Cycling, Mountain Dad

Hello 2012

2012-01-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

Was haulin' butt out the house to try and catch the Hour of Power down at Wadsworth. From my house, it was above freezing, just slightly, but as the day went on it was eventually going to snow. I took the back-woodsy way to the start- the hypotenuse of a right triangle as opposed to the three and four sides-and got there with five minutes to spare! I yanked all my clothes off in the back seat and in order, put on my base layer T; bib shorts; jersey, socks, shoes, jacket, wind proof tights (oh hecks yeah! thought it was overkill but it was toasty), booties (I said, "booty"); balaclava; helmet; neoprene gloves; and shot out the back seat to assemble my bike lying in the trunk of my car. When my non-drive side shoe popped into my speedplay the group was off and there I was drafting off the back as I slid my glasses off my helmet onto me mellon.
There was a group that left an hour earlier but it would've been waaay to cold for me. I was after all born near the equator. As we were rolling downhill towards the left turn into Waterton Canyon, people were already fading off the back. Just that slight, downhill acceleration. Maybe they were full blast into the wind? Oh well.
Now comes the little riser, the pace was stiff but just enough for the group in front of me to climb it sitting in the big ring. Once it backed off, I get up off the saddle and do the swimming lizard dance on my pedals. A group of people got shelled from that climb. I saw a tri-geek go backwards and felt no sympathy for him (sorry if you're a tri-geek). I tried to bury myself in the pack to get ready for the climb up Arrowhead Golf Course and I noticed my heartrate wasn't backing down before the uphill crapfest. Not good. So I increase my rpms on the pedals, pedal smoothly but brisk with deep, get-your-heartrate-back-down-sucka belly breathing.
Here comes the hill and I have a nice spot in the peloton going up. Halfway up they accelerate and I BLOW! Can't even catch up to the flotsam from the acceleration and when I make the 180° turnaround it's off they go! As I u-turn it, the smart alecky gate guard said, "Better catch 'em!" For an instant my smart alecky self wanted to say, "Catch this beeyatch" while flashing the you're number one hand gesture. He wasn't being malicious I was just in some mental distress. I didn't do it.
As we're rolling downhill towards the reservoir, the people who got shelled recycle themselves into the chaos that's known as the Hour of Power. Since the pack isn't so big there weren't too many yellow line violations fighting for that sweet echelon spot. I tried to think ahead on our turns from where the wind was blowing (to seek shelter) and in one particular spot got some full-on headwind. This is where I tucked in real close (without being a dick and pushing someone out) so I wouldn't have too much exposed surface area and I was hoping the guy in front of my wasn't a Fred in the echelon (he wasn't) and wouldn't fade in the wind (we didn't).
The rolling hills into the park was mellow too, not the awful accordion-effect we experience as we go like gang busters. I was able to get some rest as I climbed with a slightly higher rpm than my neighbors but still sitting to conserve.
The lefty in the park was where the kookoos go ballistic, but thankfully it was smooth. Danny Summerhill was in the pack, Greg Daniel was there too flying the Stars and Stripes. I saw them surge, gain some time but since nobody was working we eventually caught 'em. Nothing too spectacular to the yellow sign sprint other than a slower dude got clipped as an accelerating rider passed him and came onto his line just a little quicker than the pass distance. He got a wicked shimmy from where the rider clipped his front wheel. We're doing about 37 miles an hour (I really should look up) and I'm two riders deep to his left. I was wondering, if he falls my way there's going to be a nasty domino effect that might could take me out. Luckily he got control of his bike and it's off for the last burst. I holler, "Good recovery!" A group of four took off, and I found myself up front. I get out of the saddle to get the lactic burn out and people think it's a sign to kick it. Needless to say, the pack passed me but I was able to reinsert myself some 15 cyclists back to the leading group. We let the out-of-saddle sprinters go while the rest of us just sat and marched a big gear to the line.
I look at my odometer and we covered 18 miles in 47 minutes. What's that, some 23 miles per hour? That's ite for the first crap-on-your-neighbor ride for 2012. Saw some cycling acquaintances as we noodled back to the start. Mike, for example, was sporting a nice beard for some insulatory purposes. Still rockin' the carbon Giant.
After a chit-chat session, we did some chill ride miles. It was getting cold so I turned around so's I can get 30 miles total. So after an hour and a half; thirty miles it is! This was a good omen for my rag-tag attempt to kick start my 2012 cycling campaign. 45+ category here I come! As I took off my not-so breathable winter weight cycling jacket in the car I noticed I was smelling something fierce! Time for green tea and a hot shower peeps.

Evergreen Singletrack

2011-10-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

The kit-less Sam K. at the top in Evergreen. It's October, we're riding, hence the smile(s)

Ah yeaugh, Saturday was riding with Kenny L.; today was riding with Sam K. Incidentally both of these fine peeps are not only my buds and teammates but they-we-also roll on 29ers. I'm sooo glad that when I had the opportunity to by a new bike I chose the 29er. Was thinking superhard on some closeout 26er dual boingers but the 29er's rolling inertia on dem big wheels makes going forward that much more funner (yeah I know it's grammatically incorrect but then again I am a science teacher).

Sam K. is a cyclocross nut. He came in seventh on that last cross race we did together at Monarch High School whereas yours truly was 29th (getcha sum!). Even though Kenny, Sam, and I started out as road racers, we hang up the skinny tires once mountain bike season hits (aka the WinterPark series starts). Today, even though I was 15 minutes late, he waits and we meet up on the main drag in Evergreen and head off to Dedisse Park. I've known this park has existed but never rode it. Apparently it's pretty righteous as it also connects to Alderfer/Three Sisters Park via the climb near Evergreen Lake. From the get go, it climbed and climbed and climbed. About a third of the way up I had to peel off some layers and the day was shaping up to be another picture, postcard, perfect day here in Colorado in the Fall. Sam had the local knowledge of where the sweet singletrack was hiding as evidenced by the occasional hiker we'd see on our climb to Alderfer. Since there weren't too many hominids perambulating this day, we took to quasi-blasting the downhill to Alderfer in a way where we could've stopped if we saw hikers. Once back in Alderfer we hit the downhill of the gnarly climb we took to get here this morning. Rode the road back and we parted ways. Before we left, Sam was gracious enough to spot me some calories since I spent quite a bit of energy hanging on to him on the climbs. I love riding with people with skill and it's a bonus when they're also your teammates. Technically we could ride for the local race team but we've established some camaraderie with our Natural Grocers Racing homies; so we fly the Halloween colors as kindred spirits.

October 24th and we're still riding...

Was not looking forward to the 6.9 mile climb in the headwind to get back to my truck. It was mighty painful but I was going from the endorphins and Clif-shots (our sponsor) from Sam. Once back at my truck the Cateye read: 29 miles in 3h 1min.

So what did you do today? Did you make the most of it? I'm on break. I have to be super selective in gleaning what I can for recreation yet be compliant enough to be Soccer Dad. All in all it's a pretty sweet combination as long as there is a semblance of balance (Daniel-san). Speaking of making the most of it, a cold front's coming in Tuesday night and with it, it's bringing snow. Come Tuesday I want to be fairly rode out without having to touch the rollers.

Shoot. I think I'ma get a ride in with my college roommate tomorrow if I can figure out a time and meeting place...

Hello October Break!

2011-10-23T07:18:00.000-07:00

This cow was scratching the top of its head on the side of the walkway when we got there. That's Kenny across the way.

October Break arrive and envelope me with your sweet arms of non-work, no fighting students, no belly-aching teachers, no needy pupils, absence of alarm clocks, with time to read recreationally. Today's Friday, the day before my school's October Break. Other than being completely frazzled and time mismanaged at work, the break arrives nonetheless. It arrives as my mental state's on the verge of collapse with our district (as well the State really) functioning on a deficit (we all knew this is year two of "suck" as opposed to rebound), a new schedule my circadian rhythm's all cattywampus from, and juggling the schedules of three active chilluns, it tends to make one Cycling Dad's trajectory o'recreation and mental health kinda wacked! Sweet Melissa's attending her cousin's wedding in Texas for the weekend and I get the privilege to hang with my two remaining kids. Maricel has soccer almost the same time Mason has swim lessons so she's spending the night with Gramma. This evening, the Moose and I are chillin' on my bed. He's so pooped out he just fell asleep before I could read him a book. Gramma, being the ever-awesome Gramma, agreed to watch the Moose and Maricel (after her game and swimming) so I can go ride with one of my teammates who lives nearby. Gonna bust a 29er ride with him. Speaking of 29er, did another cyclocross race on my 29er in Boulder last weekend and came in exactly underneath the apex of the bell curve: 35th out of 70. It was a real fun race, with a "maze" portion and one barricade that had a notch where people were bunny-hopping it at speed-including me. The sprint to the finish line was on pavement and it ended with me having a nice cushion from Mr. 36th place. I looked back a couple of times to make sure I wouldn't get passed at the end. Had that $hit happen before and I felt flummoxed for letting my position drop by one at the last possible minute.

The Murphy's Law of Weather-To-Outdoor-Recreate-In is in effect, which states: as the bourgeoisie toil at work the weather shall be accommodating and purty; whereas said bourgeoisie's days off will consist of cold weather complemented with precipitation. I have cold weather gear. I ain't scared; but it's a deal breaker if the temps hover near-freezing. Everything's cold then, including your Willy and toes and when that happens, it's time to stay indoors. Got frostbitten once at A-Basin skiing with Jay. On my my nose and near my cheek. It was weird. Yeah. Ski season I is sooooo looking forward to you too. I wanna ride with another teammate who just moved near the area. He's an excellent 'crosser and mt biker to boot but I ain't gonna ride on wet trails peeps. My boy Hez-chilly's going to Moab with his familia this weekend. Nice.

Saturday is a wee bit cold but glorious for a Fall Day in Colorado. Talk about the phenomenon of synchronicity. My brother just recently made the switch to tubeless. Today, before I take my son to swim practice (he's kicking butt by the way), as I load up my 29er to go riding with my homey Kenny L. and notice that both my tires are flat from all the goatheads that gravitated to my tires in my last cyclocross race. At the rec center I call Kenny and tell him my tires are flat and he suggests I by some Stan's sealant to make my tires tubeless. How cosmically hip is that? Once I get to Kenny's he performs his magic and voilà (not more than 7 minutes later) I have a tubeless wheelset. It also helps to get a UST compatible wheelset. I have the Mavic C29 Crossmax. Excellent design but a smidge heavy as a 700C, mountain bike wheelset.

Off we go to get a 3 hr, 35 mile ride in Boulder that consists of traveling on roads to hit some singletrack. We meander around Marshall Mesa which goes over some private ranch lands and open space. Kenny too has a 29er, a Gary Fisher Superfly. Nice ride, also tubeless. Oh yeah and it's a hardtail. We can't believe how awesome today is weather-wise.

Our view of the Flatirons from Marshall Mesa-ish. Yes it's October in Co.

On one of our stops, a rider states that he saw some of our teammates in today's previously raced Interlocken Cyclocross event. We used to have a very distinctive color scheme back in the day: orange/light purple/white kits. Now we're Halloween colors. Oh well. We ride at tempo, cruise over rocks and the occasional cow patty and my tubeless wheelset's hanging tough and not losing any pressure although I did have to pump it up once when we were on the bike path. Holding air nicely now. The ride gets interrupted by milking cows loitering on the singletrack doing their niche as a primary consumer. They're huge beasts and what resounded in my mind was: I'm glad I'm a vegetarian. Looking into that creature's eyes with that kind of mass and still knowingly consume it does not compute in my head. I won't hold it against you though if you're a flesh eater (with no soul, selfish, artery clogging, ego-centristic species elitist).

After I get my kids from Gramma, we travel home in order to do some familial bonding over a DVD only to find a tractor-trailer has overturned on our highway back home. The jumbo-tron over the highway said, "Accident ahead, expect delays." We sat for at least 40 mins. It sucked. I tried to snap a picture of the vehicle on its side with my cell phone. See if you can make it out.

The median-barrier letterboxes it but see the cab on the left and trailer on the right?

It's almost surreal because of the lights from the emergency vehicles reflecting off the cab and trailer like a billboard at night. Once home, we hunkered down on the couch with Doritos and Dr. Pepper in hand to watch the 4th installment of the Shrek series. Very cool movie both visually and of its plot. At the end we all clapped with silly grins on our faces due to its wondrous audio-visual performance. Kid friendly with some sly adult stuff. Highly recommend it to y'all family types. This is a good start to the Break. Let's hope the new weather front isn't too harsh.

The Seasons Are Kind Of A Big Deal

2011-10-09T09:59:00.003-07:00

hello snow, it's been awhile...

Living in Texas for a couple of decades has desensitized my awareness-and therefore my (mental) sequential progression-for the seasons. In Texas, it'd be Africa hot for months then boom, one day it dumps freezing rain (and all the hayseeds crash their dualies) and I realize Fall must be here. Living in Colorado, near 9000 feet (2700m), when the season changes it's a sensory experience. It gets colder, the colors on the trees change, especially our Aspens that slowly tell me a progression towards Fall's coming, and eventually it snows and I realize I didn't harvest enough firewood.

