Press-skit

So the snow is gone and the trails are clear! Oh yeah, RK is gone too! Still blaming him for the snow that greeted us here, especially after his travel stories! One person should never have that much bad luck.


On Tuesday Michelle and I got out for a good amount of climbing around the area and started to scope the trails out. Some were good, some bad, but at the end of the day we rolled back into the house smiling and laughing even after the 6000ft of climbing, some hike a bike, and another 5hrs in the legs.

Then Tuesday night Tyler came up and joined us. So on Wednesday we went out and hit parts of the Whiskey 50 course, the good parts, and rallied around the west side of Press-skit. In the end we had another 6000ft of climbing, some killer downhill practice, and came up with the conclusion that the Whiskey 50 course is epic!

Today is the last day we have here and the course planning is in the works. There has been some discussion of doing the entire Whiskey 50 course, but that adds in some jeep trails, which at this point does not sound too bad. The legs are pretty tender from all the accelerations to get my butt over the hills and some steady tempo might be what I need.

Whatever we decide there is definitely some more "That does not suck" mountain biking in today's plans...........

No pedals needed

So week one of AZ camp is in the books and I have gotten used to the new bike.  I must say though, despite the 29er Kool Aid that has been passed out through out the cycling community I must say I do not notice a huge difference.  I think on a plus note the bike rides really well over technical accents which I really like!  On a negative though, I really notice the weight difference.  Hopefully this changes once I get my normal Roval Carbon Race wheels, race tires, and scrub rotors onto the bike.  This is probably good for at least a pound off the bike and should get it near the 21 pound range and only a pound heavier than its 26er "red" headed step sister.  Anyway, I feel good on the bike and really excited for the start of the season.  I know it is still a few weeks off, but my number say I am ready!  Lets hope?? 

So speaking of numbers, here is last week:

28.5 hrs
267 MTB Miles
14854 kjs

I am not real confident on the Mtb KJs though.  It seems really hard trying to get the numbers, especially when riding more technical courses.  Hard to overcome the zeros that get averaged in, but it is also hard to get any fatigue count on all the acceleration you make too.  Either way it is training and I am getting pretty comfortable on the MTB which was the plan. 

So the rides.  It seems like the Black Canyon Trail has become our go to.  Nice route and lets everyone ride their own pace with the out and back format.  It also eats tires though which we found out and has required the use of some duct tape to get home a couple times.  Sedona has also been a destination and I think we all enjoyed it.  Mark worked really hard to make all the hills seem smaller by crushing them with his fingers:

Not sure that really worked that well.  We also had Timster join us all week as he showed us his hidden skills!  Not sure how he made all the climbs he did with platform pedals!!  We even let RK guide us around Sedona!!

In the end it worked out though cause we did find the car. 

So now with everyone back home in Wisco, Michelle was stuck riding with me today. I had lots of fun, but I always get over zealous on my route planning.  Today was fun though as we explored the trails around Prescott now that the snow has melted.  We ended up with another 5 hrs of ride time and 6000ft of climbing.  The climbing was topped off though with a nice rip home of the 396 trail.  Sweet!!

Now we have a couple more days of riding then it is time to start working our way home! Bummer! 

AZ Team Camp

So we arrived in AZ on Sunday and it was snowing like Armageddon was approaching.  Starting to think there is something to the poles flip flopping with it snowing in AZ and 80 in Wisco.  Pretty crazy.  Either way, we came to MTB and that is what we will do.  Just means a little bit more driving which we are used to anyway living in Wisco and having to drive to most of the trail heads.  On Monday we rode McDowell park.  It was just as fun as I remembered for the NORBA days!  Fast, flowing, and the back side had a tail wind which made it faster than normal.  Also it was the first day on the 29er.  Not sure if I am allowed to talk about that anymore though, I am so far behind where all the companies marketing departments want me to be.  The next revolution is 650B since the World Cup win this past weekend!  Be ready to sell all your stuff and buy new again, just what the bike companies want us to do!  My opinion, if it matters, is that bikes are just fun to ride and I really do not care what the wheel size is! 

Yesterday we rode the Black Canyon Trails.  Those are a lot of fun and I learned that I went the wrong direction by starting on the south end and riding north towards Black Canyon.  Ended up with 5000 ft of climbing and 4 hrs of full on singletrack!! 

Today we are going to meet up with Tyler and ride from Black Canyon to the south trail head then back up again.  Should be about 5 hrs of ride time and 60 miles of singletrack, smiles, and sunshine!  Yesterday Mark won the tan line award with his helmet strap burned into the side of his head!  Here are some pics from the last couple days.   

So outdated!

So for the outdated news on Cali, here are the totals:

36 hrs and 24 min on the bike with a total of 498 miles.  Lattes, hmm, too many to count. Pastries much of the same. 

Now onto some of the more recent happenings.  All bikes are here, minus one which should be within the next couple weeks.  For the medium bikes we ended up needing to order an XT-cRap bike so the first thing to do with that is to scrap the stuff we do not need:

So if you know of anyone looking for parts, we have 3 XTR component groups to get rid of and they will go cheap.  Make me and offer and the easier you make it on me the cheaper the price. 

Also on the bike front we were hooked up with a sweet addition to the MTB this year and just in time for AZ camp. 

Quarqs!  Way excited to have this.  I plan to race with it, especially at the NUE races so look forward to some pathetic numbers at the 7 hr mark:)  So above is Michelle's bike in the build process, right down to some new decals.

Thanks to Mark for always setting the team up!  Now onto the team.  This year we have really made a point to ride as a group at least once a month.  At least as much of the group as we can since everyone is pretty busy.  This past weekend we actually split and the girls went to Milwaukee why the guys plus Brian came up to Amherst.  Made for a good weekend of riding an we managed to see how well Myles can suffer.  He is just coming of basketball season and his first long rides of the year are with us Ya-hoos.  Both days we did around 4 hrs and I think he blew at about the 2 hr mark both days but suffered like I have not seen someone suffer to make the entire distance.  I am pretty sure I would of found a coffee house and made everyone come back and pick me up in the truck! 

After Saturdays ride, we grilled out, drank beer, and made fun of Ryan and Myles building their bikes.  At one time we had 10 Sworks downstairs and 2 in the garage!  Spoiled!

So why those guys worked on the bikes, I just chilled and made my only strenuous effort a trip to the beer cooler!



I rested cause my bike is done, minus the carbon wheels:

Those wheels are freak'n huge!  Guess I will see how they work in AZ and I am hoping to not have to scramble for smaller wheels!

So now to Sunday, 75 miles for Myles, 2 sections of mud/gravel, some pretty good attacking each other up the hills, and a pacing session!  Oh yeah, and another Myles meltdown as stated before.  This one turned into a big suffer fest for all of us so I cannot imagine what was going through Myles head! 

We then finished off the weekend with some pizza! Good team weekend for sure!

Now onto the week.  Busy to say the least.  Yesterday my ride was cut short by a thunderstorm, yup in March.  I hid out at home, had lunch, then finished my ride back into work for 3 hrs of the 4 hrs planned.  Today is more of the same with 4 hrs on the schedule, but no thunderstorms, just mid 60's and the return of the road bike!  So for the year thus far I am sitting at 2406 of studded tire humming miles.  Ok and some warm Cali riding thrown in there as well.  For the week we are also trying to balance getting the new car, getting it ready to leave for AZ on Friday, and since I was getting board, I am leaving for Florida on Thursday to do some programming on an Audio/video system I put in last year.  I will fly out of Florida on Sunday to meet up with everyone else in Prescott to ride the new MTBs and kill some things with Timster! Can't wait!