Sunday, February 25, 2007
Training Camp
For our 2007 team training camp, we decided to follow with our tradition of hosting the camp in various locations so that not only can we keep the terrain fresh, but we can also began our year on the road by doing just that, getting on the road. This year, we chose to hold our camp in Chattanooga, TN, not far from one of our main sponsor's headquarters; .
With it's close vicinity to Atlanta, most of us were able to arrive early Saturday morning, already polishing the moves on our season long dances of mitigating our risk both in and out of the home! In a show of hopeful good fortune, the vast majority of us were lucky to escape major crash on I-75. There is a perfect example to prove the point of an off-site training camp. Had this been the middle of the season, it's very possible that some of us might not have gotten our toe on the lines. Moral of the story here is simple, when it involves travel for cycling, make sure and leave work early on Friday...before the rush hour traffic builds up. It is direly important that our priorities stay aligned.
Tyler, our team work horse, cheerleader and endless source of unbridled energy was kind enough to carry along quite a few of 2007 team goodies such as gear bags, team shirts and the like. Equally, if not more importantly, Joel brought representation from one of our newest sponsor's for the year; (including the venerable 8.5% IPA). Last but not least, our faithful Tres brought along with him the bulk of our of shining new , already built! - so the weekend was set, despite our best intentions to rummage through the gear bags and drink the Woodstock beers, it was most certainly time to ride.
Chattanooga is very well known as a great riding destination in the Southeast, and were lucky enough to have Tres as a local, who worked as our guide and route planner.
In attendance were Tres, Russ, Tyler, Ben, Andrew, Joel, Thomas, Ried, Charles, Darren, Chad and Kip. A perfect opportunity to mix our strong group of returning riders along with some of the incredible new signings that we took on over the winter.
Very unfortunately, our team captain and driving force,Chris Chotas, was not able to join us due to a broken leg suffered the week prior at a training race. A subtle reminder of the possibilities of the fast approaching season.
We started with an epic descent of Lookout Mountain, followed by a never ending supply of fantastic rolling valley roads. The first major climb essentially set the tone for the weekend, which in short was; Tyler goes early, Reid bridges up to Tyler with Russ, Thomas Turner and Darren clinging to his wheel tow, Thomas decides to stretch his legs and float up the last third of every climb "claiming to have a 150bpm heart rate" while the rest of us were nervously and repeated telling ourselves "it's only February...it's only February".
Many of the climbs that we covered will be on this year's Tour De Georgia parcours, and some of them had patches with gradients of 15% or more. Plenty difficult to walk, let alone ride. The 5+ hr day left the lot of us with empty stomachs and a fierce thirst for beer. In a divine twist of fate, our chosen restaurant was BYOB. For those of you that can't put those two together in the same sentence, come on down to the South and let us take you out for an evening.
After losing Charles for about a half hour or so (a half hour that is still not yet accounted for with any form of a passable reason), we headed on to Sunday for some more of what Chattanooga had to offer. Another veritable bevy of beautiful quiet roads, epic climbs and very rewarding and well earned descents.
Some solid riding help set the tone for the rest of the season. All lights are green, and it looks like we'll be on our way to having another very successful weekend if the Training camp was a teller of any possible future.
Thanks for reading, and we'll see you on the road.
Christian Leask
11:08 PM |
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