Alta Alpina Junior Team

new pw

2011-12-10T10:29:00.001-08:00

2B4645A2771EDC32A5B59e6fac

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Mel Maalouf
Alta Alpina Junior Cycling Team Coach
USA Cycling Expert Coach
1609 Olua St.
Minden, NV 89423
+1 775 782 9652
alpinajr@gmail.com
www.altaalpina.com

Time Trial is on Tonight

2010-04-22T15:54:00.000-07:00

Hi Race Fans,
It seems the roads are dry enough to race tonight.
This will really show the neighbors how dedicated bike riders are?
I will have cocoa and coffee to help warm you up.
See you in a few hours.
Di

Monitor and Ebbets As of 12 April

2010-04-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

FYI From our Friend Mark Dieter
- Ebbetts is plowed only to 6.48-miles from the Wolf Creek gate. It ends
at that point with a solid 5-ft snow bank.
Monitor is great - just be careful on the descent. There's lots of rocks
and sand.

Spring Party This Monday!

2010-04-11T23:05:00.001-07:00

Don't forget to come to the spring party! 6 PM at the CVIC Hall in Minden!

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Mel Maalouf
www.altaalpina.com

now lets try a picture uploaded to multiple thingies.

2010-03-29T22:44:00.001-07:00

--
Mel Maalouf
Alta Alpina Junior Cycling Team Coach
USA Cycling Expert Coach
1609 Olua St.
Minden, NV 89423
+1 775 782 9652
alpinajr@gmail.com
www.altaalpina.com

Genoa no Wait Kirkwood Cyclocross!

2009-10-08T19:39:00.001-07:00

The Sagebrush cross for Kirkwood this saturday 10 October will be epic! The mountain air, cool temperatures, cool prizes (maybe a Kona Frame too) as well as a course that runs up stairs and goes through the Kwood village will prove for a super duper race. See you there.

--
Mel Maalouf
Alta Alpina Junior Cycling Team Coach
USA Cycling Expert Coach
1609 Olua St.
Minden, NV 89423
+1 775 782 9652
alpinajr@gmail.com
www.altaalpina.com

19 Aug Article

2009-08-19T22:08:00.001-07:00

Joey, here is the latest. IMG is Nina Maalouf in Duck Creek Utah and IMG00426 is Gabriel Maalouf in Bootleg Canyon, Boulder City, NV

I just got back from vacation with my kids. It was just me and my 4 oldest kids, so vacation didn't mean any riding time. Many times when training, it is good to take a break. Although I don't train enough to need to take an extended break from training, many high level athletes do need a break. The cycling season can last year round when considering road and mtb racing start in February and mtb and cyclocross racing can last through the fall and winter. It is important to remember that training in any sport, you don't get stronger from hard workouts and hard training blocks. An athlete gets stronger while recovering from hard workouts and training blocks. It is this recovery period that is all important that many people don't realize. Of course athletes need to have frequent enough hard workouts from which to recover, that is to say that just recovering from easy workouts won't get the results desired. Not recovering from successive hard workouts will make the athlete fatigued mentally and physically which is called overreaching. If this lack of recovery is carried out for extended periods of time, like on the order of months, overtraining can result. Overtraining can also take months from which to recover and may ruin a whole season. Performance degrades no matter how much recovery is experienced, essentially this is the point of no return (at least for a while).

When taking some time off from training, performance does degrade somewhat, but often it refreshes the body for a new block of hard training. Taking time off from intense training does not necessarily mean that an athlete should do nothing. Hikes, swimming, riding the bike to the ice cream store are great ways to keep active when taking a break. A lot of sports have seasons, like cross country or soccer in the fall and that is it. This means the athletes can recover from injuries, physiologically and psychologically while doing other sports or other activities, even getting a job to fund the things we need for the next season.

So to finish where I started, I was on vacation for a week and did very little riding. It was nice to be around my family and get all my kids' cousins (12 in total) together in Duck Creek, Utah and Las Vegas. There was great riding in both places. Although I wasn't able to ride in Duck Creek, by my sister and brother did. I was able to get out early for a ride in Las Vegas and somewhat beat the heat. It was about 95 deg F when we finished, but when riding in the heat, usually it is sufficient to stay hydrated (about 1 liter/quart an hour) and let the air from riding keep you cool via evaporative cooling, like a swamp cooler. It is nice to know that wherever one travels, it is easy to find good mountain biking and road riding. I think people find road routes that are nice rides and mountain bikers build great trails no matter where one is because riding bikes appeals to so many people.

