The Braves By Bike
It was hot- damn hot this weekend! The boys and I decided to venture over to Turner Field on Saturday night on our bikes to catch the Braves getting absolutely blown out by the Cubbies (8-4). The 4 mile ride to the stadium was terrific- though the humidity was a wall through which we pedaled. Team Eddie are not huge baseball fans, but it was a quiet Saturday night and I like to make one game a year because that’s what you’re supposed to do if you’re American. Turns out it was a big night for baseball and we had to buy general admission tickets “off street”.
Once inside Turner Field we discovered that there weren’t any bike racks to be found- anywhere! We ended up securing our bikes to the perimeter fence but with the Atlanta BeltLine Night at the Braves coming up on September 1st, and lots of folks hopefully riding their bikes- it may be a problem. Just to be sure I didn’t miss anything I went onto the Parking and Directions, Turner Field Map and event the A-Z Directory on the Braves website to check- there is nothing about bikes or bike parking anywhere on their website even though there are hundreds of thousands of people within reasonable biking distance to the stadium.
More information on BeltLine Night at the Braves: http://www.atlantabike.org/beltlinebraves
Kirkwood Sunday Ride
Click For Map & Cue
We had a great turnout today and the morning temperatures were agreeable for the ride start in front of Marchet’s. There were 4-5 new riders to the group which always is encouraging! This week we set out to do the “Intown Loop” route of 25 miles through East Atlanta, Ormewood Park, Grant Park, Cabbage Town, Old Fourth Ward, Poncey Highlands, Piedmont Park, Morning Side Druid Hills, Emory, Decatur and Oakhurst and back to Kirkwood.
We had a hard time executing this route when we did it back in June, so I made a route map and cue sheet to ease the waiting and lost riders we experienced last time….and no one brought them. It was still a good time with some good riding with good people. We made the Krispy Kreme on ponce our rallying point to regroup and head through Piedmont Park, but lost half the group in the park anyway, so it didn’t really matter. We all had fun and met back for brunch at Marchet’s. Tip for next intown route ride: Sean will print cue sheets.
Team Eddie Preview:
Liam and Ethan will be carrying the Team Eddie colors at the Grant Park Criterium next weekend on Sunday, August 21st. It should be a spectacular day of bike racing if you want to come on out and cheer us on! Liam will be racing in his first USA Cycling sanctioned event, so we are going to get him a junior racing license (which I just think is cool). He will be racing in the 11-14 Juniors category. We just found out that Frazier Cycling will be there with 6 other racers in his age group. We will be studying our strategy very carefully- breaking away, attack and setting up for the final sprint. The junior’s race is 25 minutes +1 lap. With the coordinated effort of a Team like Frazier on the course, Liam will have his work cut out for him. He has the legs and ability to win- he just has to race smartly and aggressively. Our goal will be to take it to Frazier and make them be defensively instead of assuming that thier coordinated team effort will roll everyone in. I am excited!
Ethan is too young to race in the junior category and is still on the fence about the “Big Kid Fun Race”. More to follow!
