Week one in the books...

And what a fun week.  We had a great camp with everyone having a great personality!  We ended camp with a 92 mile trek through the hills with over 7000 ft of climbing.  It was awesome and what is the best way to end the week, but another trip up over Mt Tam!! I think we did this like 10 times now!  So right before we headed over again we stopped in a small town to refuel.  You would think that there was a bakery around or something???

With all the goodies Michelle decided to take a break with a little comfort food after a long week

I like the smirck, it looks like she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. 

After Tam there was one last climb up from the Dam to get back to Fairfax, which I must say is one of the most enjoyable routes we did all week!!  Here is a look of where we came from!

So now with camp.1 over Michelle and I have made our way south to a Spa Hotel in Avila Beach.  The morning ritual of a Latte was good this morning with the sun coming down and the temps well on their way to 70 degrees.  After a run to the pharmacy to get some antibiotics due to a tick deciding to make my side a home!  Yuck! We then came back to relax along the oceanside!  What a nice way to relax a get ready for camp.2!  Here is Michelle walking around and looking for springbreak scenery! 

Do it again! And again!

That is what I kept getting today!  I would climb up to the top of a hill and when I got there my task for the day was to turn around to the slowest rider then climb back to the top.  I did this all day and finally was blown after who knows how many times up the hill??  Either way I am working the muscles that you cannot work at home!  Should be really good come time for Cahutta!!  So the landscape today was awesome as well, it just seems to keep getting better!

Do it again! Yes Boss!

View of San Fran from the top of Mt. Tam, which I think I have climbed like 10 times now!

Here is the group of clowns for the week!  What a fun time!

Then the descent from the top, I hope  Dick Drummond's custom bike hold together at 40 mph!

Of course it can, made the last one!  Michelle also has some could climbs today and was smiles towards the top!

Long day planned for tomorrow!  Time to eat loads of food!!

Good luck this weekend to Scot in Barry-Rubaix!  Put the hammer down and represent the new kits!!

MT Tam Hillclimb

Today we did a race up Mt Tam! Was fun and fast.  I ended up taking the honors of first to crest but it was high on the suck 'o meter tab!  I was the sacrificial lamb and did the 5 mile lead out to get to the hill.  At that time Steven Hunter attacked and made me work.  This lasted for about 5 minutes until everyone burned up their VO2 capacity and settled into the next 30 minutes of suffer. Overall with the lead out it took me 42 min and 30 sec to get tot the top.  Wow, I am not in Wisco anymore!  Michelle did awesome today as well and was 2nd female up the hill and even beat a couple of the guys.  She seems to really be enjoying herself!  After the ride the rest of the day included lunch, followed by yoga, then massage, then a sweet dinner!! Awesome!! What a hard life. 

Tomorrow is a bit of a recovery day for everyone and I am day to day right now on weather I will be sent out for extra time or not?  Time will tell.  No pics today since most of the ride was done above threshhold!  I will try again tomorrow!

5.5 hrs of not sucking!

Rock'n it Cali style

Sweet, I rocked the new kits today!  They are awesome and I appreciate Dan from Hidden Bay makign the deliver yto the 212 doorstep right before we left!  The new kits rock and the changes to the 2010 shorts are awesome!

So today's ride we rallied up Mt Tam and then back down to Stinson Beach, up Muir Wood, then finished at the coffee shop!  Mmmm!  Gotta love it!  Michelle even finished the day with a big smile on her face and set bunches of good power numbers today!  She seems to be enjoying the bike again and her competitive spirit is taking over!  Here are some shots of the day! 

The group leaving in the morning!

Here we are rolling down to Stinson Beach! Kept wanting to look around and ride off the edge!

A look at the city!  Is their food down there!  I am getting hungry!!

An awesome day and things are just getting going!

Care package

So this is the Adventure 212 Team Care Package.  Thanks to Specialized and Hidden Bay!! 

Building Character

So everyone has those rides, well mine came today!  I have always had it explained to me as a spring, the further you push it down the further it rebounds.  You try not to push it down too fast though cause it will break!  Well I hit bottom at the end of a 3 week block, so perfect!  Guess bossman hit that one right.  Now it is some riding the Denzer way tomorrow with Ryan, Lisa, and gang, then a nice recovery week before heading off to Cali for Training camp round 2!  Sweet.  Not sure what bossman has in store for me but he said he is bringing in some ringers to beat up on me cause he doesn't want to work too hard!  Guess we will see about that one! 

On other news I have a Quarq set up for Michelle when we get into camp!  Will be good for her to have a nice power meter.  She has been training hard and starting to look very fit.  Watch out this year girls! 

Detour

So yesterday was a tough day to keep pushing forward on the training schedule.  I am nearing the end of week 3, I am sore, and I am tired.  Needless to say mother nature has not cooperated on the rain front this time.  I guess at least it is not 20 and just dumping snow, but with the roads the way they are I am just ripping through bike products with all the sand and wet.  Today seems to be more of the same with visibility down to a half mile and rain in the forecast for the next 3 days. 

So yesterday out on the ride I came to that turning point of the day!  So what do you do? 

P.R.O

So got my liscense yesterday and for the 3rd year it has those 3 letters on it, PRO?  So what does that mean?  I have seen it explained on several different websites and it is always different.  I have seen everything to explaining our riding abilities to the fact that we make money doing this?  Both are disputable cause I have seen a lot of PRO riders that cannot ride and I sure do not make any money at this?  So what does it really mean?  After a day of pondering I think I might have it figured out:

Probable Riding Obsession

Roster set......

Lots of riding with the early spring.  Have been loving every minute of it!  Also been getting set for heading out West and some of the last minute prep on getting everyone's stuff for the upcoming season.  For the upcoming season, our roster is set.  I really appreciate all the interest for joining the team this year.  I saw lots of great race resumes and I really wish that I could of brought everyone to the team, but have to keep to the budget.  With that said, here is the list, it is going to be an awesome season!!!

                 

Fair weather cycling!

So all the fair weather people are coming out with the warm up in weather.  It is great to see, I think that the overall mood of the entire community has increased 10 fold!  This last couple days though I have to complain about this one guy on a bike.  He keeps drafting off me for hours on end and when he does finally pull through he must be riding one of those UCI banned TT bikes cause I do not get any type of draft!!  Not fair.  He is also fast!  Whenever I put the hammer down he sticks with me like glue.  It is kind of annoying that he has showed up just these last couple days cause it would of been nice during those long snowy rides!!  I have heard others say that they have seen him as well and it is nice to see he's out, and I must agree, lets hope for many more rides with him....................

Shread'n

Tires that is.  I got out about an hr on my ride and flatted up front.  Started to fix the flat and noticed that the entire tread was coming off the tire!  Guess I should change tires more often, that one was put on the bike last May!!  Since it was so early in the ride I ended up turning around and changing the tire out and grabbing a fresh tube.  Once going again, I felt like Eeyore!

The dang snow clound would never leave me!  I felt like it snowed the entire time and when I looked at the radar there was just a small patch of snow out there.  I wish I could go back and follow the snows route, it would probably match the Garmin file I have!!

On the team front, sounds like everyone is training pretty hard to get ready for the new season.  I know Big D has been training down in Indiana.  When we were headed to Kentucky he mentioned that he was riding with some guys getting prepped for the Little 500!  I am waiting to hear the news that he got on a team for that!!  I would drive down there to watch if that was the case!  I would take my own heckling crowd as well!!