Happened moments before I got there

normally this is a two-lane interstate

Yesterday galvanized my transition (mental, paradigm shift to prepare for winter in the high country) to Fall as I drove to Grand Junction for my daughter's elite soccer team's game. Grand Junction's a couple a hundred miles away going over-or under-the Eisenhower Tunnel in Summit County and Vail Pass. Yesterday also had a Winter Weather Advisory because during my travel there it was also going to be dumping 5-10 inches (12-25cm) of snow. Took the Tundra instead of the front wheel drive Camry because you need 4 wheels powering once the snow/ice crud accumulates on I-70.
Took some pictures of people who didn't prepare as they should have driving-wise. Normally, I-70's a two laner but as we negotiated one of the many hills, this one on the way to Frisco from Breckenridge was particularly difficult for a front-wheel drive Honda Fit that got sideways trying to grab onto the snow. We parted like the Red Sea to get around it. Thank you four wheel-drive. Living at our elevation, the bare minimum's all-wheel drive but to really negotiate the record breaking or the wicked one-day dumps, you also need clearance. A pickup truck accomplishes both; furthermore you need the bed to haul firewood.

The forecast at Grand Junction was 55°F, partly cloudy with little wind. It was actually quite pretty, with a tad bit cold thrown in to remind us it's Fall. Maricel's team won 2-0. Exciting to watch but not particularly looking forward to drive back home, especially if it's snowing again on Vail Pass (which it was).


partly cloudy and 55° F in Grand Junction

Snapped this beauty with my cell phone as we were leaving Grand Junction and heading towards Grand Mesa.

not bad for a cell phone, no?

Sunday morning, I get to survey the snow Mother Nature left us to recharge our well and to make our property aesthetically pleasing for me due to yesterday's (driving) trials and tribulations and my inordinately long, daily commute that make's the trade-off of mountain living digestible.

our Aspens from our backyard

Knocked out my first race of the season doing a 'cross race on my 29er which performed downright admirably. Finished 29th out of 75. Not bad for really not doing a whole lot of training this year. My next 'cross race is this Sunday, the 16th in Boulder. Should be fun. Hopefully it won't snow. Renewed my amateur license and I'm ready for 2012! So these pictures are my visual reinforcement of Fall so now I have to gear up for my Auditory welcoming of Fall...

...which is the listening to sacred, choral music (Melissa reminded me of this recently). I used to perform music in both symphonic band and choir and used to sing Handel's Messiah back in the day. But what really made it endearing listening to sacred choral music was when I was stationed in Germany. My friends and fellow airmen and I did a lot of skiing in the Alps. My friend had a real nice 5 series bimmer and when we'd drive back to base from say, France or Switzerland, he'd always pop in Handel's Messiah. Cruising the autobahn at night looking at all the gray bleakness of the snowtopped mountains and exfoliated, silhouette of trees made the music (especially when the brass and screeching sopranos kick in) that much more ominous and brooding (the Fall/Sacred Music association). The auditory clue that started my Fall connection was Melissa digging a radio broadcast of some Bach sacred music. She researched their playlist and concluded it was Bach's Saint Matthew Passion. We reserved it at our public library and it's made its way onto my iPod and iTunes library (rest in peace Steve Jobs), where it's currently resonating in my head.

Hello again Old Man Winter. I don't particularly like the way you malinger here until May and knockout our electricity when you unleash your super heavy, wet, spring dumpages. For now, it's alright and skiing's a'knocking with our WinterPark passes ready to be used up for some darned sweet family entertainment.

Miscellaneous ramblings related to (Map My) riding, work, music, and Google Earth.

2011-09-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

My 29er locked and loaded.

Work has really interfered with my recreational abilities, especially with my inability to express myself via the written word (which I suppose is a form of catharsis/therapy). One especially cool thing I've done cycling-wise my experience cycling the Monarch Crest Trail. Don't know if has world-wide appeal in cycling circles but for top ten cycling things to do in Colorado, it's single digit up there. Come to think of it a local's top ten things to do out here would be cycling in Moab and/or Fruita, skiing off-piste in one of the many I-70 corridor, climbing (road biking) up Mt. Evans, honeymooning in Crested Butte (and hanging with Dave Wingo), riding Trail 401, hot springing it in Strawberry Jack(s) Hot Springs, making turns in Steamboat's champagne powder, to name a few but to NOT do the Monarch Crest Trail would be a definite downer.

Singletrack for the next 34 miles.

this and singletrack? pinch me

Broke out the rollers to find cycling time in the legs. Being soccer dad, prepping for the day's lessons, and trying to be a good Dad (emphasis on TRYING) makes for difficulties in outdoor cycling. Rollers at least make the legs pretend it's cycling. Did the gambling themed extreme rated trails-i.e. Blackjack-out at Pine Valley Open Space. It was difficult for a first timer. The downhills are so steep and technical it's better to ride the downs than it is to walk your bike risking low speed damage to yourself negotiating, walking down.

At work I'm still working through my lunch so's I can minimize work at my house. I absolutely hate doing that. Work is sucking the life out of me lately and I'm a big fan of the hypothesis of the The Symmetry of the Universe as it applies to my exaggerated parabolic leg of work with nary a scant of a recreational trajectory balancing it out. Yuck. Equilibrium where is (I know it's "are" but I'm trying to make a point) you?

Lately, music with lyric's not particularly exciting to hear except for maybe some older TV On The Radio or my public library's offering of the Double CD of Bruce Hornsby's (and the Noisemaker's) Bride of the Noisemaker, and the new Flaming Lips' redo of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. I actually purchased the latter of the three aforementioned. For the redo, If you're a fan of both The Lips and Floyd it really is a sonically hip rendition of Pink Floyd's LP while retaining the alternative, sonic near-kooky expansion inherent of the Lips.

On the jazzy, piano-trio side, I've been grooving to the Brad Mehldau Trio's The Art of the Trio Vol. 4 - Back at the Vanguard and your favorite artist pushing-jazz-to-new-frontiers aka the free jazz artform...Ornette Coleman! Specifically his 1961 gem The Art of the Improvisers. Not at all experimental sounding like his Free Jazz LP but it actually has a conventional sounding just slightly unusual bop edge. Just bought another jazz CD from an artist named Ignacio Berroa entitled, Codes. Gonzalo Rubalcaba an amazing, Cuban, jazz-pianist in his own right produced this Blue Note gem. Pick it up people. Seems like the more stressed I am the more I gravitate towards Jazz. Here's my cosmically, unrealistic hypothesis of why I find Jazz so attractive (at least lately). Jazz was born/created from the historically beleaguered, mistreated and misunderstood African-American experience trying to find a voice once they could stand on their legs as a sentient, art-producing community. This awful burden transmutates and is interpreted circa the 1950-1960-ish jazz scene producing America's most sonically potent art form. As I stress from work, the struggle from their music makes it that much more translatable to me at a near personal, empathetic level. That's my hypothesis and if you don't concur there's a 95% chi-square confidence analysis where you can probably kiss my...

I'm really looking forward to (not particularly excited mind you) the cycling season next year. After all the stuff that went down with my family (I suppose it's still continuing) it took me away from the cycling arena temporarily enough that it makes me miss it. I'm trying to do some constructive training in a way that it doesn't lead to burn out. I don't know if doing the hour of power should be in my early season regimen but damn it sure is fun. I need to be doing LSD kinda miles but at my stage in life I'm at the point where I have to take it whenever I can. I kinda want to do the mountain biking marathon events but that all depends on what kind of off-season endurance training I can muster. Running doesn't seem to bother mountain biking muscle training. In fact, I want to do some Winter 10ks if it's allowable. I want to shoot for a sub-hour Turkey Trot in Dallas at sea level, the distance being 8 miles. With the 29er underneath me the novelty to race is resurfacing. At the very beginning I was still a bit chicken to really let her rip thinking the bike's a bit fragile to really thrash it like I do my Yeti; but now, knowing where the center-of-gravity is on her, I mostly let her rip. On occasion, the mentally perceived additional height of me on the cockpit of the 29er flowing over the really technical stuff throws me the mental left hook where I think I have to slow it down (thus second guessing my abilities to kill it). It's a learning experience but for the marathon events I think it will be an advantage (if I race the sixty year-olds). Tight switchbacks I'm learning to negotiate with the bigger wheels and its desire to go straight at high speeds are somethings I have to adapt to. I really have to emphasize the body english over the tricky bits because of the rolling inertia once I get her to ramming speed.

Since I'm on this completely random tear, here's a MapMyRide Google Earth of one of my favorite rides near my house. The Pleasant Park-HighGrade Loop.
<a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/46034938">285-High Grade-Pleasant Pk-Loop</a> and more rides in Aspen Park, CO on MapMyRIDE. <a href="http://www.mapmyride.com">Find ride</a>

Oh-My-God Road aka Virginia Canyon

2011-07-24T09:20:00.005-07:00

'Tis Sunday morning. Another cathartic TdF is about to be under wraps with my boy Cadel Evans finally taking the win after so many close calls and crappy teams not designed for him to win the tour. Rode and ran to my satisfaction and now I'm listening to the Oliver Nelson sextet's The Blues and the Abstract Truth (Impulse, 1961) drinking french pressed Kenyan Roast (and ingesting particulate solids of the bean). If you have no inclination for Jazz (straight ahead, bop, hard-bop, circa 50-60's AMERICAN jazz) can I suggest you pick up John Coltrane's My Favorite Things ? No question mark in the title. If you don't like that after a month or so of listening you might have right-brain aesthetics issues you might need to correct. Life can't be sweeter with the week I just had (I don't need much to keep me grinning).
Yesterday after corner marshaling the Mt Evans-Bob Cook Memorial-Hillclimb I was so baked from standing in the sun stopping cars from running over competitors, yelling at my compatriots for non-numbered riders trying to poach the course (we actually pay to shut down this road for this event, otherwise I wouldn't care), collecting tossed water bottles, cheering the slowpokes on...etc. I was too tired to ride with Kenny. So when our Natural Grocer's Boss Mr. T. came cycling along and told us we're done, I asked Kenny L. do you still want to ride? Thankfully he said yes. The day before he was scheming up a cool off-road with some on-road route that would take us over Oh-My-God Road to Central City and back to Idaho Springs. As volunteers we got the usual post race schwag but this year the T-shirts are cooler and we got a free sandwich from a local restaurant (being a vegetarian I gave my fleshy parts of my sandwich to Kenny). So after eating a Clif-shot and the lettuce, cheese, and bready parts of a sandwich and putting on a clean kit on a sweaty, stinky, warmed-over body (I especially love putting on form-fitting bib shorts on said stinkiness) we're off to ride in 95°F (35 C) temps. Here's an interesting description about this route Kenny chose from TrailCentral.com:
About This Trail: Oh-My-God road was once a major link between Idaho Springs and Central City. This road was critical for many miners bringing supplies to there camp by horse and wagon in 1865. Once the railway included stops in both cities the traffic along the road dwindled signifigantly.Along this road a great deal of mining activity took place, some ruins still remain to this day and add to the history you get to see while riding this trail.
Trail Description: The road is a well-maintained dirt road. There is a short paved section at the top, and the county is paving one mile of the road per year. Along the road, you will see many service roads branching off. Some of these go to national forest land, so feel free to explore. HOWEVER, some of these go onto private land with signs like this. We don't want to be responsible for anybody getting attacked by dogs, or shot, so please make sure you know where you're riding! The bike shop in town, Mountain and Road Bicycles (303-567-4666), carries an excellent map of the area. If you are planning on branching off of the main road, make sure you have a map.
Here's a link, to see the map as well as the profile.
Here's the video, thanks Map My Ride...
Oh-My-God Road to Central City Loop and more rides in Idaho Springs, CO on MapMyRIDE. Find ride
I especially like the if you are planning...have a map part. It was a rather fun exploratory ride for future references. The drag about the slight detours was usually after we bombed a downhill and we figured we went the wrong way, we had to 180 it and climb back out to retrace our steps. Kenny climbed in the big gear to get a power workout, I just pedaled to get over. We got all manner of friendly hints of NOT to ride your bike at Blackhawk, instead walk it to save the fine from the local po-po. We saw some abandoned mines, investigated its innards, and moved along. The weather was a little on the warm side but tolerable. After we bombed Central City Parkway we traveled on a little known (at least to us) bike path that paralleled I-70. It dumped us on the far eastern edge of Idaho Springs but what a cool path we saw and what amazing scenery we witnessed at the the top of OMG and Central City. There was some cool information a local gave us as we were filling water bottles up at Freedom Valley Resort. We also saw the town of Russel Gulch. A "town" in various stages of disrepair. Had that old, near ghost-town feel I witnessed riding around Jay's cabin in NM. High alpine mining towns are cool best witnessed with homies on a bike. Cool loops near Nevadaville we can explore on the 29er because the roads are sometimes unpaved out here in the old mining towns of Colorado. All of this information will be stored and used in late season or early season stuff when we need to pile on long-ish pedal rotations to get the body primed for (XC) race abuse and quality saddle sitting, gabbing with friends time.
Afterwards I meet up with the rest of Team M to celebrate mother in-law's birthday with some quality dinner components complete with imbibitions. Man what a most excellent way to end a most satisfying week. If you weren't listening, to recap: soccer with kids, listening to the TdF with my favorite winning, riding solo, riding with Kenny, celebrating mother in-law's b-day, and free socks and Clif products from our sponsor (thanks Kenny) make for a glorious week in this particular life. Mine...so there.

