, what we actually did was turn right the first time, skip the loop completely, and go about 3 miles in the wrong direction. About a mile after the wrong turn, I started to notice that traffic was getting heavier, and the road was longer than it should have been. I was starting to get seriously uneasy. Something was rotten in the state of Denmark. (Or, you know, Texas.)

Luckily, around the same time I started realizing that I had lost my way, one of the guys pulled up beside me.

"Where are we turning?"
"I don't know. I meant to go to the end, but I'm not sure how we ended up here. Shouldn't we be hitting Branch Crossing pretty soon?"
"We're way past Branch Crossing."
"Crap! What the hell did I do? Let's stop. STOPPING!"

Luckily, this guy did loops in the area all the time, and after a brief pow-wow with the group, he found us a way back that only added 3 miles to the intended route. Of course, that didn't prevent me from feeling like a TOTAL ASSHOLE and apologizing constantly for the next hour. I didn't even completely understand where I went wrong until about 2 miles later, when we came to an intersection I recognized from last week's route. My internal compass returned with a thud, and I realized where I had gone astray. Dammit!

Then, as a final indignity, I managed to miss another turn leading out from a regroup point, and the entire rest of the group had to call me back. I surrendered leadership after that, since I was obviously unfit for the job. We got back to the start safely, I apologized profusely, and we dispersed. I rode home after that, defeated and wondering if I'm really fit to lead this ride. At the very least, I'm pretty sure none of those folks will ever ride with me again. Sigh.

On the bright side, the route we took back to the start was actually better than what I had originally planned. By getting lost, I was able to plan a safer, easier loop for next time:

Note the complete lack of turns onto Research. :)

While I'm still not sure I'm a worthy ride leader, I'm going to cut myself some slack and give it another go. It's only my second week, after all.

Posted by Joy at May 31, 2006 03:48 PM