Spring has Sprung (about durn time!)

started out the day witnessing my oldest daughter being involved in the denver waldorf school's spring fling. as a first grader, her class did a skit with chanting, coordinated movements and general fun. grandma and grandpa came down too. It was a hot day. I complain about it-the weather-being hot but really it's a respite to all the latest round of freaky, cold weather. Which, by the way, put my health in a tailspin. Last weekend did the 18 hours of Fruita (read Les Miserables) on an 8-person team and every other lap i rode, i swear, the heavens opened up and blasted me with all forms of precipitation: rain, sleet, and even snow. it clogged my sinus and bacteria had an orgy in my nose. needless to say my general practitioner put me on azithromycin and an albuterol inhaler. okay. hot weather...it was nice hanging out. maura and maricel got their faces painted, they hung out with their friends and we saw all the grade levels put on their class "skit". i don't know if y'all are familiar with the rudolf steiner inspired waldorf mantra but one class did a eurythmia thing and it's like a waldorf version of p.e. for most of the rudolf's philosophy i'm coolio with it, but for stuff like eurythmia and a strange fascination with puppet shows, i kinda silently laugh at it. my colleague who's a waldorf grad knows what i'm saying. nonetheless, it was good seeing maricel in her element. running and laughing and interacting in the 1st grade sort of way with her peers, teacher, and the older kids who mentor her class.
after the spring fling i meet my cycling friends at apex park. apex is a bittersweet place for me. when i first moved here, it was bar none my fave mounting biking joint. now, after several years of erosion, there are these super gnarly, sharp-assed, irregular, large pieces of rock that stick out in obtuse angles waiting to shred/taco your tire (or worse, punch a large hole in your body/appendages!). needless to say, it's no longer tops on my list. so the posse this time's billy and his coolio wife: tanya, kevin d. (of moab fame), and alec the not-so-newbie friend and colleague. we change venue due to rain and thunderstorms near our first pick: white ranch. so we split the difference and go apex. at apex the weather's remarkably sunny, warm, and maybe even humid (after the rains). alec and i first show up and alec's rig is sporting a yak(ima) roof rack. he purchased it because he's going on a rocky mountain odyssey this summer and needed more space inside his truck. finally billy et al show up.
the first part's this super baby head strewn single track up to the next baby head strewn single track. billy's climbing possessed and i'm trying to keep up with him. after our first rest we notice alec's climbing like a banshee as well. after all these months we think he physiologically hit a new plateau. tanya is also firing up the hill too. billy definitely has a keeper.
the trail up has a long not-so-steep section. this apparently is where billy decides to accelerate and i try to match his speed. usually, not because i'm rude but because i'm a roadie, i tailgate the dude whoever's in front of me. either a psychological or a true nascar draft keeps me in-line with the leader. we're cranking in the middle ring and i limit the space to two car lengths with not a whole lot more to give if he launches again. after what seemed a long time, he cracked, and i go by him. it's all friendly competition. keeping my speed consistent until the entrance of the enchanted forest, i wait for 'em. at the top it's billy, tanya, alec, and kevin riding tail gunner.
the enchanted forest is named aptly because it's a loamy, twisty, whoop-de-doo infested singletrack with optical illusioned drop-offs. with an occasional baby head and rattlesnake thrown in just to keep things interesting. we do the figure-8 loop and billy and i make the climbs a power workout by keeping it in the middle ring. billy gets to the top first, followed by kev then me. on the way down it's the kevin choo-choo followed by me, then billy. we wait again, then we turn it up on the last downhill, with billy, kevin, and me in that order. billy's descending quicker than usual today with kevin being kevin. fast. i make it a point to not get dropped by any dual suspenioner because it's only alec and i representing the hardtails. this is easier said than done most times (read moab).
waiting at our cars, alec and tanya get back. alec, being true to form, crashes and skins up his right knee. it's officially a ride. this beautiful ride marked the beginning of more beautiful, weather-inspired rides in colorado during the springtime.
later that evening i get a call from alec saying he left his front tire at the trail head parking lot. i tell him that's par for the course of a cyclist. i've known people who ran over their tire; in fact, i lost a tire on the roof rack cruising down a highway on my way to visit jay in nm. so, i tell him it's not uncommon for these types of nonsense to occur every now and again. he's at the lot and unfortunately some lowlife nicked his tire. i lent him my old set of dedicated disc wheels because he was thinking of upgrading to discs anyway. i tell him since he's in the area he should check out morrison for some grub. he and his g-friend francie (sp?) and i eat at the morrison inn for some so-so mehican food. good way to end the day. incidentally, while i was riding, melissa purchased what's on the picture of this particular blog. nice huh? i guess that's what we're taking to lake tahoe later this summer after i do the firecracker 50 in breckenridge. it has turd row seating and sheeyat...that was a pun...
ps. on the way home friday i stopped in angelo's cds to see if they had patty griffin's children running through for melissa's mother's day gift. lo and behold they did. used! shweet, because this is probably one of her best next to her debut album: living with ghosts. and they also had another top ten: tom wait's orphans: brawlers, bawlers & bastards. used baby! if you're not a tom waits fan, shame on you (technically, he cowrites his music with kathleen brennan)! if you want to check him out, first buy the heart of saturday night.