I recently finished the winter season with TNT in the SF Bay Area. We rode the Solvang Century last month. I had a great experience, both with the training and with the people involved. I plan to do it again in a year or two.

Although I had ridden some about a dozen years ago, completing a pretty flat 100K at that time, I had not ridden nor done much else in the way of exercise other than walking since then. TNT got me from semi-couch-potato to long-distance rider in 4 months. Great support, coaches and assistant coaches with lots of enthusiasm and willingess to help slow riders reach big goals, and to help more experienced riders greatly improve their speed, techniques, etc.

It involves a lot of time: it was pretty much all day every Saturday for me, along with at least one other ride and a couple of spinning classes each week. Some people skipped some of the group training rides, but I figured I would need every one to reach my goal of 100 miles. The time spent fund-raising adds up too: lots of letters and emails to write.

As to less than well behaved riders, our coaches actually warned us about this. They were very big on following rules of riding safety and etiquette, and just general politeness to other riders. But they told us that not all riders or all TNT groups had that same emphasis.

anne in oakland