Day 1 – Shootout

“This is a disaster.”

Four of us stood on the side of the road, a fatal mechanical marking an early end to today’s ride for one of my new (and old) teammates, Henry. As we struggled to come up with ideas on how to get Henry home, we were buffeted by the chilling 30+ mph winds roaring down from Madera Canyon.

Henry’s bike wasn’t completely broken, he just couldn’t pedal. So with a strong tailwind and long, gradual descent, we pushed and hand-slung Henry halfway back to Tucson. 25 miles later, we no longer had a tailwind, and the decision was made: Henry would have to wait. Thankfully, one of our other teammates was available to pick him up. A couple hours later, we were all reunited at the team house.

How was the actual ride? Nothing like 107 miles and a 25-minute power test to open up Team Camp…

In all seriousness, Day 1 was awesome. Between the unplanned team-bonding and immense levels of suffering, I couldn’t have asked for a better first day. But that wasn’t even the end of it. After a hearty lunch of eggs, toast, avocadoes and various CLIF products, we piled into the team van and drove up Mount Lemmon to meet Snowy Mountain Photography, our official photographers for the duration of Team Camp and a number of races this season. In just a few days, they snapped some of the best pictures of cyclists that I’ve ever seen. (Cyclists are a weird-looking bunch, so getting a good picture is much harder than you’d think).

PC: SnowyMountain Photography

A headshot so good that I’m not embarrassed to post it.

Day 2 – Kitt Peak

From 9:30 to noon we did a coffee ride – scratch the ‘ride’ portion. We drove over to the Mercado (I hope I spelled it right), a cool hangout in downtown Tucson that, shockingly, I’d only been to once in the two months I’ve been here. We sipped Presta coffee and ate uber-cheap pastries as Snowy Mountain snapped more photos of us in our Project Echelon kits.

Once it finally started to warm up, we made our way back to the van and readied our bikes: another 105 miles on-tap with an hour-long climb right in the middle. Fun.

We were rolling fast on the way out, two-by-two into a ripping cross-headwind. We stopped a few times, including at an ‘abandoned’ gas station to take more photos; turns out it wasn’t abandoned, it just old and dusty. 45 miles after the Mercado, we turned left onto Kitt Peak – a 9.3-mile climb averaging 6%. We didn’t make it clear beforehand whether we were going to race up the climb or not. But when you put 9 closely-matched bike racers on an hour-long climb in the middle of Team Camp…it’s impossible for them not to race.

Twenty minutes in to the climb and half the team was gone. I almost wanted to drop off myself, so that I could ride my own pace and ‘enjoy’ the climb that I was so horribly suffering on right now. But I clung to Matt’s wheel, who was the strongest on the day. The roaring headwind nearly stopped us on the way up (despite us pushing 350+ W), but the views… oh my god the views. You could see for 200 miles, all the way to Mexico. We had only been climbing for 30 minutes, but already it felt like we were on top of the world.

Matt accelerates. Oh god this is going to hurt. Go harder. Get back on Matt’s wheel. Back to chewing my stem.

A few miles from the top, Matt put in a huge dig and dropped me. We were riding over 6,000 feet now, and we all felt it. As we climbed, our power dropped and our heart rates rose – but what I felt most was the cold. I quickly went inside the Observatory at the top of the climb, trying to stay warm while also munching on a snack and refilling my water bottles. But five minutes down the descent, despite my base layer, gloves, and arm warmers, I was shaking. I was trying to stay focused, but like most of the other guys, I suffered as much on the descent as I did on the climb. We were frozen. And then, just before we hit the bottom of the descent, another catastrophic mechanical. This time it was Tim, who was lucky enough to get a ride back to Tucson from a friendly pick-up truck.

We cyclists are forever grateful for any and all of you who have ever given us a ride, helped us up after a crash, or offered us a piece of plastic to stuff down our jersey to stay warm (yes, all of those have happened to me).

The 45 miles back to Tucson took less than two hours. We were flying (apart from the occasional mechanical), and made it back just before dark. We all downed massive burritos and tortas from Sei’sinside the Mercado before making our way home.

