The Plaza! @ Santa Fe (360' click to expand!)
Training at altitude has been pretty wicked hard but the legs are coming around. Even on the easy days it has been hard to breath but that's all part of it, 7,000 ft is high! After a rest day on Thursday, we ventured up the local climb on Friday (4,000 ft) to the ski resort. If you ever visit Santa Fe, it is definitely a road that you'll need to conquer (13miles, averaging 5% with a large section at 10%). It takes about an hour to climb and is very twisty and exciting on the way down! Take an extra layer for the descent!
On Saturday we went out with a bunch of riders from the community to absolutely trash ourselves. Actually it was easier than Wednesday's "I almost got off my bike at one point" ride, with some tough combinations of 3-6 minutes ascents, twisty descents, viscous crosswinds on the way home (great echelon pacelining practice) and a flurry of pedestrians as the locals celebrated Easter with the Pilgrimage to the Church of Chimayo (For an brief but insightful article on the interesting history of this special place, see
here). We passed hundreds off people during our ride, often passing the same groups twice since we looped around the town. Our ride map is below and if you travel to Santa fe, it is also a great ride to check out.
Our last day in Santa Fe finished up with a 2hr session with both of our homestays Tove and Jerry on the motorbikes. They motorpaced Carlos, Andres and I; well we tried but the 30mph winds made it a bit difficult. Nonetheless, I got some great leg-speed out of the ride and am just stoked to be training in sunny conditions!
Below are the photos of the week, including moonrise, local downtown, scenic shots of the rides and group shots from our new TeamExergy fans; thanks again Sam for setting up this training camp.
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