We just wrapped up our staff retreat in Arizona and I’m still buzzing from the experience. As staffers at TCH, we travel, ride, play and work all over the world. It’s a great life but at times it’s a struggle to keep in touch with what’s going on in each other’s lives. It’s also important for all of us to be up to speed with the direction we’re heading as company and discuss our values, strategy and how we can make the experience we deliver even better. After learning how fun and inspiring a retreat can be from last year, we blocked off 4 days in our schedule at the beginning of December to get the entire crew together in the Arizona desert.

Brendan, Heidi, Zander and Ian flew in from South America after completing a 4 week self organize and self supported bike tour. John drove in from Colorado and Forrest, Sarah, Drew, Shaun and myself all flew in from Missoula, Montana. It was great to catch up and hear the stories for everybody’s recent adventures.

At the retreat, I took it on myself to test these guys on a regular basis to see if they still had what it takes to be a TCH staffer. These tests usually occurred on our mid-day ride and were executed by me attacking the group at a stop sign or pointing to one direction and going the other. I did whatever it took to keep everybody on their toes :) They stepped up every time and I never got farther than 50-100 feet down the road before I was reeled back into the group.

Sleep was at the bottom of the priority list. We were much more focused on learning from each other, discussing our upcoming plans, getting outside to ride and run and also soaking up the local flavor in old town Scottsdale.

Having all of us spend time together working through the issues and opportunities we have on the horizon was incredibly motivating and very fun. This retreat brought us all closer together, taught us things we would have never learned on our own, and helped us all become more aligned with our ultimate goal of continuing to run the best cycling and triathlon trips in the world.

I hope you have the opportunity to come ride with us in 2015.  See our full trip lineup on our website or give us a call (406-219-1318) to find the best cycling or triathlon trip for you.

By Owen Gue
President, Cycling House

p.s. these are the trips we have coming up in the next 6 months:
Tucson Cycling & Triathlon Camps
Solvang, California Cycling Trip
Mallorca, Spain Cycling Trip
Provence, France