M.A.T.E.S ~ Winchester, VA

June 14-16, 2002

 

If you have not yet participated in a tandem rally, you need to. You meet a lot of friendly tandem people.

The next tandem couple could become your best friends.

We are still venturing out for other weekend rides. The Mid-Atlantic Tandem EnthusiatS (MATES) Rally held in Winchester, VA would be sporting two TailWind Tandem Club teams, Dan/Dolores Coughlin and John Talani and Susanna Sisk. The rally consisted of a t-shirt, bike plate, continental breakfast (Sat/Sun.), Sat. dinner with DJ, Sat. lunch with admission to the mill and the ice cream social for those arriving on Fri. night, including lodging for $280 team.

John and I would be up and ready to leave for the six hour drive to Winchester bright and early on Friday morning, hoping to arrive by noon for a 1:00 pm ride. We were on time. Dan and Dolores would follow shortly behind in his Toyota electric car, with us carrying their tandem in our vehicle.

The weather just did not want to cooperate by 2:00 p.m. Off and on showers so we would head next door to Cracker Barrel and wait out the weather. A group of us had all clear skies around 4:00 pm only to be hurried on our ride from the host reminding us that ice cream escort was at 6:00 pm. Our route of 25 ended at 12 miles with one leader taking us off the loop, well wrong turn, missed the loop, back to town with 12 whole miles for the day. Bantering back and forth about turning around and doing the ride backwards. Only 3 team takers, and then it started to sprinkle, so the WHOLE group went back to the hotel. 

The ice cream social was a little confusing on the map that was given to us riding over in the car. After many trips around the same university road area, we found the event, but not ice cream. We would wait until shortly after 7:00 p.m. but by this time too starved for ice cream and wanted real food. Dan would take us on an adventure of our life in his little car, only to get to the restaurant sometime around 9:00. Past the starved stage. The night adventurers to say the least. We were able to visit with Debbie/Mark Livingood (Atlanta, GA) and Ed/Karen Hass (Reston, VA) before the night was over.

June 15 – Saturday was a little chilly but soon into the ride we warmed up. Very beautiful rolling hills, enough to crest to the top of most of the little bunny rollers. Lunch was at an old mill where we all took the tour and had a great lunch. Back on the bike we would have more rollers, but I liked this second half. Though the 1st half finished along the river where it was long and flat. Many horse farms and countryside sites to view. A nasty head wind on the return slowed us down a few notches.

June 16 Another good breakfast would get us on the road for one more day of rolling fun bunny hills. We had a later checkout but couldn’t dally as we needed to get back by 12:00 to be showered and out of the hotel. We would leave before the escort at 9:00. The couple from Boston or was it Massachusetts, would be on our tail again. Hard strong riders. Port-a pot was placed in the cow field, no lie. Very comical. We would stop about 24 miles into the ride for a quick M&M feast. Off again we would go. Today’s ride was a nice ride again around the horse farms, one small downhill past a small waterfall (if you were going below 32 mls. you could see it; not our luck)…..

Making more new friends we would leave around 12:30 for our six hour trip back home with Dan and Dolores trailing us in their vehicle with walkie talkie should they have problems with their car getting home. Another successful outing to tell about.

Rating: on a one to ten, ten being the highest, this rally receives 9. The one point for the deduction of the map to the ice cream social and our return. Beyond anyone’s fault.

Susanna Sisk,

TailWind Newsletter Editor

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