Wild Wild West

Alisha says: In an effort to get the most out of any place we live we try to be tourists and explore our surroundings at any chance we get. This last weekend was no exception, we had a marathon of fun while never being more than 2 1/2 hours from our house. Our first stop was Chiricahua National Monument. I was a little nervous driving there because well, there really isn't much to see but once  we arrived I realized that the Chiricahua's are a gem. We set up at the campground and set out on our mtn bikes for a little ride. The next morning we boarded the hikers shuttle that took us up the mountain where we hiked about 10 miles back down the canyon through really cool rock formations. Unfortunately a there are a lot of burned areas from a fire last year but it was still pretty.

The next day we did a long mountain bike ride. We rode up to Onion Saddle which turned out to be quite the uphill grind. We came across a very cross rattlesnake who coiled right up and rattled to let us know that he was not happy. This was actually a good thing because Dave might have ran him over if he hadn't rattled. We waited for him to move so we could get by and then when we went by he coiled up again.

We then went to Bisbee, an old mining town that is only about 5 miles from the Mexican border. The town is very interesting. Everything is built terraced on the hillsides basically on top of each other. We walked around exploring the town with its' many staircase alleys that randomly go places. We spent the night at the School House Inn which was a school house built in 1918 that has been remodeled into a cute bed and breakfast (a deal I scored on groupon). We stayed in the Library room.

On our return to Tucson we stopped in Tombstone, the town to tough to die. This is where stories and legends of the wild west come from. We visited the Courthouse museum to learn about the town's history. Tombstone is the site of the famous gun fight at the O.K. Corral between Wyatt Erp and Doc Holliday with the outlaw brothers gang of Clanton's and McLaury's that left three dead. We stopped at Boothill Graveyard (which refers to the number of men who died with their boots on) where many the towns outlaws and a few others are buried. Several of the markers include a little humor including the one for Lester Moore. A customer was unhappy when a mail package he received was damaged. He argued with Lester and then shot him four times, hence his famous tombstone epitaph that reads, HERE LIES LESTER MOORE, FOUR SLUGS FROM A 44, NO LES NO MORE.

Our last stop was at Kartchner Caverns. The cave is very impressive and has a lot of great cave formations. The cave is warm and has about 99% humidity which is very interesting for it being located in the very dry Arizona desert.

Mixing It Up

Alisha says: Dave and I have been enjoying mixing up our activities now that the race season is over. In addition to still riding a couple of times a week we have been doing some trail running. Dave will do some running with me but he insists that he only runs on trails. Lucky for us we have Sabino Canyon close by and have been having fun running the trails. I asked Dave if he would ever do a fun run with me and once again he said he would only if it was on trails. Lucky for me I found a trail run at Catalina State Park that we participated in last weekend. It was a five mile run on some challenging trails with great desert scenery. We had a great time and I finished 2nd for the women and 8th overall. I was very proud of Dave and he did awesome finishing in the top 20 and 2nd in his age group.

We have also been having lots of fun going on ATV adventures. We borrowed Dave's parents ATV and so far have explored Box Canyon, Reddington Pass to Chiva Falls, and Charleau Gap. The trails that we have done so far have had some technical terrain and have been very rocky so Dave has got to do most of the driving as I'm not very good when it gets tricky.

Other than that I gave a lesson at church last week and Christine and Parker had their baby on Sept 7th. We made a trip to Phoenix to see the new little guy, they named him Charles Thomas Leavitt.

 

The End of Summer

Dave says: I have neglected the blog for awhile but it is time to return and provide an update for the last couple of months. This summer I spent most of my time working on research and was able to make some progress on a few different papers. At the beginning of August, I traveled to the Academy of Management for the yearly conference. It was fun to see all my favorite people including former Arizona students and Utah students and faculty. I'm not a big city person but Boston is a pretty nice big city with clean streets and buildings with interesting architecture. When not at the conference, Sam and I walked the Freedom Trail and went kayaking in the river.

I started school near the end of August. However, this semester I only have two classes and am spending most of my time doing research. Over the summer, I moved out of the large student office into a smaller shared office with Sam. The new PhD students have arrived (Daphna and Eugene) and we did a big back to school dinner at Blanco.

Alisha finished up her last race of the season in Aspen and somehow was able to spend 7 days in Colorado for only a single day of racing. Now that her season has finished, we have been doing some new adventures. Alisha and I hiked Lower Tanque Verde Falls one evening right after a monsoon. Later, Sam and Alex and I hiked the Upper Falls and did some good scrambling along the way. It is pretty cool to see giant waterfalls in the middle of the desert and scramble-hikes with lots of big boulders are my favorite type.

