Oh its been so long since i've updated this thing... well i've finally got something to report. Art, Skip, Wayne, and i decided to get away from this bone chilling cold Northeast weather and go some place warmer and ride. I was originally hoping to go the Spring camp in Majorca, Spain, but i couldn't get anyone to go along with that. Instead, Skip organized a training camp of sorts of his own down in Asheville, North Carolina. Skip found a nice house to rent and a web site loaded with dozens of maps and rides. So Saturday we loaded up four bike and four guys into my little Toyota and off we went.


We drove down Interstate 81 which was a beautiful trip, great scenery, and excellent roads. I got periodic text message updates from my wife and daughter from the America East Men's Basketball tourney. UAlbany beat the number 2 seed Vermont in OT!!! That's AWESOME BAAAYYYY BEEEEE!


We arrived in Asheville mid afternoon, Sunday March 8. House is beutiful. We unloaded and suited up for a short easy ride to shake out the bikes and the old bones. I felt naked with shorts and a short sleeve jersey. We headed out onto a busy four lane highway, Hendersonville Rd i think and we headed north to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We made it to the parkway and we headed north. The Parkway is most interesting. The two lane road is decent, but no shoulder. The traffic was moderate but very considerate to cyclists. The climbs are gradual and the viwes spectacular. The weather is wonderful... 70 degrees and sunny.

Tomorrow we are planning to start easy... a 40 miler called Ben's Ride 43. It starts at a bike shop so perhaps we will do some shopping at the end of the ride. And we should have enough time to pedal out from the house to explore some more later. That's the plan anyways. Check in tomorrow to see how it goes.