AZ Devo Training Camp

After enjoying another beautiful week in Tucson it was time for the AZ Devo Training Camp. The plan was to do some indoor testing Saturday morning followed by a mountain bike ride that afternoon. Sunday we would hit the AZ trail south of town for a couple of hours.

Friday everybody started assembling in Tucson, my parents arrived and we did a nice easy spin with the Glyssons on some trails in Dove mountain. Trail was awesome, twisty and fast with no real elevation gain, perfect for a recovery day. After our spin my parents and I headed up to the Ritz where they would be staying for the weekend, my dad gets crazy cheap rates because of his work so we though we would take advantage of them! We arrived at the front doors and were amazed at the beauty of the Ritz, they really went all out. The staff treated us like royalty, felt pretty cool to be in such a fancy place. So after enjoying some time at the Ritz we went back to the real world and met the Glyssons again for dinner to do some eating to prepare us for the next day.

Woke up bright and early Saturday morning, ate some breakfast, and hopped in the car to meet at the CTS facility. After meeting with some new team members it was time to get to business. We got set up on the Computrainers and started the testing. We did some short peak power efforts followed by a one minute and eight minute all out effort, each inducing large amounts of pain. Those kind of efforts hurt out on the road but on the trainer they find a way to suck even more! I had a pretty good test and was just glad to have them done with. I did a little spin, watched some others complete the testing, and then headed over to a nearby by park where my Dad was grilling a variety of beef burgers, turkey burgers, and veggie burgers. I put down a couple veggie burgers and then it was time to get serious again. It was Bike Polo time!

I had never played polo before but had always wanted to try so I was pretty stoked. We teamed up, went over a couple of basic rules, then let it rip. The first couple of minutes were pretty sad, it is much harder than it looks! But eventually everyone got the hang of it and a battle ensued. It came down to a final, tie-breaking point which would decide the game. My team ended up on top which really didn't mean much considering we were just out there to have some fun. After the polo game rapped up we headed out on the mountain bikes towards Redington Road. I took the opportunity to get in a bit of a workout and sat up at the front and put down a good tempo effort. As we reached the bottom of the actual climb the pace got a little spirited and TJ, Ty, Travis and I booked it up the climb. After getting a bit of a workout it was time to have some fun heading back down. Travis is a pro dirt road descender and led the way, drifting every corner and tucking down every straight away. We all traded turns at the front, getting sketchy in the corners and going way faster than we should have. Got keep it fast to have fun going down dirt roads!

After cruising back into town we all said goodbye and returned home for some well needed showers. That night Justin, the Copleas, and the Glyssons met up with us at Cayton's. Travis' mom works at the Ritz which owns Cayton's so we got to sit in a rad private room. The food was amazing; I guess you get what you pay for. It was pretty expensive but totally worth keeping it cheap for the next couple of days to compensate. With full stomachs everyone parted ways, my parents and I headed right to bed after a long day.

Sunday was another early morning, it was about an hour drive out to our starting point. I had ridden this trail a couple of weeks ago during the CTS training camp and was looking forward to revisiting it. To add to the excitment Sam Schultz, TJ Woodruff, and Frosty were joining us on the ride. The pace was really chill and we all just cruised along, enjoying the awesome trail and scenery. The first few miles of the route is really smooth but as you get further and farther in, it gets more and more technical. Other than the thorn bushes, I would have a hard time imagining a more fun trail. Steep climbs with loose, tech descents. Real Mountain Biking! The cruise back was just as fun as the way in. Cal Skilsky and I shredded back in and my parents and I left pretty quick so my mom could enjoy her las day at the Ritz. After eating some good food we were presently surprised as a host at the Ritz presented us with some free passes to the Spa. No free massages or anything but we got to use the steam rooms, private pools, and relaxation rooms. It was amazing, really enjoyed that afternoon! So after the spa my parents and I chilled out by one of the many outdoor fireplaces before calling it a night.

The next morning, to finish off or luxurious stay, we went down to the breakfast buffets. I usually stay away from buffets because I will always eat more than I should but I wasn't going to pass this up. This took fine dining to a whole new level. I don't even know where to start, the freshly made crepes, waffles, croissants, cheeses, fruits, omelets, and more made for one heck of a feast. I walked out of the buffet, five pounds heavier, but extremely stoked. Totally worth all the riding I will have to do to burn all the calories off. I was sad to see the the stay at the Ritz and my parents go but was stoked to get home and focus in on some school and training for the rest of the week.

Looking forward to the first MBAA state race next weekend at McDowell where I should pick up my new Trek Superfly Pro!

