Training Camp: Full Swing.

Aaaaah. Training camp is now solidly under way. The van from Boise made it, at long last, to our host house. Everyone else had much smoother travels, even our two Colombian riders Andres Diaz, and Carlos Alzate (yes, Carlos Alzate has both been to the Olympics and has his own wikipedia page). I'm thrilled to have Spanish speakers on the team, y estoy practicando mucho.

Yesterday was a bit of a mish-mash. We slept in late, and had a leisurely morning. Then we met up down at the Ventura Harbor where we spend a few hours setting up everyone's bike (most of the riders were hopping on their new Felt F1's for the first time). 

Quin and our mechanic Chris make final adjustments. 

Team Exergy's 3-ring circus. 

Erik Slack gets cute with the camera.

Then we went on a short cruise with some local cyclists to make sure everyone's gear worked properly. This marked our first "Ride the Wind," ride -- a chance for local cyclists to sample some Hammer Products, and go for a ride with the Exergy boys. We'll be doing these Ride the Wind rides all year long, whenever we have the time.

Today we went on a good old fashioned training ride. Just the team. Gorgeous roads. Amazing weather. We opened it up on some of the climbs, and started feeling each other out as riders. Ben goes uphill much better than his gigantic legs would suggest. Carlos is like a cat on the bike. Eric can pop a wheelie, and hop on his back wheel as if he's on a trials bike. It's great to see how strong everyone is. We also had Brian from Velo Images in the car all day snapping photos of us -- judging by his previous work, we've got some very cool photos coming our way.

Now it's time to eat some wonderful food, get a massage, and then have a short meeting before going to bed. Tomorrow we get to do it all over again.

Rough stuff, this training camp.

UPDATE: Here's our ride from today -- check on that loop! Everything you could ask for: beaches, lakes, mountains and rivers.