Tour to Tanglewood 2007 Clemmons Bicycle Training Ride

This past Saturday's Tour to Tanglewood training ride was hosted by Clemmons Bicycle. As in previous years, the route was beautiful, hilly with great pavement, limited congestion and a couple of fun, long downhills (Darwick Road and Fraternity Church Road). Part of this bike shop's route takes skaters/riders along part of the actual Tour to Tanglewood course, so we got to fly down the fast, twisty chute that's safe enough to let it go, yet twisty enough to induce a little apprehension as to what may lie around the bend, i.e., a stopped car, or a stopped car with oncoming traffic in the other lane :-). Luckily this time we had neither. 

Since I've done this route now probably about 5 times, not counting T2T, multiple memories sprang to my mind along the route, like 'Oh I remember lying semi-comatose in that house's front lawn', and 'this is the downhill where the paceline suddenly disintegrated and my life flashed before my eyes', or 'that's the farm we skated by in a thick blanket of fog'. My heart rate was low for once this past weekend, so I was able to enjoy the route.

Boy have we lucked out weather-wise these past two weekends! Instead of the weekday triple-digit heat, we had a high of 80 deg F last week at Cycles de Oro, and mid-morning temps in the mid 80's this past weekend at Clemmons. Yay.

This Clemmons ride offered 2 shorter distances (can't remember/wasn't paying attention/was in the bathroom line) like an 18 miler and a 20 something miler, plus a 36 and a 50 (?) miler. We decided to see how we felt at the 36-50 miler split. We ended up choosing the 36 mile option, and managed it in a sane and timely manner. We were a little befuddled by the sudden exodus of the 2nd rest stop volunteers, who were making a bee line for somewhere obviously more important as we rolled up into the Church parking lot. Fortunately we had sufficient hydration and electrolytes in our backpacks, so we didn't experience any disasters as a result of the incredible vanishing rest-stop. However, we did wonder how the poor folk behind us might have felt later.  

Talking of backpacks, I knew Blake was feeling a little lousy at one point when he unlooped his camelbak and, still skating, held it out away from his body with his left hand. A minute later he was wearing it on his chest like a marsupial.

Thanks once again to all the volunteers who made this training ride possible, and to the Bike Response Team bringing up the rear, eternally energetic and chipper as they are: Jeff, Danny, Teresa and (mind gone blank) another gentleman whose name I shall insert later (sorry!).