and you thought skiing was just an offseason sport

One glance at the boy from the wilds of manitoba and it is realized that canadian strong legged riders dominate in the mountains on demand. So while the rest of you winter base milers were trying to maintain some sort of focus in the thumping beats of a spin class - have a gander at how the boys from the great white north spent their mornings in verbier. The line riderhowe is skiing is a 10 minute traverse along an open bowl in bruson - upon which you dip down to ski a consistent fall line of tree shots for 1,000m. The exit funnels into thicker pines which u just have to be patient with - and a 5 min logging road brings you back on piste. We call this at the ranch casual cross training.

Long road to Paris

In a stellar effort by Cali, the man leaves his warm shared bed at 7am Sat. morning for a cool 45 minute train ride and 3 hour tour of the Chilterns (along with one special jaunt down the A404) to support his fellow Ranch rider Noshow. Huge effort and much appreciated. (NB - Noshow did supply the peanut butter and banana breakfast sandwiches.)

Sunday Morning

Me, Myself and my Cristallo.... (no Ipod this week)....
Perfect morning, cold but very sunny... Left home at 10:00 AM rode down to Richmond Park.. Four laps.. Amazing morning.. I won..

ranch in action

Back on the Streets

After a lengthy hiatus from winter cycling, Riderturbo and Ridermama reestablished street cred in London this past Sunday morning with a quick one hour criterium spin in Regents Park.



RiderZstar hung back at the crib, with Grandma M supervising over hot coffee and English breakfast.



While it can be said that base training has gone awry this winter with competing priorities of work and family, Ridermama gnashed her teeth and latched on to the rear wheel of the Condor fixed wheel peloton circling around the park.


Despite the best efforts of the group to summarily drop the Ranch crew, Turbo and Mama refused to go off the back, instead hanging lick for lick, pedal stroke for pedal stroke.


Cranky derailleurs were the order of the day. Dead batteries rendered heart rate monitors inoperative, and cycling computers offered only blank screens due to a long winter with no maintenance.


But the Ranch pushed on.

While true that suboptimal training leads to suboptimal results, the Ranch proves again that it can deliver the goods when put to the test, giving up nothing when the other undeserved teams only try to take.


Yes, we're Back on the Streets and back in the mix.

And what we lose in conditioning, we gain back with heart, soul, a little postpartum relaxin, and a blue-eyed cheering section rooting us on from the bathtub at home.

good grooming begins early

it might still be howling mid winter weather outside - but that does not deter eazy-e from removing some of the late fall and winter fur. Early season assessments have eazy-e returning to his 2006 form - which is simply summarized as - intimidating.

Love

Thought I'd post a little winter warmer of RiderPitts and NoShow finishing Granfondo del Prosecco. Pittsy was kind enough not to sprint to the finish and leave me finishing alone. Don't forget to sign up for 2008!