Riding With The Pros

So I went out this morning at around 10:30 committed to staying on the loop rather than risk being too far from home in the rain. Actually, except for about two minutes of drizzle the weather was fine. The sun peeked out for about 30 seconds, but it was a pleasant cloudy day. And it turns out sometimes staying close to home can be more exciting than roaming. As I made the first of my four and a half circuits of the loop (44.2 miles) I passed what appeared to be the entire Highroad cycling team coming the other way on the path. As best I could tell they and I were going about the same speed as we passed. How cool is that? Later I saw a lone CSC rider out riding the course and a group of riders from one of the U.S.Continental teams,(kind of minor leagues for those of you not into cycling)DLP. In addition the tents were going up around the Parkway and it looked like construction crews were working on cleaning up parts of the road. All very exciting and a good ride...longer than I'd anticipated being out.

Well, you can't please everybody all the time. In the interests of fairness I'm sharing this blog link to bike snob NYC who takes a very dim view of Mr. Mackey's L'Etape du Tour exploits.