Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Sizzling in Georgia

We hit the road bound for Augusta, GA for USA Cycling Junior Nationals this past Saturday morning, after a successful Grad Party for Maren Friday night. The original plan was for Adam Bergman and Lisha Herold to go with, but Adam bailed on us, leaving us a party of 3.

Stopped overnight in Nashville, TN. Amazingly, we stopped in Atlanta for a bite to eat, and ran into Mario Macaruso, from MN, who was headed the opposite direction. What are the odds?

Arrived in Augusta at 4PM, and it was 101degF. We rode from our hotel up to the TT course and back with Sarah Huang. Monday, we did recon on the TT course, and today we did recon on the RR and crit courses. It is hot, but not that bad when your riding, just when you stop.

The TT course starts on the South Carolina side of a large Dam and heads west into Georgia on a rolling, tree lined course. The pavement is smooth, and the road will be closed for the TT. Very nice!

The Road Race course is on the Fort Gordon military base. It is a 15 mile scenic loop with rolling climbs. Pavement is pretty good, and I assume the road will be closed on race day. This course definitely gets an "A".

The crit course is downtown, in a typical rectangular clockwise layout. Should be fun to race, and watch.

We do miss the bike friendly town of Bend, OR this year. Even though the courses here are grade "A", the riding around town is very bad. Lots of traffic, stop lights, and no bike lanes. Makes me realize how awesome those roundabouts were in Bend.

Jordan and Lisha race the TT on Thursday, Crit on Friday, and Road Race on Sunday. Good luck to both!

We are staying at the Staybridge Suites. Our room is awesome, with a kitchenette, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and 3 flat screen TV's. We have yet to eat out since we got here.

1 comment:

Rich777 said...

Good luck. Are you racing?