Spring Break

Dave says: Spring break was a nice departure from what has been a very busy academic semester. However, because I actually did some things that were not school related, I figured it was finally time to write a blog entry.

On the first Saturday of spring break, Alisha and I drove up to South Mountain in Phoenix to compete in a hill climb and circuit race. It was a fun venue despite the fact that South Mountain seems more like a hill with a cell phone tower on it than a legit mountain. The men's race was combined Cat 1/2 and the Landis boys brought some serious heat. In the women's race, Alisha won both events and wrapped up a 7 for 7 win streak in Arizona before heading to California for San Dimas on Wednesday.

However, before she left we spent some time together and even went to the mall (which is only tolerable on a weekday afternoon) and to dinner. She is always good at finding Groupons for new restaurants to try. On Tuesday, I helped my grandparents load some boxes in preparation for their move to Phoenix in the next few months.

On Wednesday, Sam, Alex, and I did what may be my favorite "hike" in Tucson. We took the tram up Sabino Canyon to stop 8 (near the top) and did the Sabino Canyon scramble. The route goes right up Sabino Canyon over giant boulders and small waterfalls. It is part hike, part rock climb and we had a great time. Eventually, we reached Miner's Pool which is a giant pool with a waterfall on the other side that looks unclimbable without ropes and cannot be scrambled around. We bushwacked up and out of the canyon which was crazy-steep and our only bad idea of the day. We then headed back into town for some well deserved Nico's.

The excitement continued on Thursday as I met up with other Aleks for an epic MTB ride on Lemmon. We rolled down Bug Springs to Molino Basin which was super fun. Then, we started the burly part of the ride down La Miligrosa which is the toughest trail I have ridden in Tucson. Despite the fact that our route was mostly downhill, it took 2.5 hours of ride time and 4 hours overall to go 14 miles. I sliced the sidewall of my front tire on some sharp rocks and put in a tube with some duct tape over the hole. Next, I flatted the tube on some of the spiny bushes that are all over the trail. Aleks gave me his slime-filled tube, but as we neared the last two miles of the trail, he ripped the sidewall of his tire and slime was spurting out. We did some exciting improvisation as I gave Aleks back his tube and dumped sealant into my tape-patched tire to try and run it tubeless again. Somehow, the tape managed to hold even soaked in sealant and we made it to the end of the trail with all our supplies used up. I went hope and bought some tougher new tires, new front brake pads (wore the others out) and several tubes filled with slime. It was an epic ride that we plan to do again later this year (although I will be more prepared for a ride of this caliber in the future).

Finally, it was time to return back to school and homework on Friday. However, on Saturday the Trisports team raced the Old Pueblo Grand Prix in downtown Tucson. It was a fun crit course that worked well for our team because we had the most riders there. We put Brian in a break and controlled the rest of the field. When I woke up on Sunday morning, it was 40 degrees and raining and I knew that spring break was over. The weather returned my focus to school and it is now only a little over a month before this busy semester comes to an end.

Tucson Bicycle Classic

Alisha says: Last weekend Dave and I raced the three day Tucson Bicycle Classic and it turned out to be a great weekend! Lucky for me the Daniel Gaona from the Arizona Daily Star newspaper did a nice piece on the race so I'll use that for a race report.
 
Tucson Bicycle Classic: Tucsonan Welsh sweeps women's races

Daniel Gaona Arizona Daily Star Arizona Daily Star

Read more: http://azstarnet.com/sports/tucson-bicycle-classic-tucsonan-welsh-sweeps-women-s-races/article_5c78426d-5b3c-5e09-9dd6-27951157d871.html#ixzz1of3o0hpW

Alisha Welsh swept the pro women's side of the Tucson Bicycle Classic on Sunday, and now she's hoping the momentum will carry over into her young racing season. 

"I had an amazing weekend," she said of her overall time of 4 hours 43 minutes 4 seconds. 

"I won all three races and GC (general classification, or overall time), so everything aligned for me this weekend, and it was great racing here in Tucson."

