California Training Camp

Two weeks ago I embarked on a training camp in Ojai, CA with Graham Howard and Ross Brody, of my new team based around the local charity Bikes for Buddies.  In addition to Graham and Ross we were joined, or rather we joined, the Willamette University Cycling team.

The drive down was split (unnecessarily) into two parts with a stop in Davis.  Though driving straight to Ojai made more sense, we were able to meet a few of the riders in Davis for a morning group ride on Monday.

After arriving in Ojai and getting settled in, Graham, Ross, and I had 5 uninterrupted days of riding, though I took a break on Thursday, giving me 2+2.  Repeated 4.5-4.75 hour days felt great, especially with the usual 4-5k ft of climbing per ride.  Not a mountain of climbing, but enough to feel it.

One death march in particular found us riding through a loose definition of road, most of it dirt, and overgrown.  Granted we were following one of those little lines on Google Maps, it turned out to be quite the adventure straight over Sulfur Mountain.

Here's Ross and Graham going up the "road"

Saturday being our last day of riding, we went up HWY 33, which the WU boys had been doing all week.  The guys had been doing an out and back on 33, and we did the same, but rather than finish the ride to the 5100ft summit, Graham and I turned around halfway to ride down to the beach and through Ventura for some nice 80 degree weather.  Here's a shot of Ross and I at the halfway point on 33.

After close to 20 hours of great training, we left Ojai at 8pm for a drive through the night back to Salem. As you can see Graham was pretty tired from all of the riding...

Until next time!