Winter Camp Weekend

Driving up to Percy Quinn in a rainstorm wasn't exactly how I'd wanted to start our annual training camp weekend. I had packed pretty much everything I owned, just in case we were going to be riding in a cold rain. In fact, I was kind of expecting that we'd be riding in a cold rain at some point. By the time we arrived, though, the rain was already much lighter. Even better, the cabins we had this year was much nicer -- cable TV, functional heat, and even a fireplace. Still, went I hit the sack that night, I was still not holding out much hope for the morning.

Things were looking better at 7 am, though. The rain had stopped, and the radar looked pretty good even though the sky was still overcast and the temperature was in the 30s. We decided to wait until around 9 am before departing on our planned 85 mile ride, which turned out to be a good move. Additional riders started to filter in, and by the time we headed out we had a group of around 14 rolling down the road with a nice little tailwind. The day's ride would take us south on the MS Tour route for a sweet out-and-back ride. As always, we had a fairly diverse group, but nobody was really lagging and nobody was really surging, so things were nice and smooth. For most of the day, in fact, we rode a steady double paceline. When we came to an intersection about 30 miles out we noticed a touring tandem stopped at a little store there, so we decided it would be a good place for a quick stop. By then the sky had cleared up, the temperature had risen, and it was a beautiful day.

The tandem riders were on their way from southern Florida to Oregon, and more than one of us questioned why you would choose to take such a long tour in a northwest direction in the winter! Anyway the ride out to the turnaround was smooth, and for the last few miles we let the dogs loose so the fast riders could kill themselves racing to the top of the long hill. After that, we regrouped and started the long ride back into the headwind. I guess we had 25 miles or so to go when things started to string out and the group started to split up. By the time we got the the last intersection the front group was down to just three, the gap was measurable with a sundial, and my right foot was absolutely on fire, so we stopped for a while while I rubbed my problem foot and waited for everyone to regroup one last time. After ten or fifteen minutes everyone had arrived, my foot was feeling much better, and we were starting to get chilled. Just as we got back on the bikes, though, Kenny said, "I have a flat!" We sent most of the group ahead while we fixed it. It turned out that he'd put some Slime style tire protectors in recently and the sharp edge had worn a hole in the tube. The next day he'd have the same problem with the same wheel, so the tire protector came home in his pocket instead of his tire.

That night we had a big food festival. Steve had prepared three different pasta and chicken dishes, there was cheesecake, wine, beer, snacks, a big salad that Mignon made in one of the ice chests, etc. And of course we had some good discussion about racing plans for the 2010 season, general race strategy, training, etc. We even went out and collected some firewood so we could get the fireplace going. A combination of ingenuity and brute force was required to reduce some of the firewood to a size that would fit into the little fireplace.

Sunday morning's plan featured a shorter 45-mile ride with lots of chip-seal roads. For the most part we kept the group together on this ride, only putting the hammer down for the last five miles or so. All-in-all it was a great weekend. The weather was a lot better than I'd been expecting, and although the congestion in my lungs is still not quite cleared up, I felt pretty good on the rides, especially considering my last two weeks of woefully inadequate training time. Now the question is whether to plunk down that obscene amount of cash to enter Rouge-Roubaix, knowing that I'm nowhere close to being ready for it.