Yesterday's Shootout.

Time again for the Shootout. Today had the pleasure of riding out with Anton and the Jak for a little taste of Ontario, along with the rest of the Canadian contingent that shows up for the ride.

On the way to the university meeting spot we saw the sun rising over Mt. Lemmon, and not to get all mushy on you but it was something to see - vivid colors and the city in the valley below lit up by that light. mmmhhm. Seeing it all by bike, not a bad way to start any day.

The ride rolls out of town, notice a guy has a go-pro digital camera mounted on his seat post, facing backwards. Showtime? As we get out of town the pace picks up as usual, a few flyers go off the front but nothing special for a while.

An older and rather pro looking gent comments to me from over my shoulder that 'that woman up there was mixing it up pretty well up at the front'. Turns out the guy was Gord Frasier, some of you may have heard of him. If not, one of the most successful pro cyclists ever to come out of North America, and yet another Canadian down here.

So I eventually start launching some attacks, usually drawing some guys out for a while before we got eaten up by the pack again. In another move I bridged up to the guy who had the camera, we traded pulls for a few mins before some guy on the US national team from the peloton pulled us back for 'training' purposes, no doubt. Probably won't ever see it but its on film somewhere. There were other moves I went with, but this is getting repetitive already, so later, in what would be my last attempt to get a beakaway going, bridged up to three guys who looked like they were going well and one of them turned out to be Garneau guy from Ontario. To my frying brain, we were drilling it full out and making a solid pace, but after a few km, if that, swallowed up again. Some ppl were on a mission to chase today!

Coming up to the first sprint about 70km in, it was all together and I goofed up the 'finish' by not knowing exactly where the hill/finish was throughout all the twists the road takes at that point. So came into the sprint with a bad position like 30 back, but finished in the top handful after just givin' er for kicks.

Onto the climb, SOMEONE didn't get the memo about turning off, and carried on with the short-route pack into town, so I had to chase him down and tell him to come back for the Madera turn. That left the three of us chasing for a while to latch onto the smaller group going the whole shootout distance. Finally we make contact, and start the longest, hardest slog up the climb you could imagine. Some headwind sent from the devil made the whole 22km up feel like we were in one big trainer party, all jamming away and going nowhere fast.

Onto the brutal final section of the climb, some OTHER Canadian guy dragged Anton and I up the final few km's behind the front group of 4 guys who just rode away, trying to drop us all the way, and was just insane. We were riding 11km/hr, still in the headwind up the 12% grades, and we all just about blew some gaskets. After an eternity, it seemed, of this near explosion state, got to the top, 6th, meh, but glad it was donneee! Anton rode like a champ, especially for not knowing the climb and when exactly the sufferfest would be over, and taking extra long pulls at the bottom before it really kicked up.

Then on the downhill the universe balanced itself out - we had the tailwind and once out of the steep section the road straightens out and you can FLY. It was between 75-80 km/hr for ~15km, and once I looked down at the computer and saw 87.5km/hr. So it was like driving a car while sitting on the hood for a little while. The same guy with the camera took this video last week of the decent, same group pretty much, so just picture me there and this was it yesterday:

After doing 50km/hr with the tailwind, no joke, the entire 70km back to town, we went to watch a crit going on at the Uni, and some guy in the cat 1 race solo'ed the final 20 mins to win by half a lap. That was just impressive. 

Just two more days left here, it has definitely been a very interesting training camp. I also woke up this morning to the sight of snow on the ground! Maybe when I get back to Guelph it will have become a desert?

Don't forget your debatable sunscreen. 

A day in the life

Yesterday was a good day. Thought I'd share some deets.

Started out with a solid training ride. Hill repeats on the agenda, and the route we take out passes through one of the state parks out here where its untouched 'cactus forest' on pretty harsh and rugged terrain. Cool. Would have taken pictures of that part if it weren't for all the cars and twists in the road at that point.

After the hill repeats, taking pictures from the lookout at the top of the hill, I got the usual questions from the normal crowd there, that is those who aren't clad in spandex, like "Do you really feel safe going downhill on those skinny tires?" or "That's an awful bony looking... saddle you have there". haha, that's how skeletaurs roll.
And I met a nice group from Thunder bay, who were understandably excited to meet another Ontarian in the middle of the desert a million miles away from home.

Behold! The first gratuitous action shot, cresting the hill at the end of an interval:

Even in the desert the paparazzi is ready. Props to Fred, a masters rider on the team for taking this one. 

 A view of the climb from near the top. This is sorta what those 'cactus forests' look like. Hard to see the forest for the trees joke, anyone? no? ok.. moving on. 

Looking west:

I call this one 'Landscape, as obscured by face'

Looking east:

Feeling generous, left my mug out of this one - squint and you can see Tucson b'twix the cleave! McGrill would love this. 

Adequately fried from the workout and getting a taste of home from the other Canadians at the lookout, I went on my way, down the hill back to the city. It was then that I stumbled upon the most unlikely of scenes, I mean you really never know what you're going to find in the desert. 

It seemed to be a Belarusian of the year calendar shoot: 

Oh see how he leans.

