Siloam-Shoals Ride

Today's Paceline ride was a departure from the norm. We headed in a new direction, into Surry County...an area where climbing cannot be avoided. On top of that, the group was a seriously quick group. Between Mitch, Mark, Scott, Curtis, Cliff, Cisco, Erich, and a guy from Philly who just happened to be in town (and who also just happened to have done the RAAM and is a part of the Team Type 1) I knew that I was in for some pain.

Curtis and Cisco pulling us along.

We rolled out after the pre-ride talk. Out through East Bend, onto Siloam and across the river. We made a quick pit stop at a country store. I couldn't get anyone to take my dare of eating one of the pickled eggs...I don't know why though. I was offering 5 bucks to boot, but alas, no takers. They'd probably been there since the sixties anyways, someone would've been hallucinating on the climb up from the river. In the parking lot, Mitch did some obligatory (for him) rapping of Busta Rhymes...so dangerous!

Back onto the road led us to a nice long climb up from the Yadkin. More rolling climbs on Shoals Road. The turnoff onto Stoney Ridge, which saps you of any momentum, leads you into a nice long steep climb. After a mile long steeeeep downhill, there is bound to be some more climbing...no surprise there.

Cool point of the ride: When Cisco and I were up front, we had a red fox cross the road about 50 yards in front of us...very cool!

Regrouping at the end of Stoney Ridge


The view that Erich is taking a photo of in the above picture.

We headed back into Forsyth County and hit some of the normal roads riding back from Pilot. Onto Vienna-Dozier and Lewisville-Vienna the group broke up, and the pace got a little bit stupid. Andy (Team Type 1) and Erich started a pull on Vienna-Dozier that nearly was the end of me. I looked down out of curiosity and saw that they were pulling at 28-30mph (not on a descent). Nearly dropping off the back twice, I was deep in the pain cave. We made it back to the shop though as one group, with no one that went off the front being dropped off the back.

TOO MUCH FUN!


As a side note, my Paragon is finished being built up. 23.9 lbs for those that care. Tomorrow will be a good day to test out the new wheels, I'll be heading out to do the OVT...woohoo!