Houston. It totally sucked! I can only think of a few redeeming qualities about it. When I got there I backed into a parking space where everyone was gathering. They all noticed my license plate on the car and on the bike, so that was a topic of conversation. The ride started at 8PM, I got there around 6:30. There was an overhead canopy that we were going to assemble in, but no one could get naked until someone got there with tarps so no one could see us. Of course the tarps blocked any breeze that was there, so it was a bit warm in there. During the organizer's little speech on procedures and rules he asked how many here was doing their first ride. 3 people raised their hands. Then he asked how many here are doing their 18th ride? I raised my hand. Once we started the ride, we rode through a warehouse district with zero spectators, plus it was so dark no one would have been able to see us. It kind of reminded me of Madison where we hardly had any spectators for the first couple miles of the ride, but that one got a lot better later, this one did not. Probably about 2/3 of the ride was like that. Dark empty streets in the not best part of town. One thing they did was make stops at a few bars. The stops were supposed to be about 15 minutes. They took 30-40 minutes each. I left my wallet in the car, plus I don't drink, plus I did not want to put any clothing on that would be required to enter the bar, so I just stayed outside with a few others that did not want to go in. We did have a brief time that we rode through a small section of Downtown, but by then it was past 10PM so there was hardly anyone there. It almost seemed that the route was planned to avoid having anyone see us. Gene Dare, the organizer of Toronto and Montreal rides had a policy. Go where the people are. The spectator count for this ride, well under 1000, probably closer to 500. About 10% of what most rides are. Picture takers- well under 100, probably closer to 50.Most of the rides, the majority of the spectators are taking pics or videos. At the last bar stop there were a few riders that were heading back to the start point since the last stop was an impromptu after party. I rode with the group backthere, loaded up my bike and left. By then it was after midnight. All during the ride, while I was waiting for it to get better, I kept thinking "I drove 16 hours for this??? I would have been upset if I drove 2 hours for it
Talking with some of the other riders, apparently there is 1 guy that organizes it and has no help.
The ride might not have been so bad if it had started 2-3 hours earlier in daylight and kept the stops under 15 minutes or none at all.
Since everything was done in darkness and since I left my phone in the car, I got zero pics. A couple guys took some pics of me at one of the stops and are supposed to email them me. Of course this email address started a whole bunch of conversations

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