ATOC-more to come

Thanks dad for taking some wicked photos!

Restless Mind

It’s been nearly 2 months since Chris and I arrived in Tucson and the monotony of doing nothing but training has begun to set in. Don’t get me wrong I love riding my bike and there’s no better place to be than Arizona in the winter but it may be time for some debauchery or at least a trip to the coffee shop to see what we can find. Mind you I’m not much of a coffee drinker so I’ll be looking for something else to catch my attention.

On another note out first race of the season is next weekend at the Tucson Bicycle Classic. It’s sure to be a harsh awakening to race pace as I haven’t done much intensity in my training thus far. I’m hoping to just hang on as most of the locals are fully into their season. I also have a power test this weekend so that will give me a good indication as to how my training is progressing. Wish me luck, I fear I will need it.

Also want to say hi to my friends from work back home at REI if any of you happen to read this.

Off to study Español. Necesito practicar mucho porque no hablo buen. Adiós!

NEW KIT!!!! Finally our new kit arrived, well some of it anyway. We managed to get a jersey and bibs each, so we could start taking photos down here. And that is exactly what we did. Below is a video I put together to show pretty much every photo we shot yesterday. Not much work has been done to them as of yet, just some quick post work in lightroom. Once the selects for the Hagens Berman website are made, than I will spend the time in post. Hope you enjoy all that there is to see, let me know what ones you like.


Photoshoot 1 from Christopher Wingfield on Vimeo.

Birthday!

It's my grandpa's birthday today, the big seven ooh! Yup he is 70 and still going strong, and I mean he is killing it. I am sure he could put to shame people a quarter of his age. Having been a competitive gymnast and sprinter on the track, my grandfather knows exactly what it takes to be a successful athlete. And he puts this knowledge to use everyday, I just hope I can be as fit as he is when I am 70. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY grandpa!

SNOW!

I get a few moments between tempos.



A view from mile 15, yep you come up that road you see below.



SNOW nearing mile 10



Yep thats right, snow! A big ol storm rolled through Tucson dumping snow on the surrounding mountains. Lemmon was closed to cyclist for two days. Lucky for me however,the day I had to lay my watt powered assult upon the beast, it opened back up. SWEET!

So a little detail on the assult. First Nick and I rolled to mile mark 1 and then we stomped it, full out, as hard as we could go for 10 minutes. Very quickly the jersey was unzipped as we mashed our pedals deeper into the pain cave. Just past mile mark 3 our first effort came to an end. Back down the mountain we went, only to go back up...just as hard. The second all out effort was a little slower but hurt just as badly.

Now that both efforts was over, I had two 25 min tempos to complete. Oh the joy of training. But much to my delight tempo didn't feel nearly as bad as I thought it would, and by mile 9 I had snow to enjoy. Why is there snow in Tucson? I could have stayed in Seattle for that. However it is true that I have nowhere near the layers needed to ride here as I would back at home.

Ahh what an enjoyable day. Tomorrow brings five hours of endurance, sweeeeet.

Here's a quick look at some of today's power, let me know if this interests anyone at all. If not you wont have to see it again.

The Grey Wolf

This man is a local legend... he shows up for the "shootout" on Saturday, attacks off the front in the first couple of minutes and than pulls off shortly there after. Today when he pulled off he waited for the group to ride by so he could howl at everyone. This man is truly amazing and probably a little crazy. The interview is worth the watch.

New bars and a clean headset

Oh la la, today the beauty of my new handle bar and stem arrived. The previous bar sucked a great deal, it was like riding a pista track bar. I was pretty excited to put it all together today, and riding it tomorrow should be that much better. I have to say it looks way PRO, and with the added slope of the stem will increase my saddle to cockpit drop, which is good, really good. Alan even decided to fix his creaking headset, finally!

Sunset

Well this evening we just had our first real sunset. Its too bad I didn't go up Lemmon today. But none the less a view quick shots from the front steps is better than nothing.

Mt. Lemmon

I had some time today to take some photos up Mt. Lemmon, there is still miles of road to cover still.