Things new for teh 09

Last Friday night I parked my car at a rather extravagant farm house in Waterfall, PA. If you don't know where that is, don't feel bad. There's nothing else around. The farm house belonged to the family of Coach and was the site of the first team training camp of the brand new Cyclesports Fast Forward Developmental Mountain Bike Team. This is the new team I am riding for. More info to follow. After a tour of the large property on a Polaris ATV with Zach, the kids began to arive and we ate tastey pasta and salad. After some frolicking and romping around the woods, and some silly play on our road bikes, we settled down to watch Off Road to Athens and agreed after about 20 min to go to bed.

It was a good idea because the next morning we were all up at 7AM for our long training ride. We set out into the cold at a nice base pace and quickly found ourselves doing the thing we would do most that day: climb. This climb was covered with packed snow. I felt a little like Andy Hamsten. This climb was about the shortest of the day, and after some winding and rolling roads, we were unzipped and heading up another ridge. This was my first real chance to see everyone's potential. The one they call Kyle is a pretty damn good climber already, and he can only get better from here. He needs a bike that fits him though. We crested that ridge, dropped down a bit, then immediately were faced with another climb. This was longer and a bit steeper than the last. We settled in and went up at a nice easy pace.

At the top we stopped for a food break, then flew down the backside of the ridge onto some more rolling roads. There was some more climbing and a little descending ahead of us, but nothing major. We rolled along at a relaxed pace until, probably an hour later, Jacob started complaining of a pain in his ankle. We pulled off at the park office of Trough Creek State Park to have a look at it. He had rolled it during friday night's frolicking, and it was hurting a lot when ever he pedaled. I suppose this is a problem for a bike ride, I wouldn't really know though...
After we pried the kids off the ground, we attempted to roll down a back road to the Marina to look out upon Raystown Lake. There was ice on the descent, and we slowly rolled down amidst cries of "be careful" and "don't fall" from Zach. But, as the way most things go in life, Zach jinxed himself and hit the ground hard after thinking he was off the ice and turning around to see if everyone was ok. He fell on the same side he had fallen the weekend before at Fair Hill and re-bruised his arm and hip. After abandoning our quest for the lake, we headed out of Trough Creek and towards Middletown, which is actually no where near the middle of anything. After some short climbs, Jacob's ankle was hurting enough that Zach began to push him down the road. Once we got to the big intersection in Middletown (replete with a bar at one corner and not much else) we decided to split up. Tom, Gunnar, Kyle, and I were going to hammer back to the farm and Tom would go fetch Zach, Jeff, and Jacob in Der Cr

after, saving them a trip back. The fast group set out after ingesting some foods and we quickly settled into a nice paceline on the flatish roads. There was a bit of awkwardness as Tom, and to a lesser extent me, had to teach Gunnar and Kyle how to ride in a pace line, but they got the hang of it eventually.
Our paceline was broken by a long climb up a ridge. Zach had told us there would be "hills" between Middletown and Waterfall, but what we had ahead of us was more like two ridges. The first one was the shorter of the two. We paced up most of it and as Kyle started to crack Tom and I took turns pushing him up to keep the pace going. It's amazing what a little support can do. He never stopped working so kudos to him. After we dropped down the backside of that climb, we thought we were done and had a nice easy cruise into Waterfall, but soon the road started heading skyward again and we settled into an even longer climb.  Tom and I again took turns motivating Kyle; we all were feeling the burn of the increased pace and the three hours we had ridden before than.  By the time we rolled into Broad Top City we were glad the climbing was over for the day.

At the other end of Broad Top City we were greeted by a most fortuitous sign.  It read the following:

10% Grade

Next 3 miles

This made me smile.  I asked Tom if it was ok if I went and he said it was, so I zipped up, tucked in, and rocked on.  This descent was everything you could ever wish for in a road descent.  It was long, it was steep, it had broad, sweeping turns which required no braking, and it had beautiful scenery.  Not that the scenery was actually seen because my face was frozen to my handlebars in my full tuck.  I probably hit 50 mph or so just coasting down the mountain,  it was rather amazing.  I got to the bottom, sat up, lifted my arms up in the air and gave a shout of joy.  Tom, Kyle, and Gunnar joined me after a while, and we rolled into Waterfall together.  Tom left to pick up Zach, Jeff, and Jacob.  Apparently they had made it part way up the first climb and decided not to ride any further and made Jacob a leantoo, gave him all their extra clothing and sat and waited.

So that was Saturday's ride.  For stories from the rest of the weekend check out the team blog.  Heck check it out anyway... we're pretty cool.