Rocky Mountain Development Camp: Last Day

The Billy Goat Club breaks for some fuel while ascending

So today was the penultimate day at camp.  This was the day that the camp got shuttled up to 10,000' to then ride a ton of single track back to town.  A few of us coaches, Kip, Doug, and myself and three campers opted to skip the shuttle, and ride up to where the shuttle would drop off the rest of camp.  Of course the shuttle was picking up at 7:30 with plans to ride at 9:00.  So for us that meant a 6:00 AM departure.  That also meant no coffee (not cool) and breakfast on the trail.  Somehow the Espresso Hammer Gel, while tasty, just doesn't match a good hot cup o' joe in the morning.

Climbing.  Why no singletrack pictures?  Cause its really
hard to ride trail with one hand on the bar- I save that for
the roads/easy trail.

So why the early departure?  Because we had to climb 4000 vertical feet, and most of it was along trail and old railroad grade.  So nothing steep, but it was a lot of mileage to get there.  We had plenty of time so we didn't rush it and rode a nice easy tempo up to the shuttle drop, which was good because by today my legs were absolutely feeling like junk- I guess riding 3+ hours per day for 5 days straight, racing, and all done at altitude does have a cumulative effect.  And that was just the riding, not to mention that I was working a camp the whole time!

Kicking back as the vans arrive.

We made our way up to the shuttle drop with plenty of time and had a few minutes to relax as the vans rolled in.  We grabbed a refuel on water and energy bars and then the whole group was off riding.  The first part of the ride brought us to our peak elevation of the trip- 10,300 feet.  From here we dropped into trail that had rolling hills that gained/lost 200 feet at a time.  At this point I was REALLY feeling the effects of the week and the altitude, still riding, but absolutely no pop.  We made our way down, down, ....and down as the riders all took turns showing each other the best way to crash...none of them looked pretty, but dang did they bounce back up!  As we made our way to the bottom we got deep into a valley and the trail started to resemble riding in New England (crazy huh?)- rocky, technical, bermed turns...basically it was really fun!

We worked our way back into town around lunch time, and by that point I think someone turned the thermostat up to about 100 degrees and we baked the final few miles back to campus.  In all it was a 4.5 hour day on the saddle covering just over 40 miles of trail/dirt road and about 5000 ft of climbing/descending.  We all devoured whatever was being served at lunch, then took a an hour or so to cool off/relax.  We then spent the afternoon doing one last skills session- this was basically their final exam.  We put together an obstacle course that they did for time that contained all of the skills we worked on all week- straight line riding, turning, bottles hand offs, bunny hops, step ups, mount/dismount.

Obstacle course

So tonight camp officially wrapped up.  We had a last minute discussion on cramping, then hung around through the night chatting with the riders about any specific questions they may have had.  Some folks took off tonight, a lot of us leave first thing in the morning, so a lot of tonight was spent cleaning and packing up the bikes for traveling.  Overall everyone was excited about what we did this week- the coaches were blown away by the fitness and skill level of the riders this year.  Aside from a few hard crashes and some minor mechanicals on the last day, we couldn't have asked for a better camp.  The riders are already making plans for when they'll run into each other next- a good majority are heading to the National Championships in Idaho later this summer.

For me I was really excited to pick up as much as I could at camp as well.  Not just doing a lot of the riding, but learning the process of rider development, learning what the focus is, and learning what skills instruction is all about.  I'm helping with the Maine Youth Bike Series later this summer and I can't wait to apply the drills learned here to the series back home.

That's it from Colorado Springs.  Tomorrow I'm travelling all day- I think I'll appreciate the break and a chance to just relax for a bit!

Rocky Mountain Development Camp: Day 4

This is bound to be a shorter entry.  Its late, its been a long day, and I'm going to be getting up to ride my bike at 6:00 AM tomorrow.  Today we had to battle the heat a little bit- forecast called for mid 90s.  Ideally we would have done our skills work in the morning and then taken what was practiced and applied it on the trail.  We just thought it was in the best interest of everybody to try to get the ride in earlier in the AM while it was cooler.

