Gyre and Gimble

have bike, will travel

2012-01-15T18:07:00.001-07:00

Another + for the lenz. This opens up some recreational options for me in the far flung places i visit. I need to find a right sized box for the wheels, but i'm very happy with my $14.99 aluminum goodwill suitcase. Plenty of room in their my riding gear too.

Had a great january weekend too. Temps in the 50's on the both days saw me and the boy knocking out a goo long road ride to monument and back on saturday and fat tire romp through university park, pulpit rock and ute valley on sunday.

riders eye #2

2012-01-10T23:02:00.001-07:00

++++++++++++++++++++++++

2012-01-08T19:39:00.000-07:00

Still digging this. It is easy to point out a couple of faults, but smiles per mile are high on every ride. It is the perfect palmer ss but also disappears beneath me on the longer, smoother rides too.

rider's eye #1

2011-12-06T08:24:00.001-07:00

n + 1

2011-12-02T17:34:00.001-07:00

Found a smoking deal on this lenz sport bike on ebay a while back and have had it built up for a few weeks now. I dig it. I've ridden a fair number of fs 29ers and the only one's i've liked have been the xc leaning variety (still prefer the 26 inch format for long travel bikes)and this one is efficiently flavored and to my liking. I like that i can also run gears if inclined. This is the get it up and running version and expect configuration will change by the time summer rolls around.

pub crawl enduro

2011-11-27T18:29:00.001-07:00

A few weeks back we did our third pub crawl enduro. Stops included another pint, bjs, gotg skate pool, thunder and buttons, and culminated with the wmba costume crit. Good time were had, bikes were ridden and we made people smile.

numbers

2011-10-21T21:25:00.000-06:00

Found myself with some time to kill. May 1st would be the genesis of all this data.

42 – days commuting to work
16 – gallons of gas saved by commuting
19 to 46 – range of miles ridden on the commuting days
440 – dollars paid in race entry fees for the boy
96 – highest mileage day ever on a bike
25 – highest number of days ridden in month
42 – best mpg in the little car over the course of a road trip
23 – road bike rides
5 – stiches required to sew up my elbow
2584 – total miles ridden
10 – instances of dropped chains for Trevor during a race
2487 – miles driven to get to and from 13 races
1268 – amount i’d get reimbursed for mileage if i got reimbursed
129 – days ridden
61 – bike rides that started and ended in my driveway
1 – broken spoke on my 3-year-old ss wheels

view from the back

2011-10-18T22:36:00.001-06:00

Another quality family weekend at the races. Trevor and i headed out to peaceful valley on saturday to help out setting the course for sunday's HS race. Lot's of stapling, taping and stake pounding, but the result was the best course of the series. Sunday Rebecca worked the finish again and i ended up riding sweep for the d2 jv boy's race. The series leader went down early on a rutted double track (broken collar bone). On the second lap one of the boys who was riding off the back with drive train problems had some bad luck burping a tire and washing out in a corner. He had a get off into a tree. Tough kid. He wanted to air up his tire and keep riding. I had to make him sit there for a few minutes before he realized how badly he was hurt. The word is he did not break the collar bone, but is waiting it out to see if it gets any better (need to have him talk to doug about how that works out). Turns out he missed the first couple of races after taking a bite from a rattle snake on a training ride.

Lot's of good racing going on as well. The league has a good recap in their press release. Trevor had a strong ride to finish second in the d1 freshman race. The boys all need to be on the look out for henry the 1st place finisher in all three races. This guy is putting in times that would make him a contender in the jv races. The rest of the cheyenne mountain team had some mixed fortunes. We had a couple of top ten finishes, a couple of racers with mechanicals and one race cut short by an asthma attack. Kyle rode to 5th in the d1 jv race.

cb classic v2

2011-10-03T22:44:00.000-06:00

Saturday’s ride started dark and chilly at the 4-way with just a hint of dawn reaching through the sky as we got rolling up kebler pass at 6:30. Once the “racing” started i fell in with a group of three riders keeping a spirited, but all day pace as the contenders charged up the road. We picked up another group of 3 or 4 riders and made good time to the turn off to the Irwin town site. I was happy to be able to conserve a little energy in the group knowing that most of the day i’d be out on my own.

The sun was just hitting the flank of the rubies and the temperature had dropped remarkably. I remember my right pinky finger going dead early on and then noticed my arms were feeling really sluggish whenever I tried to make them do anything other than hold the bars. The group broke up for good as we climbed towards the lake and the beyond to the dyke trailhead and i spent the rest of the day riding solo with a few brief chats as the overtaker or overtaken.

The dyke was perfect. The sun was just hitting the trees as we got on it and even though it was still really cold the sun felt great. That was some great riding. Still feeling strong, ripping across a carpet of soft leaves under a canopy of gold, orange and green. Somewhere near the bottom the combination of cold arms and a bit of brake pump tapped into the first physical malady of the day. Not sure exactly when i noticed, but at some point after that final descent my right triceps gave up and went the rest of the day really fatigued and sore. The overall effect made me really uncomfortable on the bike, but that’s what you get when you dramatically change the setup of your bike without adequate time to get used to it.

The climb back up kebler was great. I was a lot warmer and the sun was blasting the aspens. The colors were retina searing and that alone was enough to confirm i’d made the right choice to drive all the way out for 1 day of riding. I finished off the first loop in just under 2 ½ hours. Fred was just finishing up at his truck and with short transfer of gear and nutrition at the car i was on my out for the second loop a few minutes later.

I’m curious to know what goes on in the heads of other riders when they are out there on their own. My mind doesn’t really wander, but over the course of a long ride it does cover a lot ground. I use time games, trying to guess how long it would take to ride each section (4-way to bottom of slate d’huez, bottom of slate d’huez to top of 403, camp ground to top of 401). That gave me something to keep coming back to. I thought about bikes. The bike i was on, the bike left at home, bikes i didn’t have but wouldn’t mind riding on a particular section of trail. I keep turning the pedals thinking how the really hard riding is dealt out in doses and that recovery will be a welcomed reward. Funny how unequal the doses seem when i’m on the bike compared to how i measure them after the fact.

Speaking of hard riding, loop 2 offers plenty. My right arm was a distraction, but other than that i felt good going up the road. The climb to the top of 403 is well known to me which helps some, but man it sure makes me hurt. I punctured on a well-placed rock coming down 403 and opted to throw in a tube rather than try to get the tire to seal. I’ve seen that shit show enough to know that most of the time a tube will save time. The bottom of 403 had me wishing for more bike and bigger brakes and there were a couple of times i was sure i was about to lose control of my arm. Gothic road to the top of 401 is also a familiar climb. Less grueling, but the cumulative effect of the miles really started adding up. Somewhere in this part of the ride my ass really started to hurt. Because i had time, and it wasn’t going away, i isolated it to the hard efforts in the granny ring. Too bad not using granny was not an option. Once i broke out of the trees i had to really focus on pedaling a gear that would allow me to recover. That was cool though because it gave me more time to look at the bells off to the north. For certain one of the attractions to riding to the top of the drainages north of town is the views. Adding fall colors just makes the scenery that much better.

I really enjoy the 401 descent, falling where it does in the race. It is fun trail, not as in my face as 403 and provides some much needed recovery. I hit gothic road feeling much better and started a new time game for the ride back in to town. There was a fairly stiff head wind in the open sections and the only relief on the way back in to town was the mile or so where the road cuts through the aspen grove between the bridge and pavement. At this point in the ride i was pretty motivated knowing there was nothing keeping me from finishing off the ride. The weather was stellar and the motor was still working good. My time split for loop 2 was barely on the other side of 4 hours.

I spent a lot more time on this stop at the car than between loops 1 and 2. A big part of this was prep. I hadn’t pre-mixed my fuel bottle or charged my water with secret sauce on account of not knowing how the weather would play out. There was also yummy food to be eaten, icy cold coke and a body that welcomed being off the bike. Once all those details were taken care of i was off to brush creek with pedal friendly tail wind.

Home to many cattle, cb has a long history of providing pasture for happy beeves. I ran in to a herd of them being driven down the road between the bridge over brush creek and the bottom of the strand loop double track. I dismounted and hung off to the side of the road for a several minutes thinking about a juicy burger with a side of rings and a cold beer while real live cowboys and tenacious little dog bent the animals to their will.

In the mental prep for this race the 403, 401, and deer creek climbs all got due consideration. I’ll be adding the strand climb to that list now that the punchy sections are fresh in my mind. The time game was a great distraction on this loop and kept me somewhat occupied all the way through the hike a bike on deer creek. Topping out was a great moment. Afternoon sunlight was giving the mountains a whole new look and i knew all the hard work was over. I recovered well and got into a nice groove to finish off the deer creek single track. Just before i hit gothic the local support was there offering beer and ice water. I took a hit of water and a can of beer for the road and got back on to gothic road for the last push into town.

I knew i was probably not going to finish with a sub 10 hour time, but i was feeling good and the headwind was gone so i pushed pretty hard to get to the pavement. At that point i cracked my to-go beer and gave myself a pat on the back. Just before the fire station I passed two of the three guys i met at the hostel on friday night. They had some mechanical issues earlier in the day and were just finishing the second loop. They were more than happy to help me finish off that ice cold beer.

I rolled up to the brick oven with a time of 10:08 totally stoked to finish off my first cb classic. That was good enough for 15th in men's field. The Mountain Flyer write up has the results and nice gallery.

The video is also from Mountain Flyer. It gives a great feel for what the conditions and riding were like. It is a really good advertisement, but remember, the ride will make you hurt. : )

A few technical details while they are fresh in my mind. The yeti bike worked great. Probably would have been a better ride if had more time to get used to the set up. Flow/crossmark combo is not optimal. I think the wider rim reduces tire volume and makes them prone to pinch flats and punctures. I had a third tube on my list but somehow forgot to pick that up. Also needed some extra co2 in reserve. My nutrition plan was perfect. After a breakfast of brown rice laced with coconut milk and honey and a hard boiled egg I went through 4 single servings of perpetuem, 7-8 gu brand vanilla bean gels, 1 pack of cliff blocks, 1 small can of coke, 2 servings of gu brew, 120 ounces of elete spiked water, 1 single shot of elete, 2 helgesons (small almond butter, honey and bacon sandwiches on sprouted grain bread [yay bacon]).

Time Splits
Dyke Trail - 2:28:31
403/401 - 4:01:39
Strand/Deer Creek - 3:38:20

Finish Time - 10:08:30

loop by loop feeding
Loop 1: 2 servings of gu brew, 1 gel, ½ a helgeson at the car
Loop 2: 2 servings of perpetuem mixed in a single small bottle, 3 or 4 gels and a couple of cliff blocks, 60 ounces of elete spiked water in a camelback. 1 helgeson and a coke at the car.
Loop 3: 2 servings of perpetuem mixed in a single small bottle, 3 gels and a cliff block, 60 ounces of elete spiked water, 1 small serving of elete to fend of some cramping, beer.

cb configuration

2011-09-27T22:12:00.001-06:00

The 575 goes around looking like this, with 150mm travel up front, big meaty tires, dropper post, riser bars. Super fun bike for going down the hills and still light enough to pedal uphill without it feeling like i'm towing an anchor.

Decided not to ride the hairshirt for cb classic after rereading my post from the first attempt which left me with the squishy geared bike option. I've always heard the 575 is really versatile so I decided to rework a few things. Borrowed some of the lighter controls from the oney, slapped on das crossmarks, and dropped the front fork to 140. Here we have my enduro super hero.

I've done a couple of shakedown rides and have to admit the character of the bike is radically different and very well suited to enduro type rides where efficient pedaling and some measure of comfort are desirable. The changes add up to a few less pounds which is good 'cause i'll admit to being tempted into one of the specialized epic marthon carbon beauties. Paul at telecyle just picked one up. Very sexy bike. Kyrptonite to my Ride What You Got ethic.

Anyway, really looking forward to a long ride in the hills. A bunch of bike friends are showing up so it should be a great time.

perfection

2011-09-24T14:20:00.000-06:00

Thursday night ride under absolutely perfect conditions. No wind, ideal temp, aspens and sumac going all golden and red. Magic evening light filtering through the trees and bouncing off the bottom of the clouds. Late season fitness riding trails like a hot knife through butter.

things that make me go hmmm

2011-09-20T21:04:00.001-06:00

Kind of been wanting to give the cb classic another go and just saw the loop order has been reversed. I go hmmm because my thinking is that doing the kebler/dyke loop first would leave more in the tank for slate d'huez/401 which is my nemesis on the one geared apparatus. Strand/deer creek has always been a good ride for me. I know exactly when and where i'll be walking.

solo

2011-09-17T21:02:00.000-06:00

Usually I a do a lot of long rides on my own, but for one reason or another I haven't done much of that this summer. Got a chance to roll a good one today on the hairshirt and really enjoyed myself. Had time for a good examination of the head space and got to ride my own pace without having to give any thought to my riding partners.

