Seattle practice ride
Seattle practice ride
Date: June 9, 2009
Day 4
Miles: 0
Destination: Seattle, Washington
After three days of practice packs, team meetings, and getting to know the guys, we finally had our chance to get back on the bike after about a week or more off. The team has been longing to get back on the saddle, and the practice ride was the perfect thing for the job. We were told it would be about a 30 mile practice ride, but me and my pace line managed to add some miles to it and see some extra parts of Seattle. The extra scenery wound up being about 8 extra miles, and about a 10% grade hill.
Anyway, even with getting a little bit lost, my pace line and I had a great time on the bike. From what I have seen so far from our skill assessments and our practice ride, it looks like we have a great team and I look forward to the next 2 months with them. Hopefully tomorrow’s ride will go a little bit smoother than today’s ride, but as they say, “Any bad day on the Journey of Hope is better than any day back home.”
Tonight’s dinner, however, was anything but bad. We had a sponsored dinner supplied by Tracy Watson from Buca Di Beppo, and we had the dinner of a lifetime! We all had enough carbs to give us energy for a week straight! The waiters were nice enough to keep the food coming non stop, and it even sparked the creation of the Trans America patented word “merving,” meaning “man serving.” After we all filled our stomachs to an uncomfortably full level, we listened to a very inspirational and flattering speech by the one and only Dave Knavel. Later we took our team picture with the sponsors in front of the Buca Di Beppo building, and received enough leftovers to feed an army. Thank you so much Buca!
Eric Galdo
Cyclist
Eta Zeta- Queens University of Charlotte
Cinnaminson, NJ
