Off to Georgia

Today is a day full of packing. We're (the Michigan Cycling Club) leaving for Georgia at 7:00PM tonight. We're going to drive through the night and arrive at our lodge tomorrow morning.

Here's the tentative riding schedule:
SAT: Unicoi (+ maybe Jack's)
SUN: Team Ride + BBQ @ Grahams
MON: 6-Gap: Hog Pen + Wolf Pen + Woody + Neel's + Jack's + Unicoi
TUE: Unicoi + Jack's (or 3-Gap: Neel's + Wolf Pen + Woody if we're feeling good)
WED: Hog Pen + Jack's + Brasstown + Unicoi
THU: Unicoi + Jack's
FRI: Unicoi efforts
SAT: Race @ Murray State in KY
SUN: Race @ Murray State in KY

I'm trying to convince myself not to bring my laptop on break for stress reduction purposes. We'll see...

Twitter!

I'm on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/brendanbenson

If you don't have one, get one. And start following me. I'll return the favor.

I'll be posting lots of updates once I get to Helen, Georgia next week. I'm going down there for a University of Michigan Cycling training camp. We have 23 people on the team heading down for the week. We're going to do the six-gap century, three-gap, Hog Pen - Brasstown - Jack's - Unicoi, and other miscellaneous rides. It's going to be a great week - especially since I'll be able to ride and recover every day without worrying about school or business.

I'll also be doing the first races of the season at Murray State University in Kentucky on February 28th and March 1st. The road race is 64 miles, which should be sufficient enough to separate those who have and have not trained this winter. I still can't decide which camp I'm in. I guess I'll find out in Georgia!

Right now, I'm just trying to get some work and studying done before ditching the morbid state of Michigan. 50-degree weather and clean roads sound so nice right about now.

First Long Ride of the Year!

Larry Warbasse, Chris Aten, and I met up at 10:30AM today to do an endurance ride in the nice weather. I had planned a 70 mile ride, but Larry was up for a century, and I'm not one to turn those down when the weather is warm. We headed out to Dexter, then Chelsea, Waterloo, and finally Leslie. Chris introduced us to a sweet bakery (pun intended) in Leslie where we refueled on pastries and hit the road back to AA. The ride back was especially nice because we got to bear the fruits of our hard work pushing a headwind on the out-leg.

It was a perfect day for a ride. The roads were kind of wet in town, hence the knee warmer line, but they dried up as soon as we hit the countryside. I'm really starting to like the roads to the west of Chelsea - especially those with virtually no traffic.

On a side note, the hairy legs are a temporary, winter-only thing. I got a bit of flack from Larry and Chris from the hair spilling out between my knee warmers and socks. The legs will be shorn in the next few days or so.

Woo hoo!