Internet Sucks, so I will make this quick...

Fontana Cali, US Cup #1. All the big guys are here from around North America and a few from around the globe to boot!. It was crazy Hot and super Windy! We had five laps of a pretty tough course.

I had a good call up (based on UCI points) sitting in the second row. I felt ok in my warm up, I did a few quick 15 sec sprints to open the legs up, I am still tired from a BIG epic week of training (expected). I was planning on training through this race and mainly used it for a bit of a leg stretcher for the coming season. I really only felt like I had one pace the entire race, I didn't have much for top end which is what I had expected. I was a bit conservative on the first lap rolling through in 13th. On the Second lap I made it from the little 3 man group that I was in and jumped up the trail to the next two riders. I rode with them for a bit and my jersey had come fully undone in the attempt to open it "partway" for some cool venting (crap). My superman jersey took a suprising effort to get it closed, especially in the 70km gusty winds... Third lap I rode up to fellow Canadian Raphael Gagne and we pretty much rode the rest of the race together. We were in 8th and 9th place and had 7th place in our sights (Barry Wicks). We hammered hard and gave a solid push to try and catch Barry and also not get latched by the chasers behind us.

I Finished the day in 9th place, really happy and stoked that the hard work and hard miles are paying off. Our team had a great day today with Mical in 8th place, Emily in 9th, Peter in 15th and Adam in 17th. I have the short track this afternoon at 2:45pm and I am running late so I have to run. I am headed home later this afternoon and will be back in Ontario sometime later next week!

Peace Out!

Where in the World could I be???

I am not sure why I haven't been here before...? This place is a climbing mecca, a Mountain bikers heaven and a trail runners paradise.. Hmmm where in the world am I ?. Well I will start out with how my day went.

Woke had a "continental" breakfast (muffins and cereal) ( and a danish, which was crappy and dry, the decent coffee made up for this).
Got my Mountain biking crap together and hit the road. 15 min from my hotel I was already pointing my bike up. Way up!.
Started my ascent of the "killer climb" at roughly 4000ft I climbed and climbed and climbed.
Hit snow around 7500ft and had to resort to bike some, hike some.
Snow got deeper and the hike part became more frequent. With the high quality fuel in the tank from my breakfast I was focused on my goal.... I guess my 21lb Trek 9.9 may have made things easier... Just a thought.
Around 9500ft the snow got deep enough that I was considering doing some off trail "hikeabike".
20 paces of that and I canned that idea.
Back on the snow drifted trail.

Around 10000ft I decided to maybe turn around....
Just climbed 6000ft vertical off road and if it wasn't for the massive amount of snow I would of loved to make the loop that I had in mind, even though it would have probably been one of the biggest most epic days on my bike I have had.
Who am I kidding? It doesn't end there, not even close.
I had to come down that 6000ft climb, which by the way I spent 90% of the time in my granny ring at "endurance" pace.
Had a few snow drift endo's on the way down which were kinda spontaneous and random. The top 1500ft of descending was on a sun baked snow crust and was seriously fun.
Hit the hotel at around the 4hr mark, re-fuel, ditch clothes, lube chain and head back out.

The Buttermilks is where I am heading this time.
Climb for.... a while.
Climb for a while more.
Hit my destination, take some pics, Ooo and Aww at the rock climbing I wish I was doing, turn around and head back down.
Shower (felt so good).
Get in the car with Fred (who hasn't exercised yet today, yay) and head up to see the ancient pines that are native to this area. Apparently these trees are some of the oldest in the world, some are still living from 2000bc!
Hit snow closed roads around 8000ft.
Start our "hike" up to above 10000ft where these amazing trees are.
Hiking, hiking, hiking.
Finally just as the sun is two fingers from sunset we hit the freaking trees.
We played around the trees for a bit, (fred found some "souvenir wood" for the pocket ride back down to the car.
Back at the car way past sun down, and 15 degrees colder than when we had left.

Grocery store dinner and a muffin that I stole from the "conti" breakfast later, here I am.

Itchy.

Sort Of....

California is super cool! The riding is amazing, the weather is fantastic and the scenery is out of this world! I only wish I had more time here at the Oxnard training house, the guys here (matt p and peter g) had a great setup and I would say that anyone looking for a sick place to train/explore this area would be a safe bet to get a good bang for your buck!.

I am headed of of here tomorrow morning and I am making my way to.......(not sure yet). My kick off to the race season is next weekend at the US cup #1 in Fontana Cali and I am getting a bit excited to get this season rolling.

Here are some pics from a quick trip up the coast to one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to, Big Sur.

Some Random Images.

Here are some images from a group ride up a super cool road in California. Peter G, Sean R, Kari F and myself.

California..... who ya.!

Made it here to the "California training house" safe and sound, despite a pretty eventful drive from the Dessert to the more moist coast. The drive was roughly 900km and I had to drive through about 15 serious downpours that were crazy enough that people got very silly with there driving... Having a roof box on seems a bit more noticeable when the wind is gusting around 90-100km!
Anyways it never seems to amaze me at the sure MASS of the L.A. area, from Palm Springs all the way over to where I am at in Oxnard seems to be one massive city.

We went for a pretty solid ride yesterday (monday) as well as did a bit of filming (actually 70km of it) for the company Ergvideo, www.ergvideo.com . they link real cycling videos to your indoor computrainer and create real riding like simulation, it is pretty cool.

Matt P, Peter G (aka: wagonwheel) and I went for a MTB ride today on some very impressive cali trails. Below are some of the images from us riding amongst the coastal mountains.

I am looking forward to exploring a new area of riding, running and maybe a bit of hiking (can't forget the fact that we are living on a beach).

I will go wherever the wind takes me....

I went out for my ride today, felt kind of tight and was fidgety on the bike.. Honestly all I could think about was going for a good trail run! I ended up going home after 3.5hrs changing into my running kit, grabbing my camera and then hit some trails. I went out to Star Pass and ran and ran and ran! It felt so good to RUN! As much as I love riding my bike, there is still something so satisfying about trail running. Maybe it is the fact that you are going a bit slower than riding? Or is it just something different then pushing pedals? I stopped a few times (very quickly) and just took in the scenery around me! It was warm out, it was sunny out and I was in heaven. Maybe it was the fact that we had a rain day here yesterday, and when it rains in the dessert you can't do much but wait it out. Fortunately there was a great hockey game to watch on the toob to kill the "no exercising" anxiety.