My original plan was much bolder, longer, and probably a lot harder. When i got up and started getting myself together i came to the conclusion i wasn't up for a super long day and opted for the classic jones park loop. I must say i really enjoyed my late season fitness. It has been a long time since i've done this loop and usually it causes a bit more discomfort.

Off to the first colorado highschool league mtb race tomorrow at chalk creek. The team had a pasta feed pot luck this evening and it is safe to say all the kids, coaches and parents are very excited.

I salute the coffee growers and dutch bakers of the world

Some damp, scrub oakey singe track

Rolling

Kind of sloppy out there

Profile

ride binge

2011-09-11T16:35:00.000-06:00

Got in some good rides over my 4-day weekend last week. Trevor and i hit up gunnison and durango and caught up with old friends.

Having silly thoughts of doing the cb classic. Still need to put that on the "done" list.

Coming & Going

2011-08-29T20:02:00.004-06:00

The blog sub title implies these little stories are about doing stuff and this summer has been all about the squeezing. As the season starts turning the corner i’m looking back on all the outstanding outings, good times, and revelations that have passed without a single regret or lingering feeling that i’ve missed something. Some of the time has been spent with the usual crew, but i’ve added a lot more time with my incredible family. It is a great blessing to have a wife and kids who are such good company.

This past week was a perfect micro-slice of our summer. I spent so much time having fun that i almost feel guilty. Last saturday we got a soft start on our camping trip and lucked into seeing many of the pros out on the pass getting a feel for the altitude. We hit up an off the beaten path and new to us spot high on the divide for an overnight camping trip and some fishing. This location provided the opportunity for me and trevor to knock out the monarch crest trail and rendezvous with rebecca and kiah back in salida for some time in the river.

Monday three of the four of us shuttled our bikes to the west side and watched the prologue stage of the pro cycling challenge. We followed the last racer down the route to downtown for the awards and hung out with friends at phantom canyon.

Tuesday and wednesday were also spent tour watching and bike riding. I left the family behind and met up with the hoff, csakany, and hankinson for this excursion. Tuesday we staged ourselves at the top of monarch and capped the spectating with a kick-ass ride down the green’s creek trail. We spent tuesday night high on independence pass with paul magnuson and his son. Even the night before the stage would pass through the place was packed. Every possible spot you could pitch a tent or lay a tarp on the ground over the last mile to the top was taken. Away from any city lights, the sky was a canopy of stars split down the middle by the milky way in more detail than i can ever remember.

This race spectating is mostly about how you pass the hours waiting for your brief glimpse of the peleton. It is a social event where everyone is like-minded. I chatted, laughed with and met more people on tuesday and wednesday than i’ve interacted with in all the work-related parties i’ve attended in my lifetime. I wore a silly costume and i ran next to the racers as the propelled themselves up and over the top.

Saturday i took trevor to winter park to compete in the final race of that series. The king of the rockies race has been running almost as long as there has been mountain bike racing in colorado. It really is a classic race. 25 miles, point to point, dirt road pack riding, long climbs, fast open descents, tight singletrack, fire road, rocks, roots and water crossings.

This was his first race as a Cat 2 rider, and relative to what he has done this season i knew this would be exponentially harder than any of the other races he has done. We rode together from winter park to the start where i left him to continue up the course to the mile 15 point where i could hand off a bottle and keep an eye on him to see how he was doing. I had no reason to be concerned. I’m going to let him post up his own race report, but i’ll share this little story. My spot was at a point where the racers drop off of the chainsaw singletrack onto a county road for about ¼ mile. His group came through all within about 15 seconds of each other. The first racer had a small gap over number 2 and trevor was a short way behind that. I held up a bottle and an open gel as he came by. He waved me off, put his head down and closed the gap. There was some racing going on.

Sunday i finally had to heed the call of my neglected yard. I exterminated. I mowed, weeded, trimmed, and treated. I filled half a dozen lawn and leaf bags and a couple of garbage cans. I had some weeds out back that were taller than i am. Not surprising when i remembered 4^th of july weekend was my last time doing this kind of work. It should hold until winter comes, after all, i’ve got two of the best months of the year coming up and my calendar is already full.

plan d

2011-08-14T21:02:00.004-06:00

You know you live the most awesome place ever when you have to dig deep in your play book and all you can come up with is 40ish miles on alpine single track. As implied this wasn't even close to the original plan, but, what ever.....

typical

2011-08-05T20:00:00.008-06:00

This summer has afforded me some great commuting opportunities. Here's one i've done a few times on the skinny tires

flour, butter, sugar...

looking back on where i came from

mandatory dirt

shady lanes

still waters

the morning train on the siding requires a detour around the detour

monuments

as seen on face book

2011-08-03T22:15:00.003-06:00

I may have neglected to mention over here that i jacked myself up a couple of weeks ago. I was commuting to work via the falcon trail and clipped a rock with my pedal and got an instant smack down. I hit the ground so fast i didn't have time to react. Ended up at the urgent care to have 5 stitches put in a gigantic hole in my elbow. The elbow has healed up nicely but the lingering injury seems to be piriformis on my left hip. Hurt to walk up steps, can't run, but at least I can ride a bike.

62

2011-07-31T21:09:00.003-06:00

It has been a long time since i've done a substantial ride on the ss. Been busy with travel and getting trevor to the races and what not. Talked the hoff into joining me on a ride i've been wanting to do for a couple of summers. Ended up with a nice long day in the saddle and fair bit of mileage. Nice to have options like this that don't involve hopping in the car and driving out of town.

i like to watch

2011-07-17T21:34:00.004-06:00

Trevor and i spent saturday up in summit county. We did a pre-ride of the msc course and then did a nice long loop up keystone gulch to the ct on west ridge. Rode out the ct to the highway and then looped back over to keystone to finish out the ride.

The plan was to get on to the ct to cheer on the racers engaged in the breck 100/68/32. We got up there after most of our 100 and 68 mile racing friends had passed through but we did see a few familiar faces. Got to admit i wanted to do the 68, but sometimes it is nice to be able kick back and watch someone else suffer. We hung out near the end of the climb on loop two before racers begin their drop back to tiger road. All the racers were in good spirits and looking good. I wasn't ready with the camera, but my favorite was seeing a single speed tagged with the number plate 666.

Here's two photos to keep things visual

Tracey hankinson (WMBA) on her way the third place.

Temporarily unidentified springs local racing for pro cycling

sweet sunset

2011-07-13T22:05:00.003-06:00

that is all

give it a couple of weeks

2011-07-11T21:15:00.014-06:00

Trevor more than made up for his mechanical at the crested butte wildflower rush a couple of weeks ago by coming up with a win at the mcs state championship xc race in telluride mountain village this past weekend. The course was well suited to him with a long climb and a good run out before jumping on to the single track. He told me he hit the initial steep climb pretty hard and then sprinted up the road section and gapped the rest of the group.

I caught the start and then jumped on the free gondola for a ride to the top to spectate. When he came through just before the start of the long dowhill to the finish he had a huge grin on his face. According to his mom he was also grinning like a cheshire cat at the finish. We both really enjoyed seeing his joy that came with this win and the state champion title.

In addition to having a fun with the racing we really enjoyed this trip. It has been about 9 years since we last visited telluride. What a spectacular place. Fun town, incredible scenery and plenty of stuff to do to keep everyone entertained. This also gave us the opportunity to hang out in montrose with some family. It has been a looong time since i've spent time around the xc race scene. My impression so far is that mcs is putting on some good races. The competitors are relaxed and friendly, the staff and volunteers are putting in some long hours and still keep a smile on their face. The promoter is friendly and approachable.

Trevor and I spent sunday morning scouting out the sidewinder trail outside of olathe. We lucked into some great weather considering we were in the desert in the middle of summer. A serious thunder storm rolled through during the night and we woke up to temps in the low 70s and overcast skies. I had some concerns about riding on potentially wet clay soils but by the time we got on the trail things were perfectly tacky. As we climbed up the road to our chosen trailhead we had a little bit of a "ruh roh" moment as the large storm started brewing back over montrose starting rolling up towards othathe and our general area. We almost threw in the towel and bailed but after giving it some time to sort out we decided to keep riding and rolled some really sweet single track before loading up the car and heading home. Considering our original plans for the weekend never included this trip we are all glad we changed our them.

Clicky here to check out some video and photos of our sidewinder ride

that's racing

2011-06-27T22:59:00.004-06:00

Bandwagon Jr. was served up with his first disappointing race of the season at the MSC Wildflower Rush on Saturday. The course had a very short dh start through the base area with a steep 100 meters of doubltrack (with one line) and then almost completely single track course. He was lined up in the second row and knew he needed to be one of the first guys on to the singletrack. At the start the kid in front of him got tangled in the barrier and went down in so he ended up mid pack going one to the singletrack. He fought his way up to 4th position and then one of his saddle rails broke maybe 1/3 way into the race and caused him to go down and lose a few spots. After that he said he struggled to control the bike on the floppy seat. He made it to the top of the climb in 6th but went backwards on the descent and finished 8th. Rebecca said he was really pissed at the finish but he quickly adopted up to the "that's racing" philosophy. He has heard stories from all of us and seen it play out first hand for other riders. Now he knows what it's like to be on the receiving end of some bad luck. The first two kids were hammering the whole way and came in with only a couple of seconds separating them. Great racing by those guys.

I was up on the hill spectating and doing saintly deeds during the race. I gave one kid a tube and helped him fix his flat. I learned that Conti Race Kings come off of Mavic UST rims quite easily and seat up with a lot less effort than some other brands. After sending him on his way another really young kid comes walking through with a flat. He was running tubeless as well but his gear had seen some rough times. Pump was broken, CO2 didn't work and his spare tube had 3 holes in it. No sealant left in the tire. Spent 20 minutes with him and sent him on his way before making my way down. Trevor tells me he was the younger brother of the winner.

That was good and all, but we did some riding as well. We had a perfect weekend weather wise in CB. Temps in the 70s, nice breeze, no rain. Other than the racing, we got in one good ride yesterday on some trails Trevor has never ridden. They cut in some new single track (Lupine Trail) that heads north and drops you down to slate creek road. The entrance is through a new subdivision about 1/2 dh from the road into Washington Gulch. Trevor and I rode from town and did Upper Upper, Snodgrass, and this new trail for about a 17 mile loop. Strand Hill, Deer Creek and the stuff in town and on the mountain are good. The Reno/Flag etc is still really wet (another week or so) and all the stuff up high is buried.

sand creek wrap up

2011-06-20T21:56:00.005-06:00

I did the unexpected this past month and raced a buch of xc in the local sand creek series. Trevor was pre-registered for the first race at palmer park but he fell ill with the flu the week before the race. Even though he was on the mend by the weekend, when i asked him if he wanted to race his wisdom rang through in the response, “I haven’t eaten in three days, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” I called the promoter and asked if i could race since we had already paid and got the green light to race on sunday. The fact that i was racing on home trails and only one other ss rider showed up on what had been a cold, wet, dreary morning worked in my favor and i came away with the win in that race. It was great course with lots of tech and a 3 lap format that netted us about 26 miles or so. I was kind of surprised to walk away having had a really good time and catching a little bit of a racing bug.

Races two and three were more of the week-night short track format at bear creek park on the purpose built trails that were built about 4 years ago. I took trevor to pre-ride and figured i’d sign up for one of the week night races and leave it at that. Trevor ended up winning his race by a decent margin and missed the officials telling him he was done and raced an extra lap. This week the ss class was bulging with about a dozen riders, among them dan “the hyena” durland and jim bassett and a few other local sspeedsters. We quickly sorted out into a group of 5, well 4 and then dan way out front. Having been out of the xc racing business i had no strategy other than to hang on as long as i could in the hour long, all out effort. Still feeling good at the start of the third lap i put in a little effort and slowly started reeling dan in over the next few laps. I figured he was toying with me and knew there was no way i could keep pace with him but on our last lap i jumped around him and put my head down. He gave me a cheer as i came around and i managed to hang on for a very unexpected win.

jon got this shot of me at bear creek hot on dan's wheel

Fast forward one week to the same venue and slightly modified course that included a monster little climb. Trevor had asked me about racing Cat 2 with the 15-18 year olds since he was easily handling the competition. My advice was to enjoy the feeling of success and i reminded him about all of the running races he had done where there was always one stand out athlete, and wasn’t it nice to be "that guy" at the bike races. Trevor did another great job although the gap was a lot smaller. Not bad for a kid on an ss racing a bunch of guys on gears.

