The long-distance thing was getting to be a bit much for Matt Moon, a 27-year-old Westbrook resident who, with his closely cropped hair and sharp, bony features, resembles Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.

Unlike Armstrong, though, Moon didn’t have a private jet at his disposal, whisking him off to Burlington, Vt., so he could train with his cycling team.

Moon had to make the four-hour trek by car if he wanted to get in some practice time with his teammates. A lot of times, he just ended up doing his own roadwork and then meeting up with the rest of the squad at races on the weekends.

At those same races, he came to know a team of locally-based guys who were riding for a team sponsored by Portland’s Cyclemania. There were six of them then; now there are eight. Moon is one of the new guys. No more of that long-distance thing.

“Having a local network of riders is important to me for training,” said Moon, who mountain biked competitively before college at St. Michael’s, then took a break to play soccer before getting into road biking after graduation. “It makes it easier to go to races on the weekends, and it makes for a better team dynamic.”

That’s just one story, but there are others.

It seems that every member of the team ended up on the there for a different reason.

Each of the four team members who were hanging out at Cyclemania after Saturday morning’s soggy training ride – a 30-mile tour of South Portland and Cape Elizabeth that is open to all riders every week – described a different path he took to end up riding for the Portland Velo Club.

Toby Walch, the team’s director, is in his fourth season. A former runner, he started riding to stay in shape after an injury.

“I started biking for cross-training and realized that I was better at biking than I was at running,” said Walch, 25. “It’s a great group of people. When you start going to the races it’s like a community. You know everybody. You’re competitive, but after the race and before everyone’s sort of friendly, and it’s a really good atmosphere.”

It’s the kind of atmosphere that is accepting of all ages. Take Morgan McLeod, for example. He’s only 18 and still a freshmen at Bowdoin College, but he’s one of the eight riders on the elite team. He got his first road bike about six years ago, and at first he saw it as a way to get around.

“I didn’t have a driver’s license at that point,” he said.

Pretty soon, though, McLeod began thinking about competitive riding.

“I was a swimmer before that, and I met up with some of these guys at the shop, and they sort of taught me how to do everything,” he said. “The (Portland Velo) Club that the shop’s affiliated with has junior development rides, so they teach kids, and those were great. That’s pretty much how I learned everything.”

Chris Green, another team member, also got linked up with the Portland Velo Club through Cyclemania.

“My bike came from here, and when you buy a bike they say, ‘Come out Saturday morning. It’s fun,'” he said. “Then it sort of just grows from there.”

His introduction to road biking was a little different, though.

“(In) my first year of college (started at Orono) I hated my roommate, so, to break up the day, I got a bike and just would go riding during the day,” he said. “It’s a nice way to spend the summer.”

The elite team, which is sponsored by Trek Bicycles and also includes Brendan Cornett, Damien Colfer, Neil Fitch and Ryan Fleming, had its first race of the season Sunday in Marblehead, Mass. Cornett was the team’s top finisher, in ninth place. According to Walch, races will continue through the end of September.

The Saturday morning training rides will continue through the week of Nov. 18. For more information, check out www.portlandvelo.com.