02.20.10 -Tucson Winter Training Camp - Blog Entry – Feb 19, 2010

By: National Team Road Athlete Stuart Wight

So after yesterday’s epic ride up Mount Lemmon everyone’s legs were a little tender, so the plan for the roadies today was a bit of a shorter ride to Saguaro Park for some more photos for the kind folks at Louis Garneau. Starting out this morning was a little chilly compared to the other days, but we all agreed that as Canadians, we really couldn’t complain.

As usual, we divided up into smaller groups to be sure not to take over too much of the roads through town, and set off to the park. After a while the cool morning air gave way to nice sunny skies and it was all smiles on everyone’s faces.

Upon arriving at the National Park, we met up with Rob Jones of Canadian Cyclist and Pierre Perron from Louis Garneau for some more pictures. It was pretty cool doing a photo shoot amongst all the cactuses and with such awesome desert backdrops and I’m sure Rob got some awesome shots.

After all the hard work of looking amazing at the photo shoot, we got back on the bikes for the voyage home. For this part of the ride National Team Road Coach Vincent Jourdain wanted us working on some double paceline work to get back into the swing of racing before the early season races start for some. With this efficient group riding we were absolutely cruising back towards the hotel, but then we all heard the familiar sounds of a tube going flat. Luckily, it happened right in front of a nice coffee shop, which of course couldn’t just be passed by. While on our break there was an intense competition to see who could remount one of the tightest tires ever seen on the face of the planet, which was won by Spencer with the fine technique shown below.

So, the coffees were downed and bikes remounted for the rest of the ride back. Along the way we always seem to be greeted or cheered for by fellow Canadians down here on vacation, which is always nice for the morale and team spirit. After ripping along the bike paths we made it back to the hotel for a ride of about two and a half hours, which will hopefully leave us fresh for another good ride tomorrow!

Look for more camp updates from road, MTB and Para athletes. You can also follow the team on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CanRoadCycling