Race #2 was supposed to be it for me, but then jc had to go on facebook and publicize a show down between me and dan. Bastard!! I knew that if i backed out i’d never hear the end of it. He did a great job promoting his agenda and brought a large crowd to cheer/jeer us on. Riding through the tower of sound twice on each lap was a great boost. I knew on my first trip up the monster hill that i didn’t have the same legs as last week. Dan had the lead pretty quick (again) and on the second lap travis decided he was having none of that and launched himself up the wall with a “if he gets away we’ll never see him again." Travis put in a great pursuit for the rest of the race and i was just barely hanging in there back in fourth a little ways behind jim. On the last lap i sensed everyone slowing down bit so i worked on closing in on jim. Unfortunately it wasn’t until the top of the last hill i got on his wheel which left only a short 20 yard stretch to get around him before the descent to the finish. I managed it but felt like a bit of rat. Not enough of the cut throat in my blood i guess. We came across the line wheel to wheel but i got across first for the third place finish. The time gaps were pretty small between the four of us but dan definitely crushed it no doubt aided by the internet antagonism from jon. Fun as that was the best part of the afternoon was riding home from the venue with trevor and knocking back some well-earned grub from our neighborhood taqueria.

So now we get to the last race at cheyenne mountain state park. I’ll admit i was having fun now and with the overall lead in the series i felt obligated to show up. Only hitch was i was out of town all week and didn’t get in any riding. I figured a week of rest would probably be good for me but i had no idea how my legs would feel. I had a pre-ride report from trevor and he told me the course was tough but fun. CMSP has two kinds of tech. The rocky kind and pebbly, off-camber kind. Trevor took a spill on his pre-ride on the pebbly stuff and came away with a few scrapes. The jr boys field was good sized with most of the same boys. The ss field was a lot smaller, only five of us. Dan was racing in nm, jim came to cheer and heckle so it was me, travis, nick and charlie hayes who made the trip down from boulder (i figured he was subbing for dan so there was someone in the field to rip our legs off). This was another long format race with three laps + a two mile sorter loop at the start, so an average of 9 miles per lap with all classes starting at the same time. This meant trevor and i were on the course at the same time. In the ss race, nick led us out hard on the first loop and travis put on his trade mark move on the first big climb. I hung in until i was able to get around travis and put a little gap on him on the long descent. My legs weren’t feeling great but i was able to make up enough time on the descents to hold off travis on the climbs. Just barely. He was maybe 25 seconds behind me the last time up the big climb. I had a get off on that descent in one of those loose corners as well. Pinning the downhill when you are tired and leading is always risky business, no? I went down hard and fast and was lucky to land in a pile of leaves and undergrowth conveniently laid out for me by the blue birds and chipmunks. Got the wind knocked out of me and have some bruises, but i was able to get back on the bike pretty quick and carry on. So the end result was another win, but even better was trevor also picked up the win. He led out his race and was fighting to put on a dropped chain about mid way through the race when the second place jr rider came by. Did he put the hammer down like a certain spaniard at last year’s tour? Nope. He stopped and helped Trevor get it sorted out. Nice to see that some kids are being raised right.

in the zone

Did i mention it was father’s day? This led to nice little write up in the local paper. How cool is that.

To put this all in perspective, i had fun, but i’m by no means the fastest guy in town on one gear. I know a lot of riders here in town who could put a lot of time in to me if they numbered up for a race. What really brings me pleasure in all this is watching my boy have success doing something he loves and being able to share in it. I know i’m lucky, but i probably don’t know just how lucky i really am.

getting out

2011-06-03T21:47:00.007-06:00

A lot of riding has been happening lately. I've been commuting to work, often taking the long way home if i'm on the dirt or pinning it on the hills if i'm riding the road. I'm obligated to ride with the boy as well and if i'm at the races, i figure i might as well be riding there as well. Did a little bit of exploring today with ken on some trails we've heard about and seen on the map. With a little beta, the atlas and the gps we headed for the hills above town and put together a nice loop today. The only down side was the wind and the smoke from the fires. Ugh.

Where might we ride today i wonder?

Started down there somewhere

brappp

Which way should we go?

We got rocks

We got water crossings

We got what ever you call this

And yes, we even have eclairs

thursday night

2011-06-03T21:42:00.000-06:00

Made it to woodland for my first thursday night ride. Used up all the daylight, had a great ride and finished up with with some really good mexican grub.

nice day out there at bc

2011-05-22T22:48:00.003-06:00

Keith and Ken worked me over and convinced me to take a vacation day on friday for a ride at buffalo creek. Covered some ground and then backtracked our way up the new black jack trail. Wasn't too keen on riding all the options on the way back down on my rigid bike, but lightening and hail have a way of making me overcome my misgivings in favor of getting the f#$k out of harms way. Good stuff.

ken is always on the gas

yep, still on the gas

keith's idea of trail food

view from 1.5 the way up black jack, or down if you prefer

race photos from the sak

2011-05-19T08:38:00.002-06:00

JS sent over a couple of race shots of me on the slab.

'nother race post

2011-05-15T21:38:00.002-06:00

Figured this would be another post detailing the boy's epic day on the course, but it turned out a little different. He came down with a flu bug late in the week and he made the smart decision not to race the ascent cycling series race a palmer. Since this is home turf and i'd already paid the entry i emailed the promoter to see if i could take run his entry in the ss category. This is my first race of multiple circles in over 10 years, but it was a great course that included a good half of the templeton trail and some nice slabby tech. It was a fun day. Hero dirt considering how dessicated the park has been this winter. Small field in the upper echelon but fun was had by all. I think the photos pretty much sum up how races go for most of us.

racing in pueblo

2011-04-18T19:09:00.003-06:00

I don't remember the last time i was involved in mtb races two weeks in a row, but trevor had another semi-local race at the pueblo res. We spent a lot time riding there over the winter so he was pretty familiar the trails. Kind of a short course again, right around 11 miles but some of those were on the road at the start/finish. He won the jr category with a time put him hot on the tails of the first 3 or 4 cat 3 men. For future reference the arkansas point challenge is a great low key, well run and fun event.

long time springs racer and all around good guy phil know how to race and have fun

the boy hitting bottom of a grinder

making it hurt

doing his best to hide his 1st place prize from *cough* *cough* camelback hydration

passing the torch

2011-04-11T08:07:00.004-06:00

Trevor got his first mtb racing experience on sunday at the cheyenne mountain explosion msc race here in the springs. He raced for bandwagon racing in the 14 and under jr category with about 11 other riders and came out on top. Every parent knows how cool it is to see their child do well when following his or her passion, so obviously i'm stoked. He definitely benefited from pre-riding the course and also finished up with a spectacular crash in that loose corner just before the finish. On account of the race being kind of short and to prove a little road rash won't hold him back he decided to round out his day with a loop on the falcon trail in the afternoon and then joined us for the paris-roubaix party last night.

book ends

2011-03-13T20:27:00.005-06:00

Had to leave town this week for work. Sunday we did a beer and bikes ride from the last pint through the afa, peregrin, ute, and up. After 5 days in cali for work we hit the pueblo for some riding, irish dance and some more of that beer stuff.

scene from the bench

2011-03-04T21:07:00.002-07:00

The hairshirt has been suffering from some hub neglect. Finally figured out that i needed three bearings in the free hub body instead of two. That's what happens when you ride the bearings into the ground and they come out in crushed little bits. You may not notice all that is left of one of them is the race.

words

2011-02-19T22:42:00.002-07:00

We rode some today. Struggled against the wind and reveled in how it added to our legs. The hiss of tires on wet sand when it made it through the filters. Familiar squeaks, clicks and squeals. Felt gravity hold us back then welcome us with open arms like a lover. We rode some today. The sun was out and then not. Each extended stop brought a change in the weather. First clouds. Then rain. Always wind. The hiss of rain falling on scrub oaks with long-dead leaves. Belgian beers, belgian weather. Hard men fixing bikes in the rain. Then like the last scene in that movie, a hot shower to wash away the grime of a day well spent. We rode some today.

we might have done some skiing

2011-02-08T20:23:00.002-07:00

1-2-3

2011-01-30T22:14:00.004-07:00

Thursday lunch ride shot with the cell phone. This flow is named shelob.

Friday at the res. Really, like the new camera.

Saturday at palmer using the old p&s canon.

palmer

2011-01-23T16:36:00.002-07:00

Short ride at pp. Some cool sky as the cold front rolled through.

5 from today

2011-01-16T20:45:00.002-07:00

Adding a road runner and a beaver to last week's bald eagle to update the 2011 pueblo res non-water fowl wildlife tally

another day another state park

2011-01-14T19:34:00.003-07:00

Cheyenne mountain state park this time. What a difference less than a week makes.

pueblo

2011-01-09T22:39:00.007-07:00

it is good.

Headed down for a few hours hours of single speeding with family and friends.

Start 'em young

Can you spot baldy?

Assume the position.

That's right.

Outta here. Raptors always give me the ass when they are airborne.

riding again

2011-01-04T17:53:00.004-07:00

Been a busy couple of months, but i finally got out for a ride and snapped one good shot.

a couple of things

2010-11-05T21:05:00.003-06:00

#1 - 20 years on wednesday. I was a poor college student when we finally hooked up and we spent our honeymoon at a friends cabin in the az mountains. Fast forward 20 years later and i finally made up for that by taking the lady to sonoma county for a few days. Weather was gloomy, but that's okay when you are driving from place to place drinking wine.

#2 - Halloween was the 2nd annual enduro pub crawl. It's like the p2p up in jeffco, but with more beer stops. 5 stops and 40 miles. We came up short by two breweries, but now we know we have start earlier.

this place needs a freshening

2010-10-20T20:50:00.003-06:00

A few photos to maybe bring this blog back to life.

-- -- -- -- --

2010-09-22T15:25:00.001-06:00

it is october fest here, just sayin

wurstmarkt stuff

2010-09-19T07:47:00.002-06:00

yes, octoberfest started yesterday, but the bad durkheim wine fest is going on as well

more of the good stuff

2010-08-25T21:13:00.004-06:00

Seemed like a good weekend to head back to the high country. I’ve been sticking close to town since the spike fest, but hatched a plan earlier this summer to knock off a few gems in a multi-ride strike. No photos of the going down hill. If you've ridden these trails you'll understand

First up was canyon creek on the other side of monarch pass. It has been about 6 years since i last rode the trail and i’m happy to report it still delivers. several miles of jeep road that climb to 11k in stair step fashion followed by a 40 minute mile-long hike a bike delivered us to a 12,600 ft minor summit. The pay off was about 10 miles of grin inducing dh trail. There is a short kick in the junk climb to cross over a ridge back to the car. Everyone involved agreed the trail kicked ass.

we rode bits, but mostly hiked this part

hike o' the chunk

love the views from up here

After a short lunch we drove up and over the pass for part 2 on the crest trail and fooses creek. We knew we had to work about 8 miles of climbing up the pass into the ride, so we decided to split it by parking near the madonna mine and working our way up to the pass on the dirt route to start. The singletrack included the first 5 miles of the crest which is always a hoot. Minimal climbing and spectacular views. There was the threat of some weather, but we didn’t have to deal with anything more than a cold breeze.

As fun a the cc dh was, we concurred that fooses has the edge. It has a little bit of everything except for man made stunts. Steep and loose at the top, it gave way to and alternating mélange of tight trail, rooty ground, tech, buff twisties and hairball speed sections. Our decision to start part way up the pass meant a 4 mile climb back to the car on the old railroad grade and the highway.

STIL

fooses brain shroom

The original plan included a 3rd ride that would repeat the crest part of the ride, but then end on the green’s creek trail, but with only one vehicle and running short on daylight and energy we heeded the call from amica’s for post ride pizza and beers. The trifecta remains.

ok, i'll go, but i'm keeping the fish

2010-08-13T09:06:00.002-06:00

The long absence has been filled with bike riding, trail work, auto repair and land scaping. All the usual stuff.

So let me tell you about our camping trip last weekend. In hindsight the end of our latest trip was foreshadowed at the start, 20 miles out of town. The blue beast was loaded for camping. This means packed to the gills, roof box, bikes on top and on the back, EZ up awning strapped to the bumper. I was joking about how we looked like the beverly hill billies. In the midst of explaining the show to the kids I see a front wheel sliding past the rear window and onto a very busy i-25 at 70 mph. The vehicle behind me hit it straight on and sent it over his vehicle and out of sight. I could see cars swerving and hitting the brakes. You know the feeling of your heart sinking in your chest right?

We got off to the side about ¼ mile past the incident. The guy behind me pull off in front of me and got out to check his truck, a brand new, full sized, customized tundra with the temp tag still in the window. My first thought was “this is going to be expensive”. We chatted and turns out no harm done. After the adrenaline wore off I hiked up the shoulder and found the wheel laying the grass. The skewer was toast, but only had a slight wobble. The thought kept going through my head that this could have been really, really bad.

We got to wyoming without further incident. The plan was to camp, fish, and ride on what are rumored be fine trails at curt gowdy state park. The campgrounds were full and really too tightly spaced for my liking anyway, so we headed up the highway and found a nice spot off a dirt road on forest service land. It was great site. Spectacular views, no neighbors in sight, lots of cool granite outcroppings to ride on. It was mid afternoon and we could see the afternoon squall coming so got to work and got the tent set up and lunch made just in time. The wind was really whipping so I had to exit the tent and pull the awning off the frame lest it suffer the fate of so many other sun shades i;ve seen as ripped and twisted wrecks after losing the battle to heavy winds.

