Ventura Highway

Greetings everyone from sunny California! Flew in on Mon, and I get back to Madison late Fri night. First things first...here's a brief report about the WORS race from Sun.

It was hot. Freaking hot. You know it is hot when you pull up to the race site and there is an ambulance arriving on the scene to aid riders from the Sport race. Crazy, I guess it was around 97 degrees or so. Perfect for a 20mile mtb race! I decided to take it easy on the first of three laps (I didn't want to burn out later in the race...or die), and I wasn't feeling too good on the second lap. The last lap I felt amazing though, the legs were full of energy and I was passing people left and right. I didn't get passed once the entire last lap, so needless to say I was happy that I took it easy the first lap. It was a very tight race, as I finished in 12th place in my age group (51st overall) out of 112 riders, but I was only a little over 3min back from the winner. So my placing sucked, but I am happy with the time gap being that in the first race I was 7min back from the winner. Progress. :)

Upon arriving in Cali, I found out that the dealer that was supposed to give me a bike to ride sold it over the weekend. I was pretty bummed out, but thankfully the nice guys over at Sundance Cycles hooked me up with a ride. And a SWEET one at that, a Serotta Coeur d' Acier (steel/carbon). Decked out with Ultegra and Ksyrium wheels. Very nice:
While on a ride near Ventura I saw this crazy cloud formation over the Santa Monica mountains. Looks like a volcano explosion or something:

I went for a ride in Thousand Oaks (where my hotel is) and found a STEEP climb up into an high-class residential area. I was in my easiest gear and could barely turn the pedals over. It was only around a mile or so long, but it hurt. My arms hurt as well from holding the brake levers so hard...never had that happen before. My only reward was the view at the top:
Today I went on a ride with a couple of guys from Sundance. They took me on a nice 30mile ride with some crazy climbs and descents. One of the climbs, called Rockstore, is 2.3 miles long with an average gradient of over 7% (so, about as steep as Alpe d' Huez...but about 7 miles shorter...ouch!). Myself and one other rider decided to push the pace up it and we did it in just under 14min. It felt like it would never end...I can only imagine what the mountains in France will feel like. Crazy. The descent was fun though, as we were pushing 45mph on the twisty road. Here's a page from the Sundance website that lists all the area climbs and their distance/gradients. Kind of interesting.

I have two more dealer visits tomorrow and one more on Fri morning, then it's back to WI. My last visit tomorrow is in Santa Barbara, so I plan on getting in a nice ride there as well. I will take some pics, and if any look decent I will post them.

I miss little Heather and Vontoux. Here they are sleeping and looking cute:
Oh yeah, the 9.9 performed well in it's first race. Stiff in the BB area, but nice and compliant in the rear triangle. Good stuff. That new Fox fork rules too. And I'm out!