Manton is in Tucson. Proof that I didn't just photoshop that: 

So its a small world, even though the desert around here may seem infinite at times. After the photoshoot was over we rode through this other state park with a fancy little paved loop throughout. Then it was to Manton's temporary pad where we hit up the pool that was warmer than the outside air, kinda like a giant jacuzzi. But it was a chilly evening so the heat was pretty good after a long day out. 

An epic feast ensued where issues at the table included the great and topical sunscreen debate.Check it out sometime. 

Tomorrow its Shootout time, and Manton is going to give it a go. That's a famous local ride here where 50-150 ppl show up and tear each other's legs off. Starting at dawn, the ride sets out from the University of Arizona in the middle of town and races through a native reserve to the top of a small hill where there is a field sprint or the breakaway fights it out for the bragging rights. Then the hardcore version of the ride takes a turn after this, losing half the group who goes back to town, and goes up the Madera canyon climb. 

I gave this ride a go a few weeks ago, and not knowing the climb was bad news. Its about 20km long, but the first ~14km are 3%, its an almost invisible incline, but not invisible to your heart and lungs! So I didn't even know we were ON the climb already except for the fact that I was finding riding at the same speed was getting very difficult! Then it kicks up to 10-15% for the final km's to hermetically seal that hurt box you're in.

At the top we turn around, go back down (its a dead end) and have a 30-40 person paceline back to town. Adds up to 200km from where I'm staying, one hell of a workout and race simulation ride. It's also a pretty diverse ride from everyone who shows up, there were a few jerseys from the Canadian national team and people from ALL over North America. Tomorrow it won't be sub-zero Celsius at the start, unlike last time, so I'm expecting even more people to show up. 

I'm going to try to get into or make a breakaway towards the sprint point, and then see what I have left on the climb. Not many days left here so its time to empty the tank. 

Happy Friday everyone.

The Dilly

Breaking news. Its sunny in Tucson today, and I might go for a training ride later.

Don't worry, I wouldn't do that to YOU. A post like that is really just useless and almost nonsensical without any context. So to bring things more up to speed, here's how I got to talking about a weather man's nightmare, the stable and mild Tucson climate (about ZERO thundersnow parties here).

After finishing the master's degree last December it felt like a good time, perhaps the only time, to take some time off the books for once and do something really different with life, something exciting and slightly risky, something for its own sake with the very slim possibility of it becoming sustainable, for a little while at least.

So in the fall I joined the 2011 roster of the Kallisto-Wheels of Bloor cycling team,which is a new name for a team that's been around many years. In the past the team has been a pretty serious presence on the local and wider road racing scene. The team this year has some wicked riders and personalities (for real) and will be for sure be stirring the pot at all our races. Some race schedule highlights that I'm especially looking forward to are Tour of the Battenkill in NY, significant portion of which is on dirt roads and known as 'America's Queen of the Classics', the Canadian National Championships being held this year right in the team's backyard and on a ball-busting course using Rattlesnake point, and a trip to Europe to expose the team to some REALLY hardcore racing. There's so many more worth mentioning too, not to mention the local Ontario calendar which this year looks thick 'n juicy. Its just too bad/silly about all the overlap between the road and XC events, that might keep myself and others out of the Ontario XC scene entirely this year.

To really hack it at races like this is going to entail training pretty much full time, as much as a body can handle. Often we're going to be up against actual pros... but we're not just going to these races to play cyclist, it'll be full on, full gas no matter who else is there. This will go both ways, some day's we'll explode the races, some days the races will explode me. All the more to blog about.

And being a serious team it has a good setup for helping the riders get ready for racing like this, which brings me to Tucson. There is a team training camp every winter here for those that can take the time off whatever and come down, and then spend hours riding mountains and through the beautiful desert (actually) instead of going nowhere on the trainer watching the Giro over and over again. Not that I will totally escape the trainer, quite the contrary most of my training this winter will be in the trainer dungeon (i.e. my room) at home, but any break you can take from that and go outside is a seriously welcome mental and physical boost.

When I leave this cycling paradise in a few days it'll be back to work, back to the trainer, back to my real-fake life as it seems for now. Despite the impending cold, I'm actually looking forward to it. There's no place like home.

Coming up soon, I'll have some stories about the time I've spent here (the remaining days will provide their own updates) and a little race update from our first race of the year we just did, The Valley of the Sun, in Phoenix.

Hello Wor... Segmentation Fault!

It hath frozen over, so I took it as a sign to fire up a blog. I think I just heard the internet itself let out a sigh of relief. Finally, something on the internet to rival the cultural significance of KittehRoullette.

This year will be one of significant moving around and overall change of pace for this 'blogger' (its to early to call me that, but always good to start things out on a pretentious note), so I thought it fitting enough to drag a blog in my wake to share the sights and sounds from different geographic places, and equally, the dark, dusty, cobwebbed corners of my brain that otherwise may not see much daylight.

What will find its way on here? Well, basically thoughts and developments from yours truly.  For the next few months, that may be updates on how prep for the upcoming racing season is going, race reports as they come, and top secret theories of everything. 

Stay tuned, cheque's in the mail.