We signed Billy up for Frazier Junior Cycling Camp, designed for junior cyclists age 10-17, but also open to parents who want to ride with their kids, and this year offering training for junior USA Cycling coaches. Frazier Cycling team is based in Atlanta and is a nine year old dynasty of junior cycling, headed by former Cat 1 cyclist Ralph Frazier and his wife Cathy. This year the camp was held at King College, a small presbyterian affiliated liberal arts college in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains in eastern Tenessee, just on the border with Virginia. The camp was four days with each day focused on a different cycling discipline, TT, crit, road race, and endurance ride, with a fun hill climb on the final day.
Each day began with stretching in the gym at 9am on the dot to Coach Ralphs persistent whistle . . .
And each morning we took a 5 mile ride down to the park where the first day we previewed the 5K TT course . . .
Billy lines up for his first TT . . . Frazier cycling kids do the 5K TT regularly as a benchmark for improvement
Little bit of rain after lunch before the TT . . .
Coach Ralph forms the groups
The park 5 mi from campus where we started a lot of the rides
Day 2: more stretching for crit day. If you were slackin, you got to go up front and demonstrate the stretch . . . here, Jack is slackin!
Billy (center) climbs the hill in the .6 mi crit on King College campus . . . he won the "kiddie" race, so Coach Ralph moved him up to his age group for the RR the next day.
junior Cat 4s discuss race strategy . . . I got to race with these guys . . . for one lap, they race Cat 3 and 4, one parent is a former Cat 2 racer.
Billy at top of the climb
Billy's new friend Arvin from Nashville rounds the corner .. .
time for a little capture the flag . . . with water balloons
Billy with friend Devin, Devin was pretty darn fast but had never raced before.
Day 3: stretching in the gym, before bumping practice, and the RR in the afternoon
We line up for bumping practice at the beautiful King College campus
Krige and Jennifer look on, Krige is a professional wheel-chair and cycle-chair racer, full sponsored by a German bank, gave his story one night
we started out with a touching exercise to get used riding close together
Billy and Arvin . . . (temp in the high 60s and low 70s, in July, felt great!)
then let the bumping begin! first two at a time
now three at a time, a bike sandwich!
Billy said bumping was his favorite part of camp, he really got into it . . .
Unfortunately, some of the kids got a little too rough, this crash resulted in a broken collar bone and mild concussion, like Coach Ralph says "it aint Bible school out there"!
A little lunch at the park before the RR, I just ate a power bar
locks on the Hoilston River, part of the depression ere TVA project (Tennessee Valley Authority)
Frazier juniors tended to stick together, polite and respectful to a fault, great kids, some of them are on the bike 6 days a week, and put in anywhere from 100-350 mi per week; Frazier produces a slew of junior national champs each year, and offers a year round training program, two 50 mi and one 20 mi ride each week, and weight training for those past puberty, professional coaching with power meters . . .
The final full day of camp, we got up for the endurance ride, but it was raining, so the ride was postponed till the afternoon
"Coach" Duco from the Netherlands, on the faculty of Vanderbilt, and father of Arvin, we hung out a lot, great guy, at 6'2", Duco is the runt of the family, has a brother who is 6'9" and sister at 6'3, his 14 yr daughter is already 5'11" and was at volleyball camp
We group up for the endurance ride . . .
Billy, in Hub kit, and I did the slow 30 mi group, which would be Billy's longest ride of his life
Analyn served as camp nurse . . .
Krige ready to roll in his fast machine . . .
Jack promptly flatted and Mr Roger, a kiwi by birth, changes the tube . . .
Roger still fixing the flat!
Sunday am, we group up for the "fun" ride . . .
of course "fun" for Coach Ralph means a gut busting hill climb up to the top of the dam, a 5 minute TT, in races of 3 on 3 . . .
Coach Becky (in light blue) keeps track of the results at the top of the hill . . . Anna looks on with her collar bone stabilized from bump practice . . . Frazier kids are tough as nails!
view from top of the dam
lake above the dam
the dam viewed from below, those are full sized trees, this dam was perhaps 300 ft high, that dot on the top between trees is size of a person.
East State Street in downtown Bristol borders Tennessee and Virginia, you can stand with one foot in each state!
here's a cool video produced by Frazier Cycling on this years camp, shows a lot of the bumping practice . . .
full report here . . .