 The 26th annual three-day event featured about 600 participants ranging in age from 9 to 75 and older competing in 27 categories, race director Caroline Leonard said.
"Pretty much everything and all different skill levels in between," she said.

The final day featured a circuit race that started and ended on Greasewood Road near the Pima College West Campus. The 5.6-mile course went south on Greasewood and took a right turn at Anklam Road, which the cyclists rode all the way to Speedway, before they came back to Greasewood.
The pro women's event consisted of seven laps while the pro men did nine laps.

Francisco Mancebo, a five-time top-10 placer in the Tour de France, won the men's event overall in 5:02:46, but his teammate Cole House won the third stage in 1:52:47 to help lock up the team title.
Mancebo, 35 and originally from Avila, Spain, had the yellow jersey coming into the final day with a 16-second advantage on Sonoran Hector Rangel, who finished second overall.
"I'm very happy for me and the team," Mancebo said. "This race is very nice for me. There's no stress and it's like training for me.
"I am a grandpa now," Mancebo joked.

Welsh, 28 and a Tucson resident, finished second in the TBC overall last year and knew exactly what she needed to do to win.
"Going into it I kind of knew the courses and that helped," she said. "This year was a little bit of an improvement. I'm super happy."

Welsh has lived in Tucson for the past two years with her husband, David, a Tucson native working on his Ph.D., at the UA. He rode in the Men's 2 event.

Welsh said the toughest stage was the time trial on Friday. That consisted of a quick 3.2-mile ride near Old Tucson Studios that she narrowly won.
"That was a challenge in the wind, and I only won that by 2 seconds," Welsh said. "Going into the next race it was really close, and I wanted to be aggressive and make the women race their bikes."

After Saturday's road race, she had an eight-minute advantage on the pack along with overall runner-up and Tucsonan Kathryn Bertine after they pulled away from the pack in the road race.
"We put a lot of time on the field and it worked out definitely to our advantage," Welsh said.
Saturday's 20-mile course started on West Duval Mine Road near Green Valley, ran up Mission Road and looped back around at Helmet Peak Road.

After Saturday, Welsh had the easy win at hand. She said she didn't even plan on winning the final stage, but she still did in 1:51:12 after starting out conservatively.
Welsh is in her third year as a pro and races for Primal/MapMyRide.
"I'll race all the national races this year so this is kind of a warm-up for what's to come for me," she said.

Catching Up

Alisha says: I'm trying to get caught up on our blog so this is a quick post with a few pictures. Here is also a link to lots more pictures from Primal team camp in San Diego! There are some really good ones, I can't wait until next week when we meet up again for some racing!

Dave trying out "Podium Legs"

 Lauren was here doing a block of training in the sun! Notice we both have new kits :)

 We raced McDowell Circuit Race a couple of weeks ago in Phoenix.

Birthday Boy

Alisha says: Dave's birthday was last week. A couple of times he forgot that his birthday was coming up because he was so busy getting prepared for a big presentation that he had to give to all of the faculty in his department on his birthday. I made him a bike cake and took it to school and surprised him at the end of his big presentation. We also went to a University of Arizona basketball game and had fun watching them beat up on USC.

Team Camp

Alisha says: Introducing my new team for 2012, Primal/MapMyRide powered by BH. I finally got to meet all of my new teammates at team camp last week in San Diego and 2012 looks bright. We had a lot of fun getting to know each other and riding along the coast! We have many great sponsors this year and got to spend some time with them. I love my new BH Cristal bicycle. She is light and fast.

Warning: Lots of pictures!

 

 Primal/MapMyRide Women's Professional 2012 Cycling Team: Jen Weinbrecht, Jackie Kurth, Alisha Welsh, Kasey Clark, Emily Kachorek, Kelly Crowly, Liza Rachetto, Nicky Wangsgard

Alisha, Jen, and Emily with our wonderful director Susannah!

All smiles on our long ride to Dana Point!

Racing In January? Oh ya!

