The team kits came in late last week from Louis Garneau, so we arranged for pick up on Saturday followed by a long endurance ride.
Temperatures were in the mid 30s by the time we were ready to roll at 10am. Our group was 17 strong. It was mostly guys from the team, but we also had some strength from Team Belladium, the newly formed women’s cycling team. Brad had 3.5 hours of endurance pace riding planned, but no particular route, so we headed out Southwest of the shop on familiar roads.
17 people is a lot to manage in a contr0lled paceline, but we quickly fell into a comfortable rhythm.The level of experience of this group was varied, but generally high enough that close quarters riding was no problem.
We rode together at a comfortable pace out to the store at Burwood, where a small group split off to head back to Franklin. The rest of us continued on to more familiar roads near Leiper’s Fork.
By the second half of the ride temperatures had climbed into the 40s, which gave ride to a few harder efforts. Mark rode away from all of us by climbing Greenbrier in his big chainring. We regrouped and headed down Pinewood in a decent headwind. Mitch chased down a sprint attempt with me right on his wheel (I owe you one, Mitch). I was lucky to react to Mark’s second launch and caught him before we turned at the Shell station.
Brad and D-squad member John Wade had taken a different turn than us and we hadn’t reconnected with them by this point in the ride, so we all agreed to head back to the shop. Jay took the sprint at the Leiper’s Fork town sign.
Our 3.5 hour ride was quickly turning into a 4 hour ride and I was feeling it with every hill. Good thing for me that the last few miles to the shop were kept at a reasonable pace. We ended up with 67 miles of riding.
The new team kits look great, and the arm warmers and vests did a surprisingly good job keeping us warm in the low temps.