22 July

2011-07-22T19:56:00.000-07:00

Since I don't have cable or dish I get my TdF fix by going to Velonews' live tour coverage via Mr. Pelkey on the internet. It is terribly addicting and really, that's the only reason why I'd subscribe to cable or dish is only for the month of July. Today's the 19th stage. Speaking of which, I have to say chapeau! for Tommy Voeckler. Hope he podium finishes. He's gonna light the fire for French cycling for the next couple of seasons. Chapeau to Tom Danielson and the other N. American Ryder Hesjedal. Tommy D might have a more than top 10 finish! Yeah! Go fellow Coloradoan!!!!!! The French people, if they were like Americans with winning Superbowls and Stanley Cups, would set cars on fire, loot urban areas and topple cars over because a Frenchy won the iconic L'Alpe D'Huez today (except Dallasites, they know how to celebrate without vandalism, just ask any Miami Heat fan, don't ask Cannuck fans).
Got my mountain bike back from the shop, just some adjustments to my hubs (loose), and dotting the "i"s like shortening an un-aesthetically long brake cable and shortening the steerer tube on my fork for the custom dial-in.
My bud Chip bailed for our planned road ride today so instead I check out my new and dialed-in 29er on a mountain loop out here. The course is an eighteen miler with about 2500' of climbing. The kicker was it was in 95°F temps. Completely yucky with no wind (and therefore no evaporative cooling). I park about a mile out and warm up towards the climb. The Mt. Falcon climb is where testosterone laden people like to PR the climb to the finish line: the sheltered picnic table. It's a three mile climb but it's kinda steep with just a shade of technical. Completely exposed and sandy at places. Since I'm technically a fat-ass for being four weeks off my bike (not consecutively), I slap it in the granny and go chilly-chill. As I enter the parking lot there's a downhill so get a nice head of steam heading into the ascent into the singletrack.
Of course there's a guy in front of me and sensing my head o'steam as I line up behind him on the skinny singletrack, it officially becomes a race (for him!). I see him pick up his pedaling cadence and he pulls away. Fine, it's like an inferno and if I pick up my pace I'ma have to pull over and puke so I just go chilly-chill, not breathing too hard. With my chilly-chill speed I eventually catch him on a technical part where he's near walking speed and I announce passing on your right and I fly up the same rocks my six year-old could've maneuvered. Kyeeot damn that testosterone. If I was the slightest bit fit I'da tried to crush him actually (kyeeot damn that testosterone!).
I brought my camera to take pictures but I was in the flow. If I were to stop I would stop waaaay too long to regain my internal temperature regulation but I don't, so I suffer all the way to the top parking lot, with my heart beating in my throat, where I eventually take the break.

I snap this (the only) picture on my way down to Lair O'The Bear and a gal passes me as I'm putting my Camelbak on. Usually this is the route people take to connect Mt. Falcon with LOTB. It's a long downhill so I don't pedal I just flow and I eventually catch her on the road. So I asked you want some company for LOTB or you flying solo today? She says yes (for company) and we climb to the singletrack. Once we get to the singletrack I ask if she wants first chair and she's off and bombing the downhills (being the egotistical guy I don't let her get too far away but she's cruising nonetheless). She gets a mechanical: her saddle comes loose. I carry my 4,5,6 triangle hex and while she tightens up the seat adjustment fore and aft bolts I ask if she races and sho' nuff she does (hence her bombing and ascending skills). After we leave LOTB it's a road downhill on highway 73 back to Morrison where we both parked.
Great ride albeit a hot mother scratcher of a day but with a nice surprise of riding with someone new that has skills. My 29er was an even more dialed-in champ and tomorrow after I corner marshal the Mt. Evans (Bob Cooke Memorial) Hillclimb, my homey G, Kenny, and I are going for a mountain ride to Blackhawk from Idaho Springs. Kenny pilots a Gary Fischer Superfly. Chilly-chill of course flying the Natural Grocers colors because that's how we roll (literally!). 29er love. Please go away now adipose tissue...

The NW passage

2011-07-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

'Twas a sobering three weeks and now Team M forges ahead towards the Pacific Northwest. I'm all plumped up from all the eating from Texas and now we officially beginneth our holiday trek. You know what being on holiday means: if'ns I sees cupcakes, I be eats the cupcizzles (or Doritos or Fish & Chips...etc.). Let out another notch on the belt people!

Not really. I'm not letting myself go but it is vacation and I do need to decompress a bit. We stay two nights in Boise, ID. On the way to Vancouver and on the way back. Stayed at this cool, rebuilt Travelodge, aptly named Modern Hotel and Bar. Pet friendly of course, with hip(ly) designed rooms, live music and a bar (no false advertising here). Yea!!

Vancouver! Stayed at the Sylvia Hotel (pet friendly of course!) located in Stanley Park. We arrived on Canada Day.

This is the official day where all Americans have to say, aboot and ootside and any word with letter O, as if it were umlauted 50X during the day for a free Canadian flag and pin that I have to say, I'm wearing proudly. It's basically the Canadian Independence Day. Celebrated Canada by walking to Granville Island from Vancouver to partake in said festivities. You may use a bridge to walk/drive to Granville (as opposed to ferry); we walked...

heading back to Vancouver after a loong day's worth of celebrating and people watching...

Vancouver's pretty hip, clean, and serviceable. Vancouver also has some major traffic snarls so heading around by car can be a biscuit at times. Got the opportunity to talk locally to my Cajun brother Rory. He's picked up just a hint of a Canadian accent after living there for three years. Granville Island was an oasis of people watching, eating, listening to music, drinking Granville Brewery's brews, and experiencing a different country (albeit some things were similar) celebrating their day. Charlie, our one year-old Golden Retriever, was a big hit with the pedestrians (wet Charlie after playing on the beach) whenever I'd wait outside for the girls to shop.

Vancouver's celebration this evening included fireworks. Here's a shot I took from our Sylvia Hotel window.

Here's another shot at night in this vibrant town I took from our strategically located window.

Next day, saw the Capilano Suspension Bridge. High, arboreal suspended walkways between trees or scaffolded onto granite cliffs surrounded by a rain forest. Who doesn't like that? I guess people who don't like high, arboreal suspended walkways between trees or scaffolded onto granite cliffs surrounded by rain forests.

Whidbey Island, WA (specifically Coupeville, WA)! Decompress, decompress, and more decompression people. Check out the house and location of the house we rented for a week to do nothing but read, beachcomb, nap, run, nap, watch the Tour de France, nap, repeat and rinse! The water (in Camano Bay when)at high tide came right up to the house almost. Nutty but (my) awe (was) full!
Here's our rental home for the week. Notice the Colonial Revival-esque era, Cape Cod styling with gabled roof complete with dormers...

Here's what I mean when I say the water comes up to the house.
This shot I took from our kitchen at sundown over looking the backyard and Camano Bay (which is part of Puget Sound).

This is where I opened my (The) Glenlivet, sweet Melissa purchased for me at the Duty Free Shopping at the Canadian border. In addition to Canada Day's fireworks we arrived on the 4th and I actually purchased fireworks and sparklers for the kids. Not to worry all of Team M still have ten digits.
The kids beach combed shells, made sand castles, played chase with Charlie and climbed steep sand cliffs where I graffitied their names high onto the bluffs next to other people's names etched with a sharp stick. Everyday was a new day doing this (as if it was their first time again) and they loved it while the adults read and sat on their butts on deck chairs looking at Mt. Baker in the distance and the lights at Oak Harbor in Camano Bay. Here's the cache of sand dollars Maricel scored on a particularly good day of beachcombing...

One day Team M (plus mother in-law) minus me went whale watching while I stayed behind with Charlie. When I went to pick them up at the ferry in Anacortes (Fidalgo Island) I arrived early and parked the car down the pedestrian walkway. I was expecting my Dad to come walking down the hill or come around the bend. As I kept thinking about him and all the vacations we took and the good times associated with it, it brought a smile to my face. I think about him all the time. Picked up the cell and dialed my Mom to see how she's doing. She misses him dearly (married 46 years, I'd miss my mate too).

Before I picked 'em up I parked Melissa's 4runner and Charlie and I went photogeeking at this landmark called Deception Pass Bridge. It's where Captain Vancouver (hey we just left his eponymous city!) entered and was deceived by the depth of these turbulent waters as he navigated into Saratoga Passage from the Strait of Johnny Fuca.
Here's the span of it...

Here's what you're walking over (it was super windy and the sidewalk was waaaay too narrow)...

We made a quick detour to Olympic National Park before we checked into the University Hotel in Seattle. Olympic is huuuge so we had time to only check out Sol Duc Falls and Lake Crescent inside this magnificent, old growth rain forest. On my hike to Sol Duc I was snapping away trying to achieve picture one-ness with nature. Here's one of the many picturesque streams on my hike towards the falls.

Here's my attempt at art by keeping the shutter open for an inordinate amount of time to make the water look dreamy...

Here's the actual Sol Duc Falls...

Seattle now. We went first to the Sculpture Park to checkout the Seattle Outdoor Art exhibits. I really dug this metallic tree.

After that we went to the Seattle Center. Built for the World's Fair in 1962 it now houses (just to name a few) the Experience Music Project, the Science Fiction Museum, and the Intiman Playhouse. These three buildings were juxtapositioned and all three had different hues of metallic plates adorning their shells. Oh and the Space Needle's there too.
Here's the reflection of the Space Needle off of the plates of the Experience Music Project building.

Next stop, Seattle's Pike Public Market. Yeah it's touristy but I never tire of people geeking and soaking up the local flavor (literally and figuratively) of a region that's completely novel and is a significant deviation from my habituated, daily, surroundings (Colorado still kicks a$$ by the way). If the Pacific Northwest were to take a chi-square test on its Pacific Northwesterly charm it would pass with 95% confidence and the null hypothesis can kiss me arse (in my bastardized statistical interpretation)! What we really appreciated other than the accommodating weather were all the talented street musicians pedaling their wares.

There was a Beatles knock-off band complete with a left-handed bass player (minus Ringo: peace and love); and a duo called The Jaded Optimists where they both played the guitar. In addition to their guitar playing talent, the dude played a washtub bass and the gal played a saw. Awesome-ness.

They played in front of the original Starbucks (for their elite-ness sweet Melissa and mother in-law got a rechargeable gift card created only at this location). What wasn't awesome was their AM sounding-recorded-in-a-bathroom-quality RW/CD we purchased but at least they earned their money and can eat that night. Saw the Mirror Man too. All of this and a picnic at the wharf? What else is there to do? Oh yeah, the Aquarium baby.

Long live the Pacific Northwest region and Team M! The Pacific Northwest, before we witnessed just a small sampling, always placed this picture in my mind of rugged, glaciated, expansive, coastlines with craggy shorelines (Pacific Plate-Ring of Fire) that butted up to rain forests where the population never strayed too far from its Native American origins (i.e. art, design, clothing) still rang true when we arrived. What a magical region. Could probably live here if I can get over Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) due to lack of UV radiation during winter.

Parting Shot. Dog is my copilot (at least sweet Melissa's). Charlie always, eventually made his way up front...

Three Weeks

2011-06-26T23:34:00.001-07:00

I'm in Texas (or was)-where the weather's absolutely miserable- because of my Mom and Dad. Dad passed away peacefully at the house on the 17th of June with all of his family around him. After Dad finally came home from the hospital under the auspices of hospice care, we talked to him, read to him, doing everything we could to keep him comforted in his final days. In fact, our hospice nurse Denise, was so exceptional she seemed as if she was a part of our family whenever she was present. Quite an armada of (his circle of) friends came by and visited.

It's remotely bizarre-no, it's pretty damn bizarre--the preparatory work ensuring a funeral, internment/inurment/columbarium, and a memorial service-to go accordingly and timely. My brothers and I and our respective families are here doing the legwork so my Mom doesn't have to. Thankfully and appreciatively the funeral home as well as Mom and Dad's church we dealt with were superior in their relationship and services to us.

It's also especially cool how the community of friends and family are rallying around Mom and our family in our time of distress. The previously mentioned community brought so much food for us everyday it seemed like Thanksgiving. Been running with sweet Melissa to keep my personal growth to a minimum (although I'd say I'm losing).

Extended family and friends are starting to arrive in town so the house is getting packed. My next door neighbor's a class act and my Dad's first cousins are a hoot. One of the wives of the first cousins came in from Canada, she-Grace (there's a reason she has that name)-was a class act too. Listening to what they did back in the Philippines as teenagers/college students was educational for me. It painted a lively, contextual, historical picture in my mind of their interactions when they conversed as family members, friends, as well as their complicitous tomfoolery growing up (including some juicy gossip about them provided from my cousin Gerry). The most interesting history was how they lived and survived in the presence of the Japanese occupying forces in the Philippines. When family members are also your friends that's a major bonus kids!

My family came in on the 17th. Team M's quite the group. Have I mentioned how my family is righteous? The whole is better than the sum of the parts. Their behaviour and support speaks volumes of their personalities.

Dad's memorial service was exceptional. Mom wanted to have it at the church they've been attending for the past three decades. Not much of a religious kinda guy but the Reverend Gary Mueller had such presence and a command of the English language I was actually quite impressed with his reverence and relevance towards my Dad I felt I was in a sacred establishment. I can see why he's the leader of this congregation (as well as his support staff of equally amazing Reverends like Revs. Alice Coder and Melissa Hatch). Of course when your older brother eulogizes your esteemed father, it's difficult to keep your emotions inside. He-my older brother-spoke elegantly about my father: an exceptional father as well as an exception husband to my most amazing mother. My brother's speech and Rev. Mueller's presentation left quite an impression on me afterwards I think often about it. The pictures my brothers and I chose for the visual part of the memorial service got me choked up too. My father was quite the handsome fellah back in his heyday. I kid you not when I say he's the Filipino version of Clint Eastwood. Saw five dear friends at the Memorial Service too: (in no certain order) Jimmy, Kev-leb, Brent--collectively the Rajun' Cajuns--Brian (a teammate when we raced for Plano Schwinn) and Grant, my college roomy and once-upon-a-time complicitor. Good, loyal friends they are...It's the little things that creep into my brain that remind me of my Dad, that get me lachrymose. For example, after setting up Dad's bookshelf speakers in my home, I played Beethoven's Ninth and it reminded both me and Melissa of how much he loved listening to (classical) music. The randomness of items or events that evoke remembrances of my father...

