Day 1

Great first day with the group starting at 4:00 am. Very inspiring visiting William Kiefer's grave site. One of our heroes, Nicole, also stopped by the 'packing of the vans' event last night, smiling and offering encouragement. Thanks, Nicole! Tomorrow we head to Utah, with a hospital visit in Salt Lake City. The weather has been perfect, and it looks like that will continue tomorrow. Thanks to everyone for your support, we appreciate you!

GTD 2012 - Shift 2, Day 1 - Go Time!!

After 12 months of planning and many thousands of miles of training, we toed the line at 4AM this morning.  The entire team has worked hard to get to this point and I’m pleased to say that this is the strongest and best prepared team I’ve been part of on all my Team Will rides. 

 

Day 1 Summary

Route – Fairfield, CA to Nevada City, CA + 7 miles

Miles – 130.2

Vertical – 7128’

Average Pace (free running clock, 4AM start – 16.5 mph

Weather (Folsom) – Sunny, low 50F, high 80F, winds SSW 5-10 mph

 

 

The day began with Flight A (Amy, Mauricio, Ricky and me cycling and Julie and Larry driving) in Fairfield.  With the first 60 miles being pancake flat, the strategy was to run a high pace to get some time in hand before the climbing started.  By all accounts, this worked as we hit Folsom with an average speed of well over 19 mph.  We had the added honor of meeting one of our heroes, Emily, and her family on the bike trail in Rancho Cordova.  We could only stop for a few minutes, but it was great to meet her and get her autograph on our jersey.

 

Flight B (Tony, Tom, met us in Sacramento where they did an interview for Ch 31’s Good Morning Sacramento near the resting place of William Kiefer (Team Will’s namesake).  From there we rode the bike trail to Folsom where a nice crowd of family and friends cheered us on.  We also got the help of a couple of Team Revolutions guys to set the pace on the road to Auburn (thanks Team Rev!!).  At Auburn, I called it a day with 95 miles in the books.  Flight B continued on to Nevada City, CA and the hand off to Shift3.

 

All in all a great day on the bike.  The very mild weather and light wind made for excellent conditions and the team is really coming together.   There were a few learning moments, but that’s typical of day 1.  Tomorrow will be a very long day as we cross Nevada.  Should be fun!! J

 

Remember, you can track our progress across the country here - http://www.team-will.org/tracker

 

Thanks for reading,

John