Bug Springs and Molino

Amazing ride today with Jeff Frost. Been spending a lot of time on the road bike and was really craving some dirt. I have been talking to some locals and I heard of the Bug Springs loop, start off the day with some good climbing and then rip almost all the way down the mountain. Sounded good to me. To start the day we headed up the Catalina Highway, we settled in and cruised up Mount Lemmon for about an hour and ten minutes. It was cool to see how many people were on the road. Saw a group of 20 riders all cruising and talking as the made their way up the mountain along with at least 10 other individual cyclists. Tucson really is a "cycling community"! So after our climb to the Little Bear pull off we hopped on dirt for a hike-a-bike section of stairs before we started descending. To my surprise, the trail was dry, I had heard that it was probably still snowy. We hit a couple of snowy patches but overall the trail was super tacky. As soon as the trail headed down I got a little carried away and started rippin. That changed a bit as I hit the first droppy, technical section. I realized I should probably take it a little more chill since all of the technical bits seemed to be after blind corners or after cresting a hill. The technical sections were amazing!! Like I said, they were filled with fun stair-step drops but also had big slabs of granite and little man made rock rollers. As Frosty and I reached the pavement at the bottom of Bug Springs I reflected on how awesome the descent was, definitely my new all around favorite. We still had a bit of descending down the Molino Basin trail though so we cruised over to the trail head. Molino was a bit different than Bug Springs. It was much rougher and didn't quite have as much flow but was still really fun. You had to be a bit more "on it", to carry speed than Bug, where you could just flow and pump down the descent. After shredding down Molino we cruised down the rest of Lemmon on the road. Glad to have found such a good mountain loop to accompany the amazing road riding in Tucson. Definitely hitting up Bug and Molino next week!

Living the Dream!!

Not a lot of new things to report on riding wise. Have been in putting in some long miles on the road bike with some interval sets to keep it interesting. I even managed to get in a mountain bike ride today, which is much harder to come by down here compared to Flagstaff. Biggest change is that I have been working a lot more on some mental training. Training, on the bike, is a huge part to success but I have to start taking the mental side of riding much more seriously. I have been doing some exercises and reading sports psychology books to help improve that aspect of my racing. I really feel that investing in this as well as working my butt of on the bike will lead to good things this year.So, I guess, everything is going really well. I am feeling the strongest, mentally and physically, that I have ever have. I am still really enjoying riding my bike and am super motivated about training and racing in 2012. One thing that I have been missing though, other than my family, is shredding some dirt. Luckily tomorrow I am meeting up with Jeff Frost, aka Frosty, to ride Bug Springs Trail on Lemmon. Should be tons of fun, really stoked! I will post some pictures and report on the ride soon.

Merry Christmas!

This week was full of good things. Got in some great riding in Tuscon then headed up to Flagstaff to visit my family and get in a shred in Sedona.

I started up the week by changing the training a little bit. I transitioned from doing long moderate intensity rides with strength training to some more structured efforts. It felt good to really push it hard again and I even had some descent power. These intervals also doubled as a kind of test. I did a couple of back to back interval days, the second day as part of a longer ride. This was to see how responsive my body was to hard work after a pretty extended period of moderate intensity. The first day went well, didn't quite maintain my cadence requirements but got the power up. The second day went even better, hit my intervals really well, maintaining the power and cadence, and then followed that up by heading over to Lemon where I ran into Chloe Forsman and cruised with her for a while. As soon as I got home from my ride I drank some Hammer Recoverite and hopped in my car. It was already getting pretty late and I wanted to get to Flagstaff at a reasonable time.

After driving for four hours up to Flag I arrived home to some pretty stoked parents. We hung out for a little while before I headed to bed with some really sore legs that were not helped by going from bike to car in 15 minutes back in Tuscon. I awoke after 11 hours of well needed sleep to snow in Flag. It just wouldn't have felt right spending Christmas in the desert, needed some snow. Was pretty lazy overall while in Flag, but did fit in a longer ride on Christmas Eve in Sedona. Went on a road ride with Chuck, Ken, and my neighbor Jay down Page Springs road, up to Jerome, and then back up the highway into Sedona. Had to burn off some serious calories to justify the eating which was going to take place the next day.

After opening up some great presents and hanging out with parents all day we got ready for Christmas Dinner. Our buddy Dave and his daughters joined us for the feast. My mom prepared some beautiful prime rib, potatoes, asparagus, and rolls. After chowing down the amazing food we followed it up with a game of Taboo. Had a great time, tons of laughs and some good competition.

The trip seemed to have flown by as I packed up the car Monday morning with my Dad. We said our goodbyes and then I headed for my grandparents' houses in Phoenix. I visited my Grandma that I hadn't seen in a while and then headed for my other grandparents house. After hanging out there for a while I fit in a ride on Beeline Highway and through Fountain Hills before another great dinner that my Grandma prepared. With a full stomach I finally finished off the trip and drove the remaining distance back to Tuscon.

Had a great week, looking forward to next. A South African mountain biker is moving in with Justin and I and I am going to hit up some of the local group rides! Stay tuned!