The climb up....

We rolled out shortly after breakfast.  The past few days were starting to take a toll on some of the riders and today wasn't going to help the matter.  The ride planned was going to bring us onto some of the best singletrack around, but it was also going to bring over 2000 feet of vertical gain.  We topped out at 8200 feet today- a climb that was more than plenty for a lot of folks.  But the views were awesome!

Group pic at summit- Mondays ride will put us at horizontal line of center peak in far distance.

It was interesting that we have all these trails thanks to motorcycles.  They're really the ones that did all the work out here, and whats great is that they are considered multi-use trails.  We saw a couple motos on the trail, but everyone was super
courteous- it was great to see that all the different recreational parties exist together out here.  From the top of the climb we actually got a glimpse of where we are heading on Monday- another 2000 feet up.
After lunch it was back to working on the skills development.  We spun out to one of the pump tracks in town so the riders could practice negotiating bumps and using their momentum to carry their speed over the obstacle.  Then it was back to the park to break into individual groups again.  This time around I worked with Sean to go over bike mount/ dismount.

Get off your bike, get on your bike!

Keeping the momentum.

We rushed back to campus for dinner then it was time to get down to business with the educational sessions.  Ryan led a great talk on nutrition and hydration and spurred on a lot of great discussion.  Even though that talk went pretty long, we pressed on and I gave my talk on injury prevention.  I focused on knee injuries- traumatic and overuse; had all the riders practice a simple single leg squat to screen for weaknesses and discussed how what happens at the hip and the foot can wreak havoc on the knees.  I moved through the material pretty quickly since it was already 9:15, and despite the few heads nodding off (wouldn't you if you had to sit through class that late?!?!) I got good questions from the group and they seemed to appreciate it.
Tomorrow is the last official full day of camp.  This is the big planned ride where most riders will get shuttled up to 10,200 feet and ride trails back into town.  A few of us coaches and some of the fresh-feeling climbers of the group are actually heading out at 6:00 AM to ride up to where the shuttle will drop everybody off.  So we'll climb over 4000 feet, anticipating it taking between 2.5 and 3 hours depending on how people feel.  We'll finish up with a few skills we haven't gotten to yet, FINALLY get to Yoga, and then its on to packing bikes for those who leave early on Tuesday (myself included).

Ryan addressing the group about nutrition.

 Last full post tomorrow, probably have something random to write about from the airport on Tuesday.

Day 3: Ute Valley Pro XCT Race

Today was one of the two major ride days that the camp was looking forward to- the cross country race.  The next big day will be the last day of camp where we will do a shuttle run up to 10,000 ft and ride back to town.  We ended up lucking out with the weather- they were calling for a 50% chance of showers, which as I'm told here in Colorado Springs means that your buddy could be standing next to you with rain pouring on him, and you can be bone dry.  So it was anybody's game.

We had 5 riders who were racing early at 9:15, so they were up early and rolling up to the course first thing in the morning with Doug, one of the coaches.  I rode up later in the morning with Kip, another coach, to bring the rest of the riders up for the 11:00 start.  We had a nice mellow ride up the bike paths and road to get to the venue.  Again, I like these easy rides as it affords great opportunities to get some photos.

One we arrived at the venue we grabbed our race numbers, then each rider went through their warm ups and pretty soon we were off and racing.  The conditions amazingly had changed from even the day before- one of our earlier riders had told us that the course got a lot more sandy and a lot of the corners were really loose- so that was some great recon work that the later racers really benefited from
Short of doing a full blown race report lets just say that it was fast and everyone was pretty happy with how they ended up.  Nobody had any major mechanical issues and nobody got hurt.  I got a chance to race my age group as well and the race was a lot of fun.  All together the race took 1 hour 12 minutes- way too short for me- I only started to feel really good about 40 minutes in.  I'm not really too concerned, as racing today was just an excuse to ride my bike and I had no major aspirations with this event.

