Durango Day 2

Just walking into my dorm room tonight at 10:30 pm our time here. We are having some really long, fun, draining days up here. Yet I am pretty sure we would not have it any other way. Things are going great.

Last night after I posted we went to a very fancy bike fit studio and spent an hour and a half with Dr. Ryan Siggins. Another really smart dude. He put Donovan on a very high tech machine that then sent D's body info to a computer and told him all of the angles that we need to know. Donovan was hooked up to machines like the Russian in Rocky 4. With stick on electrodes all over his right side. Really cool the technology. Donovan got a professional fit and the rest of the kids got free t-shirts.

After that we spent an hour just letting the kids cruise downtown. Downtown is not much bigger than ours it is just much more infilled like Flagstaff.

Today had us again waking up "early" 7am and on our bikes at 9am. The cafeteria here on campus is quite nice. They do a pretty nice job with the food. Nathan says he would not eat just raw Rahmen noodles for lunch if they had this at school. The baker has also been really nice to us and even gave us a loaf of banana bread today.

As well the dorm rooms we have been staying in are again quite nice. My dorm room at Florida State was more of a prison cell compared to this, so accommodations are pretty sweet. In the dorm building itself there is a game room where we have been able to leave all our gear as well so yet another nice treat.

These guys up here really have been so good to us. I can not say enough good things about this school the coaches and the infrastructure they have here. This is a professional establishment.

So today's ride had us on a completely different trail network. There was even a run called Star Wars that was so fun Nathan actually let out a real yelp of joy. It could have competed with my hollers. So much so that Lizzy thought he was hurt. The ride was about 2 1/2 hours long and super fun.

After the ride we went to a bike shop in town that had over 20 national championship jerseys in
it, aliong bikes that had won major races. Judith your Specialized commuter, a carbon copy, was hanging in the shop, Max will tell you.

NOTE: At lunch Nathan had shrimp with his pasta and had an egg roll. He liked them both and tried them both with out me making him. He really is becoming quite adventurous.

From lunch we headed to Elke's (can't find her last names place) and spent 2 hours learning about stretching, core strength and whole body conditioning. She was also a National Champion MTB down hill racer. This town truely is packed with talent. Heck we ran into John Tomac on the trail the other day. You know just 2 time MTB world Champ no big deal.

Finally after that we got a little nap in.

But then off the race. A short track MTB race. A discipline that we know nothing of. It was described to us a MTB crit racing, but I do not think this was a fair shake of it. It was more like pure pain for 20 minutes for the kids.

Most exciting though was that we got to race the junior bike team from Durango today. The team is called DEVO and they were spectacular. The kids could really fly. The girl Lizzy raced tonight was the National Champ in this Short Track discipline.

The team really hung in and raced well for our first time at 9,000 feet. Things are different up here. Kramer took the El grupo win Max second and Logan third. Best finish was Pablo and Donovan fighting for third. Donovan crashed and broke his derailluer hanger in the last 50 feet and then got up and ran to the finish to tie Pablo very exciting.

We are now finally back in our room after a burrito at the local shop that Pablo said passed the test so you know it was good.

Tomorrow is more riding run and I will do my best to keep this entertaining.

Nacho