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Mel Maalouf
Alta Alpina Junior Cycling Team Coach
www.altaalpina.com

email posting

2009-08-17T19:17:00.001-07:00

this is the first post using email.
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Mel Maalouf
Alta Alpina Junior Cycling Team Coach
USA Cycling Expert Coach

www.altaalpina.com

2009-08-17T19:14:00.001-07:00

This is my first mobile BLOG

CX World Champs

2007-02-03T15:13:00.000-08:00

Alta Alpina Junior Team
Team,
http://picasaweb.google.com/alpinajr
Here are some pictures of the CycloCross World championships in Hooglede-Gits which is not far from Brugge: the Venice of the north. There were three US Silver medals and it was an unbeleivable Men's elite race to watch. Our compatriot Jonathon Page was in the front group for the last half of the race. It was unbeleivable to be there. It was so exciting and what a great result. I also talked with Ms. Summerhill, the mother of Danny Summerhill (and Met Danny) who had just won the silver medal in the juniors race. She gave me some leads on junior support for grass roots teams. It was soooo great to see all that between working weeks here in Europe.
As it turns out all the places I have been have been big bike riding places: Nantes, France: I rode with my old riding buddy, Rotterdam, Netherlands: it's the Netherlands.... flat land of bikes, Brugge, Belgium: still flat and a huge bike town, Hooglede-Gits: CX holy land for US and Belgium. , and Ferrara, Italy, the biggest bike town in italy.... but more in the style of holland than the Giro d'italy.
I rented a bike for my last days here and I expect to ride my Manny Poppins bike around the city and to the Po River. I have gone on a hunger strike... I have chosen not to eat dinner for a few days to try and lose the 2 or 3 kilos I have gained. I had hoped to be more disciplined about eating and excercising, but the kilos are witness to my lack of self control. We had good food starting from rotterdam ata a spanish resto, then belgium had good food like the french but in larger quantities. Italy has been good... it is well... Italy. I will at least get a good meal the last night in Florence, since I will be with colleagues. Work has kinda sucked, but it was good to work a lot with some people I now have a lot of respect for now that I have been through some sucky stuff with them. (Not that i didn't have respect before.)
Did I mention how unbeleiveable it was to be at the CX world champs?
I went to mass in Brugge. It was pretty nice to go and not understand. It provided time for me to just meditate on me and the Lord in a 100 year old church. It reminded me of a caltholic friend who recently died a tragic death. It was really sad that a fellow follower of Christ could get so sick he decided to take his own life. I wept. I realized the difference between weeping and crying. Crying is feelings, weeping is deeper and spiritual.
I like Italy. I like Italians. This trip has been fun despite the crummy working conditions.
I hope to see you all when I get back.
Coach Mel.
By the way, the CX worlds was unbeleivably exciting.

2006 Velodrome

2006-12-30T19:48:00.000-08:00

Find all the pictures here:
2006 Velodrom.

From 2006 Velodrom...

Alta Alpina Junior Team

2006-11-06T05:15:00.000-08:00

Alta Alpina Junior Team

The Critical Hour at the Russian Orthodox Church

I have been all over the world and have never made an effort to visit another church on my travels. I am reading this book: Blue Like Jazz which inspired me to see what other christians are up to since I am in my own box of christians in Carson Valley. Plus, I hadn't been to church in a couple of weeks and I wanted to go. I also heard that both the Russian Orthodox and the Catholic churches are worth visiting. Many of the churches around look fairly new and are beautifully made of wood on the outside. Many of the older buildings here are made of wood... probably since most of Sakhalin Island is wooded. The Soviet era buildings are worn and concrete, as opposed to worn and wood for the older ones.

