Holidays

Christmas went really well up here in the Tundra. Breck has been receiving some snow and it dumped all day yesterday. The falling snow really added to the christmas feel. Besides having a nice christmas the rollers in the garage have been getting a lot of use.
This use will soon come to an end when I got the Tucson where the sun is high and the temperature is hot! Im really looking forward to it. From Tucson I will go to Silver city NM for the team training camp and then straight from Silver city to Nassau in the Bahamas. I can not even tell you how much motivation and excitement I have for this upcoming season.
Well its time to go lift and then ride my bike. Happy Holidays!

Walker

Finally!

Done with school. This is such a relief. The experience of college was a good one with the class numbers at good o'l FLC being comparative with those found in High School. I would say that really helped. So I am pretty confident that I finished up with no C's. This is rare for me so Im pretty stocked on it.

Now that school is done I am looking to focus all 100% of my attention back to the bike. I am currently trying to figure out what I am going to do after the first of this year. I was looking at moving to Boulder but that seems like a poor choice mainly because the weather there is not a whole lot better than up here. So to Tucson it is... or at least possibly. So stay tuned to hear what happens.

Happy Holidays.

Walker

Dango Blues

So just finishing up my last day of classes. Really uneventful. It snowed last night, now its raining very hard. I would prefer the snow just because i would not feel so damp all day. So I will most likely end up on a stationary and in gym and some roller time in my room. Heading back home for Christmas on wednesday. This break could not come any sooner. Well off to my last class. Wish me luck.

Walker

Rain Man?

So these last two days have been very full. Full of rain. It has just been about 3-4 degrees too warm for the water to freeze so instead of walking through snow on my way to food this morning I was forced to circumnavigate the Dango's very own great lakes. Bummin that I left my camera at home so i cant get any pictures up on here from all the rain. Oh well. So now I am off to ride the rollers in my already cramped dormitory. Wish me luck.

Walker

Welcome to the DANGO!

Yep, back in the Dango. Unfortunately i arrived to more snow here than in Breckenridge. This was a really big let down. I should be able to get out there and get all of my training done and keep working hard. My earlier morning rides before classes start should be a bit more frigid than usual. Only two more weeks of classes and one week of finals until I am back for christmas break then the plan is to move down to Boulder or somewhere else on the front range so that I can train even harder. I hope that everyone else is having a good winter and holiday season.

Walker

Thanks Giving/Beginning a new Season

Happy Thanks Giving!

So after a long time of using the other .Mac web site I finally decided that I would never invest in the year payment option. With that decided its time to get this blog rolling once again.

After what was a pretty lousy first year in the U23 ranks I was really demoralized; now however I feel like a kid who just got his first new bike. I have been riding a lot and have never had so much motivation. I am really excited, especially if I can keep all of this momentum that I currently have rolling through the new year. What's caused the sudden change in feeling towards training??? Well I have started working with a new coach, Max Testa. I first talked to Max last year at a training camp with U23/VMG team in Salt Lake City. Now that I have started working with him I feel like I am making the right steps to make next year the best it can possibly be.
After finding a new coach who I liked I now needed to find a team that I could ride for, and after much talk JV decided to give me a second chance in the sport by offering me the final spot on his new U23 development team that is a part of the Slipstream family which is really cool. I am very thankful for all of the opportunities that I have laying in front of me.
The only thing that is not going so well as of late is that I had my "wisdom" teeth pulled 2 days ago. I was able to ride today with out much pain but the grand thanksgiving meal that I had helped my mom cook was another story. It was a bummer to no be able to eat much turkey or anything really besides Stuffing and Mashed Potatoes.

Well I hope that everyone had a good thanks giving!

W

Tour of the Bahamas

So the race ended today with a 105 mile stage. This was a pretty hard race. I got into a few different early breaks just tryin to help out the team and had some good early attacks and then just tried to finish after burning all the matches. Yesterdays circuit race was crazy. There was a big field and a yellow line rule, so that made things interesting. there were a lot of cars on the course with the field not really obeying the rules of the yellow line; that is what made it fairly sketchy. Now we have a training week with photo shoots and team building stuff. Hopefully I will finally have time to take some pictures.

Walker

Bahamas

So I got to the Bahamas yesterday around 9 pm. So pretty much i got off the plane and started sweating bullets. Today we did a 3.5 hour ride pretty easy. The only thing on the course here that could possibly do any damage to the field is wind. It got decently windy in the afternoon today.

The only thing that is not so good about this weather here is the humidity. I get out of the shower dry off and then I walk out side and start sweating.

Walker

Cali

so we left SLC on the 20th for California. On the way we bumped into Rob and Big. That was pretty cool, we talked to them about their show and why they were in cold Utah instead of beautiful cali. So after that we got into cali and the weather has been awesome. The first day here we rode about 70 miles, then the next two days were both about 130 mile days. So now Im pretty tired. I think that today will be shorter.

Walker

Salt Lake

So today was the first day of training/testing camp here in salt lake city. I had some tests today that went alright for it being january and coming from the artic abyss of Breckenridge. Since today was the first we got our new bikes from specialized which are sick and everything else like shoes, bags and all that jazz. Hopefully tomorrow goes well.

This is the new team van.

Ready to go

I am so ready to leave for SLC on wednesday its not even funny. One thing that I am totally stoked about besides all of the new gear is getting to ride outside instead of on the freaking rollers.
Also, hopefully my man Brady Kappius can sell all of the old stuff that I gave him so that I can finally afford a new Mac Book. My current IBM has definately seen some better days.

Snowy Blues

So it seems like just about every week we have been getting hammered with snow. For me this is kind of expected since i live at 9,300 ft. But for my friends down in denver/boulder this is a lot of snow that they arent quite used to.
I just cant wait for training to camp to start on the 17th in Salt Lake City. The only downer is that last time I checked it is very cold in SLC this time of year. After the camp though I think that I am going to stay with my team mate Ben Bradshaw out near Ontario California for some much needed good weather.
The only true benefit to this snowy weather is the snowshoe adventures that come out of it. Well i hope that everyone is having a good holiday season.

Walker