After the storm blew through we kicked around camp for a bit. The boy got his bike down and quickly established a short track course around camp and then we got the girl on her bike so he had some company. A little later we drove over to crow reservoir to try our luck with the fish. As usual we got skunked. While the skies had cleared out, the wind really picked up. We headed back to camp to fix some dinner and get ready to enjoy a nice evening around the fire. That was not to be. The wind was cooking. I’m guessing 20+ mph with some heavy gusts. None of us had much desire to stick it out in the wind so we headed to the tent kind of early. Pretty sure the wind died down for a few hours, but at precisely 3:30AM it really got going, so breakfast was a repeat of dinner and we were all quite happy to jump in the truck and drive the park.

Part 3 The wind was a little less intense, but we had to look for a while to find a nice spot where we could hang out and not be blown around. The boy and i headed out for our ride. We picked the area on the nw end of the park ‘cause the trails are in and out of the woods, feature some nice techy section and from my limited experience were worth the trip. Sort of. We get halfway around our loop and start seeing a bunch of people in camo and orange carrying bows and a bunch of target animals of all shapes and sizes. Not too long after this we roll up to a group and one of the guys stops us to tell me the trails are closed for the weekend for an archery tournament. He was nice and all, but when I asked which trails specifically were closed he tells me “all of them.” That was kind of interesting because there wasn’t a sign anywhere on the trails. Being too late to turn back we kept going and got yelled at by another group. This was definitely a buzz killer and i was more than a little bit pissed off. After we finished our loop i found the people running the event who confirmed all the trails were closed. “So where are the signs?” I ask. “There are supposed to be signs up.” “Hmm, ‘cause i didn’t see any, and oh by the way there are hikers with kids headed up on one the side trails.” “Oh, that’s not good”

No Shit!

I also rolled up to park entrance and asked the attendant there and she confirms the trails on that end of the park are closed for the weekend. This is the same lady who saw us roll in loaded with bikes, took our money and didn’t mention any trails being closed.

So enough of that. The boy loved the riding and trails were great. We ride back to the truck and spend the afternoon fishing and picnicking. I got to watch my daughter catch her first rainbow and that was very cool.

We did a driving tour of the park before leaving and headed back to camp. The wind had given up and it was looking like it would be a nice evening. We pull up and rebecca asks, “Where did you put the stove? And wasn’t the lantern under the table when we left?” Sure enough, some douche bag had thieved my camp site. I’ve heard this happens, but never, in all my decades of camping have i had someone come in to my camp and steal my stuff. I wandered around fuming for a bit and then with no real options for cooking my dinner or breakfast decided to pull the plug. With everything that had happened to this point i wasn’t in the mood to make lemonade. At least traffic was light on the way home and the fish was tasty.

don ride

2010-07-09T08:50:00.001-06:00

Had myself a very good ride down in salida on the 4th. This was my second complete Don Ride and worked out to be the best one yet. Fred and i were able to crash in one of the local’s back yard (thanks P.T.) the night before. I attempted to sleep on my cot under the stars, but didn’t get much sleep prior to the 3:45 wake up call on account of the nocturnal fire cracker throwing habits of the local teens. A large group rolled away from don’s around 4:30 for a full day of riding.

I consider this a three part ride. Part one takes you from town up to monarch pass via some country roads, old railroad grade and some double track. Part two is the classic monarch crest route from the pass to hwy 285 via awesome single track. Part three bares some teeth on the stretch of the rainbow trail from 285 over to bear creek.

Part 1 Early on it seemed the group decided to move at pretty good clip. My fitness isn’t where it was the past couple of summers and i wasn’t sure how my ride would go, so i hung towards the back and got into a pattern of getting spit out of the group and catching back on. Eventually i just kind of sat up and slowed down figuring i’d be better off in the long run if i backed it off a little. I found a good pace in a small group and rode most of the pass with them. My favorite moments on this part of the ride were watching the world grow light around us as the sun came up, and then finally breaking into the sun near the top of the pass. The ride up gets chilly and sun feels so good.

Part 2 I was expecting the ride up from the pass and above timber line to hurt, and find me walking my bike on a couple of the steeper bits but i felt really good and was able to ride everything. The single track was in great shape with the moisture from saturday’s rain. I found the descent at the top of silver creek (happy flatting) a bit jarring on the rigid bike. Even though backing way down on the speed helps, i still remember careening straight into some jagged baby heads and feeling a solid thunk as the rock pushed its way to the rim. Tubeless is a good thing. The rainbow trail to the highway is always fun as well. The lower altitude means i get some power back in the roller coaster. Jon, fred and a few others were out in front, but there were a handful of riders who would regroup at the usual stopping points along the way. I was surprised to find myself among them.

Part 3 Ah, the dreaded slog up from the highway. Too steep to ride in spots, loose and chunky in the middle, rutted, tight and rooty up top. Surprising techy little down hill sections along the way to make me smile, followed by wicked little climbs that have me cursing when i remember i have to pay the descent back with another hike a bike. I didn’t feel knackered like i usually do at this point, so after a good lunch break i got back on the bike to find out what this hill had in store for me today. A long section for sure, but no where near as hurtful as last year. I was actually able to ride the rideable sections and when i was off the bike i didn’t hike like i had two left feet. Once we were done with that little hill we had another 10 miles of roller coaster on the rainbow trail before dropping to the highway for the ride back into town. This is another really fun single track section that made me happy to be riding my bike in the woods.

I rolled back into to town feeling pretty darn good. Really enjoyed the company of the group i was riding with and happy that sticking with them didn’t cause me to curl up into a little ball on the side of the trail somewhere along the way. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening hanging out with the family then we went back to don’s to take in the great fire works show. Monday’s recovery included a marco polo match at the motel pool and hanging out by the river until we headed home in the afternoon.

We are off to Spike Fest this weekend. Time to churn out another long ride in the wabe. I’m bringing the camera this time, so hopefully i’ll have some pictures to post.

cool commute

2010-06-29T21:23:00.003-06:00

The past month or so i've been commuting to work once a week on a circuitous route. I leave the house early and ride through university park, ute valley park, up in to the peregrine neighborhood and into the afa academy. A half loop on the falcon trail and on to work via the santa fe trail. It's a great time of day to ride and usually something interesting turns up. A few weeks back i saw two new born, shaky-legged fawns trying to cross the road. Today i was almost too close to a mama bear and a year-old cub. The route home is more direct, but i still ride through pulpit rock and university park. Today i did the hill climb from the uccs dorms up to the towers. As i crested the hill and began descending the pavement, taking in the incredible view to the north and west in the afternoon light i was struck by the thought that no one would ever get to feel the incredible sense of blessing and joy i had at that moment. Nothing to do but be THERE. Hope you find some of those for yourself this week.

timing

2010-06-17T05:01:00.003-06:00

Over the last several years i've been traveling for work i've missed some very good live music by a day or two in the cities i've visited. Yesterday i got off work and checked the music calendar on a whim. Drove maybe six miles the wolf trap national park for the performing arts, walked to the ticket window and purchased a 9th row, center seat for JBT and opening act state radio. Awesome show....

gunny and the butte

2010-06-07T19:52:00.002-06:00

Traded another weekend of hard rides for the casual and fun family camping trip. Headed out for some time at hartman rocks with a side trip to the butte. Hartmans was fun. Got kind of hot in the middle of the day so we headed in to town for a swim and some ice cream. Monday we did a little trip up to cb to visit our favorite town in colorado. A little camp 4 coffe, some lower and upper lower loops (look for some newly cut trail out there this summer) and a picnic in the park.

memorial day

2010-06-07T19:40:00.004-06:00

Followed up saturday’s great ride with the annual memorial day shop ride in woodland park. This is a fine mix of single track and some dirt roads to link up a thirty something mile loop through the woods that nets over 4k of climbing. The views along the way aren’t too shabby either. It took a while for my legs to get going but i rode much better than i expected after saturday’s effort. It probably helps that we don’t hit the magic 10k mark. I have the bike set up with the rigid fork for almost a full year and and i think this cycle has pretty much played itself out. 3-4 inches of squish is sounding very nice right about now. Question is do i HTFU or break down.

From memorial day

oooof!

2010-05-30T09:31:00.005-06:00

Spike lined up the memorial day weekend lost park ride and delivered us a good fitness check. I wasn't flush with confidence on my ability to hang and enjoy this ride on the coconino, so when i discovered the rear brake pads were shot i happily racked the yeti in its place. I'd already done a couple of variations of several of the trails on a rigid ss and couldn't help but think how much fun the dh sections would be with 6 inches of travel. I was also pretty sure i'd be walking a ton on the other bike and my head isn't ready for that yet.

The group was four of us from the springs along with spike and his buddy brian. We kept up a good pace and ended up back at the trailhead about 7 hours after we got rolling. Now that spike has the route dialed we were free from the route finding delays that were required on previous attempts. There were a few breaks to consult the map and gps as we worked our way back over to lost park road, but at that point i relished every chance i got to stop pedaling and stand around.

So how does a single speeder handle a geared full suspension bike on a epic ride? My take is that where it is hard on the ss it is also hard on the geared bike, just a different kind of hard. I was feeling more worked than usual on almost all the climbs until near the end when we were almost back on the CT at the end. The rollers on the way back to lost park road saw me getting spit off the back of the group. I was also reminded that my body has an altitude threshold where i loose a lot of power. Seems like every time someone checked their gps we were over 10000 feet. A post ride check confirmed most of this ride takes place at 10K or higher. Bottom line is i really enjoyed the ride, especially the chunky dh sections.

brian and spike on the edge of the wilderness

jon and spike spent a lot of time talking about curtains, exotic cheeses and the mating habits of monkeys

when you get here, go downhill. it doesn't seem like the right thing to do but it'll take you home

spike consults the oracle

clean up, clean up, every body every where

2010-05-23T21:40:00.004-06:00

Did a little recon with fred and erick today to check out the catamount situation. Once we saw how the snow was hanging in, we opted for a quick run on the boy's loop before reversing the catamount dh.

We planned ahead and brought some sharp tools figuring we could do some cleaning while we were out. We rode up from bottom as far as we could and trimmed the pines to minimize upper body whackamole and cleared out the downed trees. A good day's work and fun had by all.

warm

2010-05-17T19:00:00.010-06:00

We’ve been trying to fit in a camping trip this spring and finally had an opening this weekend. Moab got tossed because we couldn’t get out on friday on account of the boy’s race and monday tests sandwiching the weekend. Buffalo creek was looking good until the latest storm rolled in and promised to have the mountains socked in on saturday. The Sand dunes have to wait until medano pass melts out. Finally settled on lake pueblo because it was close enough that a late start on saturday wouldn’t penalize us and it was looking to be one of the warmer places on the front range.

The weather both days was perfect. The whole family is sick of the wind and after last week, really enjoying the sun. Bike riding, hiking and rock skipping rounded out the activity list. The only downside was the storm that blew in around 6pm on saturday. The same wind we thought we were done with came roaring back. We saw shade awnings fold and i had to do triage on our tent when the earth gave up tent stakes one by one. The worst damage was to my psyche. I can deal with a bit of rain, but i’ve had it with the wind.

This is what you want to be doing on a saturday

Reptiles were making their appearance. The boy about ran this guy over and in the few seconds it took me pass him he was on the attack. He quickly nailed my front tire and the air just behind my rear wheel. I’ve encountered hundreds of rattlers back in AZ and none of them were as aggressive as this one.

Ran into the colorado horse poop snake a 10 minutes later

As long as you ask their permission and stay out of their personal space, these lizards will usually pose for you

For a skinny little dude, the boy motors the rollers, revels in the tech, and makes the steep stuff look easy

Having older kids is great. This is the picture i’ve held in my mind’s eye since the first time i hoisted a baby carrier on my back and had to change a diaper on the trail.

The desert is blooming

Ready for sunday

Employing the portable pre-wash on the hard-to-clean cookware

throwin' down

2010-05-14T22:04:00.004-06:00

I love it when my kids surprise me. The boy has been running our local spring youth xc series. He finished third in his age group last year. He moved up a category and is racing at the bottom of the age group, but looked to have third locked up again this year. So here comes friday. Frigid and wet. All he had to do was run his usual race and he would coast into third. When he passed through the start area with about a quarter mile to go he was in his usual spot, just cruising along. The racers disappear from view until they come out of the trees for the finish, an uphill finish. The first couple racers come through and then there's my boy. He's out in front of the crowd that usually finishes a good 20-30 seconds in front of him which really surprised me. Looking good, but he doesn't have much of a finishing kick and i see the kids behind him turn up the heat and i'm thinking he'll get nipped. HELL NO!! The after burners come on to hold them off at the line. FKNA!!

things i don't see every day

2010-04-25T23:38:00.006-06:00

weird fungus

wee chameleon

special snail

hawaiian beach sunset

my wife in a bikini (you don't get to see that either)

shoe review - inov-8 roclite 295

2010-04-17T16:35:00.007-06:00

And a running shoe at that. Why not? I'm doing this mainly because i had a hard time finding useful reviews here on the web and hoping this will help someone out.

