Multiple Gears and Skinny Tires

People are riding their bikes all over the place!  I went to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society home office in Southfield to chat with some of the riders about bike fit for their upcoming MS 150 ride.  Sunday was the inaugural Spring Training Series, a training race in its 24th year, put on by Quick Release.  The energy people have for wanting to be on their bikes is fierce, wherever we are: training for the MS 150 or gearing up for this season's races.

Saturday morning was beautiful and if you live in Michigan, that's noteworthy.  Mark Davis, the mechanic for the MS rides and I met and started getting ready for the coming riders.  The people were amazing!  Getting these riders on their bikes and chatting with them about why they chose to do this ride was inspiring.  I left excited about racing in the STS in the morning. 

Sunday didn't have the same welcoming weather that Saturday had, but a we all know, right now that's the norm.  There was a fierce wind coming from the east.  The most meaningful part of this day was rolling out of my garage realizing I was going to meet up with my teammates for our first race and our first rides on the Pinarello's.  Of course, combining a first ride on my bike with a race isn't the wisest choice.  The weather has been awful though and the riding I've been doing has been on my steel, cross, singlespeed.

It's been six months since I've been on a bike with more than one gear!  As I rolled into the business park where the Spring Training Series has been held all of these years, I stopped to talk with Rich Stark, a man with a strong regard towards single and fixed gear bikes, about how strange it felt to be able to have gears to shift and that the tires on the Pinarello were, well, skinny!  As far as the race went, all I can say is that training just doesn't mimic the intensity that a race does.  I 'thought' that I had been training hard, but find that the 'hard' that I had been doing, just wasn't hard enough.  What was great was working with Aimee and Ann and being in that kind of environment again.  It's a lot easier to cough up a lung for your teammate than it is on your own.  Working and that's what it was, we were working, the race with Aimee and Ann was screamingly hard and blistering fun.  Aimee was the first woman across the line with me right behind with Ann on my tail.