My part of this journey began right after school got out on the sixth of June and we just arrived in Colorado last night-the 24th-after 13 hours of driving. The record high was 111°F (44°C) when we drove through Amarillo. Have y'all ever been to Amarillo during the summer? I bet after the Spanish word for Yellow, the runner up for the name of this town was Caliente. It's not finished yet. Some more items need to be attended to in my Mom's estate and we're-my brothers and our families-going to ensure that it flows seamlessly within the best interests of Mom. Sweet Melissa created a list of things to do to get my Mom's affairs in order. A little daunting because of my world class procrastination skills.

Rode Saturday the 25th-to begin my routines (and burn off the potential energy forming around me middle) and to place some modicum of mental sanity back into my mellon. Felt good to ride in Colorado away from that insufferable heat of Texas (although I miss my brothers and my Mom). Busted out a 31 miler on my 29er where 2/3rds of it was on roads and a third was singletrack. Back to the bidness of being Cycling Dad with episodes of traveling to Texas to helps out me Momma. Gonna try to participate in the Colorado Road Race Championships if I can do it without being pack fodder, otherwise who cares right?

If you're reading this and you have parents that are getting up there in years, you should consider getting the ball rolling in the eventuality of their passing with dignity with their estate in your hands as opposed to the State's. Just saying...

And another thing, don't be a dick to your parents. If you're a teenager you probably can't help it (like yours truly as a teenager) but maturity goes a long way (even if some parents--or you!--temporarily lack this). Be the good son or daughter to your folks unconditionally even if they might not be exhibiting rationale behaviour. Thankfully my Dad had a long, meaningful life where he and my Mom traveled and were surrounded by people who loved them and visited them often. My parents sacrificed and planned their estate in such a way their son's have it better than them. I'll never forget that and I'ma pay it forward to my kids and family to plan a retirement that's beneficial to Team M. You'll regret petty behaviour towards your folks (because you or they held a grudge, and they pass unpredictably quick), then you're stuck with some irreversible dumb $hit you could've avoided simply by taking the high road. Took that advice and I'm eternally grateful.

Have I mentioned how righteous my extended family members are?

Like my brother said in his eulogy, Dad, we love you and we're going to miss you.

The Beginning of Summer (A Story within a Story)

2011-05-29T20:53:00.002-07:00

This was written on the 24th of May:
Technically it hasn't started but it has gotten off to a distressing start. My Dad, for reasons I'll keep to myself, was in the hospital for a specific malady when they found a much more serious condition that might be causative to the original malady (ies). Haven't been in the mood to write since this happened. It's difficult to see your Dad-my musical, personal, comedic, familial, and paternal guide-being weakened by age-related, health paroxysms. But since then, I've completed the Santa Fe Century with my good friend J; in fact, I've posted his report on the previous blog entry. Here's what I came up with-on the 14th of May-before the condition of my Dad superseded the priority to write.

The reason why I’m here’s for the Santa Fe Century. Haven’t done any high volume miles this season so what better reason to hang out with my dear friend Jay of multiple decades in a cosmically hip place like Santa Fe to ride, catch up, and decompress from another end of an academic year (aka working my ass off!)
The road trip down to Jay’s cabin (aka ADMACO) was uneventful and sonically blissful. It was a cold and foggy start in Colorado so I handpicked music aligned to the unpredictable, quasi-mysterious, gastronomically adventerous, Georgia O’Keefe-ey, geo-socio-political state of being known as New Mexico. First one up was Miles Davis’
Filles de Kilimanjaro
. The first and last songs are memorable. In Felun Brun when Miles’ trumpet kicks in it is so understatedly powerful and strong it just cut through all the cold and fog that was settling in Sedalia…

Six hours later, nearer to Jay’s cabin, the sights I was so accustomed to as a 20 something undergrad when Jay, our friends and I would take refuge from the pressures of being said 20-somethings were foggy. But once I started rolling through Pecos, NM the memories of times at the cabin came slowly into focus. One of them was the tiny Church...
...The roads sure seem a lot narrower than what I remembered but the trees and the spatial orientation of the landmarks I used to remember where still there. Coupl’a houses got bigger but by and large this area of NM is still largely unchanged.
Jay has a log book in the big room where guests would remark on the day they were having as vacationers. Saw some entries I put in when we went mountain biking (like back in the mid-nineties) and it made me laugh from a majorly by-gone era. This is the Cowles city limit sign almost directly in front of the house (which is up a steep-ish hill).
Here's the vantage point looking at ADMACO from the city limit sign.
At Jay’s I gave my bike the once over and rolled for about half an hour getting my legs warmed up for tomorrow. This is what greeted me after the fog and cold I left Colorado this morning...

19 May (new story). I'm finished with my duties as a teacher and immediately afterwards I flew to TX to help out my Mom and to see my two brothers who were rallying for Mom as well. Our cousin Gerry also came up from Austin to visit and help us. As we were cleaning up/de-cluttering our folks' house I came up on two unopened bottles of Glenlivet (12) hanging out where non-alcoholic possessions usually hangout. Aw deem. So (mathematically speaking): the boys + our cousin Gerry + an unopened bottle of (The) Glenlivet = cigars and a newly opened bottle of (The) Glenlivet in the backyard (for catching up, decompressing, and general shooting the $hit). Gerry likes his neat, whereas I nosed mine before I sacrilegiously put (distilled watered) ice into it.

Seeing my brothers-all together-was excellent. We haven't been together for several years so hanging out with them and Mom (although the reason was $hitty) was rather satisfying.

Back in Colorado, the weather is currently holding in the precipitation pattern so my "free" time to ride (in-between picking up and dropping off the kids from schooly-school) is going to be interesting. Do I ride in cold rain/snow or run indoors? Either option is not particularly attractive, although the half-marathon's coming up...

It's going to be an interesting Summer. Heading out again (with my son and our Golden Retriever) in early June to help out Mom as my brothers and I are staggering our times in Plano, TX. Melissa's sympathetic to my situation because she's cool like that. Gonna bring my road bike.

My friend, Jay's Santa Fe Century Report. Entitled "Sammy Ortiz"

2011-05-24T11:01:00.001-07:00

This is a redacted excerpt (from me, the .PDF threw off my margins from the beginning of his text) from my homeskillet, Javier De Soto Santa Cruz de la Collier's (yes, that's his real name and don't let him tell you otherwise) post race report of the Santa Fe Century. It's quite and enjoyable read. Hope y'all like it as much as I did. But, here's the breakdown of Javier...

Synopsis of Javer de Soto Santa Cruz Real Madrid como esta usted de la Collier (yes, that is his real name and don't let him tell you different) and our friendship of two plus decades.
-As a graduate student Jay was a HARD cyclist (years of West Texas headwinds made him hard).
-Jay has an MS in Organic Chemistry with a minor in English.
-we laugh and drink a lot of beer together.
-he still owns the original Selle Italia turbo SLR saddle.
-his patent for sliced bread was stolen so that made him bitter about entrepreneurialship.
-a mutual friend of ours got me a life-guarding, summer job where I met the narrator of said story back in 1989-ish.
-our mutual love of: cars, beer, music, geeky science stuff, people who write well, and food (to name a few) made our Venn diagram circles (his and mine) mo' similar rather than contrasting.
-lastly, he has plead the fifth more than once with his episodes pertaining to jurisprudence.

Characters (in no certain order):
-Jay=first person narrator (omniscient no, but cool? yes).
-Elizabeth=narrator's homeskilletienne.
-Jeff Winchester=conduit o'cycling knowledge and narrator's friend.
-Sammy=phred, tool, poseur.
-Mike=yours truly.

We begin with Jay's background in West Texas as an undergrad beginning with his downward spiral that is cycling...
Second race – October. Again, Sammy talking to friends before the race, “I’m not racing today because I’m upset at how Darrin put this race together. He took the whole thing and just did it, cutting the rest of us out when we offered to help, so I’m not racing today.”
I began to see a pattern. And at the time, I was one of the new guys in the group, so I sought the advice from a higher power, a buddy of mine, Jeff Winchester.
“That Sammy guy?” I quered [sic].
“Oh, don’t even get me started on him! Man, he’s worthless!”
“Does he ever ride? Or does he just talk about it. Because he’s always got some excuse as to…”
“He’s either got an excuse, or he’s quit everything he’s ever entered. Don’t ever quit a ride. Because once you quit one, it’ll just be that much easier to quit the next one.” Such words became prophetic as I rarely saw Sammy out there riding – though he was always full of knowledge.
Santa Fe, New Mexico – Sunday May 15th, 2011, 6a.m. we stepped out of the car to go pick up our ride packets for the 26th annual Santa Fe Century. And immediately upon setting foot outside of the 4Runner, we felt exposed – to the wind and to the temperature, or lack thereof. A quick check of my phone revealed a temperature of 46 degrees, but that didn’t factor in the windchill.
And with the 30-40 mile gusts we were feeling I didn’t want to know what the perceived temperature was. Sometimes more knowledge isn’t a good thing.
I couldn’t figure it out – 6a.m., just barely dawn, and it was already gusting this badly and the secret to this ride is to get an early start so you can make absolutely as much progress as possible early in the day, cover as many miles as possible out of 100 before the winds do kick up (as they will) in the afternoon.
But at 6 a.m.?
“This is going to be an interesting ride,” I said to my riding compadres, Mike & Elizabeth.
And I hate wind.
Living in Lubbock as I did, you’re faced with it every spring. Brutal wind – the kind that turns the sky brown from all the dirt it kicks up from the outlying farms. And if you’re going to ride in Lubbock, you’re going to have to learn to ride in the wind. And while I did learn to hide from the wind, that doesn’t’ mean that I like it any better. In fact, having spent 10 years in Lubbock, I feel
as though I’ve already received my life’s allocation of wind. I’ll gladly take climbing over riding in the wind. Because while every climb has its section to offer reprieve, wind has a way of just absolutely being relentless and breaking your spirit.
We’ve had an unusually windy spring here in Denver this year, which has on more than one occasion hampered my training efforts. Knowing this, and knowing my vocal sentiments about riding in the wind, my friend & colleague, Jim asked me, “So what are you going to do if you get down there and it’s blowing like crazy?”
“Don’t even say that,” I said. I then went on to describe my strategy as far as getting an early start and covering as may miles as possible before the afternoon winds kicked up.
But here it was, 6a.m., and the sun hadn’t even crested Atalaya Mountain yet, and we’re facing a 100 mile day – that we signed up for, paid money for, and traveled clear to Santa Fe from Denver to ride. Any other day, I wouldn’t have gone out. Or I cut my rides down to 20 miles if it’s absolutely essential that I go out that day. Otherwise, forget it.
Because I hate riding in the wind.
The Santa Fe Century route begins by immediately taking you south out of Santa Fe along NM-14 to the town of Madrid, about 26 miles away. And last year, we hit Madrid in 1:25, averaging just slightly over 20 mph.
This year, with the wind gusting out of the south, as soon as we made that left onto NM-14, which turned us south, I knew we were screwed. And for a long time.
Riding out on the flat prairie, you’re quite exposed. And traveling at any rate of speed on a bike induces a windchill in & of itself. Add wind to that, and you’ve just increased your exposed windchill that much further.
Mike took off like a rocket, and cyclist upon cyclist passed Elizabeth & I, and what their secret I couldn’t even tell you as we were getting blown all over the place – our bike’s direction at times being dictated by the gusts which blew out front wheel haphazardly.
I just didn’t know if I could do it. 100 miles of this?
Why would I want to do this?
I couldn’t even answer the question. But there were other people out there, and I just kept heading south.
And if everyone else jumped off a cliff, would I?
Evidently so.
Another aspect about the Santa Fe Century is that because of its route, you have to make a decision relatively early as far as centuries go, if you’re going to bail from the 100-mile route and take on something shorter. And the way this route is laid out, you have to commit to cutting your ride to 50 miles before you even reach the first rest stop in Madrid at 26 miles. And I can’t tell you exactly how far that point was from the start, or how long it took for us to get there. But I can tell you that both Elizabeth & I stopped.
And we looked at each other, long and hard. Because there were a lot of other things I would’ve rather have been doing that day than riding in a gusting headwind.
“I’m fine, if you just want to go in,” Elizabeth said.
And I would’ve been fine too. I would’ve had no problem making that decision.
“I know.”
And we looked at each other some more. And we saw people making that left turn to cut their century ride short because of the wind. And we stared down that road.
“I have to go on,” I said. And it felt weird to say it. It’s like they weren’t even my words. “I have the Iron Horse in two weeks. And while I have no problem making this decision to head in, I have a feeling that I’m going to have a hard time living with this decision later. I need this workout to prep for the Iron Horse. And if I quit this, then it’s just going to make the Iron Horse that much bigger of
an obstacle to overcome. I have to do this.”
And I thought of Sammy Ortiz.
And Jeff Winchester, “Don’t ever quit a ride. Because once you quit one, it’ll just be that much easier to quit the next one.”
Such decisions are easy to make, but much harder to live with. I then discussed my revised ride strategy – how we’d just try & noodle along into the wind, but trying to make that left turn at Stanley, NM which turned us back north and put the wind at our back as soon as physically possible. And I tried to explain to Elizabeth how she could draft behind me, hiding from the wind to limit her exposure.
But the truth was that neither of us knew if we could actually pull this off. 100 miles in a day is hard enough, but in wind like this? That said, I don’t think either of us entertained the worst case scenario idea – catching the sag wagon in because we simply couldn’t make it. I have to believe that once we clicked back into our pedals and set off, that we truly believed that we would make it. And in just a few miles we had made it to the first rest stop in Madrid. I think it was good for our spirits to at least have made it to the first rest stop. Our next obstacle, wind aside, was that most of the elevation gain in the century occurred in the next two segments to Cedar Grove – the 1600’ climbed out of Madrid, coupled with what is usually considered to be the true crux of this route, Heartbreak Hill which rises toward the sky at a 17% grade over a half mile.

