Climb Time

Getting some early season training done in the Smokies

Last weekend, I packed up the Jeep and drove through the snow to get down to Tennessee for a skills training camp.  It was for days of riding in the mountains, working on cycling skills, making new friends and representing the CER team and our sponsors.  

The skills camp was hosted by Rob Grissom of Positive Performance Coaching out of our neighboring state of Kentucky.  Quick plug here, then I will move on.  If you are wanting to take your training to the next level by hiring a coach, or just have questions about cycling, nutrition or structured training plans, give these guys a look. I highly recommend them! (Can you say 28% increase in FTP over just a few months?)

Now back to your regularly scheduled program....

So I packed up my CER gear, strapped on my new Vittoria Rubino Pro Tech tires, and freshly wrapped my bars in some 3T bar taped. Yeah, I was looking good!  

I pulled up to a cabin on the side of a mountain in Townsend Tennessee and shook hands with some of the guys that have beat me there.  It was a beautiful day and we were all itching to get some saddle time.  Once we got into the cabin and started picking beds for ourselves we discovered that we were not alone in this quiet, mountain side chateau....some one...or some THING had claimed one of the beds, with what was either fun size Twix bars.....or something else. But that is a story for another day! Right. Bikes. That's what we are all here for.

The picture above was taken on our stop during the the kickoff/warmup ride.  Here we discussed pace lines, drafting and communication to get us all on the same page.

Nailed it!

 As you can see, pace line accomplished.  

This is the entire group (minus the amazing camera man) on our second day of cycling as we made our way through a national park. There was a little more climbing here than on the first day, but the real fun was yet to come.

The second day was another beautiful day for riding, with just a bit of wind and plenty of sunshine.  (For those of you in WV reading this, "sunshine" is a term used to describe light coming of of that bright thing in the sky that we saw for a couple days a few weeks back.  It is my understanding that it will return at some point.)

Have I mentioned how awesome our kits look? Well, they look awesome, and if you can peel your eyes away from my jersey, you will see a creek.  At times during this ride, that creek became a river with rapids.  This was the beginning of our fantastic 20+ mile climb to the top of Clingmans Dome!

The Clingmans Dome climb took us from 1480 feet to 6640 feet in just over 20 miles.  It was a heck of a climb!  But don't let those flat landers from Kentucky fool you!  Those guys can climb too! 

Here I am (in my aforementioned awesome kit) with a new friend of mine, Anthony Young.  This picture was taken about 7 miles from the top of the climb at a little scenic park that is situated right before the gate that closed the last part of the climb to vehicular traffic!  Seeing as how "almost the top" is not "THE TOP" a majority of us ducked the gate and continued our quest upward.

Some of the guys had some tire issues due to road salt and cinders on the ride, but not this guy!  Because I was sporting some fantastically tough tires...by Vittoria (insert jingle here).

Now this, my friends! This was THE TOP! At which point I threw my bike from the tower to protect it from the hippie seen here in the bottom left hand corner. 

Ok, so I didn't throw my bike, but I am still pretty sure that guy in the corner is a hippie.

So, that is my story, the PG version any way, and I am sticking to it! (Buy me a beer and I will tell you the uncensored version)

Long story short, I had a great time at this skills camp and I look forward to doing more.  I am honored to have had the opportunity to represent CER and our sponsors, and I am grateful to my coach for the lessons learned and the mountains climbed! Here is to a great season of racing for CER!