Emily and Alisha at the top of Independence Pass. They rode up and watched the pro men come by.

Tanque Verde Falls  

Alisha and I have also been doing some trail running. I have found that trail running is much more fun than running on asphalt and we live close to lots of trails. Some of the best are over at Sabino Canyon and I recently saw a huge rattlesnake down by the dam (but fortunately a bit off the trail).

Over Labor Day, we did a big adventure up north. The first day, we traveled to Sedona and did a hike up the west fork of Oak Creek Canyon which is a very pretty hike in a canyon along a stream. The second day, we did a huge all-day mountain bike ride in Sedona on the HT 29ers. We started south of Sedona and made our way up to the north and west on trails, dirt roads, and pavement. We also managed both to get lost a couple of times and to get on some crazy technical trails but it was fun nevertheless. That evening, we drove up to Flagstaff and camped out in the wilderness by Walnut Canyon. The next morning, we embarked on another huge mountain bike ride first on Campbell Mesa, then on the Flagstaff Urban Trail System, then around on the Arizona Trail, and finally back on a bunch of dirt roads. Our rides both days ended with quick rides back to the car just as thunderstorms were starting to hit. We packed up the car about 5 minutes before the rain started dumping and made it to 1 pm church in Flagstaff with 1 minute to spare. After all this adventure, we headed south to Phoenix and had a nice time hanging out with my family.

 Hiking Oak Creek in Sedona on Labor Day weekend

 Mountain biking in Sedona

Cool scenery along Long Canyon to Deadman's Pass 

Camping

We had such a fun weekend!!



Nationals and Beyond

Alisha says: The latest adventures include traveling to Augusta, Georgia for Nationals and then meeting up with Dave in Colorado where I did some training while he attended and presented a paper at a conference in Boulder, after that we had a fun road trip through some of our favorite places on the way home to roasty toasty Tucson.

It was fun to meet up again with the team for some racing. I raced the criterium and the road race. After coming off of a rough month of May I was not particularly looking forward to the crit because I really didn't want to get dropped. It was a flat 6 corner crit that started at 8:00 pm, so for the first 20 min. we had the sun directly in our eyes on the start/finish straight and then it proceeded to quickly get dark. The good news is that my leg was cooperating and I made it through the at times sketchy race. Our youngest teammate Jackie finished 9th.

We were very lucky to have some cloud cover for the road race, it was still hot and sticky but at least we didn't have the sun beating down on us. Unfortunately we missed a break and so we had to do some work with the NOW team in order to bring it back, but I finally felt good again in a race and didn't mind doing some work. The last lap was really fun and fast. I goofed with positioning coming into the final kilometer and was to far back. I finished 17th.

I flew into Denver where Dave picked me up. We did some camping in the mountains above Boulder before Dave's conference. While Dave was attending his conference I was lucky and got to do some riding with teammate Kasey. The bad thing is that there were several large wildfires in Colorado and as a result a couple of the days the mountains were hidden behind a haze and the air was smoky, not the best for exercising in.

We road tripped home and spent a little time in some of our favorite places, Ouray, Silverton, and Durango. Our first stop was Black Canyon National Park, it is a very impressive canyon. We then did a little hike in Ouray and the whole time I couldn't stop saying how scenic it was. We camped out in the high mountains and the next morning drove into Silverton and ate breakfast at a small cafe. It was really fun because there were a couple chatty locals we visited with while eating. One local suggested we go on a mine tour so we went and toured the Old Hundred mine and learned about mining in the old days.

Jen and Kasey riding around Augusta

Crit racing

Dave brought his 29er and I had my road bike so we found this hard packed dirt road for both of us to ride.

We rode Rollins Pass to Moffat Tunnel 

Kasey was my tour guide around Boulder. We rode Sunshine Canyon, Four Mile Canyon and visited Skratch Labs.

Black Canyon National Park

Hiking around Ouray

This was part of our hike

This let to a cool waterfall

The little cafe in Silverton where we ate breakfast

All ready in our rain coats and hard hats for the mine tour

Exergy Tour

Alisha says: Wow, the Exergy Tour was the absolute coolest race I've ever participated in. Everything was so professional and we were treated amazing. Now, if only my racing would have been on form, but I've been battling an injury since Gila and this was one hard race. The start list was full of the who's who among women's professional racing all racing for $100,000.

