Ride Report: Cinderella Classic

Well I hate having more than one race report in queue so I'm going to get this out now since I am doing half marathon #9 on Sunday.

On April 4th, I participated in the Cinderella Classic - a 65 mile, all-female bike ride that went throughout the east bay, starting and ending in Pleasanton. My friend Kirby told me about this event and I am so glad I signed up.

It was AWESOME! Definitely my longest bike ride to date and so much fun. I think the ride was limited to about 2000 riders and was sold out. Everyone got really decked out for the ride - pretty much everyone had some kind of costume on (see pics below). I kept it simple and just added a foam tiara to my helmet.

The course went through some really scenic areas. There were enough hills to keep it challenging but none that were too strenuous - I think I stayed in my big ring (is that the right word?) the whole time. As you can tell, I still consider myself a bike newbie but I think this ride is perfect for me as well as for the more advanced rider, like Kirby.

Another wonderful thing about this ride is that it was so well-supported. There were constantly SAG vehicles driving by so there were no worries if you had any bike issues. This came in especially handy for me. When I first arrived at the event, I somehow managed to break the pin off the valve of my tube when trying to inflate my tire. Sad thing - this is the *second* time I've done this. Luckily, they had a bike support crew set up at the start so I just handed it over and they took care of it for me in no time! (Side note: I have changed my tube before but that was in the comfort of my living room with a bike manual in front of me - still took me way too long.)

Here's me and Kirby at the start:



As you can see, Kirby added some fun "flare" to her helmet:



But check out the rest of the riders!



The next two were "borrowed" from the official race photographers:





Official Race Pics:


This was taken around mile 22.


I think this was around mile 37 - it was warmer then so I had taken off my jacket. Layering is really key in these kind of events - it was freezing in the morning and warm in the afternoon!

Because this was a "ride" and not a "race", I took my sweet ole time during the whole thing. There were two rest stops and one lunch stop along the way so I was out pretty much the entire day, leaving around 8:30AM and returning just before 3PM. If you take out the rest stops, I was biking for about five hours or so. The weird thing is that I totally felt fine by the end and I could have biked longer if I wanted to. I wasn't even sore the next day which really surprised me.

Even though I knew it wasn't a race, I was still a little disappointed when I finally returned to the start. I was thinking there would be a big FINISH banner or something but there wasn't anything. Kind of anti-climactic BUT they did have a nice spread of food at the end.

And instead of medals, we got this patch. I don't know what I'll do with it but I thought it was fun to get something different.



All in all, it was a really fun event and I highly recommend. I think it would be especially fun if you do it with a big group with coordinated costumes :)