Cycling Nationals

Middle: Shelley - Alisha, Kat, Lauren, Coryn, Mara, Sinead

Alisha says: The team had some amazing results at nationals in Bend, Oregon. Shelley won the crit and then Mara and Shelley pulled off the 1-2 in the road race. Coryn added another couple of national jerseys to her resume and everyone worked really hard. It is such an opportunity to be on a team with these girls!!

My personal experience at nationals left me with much to be desired as I felt as though my form was a little off or something, I'm not quite sure what it was but it wasn't the greatest week of racing for me. I competed in the time trial and the road race. My time trial was okay, I finished 18th. It was a long 35 kilometers.

I was excited for the road race as the team had a plan that we were confident in and I was ready to help out. The race was just under 70 miles on a circuit that we did four times. At the beginning of the second lap something happened a couple of riders in front of me and there was a chain reaction of brake jamming and people changing their lines. Unfortunately I ended up getting tangled up with a Colavita rider and we both went down. My right thigh took the entire impact. I jumped up and checked my bike and myself out, remounted and proceeded to chase back with the aide of the nice shot of adrenaline I had just got. I made it back in time for the Peanut Butter girls to line it up at the front and start driving the pace. I slotted in behind Mara and the team started rotating through. At the end of the second lap I knew I was in trouble. I hung on for the third lap until we hit the climb again and then I ended up in a chase group that finished a couple of minutes off the winner. I wasn't very happy about it and was so disappointed. Alas, Bend is such a fun place and we were hosted by a super cute family whose house had the most beautiful view from their deck.

The Great Outdoors

Dave says: Now that summer has finally arrived, some of Utah's best epic mtb trails are starting to open up. Yesterday I rocked Pipeline up to Crest with Chris Workman on what was definitely about the first rideable day of the year on Crest. As we approached the top portion of the trail, we had to briefly dismount several times to cross some lingering snowbanks. However, on the whole the trail was in amazing condition and it was a great 5 hours. The weekend before I did shoreline to Mueller to North Fork and had a blast. Even bobsled, which was a mess last year, is in prime condition right now.

We took the young men out for a one night camping trip to Affleck Park on Wednesday. With no serious injuries or incidents I'd say it was a success. I spoke in church last Sunday and spent most of the week studying for the bar. Alisha returns home tomorrow after two weeks of racing. Then, it's off to southern Utah for an ATV trip and the Fourth of July.

Nature Valley Grand Prix

Shelley Wins Nature Valley Grand Prix for Peanut Butter and Co. Twenty12

The Team: Tim, Olivia, Kat, Shelley, Alisha, Kristin, Mara, Emily, Coryn, Lauren, Nicola

Alisha Says: I am currently on a two week road trip. Last week was spent in Minnesota at the Nature Valley Grand Prix cycling race. It was quite the dramatic week of racing where the team had the yellow jersey, lost the yellow jersey, and regained the yellow jersey in style during the final stage. Shelley Evans is such an amazing athlete and it is so awesome being on the same team as her.

With one road race being canceled due to severe weather (we're talking tornados here) the race came down to a time trial, THREE criteriums, and one road race. The crits were fast and hard but good practice for me.

Our host housing was great and we celebrated the win with a pizza party at one of the our host's house where they had a big brick pizza oven in their back yard. It was delicious and a great way to relax before heading to Bend, Oregon for nationals!

HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!

The Heat is On

"The Heat is On" from Jim Fryer/BrakeThrough Media on Vimeo.

Dave says: You will be a fan of women's cycling after watching this video. I guarantee it! (of course, I may also be a bit biased :-)

Rain

Dave says: We've seen some really nice weather here in SLC recently. However, we've also had a few days where storms have suddenly blown in and dumped rain. The start of the week was beautiful for riding. After a few hours of bar review class in the morning, Alisha and I were out on the road bikes for the afternoon. Thursday was our off day and we have been wanting to try to visit all the nearby temples before we move so we went to the new temple in Draper. The use of stained glass and natural lighting inside is beautiful. We also stopped at In & Out Burger on the way home (another first for me).

On Friday it was cloudy when we left the house and an hour later was pouring everywhere in the valley. On Saturday, Alisha did the Powder Mountain hill climb. This has got to be the steepest canyon in all of Utah! It is a grinder and I watched as everyone wrenched their way to the top and zig zagged back and forth across the road. Alisha won and beat a good chunk of the men's pro field as well. Just after she finished it started to snow off and on at the top. My form continues to be off even though I have recovered from injury and illness and it looks like it will be a bit longer before I can pull things together to be where I need to be for racing.

We drove home through the rain but she was supposed to get in 4 hours for the day so we headed out again in the afternoon and rode in the direction that the weather looked the best. Once again, an hour later it started pouring rain. We stopped for awhile inside a bus stop to see if the rain would stop. After awhile it was still looking bad and we road to the U campus and hung out in the student union to warm up. With no end to the rain in sight, we finally gave up and headed home.

On Sunday, we once again rode in the direction that looked the least ominous and eventually broke through the clouds and into the sunshine up by Bountiful. We finally successfully dodged the rain as we rolled back into town on some wet roads after the storm had passed. We got Alisha packed up and I drove her to the airport bright and early on Monday morning. She will be gone for two weeks beginning with the Nature Valley Grand Prix in Minnesota and then Nationals in Bend, Oregon.

