In general, I can ride outside any month of the year. I’m in southern AZ at about 5000 ft, so it is roughly 5-10 degrees cooler than Tucson and 15-20 than Phoenix in the summer. Even better is having road, gravel and mountain biking all available in the area. For the more adventurous, there are awesome bikepacking routes and the southern end of both the Arizona Trail and the Western Wildlands bikepacking routes are close by.
Bluesky is back open this year. The Evergreen bike club is running the hill climb and the Triple Bypass (Evergreen to Vail) rides in July. The Copper Triangle is also a good Colorado road ride. I had hoped to do Ride the Rockies in 2023 but getting hit by a car while training ended that plan. Sadly RTR is no more…
My hope is to do some Colorado gravel rides this fall to get some altitude training for my October trip to Ecuador ( riding part of the Trans Ecuador Mountain Bike Route). Multiple days in the 9000 ft to 13000 ft level…
I would love to visit NZ. A friend of mine is from Dunedin and still has property there. The only other person I’ve met from New Zealand was this gentleman, 35 years ago…
Frikkin’ Minions… I’ll correct that in 15 (maybe 16) minutes or so. I guess they didn’t recognize him, what with the Famous Olympian Billy Demong being in the photo!
Stage 3 photo from the mountains between Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek; accompanying my amigos who were training and acclimating for the 1986 World Road Race Championship.
Someone I grew up with from California got married to a Kiwi and moved to NZ. And someone else I know married a Kiwi and they live here in Las Vegas. Both couples have 3 kids, so I guess the exchange equals out.
One of my favorite Sufferfest workouts is Revolver. It is a go to when life is stressing me out because I know I can go hard over and over again, draining that energy.
But today’s stage 4 is Angels. It is a tribute to those Sufferlandrians we have lost throughout the years. Early in my citizenship, one such person was Dame Shelle, who we lost to suicide shortly after the 2018 ToS. Although we are a community built on ‘suffering’, I’ve learned through the years we are also built on compassion for our fellow citizens. Take a moment during Angels to remember those we have lost…