Upon pedaling out of Madrid, I accidentally clicked my left shifter. But when I did, suddenly realized that I had dropped my chain onto the smaller chainring in the front, thus affording an easier pedaling cadence than what I had experienced previously – I had been climbing the hills into Madrid in my big chainring.
“What the?!?? I’ve been running my 53 all morning so far?” I had neglected to drop it back down after motoring out of Santa Fe at the speed we departed.
“I saw that and thought, ‘Gosh, he’s awfully strong to be pushing that gear!” Elizabeth said.
So once realizing I had additional (and easier) gears that I hadn’t yet used, the 1600’ wasn’t bad to acquire as the foothills, depending on which way you were facing, did provide a bit of relief from the wind to the point where our direction wasn’t dictated by the front wheel reacting to the gusts. But conquering Heartbreak Hill, for me at least, would have to wait another year.

“That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen,” Elizabeth said as she saw the road rise steeply skyward.

Last year, I made it about 1/3 of the way up before stopping and walking the rest of way, as did Elizabeth this year. But this year, merely approaching it heading backinto a headwind was enough to immediately surrender defeat. Besides, we still had 60 miles to go in what was so far, an arduous day. As for Mike? He conquered the entire 17% grade in the headwind, then proceeded to single-handedly rescued helpless orphans from a burning building once at the top, and then put out the fire with his two water bottles before the fire department even arrived.

Mere mortals like Elizabeth & I can only aspire to be as great.

We skipped the rest stop a t Heartbreak Hill as it came before the monstrous climb and neither of us wanted to cool our legs before approaching that thing by stopping, so we soldiered on, descending into the Cedar Grove rest stop. This allowed me have the volunteers from REI take a look at my rear wheel, as it was feeling soft on the descent – and they replaced without delay using their own replacement tube. A classy move, and I’ll be a customer of theirs for life. But having skipped the rest stop at Heartbreak Hill, and using the rest stop at Cedar Grove to tend to a mechanical, I knew I was running low on fuel, but also knew the coveted Stanley rest stop was only 15 miles ahead.

And Cedar Grove marked the first of two essential left turns of the day, as it marked the southernmost point the route of the century would have us take. From here we would head back east into Stanley, and then make the left turn I had been dreaming about since Madrid – the one that took us back north, hopefully with the wind at our backs. Onto Stanley, and for the first time all day, at mile 50, we were no longer facing a direct headwind, but rather more of a diagonal cross wind. I motored as hard as possible to bite off these miles and make it to Stanly to turn back north, and ended up conversing with a couple of guys along this long straight stretch.

“This wind is relentless,” I commented.

“I’ve ridden this century 7 years now, and I’ve never seen it like this. How you can run a 100-mile course and face directly into the wind for 65 of those miles is beyond me.”

This guy felt my pain, though his misery evidently didn’t love my company because a few short pedal strokes later, his small group was gone. And my commands to the engine room for more power fell on deaf ears, because I hadn’t eaten. I was running on fumes and 7 miles out from the rest area. Shortly thereafter, Elizabeth had caught up to me.

“I’m not going to lie,” I said, turning to her. “I’m really hurting here.”

“I can’t say I’ve enjoyed too much of this day, myself.”

We were wounded. Though in the distance, we could see NM-41, our cross street, that dear left turn that would turn us back north. I checked the wind – still coming from the south, if only it would hold. And a few short minutes later, we pulled into Stanley – the two of us needing a rest stop like we’ve never needed one in our lives before. We were famished, our spirits beaten down by the wind.

But the atmosphere at the Stanley rest stop contrasted with us as it was light & jovial, reggae music playing, and the volunteers happily serving up Gatorade, sandwiches, cantaloupe, pretzels and oranges, welcoming our arrival. Not since the wild hyenas of Africa were featured on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom have you seen such reckless abandonment while scavenging. We ate everything that was offered and consumed massive amounts of Gatorade. It was our longest rest stop of the day, easily 30 minutes.

We fought for every one of those 62 miles to make it into Stanley. But what lay ahead of us was the long straight road back to Santa Fe that passed through Galisteo & Eldorado. Last year, I fought a headwind through this section the entire 41 miles that it was back to Santa Fe. This year, I could only hope that this was the left turn I had been dreaming about putting the wind at our backs as it was nearly 20 miles to the next rest stop.

And having been beaten down by the last 15 said, “I really need for this section to go well.”

Sometime after 12:30 p.m. by the time we left Stanley. We had been on the road for six hours and covered 65 miles. Yet there it was, just a few short pedal strokes later, we could feel it – the wind at our backs for the first time all day. What was a difficult section last year proved to be a heck of a lot of fun this year – rollers, but with a net downhill. So powering down the backside of one would help slingshot you part way up the next. I felt good, I felt strong. I passed countless
people on the upside of the rollers. I felt like my old self again and for the first time all day, remembered why I loved this ride so much. We gained a lot of ground back on that stretch 20-mile stretch which went by all too quickly.

Galisteo to the final rest stop at Eldorado is a net climb, culminating in a long, gradual hill several miles long that rises out of Lamy and continues on until just a couple of miles south of Eldorado. And while it isn’t hard and is completely ridable in contrast to Heartbreak Hill, it’s about the last thing you want to see at mile 82 into a century. And after blowing my legs on the previous section,
decided simply to noodle this section to save some of my energy for the fast trip back to Santa Fe from Eldorado.

“On your left…” I heard come up from behind me on the climb out of Lamy, so I moved over to the right to allow the female voice to pass when it continued, “…at some point.” As she wasn’t moving any faster than I was. To that point, it was the funniest thing I’d run across all day, and as tired as I was, shared a good laugh together with a stranger who was as tired as I was at this point in the day, trying to climb the same hill as best as possible.

Elizabeth led this section, chugging along like the cog train that she is despite the fact that she detests climbs, and we met back up at the rest stop in Eldorado.

92 miles. We were almost there, you could practically smell the chiles roasting in Santa Fe.

“We have just a couple of miles to go here, then we make a left onto I-25 for a fast shot across the interstate and back into Santa Fe.”

“I’m not counting my chickens until…” she said.

“We’re practically there, this section is going to go by in a hurry,” and in fact while we were motoring along I-25 again with a tailwind, I turned back to her & said, “Enjoy this feeling right here, because it’s all just about to be over.”

And we motored this section – as hard as we did the section from Galisteo to Eldorado, until finally we saw our Old Pecos Trail exit. Stopping at a light, we saw some police activity on our side of the road, but on the other side of the intersection – a couple of cop cars plus a motorcycle cop.

“I hope that wasn’t a cyclist that got hit,” Elizabeth said.

I couldn’t imagine coming all 100 miles in a century, only to be mowed over by a car with the finish line literally in sight. But once we got to the crime scene, we realized that it wasn’t a cyclist at all that was involved – it was an Amish family that had been pulled over for some reason.

“That has to be one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen on a bike! But that made the rest of the day completely worthwhile to see that.” And as brain dead as we were at 100 miles, we shared a good laugh over that one while quietly wondering to ourselves what in the world an Amish family could’ve done do have caused such a commotion with the Santa Fe police. That, and I never really pegged the Amish to be such scofflaws.

And upon finally arriving back at the 4Runner, found a note on my windshield saying how Mike had finished the century in 6 hours flat, to our 9. All these years Mike & I have been riding together (term used loosely), he’s still an animal with his worst day still being than my best.

Denver, Colorado – Tuesday May 17th, 8:38 a.m. – And when my colleague Jim approached me and asked me how it went, I was able to answer his question, “You asked me what I’d do if I were faced with a bunch of wind for the century – well, I guess I’d ride it.”

“Don’t ever quit a ride. Because once you quit one, it’ll just be that much easier to quit the next one.”

Besides, if you go around quitting rides, then you’ll never get to exercise your imagination as to why some poor Amish family got pulled over in the dream state that comes around mile 100.

-courtesy of Jay (not used by permission either beetches).

p.s. it was just a smidge longer than a century

A Whole Lot of Nuttin' Going On!

2011-04-23T20:10:00.000-07:00

My semester/year's ending as a high school teacher (I'm still coming back to a job next academic year). That's bringing delayed joy and an inordinate amount of planning in order to execute the worthwhile concepts in a timely manner and to give a final exam twice (not the same): mine and the district's. Lacrosse and soccer's in full swing (both girls have practice every day and my son on Sundays) so my base miles are pretty much non-existent. So how do I get a modicum of self-indulgence (relative sanity)? Oh and I'm also training for a half marathon too in early June; but, this Friday and Saturday I got in back-to-back rides: Friday off-road and today, on the road. Therapeutic baby. Therapeutic. I gotta get it when I can get it (it's probably the same mantra as a HS teenage boy, but for different reasons).
Drove to Maura's lacrosse game which was exciting! The score was tied with 30 seconds remaining and our girl won the face-off, marched it downfield and shot the winning goal. Awesome. Yelled myself into a headache. I wasn't a little league dad or anything but just hollering for our mountain girls.

I was satisfied with my performance up Mt. Falcon Friday. Mt. Falcon is a thousand foot climb contain in three miles where people go there to improve their PR. So if it's a guy, and they see a body up ahead, they'll race you 'til their eyes bleed. I try not to fall into that category but damn my testosterone producing testicles. Damn them! I was just moseying along, going a pretty good clip, listening to my iPod (some mellow Ben Folds tune) when out of the corner of my eye (you ever notice how your hairs on your neck stand up when you're getting eye-balled?) I saw a dude taking a breather on a switch-back and when I got within 100 meters he bolted. He bolted fast because he put a mighty gap on me but dammit I was determined to hunt him down like the dog he was. I placed it under the training category of interval training so let's go sucka! Sho nuff there's this spot of a rock garden that if you don't hit it mountain side and grunt it; or hit it near the precipice with body english and finesse (you have to time the 6 o'clock pedal strokes or your pedals'll hit a strategically placed baby-head), you'll have to dismount and walk it. He tried the near precipice but completely ham fisted it and had to dismount. That's where my 44 year-old arse finessed it and passed him barely breathing and not establishing eye contact (that's the dickhead roadie in me...). Once it leveled out, I put it in the middle-ring and rocked it like a meth addict with a fresh syringe. I was one with my Yeti and when that's the case a mental conduit originates from my bike and attaches to my medulla oblongata. That's when she starts talking to me: telling me to go faster, giving me hints to English my frame to accelerate through twisties, and scolding me when I touch the brakes. I tacked on the Parmalee loop at the top, twisted my fork travel to max and let 'er rip. Nobody else was on this part of the mountain, made it a power workout and kept in the big ring from this point forward. I forgot how steep it was and cleaned a rock chicane that usually makes me unclip one of my pedals. 1.5 hours and 9 miles later I'm back at my truck. Chased down and passed a dual-suspension guy on the downhill on my hardtail Yeti. I'm getting ornery in my advancing years.

Today, after the snow fell and Maura's sweet lacrosse game, I hopped on my road bike and fired-off 50 very uneventful miles in 3 three hours in gusty, cold conditions. I couldn't get the climbing I wanted because where I live it's still hovering around freezing and the roads are not clean. My all purpose miles for this week (which includes my running) is 63. Not impressive but I can eat a hearty Easter brunch tomorrow without worrying about caloric surpluses. For dinner, sweet Melissa made Pad Thai. Yum. Washed it down with Shiner Cheer.

On a musical side note I've been completely smitten by TV On The Radio and Lang Lang's Live In Vienna. If y'all have never heard of TVOTR they are a Brooklyn-based band that has LAYERS of sound. Kinda like the way Radiohead has layers of sound these guys have a very distinct, rock band falsetto harmonizing kind of thing that's so impressively and sonically unique you either love 'em or hate 'em. It's like a wall of sound with their singers busting out a falsetto on normal vocalizations with a boomy bass sound, accompanied by a swinging guitar and rock steady drummer. I have Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes and their latest: Nine Types of Light. As for Lang Lang, not only is he a twenty something prodigy but this is his debut performance for Sony classics and by golly does he perform. The sound dynamics on this live CD (two discs actually) is amazing!!! You can't even tell it's live until the audience starts clapping. His encore is a couple ditties from Frédéric François Chopin and he slays. Chopin's probably my top three classical artists and so I discriminate when people play Chopin. Barenboim, Pollini, Szpilman are three who I think are superb and give me chicken skin and now I add Lang Lang.

Ite den kids, wish me luck on the Santa Fe century. I'ma do it with long time home skillet, Javier de Soto Lambrusco and will crash at his cabin in Pecos, NM due to his largess (minus the condescension).

Next to Last Day of My Spring Break

2011-04-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

The first part of my Spring Break was taking my middle and youngest urchins 890 miles southeast to the lovely Dallas suburb of Plano, TX. I brought my bike to do some group rides but it was soooo cold (whereas the week prior it was in the 80s) and drizzly the bike stayed put at Mom and Dad's. That was okay though, it meant more hang time for the familia. Maura brought her lacrosse stick down and we played catch in-between rain drops, hung out with the parents and I made breakfast and dinner most days. I did manage to get 12 miles worth of running down there. The best day weather-wise was when we left back to Colorado-go figure. My eldest went on her first Mother-Daughter trip to San Francisco. It was great seeing my parents. 5 days was enough before we started to get onto each others' nerves. Goodbyes are so awkward. I kind of hate them. Waving goodbye as we drive away is not a natural phenomenon.