The Prologue was a quick 2 miles in downtown Boise with the Capitol building in the background. It was beautiful weather and the atmosphere was so cool as there were people lining the entire course cheering for each rider.

Stage 1 was a flatter race through farm lands outside of Boise. It was cold and rainy for most of the race.

Stage 2 was a 10.8 mile time trial in the pouring rain. We wrapped ourselves in blankets while waiting for our start. It was a little tricky navigating the slick start ramp and twisty turns out to the main part of the course.

Stage 3 was the Queen Stage with two climbs through the mountains. Once again, it was cold but luckily the rain held off until the last part of the race. I got dropped at one point in the race and rode for a while with 2x World Champion Georgia Bronzini until a small group joined us.

Stage 4 was over before it had really even begun. Moments before the race started four jets flew right over the start line, it was so cool. About 50 meters into the race there was a big crash that I was behind and had to slow for, in the meantime the race started so fast that if you weren't connected to the train you were out of luck and your day was over. The coolest part about this day was the crowds and atmosphere, there were people all around the circuit and many were even dressed up. It was awesome.

Stage 5 was a closing party rodeo, complete with bucking broncos, a mechanical bull and one of the most tender stakes I've ever had. Okay, so it really wasn't a stage but it was also awesome. It was fun to mingle with everyone while not fighting for position in the peloton. They closed the Tour by presenting each rider with a huge special edition Exergy Tour belt buckle.

 Team Presentation - Emily, Kristin, Bec, Alisha, Jen, Anna

Prologue in downtown Boise

Rainy Stage 1: We passed a school and all the kids were lining the street with flags

Dave was our team mechanic for the week. It was so fun having him along.

Signing in for Stage 4

The flyover before Stage 4 mayhem



 The team showing off our belt buckles at the rodeo

Summer

Dave says: I finished up a busy semester of classes and research at the beginning of May. Now summer is here and things are a little more laid back which is nice. We just returned from a two week road trip to Utah and Idaho. We stopped in Cedar City and visited with Alisha's family.  My parents finally sold their Cedar City house and I helped my dad move out the last of the furniture and miscellaneous items. We also went on the coldest bike ride that I have been on since moving to Tucson with morning temperatures of 37 degrees in Cedar City plus a blowing wind. Alisha bought me some cheap gloves at a gas station because I couldn't feel my hands.

We also happened to be in Cedar City (apparently the best place in the US in terms of viewing) right during an eclipse where the moon moved in front of the sun blocking it out and making it look like the burning eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings. Doug and Roberta were traveling up to SLC that same day and stopped to see it with us. Debbie also got us some "Eclipse Glasses" to look through so that we could stare directly at the sun.

The next part of the trip took us up to Boise for the Exergy Tour. On the way, we spent the night with Alisha's coach Kelly in Ogden. We also stopped to see Shoshone Falls. During peak runoff I imagine it would be close to Niagra Falls however this time of year it was impressive but not running with as much water.

Alisha raced with the Primal/Map My Ride team and I was the team mechanic. This is the biggest women's race in the US this year with a mostly international field of national (and world) champions and Olympic gold medalists and it was cool to be a part of. Everything was very professionally done and I was impressed with Boise. Up in the mountains outside of the city there are jagged cliffs, thick forests, and whitewater rivers that make you think you are somewhere in Colorado. I enjoyed working with everyone on the team and was glad that things turned out well. Many of the other big teams brought a full trailer of gear and two professional mechanics so I was definitely a bit outclassed at times. Additionally, most races involved a bit of rain at either the start or the end meaning that a lot of time was spent washing bikes.

On the way home, we stopped again in Cedar City. We planned to travel to Lake Powell for a day with Alisha's family, however their truck broke down halfway to the lake and the trip was cancelled. Instead, we spent a day in Phoenix hanging out with Christine and her girls which was fun as well. Finally, we returned to Tucson to face the triple digit summer temperatures. Utah and Idaho are great places to be this time of year but I still prefer Tucson summers over SLC winters. We rode up Mt. Lemmon yesterday with Alex and escaped the heat. I'm already starting to think about our next summer trip.

Starring Yours Truly

Alisha says: Here is the latest Primal team video by the super Chad Maurer. I feel truly grateful to be a part of this team and to all of the many people who support me. We have many wonderful sponsors included but not limited to Primal Wear, MapMyRide, BH Bikes, HED Wheels, Skratch Labs, Look Pedals, Lazer, Sidi, Smith Optics, Breeze Bars, Dash Saddles, Action Wipes, and Pro Gold.

Enjoy!

Thanks Dave! (The owner of Primal Wear)