Kick Off Ride

Saturday was the official Kick Off to the new ALC7 training season. Three different rides left the Sports Basement at three different times. The largest group was the group riding to Tiburon and back, then there was a ride to Mill Valley and back and lastly a short ride around the Presidio with a bike skills clinic afterward, presented by Endurance Performance Training Centers

me being bossy...

The last two or three years we've gotten rain on this day, so I was so happy to see clear blue skies when I got to the Sports Basement. It put everyone in a good mood and its always easier to direct people when they're in a good mood! We had free food and drink, prepping everyone for their first official ride of the season:

Susan as the food pusher...

I love this first ride of the season because its so easy to see the anxiousness in our new riders faces. The look of "everyone here knows everyone else!", so I earlier in the week I directed our TRL's to be sure and introduce themselves to folks so that we wouldn't seem unapproachable.

newbie Mike and Bob Katz

I think most of them tried to do so, however there were over 120 people on the first ride, that I'm sure we still missed some folks. Hopefully they will still come and ride on some smaller rides as we go forward. I felt like the hostess of a party, a BIG party- and wanted to make sure everyone felt welcome and of course, safe.

I asked Ken G. to come along as the invisible SAG vehicle, letting the TRL's know he was available to them if they needed it. We did use him once, maybe twice? but otherwise had no major problems. The goal was to get everyone back by 2pm, and by golly we got everyone in by 2pm.

Jon, making sure no one misses the turn to Mill Valley!

We registered 57 participants that day!

Oh, and I had also talked my sister Cyndy into coming and volunteering for the day. She got to greet the riders as they came back from their rides, checked them in and then handed them a raffle ticket.

Cyn & Me

My biggest surprise was to see my friend Marie, with whom I'd trained to do the SF AIDS Marathon with earlier this year! I was so excited to see her and excited that she had taken the plunge (although she is still sort of trying to figure out what she needs), and was certainly going to try and train and do the ride with us. AWESOME!

me talking marie into riding....

All in all it was a pretty good start to the Training Ride Season in Northern California. Folks won some pretty incredible prizes that day too!

Chris Thomas, one of our TRL's did a short video of the day and of course it's on YouTube.

You can take a look at it HERE (man I gotta drop some pounds....)

Enjoy!