I started off by asking the desk where the church was, you know, the big one in the city. I felt two headed or something because they looked at me that way. The front desk staff's english isn't great, but enough for them to know I wanted to go to the church. They finally caught on and we figured out where it was on the map. I asked what time the service started... I must have sprouted another head because they looked at me that way again. They couldn't understand why I wanted to go to the service, plus they didn't know. So, I figured I would take a cab and shoot for a possible 10 AM service. I figured if I was early I could just people watch etc. I showed up a little after 10 and sheepishly walked into the in progress liturgy. I stood in the furthest back of the church I could so as not to disturb anyone by walking into the nave. I stood next to a short 45ish woman and behind a shorter 65ish woman right next to the door. Everything was in russian... which is not like other languages that we can pick up other words or they have similar words to english... like most of the cab drivers here... not a word of english. I carry around a pocket full of business cards to show them the name of my hotel, because I can't say it in Russian and they don't know it in english. I also have the front desk write down in russian where I want to go so I can show it to the cab driver. So back at church there is lots of chanting, singing from a choir that I can't see... must have been from the heavens and some mumbling of the folks. Upon entering, there were a lot of people standing in the back and the front. There were no chairs, pews or anthing. Another thing I figured out, was that all the women had their heads covered. Some had knit caps, some had stylish hats, some had pretty cool scarves, a few just put the hood up from their jackets. My wife and I visited a church like that in France and she kind of freaked in an indignant way. I thought it was cool. The dudes took off their hats, since many of the people here wear hats, kind of old school and cool, but in the winter, they need to because it gets booty cold here. It seemed like it was another way the women could express themselves. The women here are beautiful in general. Most are pretty trim, do their hair, makeup and dress well. The style for shoes is upper calf boots with about 3.5 inch heels and a really pointy toe. It looks kind of goofy really. It was odd to see most of the people wearing their jackets in church. In most churches, you are supposed to take off your jacket... I used to get scolded from the nuns at catholic school for not taking off my jacket. In russian customs, when you enter a house or establishment, you check or hang up your coat. There are coat racks all over the place and one in my hotel room. So it was odd that people kept their coats on.

The feeling was great to be in a worship service with my fellow christians. I was in the back so I figured out that it was normal (maybe not good) but normal to pass in and out of the church as often as you wanted. People were also moving around the back of the church and up the sides during the service. They were lighting candles and all that stuff. There was a lot of action and I started to wonder if it was disrespectful or just people doing their candle lighting and moving around to pray at pictures along the walls and stuff. I figured it was no stranger than a charismatic service where people can be all over the place. I decided it was all a way of self expression in the House of the Lord. There was lots of movement up front too. There is the front of the church with some cool pictures at three layers of elevation on the wall. I later looked up on the internet what some of the rituals meant and the three layers have a spiritual significance: like top is the God Man himself, with Old testament dudes and then some saints. Behind the front wall is the Iconastasis (not sure if that is spelled right). This symbolizes the Holy of Holies. The doors in the middle open and close at different part of the service with a curtain too. At one point, there was a priest in the Holy room with that round tube hat on and a black veil covering everything. I am really curious as to what that was, but couldn't find anything on the Russian Othordox site. There are two doors on either side of the center Heaven's Doors which the not so holy people can go in and out of, and no lay people go in that room. I read on the web that the Eastern Orthodox church holds to its practices and teachings of old times on purpose as to not get wrapped up into to modernize the church and possibly lose focus and let stuff get watered down. I have always respected that of churches, especially the catholic church i grew up. There were always a lot of people who said that the catholic church should modernize because society is changing. Like God changes over time and his church should modernize to meet our desires. Let's take sex for example, our modern society has pretty much normalized sex outside of marriage as acceptable and perverse stuff happens on public air waves all the time. Most would say that the church's view of celibacy and marriage only sex is an icon of past times and that people these days can handle the emotional issues with having sex with ease and fight the spread of STDs with condoms, prevent pregnancies and if the birth control doesn't work or wasn't used, you can kill the result of sexual indescretions. Well sex does have its emotional baggage and I found it extremely obtuse to watch a commercial for venerial warts on television which affirms the statistics I have seen on the likelihood of young people getting STDs at an alarming rate. You google it yourself on that.