Coming back on a Thursday meant that I could make it to out our Natural Grocers Racing Team picture. It was on the same day held at a nearby crit. I would be financially irresponsible to pay for a one day license, chip rental, and race fee to get my butt handed to me when I can get base miles for free. Back in the day when entrance fees where cheaper I'da considered it but with gas prices going nutty and our sizable commutes I can't whittle away at our potential gas pool of money. I probably gained some mass doing some quality eating with my folks and kids and having not touched the bike in a week was not the recipe to race. The season's long and I've resigned myself to probably racing the bulk doing crits. Looking forward to when XC mountain biking starts up. Due to La Niña, the high country should be thawed out sooner than most seasons; and, I got the green light to get a new mountain bike this season. Seriously considering a 3x9, hardtail 29er. Did some research and to sum, what I found is this: a 29er is not an all-rounder but it is good enough for Front Range mountain biking. I can see its limitations at some of the WinterPark XC courses-especially the technical uphills; and, at Slickrock in Moab. I want the carbon rig but my wallet's not that fat. Realistically the aluminum version of the Flash 29er with a Lefty fork-that'd be the shizzle kids.

After the team pics we went out for a ride. It was Joe, Ben, Kenny, and my lame memory is slipping and two others (Brendan and ?). It was nice riding with Kenny again let alone race with him. I haven't raced with him in a while. We've done the same XC races but not in the same category like we raced in the IIIs so it was nice riding hard with him today. Seeing the racers and the race today inspired me to do more training (at least start with smart calories). I will pay more attention to leg, weight training seeing that I probably won't be in any shape to be competitive in 80+ mile road races but can hopefully fake sitting in a pack attempting to complete a crit. I do want to do the Colorado State Master Road Championships and the series at the State Patrol (track) come Summer.

Work starts Monday. That sucks. This Spring Break though was memorable in a way that I spent some quality time with the kids (as opposed to other Spring Breaks when we were hanging out). Really enjoying each others' company in a way that transcends the other times we spend just being physically near each other but not really interacting. We snuggle at night, talk kid talk and just like being next to each other. Not in the Brady bunch sort-of-way but in our sort-of-way that's intrinsically meaningful and not subject to non-family interpretation. Took Maura on her first mountain bike ride and she slayed. Mason did too (his second). They're both fearless and I really want to do more with them in that particular skill set. Right now they both love the things I find recreationally valuable (I'm a big believer in sound mind, sound body): skiing and cycling (not in any particular order). It can only get better (and more expensive too I suppose).

They're spending the night at Grandma's tonight and I already miss 'em...

Last Day of Winter!

2011-03-19T20:50:00.001-07:00

Ah yeauh. Did the hour of power today. Absolutely stunning day as Old Man Winter's letting go of his grip on our colorful state. It was just above freezing at our place and by the time I arrived at the shit-on-your-neighbor-shindig (aka the HoP)-parking area it was well into the 40s. Unfortunately some $hit-heel shot out the car's, driver's side window that was parked in front of me. Wasn't even 15 minutes as I was going back and forth warming up before the HoP. Probably some GED'd, hillbilly loser whose exhaust system's blasting a hole in the ozone layer. What a crappy start. As I warmed up, the pistons felt heavy and was breathing a little on the loud side but nothing too worrisome as I was doing a systems check on a slightly used, battle scarred (all the appendages that stick out when hitting the deck road or crit racing), espresso fueled, 44 year-old piece of machinery, made in the Philippines. Getting the glow plugs warmed up, that's all. At crits I usually camp out for 45 mins on my rollers but I guess today's 15 minutes'll have to suffice.

Jeff Leischner, my teammate was there too. I hadn't seen him since we raced the mountain bike Spring series last year. Other than the pace picking up quicker than usual and the wind being as pesky as all hell, everything was going fine at race pace until the climb into the golf course. I got shelled so bad that by the time I made it to the turn around, the lead group darted off to the trip into Chatfield. No worries, I just inserted myself into the back of the last group of riders, put it into a slightly higher rpm, with my hands on the tops and belly breathed until I was breathing somewhat normally. Had to put the heart rate back down just in case there was going to be another protracted surge.

Unfortunately with a group this big and with the sidewinds being a mofo, people were taking a lot of yellow-line violations to stay in their drafts. There were a lot of surges and a lot braking, not your usual flow-style with experienced riders pedaling consistently. Last year there was always a sheriff or the county po-po to pull us over and lecture us accordingly because we were behaving like a bunch of novices. When somebody pops in the pack it seems like slow motion when the peloton goes around him so's he can be jettisoned from this pack akin to a swarm of bees.

Another $hit-heel motorist feigned like he was going to head-on collide with us as he made a sharp move into our peloton scrubbing the yellow line and correcting himself back into his lane. Amazingly ass-holish. This was in the park so unlike last week I was motoring and braking and accelerating with the main pack. As the imaginary finish line got closer people busted several yellow line violations to accelerate and advance their positions, which got us going too. Herd mentality when we see people jump. I too got out of the saddle to get it to ramming speed but intentionally sat down to drive more watts into the pedals. Jeff played it smart and pulled himself out of the pack so as not to get crashed out which is normally the case when wheels touch this early in the season. Three years ago I saw a guy crash, hit the deck hard shattering his helmet, and when he was done sliding, he started to convulse. Thankfully EMS is the sheeeyat around here. All this potential danger for the thrill of bike racing? What little mayhem I have seen (bikes and bodies, including myself) should make competitive cycling contraindicated for most but here we still are: pedaling, elbowing, holding our position in the draft, chicken winging (that it's your turn to take a pull you ehfing free loader), spitting, launching snot rockets, adjusting ourselves, peeling powerbars, pointing out road obstacles, gossiping, yelling at crappy bike handlers as well as "car up!" or "car back" with our hairs on fire heading towards a finish line (imaginary or real). Suffering in our shared, collective, self-inflicted pain while rolling down the road as spandex-clad advertisement for our sponsors reinforces our competitive streak I suppose. In the end though, regardless of an entrance fee, it still is deeply satisfying knowing that the group you started with has whittled down to this select bunch due to attrition. On our cool down back to the parking area, I met another teammate named Eric (sp?). He too's a Master. I'm a Master. That sounds funny, master's racing...

Motorpaced/climbed up to the first big switchback on Highgrade after the HoP to accumulate more miles using different muscles. As I was getting ready to leave back home I was introduced to another competitor named Mike Woodard. From one competitor to another we did the secret cyclist handshake because we know what's involved physically and mentally in this singularly painful sport (besides boxing or UFC) and we relish the fact that nobody else knows (or cares about) this.

back to doing the hour of power

2011-03-05T20:36:00.001-07:00

After a two week hiatus from the hour of power, I got back onto the saddle (literally) for some real pain. Ooo boy did it hoit! The climb onto Arrowhead G.C. was especially painful but there was such a long train I was able to same time it with the second group.

As usual the downhill out of the golf course was slamming and I was caught with a group of two (three counting me) between the leaders and the main pack. The first guy took a tremendous pull and I came around him and got into preying mantis tuck on the downhill and was actually able to accelerate slowly, ever so slowly closer to the leaders, who were about 200m away. There's nothing quite as lame as seeing the last people in the lead group pedaling, with no great intent, while we are pedaling furiously with our hair on fire and our arses on the horns of our saddles. Once my speed slowed down, my bridge companion busted out the Russian pace-line and pushed me mightily fierce-like and that quick acceleration allowed me--us--to close in on the leaders as I spearheaded our trio crunching my 52x12 with everything I had.

It was all for naught because I got shelled once we got into the park and had to waste energy going around people who popped while the wind was making mince-meat out of me.

The hour of power is a grand total of 21 miles of go-with-your-hair-on-fire fun (if you can call it fun). Cooled down six miles worth of post cramping spinning. Sucked then, but hours later I'm more or less pretty satisfied with my efforts.

What an introduction back after two weeks off skiing and mountain biking in this beautiful state of Colorado. Tomorrow it's soccer action with my eldest.

South Siiiide!

2011-02-20T07:43:00.003-07:00

Lake Pueblo State Park's South Shore (Marina). Notice the ice at the left side foreground.

Didn't mean to be sound gangish y'all. What I really meant to say was South Shore, specifically Pueblo, Colorado's Lake Pueblo State Park's South Shore Marina. Moab's weather was too risky to travel 6 hours and only have a 50 percent to not have precipitation fall on us. So on a whim, I decided we should check out Pueblo's off-road offerings. We bagged the promise land and instead detoured to Pueblo. On the road, Sverre checked the weather at Moab and lo and behold it was raining. Thanks NOAA and your reliable forecasting skills!

We parked inside the park and 28.3 miles later under the sun's gift of 64°F we were back at Keb-moe's lovely Sequoia. We saw the front roll in on our return trip: the winds blowing and getting colder, the occasional drop of rain, and the looming dark clouds in the distance.
Here's Kevin on Voodoo with the clouds rollin' in...

The terrain unfortunately wasn't captured by me because we were in the flow. The technical stuff consisted of dried out waterfall chutes lined with a boat load of shale. Going up or going down was pretty cool. Every now and again a tortilla sized piece of shale would get kicked up from the tires it smacked the ground in such a way it made this real sharp, bright sound that ricocheted off the sides of the waterfall. Sometimes the single track would be lined three layers deep with shale flakes and when we would roll over it it sounded like people throwing beer bottles as hard as they could at the ground making this SUPER amplified exploding glass sound. Very audio-visual riding out here in Pueblo's South Shore.
Here we are at the Voodoo trail.

On our way back we took some unintended detours trying to out and back it to the parking lot. One particular trail called Cuatro Cinco was like a slap in the face. We were already tired and close to cramping and here's this circuitous loop with stiff, sprint-like climbs interspersed within the loop taking us away further from the parking lot. Ouch.
almost back at the truck

Wished I couldda snapped some pictures of the many waterfall chutes. Thinking about it (like what Hez-chilly's doing below), it was nutty y'all...

I edited Hez-Billy's GoPro footage and if'ns you wantsta see it click on this youtube link!

Winter's zapping my road fitness

2011-02-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

Old Man Winter's recently had a wicked grip on our state for the last couple of weeks; consequently that means no road miles, no hour of power. I've been running but really there's nothing like pedaling on the road with a nice stiff wind blasting you and a pack to draft from. It is Winter, but still I thought I was making some headway. Got invited to go to a spin class with my friend Hez-chilly-that was cool. Sweated my arse off; got a pretty decent workout too. Guess I also need to prepare for that half-marathon.

This past Sunday I probably logged in seven miles running. 5 on the treadmill with another two chasing my son on his bike on the bike trails with my pootchies in tow. There was a bunch of run-off from the melting snow so we were pretty wet. Still wished I coulda rode.

Have one more day on my four-pass at WinterPark. If Moab's going to be a bust this weekend, I'm either going to go skiing or I'm going to get a bunch of off road miles in a town south of us called Pueblo. My weight's down but I really need to start stressing my body with more endurance base miles. No weight training 'cept using my shlubby self as resistance doing pushups and situps.

Mentally I need to pull that trigger and commit but I don't know why I'm so apprehensive about riding in slushy weather. I hate cleaning my bike that's for sure and if I don't go off-roading while the mud still's frozen I won't do it at all. Work and parenthood, oooweee. I ask myself why do I pay licensing fees to race at an amateur level when the dividends aren't so good. My friend told me six hours is the magic number for competitive cyclists who are also parents. Six hours? How do you find the time to ride six hours (per week) on the road, check your kids homework, cook dinner, grade, and have reading before bedtime? My time management's average but six hours? Really? In the summer, when school's out though on good weeks I can get close to ten. I have to wait until May until then and by that part of the season my fitness is playing catch up to my cohorts in the pack. I make do. I have to I suppose if I want to not become a super sluggo where my waist circumference exceeds my pectoral measurements, soon after followed by man boobs. Yuck. Guess it's my vanity that makes the suffering rewarding, quantifiable, and valuable. Don't hold it against me; instead send some positive energy my way so's the weather gods and goddesses make Moab climactically doable for the homey trinity.

It's cold up at 7,581 feet (2311 m for my metric friends)!

2011-01-30T20:48:00.001-07:00

I've been lulled into thinking the larger foothills hills are going to be warm when I look at my local forecast. 36°F (2°C) is not warm; in fact it's kind of awful to be riding a bike but they did say it was going to be in the fifties (much, much later in the day). I was prepared clothing-wise though. Brought my handy-dandy jacket but was ready to take it off if it ever hit 40°F once I got to the parking area. No luck, still cold as hell in Morrison. Right when I arrived a huuuuge cloud obscured the sun and it was like that until I arrived back to my truck (go figure).

Did a quickie ride up to Lookout Mountain (in Golden home of Coors Banquet Beer), elevation 7581' (2311 m). Started at Morrison (home of the world famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre and Bandimere Speedway), elevation 5762' (1757 m). My legs were still humming from yesterday's effort so my plan was to sit the entire way up the climb. Going up paradise there are real short 10% pitches, just enough to make my quads burn extra hot and to stress out my patellar tendon. It was freeeezing at the top. Okay so I kind of lied about the clothing gear. I wore my knee warmers thinking 50°F (10°C) was around the corner. Never showed up. Was hoping too that the north facing switchbacks were dry. It is after all January in Colorado. The top two switchbacks were wet. Took it real slow after that I opened it up but the self-induced wind chill felt as if tiny little ice picks were penetrating all my exposed skin. My shins from the knee warmers were hurting! My fingers were numb and this was the first time in a long time that my Willy was feeling the cold as well. I shivered the entire descent. Felt as if my bike was shimmying due to an alignment issue but it was my body regressing to reptilian responses genetically hardwired in our bodies to induce warmth-shivering and the chicken skin. It sucked. I just wanted to lay over in the shoulder and wrap a blanky around me until Mr. Sunshine showed up (the bastard never did!).