I've been fighting plantar faciaitis since last summer. It got so bad that i had to stop playing soccer and trail running altogether. Biking wasn't much better so i used flat pedals for much of the fall and winter. The foot has been slowly coming around and some late winter incline runs and some short runs at palmer with the boy and dog have been enough to convince me i might be able to hold up to adding runs back into my routine.

One of my buddies has been talking for a while about a mid or fore foot strike vs heel strike running and based on my injury a change sounded like a good idea. That led me down the path which seems to ultimately ends with bare foot running and buying some vibram toe shoes. I'm not quite ready to go there yet, but the information i picked up pointed to minimalist shoes with a flat sole. There are a handful of trail running shoes that fall in to this category and the two available at the local running stores were a couple of Inov-8 shoes and the new balance MT100.

I ended up with the inov-8 roclite 295. Inov-8 is a UK shoe company that specializes in the light weight trail running category. A quick perusal of their website left me as confused as ever so i'll summarize for you. The number in the shoe name refers to the weight (in grams) of the shoes in what is roughly a men's size 9 shoe. Some of the shoes are men's and some are women's. If the name has "mud" in it, they are probably designed to excel when it is really squishy out. A 280 shoe is stripped down version with an emphasis on weight where a 290 shoe is more all around home for your dogs. I passed on the MT100 mainly because they seem to be little too "less" than i want at this point. The 295 isn't truly flat, but much more so than any of the standard running shoes.

So what do i think? This are bitchin' shoes. As i age it seems all of the contact points on my outdoor gear are picked to accommodate my biomechanical deficiencies. I have very wide cro-magnon feet with the added insult of a big lump at the pinky toe that some call a sixth toe. The last of the 295 fits well under my foot, and the stretchy mesh uppers combined with the low lacing make my fat feet happy. The toe box is roomy and overall i'd say this shoe will fit all but the narrowest feet. They fit true to size. On the brannock device my feet measure 9.5 and 10 - the 10/43 fits great.

Other than about 10 minutes on the treadmill when i bought them i ran these right out of the box on a 4 mile trail run in hawaii. No hotspots and no blisters after 45 minutes of up and down. First thing i noticed was the weight. They are significantly lighter than my asics. I'm sold, lighter shoes are better. The soles have fairly aggressive lugs and i made sure i ran straight through the muddy sections of the trail. They handled the mud without slipping or losing traction like i'm used to. The shoes have a good feel for the trail but i can see where foot placement will be important. Sharper rocks will definitely be felt. With every other pair of running shoes i've owned, i always end up hitting my calf with the inside of my shoe when i run on the trail. The 295 midsole is pretty much vertical under the heel and this wasn't an issue. I feel like the shoe design definitely facilitates a mid foot or fore foot strike.

My favorite feature? I'm a clumsy trail runner and i will kick something solid on every run. I nailed an old sapling stump, a root and an embedded rock on my first run. Take a look at the toe protection at the front of this shoe. There is a rubber lug on the point and a full wrap of kevlar or some other ballistic cloth around the toes. I hit that little stump hard enough i'd have crippled myself in my other shoes. The 295 shook those toe strikes off. Now all i have to focus on is my tuck and roll.

zones

2010-04-17T12:15:00.004-06:00

One (of the many) cool things about living here is the variety of terrain i can cover riding from my house north of the downtown area. Looking ahead to the two weeks i wouldn't be riding my bike i took wednesday off a planned a good long ride from the house. The peak is still covered in snow and many of the higher trails are still melting out. There is plenty of good riding right now, but most of us have been hitting the same trails repeatedly for the last month or so and they are starting to become too familiar. I figured a nice cross town and back ride networking a few of these trails together would spice things up.

I hit u.p. and pulpit rock first, sidled up into ute, spun over to the garden and did the 1/2 grind up rampart range to the center piece of the day's ride. By the time i stopped for lunch i had ridden through the grasslands, foothills and was just nudging the montane forest life zone. Later in the season the subalpine and alpine zones will be submitted. The descent was sweet as always. Wetter than usual with a few patches of snow lingering deep in the woods. Twas a good ride and the perfect send off.

If you take a close look a the slide show you might notice something new-to-me.

so nice

2010-04-04T21:51:00.006-06:00

We rode way up above town.

This pretty much sums how the riding went.

Rehydration time.

So you say it's your birthday

2010-03-26T21:25:00.004-06:00

3.25.08 steve posted this on his blog.

These days it looks like this.

I love this bike. It is the only bike i've ridden for the past two years. It has been raced and ridden regularly on everything from epic rides to beer runs. I've owned a lot of bikes over the years (including hairshirt #1), but this one isn't going anywhere unless I'm piloting it.

12,000 feet - 24" at a time

2010-03-14T09:19:00.013-06:00

Peeling off the second skin and peering at the raw flesh on both ankles offered a little reminder that sometimes the payment for earned turns isn't always what you expect. I'm writing the blisters off as a minor nuisance on what was otherwise a swell time.

the snow pack looked okay, but resolution bowl had signs of numerous recent slides

mmmm, fresh snow all day

lonely at the top

blue bird

we lapped stuff like this

we called this home for 3 days

good times were had by all

thank you spike, may i have another

2010-02-27T19:28:00.002-07:00

Just found this shot of me bean fessting while browsing the interwebs. Don't i look chipper.

deutchland

2010-02-21T06:40:00.003-07:00

My passport is starting to get cluttered these days. I spent about 10 in germany for work and flew back last night. I woke up way too early and came downstairs with a craving for american breakfast food. Work included back to back drives of about 120 miles in a bitching snow storm. I did manage to have fun last saturday with a ski day in the algau in southern germany. My dad's great grandfather was from kempten so i count this a roots trip.

I got to this place about 8:30, rented a snow board and hopped aboard the Gondola at Kleinerwalsertal to the top of the Kanzelwand (on the right side of this map). The town I was in is actually in Austria, but you can only drive to it from Germany. The whole area is loaded with dozens of little ski hills.

This place is on the northern side of the alps and they pop up right from the valley and go on forever. Crested Butte is as close to this as anything I've seen, but the Alps have a different character - Mt. Crested Butte proper is close. The terrain reminds me of Alta. Most of the good stuff is above tree line only the mountains top out around 6000 ft. It took a couple of runs on the board before I started hiking to some good lines. It seems most of the Germans are kind of lazy and like groomed trails and carving skis because this one slope had a bunch of untracked lines that would have been slayed by 10:00 in Colorado. I took my last run on these at 4:00. The hike was fun because the altitude is so low. The board was a good choice because the snow was very heavy and wet. In between I did a couple of top to bottom runs to get a feel for the mountain. Aside from the stuff up high it pretty much sucked. Long narrow runs with rock hard snow - remember they like carving skis.

I did drink beer in two countries on the same run though. I had a beer in Austria at the top and two more in Germany at the bottom along with a generous serving of pork and french fries.

I remembered everything i like about snowboarding and everything that sucks. They are tons of fun in powder, especially heavy snow, they land jumps really well and are pretty good on hardpack. They suck for getting around unless you have to hike anyways. I didn't even bother trying the t-bar or poma.

I saw one tele skier.

The snowboarders here don't dress like clowns.

Off the slopes lots of people dress like clowns, but I think that's because it Carnival week.

I went to Mexico

2010-02-19T09:09:00.004-07:00

Back in December. I wrote up a post and had pictures and everything.

Spent a good two week holiday in mexico visiting my mom and seeing the sights. The itinerary went something like this
1 night/day in cancun in a resort hotel – i’m not big on the “resort” experience, but i enjoyed the beach
5 days in merida at mom’s place including christmas eve/christmas day, a day trip to chicen itza and a day at the beach in progresso
5 days in bacalar at a hotel right on laguna bacalar and a day trip to ek balam
Finshed the trip off with a few more days in merida and a day trip to celestun to frolick on the beach and see the flamingos

It was very nice to unplug. The ruins a chichen itza were incredible, but the experience was blunted quite a bit by the vendors lining every single pathway hawking the exact same stuff. Ek balam was much better. It is smaller, well preserved/restored and off the radar. Laguna bacalar is probably one of the better kept secrets in the yukatan. Beautiful, clear, freshwater lake. Neat history, laid back people and abundant birdlife. flamingo watching at celstun was another great experience. Nothing like watching wildlife in their natural habitat. We hit the area at low season. In august and September they estimate that the small area we were in has around 15000 birds on the water.

freshen up

2009-12-19T22:26:00.002-07:00

I've been cruising the blogs lately and i'm seeing a lot of apathy, but it is very much a pot-kettle-black sort of thing so i'll take as stab at catching up.

Shortly after my last post i had to take a trip to naples, italy for work. Damn work! It is kind of funny because naples is one of the places i've travelled to on my on dime, but i suppose having to go to italy again can be tolerated. The trip out was interesting. We were somewhere over nova scotia when the pilot came on and told us we had to fly back to boston because they put much cargo on the plane. An hour later we come in for landing, in fair weather mind you, and the plane, a 777, one of the big ones, is pitching all over the place. We didn't even taxi. The plane stopped at the end of the runway, surrounded by emergency vehicles, lights a-flashing. That was different. We ended up landing in frankfurt about 3 hours late, which meant i was late getting in to rome and missed my train to naples. I hopped aboard a different train to the same place and ended up where i was supposed to be. I played tourist over the weekend and drove down to the amalfi coast both days. Work was good, but i had the worst jet lag for most of the week so it was all kind of a blur.

I got back just before thanksgiving. The first ride of the weekend was tough. I had this big loop in the canyon planned, but i was hurting so i did two loops up chutes and down the gullies. Wednesday i broke in my pass and skied groomers at breck. It didn't suck as bad as i thought it might. The snow was decent and the weather was really nice. It was a good way to start getting some ski legs. I did a short turkey day ride in u.p., pulpit rock and ute and then three of us did a few hours in the canyon on friday.

Then things got sucky. It was saturday morning and rebecca calls me from dojo to tell me that she had jacked up her knee and couldn't walk. Turns out the instructor attempted a take down while sparring and screwed it up. Rebecca was optimistic and thought it was only her mcl, but the doctor took one look, and told her she had a torn acl. It got worse. The mri revealed a torn acl, 3rd degree tear of the mcl and a torn miniscus. Surgery is scheduled for early january after we get back from our family vacation to mexico. She is extremely frustrated with the injury, and my normal routine has been impacted because i'm the only driver in the house all of a sudden. I've been grumpy.

I did have one good day of skiing last week. We went to breck on monday and were on scene for the first day of t-bar operations and we were in the right place when the rope was dropped on horse shoe bowl. That didn't suck.

p2p

2009-11-09T18:09:00.005-07:00

I got the email early in the week but couldn’t justify carving out a huge chunk of my day for the drive to golden to ride the pint to pint. It sounded like a great time though. There are several drinking establishments near or in between trails here in the springs, so the route options were numerous. I didn’t want it to be too easy, but then again some of the higher trails would still be a little snowy and probably kind of wet. What to do, what to do? I thought i had it all figured out when keith suggested we ride the falcon trail and watch the pre-game fly over. Army was in town, so the air show is usually a little better than average.

My ride to the rendezvous took me through u.p. and pulpit rock

Not a brewery, but good beer is served here.

We lined up a couple of hefe for the pre ride

About half way through the second pint we heard the jets warming up overhead so we finished our drinking and headed up the santa fe trail to the ice lake entrance. We calculated that we had burned a little more time drinking than we first thought so we opted to try a direct route on to stadium drive but got turned back by security. “No bikes allowed on base on game day.” We were given the option of taking the south exit or riding off the way we came in. Not a problem. We backtracked to one of the trails that comes out of the stables and worked our way to the falcon trail out of site of anyone who would care.

And the crowd goes wild

Once on the falcon trail we found a fairly steady stream of bike traffic poking holes in the “no bikes on game day” regulation. The only down side to the detour is we weren’t at ground zero for the fly over. Oh well, the weather was fantastic and our systems were primed with thick german beers. We stopped above the stadium for a bit and chatted with the guy from security forces for a bit about the game, the weather, and spending time in iraq. Apparently he hadn’t gotten the “no bikes” memo because he didn’t give a rat’s ass about our being on the trail.

Yes, the weather was as perfect as the warm autumn glow suggests

The curious rider, with a bit of time and effort, can find more than one way into and out of the academy. Keith suggested an alternate route to our final destination that would takes us on a series of seldom ridden foothills trails. It seemed to be the most direct route to the beer, and was to include some trails he discovered last fall.