So, it was good to see that tradition and respect for God was still happening here. Sure there were the latecomers coming in and going out, likely to have a smoke. There were the typical pre-adolescents running around with their bed head hair and a couple of men with the same Sunday Morning grooming routines along with some hung over looking young people, but where else should people be on a Sunday morning, but in God's House. As part of the service, there was a lot of doing the sign of the cross and bowing. They do it often, like after every sentence the priest said something I couldn't understand. The way the orthodox to the sign of the cross is : forehead, chest, right shoulder then left, with the right hand. Catholics go left then right, shoulder that is. Then the bow. Catholics don't bow. There is the short bow and some did the waist bow. You could tell who did the waist bow... they had space in front of them to go all the way down. The lady next to me had the bow space and she used it. I didn't to the sign of the cross nor bow. I didn't think it was right... it wasn't how I did things at home. But I figured that if I were in another church in the states, I would sing their songs and do some different things in their service, so I was going to bow with my brothers and sisters. When in Russian Orthodox church do as the Orthodoxians do. In this book I am reading, the author, Don, mentions about loving other people and especially christians who may worship, drive, pray and even vote different than you do. So, I was loving my Orthodoxian brethern. It was good timing, because by this time, my back was starting to hurt and doing the bowing thing helped. God loves his children... they stand out of respect and honor for him and he gives them the ritual of bowing to stretch out their backs. To figure out when to bow, I found a deep bower to follow, because not everyone bowed at each time. Plus, it would be easy to spot him when he went all the way down. We bowed so often we got an aerobic workout. You see, God Loves his children, he keeps us trim in his house.

During the service, the lady next to me started to cry. It was the kind of cry that seemed like she might be a widow. I wonder why church causes people to cry who are mourning. I figure it is because God wants us to go to him and bring our sorrows so that he can console us. Who better to bring our sorrow to than He who CAN console us. I felt really bad. I wanted to give her one of those side hugs, but I didn't have the guts. I convinced myself that she would be uncomfortable and what could I offer? I don't speak a word of russian, nor she english, I can't talk to her or anything... what a worthless christian I was and it made me cry. But that passed. She stopped and so did I. Her daughter showed up with her 6 month old daughter and she was joyful, and so was I that she had someone to be with her and that I have a 6 month old waiting at home for me.

So there was communion, but it happened all different parts of the church. There was a sermon part too, which gave a moment for people to leave, get some candles and kiss some paintings etc. There was no sound system and the acoustics weren't that great for someone just talking so those who wanted to hear gathered around the sermoneer like people may have gathered around Christ closer to hear him better. I didn't get closer... I don't understand russian and it was crowded up there.

After about an hour of service, many of the kids began to crack. This was very understandable since there were no chairs, no toys, no crying room etc. I guess the crying room was the back of the church, which was where I was, so it seemed like the kids had reached their critical hour and their time in God's house was over. many of the parents took their kids out for some fresh air.

The service came to an end or kind of. It kind of petered out and then some people went to a candle table and they started to chant, pray and sing. A few people were sitting around the church making lists. And some people took those lists to the candle table with a relic on on it. I think it was kind of a petition thing.

After watching that for a while, I went outside to call my Mom and wish her a happy birthday. It was nice outside and it was fun to watch people too. Mama told me that a while back in the states women covered their heads too. I guess we got modern here in the states.

I saw some people going into what looked like the basement. I went down to check it out. It was a relic shop and JACKPOT a mass baptism. There were a bunch of people standing around in the basement. I like baptisms and waited around, but it took forever and I didn't understand anything, so I was out of there.

I walked out the same way I came in... it was lined with people asking for money... I always don't know what do to in that situation, are they going to go and drink? Can they work? What is their problem? Or would God question them on what they are doing? Would God ask us to question them? I am not sure, I would suppose God would ask us to show compassion. Probably even go a step further and show them kindness, hospitality and love most of all. In the book, Don reminds us of the story where the religious people were going to stone an adultress, because that was the law and they asked Jesus what to do to taunt him, he said Let him who is without sin throw the first stone. They all left. He then reached out to her in Love and told her to sin no more. That is a really good story, but is Jesus being really unreasonable? We know that she nor anyone else can live a life with absolutely no sin? That is a question I have for God when we talk next.

It is funny, I totally expected going to Russian Orthodox Church would be a great spiritual experience and God met me in his house, on the way there and back. I like him. I would also suggest you read the book, it is funny and genuine.

Anyway, the bus ride is over and I need to get some dinner.

God Speed,
Mel.

Death Ride 2005 Junior Team Rides again!

2005-07-18T19:47:00.000-07:00

Team in Action. Can you say enthusiasm?
Adventure Begins

Refueling for the next one.

Coach.. Goofy smile
Top O' Monitor

Junior Team Blog

2005-07-18T19:37:00.000-07:00

This is where we Blog.