roadskater.net

Location

If you're curious about this event, just promise yourself you'll go out and do it! Beautiful, hilly terrain, rural roads, an entire town volunteering support for the ride, prizes, food, and a great cause...

Here's my report from last year's event:

http://roadskater.net/?q=tour-de-kale-2007-report

Event website: http://tourdekale.com/

Last year Kale himself made it very clear to us that we should come back in 2008 - and bring a bunch more skaters with us!

Getting Ready for the Long Haul.

So you think that A2A is more than you ever want to do? Think of A2A as a warm up for this years vacation. My third Bike Ride Across Georgia (BRAG) www.brag.org 433 miles in two 3 day sessions.

This is installment one of a multi part Blog

[Editor's note: I posted this for Jim after he sent the info at my request. I wanted this story to be in the 2007 A2A Journals collection we are building!]

After the Athens to Atlanta skate this year, the Herbsts, a couple who skated the 52 mile distance wanted to know more about the granddad-grandson team who skated the full 87 mile distance.  Here's what I wrote.  My wife and daughter-in-law took pictures at the rest stops and at the finish.   I've included those also.

The 2007 Tour to Tanglewood was my ninth, all on skates, all including both days. The Roadskater.net team was 36 members, 18 on skates, from NC, GA, MI, NJ and NJ (born in USA, Canada, Netherlands and UK). We were missing a few regulars because of the North Shore Inline Marathon in Duluth, MN and for other reasons. I hope you like the 420 photos that made it through editing!

The link for the photos is here:

The Paceline Bicycles Tour to Tanglewood Training Ride was hot and beautiful, with Greensboro in bloom in shades of fuchsia and white and more. Most of the roads were great but some of north Greensboro's newer traffic seems to be in a very big hurry in their very big vehicles, even on Saturday morning. We did our best to share skateylove but it was difficult when cars were honking at cyclists near us who were making their way fine along the hilly two-lane roads. Most of the Triad seems to share the road well, but sadly, the north side of my town is a bit embarrassing sometimes.

The Bicycle Toy & Hobby training ride is usually the last one of the year, barring rain dates, and its a great time to pick up packets for the Tour to Tanglewood, so lots of riders show for this one. It's downhill out of town and uphill back into town along mostly five-lane and four-lane roads with mostly good natured motorists along the way. Out in the country, the route followed familiar Tour to Tanglewood roads in some places. A rougher surface loop proved a tough blend with the hottest temps of a T2T TR this year, but we made it fine.

Hotter'n Hell 100 is the biggest bike ride in Texas. To finish full distance, the rider needs to get to Hell's Gate at mile 60 before cut off.

In zone 2, I skate 14 mph on smooth pavement, 9 mph on rough, and 7 mph on the really rough with fresh legs. Mathematically, I need to average 12 mph to make the gate.

Below is my event report:

HHH 2007

Unfinished Business

Come skate the green, rolling hills of the North Carolina Piedmont Triad for the weekend this September!

Both days:

On Sunday June 10^th, I pack up my gear and start driving north to Spartanburg, SC to tackle the 32^nd Annual Assault on Mt Mitchell. This is a 102-mile ride from Spartanburg, SC to the top of Mt Mitchell, NC with 12,000+ ft of climbing. This will be my third time talking this beast and I feel ready for the task at hand.

Saturday was my first foray into over the road skating in a couple of years, and hey, it felt wonderful. I'm retraining my body to relax and go with the pack flow on the downhills, still some trepidation there. If I don't fill comfortable, I just backoff and go into solo aerobrake mode.

It was Blake, Elizabeth, Melinda, Andy, and me in the group. Although Blake was suffering boot/foot problems, which as we all know can be agony, a good time was had by all over the pleasant route. Thanks to Blake for the encouragement to get on the road again.

If you need a break, no, I mean a brake, perhaps Cado Motus has what you need.  The former Mogema company has a brake that's supposed to work with 80mm-to-110mm-wheel frames.  Personally, I haven't seen one of these yet, but on www.nettracing.com there are pictures with installation instructions.

As many of you know, Tour de Lions is one of our favorites for a yearly visit with great people, exercising for a good cause, and getting to know a local community and its people as we work together on behalf of others and for the great feelings we get doing so. Sometimes we think we should save our money and skate where it's free, but then we go to Tour de Lions or Tour to Tanglewood and we know that even though the money means a lot to us, it can do even more for others in the right hands.

Thanks to a little extra encouragement from the Tour de Kale organizers when I was skating at Tour de Lions, and to the great feedback we had from other who had done the event, we decided to go this year despite our excuses. We're glad we did.

