by Ryan Baumann, Trek-Livestrong U23 Team

Back during the first week of February the team was in Santa Rosa, CA before the Tour of California for a training camp. Lance joined us for the first ride of the week, and we did two solid efforts on the day, especially for the early season legs!

First we climbed up Warm Spring Mtn Road, a fairly steep 25-minute climb on narrow winding roads. Lance set a powerful tempo from the base and was dropping the team one by one. I got a little excited and pulled through with Lance for the opening 7 minutes at 430 watts, ouch. I dropped off after 17 minutes when he accelerated on a steep pitch of the road, after 400 watts average for the first part of the climb. I then rode tempo up the rest of the climb. Lance was out of sight long before I reached the top.

The second climb of the day was a shorter, steeper road where we rode tempo up the first 10 minutes of the climb before Lance attacked in the first steep sections. It was a really tough effort at over 430 watts average until I was dropped again! It’s humbling but awe inspiring to see the raw power a top rider like Lance can put out. It’s great to have the Powertap hubs to document these hard efforts and use them to set our training zones for the rest of training camp.