Hola!

I am online and settled in.  We are  staying with friends we met last year, a local Specialized sponsored rider and his wife.  We’ve got a sweet view of Quito out our window, and it’s a very comfortable place with bikes and gear all over the place. Reminds me of our house at home actually. The Panaderia (fresh bread bakery) is about a 2 minute walk away and the bike shop, Cikla is about 1 minute away.  The Parque Metropolitano is about a 2 minute ride away and has tons of kilometers of single track riding, with a bunch of jumps, logs and skill areas to practice on.  It’s right on the edge of the city, but nestled in a dense Eucalyptus forest.  It’s hard to believe we’re one the edge of a giant city.  We slept late yesterday, it’s amazing how trashed a 14 hour travel day can make me feel.  The ride yesterday felt really fun, but a bit hard to shake the cobwebs out of my legs, I felt better towards the end than at the beginning. Which is probably due to that travel thing again, sitting for 14 hours doesn’t keep the blood flowing.

We had a personal escort from Daniel, the race director, owner of Cikla bike shop and the Ecuador distributor for Specialized. He’s a busy guy, but sort of like the mayor of all cycling related activities in this country.  He is a ripping rider and it was awesome to ride with him on his home trails. Today is an acclimatization day.  The town of Quito is at about 2800 meters. For those of you Americans out there, I’m working in kilometers and meters over here!  The race takes place between about 3200 and 4200 meters.  Last year, the altitude was a killer and Greg got really sick from it.  This year, we have a little better plan to get up high this week before the race.  You can take bikes up on the Teleferiqo tram just near Quito to the top of Pichincha Volcano at 4100 meters.  From there you can get off the tram and ascend even higher to 4600 meters.  The best part is that you can ride your bike on single track all the way down the mountain and back to the bottom.  We plan to hit the Teleferiqo at least two times this week if possible to get up into the thin air.  If that doesn’t work, at least we’ll have enjoyed ourselves on the huge descent!

Wednesday, I am running a women’s only ride in the early morning at the Parque Metropolitano with Amanda, a strong local female racer.  There have not been many women’s clinics here, so I am motivated to ride with some of the locals and work on some riding techniques.  Here’s the flyer and info about the clinic (in Spanish!)  The shop has already been getting a few complaints from some male riders wondering why they cannot come to the riding clinic!

Here is a link, for those who can read spanish on Cikla Net. And yes I am chasing llamas in that photo!

Cheers

Reba