This summer vacation was planned long ahead of time. Percy is still recovering from his shoulder impact/crash (AC separation 2nd deg.) -- so this was just fine to do and add good base miles and vertical. Still not healed but it seam to come along slowly. A week of cycling with buddies in Philadelphia near the Rawstown Lake.

Some for Py easy but fun cycling and guiding combined with a little more good climbing and a chance to check out the "Toona Race Coarse".

Read more here in my full trip report here:
http://pyzahl.blogspot.com/2012_06_01_archive.html

GAB with Swiss buddy "collecting" some of the biggest mountain passes of the Alps. The first day out of the two 1/3 available days for riding was going to set records for both of us in respect of total climbing/day -- topping 5000m vertical in a day with little under 200km in 4 major climbs including two HC categorized climbs. The last and most demanding climb of the 1st day definitively was the Passo della Foppa (also known as Mortirolo). The next days a few more big ones plus a little weather challenge on top of it -- rainy, wet, cold, windy and high elevation and a taste of muddy dirt road descending the Umbrail Pass -- a new experience. Read more here in my full trip report here:
http://pyzahl.blogspot.com/2012/06/little-giro-from-pass-to-pass.html

GAB at GFNY:
Percy went to the possible largest road cycling competition "Gran Fondo New York" GFNY -- kind of a race with accumulative timed climbs in New England or even the Eastern US with over 5000 riders from professional racers, amateurs racers to just leisure cyclists trailing the field what was ordered by USAC ranking and then age groups for the non license holders.

The GFNY uniform Jersey was mandatory for this event what I found initially kind of "boring" but turned out giving it a different feel and great team work for miles between riders from pretty much all over the world -- some Italian racer for example took the all over 1st place.

Read my report here:
http://pyzahl.blogspot.com/2012/05/grand-fondo-new-york.html

AGreat racing at the Tour of the Battenkill. A little dusty and some loose gravel challenges. Decent placing and all went smoothly. Great race and organisation again!

Read my full report here:
http://pyzahl.blogspot.com/2012/04/battenkill-2012.html

So I am just back from 10 days in Tenerife. What a great place to ride! We arranged a bike through www.tenerife-training.com. A nice durable stead, outfitted with new Vredestein tires. It was my first chance to ride them, and they performed great. Special thanks to Dr Leslie for the set-up. The island is a riders paradise, just do not expect much in the way of flat. Our first climb was 22 miles from Los Cristianos to Teide. It was a beautiful sunny day, with temps ranging from 50-70. Thank god for the great scenery, otherwise a climb like that would be killer.

All of the members of the GreenArmBandits cycling team came together for our pre-season planning meeting this past Saturday. Nice to see the guys in street clothes. We have been together frequently during the off-season during training rides, but have had little time to discuss upcoming season plans. This was a wonderful opportunity to do so, while also catching up on family and personal happenings.