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!