Heading out

For someone who had not ridden at all in the previous month, i was biting off a lot. We gained elevation as we rode off the government lands, lost most of the elevation and then proceeded to climb above the high point on the falcon trail. Totally worth it. There i was riding new to me trail after living in this city for 9 years.

A vantage point i’d not enjoyed before today.

The other benefit to all that climbing is that it was all downhill to the beer on narrow, unmolested singletrack.

Thirsty horses can smell the beer from miles away. This makes them happy.

Like an oasis in the desert.

A seasonal saison tapped just prior to our arrival.

I have to thank kevin for the inspiration. A week ago i was sniveling may way through my first ride in over a month. Turns out i was uncorking a fairly big week with rides on 4 out of 7 days covering a fair bit of mileage. I’m not fit yet, but i’ve definitely reversed the backwards slide.

weakness leaving the body

2009-11-05T20:40:00.005-07:00

Got out sunday for my first real dirt ride in over a month. I’m not counting bean fesst because, well, i was kind of hung over and didn’t ride very far. We figured that with the recent snow we needed to stay low so we rode from the west side through the garden and did the western half of the intemann trail starting on ruxton and down into red rocks. Not a whole lot of vertical, but the ride did involve quite a few some short, punchy climbs. My lack of cycling fitness was staring me in the face at the end of the ride. Hopefully we’ll have some good weather over the next couple of weeks before i head off on another trip.

After the ride the family headed over to ute for race #3 in the pprr fall series. The boy had a fantastic run. This was a 2.5 mile loop with a gritty climb about ¾ of the way through and he handled it like a veteran runner. Seems the longer the race the better he does.

The rest of the week has seen more fantastic weather. Did a nice lunch time spin at the afa on tuesday and a fantastic night ride at palmer and u.p. on thursday. Hoping the weather holds out for a couple of more good rides this weekend.

across manitou looking at williams

if you decide to ring the peak, you'll be hiking up this trail

just another nice stretch of trail in cos

STIL - ouch!

away and back

2009-10-23T08:10:00.005-06:00

Just got back from an 18 day trip to the middle east. Qatar would not be my first choice if i were a tourist, but most of the cool persian places are less than accessible. We were working everyday anyway, so there wasn't any time for sight seeing.

Driving through Doha every day and living in a hotel for over two weeks left some some distinct impressions. Drivers in the middle east are among the worst. Even worse than the italians in rome and naples. Qatar was surprisingly cosmopolitan - lots of imported labor, but i ran across people from all points of europe as well as africa and australia. Sure they are a muslim country, but they appear to be very accepting of infidels. Lots of development in the city. They are sprawling like vegas or phoenix and have gotten creative and haul earth out into the gulf to make posh little expansions for sky scrapers and shopping. Progressive architecture and a very cool skyline. Camels. Hot. Dusty.

Of course i came home and promptly came down with a bit of a cold. I managed one short ride and really felt the effects of over two weeks at sea level without riding my bike. Looking forward to the weekend. Velo swap and bean feSSt. The weather seems to be shaping up for a "classic" feSSt.

camels roamed the earth

view from the souq

souq architecture

souq alley

street view

museum of islamic art

camel truck

day time skyline

night time skyline

urban

2009-09-28T18:52:00.012-06:00

I've spent the last few weekends catching up on yard work, automotive repairs, and household maintenance. It hasn't left any time for epic riding but i've been squeezing in shorter rides throughout the week and even managed a nice single speed sunday ride last week. The rides are shorter and closer to home but they've been at places like buffalo creek (tits), monument, palmer, and the rampart points of entry. Of course last week's funky weather had us channeling our thursday night riding ambitions into beer drinking. Turns out we are pretty good at that.

Saturday looked good for a ride, but after taking the kids to the zoo and running errands i didn't have time to hit the road, so i did a u.p. / ute valley loop from the house. This is a fun ride with a couple of different start options from my neighborhood. I'm shoving the photos and narrative in here old style.

This bookend follows the neighborhood ditch between flintridge and austin bluffs

The intersection of ditches. I learned several years ago to avoid the green sections - the slime will take you down. Much steeper and bigger than it looks. Maybe the tire tracks give it some scale.

That's the new shopping center on north nevada in the background. I admit that this part of town looks much better paved over. There used to be a rather spooky strip of crack motels here

Body anglish

18 months later and the hairshirt is almost exactly how i want it

Ute is a hard, rocky place

Monument creek. We use this to send our sewage down to pueblo

Bookended with an asphalt finish into the hood

mild sauce

2009-09-16T16:32:00.002-06:00

I’ll admit that for the past two summers the thursday night shop ride hasn’t always lived up to the reputation it had earned over the previous years. There have been a couple injuries that have slowed some of us down at times and overall the riding volume has dropped off a tick for most of us. The killer instinct has gone into hibernation. We’ve gotten lazy.

Well, the spark is returning, and even if it is a feeble spark, it holds promise. Take last thursday as an example. I suggested the catamount loop, which was seconded by the whasian with the addition of the horse shoe. I won’t name names, but someone actually complained that we’d be descending hs in the dark. It was sad. We had actually come to the point where some of us were afraid of riding teller county trails in the dark. Fortunately the argument didn’t gain any traction. We bs’d our way up hwy 24 and edlow road. The no go view was floated a few more times but 3 of showed our solidarity by ignoring it.

As we hit our first descent back down to the res, the sun finally peaked out of the clouds before setting for good. Afternoon light on the north slop of pikes peak is always a treat. We made good time around the reservoir and hit our last descent just a full darkness fell. To reinforce how complacent we’ve become, three out of the four of us had light issues. I had suggested stopping at the dam (while it was still light out) to get everything sorted, but i was ignored as repayment for my endorsement of the extended loop. We bushwhacked our way to the trail and arrived just as it started to get really black in the woods. Two of the crew hadn’t tried fitting their lights to their new, over sized bars, so some cluster fucking ensued to get the mounts to fit. Once that was taken care of, one freshly charged (but not tested since last fall) hid failed to ignite. Once we got rolling we were in for a blissful descent. That trail is so much different in the dark, even more so since this was my first ride on it this year.

Once back at the shop one of the local riders pulled into the parking lot and told us he had seen our lights from the highway and watched our descent. I always wondered how noticeable we were.

icing

2009-09-16T16:29:00.001-06:00

I’ve had a great summer riding season. I did all the big rides i had planned and even a couple i didn’t plan on doing. I’m going to skip the cb classic this year mainly because by late september my willingness to suffer takes a back seat to getting out there and enjoying myself. To this end, we hit up a new favorite this past saturday, riding from copper mountain to minturn via the CT to camp hale and shrine pass to bowman’s cut off and two elks. In the past we used resolution road and wilder gulch, but figured we’d try shrine pass for something different. It worked out well. The climb is much more palatable and it has the added bonus of a stop in red cliff where there is a fully stocked market.

We had been watching the weather closely, and it looked like we were going to get some rain and maybe snow but it wasn’t enough of a threat to make us call the ride. Sure enough, as we got near copper there was some moisture in the air. The weather was mixed bag for our ride. A little bit of rain/sunshine mix on the way to janet’s cabin, full on snow storm over searle pass, clearing skies from kokomo to red cliff and up shrine pass, rain and hail in the middle of two elks, and finally, a full on deluge just as we got back to the car and started changing back into street clothes. Fortunately we didn’t have any lightening while we were up high.

The riding experience on this route is top notch colorado stuff. Great trails and scenery and neat history if you know where to look. The descents are long too, losing multiple thousands of feet at a time. The buff stuff is great, but there are some steep, rocky/rooty sections where trying to keep up with everyone their full squish bikes was definitely too much on my fully rigid setup. It definitely kept me on my toes. The final descent from the ski area along the creek is one of my favorites. It isn’t so steep, but it has plenty of techy moves that were made a bit more interesting by the wet. We ended up with about 53 and almost 8000 feet of climbing for the day.

As we drove home later that night, we ran into some serious weather coming down from the tunnel on i-70. I couldn’t help but think of my friends who were lining up for the VT 125. It turned out the weather down south was pretty much the same and caused a two-hour delay and resulted in a fair number of non starts and drops at the first aid station. That’s colorado for you.

big tree, little bugs

2009-09-06T17:19:00.006-06:00

Continuing my trend of not planning any big rides, or really planning any rides at all, i threw my bike on the car this morning for a rendezvous in castle rock to complete a craigs list transaction (not that kind of transaction). I figured i'd see what was up at indian creek if i felt like riding. I have not been up there since my beat down last year.

I did the indian creek > waterton > ct > indian creek loop. Good stuff, but the climb back to to the trailhead from lenny's rest sucked just as much as i remembered. I think i have an aversion to that trail because of how badly i was suffering last year. Anyways, it was a good ride. Lot's of good singletrack and excellent weather. I noticed the HUGE fir tree this year. You don't often find them this big near the populated parts of colorado because the pioneers and miners were really good at cutting shit down back in the day. I also found the blue beetles feasting on a chunky fungus growing on a ponderosa. It was icky and cool at the same time.

cb

2009-09-01T09:21:00.004-06:00

We finally made our pilgrimage to cb. I wasn’t really in this trip for the riding which actually made for a much more relaxing time. The only hiccup was the dang fire. I stock up on firewood in town and the batch of oak i picked up only burned once there was substantial amount of heat to get it going. Kids don’t like waiting for their s’mores.

Saturday i took the boy out for a ride on strand. He liked everything except for the ride back into town. Sunday i did a short ride from our cement creek camp to hit some of the single track off of the walrod trailhead. It is really good stuff that doesn’t see much traffic and is easy to knock out in under 2 hours. We followed that up with a geocache hike. The rest of our time was spent walking around town, drinking coffee and picnicking in the park.

just not that in to you

2009-08-28T08:28:00.002-06:00

Quite moping. You saw your action slow down after the enduro, but that was to be expected with the work trip and all. Things looked promising after that though. A good pre work ride at the academy and two consecutive thursday night rides. The short rides with the boy don’t really count because you were never really allowed to open up and run. Then the full on drought hit. No riding on the weekend? What’s up with that? To add insult to injury you were relegated to multiple liquor store runs and a commute to buy running shoes. RUNNING SHOES!?! Did i even notice you had been out of circulation so long that your tires needed quite a bit of air? Now you hang there watching me wash my car, paint bookshelves, and fondle those damnable tele skis all the while popping open beers and drinking my days and evenings away.

Chris Duarte

2009-08-20T12:04:00.002-06:00

We had the opportunity to see Chris and his trio play last night here in the Springs. I highly recommend catching one of his shows if you have the chance. Even if you don't think you are a texas style blues fan, this cat has some impressive axe craft and is a super nice guy to boot. I could get all creative with superlatives, but i'll keep it simple. We were blown away. The new and improved Stargazer's is a great venue too.

Enduro v.4

2009-08-05T20:24:00.003-06:00

Good times. Thought about a long write up, but i think i'll keep it short. I had my best/funnest ride this year out of my four attempts. I was slower than i thought i'd be by about 10 minutes which is kind of weird because i didn't stop except to take on some water. I also rode everything except the mandatory hike a bike bits between 4 and 5 and a couple of spots on the headquarters climb. I also had enough once i got to the bottom of headquarters that i was able to ride it like i meant it rather than trying to survive the last few miles and wishing the race was over already.

I also have to thank rebecca and the kids for coming out and handing off bottles and ringing the cow bells.

where is it i live and what month is it

2009-07-30T23:22:00.002-06:00

Some time in the last 4 days pangea did some movement and what used to be seattle move southeast and parts of colorado shifted north west. The result on our end has been some non stop wet weather. If i were still a racer who "trained" i'd be having kittens about now. Glad i got my little spin in on tuesday otherwise i'd have to channel my inner belgian to get on my bike. Thankfully saturday's ride is long one and i'll have a couple of hours to blow out the cobwebs.

a few things

2009-07-28T10:07:00.004-06:00

The single speed sunday hq made the call to do the ring the peak trail back on the 19th. Six of us saddled up for another big summer ride. Over 70 miles and 10k of climbing. Scott did a great write up on his blog and pretty much captured the day. In addition to scott’s blog, scott, doug, and jon did a radio interview with the local public radio station. The only thing i’d add is that i’m glad i did spike fest and the don ride over the previous month because the fitness gained really paid off.

Since that big ride i’ve taken the boy out couple of times and ridden with the inflexibles. The thursday night ride up in wp was also pretty mellow. We picked all the easy options and wrapped up the evening celebrating a birthday with a great mexican food dinner followed by beers at kinfolk.

I had grand plans on saturday to wake up early and ride across town and hit cheyenne canyon. I ended up delaying the ride from home to watch the ventoux stage. By the time that was over my desire to ride to my ride had evaporated and i opted to commute. Turned out to be a good idea because i was a bit dehydrated and started out having an off day. It took a while to get enough water in to where i felt okay. What i thought would be a shorter ride ended up being about 3.5 hours hitting a forgotten bit of trail off of old stage and an old favorite on the back side of cheyenne mountain. I hadn’t ridden up there this summer and really enjoyed being on that trail for the first time this season.

