This is going to be a long one… bear with me here.
I have got to fix this late issue I have. Every time I have to be in Loudoun County, I always end up having to "one more thing," and end up leaving 20 minutes later than I intended to. So, as a result, I got to Franklin Park in Purcellville/Round Hill at around 7:14, and our team photo was scheduled for 7:15. Crap. Ah well, not a huge deal as I was the only one who wasn't wearing a team jersey. (D'OH! I forgot to pick mine up before leaving work on Friday.)
Anyway, I also managed to miss the "grand start" of the ride as I had to run back to the car to get my cell phone and cue sheet. I finally hit the road around 8:15 since I my sweet old time trying to pin my number on my jersey. (I finally just took off my jersey to pin it on… hopefully no one was blinded by the sheer whiteness of my torso.)
Best of all, when I put on my helmet, I realized that I completely forgot to replace the liner that I had taken out to wash the night before. Ouch. So the first 8 miles of the ride were spent with scratchy velcro digging into my forehead. (I remedied the situation at the first rest stop by folding some tissue over it.)
The suckier part about starting late is that you end up stuck behind the slower riders. (On the flip side, if you start right in front, you end up getting smoked by the spoke jocks and other overachievers.)
As I rode along, it occurred to me that many people cannot ride their bikes safely, and it really pisses me off. They ride double/triple, swerve all over the road, don't signal, don't say "passing" or "on your left," and (my favorite of all), don't look behind them before trying to pass another biker. You wouldn't change lanes on a highway without checking your mirror and blind spot, would you? It's pretty damn stupid to do something like that when there could be another car or mute biker (e.g., silent passer) right behind you. It's these sort of riders who give bicyclists a bad name to irate drivers… e.g., it gives anti-biker drivers ammo to not respect the riders who do follow the rules. As my dear dad says, "If you want respect, you have to give respect."
Okay, rant over. The route was absolutely beautiful, the weather was perfect, and overall it was just wonderful.
Then, disaster struck.
I was chatting with some of the Babes on Bikes ladies and made the ever-so-stupid remark that my bike was "working really well" (aka, chain was not falling off). Five minutes later, as we're going uphill, I go to shift down to my inner ring on the front, and hear "Clunk!" I say, "Oh man, my chain fell off!"
Then one of the BoB gals looks back and says, "Whoa, your chain broke!"
Oh SNAP!
Literally.
[A quick background for the non-biking crowd. Normally a chain is put on a bike by taking out a pin with a special tool and then reinserting it. I had replaced the chain with a Wippermann chain, which has a special link that eliminates the need for removing a pin every time you want to take off your chain. It's pretty handy, except when said link decides to jump ship as you're riding the bike!]
I jump off and trot back down the hill looking for the link. No luck, as something that's small, grey, and black is virtually impossible to find in gravel/asphalt.
At this point, I'm thinking, "Well crap. I'm totally screwed unless I can come up with an extra Connex link." Then I reflect back on a conversation I had with my dad a few months ago:
Me: "Dad, I replaced the rear cassette and put on a Wippermann chain as you recommended. That Connex link is really neat! Although I should probably buy an extra one in the unlikely event that my chain comes apart while I'm on the road."
Famous. Last. Words.
Fortunately, someone came up and had a chain removal tool, and we remedied the situation by removing a link to connect the two ends together. Chain fixed, I continued on my merry way.
[Side note: I'm a little ticked off at Spokes Etc., as they were the last people to handle the chain. When I brought it in on Wednesday to have two of the chainrings replaced, they shortened the chain to accommodate the new, smaller inner ring. Ergo, they put it on wrong or I had a defective chain. More likely the former.]
I caught up with the rest of the Booz Allen team at lunch in The Plains. Corner Bakery catered the lunch, and it was gooooood. We also had a nice bluegrass-type band playing for us while we sat and ate. We were told that the rest of the ride was much more difficult than the first half, with more hills. I'm thinking, "Oh great, and up until now I thought it was pretty easy!" I kept my mouth shut with that comment as there were many many riders on the ride who ended up walking up basically every hill. Including the dude who was clearly a triathlete, or at least a wannabe triathete.
Turns out it wasn't as bad as I thought. The only bad climbs were off downhill runs, as some riders would slow down so much that I'd have to brake and kill all my momentum since I couldn't pass due to the line of cars behind us. Better safe than end up as a hood ornament.
I stopped by two friends' farms as they were both on the route. Jan wasn't home, but I stayed at Melanie's for about half an hour while we caught up. It was a nice break/rest as the next section was basically down, down, then up. And up again.
The last 9 miles were also nice as they consisted of only the W&OD with a stiff tailwind. I rolled into the fairgrounds around 4, checked my cyclometer, and was pleased to see I had finished the 67 miles in under 5 hours. And I felt really, really good – not tired at all, as if I could do another 20 miles.
Overall, a very good day. 
Updated route:
I had 66.something miles on my cyclometer, which may stem from the fact I put about an extra mile or so going up and down Mel's long driveway. 