Tour de Kale is a charity ride that gets good reviews in the Piedmont. I met the guy who runs it at the Tour de Lions and he said we Roadskaters should come give it a try. Check out the info on

Thanks to Dale at Cycles de Oro's welcoming ways, I showed up on skates for a couple of the Cirque du Cyclisme rides and had the pleasure of seeing lots of classic bikes and the people who love them. Timv was there on his classic bikes, and eebee joined in on Saturday for the leisurely tour of Greensboro.

Please check out my 290 photos from the Cirque du Cyclisme 2007:

On Monday, I went to see the finish of the 102-mile, 11,000-foot-elevation-gain road cycling challenge, the Assault on Mt. Mitchell. It was great fun to watch someone else suffer for a change, and I have to say it was impressive to know what these cyclists had been through just in the last 30 miles from Marion, NC to Mount Mitchell State Park. That's after completing the first 72 miles from Spartanburg, SC!

Just a quick note of thanks to timv for coming out on his bike to sweep the GVC ride so I could skate safely. Without any other skaters, I likely would not have lasted long.

In fact, it turned out later that we found my rear right wheel was being torqued enough by my brake frame that the skate frame had rubbed much of the side of the wheel off. The logo text was mostly gone from the side of the wheel. I will have to keep an eye on that.

 I've been knocking these rather trivial, large-scale thoughts around my head for some years now and wanted to write something about them. Last night, whilst watching 20/20, was the final straw! This post might complement KJG's questions in Monotony of Training.

The Gears & Spokes ride comes to Greensboro with an afternoon start this year. Meet at the Lewis Recreation Center for packet pickup after 11:00 am with registration closing at 12:00 noon for a metric start 12:30 pm, 25-miler at 12:45 pm, or a walk leaving at 1 pm.

I've been cooking this up for a little while now and want to make the announcement even though the website isn't quite polished yet....

I will be teaching a skating workshop in Raleigh, NC the weekend of March 24, 2007.  This workshop is targetting beginner speedskaters and recreational/fitness skaters.  The workshop is part of my fundraising for Tour to Tanglewood, which benefits Multiple Sclerosis Society.

I have just published 785 edited photos from the Philly Freedom Skate, June 16-18 to this address:

http://roadskater.net/phl2006

If you have any comments, please use "add new comment" below to place them here. I hope you enjoy the photos. Once again, there are lots of tourist shots because I'm a tourist, and I hope you like the shots of buildings, art objects and, of course, people!

I have just published 420 edited photos from the SkateDC Weekend, May 6-7 2006 to this address:

http://roadskater.net/wdc2006/

If you have any comments, please use "add new comment" below to place them here. I hope you enjoy the photos. There are lots of tourist shots because I'm a tourist, and I hope you like the shots of buildings, birds and people!

I have just published my photos from the September 2, 2006 Tour to Tanglewood Training Ride at Paul's Cycling & Fitness (Paul's Schwinn) in Winston-Salem NC. Please take a look, and if you have any comments, please click "add new comment" below. Here's the link for the photos:

I have just published my photos from the July 22, 2006 Tour to Tanglewood Training Ride at Cycles do Oro in Greensboro NC. Please take a look, and if you have any comments, please click "add new comment" below. Here's the link for the photos:

1999 was the 18th Anniversary Edition of the Athens to Atlanta Roadskate.

Please add your 1999 A2A story to this chapter of the Athens to Atlanta History Project! After you've written and posted your story, use the Outline tab to select "1999 A2A Journals" as the parent of your article. If your story is for another year, contact me or leave it be and I will add a Chapter for that year.

2000 was the 19th Anniversary Edition of the Athens to Atlanta Roadskate.

Please add your 2000 A2A story to this chapter of the Athens to Atlanta History Project! After you've written and posted your story, use the Outline tab to select "2000 A2A Journals" as the parent of your article. If your story is for another year, contact me or leave it be and I will add a Chapter for that year.

2001 was the 20th Anniversary Edition of the Athens to Atlanta Roadskate.

Please add your 2001 A2A story to this chapter of the Athens to Atlanta History Project! After you've written and posted your story, use the Outline tab to select "2001 A2A Journals" as the parent of your article. If your story is for another year, contact me or leave it be and I will add a Chapter for that year.

2002 was the 21st Anniversary Edition of the Athens to Atlanta Roadskate.

Please add your 2002 A2A story to this chapter of the Athens to Atlanta History Project! After you've written and posted your story, use the Outline tab to select "2002 A2A Journals" as the parent of your article. If your story is for another year, contact me or leave it be and I will add a Chapter for that year.