My daily view is pretty sweet!

Hawk Hill Marin County

Beautiful day enjoying the sun and hills in Marin County in view of San Francisco with David Greenblatt.

Lunch Ride Dedication

This picture doesn’t do it justice for how messed up the group looked after today’s lunch ride.

Kinda Hilly Ride!

Our last day of riding in the Greenville area was a doozy - check the picture of the map profile!  Grades up to 18% on the first climb, and it was relentless (about 30-40 minutes worth of climbing), and then average gradients of about 12% on the other climbs!  All-in-all a great week of riding in SC.  Now back to the snow and cold!  :(

Trek Factory Tour on Bike Rumor

A great 3-part article from Bike Rumor's tour of the Trek Factory.  Many TMT rider who work for Trek haven't even seen all these places in the factory first-hand.

http://www.bikerumor.com/2013/03/11/factory-tour-trek-bicycle-companys-waterloo-headquarters-part-1/

http://www.bikerumor.com/2013/03/12/trek-factory-tour-part-2-prototyping-testing-and-product-development/

http://www.bikerumor.com/2013/03/13/trek-factory-tour-part-3-us-based-oclv-carbon-bike-production/

Enjoy!
Curtis Bice

Greenville Training Camp Pit Stop

The one problem with doing a training camp somewhere with nice weather (and after a long snowy winter back home) is that you want to ride long and hard every day - good thing Coach Gordy is along to make sure we actually take a recovery day (although not entirely off the bike!). Here we are parked at the local coffee shop for some good recovery java!

Another glorious day of wondering why I didn't train harder during the winter - Jim Merrifield

The sun is shining. The birds are chirping. There is no snow on the ground. And Barney and the boys are plotting my demise. Oh, it's not directed at me, personally but the effect will be the same. I will ride a wheel for all I am worth, saving my meager climbing reserves for "the stinger", wherever and whatever it turns out to be. We - Barney, Eric, Gordie, Diane, Arietta, Shirley, Glen, Kari, Jeff, Amber and myself - are a little north of Travelers Rest in South Carolina for spring training. In years past, we have been in Solvang but opted for a change this time. We are still in "exploration" mode - searching out routes that will keep us away from traffic and giving us the right mix of terrain for the day. Unlike Solvang, where we had the routes wired, we are frequently surprised. We had a great route figured out for yesterday only to run into a closed gate a few miles from the start - the planned route took us thru a gated community, much to our surprise. On to plan B! And for all the training over the winter time, I am right around the bottom of the food chain. And, yes the terrain is challenging. The first day riding as a group, we went up Howard Gap. I think Eric described it as 15 - 20 minutes at 12%. I think I expanded the description a few minutes. I was lovin' my compact crank with the 28 in the back (planned on using a 26 on this trip but the 28 was on from cross season - and I am keepin' it on!) for the first half of the climb, spinning nicely when my endurance (or rather, the lack thereof) caught up to me and I had to do the weave a few times. Oh and there goes Eric, climbing out of the saddle and out of sight. Damn! I remember being that young but not that strong :(
Last night, the talk was of doing Hincapie's Gran Fondo. The 77 miles sounded OK (kinda) but the major "stinger" was slated to be a climb much longer and steeper than Howards Gap. Would I attempt it? Or Go straight to the second climb - Howards Gap - and save some energy for the 3rd climb, another Howards Gap kinda climb from the route description. Now there is a rethinking of the route. Maybe here, maybe there. Decisions, decisions. Me? I am gonna follow the wheels and try to find some climb when the climbing starts and try to keep my bearings, just in case. And now it is time to try to put some magic in my water bottles and hope the previous day's ride prepared me for today instead of hosed me.

Greenville Training Camp

Glad to hear the weather is crappy back home, makes it that much nicer for the ten of us riding in Greenville, SC this week - sunny and temps in the 60s! We rented a house (see pics) down the block from George Hincapie's La Bastide bed and breakfast - have not seen George yet though!

The riding has been great so far, with lots of long and steep climbing. I am sure we will post some more details as the week progresses.

Old Hwy 101, "Ragged Ass Hill"

The best advice we've gotten so far was to take old hyw 101 out of Nickel Creek campground near Crescent City, CA, instead of the new hwy 101. It lived upto its nick-name "Ragged Ass Hill" (the Garmins were set to "no auto stop"). We generated enough heat to strip down to our TMT kit, despite the cool NorCal temp.'s.