Week One Down!

So the first week in Tucson is done! A pretty rad one to say the least. If every week is half as fun as this one, I am going to have one great stay down in the Old Pueblo.

As I mentioned in the previous post I would be partaking in a training camp headed by my coach Justin Peschka this week. A couple of my friends including Shane Skelton, the top ranked Cat 1 15-16 in the country and all around shredder, Chuck Bruni, Ken Koch, and Shane's dad Scotty would be joining in on the camp. With all of the riders showing up Wednesday morning we decided to get right to work and do some fitness testing on Mount Lemon. The test consisted of one, all out effort on the first 3 miles of Mount Lemon road. I had an awesome performance, which I was really stoked about considering I hadn't done an effort that hard in a couple of months. It is awesome to have that test done so I can compare numbers as it gets closer to the season. After everyone finished their test, we cruised up the road for another 45 minutes at a tempo effort just to loosen up the legs a bit from the effort. After pace lining it down the mountain we headed for the showers before eating at El Taco Tote.

The plan for day two was just to get in a long ride at a consistent endurance effort. As we headed out of the Carmichael Training Systems parking lot we realized this might not be a possibility. Huge gusts of wind blew from every direction with a more steady gale right in our faces. The first ten miles we averaged about 9 mph on pavement, we were on mountain bikes but to go 9 mph was a near all out effort. I felt good though, so I took the horrific wind as an opportunity to push it a little bit. I sat at the front for the first 45 minutes or so before we got into a little more sheltered environment. As we hit the dirt on Redington Road we started climbing. This climb was an awesome, perfect climb, with no cars and great views. Shane, Ken and I took off and held a good pace to the top of the climb where we waited for the rest of the group. All back together now, we headed onto some more treacherous terrain. We headed down an unnamed canyon with plenty of rock drops, berms, and steep climbs. This lifted our spirits which had been broken down a bit by the unrelenting wind earlier in our ride. After climbing up another canyon road we made our way back to Redington Road to start our descent back into town. The once headwind, turned into an amazing tailwind. We made it back to town in a third of the time it took us to get out. Although we were riding our burly, knobby tires it felt like we were riding road bikes, cruising through town at 25 miles per hour with nearly no effort at all. After making it back to CTS we all headed our separate ways to shower and take some well deserved naps before heading to dinner. We met up at one of my favorite restaurants, Trattoria Pina. We had a great dinner, followed by some great conversation and dessert. I am really lucky to have such rad friends!

Day three was climbing day. We started out the day with a 45 minute car drive to the base of Mount Hopkins. I was told this was a must do for anyone in the Tucson area so I was pretty stoked. As the group headed out, Shane and I took off to cruise up the hill at a little faster pace than the rest. We soon found ourselves high in the mountains. I was astounded by the climb, living in Flagstaff I always thought we had some good climbs, we had nothing compared to this. After 10 kilometers we were already well above six thousand feet. As we continued to climb the weather got worse and worse. We went from riding in tacky, 50 degree conditions to snowy, 40 degree conditions until we neared the summit and ended our climb with a 100 meter long stretch of 35 degree incline into 30 degree temperatures and nearly a foot of snow. We hurried to put on our jackets an eat a bar, before heading down the hill. We descended quickly back to better conditions where we passed and encouraged the others as they continued to make it up the hill. Once we could finally feel our fingers well enough to shred we hopped off the main path and took a steep, rocky road that would also take us back down to the cars. I had a ton of fun watching Shane shred and drift up the trail ahead of me as I did the same. I was bummed as we hit the parking because the shred had ended but stoked to turn on the truck and blast the heat. While warming up we checked out the Garmin file of the climb, we climbed 4500 ft in just over 20 kilometers, taking us above 9000 ft. Quite the climb! We ended the day by indulging at In and Out and watching some movies at Justin's house.

Day four was promised to be an all single track day so I was pretty stoked. Even though the Skeltons and Ken had to start on their way home Chuck, Justin and I were ready to go bright and early. We drove south, out of Tucson to meet up with the AZ trail. With rain clouds threatening, we kept the pace brisk ensuring we would finish before getting dumped on. The trail was amazing. Narrow, tight, and twisty single track through the cacti with some fun climbs and descents thrown in. At about mile 12 we decided to start heading back, a bit tired from the days before. The way out was mostly climbing so we flew on the way back. Dipping and diving through the corners with amazingly tacky dirt, doesn't get any better! All of us, completely stoked, arrived back at the car satisfied with a good four days of training and a ton of fun. We headed to Subway to take advantage of their awesome December Deals before going home. Chuck headed back to Flagstaff and the camp was officially over.

Although I was bummed to see my buddies leave I was stoked at all of the riding possibilities that I had had explored over the last four days. I know there is much, much more and I look forward to exploring next week before I head back home for Christmas! Merry Christmas everyone!