Some things do not change

It has been almost a year since we completed the cross country trip and as the current group bikes their last week the memories all come back and bring a smile to my face. I have thought about the experience and come up with this analogy:

Tracy provided the blank canvas, paint and paint brush and it was up to us to paint whatever picture we wanted during our trip.

Also, bringing a smile to my face is that the more things change, some things do not. Last year, the Lakers won the NBA championship and they won again this year.

I seem to be getting in better biking shape as well. I continue to bike around 200 miles a week (mostly on the weekends) trying to push myself by increasing my cadence on weekdays and trying to bike uphill as much as I can on weekends. The June gloom (overcast in the morning) has made the temperatures a little below the season average which has aided my training.

Up to 4,000 miles biked this year which is well on my way to my goal of 6,000 for the year. Each pedal stroke bringing as much enjoyment as the next.

Meetings

This week I met up with Willie. It turns out he took a job that has offices close to where he lives back east, with offices 5 miles from where I live.

We discussed with fond memories all of the persons from XC09 last year. We wondered if the experiences we had last year could be repeated or our memory made them that much better. Hopefully, it is the former and not the later.

Harry asked all of the Daltons to watch the England - U.S. soccer match. From what I understand about the game I think I could have stopped that ball from going into the goal. Interestingly, Harry has not emailed after the results of that game. Crying over spilled bud light.

This week, Alex and Karen got together to do some bike training up near where Alec lives.

My TOC

On Friday, I attempted a 15 percent grade climb which finished off my bike trip to work. After about 20 minutes and about 1.5 miles I was successful in reaching the top without stopping. That was my version of the Missouri rollers.

For reasons that will become clearer in a month or so, I have been biking between 90 - 100 miles each Saturday. I have tried to focus on climbing and elevation gain . Today I have seen that results of that training as I tackled Latigo Canyon for the third time and after struggling the first two times I felt pretty good.

I met someone who had biked 114 miles and 12,000 feet of elevation in 1 day and I asked him how he trained for it. He told me the key was repeats. Climb up, bike down, Climb up again. With that in mind I went to the Tour of California course and after biking down I turned around and biked back up. Some of the chalk markings were still there from a few weeks ago (Go George, Go Lance (must have been someone who was optimistic that he was going to recover ) and Floyd Sucks.

With the sun out and the expected temperatures headed in the 90's today it was a good training day. For the first time this year, no long sleeve jerseys.

I leave you with a picture of the Brit on his new form of bike transportation.