Afterwards everyone was pretty smoked.  We definitely enjoyed being able to just relax and have lunch right there.  Unfortunately soon we started to notice a change in the skies.  Because the coaches are local and they know the weather, they knew that we were in for something, so instead of hanging out all afternoon then riding back, we took off before the Pro Women's race, showered back at the college, then drove up to watch the Pro Men's race.  Somewhere in this time frame is when the skies opened up and we got a 20 minute downpour.  No big deal for us, we were done racing/riding and were just there to enjoy the afternoon.  But the poor Pro Women's field got nailed by the storm.  Since Ute Valley has a lot of sand when it rains the first 1/2" gets muddy, and it turns to CAKE.  As we were walking the course I kept wondering why I felt like I was stepping on something.  Basically the top layer of mud sticks to whatever goes over it (shoes, tires) and peels up from the dry sand under neath.  Very happy none of our racers had to ride through that.

We finished the afternoon with watching the Pro Men's race, cheering them through one of the toughest technical sections of the course (will upload video at some point once I get the hang of that whole editing thing).  Back to campus for dinner then had a quick talk on bike maintenance and packing bikes for traveling.  That ran a little over and everyone was already falling asleep, so there was really no need for the yoga session after that, so that'll get bumped to a later date.

Ryan Trebon taking the Pro Men's win- high fives all the way to the finish.

Tomorrow is going to be hot, so we'll be doing our long ride in the morning before it gets super super hot.  It'll be a big climbing day, supposed to climb up to 8500 ft (currently at ~6200) and hit some of the best trails in town.  In the afternoon we'll do more skills- playing around on a pump track and practicing some trail specific bike handling skills.

Rocky Mountain Devo Camp Day 2

Day two at camp and we got down to business today.  One of the main focuses of the camp, as it was last year, is the Ute Valley XC race.  This year it happens to be part of the national tour- so its bound to be a pretty big race with some good national competition.  Since it is an important part of camp, today was spent checking out the course.

One really nice thing about Colorado Springs is that you can get virtually anywhere around town via recreational paths.  Colorado College is an 8 mile ride away from the race venue, and we were able to spin over to the venue hitting virtually no roads...just awesome.  So this morning we cruised over to the venue, of course checking out some trails along the way.  Once at the venue we broke everybody up into 4 groups and worked on riding the course first to get a feel for the difficult sections.  Once we finished  a lap we headed out again and whatever section someone had difficulty with we hung out and practiced it until the riders were all comfortable.  One particular section was right at the beginning of the lap as it was a pretty technical rocky downhill section.

The majority of the morning was spent riding around the course, talking about good places to pass, places to drink, sections to be ready for.  We finally rolled back to College for lunch and had a little down time before the afternoon skills session.  In terms of fitness and physical exertion, this was pretty low key- which was good since we were riding for a solid 3 hours in the morning.  Instead the afternoon focused on basic bike handling skills.  It was a surprise for me coming into camp to find that practicing and developing skills is really the focus of camp, and is really the direction that rider development is heading.  Fitness will come later on, but being able to develop great bike handling skills right away they are finding is much more beneficial.

So the rest of the afternoon was spent running drills like learning to bunny hop, riding in groups, doing water bottle hand offs, and straight line riding exercises...all topped off with a little game of team bike basketball (not really a good name for it).

After the skills session it was back to college to review the race course again, which we did first by recalling everything from memory.  Then after dinner the kids got to watch the GoPro video I shot of our lap pre-ride earlier (its 20 minutes long...I doubt anyone wants to see that plugged in here) cleaned the bikes and got ready to race tomorrow.

We'll have some Cat 2 riders heading out early with one coach to be there early for their 9:15 start, I'll head out with the Cat 1 riders and another coach a little later for our 11:00 start.  I actually get to say "our" start on this one, because it sounds like all the coaches will be freed up for the cat 1 race, soooooo they don't need much from me....soooooo I that means that since he offered for me to race I better take advantage of it.  So yeah, I'll be hoping into the Cat 1 race as well (even though I've bee racing pro/open at home, I've been doing that under the "open" class, here the race is strictly those with a pro license).

