MOB at Tour De Lions

The rain held off for the most part of the Tour De Lions ride down in Gray's Chaple. This was the 10th year that Fred Lineberry has hosted this event that is so well supported by the community. There were over 380 riders that took part in the various distances from 10mile to 75miles. This year we started at the new Providence High School which served to be a better venue than in previous years at the church. The one thing that did not change was the great support by the whole community, good traffic control and then the best brownies any where.
MOB was well represented with more than I can call out but we had Paul and Julie Paisant, Rich Melenico, Steve Brumbley, Ken Gulledge, Frank Mullins and others.
All of us took on the challenging 75 mile loop. Once we were established out on Hwy 22 we were rolling. Frank really put in two solid efforts of about 15mins each which keep the pace up but also the ride safe. For the first 2 hrs we had an avg. of 25mph which in turn whittled our group down to 6 which included Steven, Rich, Monty Stout of Velo Project two others and my self. 10 miles from the finish we turned onto Providence Church Rd which has a series of these rolling hills that are great to put in a hard effort. After taking a pull I rotated to the back, recovered a bit and gave it a go. I wanted to see if Monty would go with me but I was solo. Now the group is 5 with two team mates. So it is simple just put the head down, try to stay out of sight and not go so hard as to lock up. With the help of Steven and Rich I was able to stay away for a soild effort.
Shortly after Steven, Rich and I finished Paul was in with a solid ride as well as Julie on her new Look 595. Ken was in with a good avg. as well. All in all alot of fun, good food and a wonderful day on the bike. Rodney