by Joseph Lellman » Sun Mar 23, 2014 10:35 am
The day began in typical cold, blustery fashion as Clayton, Frank S. and I headed out for the SMR. None of the usual suspects were in attendance; I presume they were all doing the training races in Bethel. We started out like a shot, with Clayton setting a brisk pace over the Coolidge Bridge, then down Route 9 into Hadley. We turned north onto Rocky Hill Rd, where I flatted, and Clayton made fun of my patched spare tube (with a valve stem that was too short for my wheel). We then rode up to North Amherst, and crossed 116 onto Pine St. While riding in a tight, straight pace line far to the right side of the road we were buzzed by a guy in a pick up truck, who then cut in on us further. A water bottle skittered across the road after having struck the truck, and the guy pulled over. I went to retrieve the bottle while Clayton and the guy in the truck exchanged pleasantries. After regaining our composure, we turned up to Leveret on Route 63, still at a pretty good clip. Frank was struggling a little bit at this point, but neither Clayton nor I cared one iota. We turned right for the long climb into Wendell and Lake Wyola. Clayton was hell bent for leather, with me chasing all the way. More climbing up to Shutesbury followed, then the rapid descent down the S curves. It strarted to snow big, fat flakes at this point which was kind of fun. Just as I said that I preferred snow to rain, the precipitation changed to .. you guessed it… rain. When I got home I had roughly 52 miles with 2000 feet of climbing in just over 3 hours.
