Out for a spin in Brookfield, WI

After racing the rough and tough 5 days of North Star Grand Prix, my teammate Starla and I drove the 5 hours to Wisconsin for Tour of America’s Dairyland.  With 11 races, 10 being crits and 1 circuit race it became a string of racing and routine.  Get up in the morning, eat, spin (sometimes depending on how late we slept or how the legs were feeling), local coffee shop to use wifi to work, then lunch, pack up for the race, get to the course to preview a bit and warm up, RACE, head home, dinner, bed.  Everyday this was the same story.

So Starla convinced me to try the “custard” of Wisconsin… I’d pretty much call it ice cream, but yeah, it was really good!!

The excitement of racing and going to different areas around Milwaukee every day kept it new and such cute little towns with amazing centers with people lining the streets for every race.  Every afternoon we got on our bikes and played the crit game to see if we could outride everyone else and break off the front or position for a good finish.

After the race series was over there was a whirlwind of travel to follow.  Sunday evening Starla and I left Wisconsin for Minneapolis at 10pm, only to have an unexpected stop in Madison at my old friend’s place because of torrential rain and a tornado warning that was going right over the highway.  So we made it to Minneapolis at 4am and super tired!

The next day we packed up our bikes and Starla headed to the airport while I got an awesome tour around Minneapolis/St. Paul by our awesome hosts.  Finally some fun and to see a bit of the city where we raced.  The next morning (Tuesday), I had a 6 am flight which meant a 4am cab ride to the airport only to have my flight delayed by an hour.  That delay turned into a 4 hour wait in Denver and getting home to Tucson at 3 pm.  Literally the moment I got home I was already packing, and the next day between appointments, meetings and packing I got my car loaded up.  Only 1 full day in Tucson and then I headed out for the 7hr drive to Santa Fe.  I arrived on the 3rd of July and after an exciting 4th of July going to a baseball game and seeing fireworks my first moment to breath came the 5th.  So for the past few days I have been unpacking and settling into the altitude and cool weather training of Santa Fe.  I miss the calmness of being here and riding through the plaza to take in the culture of the downtown.

This week I head to Chicago to race in the Prairie State Cycling Series, an 8 day race held over 10 days.  I am also excited because over the 2 days of rest I will be flying over to Salt Lake City for the Scott Meeting.  A meeting put on by our main sponsor Scott Bikes to present their products for 2015.

To really follow our trip through Minnesota and Wisconsin, Starla and I took a pictured every day of the trip and had fun finding new and fun ways to get our pic in for the day.