So I just moved to Boulder, CO a week ago to hook up with my new teammates from Team Rio Grande, the sweetest Mexican restaurant in the rockies and by far the best margaritas.  I guess a lot has happened over the last month transitioning from Tucson, AZ to the mile high city.  The last week in Tucson was kind of a mix, it was finally good weather in the 70s so I got my tan back :P, but I was starting to get really sick of the traffic and it seemed like there was a conspiracy to stop me at every single red light as I tried to get in or out of town!  People definitely do not like cyclists there, despite the numerous bike lanes on the amply wide roads.  I was riding just after a training TT with a friend and this car full of kids drove by us, pushing us into the gutter.  Some cars will honk or flip you the bird for no reason but this car put some real effort into it - in the back seat, one punk stuck their entire body out of each rear window and got both birds flying while chanting "f***-you" at least a dozen times.  It was very touching that anyone would put so much effort into "acknowledging" cycists ;-).

I did my first race at Valley of the Sun in Phoenix, which had a huge field - 106 in the Cat 1 race and then another 115 in the separate cat 2 race!  I figured the race suited me well with a flat 23km TT, a not too hilly RR and a crit.  Unfortunately, I've never raced before April and February is kind of mid-season for the AZ/soCal guys, so they've already done a good number of races and are in shape!  The TT went ok, but I based my model of it off of their course description of 22km, but when actually measured, it turned out to be 23.2km!  That adds a good 1:20 to the time I'd expect to finish in, and wouldn't you know, I lost by 1:16!  So at least I have some confidence in my ability to model TT performances...  It was a weird race, I started really badly as it was my first real hard effort of the year, but got better as it went on.  It's not like I started feeling easy, as I'd usually try to, I even thought I was going to blow up and go too hard.  Right before the turn around I got passed by my 30" man!  I couldn't even remember the last time I got passed in a TT and right after the turn around, I started feeling more angry than confused and picked up the pace.  I promptly passed him back and opened up over a minute on him on the way back!  Looking at my Polar data after the race, I averaged 41km/h out and 49.5km/h back!  There was a bit of a mild wind, and most people were about 1' faster back, but I was 3' faster!  I guess I'm a diesel engine or something and it just takes a while to get going - definitely doing a harder warm up next race!

The road race was 95 miles and the most incredibly windy race I've ever done.  I've never raced in Belgium or anything and upstate NY doesn't get strong winds very often, so this was a total shock to me in the crosswinds.  I kept getting wasted in the crosswinds and getting no draft so by the time we'd get to the hills, I'd have nothing left!  Once it was clear I was out of the front group, I just did it as a hard training ride with whatever chase groups I could hook up with.  We'd be practicing echelons so that next time we'd be at the front for the crosswinds and not spit out the back.  Normally the RR finishes with a big pack, but it was just little shards left this time.  It ended up being good training and I finished, which is always important...

After the race, I drove to Durango and stayed with an old friend from Cornell in Durango, my first time sleeping at altitude.  Riding in Boulder has definitely made me feel like a total weakling.  Compared to when I first got here, I've acclimated a lot but I'm still so much weaker than at sea level.  It's amazing riding here though, albeit a bit cold still - and impossible today thanks to a friendly 6" of snow!  The mountains are beautiful and it's almost always sunny, the clouds seem to get stuck in the peaks somehow, there is often a sharp border of cloud and blue sky tracing the North-South rocky frontier.

Well I'm doing some local training races this weekend, testing out a slightly different TT position and then I'm off to California for the NRC races in Fresno and Visalia.  Our real serious racing won't start until May with the Tour of the Gila, which has an absurd amount of climbing, so I need to work on that a lot!  I've been messing around with the TT position a bit too, trying to get more comfortable and aero, hopefully once the CO Springs velodrome is open I can do some real testing and see what works.
-Ryan