Today was the last practice ride day. We started the day off strong with a great morning circle up. After circle up we struggled a tad trying to put the bikes on the roof racks, but we did it. We set off for the ride and it took us a good 30 mins to get set up. Everyone was extremely excited because at circle up, Jesse told us the amazing weather we were instore for the day. We got assigned pace-lines and set sail. The crew did a phenomenal job marking the turns and having set ups every 5-10 miles. Because of the beautiful weather on a Saturday, the bike lanes were completely full of other cyclists. No worries though, we persevered and made it an amazing day. Thankfully throughout our whole ride we didn’t have any one fall or get injured. We did see an accident on the side of the road. It seemed to be a cyclist who fell over his handle bars into a ditch. I feel like it was a great thing for everyone to see and be aware of in the beginning because it made people a lot more cautious. Following out wonderful ride, we went and took team pictures on the beach. After that we were fortunate enough to have lunch Catered by Alison Foster. It was some amazing Cuban food. After that we racked our bikes and got everyone back to lodging. We had a quick debrief before we had to start getting ready for the kickoff dinner. The kick off dinner was amazing we had families there and we also had some amazing Italian food. After that it was time to get ready for our first big day on Sunday (95 miles).
All in all a killer day and a great way to get everyones heads on straight before the ride.
Aaron Fazekas- Epsilon Phi at University of Alabama-Birmingham