Coffee in the mountains

It’s time to throw down my first review of an Angel Fire coffee shop. First on the list is Our Place Café.









This quaint little shop won me over from the start with a tasty triple shot soy mocha. I have upped the ante lately with my mocha drinks by throwing in an extra shot. I know that’s not really a good thing when you drink two or three a day, but I have built up such immense antibodies that I must increase the fix.









Our Place Café also serves a full menu of food items. The Cumberland boys tore into omelets, pancakes and a few bagels. The food was great, albeit a tad bit pricey. We’re going back on Friday night for a night of bluegrass music and Cajun gumbo! Since we’ve got a southern Louisiana rider on the team there’s no way we are going to miss this.

Looking out our window near the breakfast table we get to look at the snow capped mountain called Wheeler Peak. At 13,161 feet it’s the highest point in New Mexico. You can’t go anywhere in Angel Fire without seeing this beast in the distance.














I tried to pull double duty on the coffee shop blog, but I got shot down at the Grapevine Gourmet. I don’t think it’s good for business if it’s after 10:00 am and you’re still closed. I guess the help wanted sign is for the opening position? Oh well, Our Place Café more than makes up for Grapevine’s locked doors.



We hit the grocery store to pick up supplies for the condo after eating. While the guys were loading up on oatmeal and pancake mix I was in the wine aisle! Today I decided I was totally buying a bottle solely based upon the label. I went with Red Truck which is a red table wine from Sonoma County. I chose this over Twin Fin and the Little Penguin. Red Truck was started by the grandson of Valeriano Jacuzzi. To my delight the condo is equipped with a corkscrew and wine glasses!












After grocery shopping we settled into our condo for a few hours to relax. Later in the afternoon the guys geared up and tackled the short-track and cross-country courses. Angel Fire has hosted a UCI World Cup event, so you can imagine the course is no joke! The short-track course is a 3:30 to 3:45 lap, while the cross-country is a difficult nine mile loop that will test everyone’s endurance and lung capacity. The race starts at over 8,000 feet altitude while climbing up to over 11,000 feet once you reach the peak point.

I rode the short-track course on a single-speed Bianchi, and then cruised through town looking for anything interesting enough to blog about. I ventured up into a wooded mountain neighborhood that had dirt and gravel roads. Occasionally the single-speed needing a bit more kick to go up those three miles in the neighborhood. It was nothing but one log cabin after another. Needless to say it’s mouth watering beautiful.

As I tooled around different shops this posting at an Italian restaurant caught my eye.

Sweet! I am bringing copies home to Nashville to post in various areas around town. That will run some people off don’t you think?

We finally start Collegiate Mountain Nationals with our short-track race at 8:45 am on Friday, and then our cross-country race at 8:00 am on Saturday. We've also got one downhill rider competing on Sunday morning. These next three days should offer up some great racing action, and with a lot of hard efforts and a bit of luck the Cumberland boys stand a chance to get some excellent results.

Stay tuned for pictures and videos!