Saturday was the Queen Stage of our Endurance Camp for the Team BC Women. 150 km featuring 3 significant climbs with the middle one lasting close to 20 km and lifting us to over 3000 ft. Although there were some tired legs at the end of the ride the girls still managed a strong paceline along the coast and they made it up the final climb of the day, the one that brings us home!
Today we set out for our epic ride! We covered 150km with a few solid climbs- one rose 4000 feet over 22km of climbing! The incredible view of the valleys in between the Topa Topa mountains that we had summitted and the fast descent back into Ojai made the effort well worth it. After a climb in Ojai, we rode up and around Lake Casitas, and enjoyed a tailwind along the water back into Ventura. After a spaghetti dinner, we took our tired legs out for some frozen yogurt! Thank you so much to our coaches and all of our sponsors for giving us the opportunity to train in such a beautiful place! – Christiana Moser
‘Epic’ can only begin to describe today’s ride. It was day 8 of riding for us here in Ventura, but you could hardly tell as we smashed 150 km in 5 hours and 40 minutes with more than 1, 870 m of climbing. We started our ride off with a steady pace out to Ojai, through Camp Comfort County Park. Our first climb of the day was up a twisty descent we had come down a few days before when we rode to Ojai from Santa Paula. Lucky for us, we got to turn around and come back down it! We then rode to the other side of Ojai, where we quickly stopped at the van for a water top up, then proceeded up the biggest climb of the day. 20 km of climbing to an elevation of 1, 006 m with a brutal crosswind, we left blood, sweat and tears on the road. However, the 2O km descent was quite enjoyable! We finished our day off with a scenic route around Lake Casitas, before dropping back down to the sea and pace lining in echelon formation back home. Thank you to all the sponsors and coaches who have made this camp happen, it has been an amazing experience and some of the best riding I’ve done yet! – Clara MacKenzie
