The Team, The Route, The Plan

..And then there were three. Three riders for three states.

George, Alan and myself are readying to ride Tony's Flèche Carolina in a little more than a week. We started out with plans for five but over time that number's slowly resolved to the three of us. We're cool with that. There will be no room for error, since a successful flèche needs a minimum of three finishers. All for one, and one for all.

George has been riding for years and is known by almost every cyclist around Durham and Chapel Hill. He's done nearly every edition of Cycle NC, including the two-week-long inaugural in 1999. He's also a veteran of RAGBRAI, BRAG, and several Assaults on Mount Mitchell. He's pretty new to randonneuring, with a couple of 200K brevets in the bag as a RUSA member. He rides a Litespeed Classic. This is his first flèche.

Alan's also famous around these parts. He's built for the hills and loves flying up them, inflicting pain on riders 30 years his junior. The longer and harder the climb, the better. Mountain centuries are his specialty, including the AoMM, and he often takes quick weekend trips up to the High Country to train. He uses 200Ks as training too, with one flèche under his belt as an Unretourable. Alan rides a Litespeed Tuscany for brevets.

This will be my second flèche, and it's my favorite ride in randonneuring. I'll be riding my Serotta CSi, as usual.

We're starting in Fancy Gap, VA on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Our start and first control is Fancy Gap Cabins & Campground, made infamous by the NC Randonneurs during Matt Settle's inaugural Shenandoah 1200K Grand Randonnée. Saturday morning, we'll head down the BRP to Roaring Gap, NC where we'll turn south, aiming for Kings Mountain and South Carolina. From there, we'll head west for the finish in Lake Lure, arriving just after dawn on Easter morning. Alan and I drove most of the route between Fancy Gap and Statesville. It should be a beautiful ride, and hopefully not as challenging as last year's!


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