Skinny Gets Big on the Track

This past weekend Andy aka “Skinny” participated in the Arizona Track meet held at the San Diego track. His participation marks the first event in which El Grupo was represented as a legit USCF team. That means we are a nationally sanctioned team as per USA cycling. Special thanks goes out to Don Melhado and Saguaro Velo for helping make that happen. As for Skinny he had a great meet. As he told me he won most of the B category races and had a great time. I’ll have him post more on this but for now know that El Grupo plans on training at the track in Hermosillo a heck of a lot more, because as Andy says racing on the track is RAD.

Super Changing of the Guard

Congratulations to Cailin Holmes, Ian Ure, Adrian Lorenze, Alex Noelke, Ron Stanage, Elliot Berry, Margo Wallace, and Nick Ellet for graduating High school this spring. We are proud of you all and we hope to see you in the future on your bikes and doing great things. Some of the riders mentioned helped create El Grupo and now three years later are moving on. I thank them for all their dedication and efforts and I can’t wait to see what they do next.

As for El Grupo this is our first great changing of the guard. The team has many new riders coming on and hopefully many more to come. This is hugely exciting and we want as many new riders as possible so if you know a youth that would like to ride now is the time to get them in touch with the coaches. We currently have a new core group of 6 riders that are not graduating while some of the old riders who are staying in town will still be with us as well, but the future is coming and we are ready to embrace it.

International Bike Racing Festival invites El Grupo

Earlier this year Daniela and I brought a group of kids down to Hermosillo, Mexico to ride the velodrome and we had an incredibly good time, and while we were down there we had the privilege of meeting many bicycle coaches from the area. A video documenting our first trip can be found on this site. It was this trip and the relationships made that presented us with this newest dream chance. What am I talking about? Well right now Ron Stanage and Alex Strickland El Grupo riders along with Daniela Executive Director are in Aguascalientes, Mexico participating in an international bike racing festival in Mexico racing against 12 other countries. El Grupo was asked to represent the United States. The boys are wearing USA jerseys and will be racing for three days. Two days on the track and on Sunday a road race. I am hugely proud of this opportunity and the boys, and a little jealous of Daniela who got to go with them. However for those of you who know Daniela you know there is no better person suited to help the boys through this adventure and to spread the good work of El Grupo while helping to make lasting relationships so El Grupo may have this opportunity for years to come. Good luck boys, have fun racing and making friends, and enjoy the opportunity.

Club House Space Search

My house is overcrowded with El Grupo stuff and we the coaches would love a place to get together with the team that had more space then our little house. So if anybody out there has a garage, apartment, or something of the sort for a small bicycle club to store their equipment please let us know. We are looking for something in the downtown area if possible. Thanks for the help.

Build A bike Class

Not only do I want El Grupo participants to be intelligent bicycle riders I also want them to be able to maintain their own bicycles. Daniela and I teach classes on such through BICAS that we call build a bike. Currently 4 El Grupo riders are taking the class at BICAS and we are having a blast. If you want more info on the classes check out the BICAS web page, or ask us about the sweet Bianchi road bike we are building for the club.

Arizona State Championship Road Race

On June 8th four El Grupo riders participated for the first time in the State’s Championship. We had a great showing on an extremely challenging course. For the boys that rode in the cat 5 event their course had a ton of climbing with some awesome views of Lake Roosevelt at the turn around spot. Their race was an out and back course of 60 miles with a mountain in the middle that was 8 miles long at 7%. There was no pack to speak of by the end of the race—the whole group blew apart the second time up the mountain. Ron was able to stay up at the front of the race though and managed an incredible second place. Alex was out there as well and finished in a highly respectable 19th place.

Max (12) and Logan (only 11), two of the newest and youngest, El Grupo riders were out there as well and did superbly in their respectful youth age group categories. They both finished in third place and had a great time racing. I was unable to watch their race so I am unable to tell you about it, but all I heard from them was that they had a great time.

Thanks for the great day of racing and look out Arizona, we’re coming!