ZeCanon

Calling all southern Californians! Or other people who live in warm places! The CSU Cycling Team needs your help.

We have done a 7-10 day camp in Tucson in January the last two years. This year we want to try somewhere new and I'm looking for suggestions and maybe even some tips towards very cheap/free housing.
I know there are quite a few on here from southern CA, so I'm hoping you guys can give me your thoughts. If you had to do a training camp in your area where would you do it?
An ideal situation would be:
- plenty of climbing. We're from Colorado, after all.
- easy access to good rides. As in, we would prefer not to be in the middle of LA.
- warm (duh)
and most important:
- cheap cheap cheap! We are all crazy poor college kids. Free host housing would be amazing, and we would love you forever and bring you gifts if you can provide it or provide a lead towards it. We will work for floor space in your basement! We will sleep in your shed and shower with your hose! Seriously, some of us can't even afford to stuff 8 people in a ghetto motel for 8-10 days.
We will have 6-10 people, probably all guys with a good mix of ability from a couple p/1/2 A's to 4/5 C's.

If you have any ideas for us, please let me know. If not, I will just watch this thread drop slowly down the page like the tears down my face. Arizona always provided us with some sort of accommodation, but I know CA can do better! Even if you have no interest in having 10 college kids in your basement, some recommendations of good rides/good areas would be much appreciated as well.

Thanks!

waterrockets 

You might see if you can hook up with a college team in SoCal and maybe trade hosting each other... get a tradition going.

If you want warm-ish mountains in January, it's gotta be the southwest though. Austin isn't particularly warm in January (maybe just 10F warmer than Ft Collins -- but it's an important 10F). We don't have mountains anyway. We do have pain though... our hills are shorter, but much much steeper.

ZeCanon

Good idea WR. We were thinking about talking to UCSB... they sent two girls to track nationals this year who seemed pretty enamored with us

esammuli

You've basically got 3 choices. Santa Barbara, LA (the Santa Monica's or the San Gabriel's), and San Diego.

The Santa Monica's can be accessed from the south in Santa Monica/Brentwood or from the north in Agora, Westlake, Woodland Hills, etc. There are tons of good climbs (10+ over 6miles long), ocean views, and winding descents. With the exception of Palomar Mtn. San Diego offers less extended climbs, but lots of rolling terrain. North County San Diego has excellent riding, especially in the areas north and east of Escondido.

furiousferret

The Redlands area has really good cycling, lots of hills, the highest peaks in SoCal, cheaper, warmer, but really you're not going to get the 'scenery' you would if closer to the coast.

ZeCanon

Scenery isn't really important, thanks for the tip. Redlands added to the list.

joecool2727

i think the WCCC used to have a winter training camp in solvang. wish that was still going on. but my team is gonna have a camp anyway around Malibu. pace cars, trainers, free food/housing, warm weather, and we get to ride with team Amgen (very fast team, including a world champ) supposedly on some of the same routes that team CSC trained on. gonna be sweet.

ZeCanon

Thanks everyone for your help. We are set up with UCSB cycling, free housing and all. Worked out perfectly.

I'm just letting you all know because everyone is welcome to join us for the camp. We'll be riding in Santa Barbara from Jan 11 to the 18th. If you're interested in riding with a good group (we should have 10-15 people total) pm me and I'll send you a more detailed schedule.

ridethecliche

Man, I'd love to do this. Now if only I had the means to get there...

I guess I'll be hitting the trainer for hours everyday while you guys are soaking up the hills and the sun!
Enjoy!

furiousferret

Glad you locked something up. Enjoy California, we sure do!

umd