Walla Walla and Gila

I have spent the last week thinking of ways to describe my latest trip. A trip that started with a drive down to Walla Walla Washington for the famous Tour of Walla Walla. This race will always be of significance in my mind as I have donated some bike parts, skin and accessories to the roads of Walla Walla. Circa 2011...

I like to think that my bike handling skills have improved since my last trip... Although I did not hit the deck this year i did encounter some brutal luck. Stage 1 saw me flat with 5 km to go and i was unable to finish within striking distance of the leaders. The rest of the weekend turned out to be a breakaway filled, aggressive bike riding extravaganza. We walked away winning the team GC and Jesse finished third overall after some very impressive riding. The weekend will be better remembered by brownies and puppies 

We traveled further south in search of burritos and cheap californian berries. Our travels brought us to Vegas for an evening. Being in Vegas with no money to gamble is like telling a fat kid to go to a candy store but he can only buy celery. Pointless... instead we had sidewalk beers and collected stripper cards. 

A week spend in Phoenix involved some air conditioned Cosmo reading ( temperatures were creeping into the 40's during mis afternoon) and oh ya, Jesse is Arizona State Crit Champion 

And we had bunk beds....

We then heading East and up towards Silver City New Mexico. Home of thin air and world class burritos. Tour of the Gila is a UCI sanctioned race and many of the pro teams in North America use it as a tune up race for the Tour of California. So when the first day started and breakaway attempts started flying off the front, this is what my legs told me: 

I'll spare you the grief of me rambling on about how hard the rest of the race was but I will post a quote from Francisco Mancebo who went on to win the queen stage and finished third on GC. 

"Today was a too hard stage," an exhausted-looking Mancebo said after his win. "Everybody attacked at the start, no breakaway. The climbs, we climbed them too hard, everybody, Phil Deignan attacked a couple of times, Acevedo too, Phil Gaimon. Good riders, hard attacks and finally everybody come here dead I think. I was cramping for the second time in life."

He rode the Tour, no biggie. 

We wrapped up the trip with several stops to in and out burgers and dairy queen. How a bike racer feels after a 5 day stage race can be nicely summed up by this video:

Another successful trip in the books. The boys get some well deserved rest and we ramp things up again this weekend with a trip to Enumclaw Washington. Not a bad way to finish a 35 hour drive home....

Till the next adventure!