I'm thinking I got more miles last year at this time. Oh well, we'll see once the season's campaigns start up. My weight's down at least. The next three days we're going to be gripped in some freezing (below 0°, -7°F (-21°C),for a high on Tuesday) weather. Gotta get the miles in when I can get 'em however infrequent while not shirking the Dad stuff too often. Balance is about a beeyatch. Did I mention Mike Carter road with us yesterday?

Repetition is good x 4

2011-01-29T21:45:00.001-07:00

Been fairly consistent in participating in the Hour of Power. Nothing special happened last week, like this week, today. The 9 o'clock hour of power group is smaller and the hammeroids show up. In fact, Michael Carter, Colorado phenom showed up and his legs announced, "My legs get better over time suckas!" The weather was excellent today; breezy but excellent. Hung in the lead group until the left hander into the park. The peloton was just echeloning like a bunch of cat IVs. This is why the State Patrol pulls us over every now and again to give us the speech. If I were a motorist, I'd be pissed. Our contract has a "good representative of the sponsors" clause and by half-wheeling the dude in front of me, past the centerline was just NOT GOOD (not good for living either). I went to start another echelon and nobody pulled through and I just plain blew up (people behind me died too). Thought I could catch 'em with a mighty surge (so as to not let the peeps behind me get a freebie), they were just dangling right there in front of me but the wind and my puny legs couldn't hang-that's when I really blew up and had to slog it in the small chainring 'til my cardiovascular system was back in synch. Patched up with some of the flotsam of the pack as we rolled in and we finished in the bigring towards the imaginary finish line.

As we're headed back into the parking area, the 10 o'clock group showed up and they were huuuge. Figured I can motorpace off these guys until my heart's back up in my throat then i'll bail back home to continue my fatherly (quasi-lame not the duties but how I execute said) duties. The baby little climb shelled fresh riders (three of us from the 9 o'clocker hopped in) and I wanted to yell at 'em, "Beetches, this is my second time around!" Before the right hand turn onto Rampart Road, I peeled off because the lactic acid was just too much. Flogging the legs and the desired result was nowhere to be seen's a good indication to back off and recover. It's only February and it's already off to the races. I worry about not getting in any base miles in the chill way as to build up a solid foundation but at this point of my ever-so-lame cycling career I have to get it any way I can. I'ma try to fire off a 40 miler tomorrow in the little ring to emulate base miles.

Downed some brown tea and chocolate milk (not together) as my free-radical reducing drink before I changed the oil (and filters) in Melissa and my vehicles (recycled the oil too). This weekend's weather's very mild, come Monday thru Wednesday it's going to be in the single digits. That ain't good.

Going to Moab with the Homey Trinity, that's going to be good...

Tree-day weekend!

2011-01-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

Sweet Melissa took our oldest daughter and her BFF skiing this morning at WinterPark. So as the remaining members of Team M got up, we eventually all settled near the fireplace: the Chooch getting in reading log time, the Moose playing quietly and yours truly, feet up on the ottoman, reading the NYTimes drinking coffee and listening to my classical piano channel from Pandora drinking black, unadulterated, arabica bean-based coffee baby! Even though this is polar opposite to screaming down single track or descending a mountain pass with a bunch of spandex clad road-weenie-euro-race-dork-wannabees, I find it deeply satisfying, utterly enjoyable, dee-luxe chilly-chill, with equal amounts of happiness as compared to the aforementioned. Long live newspapers and the paper it's printed on! No Kindles for me please just super thin paper where the ink rubs off on your fingers if you handle/read it for a while (that'll be starter paper for kindling--no pun intended--up here in the mountains). I'll wait until the kids become starvin' Marvins and eventually, over time, they verbally remind me that they are indeed becoming "Starvin' Marvins" (in which case, I'll relent and break their fasts). Which, for today will be broken with breakfast burritos. I've already instilled a love for salsa in my younger two and what's more finer (I know, it's grammatically incorrect) than salsa flooded burritos? That's right! Nothing. Except maybe for exotic carbon fiber bike components (including deep-dish wheels) or vacation time or the smell of your brand new car (I don't have a new car currently but I've always savored those noxious chemicals leaching onto your olfactories from the dealer) or drinking boutique hand-crafted beers or swimming in the ocean or watching live Tour de France coverage or finishing top 10 in a bike race or hanging out with your honey or conquering a mogul field with fat skis or chillin' with well-behaved kids or...

Saturday was the hour of power. Since we started at 9 it was freezing. The highlights from that is I popped again at the second stair step leading into our turnaround but managed to hang with the leaders despite a very strong side wind during the wee-climb. On the downhill run to the park I attacked with Byron, took a pull and was quickly in my red-zone. In fact, I could barely stay with the group on the first, big ring roller. I unintentionally gapped Alex (going backwards) and he said some words like, "C'mon Mike!" meaning pedal that damn thing and quit going backwards. I finally sat on being lanternerouge to take a motorpace while my heart migrated back into my thoracic cavity. The finish was uneventful and my patch job on my flat of last week's still holding (yea!).

Today is MLK day. R.I.P. Mr. King and as for you James Earl Ray I hope the Hepatitis C you died of in prison was excruciatingly painful. Was going to ride but I see the mist has rolled in bringing with it a 50 percent chance of snow. I'll hop on the treadmill and attempt 5 miles instead. That's what one would call BOAAAAA-RING! The running though, is not a hindrance to my cycling; instead, running maintains my baseline (which is looowww) and improves my cycling.

Hope y'alls MLK day is restful and recreational.

First Group Ride of 2011

2011-01-09T17:52:00.001-07:00

Sunday morning finds me with snow falling as I walk to my mailbox to get the Sunday Ed. of the New York Times. Yea! It's going to be an indoor kind of day(s) with the highs 'til Wednesday going to be in the teens (minuses for Celsius). I'll probably get on my rollers and ride it for exactly one hour. Speaking of which, I got in my first group ride of 2011 yesterday!

The Hour of Power aka the hour I first believed. Unfortunately, for me, it was neither amazing nor graceful. No, the amazing part is that I managed to stay with the first group. As usual I was nervous rolling out with the group. It was a small group so that meant I might have to take a pull or something; but there were enough hammeroids up front that I thankfully didn't have to. But I wouldda if we were gonna bust a rotating paceline...

Again as usual, the wind was a bugga-bear in the morning. As we were turning left into Waterton Canyon, I took it early and felt the full blast of the wind on my body and said to myself, self you better tuck yourself back into the peloton if you expect to survive. Saw the usual suspects. The ones I could gauge my fitness against. My only fear was this is shaping up to be such a mild winter all the other cyclists are putting in tons of miles (hence me riding rollers today) with the exception of me.

I arrived early and probably the most important pre-shit-on-your-neighbor-ride preparation (especially for my advancing years) is my warmup. Not just lolly-gagging around 30 minutes prior but doing it in a constructive manner that facilitates some sweating (prime movers warming up) and elevation of heart rate in such a way that the heart doesn't migrate up to your throat.

Everybody rolls out chilly-chill and we chat. I talk to Dean-O and Alex from the Subaru team. We usually end up racing against each other in the early season races. He's fairly beastly. Has the morphology of trackie. In fact, there's quite a bit of Subaru riders in the pack, a couple of Vitamin Cottage Masters guys (me included I suppose), and a junior rider from the Garmin-Transitions development team-Greg (whom I ended up talking to during our return trip to Chatfield-nice young man with quite the cardiovascular system apparently).

People start getting their drawers all bunched up at the right turn that leads us to the climb before Arrowhead Golf Course. Yesterday though, they got all jiggy on the little riser before the right turn. Since I motorpace (off the back) I start seeing the rider(s) in front of me start to fade and get gap'd so the other tailgunners, we go around 'em like a reverse parting of the Red Sea. At the actual climb again just a few riders peel off and again the reverse Red Sea parting continues. The last final push before our turn around sees me going in reverse and I say I need to change my 23 toofer into a 25 bailout gear sometime when the season starts. At the turnaround the leaders wait and that gives me an opportunity to see who made the cut. Some of the unusual suspects got dropped so that makes my (lack of) fitness appropriation satisfying for early season. I guess by now there's a dozen and change of us left.

The downhill back to Chatfield is big ring, spinning exercise. I swear people like to go with their hair on fire for this. People get dropped on these downhill sections but that was not my case today. Tucked in nicely but I was spinning like a fiend to stay in the slipstream. There are some stout rollers in the park and after the momentum of the downhill starts to recede, these same hammeroids get out the saddle and march their 53x12s out-of-the-saddle to get over the last 200m or so of the uphill and yo-yo-ing of the back of the pack begins. Instead of keeping my position up the climb, I let the slipstream drag me up on the right hand side. I pass people that'a way and I'm still seated albeit spinning some big gears. Saves energy. That's how I ran into the 16 year-old Greg the junior. I was passing him and commented for a young 'un he's hanging tough. After exchanging names and pleasantries, the wind changed to a side wind and off we go to different positions in the pack, echeloning towards Chatfield.

The sprint to the imaginary finish line (it's actually a yellow sign on the right hand side of the road) wasn't quite as cut-throaty (as in normal races). Dave highlighted his teammate burying his face in his handlebars on the far left side of the road and everybody pops out of their saddle (it looks like popcorn popping, very funny and visually unusual) to chase him down and launch attacks of their own but the majority of pack settles down and slowly we chase all the breakaways and I end up spinning the big gear seated until the finish line. Yea! First group ride bagged and I finish upright. I did notice though I had a rear tire flat. Thought I felt like I was doing a bunch of work for nothing once I entered the park.

It was from my roller workouts squaring off the rear tire making it super sticky for road debris to weasel their way through my tire's threadbare casing. Once I got back to my truck I placed the once-rear tire now as the front and vice-versa; but breaking the bead was about a beeyatch! Once I replaced and pumped both tires to 80 psi (I didn't bring my floor pump) from my frame pump, I was pooped out. So me and my pooped out self tacked on a climb up Deer Creek but thankfully the roads were so wet and semi-frozen my tiredness said you better turn around before you crash due to lack of traction (up or downhill).

Burned about 1400 calories, so boys and girls I do believe there's a doughnut waiting for me in my immediate future.

Penultimate Period of Playtime Pending a Post Portraying Participatory Phenomena

2011-01-02T20:22:00.001-07:00

As you can see, the snow makes for outdoor training difficult
Damn, tomorrow signals the end of my Christmas Break. Been eating like it's going out of style but have been cancelling out the consistent intake of kilocalories by running, skiing, and riding the rollers episodically.

Been thinking about how my 2011 cycling season's gonna pan out. My modus operandi has been doing the early season, spring races (not the big ones) until Colorado's snow has melted in the high country and the WinterPark XC/Downhill series begins. Can't do the early, long distance races--the 80 mile plus road races--due to not having enough early season endurance in the legs yet and I can talk myself out of doing criteriums. Here's how I accomplish that (blowing off criteriums): It takes about an hour for me to get to Denver from where I live--one way--and my events are an hour long. So I say to myself, Self? You are in the car twice as long as the race is, and, the cost of gas (to get to the event) is less than or equal to the entrance fee. Now that's some rationale. It depends on how my Winter training (I said training) comes through. What I normally do is I get myself into some early season crits and see where my fitness falls into the pecking order of the peloton (which is usually at the far left of the bell curve), then maybe I'll commit to more races. Racing towards fitness. If my fitness sucks, the weekends are reserved for constructive workouts (or just piling in a bunch of miles with some intensity thrown in) and group rides. I wanna do the Battle the Bear (Creek) 50 mile XC race in April. That's a good one to fire up the system.

I have mental encumbrances planning out roller workouts during the work week too. Two hours of commuting, and another hour workout? Don't have enough hours in the day to ensure I spend time with the kids doing homework or even planning out my days' next lesson. The punkins are getting older so maybe, once they're more independent, I can ferret out some actual training that involves group rides. Training solo has its advantages. Mainly don't have to wait for the rest of my party to show up; but, my perceived exertion may or may not trick me into thinking my intensity's hard enough (no peer present to compare it to). I have no idea how hard to go to make the break if I'm flying solo. Don't have any machinery that displays watts just m.p.h. and my reptilian brainstem says, Dang Mikey you sho is going hard and shtuff. Don't you think you need a rest? Need a group ride to suss out my fitness and any resulting improvement thereafter.

Yes, you read it right -7°F currently and if you look at the bottom it dropped all the way to -13°F that night before!
Here's what I have done this week: two roller workouts ever since wind currents from the Arctic nether regions visited us lately. This translated into frigid temps even with the sun overhead. Talking about single digit temps. Coupled with my 3 mile jaunts on the dreadmill (treadmill) hopefully this is making the fire of metabolism burn with a wee bit more intensity. I also finished The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer. Excellent read, highly recommend it (see sidebar).

My roller workouts consist of doing alternating, minute-two minute-three minute-four minute-five minute (then reverse) periods of big ring spinning over 25 mph with the same amount of time recovering. I try to do this for an hour. One hour on the rollers is like my real time version of Sisyphus. It is singularly the most mentally painful thing I endure. I don't put any cheater railings to help stay gyroscopically afloat neither. Here's how I mount my steed: I put my dominant (foot) pedal at the 12 o'clock then I push down and get the other foot clicked in and I'm off! How am i going to train for road racing and attempt a half marathon come June? I better get off my arse and do some planning or hire a coach (or I can save the money and buy boutique beers!).

To break things up mentally, I try and get a new max speed without falling off the rollers. I slap the chain on the 53X12 and spin it like a fiend! Can't seem to break 50 mph.

