Racing and Rides Information Blog 2008

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Wed, 23 Jul 2008

Vermont Cycling Trip Recap - By Blake H.
So we just returned from the first Skylands Cycling Vermont trip. The Keane’s, The Remsen’s, The Hargrave’s, The Labance’s, Catherine Babin, the Mitchell’s and the Tomasino’s all headed up to Vermont either on Thursday or Friday and stayed until Sunday as planned. I drove up in a car of 7ppl, which was cozy to say the least but we had a good time anyway. When we arrived the group that had driven up on Thursday were heading out to watch the Jazz Festival. We were able to join up with them after a quick unpacking job and a bite to eat.

We had a great day on Saturday which started out with a huge breakfast, with blueberry pancakes, scrapple and homemade sausage. Then we all headed out for our rides. Bill and Heather took the climbing route which was lead by Kevin Haley (he has a house around the corner) covered 80 miles of mountainous terrain. It also included a major rain dump. They looked like wet rats when they returned but they had smiles on so all was good. We, on the other hand rode for 32 miles which included some nice hills and a lot of great long flattish passes. Catherine and I took advantage of these and worked on some TT training. Kevin Keane was able to keep up while he rode with 60lbs of added weight, he had his 2 kids in the trailer behind him. This BTW did nothing for our self esteem. We would have this great pace going, feeling good and then we would realize we hadn't dropped him. How is that possible?! He is freaking strong. Afterwards a bunch of us took the kids to the beach with the Kayak to swim and paddled around until it was time to go to dinner with the Skylands Group. The was the Remsen’s opportunity to show us how small 7 year olds can look like rag dolls as they are tossed back and forth from one another in the water. Later that day, We found this great place to eat that had massive beef choices but also had this great salad bar. :) My son Sean only ate the salad bar, which is amazing for him. Heathers daughter did the same. Then we headed back to the lodge and sat around until 11pm or so. Dan showed up to hang as well which was great. He was staying at a lovely air conditioned hotel down the road with his family. They wanted A/C and with the heat we had, I couldn't blame him.

When we woke up the next day, it was raining and all of our plans to ride went out the window. So we packed up and headed home after having a great brunch at this little restaurant in town. It took 6 hours with 5 adults and 2 kids in my car. And even though that sounds like pure torture, we had a blast. Bill got me laughing so hard at one point I thought I was going to either drive off the road or bust a gut, but we made it and we can't wait until next year.

Thank you Buz for organizing this great time. It was a blast! I can’t wait until next year.

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