Alisha says: First race of 2012 is done and dusted. Dave and I raced the U of A Crit this past weekend. I was excited to debut my new team kit. This year I have made a switch and will be racing for the Primal/MapMyRide Women's Professional Cycling Team based out of Colorado. It was a relatively small field, but Tucson has some great talent which made for a fun race with some good attacks. I won a couple of primes and the race! It's a good start to 2012!

I have also been busy coaching a middle school cross country team. We meet a couple of times a week at Reid Park and have had two meets so far. I have some good little runners and one of the girls is just getting into cycling. She also competed in her first bike race at the U of A crit and she won!

We have also had an exchange student in Dave's PhD program from Italy stay with us for a couple of weeks. It is Andrea's first time to the United States so it was fun for us to show him around. He cooked us some authentic Italian pasta with bacon and eggs in it. It was yummy. On the box of Barilla pasta it says that it is "Italy's #1 Brand of Pasta" and Andrea said that is what all the Italians use.






The next generation of women cyclist. She won her first race!!



Some of my awesome Basis runners!

Andrea gave Dave a jersey from his home town in Italy, Padova



Christmas

Dave says: We had a pretty fun winter break with stops in Phoenix, the Grand Canyon, and Cedar City. On Christmas Eve we drove up to Phoenix and had dinner at Christine's. Her kids got pretty excited on Christmas morning and it was fun to see them open presents. They both got electric cars that they can ride in and they had a fun time driving them all around the neighborhood.

Christine played piano in the Christmas program in church and then we went to visit my uncle Jim's family before heading over to my parents house for dinner. As usual, there was a semi-successful reinactment of the Christmas story. This year there was also "Ogre magic" as I convinced Christine's kids that bottles of 7-Up labeled "Ogre magic potion" were in fact magic and that by putting magic beans (Mentos) in the magic potion, they would get a special surprise. I'm sure most people are now familiar with this trick which creates a 30 foot soda geyser but Christine's kids were especially impressed. Later I was asked by Kaylee if I could make her toy animals come to life.

The next morning we took a nice long bike ride on the northeast side of Phoenix. The weather was gorgeous and reminded me why I love Arizona. In the afternoon we played frisbee, croquet, and Halo (favorite setup: "Infection" with energy swords and shotguns). In the evening, we went to "Zoo Lights" (along with pretty much everyone else in Phoenix) which was pretty cool in spite of the crowds.

The next day it was time to head for the Grand Canyon. Once again Christine's girls got excited as we stopped in Williams to ride the "Polar Express" in which you ride an old train a few miles outside of town to a cardboard recreation of the "North Pole" featuring Santa who then hops aboard the train to say Hi. Although we didn't match the targeted demographic we still had a fun time.

The following day it was time to go hiking and we went with my parents and Daniel and Katie down the Grand View trail to Horseshoe Mesa for some variety. The most exciting part was going in the Cave of the Domes which is a cool cave about a 4 mile hike from the rim that is rarely visited and goes back for several rooms. The Grand View trail was steep and slick with lots of snow and we were definately sore from the downhill for the next several days (in contrast, the uphill wasn't nearly so painful). After one more day on the rim that was a bit more relaxing it was finally time to leave the Grand Canyon and head north to Cedar City to see Alisha's family.

Alisha says: Part three of the Christmas vacation included driving to Cedar to spend some time with the Bezanson crew. With all the siblings, spouses, and grandkids planning on being there we knew it would be a bit wild and fun. Dave and I had a great time being the cool Uncle and Aunt playing games with all of the kids and then handing them back to their parents when misbehaving, time for a nap, or smelling a little suspicious. Dave did some more "Ogre magic" for Brody, Quinn, and Arley who all loved it.

My parents are always great hosts. My mom is always cooking up something spectacular or planning fun activiites such as the candybar or Costco game. Dave spent a day skiing with his brother Daniel at Brian Head. It was fun to get everyone together to ring in the new year!!

 "Ogre Magic"

 Caving at Cave of the Domes

 Hiking on Horseshoe Mesa at the Grand Canyon

 More "Ogre Magic" and playing with the kids