We may or may not have eaten ‘second dinner’ back at the team house…

Day 3 – Presta Coffee Ride

No mountains, no racing, and no ‘5,000 kJs burned’ today; only coffee, pastries, and easy pedaling. We met up with a number of veterans and local riders at Sabino Cycles, before making our way to the bike path and chatting our way to Presta Coffee about 10 miles away. It was cold – like 30-some degrees cold – but the conversation made the ride go flying by.

Speaking of flying, we visited the Pima Air & Space Museum in the afternoon. It was an amazing experience. The SR-71 was the biggest hit, but my favorite was the Hoppicopter.

Back at the house, it was time to rest. Tomorrow was going to be hard…

Day 4 – Team Race Ride

“Wait, what are the teams again?”

We must’ve heard this questions at least 17 times before we started the first “race”, a 5v4 with two up the road, one from each team. The two off the front started with a one-minute gap, and the finish line was the top of Pistol Hill. The run-in is one of my favorite sections of road in all of Tucson: Old Spanish Trail climbs slowly but steadily at 1-3% all the way to the bottom of Pistol Hill. From there, you turn right onto the climb and it’s about a two to two-and-a-half minute effort to the top. It’s not steep, averaging 5% and peaking at just about 8%, but at the end of a 20-minute effort, anything is hard.

We did two team races, and came away with some of the most valuable learning experiences that you could ever ask for. There were lots of attacks, confusion, frustration, and of course, failures of communication. But that’s what Team Camp is for. Better now than in our first race… We talked it out, got everyone on the same page, and were all laughing just a few minutes later after an insanely-fast and somewhat-chaotic sprint lead-out. On a gradual downhill with a ripping tailwind, we averaged over 40 mph for almost 9 minutes. We couldn’t pedal any faster and all of us were hurting, but no one was complaining. Everyone went all-out all the way to the (imaginary) finish line, where Tim took the hotly-contested sprint. To finish off the day, five of us rode over to Mount Lemmon for a little extra credit before descending all the way back home.

A hard day on the bike calls for some food, a lot of food.

“How about all-you-can-eat sushi?”

“You had me at all-you-can-eat.”

Over at Sushi Ten, we devoured at least 60 rolls between the nine of us. I’m not sure who “won” – maybe Henry – but I was the King of Wasabi. I got some very concerned looks as I shoveled mounds of the green stuff into my mouth. Always on top of a piece of sushi though; I’m not a psychopath.

With thousands of calories of fish and rice in our stomachs, we waddled back to the team van and headed over to Lucky Strike Bowling. None of us are bowling pros, but we’re certainly competitive. We only bet on the second game – “same teams as this morning; loser makes breakfast” – which meant that there were a lot of sore arms, trick shots, and left-handed attempts during Game #3. No better team-bonding than stuffing your face with sushi and then competing in a sport definitely not meant for cyclists.

Day 5 – Packing and a Change of Plans

The original plan was to drive to Phoenix today – that changed when we saw the forecast for the next day: 100% chance of rain. Staying in Tucson for the night meant that we could stay dry for a ride in the morning, an opportunity that we were not about to pass up.

As we neared Valley of the Sun, our training rides became more individual. I headed out for a couple hours on the TT bike, dialing in the position one last time before the 14-mile test on Friday. Most of the team rode over to the Mercado for more coffee and pastries before hitting up the Tucson Strength gym on the way back. There, they practiced strength and activation exercises, tried out new recovery techniques, and sample some fancy equipment such as an infrared sauna.

The highlight of the day came in the evening, sitting around the bonfire. We had a little team meeting, but then spent the better part of an hour just talking. In just five days, we’ve experienced so much together. The good, the bad, and the ugly – we’ve suffered together, won together, and pushed through the pain together. We’ve failed (miserably) a few times, but we’ve gotten better because of it. We’ve learned from our mistakes, and we took those lessons straight to the Valley of the Sun Stage Race.

VoS was our first big test of the season: a 14-mile time trial on Friday, 95-mile road race on Saturday, and 60-minute crit on Sunday. Stay tuned for the full race report, coming this week!

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