Tour Training Ride

We had a great crew this past Sunday doing a training ride for the 2008 Tour de Cullman. The ride started at the St. John farm with what was suppose to make the ride a little easier. We headed in a reverse direction of the actual tour but the idea was to ride the critical section of the course, "The Circle of Death". Of course the weather was hot and humid so conditions were perfect for a melt down.

Adam Goldweber set the tempo early but powered it down after the first climb, obviously not wanting to show too much. Austin Oliver, James Hall and St. John hammered on while the rest of us struggled or faked it over the next series of climbs.

Once on Joy Road aka "The Meat Grinder" the group was coming back together. One of the riders who showed up with New York plates on his car had a flat(was this one of our mystery bloggers...Eddy, glish, Nekid Cowboy? well his legs sure didn't look like Runonce!). Adam stopped to help and the rest of us including Mandy and Sonja pedaled on towards the four mile climb to the top of the mountain.

We all rode to the top of the mountain except the New Yorker. I was feeling like maybe we weren't being a good host, we did later make contact with him. He had missed a turn and ended up riding down highway 160 and thankfully surviving. The downside was he had to climb over SmokeRise to get back to Cullman, he probably got in a good 70 mile ride instead of our 50.