10/19/02 by Jim Mullins
A few members of Team Summit headed to southern Ohio for a Fall Training Camp. Angelo Catalano, Shawn Adams, and myself headed down to Oxford, Ohio (home of Miami University, my ol' stomping grounds) on Saturday morning. Joining us was a possible recruit (name is withheld) for the upcoming season.
We meet on Saturday morning at Angelo's apartment. The weather as many of you will remember was quite gloomy! There were some questions of whether or not we should go, in the end we decided that it was 4 hours away and the forecast for the area called for AM showers then clearing. We loaded up Angelo's car with four bikes and our gear and off we went down the road. We drove for four hours with several pitstops (we must all belong to the small bladder society). The weather remained gloomy with the main comment being "It sure is clearing!". I assured the others that it will clear and that we would have a good time. When we arrived in Oxford the rain had stopped. We went to the Amerihost Inn and checked in. We quickly changed into our riding gear and when we stepped outside this time the sun was peeking out. The temperature was nearly 60 and the wind was moderate.
We set off on a ride that took us south out of town towards the hilly area of Ross. We rode through Reily and came to our first climb of the day, Bunker Hill, this climb starts out with a moderate rise and then tapers into a steady gradual climb for a total of 2.5 miles. It was a nice warm up for the hills that lie ahead. We continued south towards Ross where we meet up with 3 more climbs (across New London Road) that were equally difficult however not quite as long. We then turned north and rode up through Darrtown and eventually decided that the ride was not quite long enough (since we only had about 50 miles in). The four of us ventured northeast to the wonderful area of Somerville/Camden. It is here that I introduced the other three to one of my favorite climbs of all time. Hull Road, you drop down onto a one lane road that follows a small creek. Shortly after the drop you cross a one lane bridge and immediately after you make a blind right turn staring you in the face is a wall of a climb. The climb is nearly 21% and lasts about a 0.4miles, then it tapers down to a 6% incline for another 2 miles. By the time you get to the top you are whipped but it is a great spot to take a breather and admire the view. We dropped back into Camden and decided to head back to town. A few more minor climbs and then we were back in town round trip was about 72 miles. A nice day of riding that left all of us whipped.
We went uptown and ate dinner before retiring for the night.
We woke up to much cooler temperatures. We dressed for the weather and off we went on our second ride for the weekend. Shortly into the ride we all decided that the wind, cool and tired legs would keep the ride to a shorter distance. We managed to get in 35 miles with a few climbs (one of which was very European, a wickedly steep climb out of a park in Reily, the road was rough and covered with leaves, unfortunately there was a tree that had fallen across the road (3/4 of the way up) and it broke up the climb ruining the fun of it, although Shawn still liked it the best out of all of them that we did).
We ate a quick lunch and returned to Akron late Sunday evening. The upcoming year was discussed in much detail during the course of the weekend.