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(April 4, 2014) Imagine a place with no traffic, surrounded by areas with no people, some deer, some elk, large fields, the fresh corpse of a mountain lion just off the road under 4 miles away, and a large house tucked into a grove of trees which haven't yet regrown their leaves since shedding them the previous fall. Some of the grass is turning green, and some wildflowers are beginning to bloom. The sky changes from cloudy, to sunny, to overcast, to dark storm clouds, bringing their choice of hail, rain, or snow, and maybe back to sunny in time for the sunset, all in the course of a day. There is a large mountain to the East, and you are staying in the house, in the grove of trees, at 7000 feet elevation, with 25 kids just like you who like to ride their bikes fast, with a bed for each (some rooms having 4 bunk-beds) and even some left over. You are in Utah, 5 miles from the Colorado border and 40 miles from Moab. This is where I was last week, and it was one of the best weeks which I have ever enjoyed. I was surrounded by my friends, 8 of them my teammates from the Boulder Junior Cycling Stagiaire Road Team (the highest tier Boulder Junior Cycling Road team) during the spring and summer, the rest from the Tokyo Joes Mountain Bike Team (the highest tier Boulder Junior Cycling Mountain bike team). Many of the mountain bikers were teammates on the BJC Cyclocross team during the fall and winter, along with many of the road kids. Last week was a crazy one. The road team completed over 15 hours of riding time over the course of 5 days, covering more than 220 miles, and along with a lot of fun, overcoming quite a few realms of pain. We left on Wednesday morning, March 26th. Wednesday was mostly a travel day, but when we arrived, we got our stuff situated and went out for a ride. We weren't really sure exactly where we were; we weren't lost, but we didn't know our environment at all. We ended up cruising down the road, going about 5 miles into Colorado before turning around, and with time spent goofing around and fixing a flat, we covered the 20 windy miles at a leisurely pace, spending close to 2 hours on the road. On Thursday, we went out in the same direction, going into Colorado and riding all the way to Naturita, about 35 miles from the border. We encountered all sorts of conditions, from hail to sunshine to rain to sunshine to rain to sunshine, and then a lot of wind. It was a crazy day to say the least, and we went over 80 miles in a bit under 5 hours ride time. On Friday, we were back at it again to go do a time trial or TT. After a 15 mile warm-up, we each did a 10 km (6.2 mile) time trial. Steven ended up 1st, with me just 3 seconds behind and everyone finishing within 2 minutes of his time even after the killer day the day before and not everyone having time trial equipment. Followed by a 10 km cool down, we ended up going about 30 miles. Saturday was another long day, where we drove down to Moab to do the La Sal loop, a loop of over 65 miles and over 7000 feet in elevation gain. It ended up taking us about 4 hours, and a long, fun, and somewhat treacherous descent, with Stuart bailing in order to not go off a cliff in a blind corner with bad pavement on the other side. In Stuarts defense, the corner looked good until there was no changing your speed, and he was also the first up the climb, and broke his chain twice over the duration of the ride (yeah, he's that strong). Sunday was our last day of the camp, and we packed everything up and left the house by 9. We drove to Moab again, and rode from the town up to Potash and back on what was intended to be an easy spin, but ended up being a 2 hour, 40+ mile race up and down the canyon. After this ride, we were exhausted, and made the 6 hour drive back to Boulder. Over the course of the week, we all got closer, and learned a lot. Every night, everyone would either be in the game room playing some very intense games of foosball and air hockey, sitting in the living room watching tv, talking, and maybe tossing a football, or blasting music in the bedrooms downstairs. Some of the mountain bikers and roadies didn't try to mix it up, but there was good chemistry between the two groups, especially with the 'cross riders. Jeremy had the unfortunate burden of getting sick during the trip, and was unable to ride with us for the last 2 days, but other than that, we stayed healthy. All of us got along better and were better teammates by the end of the trip. We worked together more fluently and all pushed ourselves and each other past our limits, creating new ones and passing those also. Every day there was a "new sherriff in town" on the road team, based on the best ride of the day and coming with a sherriff's badge which was passed along to the current sherriff. I think that Steven got it both the first and the third day, with Robert taking it the 2nd day, and Stuart the 4th. On the fifth day, there was no sherriff but I was crowned camp champ with a nifty pink head band for having the most consistent good rides. I almost forgot all of our adventures, both on and off the bikes. Every night there was foosball and air hockey as I mentioned, but there was time for other things. The day we arrived, we found an ATV on the property, and this ultimately turned out to be a disappointment because we could not quite get it going even though there was plenty of fuel, and the battery did not seem to be dead. That same day, we went for a ride, and on our way back, we stopped at the top of the climb to wait up for everyone, and Robert identified a large mountain lion, dead or sleeping we didn't know at the time, but was confirmed dead the next day, about 2 meters off the road and just about 3 miles from the house. On Thursday night, we were all pretty tired from the long ride, and didn't leave the house after we got back. However, on Friday, we went to Moab after cleaning up after the time trial, and it was my birthday, so we went out to eat at Pasta Jay's, where I was given a large piece of cake after a huge dinner, which ended up not being so good the next day. After that, there was a twerk-a-thon in the parking lot, and then we went bowling which ended up taking a weird form of disco twerk bowling. After that, we drove around town blasting music trying to find an ice cream place which was still open, and we ended up getting gelato at the Moab Brewery before driving back to the house. After that, we didn't really have any more adventures besides a little bit of wandering around the property, but there were many, many games of foosball to be played, and The Wolf of Wallstreet to be watched. Overall, camp was a great experience, although I am paying for it a little bit even now, 5 days later. I am super excited for the races this season, and to be coached by our new coach, Andy Bajadali, a retired pro who had some misfortune which led to not going quite as far as he had wanted, but with some good results including 2nd at the National Championships to George Hincapie in the road race, and GC victories at many tours including Tour of Thailand. I am grateful for my teammates, Cameron, Davis, Eric, Jacques, Jeremy, Robert, Steven, Stuart. Let's kill it at the Louisville Crit tomorrow guys! |
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