Spring Break

Dave says: Spring break was a lot of fun and was way too busy to be considered a break of any type. With beautiful weather, I spent all of Monday on the road and mtb with Kurt and Tyler. On Tuesday, I taught my high school class about mediation and negotiation using one of my favorite clips from the TV show "The Office".

On Wednesday, I headed to Switzerland. Just kidding, I headed to a Swiss-styled resort called Zermatt in Midway, Utah (less than an hour away) for a conference with the Western Academy of Management. The conference had a friendly and informal feeling to it and I learned a lot from other students and faculty. I also had one of the top five fanciest dinners of my life at the resort.

Then, Alisha and I headed over to Grand Junction, Colorado for the weekend where we competed in a hill climb, crit, and road race. The hill climb was an epic trip up a winding cliff side road up onto one of the mesas in the national monument. Alisha's hill climbing is unbelievable as she almost beat me and threw down the best women's time of the day by over a minute.

Probably on of the best things that I can say about the crit is that we both came through unscathed. It was on a go kart track with lots of hairpin turns that caused crashes in every race. To make matters more exciting, my group raced in the dark under the lights.

Finally, the road race had enough hills to make things exciting. A small break went off the front early and I soon found myself in a group of a dozen riders that had split off the main field of fourty-ish and was trying to haul it back. Seventy two miles later, we had pulled back all but two riders and had lost most of our own group. I had a pretty good sprint at the end and took fifth.

The wind was really blowing by the time Alisha raced. On the last hill, she busted a sweet move and drilled it solo for another ten miles to the finish for the victory. On the whole, it was a fun weekend as we hung out with Alex, Brian, and Parker from the U Cycling Team and enjoyed some sunny racing.

Rampage

Dave says: It was finally time for some sweet mtb action at the ICup's first race of the season in St. George. I drove down on Friday night through a blizzard with Taylor, Mary, and Trevor. However, on Saturday morning it was perfect conditions for racing and a stacked field of 28 pros was ready to bring the heat.

It was no surprise that Utah's three fastest riders absolutely shredded this course. However, I was pleasantly surprised to have been able to hang with them during the first lap. With these guys setting tempo, the field was blown to bits within a half mile. Then, it was up to Bart Gillespie to stamp his authority on the race with another win marking several years in a row for him. However, he had some competition as he had to out-sprint Junior National Team member Rob Squire (who cracked me with his fast uphill accelerations on the second lap). In third was Alex Grant who after winning the overall series last year is now the man to beat in 2009. Finally, I was no match for Travis Brown who caught me at the start of the third lap because he can still ride downhills like an Olympian.

Fifth felt pretty sweet and I was much faster than last year. The new bike was dialed in and rode great. We spent the night at Coral Canyon and shredded some trails (Goulds/Jem/Canal) the next day before driving home. The Kuhl/Scott team has a lot of talent this year and I think everyone had a lot of fun.

Sunny Southern Nevada

Alisha says: Last weekend Dave and I kicked off road race season at the Callville Bay Classic. It was a three stage, two day event in the Lake Mead recreational area. My favorite stage was the TT prologue. It was 4 mile climb and I finished 30 seconds faster than the rest of the women 1-3 field (Dave adds: and only 9 seconds behind me and my time was good!).

I lost my 30 seconds plus another 12 minutes in the road race later that afternoon. They raced us with the men cat 4's which was okay until some of the stronger men busted a move on a descent and I was dropped only to ride the last 35 miles all by myself, but a couple of the women were able to hang with them. I finished fourth. The crit was really fun with everyone staying together so it didn't change anything in the general classification. I was happy with my 4th place GC finish and a sun tan on my arms and legs.

Dave says: It was nice to get some race miles in the legs and I raced 3's with Kurt and Tyler who have been training in Texas and are crazy-fast for this time of year. Kurt won the TT and Tyler and I tried to get a break going in the RR. Eventually, a break did go off and we were in it, only this was a very fast break that eventually cracked us and gave a 3 minute advantage to the four who survived. The crit had a little hill in it which made for a good time and I was able to finish 6th and win a prime along the way.

We stayed with Alisha's Aunt Lorrie and Uncle Robert who fed us some awesome meals and we made the entire trip without having to buy food. On the way back, we spent an extra day in St George and did some riding before driving back to SLC and arriving only minutes before my evening class started.

26

Dave says: Sunny and 50 degrees made for a great birthday weekend. Alisha made me french toast this morning, my favorite curry dish for dinner, and even a chocolate cake. Plus, the final stage of the Tour of California was on and I got to watch some of the world's finest tackle one of California's toughest climbs. Yesterday's intervals on the trainer plus a group ride with Alisha's team and the FFKR guys made for a 100 mile day. We stopped at a Subway about 5 hours in and had a $5 footlong. No lie, it was the best sandwich ever.

The Cold Room

Alisha says: Saturday we woke up to snow so we were doomed to spend four hours on the trainers in our "cold room". We call it the cold room because we don't heat that room and so you have to dress in several layers when getting ready for a workout. I usually start with three layers of tops, gloves, and a headband. It doesn't take that long until I am at just the right temperature for a nice ride. We recently invested in a TV for the cold room, so that has made trainer rides more tolerable. I can't wait until we can leave the cold room behind for long summer days.

Dave says: Today was Presidents Day and Alisha didn't have to work so we headed outside for some skate skiing at Mountain Dell. We made it home just in time to watch the end of the second stage of the Tour of California and see Levi break away to take the yellow jersey. Tonight we headed over to Richard and Britney's to celebrate his birthday and have some tasty enchiladas. Well, I'm off to go catch up on some reading. School has also been especially busy as I am now simultaneously working on three papers and a presentation.

Our New Arrivals

Not quite the little bundles of joy you were expecting? Or for those of you who read our weekly cyling rants maybe it was!

Alisha says: My sweet new ride showed up this week.

Date of Arrival: Thursday, February 5th 2009. 2:20 p.m.

Official Name: 2009 Specialized Ruby Pro w/Dura Ace

Nickname: ?? (I'm still thinking about it)

Weight: 16.2 pounds (even less with race wheels)

I am super excited for my new bike. The weather was nice on Saturday so I took the new bike out for its first ride. I think that we are going to get along rather well. It is light and fast.

Dave says: My 09 Scott Spark showed up a couple weeks ago but here's the pic fully built at 22 lbs. Less than a month until race season and we renewed our licenses today. Now all we need is some warm weather.

Super Bowl Sunday

Dave says: We headed over to Price this weekend to attend Devin and Amber’s epic Super Bowl party and we weren’t disappointed. Wayne and Debbie came to visit on Friday night and on Saturday we packed five people and a bird in Richard and Britney’s Prius and somehow still made the two hour trek at 50 miles per gallon.

It would be hard to pick a winner between the game and the food since both were excellent. I hadn’t watched a pro football game all season but was into it as a cheering Cardinals fan and it was sad to see them lose in the final seconds. All my years growing up in Arizona the Cardinals never amounted to anything so it was nice to see them finally play like a top team.

The halftime show was more monumental than a Justin Timberlake special as Devin and Amber revealed the gender of their baby-to-be using blue and pink frosted cupcakes. I guessed wrong and discovered my pink cupcake tasted like salt.

I wanted to get this post up earlier but it has been a crazy week preparing for a presentation on organizational justice. I took over 1,000 pages of research and somehow turned it into a five page handout and fourteen PowerPoint slides. However, the topic is quite interesting to me (especially procedural justice – determining whether a process, as opposed to an outcome, is fair) and the presentation went well despite being to a group of much smarter individuals.