The enduro is coming up this weekend so i’m taking it fairly easy. Did a loop at the academy before work – it was a sweet ride. Last night’s rain made for exceptional conditions on the falcon trail and i only saw one other person. I might do one more easy ride but that’s about it. I’m looking forward to a good ride with cows this weekend.

disappearing trails

2009-07-17T22:22:00.002-06:00

The shop ride was a much better option than my original plan of doing the overlook. It was kind of hot here in town. The conditions in wp were about as good as they get. For the first time this summer we used up all the daylight and had to do a bit of braille riding coming down lovell gulch at the end of the ride. The trails we ride don't see much use and all the moisture has made for some serious overgrowth.

about the people

2009-07-12T08:12:00.008-06:00

Tom's back from florida and the renters are gone which means he has relocated from his van down by the river to his house. He figured it was time celebrate with a chill ride and bbq. Late start for a colorado ride in july. We rode pavement, double track, and single track. Riders were added and and shed as afternoon progressed. We rode in, through and out of the rain. Pucker factor lightening added some excitement on the way back, and although we took different routes home (options are nice) we regrouped at tom's for a few happy hours and a feast.

don ride

2009-07-06T22:03:00.003-06:00

I took three tries, but i finally finished. I had my doubts about throwing down two 80+ mile rides at altitude on consecutive weekends, but sitting here in front of the computer it wasn't as bad as i expected.

Rewind to about noon on saturday as i hoofed it up methodist mountain i might have been singing a different tune. I don't know. I'm probably blocking already so i don't puke in my mouth at the thought of doing this ride again next year. Methodist is the crux. The climb up from 285 was a mind fuck and I'd forgotten most of it from my past attempts. Any difficulty up to that point can be written off as the mental/physical struggle of any hard ride. I remember a lot of walking, and when i did ride sections it ended badly as my fatigue addled body got tossed into the bike when i struck my pedal or planted my tire perpendicular to the trail. I don't know how long it took but i listened to all of animals and a best of deep purple on the way up (sweet child in time will always remind me of hiking through the aspens near the top.)

Once i got over the top though it was pretty much sweet riding on nice bits of rainbow trail over to bear creek. I was probably too tired to enjoy it properly, but i wasn't harboring thoughts of "make it stop" and "wtf am i doing out here." I'm making it sound like i did this ride by myself, but there was a decent sized group of a dozen or so riders on the front end that accordioned throughout the ride. I was actually surprised to meet up with them at bear creek but certainly think the company made the ride more enjoyable.

On the gear side, i threw my beat to crap maxis crossmark on the rear tire for saturday's ride because it is light and makes for noticeably easier pedaling. I love this tire for colorado trails. Looking at it you wouldn't think it would do, but even with 1/3 of its new tread it hooks up exceptionally well on loose over hard stuff. I'm not a tire whore, but this tire is worth a try if you ride big wheels.

To top off a pretty good day, when i checked email on saturday evening i had a message from rich vincent letting me know a slot had opened up for me in the laramie enduro. Sweet!!

the shank

2009-07-01T10:31:00.002-06:00

It’s that time of year. We are rolling up on the shank of the summer riding season where fitness, hours of daylight and free time synch up with our plans for big rides. Lost focus is suddenly found and maybe… is replaced with where and when?

Upcoming is the don ride in salida on the 4th. I came close to finishing this two years ago but took a wrong turn at albuquerque. Last year I expected the crest trail to be snowed in and skipped it entirely. A couple of weeks ago I was hemming and hawing, but ended up booking a room on monday. I’m in.

This past weekend was spikefest. 85 miles in park and summit county. There are some good photos and a ride report from the 50 milers over on mtbr. Our little group (me, spike, and jon on singles and nick on a geared bike) rolled out of the campsite and onto the last bit of the gold dust trail shortly after 5 am. Cal was also part of our motley crew, but he had his eyes on the 120+ option. The forest has a special quality in the waking hours that nicely matched my body trying to find its rhythm. I’ve mentioned in other posts that i love being outdoors at sunrise. We got a real treat just before we descended into como as the sun started peaking up over the horizon to grace the peaks behind us and the high points in front of us. We met up with the chompers erick and fred in como and headed off.

The first part of the ride took us north and east from como to the ct at rock creek. In the beginning our route roughly paralleled tarryall creek. The rolling county and fs road were nice and tacky from friday’s deluge. It is pretty country to boot. Antelopes, bears, unique rock formations, every variety of homestead, from weekend cabin to mcmansion, and the reappearing company of the tarryall. Once on the ct the real climbing began to get us up to kenosha. There was the initial grunt and then a nice roll to our resupply point. If i do this ride again, i’ll probably move my stash down trail to the instersection with jefferson creek right before the climb up georgia pass.

Ah, good old georgeia pass. Have you clicked on that mtbr link yet? Check out kevin, scott and jeremy riding their bikes. Now picture me walking my bike. I walked a lot, including everything above tree line. I kind of expected it given my low volume of riding and real lack of any big rides at altitude. Nothing to do but put my head down and push the bike. When i came out of the trees spike was nowhere to be seen, the chompers were grinding their way just below the road and jon was at the jefferson creek junction. In case you are wondering, it is about a 15 minute walk to the top. When i finally crossed the road i got back on to pedal and felt the first bit of cramping, but i was determined to at least ride that last little bit to the saddle.

I caught up with everyone on the other side out of the wind. After a short break we continued on and negotiated a bunch of big snow drifts that were still hanging in the trees. We had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of mountain goat as well. He was a bit embarrassed by his mangy transitional coat and skulked off into the trees after he noticed us. After a nice stint on the ct we hit the first of the never ending flume trails.

Looking at the profile, you’d think these would be a fast easy cruise. From my point of view, anything that didn’t point upwards was welcome at this point, but the flumes are a bit chunky in spots and still have some large deadfall to negotiate. There was a solid 2/2 rhythm to these trails. Ride, dismount. Ride, dismount. The boggy transitions and decomposing structures from the past on this section held my interest as well. Eventually i started to feel a little stronger and joked that my body had finally started running on fat reserves. Whatever the reason it was nice not feeling like a hollow shell anymore. Eventually we made our way into french gulch and parts of the route used in the firecracker 50. It was nice to see other riders enjoying the trail and prepping for their race. One of them also gave us the hot tip of the day as we pushed our bikes up the wall. He had just popped off of the flume trail used in the 50 and told us not to bother unless we wanted to hump our bikes over dozens of downed trees. Instead he pointed us uphill to a trail that intersected the flume on the other side of the deadfall. We took another break at the sally barber mine and then railed down to the ice rink in breck for another resupply before pushing over the pass.

We opted to skip the bakers tank trail and stuck to road to get over the pass, figuring riding the bikes might prove to be more enjoyable than pushing them. Mateo met us near the summit and lit a fire under spikes wheels by telling him that the 50 mile group was hanging out at the top of the pass (spike had been killing it all day long). Once we popped onto the gold dust trail spike, mateo and the chompers hit it pretty hard. I tried keeping up for a bit and then backed off and decided to enjoy the new to me trail. When i came out on the road where we first picked up the gold dust 12 hours earlier i found that spike and the others had indeed caught up with the 50 mile group. To be fair, they did spend time clearing dead fall from the flume trails for us and they rode all the single track options coming up the pass.

Saturday evening was spent around the campfire enjoying what meager rations we had and a variety of adult beverages. Including our riding party, we had a large group that included my family, nick’s wife, doug j, mateo, kevin and cal for a short while. All in all, i’d say that’s about the way i like spending my summer weekends.

good bye michael

2009-06-25T22:01:00.001-06:00

I suppose they can cover black bird now.

racing and the ride that wasn't

2009-06-17T21:17:00.003-06:00

On saturday I tooled around cheyenne mountain state park to spectate at the men's UCI mtb race. I occasionally ride with a couple of the local pros who participated in this race and consider them to be pretty dang fast. Fast is obviously a relative thing as they ended up being pack fodder.

trebon - he makes the big wheels look small

craig
wells

Sunday the plan was to go back to estes park and ride the crosier trail and tack on some additional miles and elevation with a ride up to donner pass. Too bad none of us really knew where the heck we were going. Still the crosier downhill was awesome and we now know where not to go. Click here for a wee slide show.

dad and dude ride

2009-06-10T21:57:00.006-06:00

It has been a while since mini me and i have gone riding. He's only got a couple of rides on his new to him 26 inch wheeled FS, but he seems to ride the rocks at palmer much better with the extra crank clearance.

taking on a climb

swoosh

muggin'

gold in the hills

into the hills

2009-06-08T21:24:00.002-06:00

Got out on sunday for a mostly solo ride of the jones loop from town. I had company for the first hour, but we parted ways so they could meet the terms of their kitchen passes. I’ve had some spirited debate on the merits of riding gold camp road vs the hike a bike up st mary’s. I prefer to ride the bottom of the st mary’s trail and then cross back over the ridge to gold camp. I like the road because i like riding my bike better than hiking next to it. The scenery is great and the spin up to old stage can be as easy or as hard as you want it to be.

My legs still seem to be finding their way back from gunnison, so the uphill pace was designed to get me there and back again without doing further damage. The single track is in pretty good shape – not as washed out as i was expecting from all of the recent rain. There is a lot of water coming down off the shoulder of almagre. All of the water crossings are ripping along pretty good and there is enough volume that there are some nice cascades above and below the trail if you stop to look for them.

That downhill is so much fun. Any time you can enjoy 30-40 minutes of continuous descent you can’t help but have a good time. I did stop a couple of times on the lower part of 666 to fix some of the diversions to get the water off the trail, but other than that it was pretty much a straight shot back down. Wheeeee!

Got together tonight with on of my medicine wheel compadres and flagged a reroute on the east side templeton entry/exit. We have about a 1/4 mile worth of trail to build here in a couple of weeks.

thursday night

2009-06-05T19:46:00.003-06:00

So the thursday night shop rides have been going for a couple of weeks. Yesterday was perfection. A bit of rain earlier in the day made the normally loose trail tacky in all the right spots and the temperature was ideal. My only problem is that my legs feel like they are stuffed with straw so i walked a lot more than i usually do. Click here to check out the slide show.

in search of

2009-06-01T22:27:00.006-06:00

Fred and i went up to lyons to participate in the 'death march' ride. Maybe not the killer it was billed to be, but it had its moments. I didn't bring a camera, but lots of other folks did. You can see their stuff here, here, and here. The croiser trail was super fun. Some crazy technical stuff and a great trail to not have a derailleur hanging off the back of the bike.

I also saw Eric put on an amazing display of rigid fixie power. Holy crap, this kid can ride the shit out of a bike.

2009-05-27T21:29:00.008-06:00

We headed over to gunnison early on saturday morning, driving through the rain that has decided to hand around these parts for the better part of the week. On the way up the pass we hit a parking lot worth of traffic shortly after seeing the emergency vehicles blazing past us and the helicopter flying around. We figured it would be awhile and drove back to salida and hung out there for a couple of hours.

We were in between squalls once we got to gunnison so we checked in to the motel and headed out to hartmans to get the lay of the land and scope out a spot for rebecca and the kids to spectate. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the new community pool reading a book while the kids swam.

fresh as a daisy

Race day was a darn good time. Big mass roll out from town to hartmans followed by six and a half hours on a really fun course. I'm not exactly sure where I ended up, but rebecca figured it was in the top 25. I put gears on the hairshirt for this race after committing to doing two laps. My 1x6 setup worked well and i appreciate the fact that i didn't feel like i had turned myself inside out when it was over. I felt great for the whole first lap and really had to concentrate on reigning myself in. I started slow and worked my way up from group to group finally settling in with a cadre of riders whom i would see off and on for the rest of the race. Seemed like we rode in the rain for about the last 45 minutes of that first lap, but once it started coming down i stopped worrying about it and lost track of the time.

lap 1 grimace

I spent about 4 or 5 minutes between laps resupplying and then proceeded to hike and ride my way back up to the ridge and beyond. After the transition my group was spread out but 4 or 5 of us came together after the first couple of climbs and stayed that way for a good bit. This was point in the race where riding slower on lap one paid off. One by one riders popped off the back of our group. The technical spots were a good indicator of how people were feeling. There was some flailing going on as the combination of miles, wet conditions and physical rebellion starting taking their toll. By the time i hit the mid race aid station i was riding by myself (as was just about everyone else.)

