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?)