Just been riding.....

Riding has been awesome with this group they are very strong and excited to be out of the snow for a while. We started with the big square and Gates Pass on Sunday 80+, then yesterday was Colossal Cave and back on Old Nogales 80+, then today we went out to Madera Canyon, it was awesomely steep. I never made it to the top before because I added it onto the Shoot out and they always turn around before I make it, so it was nice and cool at the top with some snow and ice on the ground. I took the group through U of A at the end with almost 100 miles today. Tomorrow Kitt Peak, with over 100 miles, I am excited because I have never made it to the top of this climb either so it should be fun and brutal. Getting lots of base miles in before Kevin's family gets here on New years and we drive to Mexico for a week, Margarita's and beach time. The weather here is amazing it hit almost 80 degrees today.

Spring and I hooked up with the Air Force and Army cycling team for a 5 hour ride today, they're in town all week for a training camp. All the cyclist are cadets at either the Air Force Academy, West Point or the Naval Academy. The weather has cleared up just in time for some great riding, cold but clear. We'll be putting in lots of hours this week.

It was good to met Saul Raisin today, he's in town with the team all week for the training camp. He was an up and coming young american pro racing in Europe for Credit Agricole a few years ago when he suffered a horrible crash and almost didn't survive. He was forced to cut his pro racing career short but has made an amazing recovery, he's definitely an inspiration. Check out his website at www.raisinhope.ning.com.

Most excellent hike today with lots of good people, Tucson is looking beautiful with snow covered mountains in all directions.

Sweet view from the top of Ventana Canyon with Mt. Wrightson in the background.

Jesse and Steve at the mid hike lunch.

Classic Tildo

Christmas Cupcake food fight!
Of course Kevin got me the worse, I am still blowing icing out my nose! Hope your having a wonderful day!

Merry Christmas from Tucson!

Bug Springs Trail

Kevin and I rode Bug Springs Trail today for the first time. We parked at the base of Mt Lemmon and rode up the road to Malino Basin and took the trail up to Prison Camp and then dropped out on the road again to around the 11 mile mark where you hit the trailhead. It is so steep at first you have to hike up the first part and then it is all down hill from there. It was so fun, and such a variation in scenery, pines, rock, cactus, this trail has it all. We even saw a little snow on the ground where it had not melted from the other day where we got snow down to around 5000ft. Sunday is the mecha for riders, we saw so many people going up the mountain, Kevin had a hard time going easy when people would pass.

I got to hang out with some cool women at a cookie bake off party. Three of them just recently started to ride bikes, so we talked about training and bikes the whole time. It was fun, and just an excuse to eat lots of sweets and drink wine. I made Gooey Pumpkin butter bread, Kevin said it is his new favorite, look it up on food network, it is really easy and Yummy.

Star Pass Night Ride

Kevin and I went out for our first night ride in a long time, due to the rain in the morning. The conditions were perfect after the rain, we ended up riding 4 hours. We have been riding alot together which is pretty sweet having a riding partner. We ran into Joe on the trail. We have a big weekend of riding planned with Sat 4 hours out to Saddlebrooke and then Sun 4 hours up Mt Lemmon over Malino Basin to AZ trail and then down Reddington. We are not even training for anything just having fun riding in great weather.

A few weeks ago I ran across this website http://www.rockyroad5050.wordpress.com/ and I had heard about it from a few friends. Its a low key endurance race/ride series that's free to enter and it uses some of the sweetest trails in AZ. We checked our work schedules and to our surprise we were both off, this hasn't been the case lately. We loaded up the truck and headed down, we were really excited because we hadn't been camping for a while. The weekend ended up being awesome, we met lots of new people and got to hang with some friends we hadn't seen for a while. I realized how out of shape I am but I'm just happy to be back on the bike consistantly after dealing with an injury. I finished up this semester last Tuesday so I've got about a five week break from school, the plan is to put in alot of miles and enjoy this wintertime tucson weather. It's tough to do but somebody's got to do it. We're getting excited about the family visit and the trip to Mexico!

I got to hang with John Benson and Jason Tullous, it reminded me of the good ole racing days.

Sunset on our way to Kentucky Camp.

They're taking over!!!

Fantasy Island and Kentucky Camp

I took Heather and Louise out around Lone Cactus for thier first time, it was so much fun, only one small crash with Louise trying the Shaft on a Hybrid, amazing. I love riding with new riders to the sport, you feel all thier excitement when they do something. Kevin and I are headed out to Kentucky camp to do a nite of relaxing and then ride a 35 mile loop in the morning with some friends, not sure if we will do the two loops for 70 miles or not, depends how we feel. Should be lots of fun!

Ventana Canyon Hike with people from my work.

Spring and I had talked about getting a hummingbird feeder but had heard they all migrate south for the winter. Spring went ahead and bought one last week and I made fun of her saying they're all in Mexico. We had our first visitor sighting today, looks like we have winter hummingbirds in the Old Pueblo.