Much more to come!

Rocky Mountain Devo Camp Underway! Day 1

I've been getting excited to come out to Colorado Springs for this development camp for a long time now.  I traveled out here Wednesday-first time flying with a bike so I was pretty nervous about how everything would go.  Fortunately the flight to Denver and drive down to Colorado Springs were uneventful- although I could see the massive wildfires in Fort Collins as we approached Denver.  When I left Maine it was 60 degrees and pouring rain.  As we landed in Denver it was 92 and bone dry.  I felt the moisture getting actively sucked out of my skin.  How do people live in the desert? This was enough of a shock   

I got to Ryan's house (camp director) as he was making his way home from a local race.  After chatting and dinner I got to building up my bike/ praying that it survived the plane ride.  As I unpacked everything looked great, I even got this neat postcard from the TSA telling me they "randomly" selected my luggage for a search...which was interesting because everyone else who flew hear was "randomly" selected as well.  The only scare came when I had trouble located the plastic bag that had pedals, quick release, rotor bolts, tools...you know kinda essential stuff to a bike.  I started to run through the worst case scenarios of "how did I leave that out?!?!?!"  Before I went into full blown panic mode I completely emptied the box, and low and behold the bag was there under my wheels- not even close to where I packed it.  thanks TSA.  Anyways, got most of the bike put together and finished it off the this morning with a cup of coffee by my side.  Rough way to start a morning, huh?

 After getting everything together it was off to Colorado College for the arrival of the riders.  I thought the view of the rockies from campus was great, apparently this is actually hazed over becuase of the wildfire smoke drifting down to us.  Today was mostly a check in day, riders came in throughout the morning and we planned to do a quick afternoon ride while waiting for any late stragglers.  Seems like everyone was pretty amped to get to camp because the whole camp (21 riders!) was checked in before lunch.  After lunch, we quickly changed and headed out for the first ride of the camp.

A major focus of the camp this year is racing on Saturday at the Ute Valley Pro XCT race right here in town.  As such, nothing strenuous was scheduled for today and it was a good chance to get everyone out to stretch the legs and play around on some fun local trails right here in town.  Here's where my job at camp first started to kick in- play ride leader and I nominated myself ride photographer as well.  I like these easy spinning rides- plenty of time to reach into a jersey pocket, pull your iphone out of the plastic back, take your glove off, snap a bunch of photos, and get everything put back together while still on the roll...I don't think this is one of the "skills" that is the focus of the week, but hey it comes in handy!

 As we navigated through the trails (I have no idea what they were called, but they were fun!) there were plenty of options for the group to split as we had myself, Ryan, and Kip all leading.  While nobody opted for the "hey we can do this 30 min climb and hit this crazy downhill" option, there were plenty of times where we did do little extra loops.

After the ride it was back to the dorms, dinner, and then the official introductions.  Great group so far, and they're from all over- Colorado, Utah, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire.  We went over the schedule for the week and discussed the process of getting into the USA Cycling Development track.  Even though it day one, everyone is pretty wiped, as they're all pretty excited to do well at the race on Saturday.

Tomorrow we'll head out to the course in the morning to pre-ride and session on the technical aspects that people want to figure out.  The afternoon will have skills sessions and then pre-race talks in the evening.  Well, off to drink my 14th bottle of water and try to fight jet lag and altitude (okay, its only 2 hours difference, and its only 6000 ft of elevation, but I've gotta have some excuse, right?)

Pats Peak 6 Hour Race Report

Race report is posted on the riverside team blog.  Check it out:  http://riversideteam.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/pats-peak-6-hour/

I'll be posted here through the rest of the week as  I'll be working a junior development mountain bike camp in Colorado!

-Greg