Rebecca and the kids were hanging out at the bottom of the Josie's climb along with a volunteer at the small aid station. My headset had worked loose and i had to stop and adjust it. Being fatigued i was willing my hands to do the work and wondering why in the heck they wouldn't respond – funny stuff to watch. The aid volunteer offered me a PBR while i fumbled with my tool so i obliged and drank just enough to not seem rude (1/2 can or so) and then continued on my way. I got about 100 yards up the trail only to find i had tightened everything up with the stem off center so i had stop and fix it again. Five riders passed me during my little stop so i had some rabbits out front to provide some motivation. The rain came in again on this last part of lap 2, but the trade off was the crowds were gone so techy sections weren't peeling people off their bikes and the riding had much better flow than the first lap. I worked my way up through three of the riders who passed me but the other two stayed out of site for a long time. I finally caught a glimpse of them on the rollers on the fence line trail and passed one of them about half way up the final climb to the ridge. Don't think i wasn't killing it this whole time and weaving a web of destruction in my wake. I've learned that you crumble from within on these long races and your finish place is as more an indicator of who fell apart when than you own awesomeness.

After rolling through the finish for time, the idea was you had to ride back to town for the symbolic finish. I rode in with Dan D and got back in time for a shower before we had to check out. The post race beer, food and company were excellent as usual. The Growler is one of the best events i've participated in and i'm glad my family was able to come along and help out - it wouldn't have been the same without them.

Now you might think that after a long race like this the best thing to do the next day is relax and recover. Well, memorial day is a special ride day in woodland park and serves to kick off the summer riding season. We gather at the shop, ride 40-something miles on sweet trails and finish off with a bbq in the afternoon. One of the reasons i went with gears on sunday was so i could ride on monday. Brilliant plan, no?

I did okay for the first couple of hours until the muscles in my legs started getting those flashes that precede cramps, failure and long stretches of walking. I knew i’d be circling the drain if tried to stick with the group so i peeled off at the green gate, took and extended break and rode the north shore of rampart and paradise trails back to the shop. After sunday the down pour is hardly worth mentioning. What i noticed most was that i have never ridden that stretch of trail at such a slow pace. That was some well-earned bbq.

monument rocks

2009-05-21T20:31:00.004-06:00

The big ones are nice to look at and ride around.

The smaller ones provide awareness of where your tenders are in relation to the stem, top tube and seat. They are a good reason to have ice cold beer waiting for you at the end of the ride.

the explore

2009-05-18T20:45:00.005-06:00

Early maps used to have annotations at the margin like "Here there be monsters" or "Here there be tygers". At first glance you infer some ignorance on their part and complete lack of knowledge of their uncharted fringes. Wander enough on your own with map in hand and you may start to think what those notes really mean is "Never mind the places we haven't been, this map contains adventure enough and trouble to be gotten into." I've been both leader and follower on exploratory rides. Rides with frequent stops and starts. Rides with hikes where time spent afoot and distance traveled cannot be balanced in any ledger. I've been the doubted and the doubter. The hero and the goat. Sunday's ride was jon and scott's successful attempt to put bikes and feet on dots on the map. Thanks for letting me tag along.

Click here for a slide show.

home again

2009-05-16T09:21:00.002-06:00

Made it through a chicago connection on time - always a dicey proposition flying through o'hare. Flying into the springs from the north i got a great view of my neighborhood and the bluffs that define my home trails and the thought crossed my mind that the legs could do with a short spin through the park. Somehow my baggage and i got separated so i spent a little extra time getting out of the airport.

After a short reunion with the family i rolled out for a sunset ride. Nice to be on home dirt again. I paused at the edge of one of the bluffs to take in the views. As i stepped off the bike a red tail drifted just out of reach, mounted up on the breezes that play over that landscape. He did a short 360 circuit to check me out. Never higher than my head and never farther than 10 yards away.

bikes are fun

2009-05-14T14:11:00.004-06:00

Yea, so the weather that was supposed to move in on saturday didn't. It turned out rather nice so i headed over to palmer for a few more hours of demo riding. One of the local shops brought out intense, rocky mountain, and kona. It went kind of like this. I was excited to ride the new tracer from intense, but it didn't work for me as an all arounder in the 6 inch mode. A lot of folks really like this bike, and it has some great handling characteristics, but for my style of riding i had to work a bit too hard on the climbs to keep the bike under me and tracking straight. Next up was the spider 29er. Seems like a great choice for an xc bike. It climbed well and descending in a controlled manner with a bit more forgiveness than a ht. It felt really weird climbing out of the saddle compared to the horst designs and single pivots i've ridden. For me it wasn't a ride that would make me think of replacing my ht for xc and enduro type rides. The surprising bike was the rocky mountain slayer sxc. It climbed better than the yeti i rode on tuesday and descended as well or better than the yeti and tracer. I felt comfortable enough on it to hit a couple of the bigger drops on the east side as well. Bikes sure have come a long way in the few years since i gave up my last long legged ride.

Work took me back to virginia this week. I've eaten some good sea food and bbq. Not a whole lot of time for recreating, but i have been doing my "rehab running" in the parking lot of a vacant shop near the hotel. I found a program designed for rugby and soccer athletes. Basically you break up a 90-100 meter run into thirds. The first third is acceleration, the second is full sprint and the last is used to slow down. You run sets of four with a walk back (slow jog for me) in between. The idea is that you stress the recovering hamstring by introducing different stresses through each phase in the run. As you progress through the sets you also introduce fatigue as a factor. Running isn't something i enjoy, but between this and the strengthening and stretching i'm definitely noticing improvement.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

2009-05-08T18:29:00.005-06:00

I'm not a pleasant morning person. I get up early for work, and i like seeing the sunrise and starting my day, but i'm not up for conversation or dealing with people. Lately my daughter has decided that she wants to get up early, like 5:30 early, and go for a run around the neighborhood with mom. Their return interferes with my morning routine as they are usually in the kitchen getting in my way while i fix my toast and coffee. As if that isn't bad enough, they try to talk to me. Don't get me wrong, i'm proud of my girls for getting out there, but the coincidental interaction is like rolling around on a scratchy wool blanket while watching eraserhead at full volume. Right after rolling out of bed. Makes me grumpy.

I struck back today with an early morning ride. The weekend forecast is a carbon copy of the last 4 weeks. Crap. Absolute crap. It's fine weather if it is november, or march even, or if you live in belgium, but c'mon, it is may already. My solution was to get in a short ride at palmer before work. There have been times where i did this on a regular basis, but it has been a while. Somehow the thought of waking at the crack of dawn to ride neighborhood trails has some appeal. Anyway, i was awake and ready to go before the ladies. I stood over the bed wathing rebecca stir and said. "Hey, do you think you can have some pancakes ready when i get home? I'll be back by 7:30. OK? Bye. Have a nice run." She mumbled something that i couldn't quite understand, but i thought it was a yes.

The hour and a half ride at palmer is full of options. It isn't enough time to ride everything, but you can link up some diverse bits of trail for a great variety. I headed in a counterclockwise loop. I was at the west side of the park just as the sun was kissing the garden of the gods. I hit palmer point, south canyon trails, bits of grandview and the grandview spurs and finished off with some templeton/edna mae/templeton circuits. There isn't a lot of elevation in the park, but i made sure i hit the few sustained climbs on the route to make up for that. A couple of things really made the ride enjoyable today. First was the all the undisturbed early morning aromas: damp dirt, the ponderosas as the sun warmed their bark and needles, growing things coming to life, steamy undergrowth and last years oak leaves. Second was the physical aspect of today's palmer ride. The techy trails on the single speed demand some things i don't get out of most rides. There are a lot of stall and balance moves, slow speed changes of direction. Steps and chunky surf to be negotiated. 50/50 kind of stuff. My body was working in harmony and the riding was smooth today. The post ride pumpkin pancakes smothered in butter and maple syrup were awsome. When tomorrow rolls around i'm not going to feel bad about not getting out on the bike.

downtown with mt rosa and st.charles dome the framing high points

in palmer nomenclature "the lot by the stables"

these would be the stables

looking north from grandview. maybe 2 miles from my front door as the crow flies

shedding layers

pasques waiting for the sun

+ + + + + + + + + +

2009-05-06T22:17:00.002-06:00

It has come to my attention that some folk think i'm committed to the one true path. That isn't exactly how it is. My one speed, one bike stable has come about simply because i prefer paying cash for my toys and to raise bike cash, i've sold off other bikes. The best part about not having something you want is you can fantasize about it. In the case of bikes, you get to test ride stuff and think about how it would fit in.

Yeti had a demo at palmer yesterday and my first choice was the new ASR 7. Even though my everyday ride for the last few years has been a hardtail ss, i've ridden and flown a wide variety of brands and categories at Palmer. The new Yeti is a hoot. I rode most of the classic chunky trail in both directions. I dropped. I rolled. I even shifted to granny ring once. The pro-pedal and talas aided climbing was totally manageable. For air shocks, the suspension was pretty dang good, and that is with out any fiddling or tweaking on my part. I have no idea what the retail price on that bike is, but i'm pretty sure it won't be coming home any time soon.

My last couple of decent rides have been the breakthrough rides i've been waiting for. I'm finally starting to feel "not weak" (this isn't the same thing as feeling "strong"). The main symptom for me is that i'm not suffering up climbs that were working me over a few weeks ago and i can recover a bit in between efforts. I did a double at the academy this evening with one clockwise and one counter clockwise loop. There were quite a few cadets running the trail and a fair number bikers. It is nice to see people out enjoying the great weather and fine trails.

* * * * * * * * * * *

2009-04-29T23:03:00.002-06:00

I'm starting to dig the spring time. Sure the weather is unpredictably unpredictable, but when it is on, it is on good. It was on today.

I'll admit that the growler has made me nervous. Every time i ride i feel weak and over my head. Like a surfer dropping down the face of a wave focusing on the coral 3 feet under the surface instead of the joy of the moment. My initial choice was two loops at the academy. It is a great trail for "training". Easy to push the pace and i know it so well that i can really focus on putting the hammer (picture a little kid's hammer) down and recovering at all the right spots. Then I got to wondering how the mule would ride. I thought about calling joe, but kind of knew he would tell me it needed a week or so, and i didn't want to hear that. In the end i opted for monument and probably got exactly what i needed. The trail was probably 80 percent rideable. Only problem was it was rideable 10 percent of the time. I had to hike most of the climb, and the sad thing is that it wasn't that much slower than riding. The rest of it was great. A couple of dismounts, but nothing that made me wish i was riding the falcon trail. The new connector was the best i've seen it. Bottom line is i'm really fond of the mt herman trails.

I upped my wildlife tally as well. I saw a massive black bear (from a comfortable distance) and three deceased skunks.

really!??

2009-04-27T22:24:00.003-06:00

Absolutely fucking idiotic.

dumbass photo op

- - - - - - - - - -

2009-04-27T21:28:00.004-06:00

The year i graduated high school i moved to ketchum to ski bum with some friends. I spent one mediocre winter and two fantastic summers there. I worked at a mexican food restaurant called desperado's and even helped the owner remodel the newer location prior to moving in. One of the summers i rented a room from my boss and we were fairly tight. Did a lot of biking and beer drinking together. After my time there i made one trip back shortly after getting married the early 90's. We stayed with my former employer and his new wife and baby girl. Every so often i have a sort of reoccurring dream where i've gone back. Either i'm trying to get out of town to ride some of the awesome singletrack, or i'm trying to make my way to the restaurant for a good meal and a visit with my old boss. Last night it was the latter. Something always happens though. The restaurant moved, my boss isn't there, i can't remember how to get to the trails, sometimes i can't even get to the town (which never actually looks like ketchum). It weird, and it leaves me with that haunting sort of feeling that sticks all day.

I didn't have any firm plans for the weekend. Saturday we sort of planned a big ride, but woke up to weather better suited for the isles. I headed into the garage to do some ghetto tubeless conversion and test fitting of the gears. By late morning the weather looked promising but by then i had broken my spirit on every task i had attempted. Rather than try and muster the motivation for a ride the boy and i went out and kicked the ball around.

Sunday looked promising. I waited until early afternoon to give the sun time to warm up the place. I headed out around 1:00, just in time to catch the weather shift from sunny and perfect to storm prep. It's kind of funny when you have no idea what the weather is supposed to be like and then you end up figuring it out as you go along. I had a bit of sun, lots of cold breezy, and little bit of precip. I didn't realize how cold it had gotten until i got home, jumped in the shower,and noticed the frozen toes.

It went a bit like this. Notice the patchy sun on the peak?

The pasque is the sure sign spring has sprung.

Urban critter don't make the wildlife tally

Here's the weather blowing in over the garden.

The trail was not muddy.

Hmm, wasn't expecting that.

Fully deteriorated.

. . . . . . . . .

2009-04-21T20:57:00.002-06:00

Pop! Sproing! Snap! That's the sound my hamstring makes just before it says "i told you so. dumbass." Between the indoor play and the skiing the abuse has been a bit too much so i'm putting myself into rehab for the next six weeks. Fortunately rehab involves biking, lots of biking.

I'm somewhat gimpy, but on the 1-10 scale of inflexables gimpyness i probably rate a 2 because 1)nothing is actually crushed, broken or held together with bolts 2)i can still ride a bike.