Flowers

Alisha Says: I love the month of June around our house because all of the flower bushes explode with the most beautiful flowers. I made a couple of flower arrangements so that I could enjoy them in the house as well.

Park Hopping

Dave says: Our original plan following Ironhorse was to head back through Salt Lake and up to Yellowstone. However, with the weather forecast calling for snow in Yellowstone and highs for the week in the mid 40s, we decided to switch up our adventure. Our new itinerary took us through five national parks in five days and it turned out to be a great trip.

Our first stop was Mesa Verde which was only a short drive from Durango. We began with a tour of Balcony House which involved climbing a 35 foot ladder into an alcove and crawling through several tiny passageways to traverse this unique structure built right into the rock nearly 1,000 years ago. Next up was Cliff Palace, the biggest of the cliff dwellings. Finally, we visited Spruce Tree House where we were able to go into one of the kivas and see a lot of very well preserved rooms. It was a pleasant day at the park with few visitors and great weather. We stayed at the park until sunset before heading into Cortez to find a cheap motel.

The next day we headed to Moab to see Arches. We began our visit with a hike out to Delicate Arch and for me this was the most impressive thing that I saw on the entire trip. You come around a corner into a natural amphitheater and it is right there on the edge of the cliff sticking up out of the sandstone. Although the entire week was supposed to be a mid season rest week for Alisha, we took several more hikes to see Double Arch, Landscape Arch, and several of the other famous sights. We rolled back into Moab for some Thai curry before crashing at the Lazy Lizard Hostel. We scored a log cabin that looked like a tuff shed for $30 a night.

Day 3 was a trip out to Canyonlands. This park doesn't have a single big sight like many other national parks do and as a result it was a bit more quiet and off the beaten path. We admired the views from Dead Horse Point and I spotted a dirt road coming off the cliffs in Canyonlands leading down into the canyon below. The map at the visitors center said that it was for 4x4s only but I was feeling a little left out not having an off road vehicle in Moab, the 4x4 capital of the world, so I asked a ranger about the road. He said it was in good condition although a 2 wheel drive car had gotten high centered on it a week ago. Nevertheless, I decided that we were going to give it a shot despite a bit of nervousness from Alisha. After a brief trip out to Grand View Point where we arrived just in time to hear a ranger talk on the geology of the park, I turned the Ford Focus onto the dirt road and we headed down a steep trail onto the White Rim and then down to the river below. Despite seeing only Jeeps on the trail, we barely even scraped bottom and I got my fix of off roading for the trip.

We spent the night in Cedar City and the next day I planned an adventure with my dad and Katie into Zion. On the advice of a friend of my dad's, we took a route that bushwacked along one of the creeks in Kolob which offered some great scenery and rock scrambling. Katie was trooper and went over all sorts of terrain the entire day without a problem. We also had a fun time visiting with Alisha's family and seeing Brody. He showed me his newly acquired skills on the tricycle and is a lot of fun as always.

The final leg of our trip took us over to Great Basin National Park. However, before leaving town I dusted off my parents' 4 wheeler and took Alisha on a spin out through the dirt roads to the land that my parents own just like I used to do when we were dating in high school. The drive to Great Basin took us through all sorts of unique little Utah towns that we had never been through and there would be long stretches of time where we wouldn't see another car on the road. We camped in the park at around 8,000 feet but the road out of the campground took us partway up Wheeler Peak and into the snow in only a few minutes. I cooked us an extremely deluxe dinner of canned pot roast and a loaf of bread from Great Harvest and we went to a ranger program on big horned sheep before calling it a night. In the morning we toured Lehman Caves which is quite an impressive cavern in the park before heading back to SLC. It was a fun little trip that made me realize how many cool things there are to do in a day's drive from our house.

Ironhorse

Dave says: Since graduation I've ironically been spending more time up at the law school than I was during the semester taking the BarBri course to prepare for taking the Utah Bar at the end of July. However, when Memorial Day weekend rolled around, it was time to head back to the charming town of Durango, CO for the Ironhorse Bicycle Classic. We come not only for the racing but also for the ambiance as I love this area of Colorado.

Our plans for an early start were foiled by some squeaky pulley bearings in the Ford Focus and we rolled into Durango about an hour before sunset. Upon arrival we discovered that our hotel had down the wrong credit card information and had given away our reservations. Fortunately, there was a cancellation down the street at the Ramada Inn and the friendly staff felt sorry for us and even gave us a bit of a discount. It was pretty fancy compared to the usual Motel 6 or worse style accommodations that I usually find us. We had waffles for breakfast but still made our own spaghetti in the room at night.

The weather for the road race was outstanding and riding up over the top of Coal Bank and Molas I couldn't help but marvel at how much fun I was having despite the suckiness of my riding. Alisha, on the other hand, threw down a solid third place finish behind her teammate Mara and Marissa Asplund making the same top 3 for two years in a row. Last year we needed every warm bit of clothing we had in Silverton but this year I was the only one sporting a beanie around town.

On Sunday, I took a pleasant morning ride up Wildcat Canyon. Alisha's crit was in the afternoon and the Canadian National Champ took a long solo off the front to win. On Monday, Alisha finished second in the time trial and took third overall in the omnium.