The Planets Align... Again

Hiya peoples,

Already it is Wednesday evening here at team training camp and tomorrow is our day to head up to Phoenix in preparation for this weekends' Valley of the Sun stage race.  The race is 3 days and 3 stages, just right for this early in the season.  Friday is the Time Trial, a 14 mile pain tunnel that will hopefully take a little less than 30 minutes to complete.  Saturday is the Road Race stage, a 90 mile battle of fitness and tactical power.  Sunday is the Criterium stage, 60 minutes of fast and fun around 8 city blocks.

The team is rolling out at 11 am tomorrow and making the journey from Tucson northway to Phoenix.  About 80% of the way up we will be right next to the road race course for Saturday and will stop to ride.  After long and hard days Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, we had a shorter and easy 2.5 hour spin day today.  Tomorrow is going to be short on time and miles but have a few good "opener" efforts of high intensity so as to remind the legs and lungs of their capabilities.  After about 90 minutes of riding we will pile back into the team van and head the rest of the way to get checked and settled into our hotel for the weekend of racing.

It will be a great weekend.

In other news...

Not to get too far ahead of myself with a full schedule of road racing planned for 2011 but I am already ultra excited about the 2011/2012 Cyclocross season.  Today I accepted a gracious invitation to join the Gates Carbon Drive singlespeed cyclocross team!  The team is directed by a friend Carlos Casali and after running through some of the details of this well put together team he invited me to fill one of the few remaining slots on the squad.  It looked like I might have done some guest riding with them this past season but it didn't quite work out.  I was still super thrilled to get to hang out with all the guys on the team and now I will get to be teammates with them!  The real cherry on top for me is that I will once again get to be on a team with my good friend Garrett Davis.  He and I have been teammates on the road for the past two seasons until I was presented with the opportunity to ride for Rio Grande this year.  One of my few hesitations in moving across was leaving such a good friend.  Of course, him being a good friend, he was excited to hear about my opportunity with Rio and encouraged me on my way.
Thats what good friends are for, right?

I'm off to get my beauty sleep.

Ride on friends,

Drew