introducing the tuesday night races

Once school starts back up it'll be time to start getting serious about training, and getting serious about doing some training together, as a team.

To that end, I'd like to introduce the SU Tuesday Night Races. The idea is simple. A mid-week race simulation training ride, open to everyone. Several laps over a short loop, a loop short enough that if you get dropped you can catch back on with the group on the next go around, or cut the course with a fast downhill run on Airport Rd.

Yesterday, I scouted out what I think will make a good course:

The course has nothing that I would call a "climb," but this is south-central PA, so it's not exactly flat either. According to Bikely, there's about 250 ft of elevation gain on the five-mile route. So, if we started off running a four-lap, 20 mile "race," we'd finish with 1000 feet of elevation gain, which is a pretty decent stomp in the cornfields.

There's little traffic on these roads, but obviously we'd still have to keep a lookout for cars. If you'd like to scout the course, run it clockwise, making all righthand turns. We'll have to sweep the turns before we race it.

The course is also convenient. It's obviously close to campus, but also easy access for Gettysburg College folks if they'd like to join us (their adviser earlier approached me about doing some training "races" together), as well as folks from Chambersburg and Carlisle. I wouldn't be surprised if by April (after the time change) we regularly get groups of 15-20 riders out on a Tuesday night.

Anyway, I hope to get a trial run on the course with y'all the second week of classes, Tuesday, January 20th, 4pm. As the days get longer, we'll move the time back gradually to accomidate more riders.