My friend Chip, back-in-the-day when we were teammates in Texas, had a team roller workout at the shop that sponsored us and we were going for top speed, roller records and he beat me by 2 mph: 57 mph. He promptly fell off the bike and put a big rug burn on the sales floor carpet and the head mechanic was pissed because he had to clean it up.

Just got back from skiing with my girls again! They/we all did an ungroomed bowl today and attempted moguls. I got a kind comment from another male skier when he saw me towing my middle daughter (via my ski pole) up a hill using my mad XC skiing skate skills (albeit alpine skis). He said you're a good father! I replied I'm trying to get 'em hooked [on skiing]. The moguls kinda killed 'em but boy did we have a blast today! Work starts up tomorrow. NOT looking forward to that...

Skiing With My Girls!

2010-12-24T07:08:00.001-07:00

Wow. Spent the entire day skiing with my girls at Winter Park. First time the young 'uns didn't do lessons; instead we skied the whole day with them. Awesome. It was slow going at first but once they got used to the speed underneath their skis (and their snowplows) it was time to venture onto some new terrain.

The Mountain was absolutely righteous. We got there at nine and left around 3:30. Skied the entire day with nary a break for lunch. The girls were troopers. They never complained about being cold; only brought it to our attention when they were hungry. The weather was forecasted to be snowy and cold, rather it was a smidge overcast with blue skies always just beyond the horizon. The lines at the lifts were non-existent and it seemed like whatever run we chose it was just the four of us and our random fall lines. Amazing. Nothing more satisfying than skiing right next to your honey/children.

Melissa's new skis are treating her right. Her turns are looking even more fluid and connected. Only one fixable problem with her boots: we have to slightly elevate her heels.

While they ate at the top of the mountain restaurant for lunch, I fired off two runs down to the bottom. Fast and no lines. Perfect. Met 'em back at the top and away we go again to finish the rest of the day skiing.

At the end of the day, we carted all our stuff in a wagon (no poles yet for the kids) and made our way back to the parking lot via the Village for hot chocolates.

They did their first blue runs today too. Albeit snowplow action, they did do turns. Keeping my mouth shut for now about their technique but next time I'm going to have to show them form (that's how I started too).

Melissa made a quick dinner and we (Melissa and I) celebrated our Team M skiing event by rinsing down our dinner with some celebratory, silky smoof Gulden Draak (Golden Dragon) Ale (Trippel).

Back at home, there're just more boot liners to dry out next to the fire. Team skiing. Ah yeauh kids.

Next time: moguls!

Cycling can take a back seat if I'm skiing y'all...

Fitt'na Bust a ski-move

2010-12-22T08:32:00.001-07:00

This is from Team M visiting Hudson Garden's Xmas Tree Lights Event.

One of the geographical advantages of living in the boonies (aka the Front Range Foothills) is being close to the I-70 corridor ski areas (as well as super awesome terrain for cycling once the snow goes away). Tomorrow we're taking the two oldest kiddoes for a day up at WinterPark. It'll be our inaugural outing and it's going to be a cloudy, snowy day. Gotsta ensure I find all the kiddoes's gloves, helmets, base layers...etc. so's their first, non-lessoned day hanging with Mom and Dad will be pleasurable and remotely warm. My goal is to get them hooked and their skills up to a proficient level where we can eventually get passes and Team M can tear stuff up at any given mountain (and to not get them to the dork-side which is boarding-yes, I'm biased!). Skiing with novice kids means the selfish part of me won't be able to do ungroomed bowls and moguls going with my hair on fire-same with Melissa. Melissa has new twin tip skis too, and I'm sure she's ready to tear up the mountain but not tomorrow. Tomorrow is hanging with the kids on groomers and facilitating a better technique for them. Tomorrow is making sure out of control mountain riders don't hit my precious's and for them to take occasional warming hut stops. Maura is less reserved skiing whereas Maricel's very cautionary.

I've been daydreaming alot about skiing. I'm dating myself here but remember going roller skating and afterwards your feet still have a pair of phantom roller skates on? My feet have phantom Technica Alu Comp's on and they're paralleling and floating over three-dimensional bumps my brain has projected to the motor neurons attached to my doggies. It's that vivid. Maybe I should cut down on my caffeine (NOT!).

Haven't been able to ride during my break (I'm watching the kids silly!) but I have been doing an inordinate amount of running on our treadmill. Three miles a pop; running less than or equal to a 10-minute pace. Doing this almost daily. There is some translation into cycling. When I fired off a 39 miler (yeah, it was close to 40, but I can't lie) last weekend my legs felt reasonably fresh. It was freezing that day (Winter at 5000 feet). I rode solo with me breaking my own wind (I said breaking wind). Nonetheless my legs felt great! I did the Kenny L. technique of keeping it in the big ring to knock out simulated weight training and fat-burning miles. My take is: running is so abusive to the legs that when you do a non-weight bearing activity like cycling the body's perception is that 'hey, this isn't so bad' therefore keeping the legs fresh longer. Not very scientific but there's your anecdotal evidence with an n of 1 (me!).

Have not done rollers! Okay I did it once and had a slow speed biff. Eventually I'll have to do some interval training on that contraption of consternation. In the meantime, I'ma go skiing, running (hopefully I can get a couple days of cycling in), and luxuriating (reading, napping, listening to music) during my Winter Break.

"Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

2010-12-17T16:36:00.013-07:00

My apologies to Dr. Martin Luther King but I am done entering grades electronically for my students thereby finishing my accountability piece for my lovely district and going on holidaze for two weeks! His statement (R.I.P) is what I cathartically felt once my boy Billy and I went to lunch. What to do, what to do? I'll tell you what I did: Firstly, I bought the new Arcade Fire's The Suburbs. I purchased this fine piece of music from a generous gift card one of my students gave me as a present. How grateful and cool is that? There are 2010 top whatever (pick an integer) lists from reputable journalistic organizations that I take with more than just a grain of salt (I have no time to listen to all this good stuff) and by looking at different lists I try to choose the ones that have overlap. The aforementioned CD was just that. It made the top 10 in different lists. Not quite the wall of sound of Neon Bible packed with their orchestral instrumentation nor as sparse as Funeral (I like this better than Neon Bible actually), but still sonically righteous with some well crafted songs. That's how I'm going to start my celebratory two weeks work-free (committing some luxuriating, mental time to absorb some music audiovisually)! I'm also committed to finish reading The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer. Usually don't read fiction but sweet Melissa loved this book so much I gave it a try and was hooked as well. Seems if I don't finish reading a book/novel on a long-ish break, I feel as if I didn't accomplish it properly and without quality.

Started Friday morning witnessing our stove piping, coming undone, and laying against our living room wall. I only noticed it after I started a fire (we have a very long stove pipe that goes into the ceiling, that's why I thought everything was normal visually) and the smoke started diffusing slowly into the room. Stopped everything put it in arrested development and went down the hill to finish entering grades. Melissa researched where I could purchase some 6" diameter, 24 gauge steel, black stove pipe and told me where to purchase it on our way home. The representative at Ace Hardware was helpful and said I probably saved three to four hundred dollars by getting it done by myself as opposed to the shysters (fireplace repair businesses, meant that in a non-denominational sort-of-way) that work locally here. It was fairly easy just some drilling, screwing, malleting, cutting of metal and eye-balling a straight line (well, four out five ain't bad).

Now, I'm figuring out how to get some riding in in weather above freezing temps. In the meantime, I'm putting in quality treadmill time preparing for a half-marathon that I'm tentatively going to attempt come June in Steamboat Springs; and, trying to figure when the first ski-action of the season's going down. Not bad options actually for the holiday minded. Oh yeauh!!!!

I'm tapping this out listening to Noah And The Whale's The First Days Of Spring-another excellent CD (a burned CD from a colleague-thanks James!). Contemplative stuff, kinda spatially-dark sounding too. The guy's baritoney, amateur-sounding voice adds to the darky aura of the music.

Give these two a listening to. I wouldn't steer y'all wrong.

Ite den y'all I'm off to:
-ride.
-read.
-ski.
-listen.
-converse.
-nap.
-eat.
-hangout with familia.
-fight the battle of the bulge (am I missing anything? probably).

"There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmas time...

2010-12-12T15:00:00.026-07:00

...Mature, responsible grown men wear neckties made of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw egg yolks and cottage cheese in them".
-PJ O'Rourke

Christmas is fast approaching and what that means is my Winter Break's around the corner, the commencing of the smackdown of FINALS are looming for my students, our bank account's mettle's about to be tested, and my bah humbug tolerance is slowly making an appearance (but lo and behold I will hold steadfast and keep it in check).

I have nothing to complain about though. All things considered:
-sweet Melissa and I saw Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds play at the Broomfield Event(s) Center which was fairly (and sonically) remarkable and tonight we're about to see (and listen to) Handel's Messiah.
-La Nina's weather pattern's revealing little to no precipitation in the form of snow, where nowadays we'd kinda be socked in, but it is ski time in the mountains where it has been snowing.
-our Christmas tree looks real purty-like.
-my oldest daughter's enrolled in the Colorado Gems programs which means she can ski for free at certain areas.
-speaking of skiing, sweet Melissa's back into skiing again!
-got my Völkl Karma's de-burred, edged, and waxed.
-got in a mellow 25 miler in the cold with some teammates today...so yeah, my 2010's nicely winding down.

As for cycling and planning for the 2011 season I cannot even muster up the synaptic fortitude to set anything in motion other than keeping my weight at bay (which so far so good--knock on wood--I'm doing ite). Running's kinda messing up my left knee but on the bike it's fine. I'm planning on running a half-marathon with no kind of formal training come June in Steamboat with sweet Melissa who's apparently running like a person possessed. I ran an 8-miler in Dallas with very little training (my training regimen was if I can run three, I can run eight).

Riding with some new teammates today was nice. Haven't ridden the road for a while and it was nice feeling the ground underneath my under-inflated tires. But jeez it was a cold one today. The thermometer belied the fact that the wind chill was about a beeyatch today. In fact, it was warmer where I live (see my blog header) than it was down the hill (Denver, that is; it's what us hill folk call "D"). Skootched my saddle forward just a bit and what a major comfort booster that was. Should try and work on dialing in my stance a bit more I suppose. I only change it when I feel some type of discomfort.

This is one of those apathetic season beginnings where I'm thinking more about skiing than I am about competitive road cycling. Definitely thinking about competitive mountain biking. The quicker I can get on a Cannondale Flash 29er with a Lefty, the more I can feel how my "training's" going to be decided and an injection of enthusiasm can ensue for 2011. Have only done one cross race, that's how unmotivated I am currently but sweet Melissa and I are chomping at the bit to use up our WinterPark 4pass with our kids.

Maxwell Falls in the Snow

2010-11-13T17:00:00.012-07:00

I started ride at this temp (-1° C)with snow falling. Awesome...

The day was past its prime for riding and that mid-day circadian rhythm of narcolepsy was encroaching. We had just finished taking the kids to get their pictures taken for the Christmas paper shuffle aka the perfunctory how-do-you-do, see-how-happy-the-joy-of-Christmas-has-parked-itself-on-our-smiles-as-evidenced-by-the-card-you-are receiving. We did this at the mall. I forgot how bah humbug I truly am during the Christmas season. I just keep that part to myself. It was time to the leave the mall...

Melissa and I got a coffee to kickstart the latter half of the day and so's I could be alert on a snowpacked trail with slippery rocks and tree roots. I picked a fairly technical trail to descent (due to windchill) to keep me honest and I rode back uphill on the road to warm me up.

This was the first part of the descent.

It was excellent. My tires were more grippy than I expected (front: Kenda Blue and rear: Panaracer Fireroad XC with matching red sidewalls) and I had to really concentrate because if I chickened out on a line, it would be difficult to get the flow back. Snow quickly builds up on the cleats when you dab, so I really wanted to cherry pick my fall line. That takes a lot of concentration and uses up a decent amount of kilocalories. The stuff that gave me the chickenskin was when I slid on roots hidden underneath the snow and trying to stay on the uphill parts of the berm. The hikers I passed thought I was crazy but holy mackeral I was in the zone. Super, laser focused on my line and ne'er did I crash (had a couple'a close calls though). I love the way my bike handles with the slightest body english for corrective purposes. It's super sensitive and it whispers to me to take the sickest lines and to always accelerate. It persuades me to go to the dark side. Sometimes I listen to it, but most of the time I attenuate its mental hubris.

for example, my Yeti told me to get to ramming velocity and float over this...

It was cold my feet were numb but everything else, including my willy, was warm to room temp. If my willy or ears go numb, that's a deal breaker. Today was good. Today was better than good actually. The nutty part too is that earlier I ran almost four miles in 40 some odd minutes. My team issue jacket's the $hit too. It was a gift from my teammate and longtime bud, Kenny L. I swear, like in skiing, the day you have is proportional to the equipment that's used (technical clothing included).

I drank a Scotch Ale afterward-a beer made from the Grand Lake Brewing Co. located near Estes Park-and like the Lord said, "it was good."

F.I.N.S...

2010-11-02T17:07:00.025-07:00

I forgot to take it off of sepia...

...is the abbreviation for Fantasy Island North Singletrack (not the Tucson one). Unfortunately this would be my last ride of my Arizona vacation with me brother's family during my October Break. The best, truncated description I can give y'all is that this area seemed tailor made for short-track XC. They had all these spurs/loops of other spurs/loops where the topography was fast, tight singletrack with a plethora of hills interspersed where it seemed like an interval workout. That's my version of fun. Truly, anytime I'm upright with the rubberside down is my version of fun. It turns exponential hanging out with me brah. The climbs weren't too intense except when they were and the twisties were just right enough if you mentally highlighted your trajectory you could maintain or increase your speed through the S-turns. Again though, being centered is crucial because the riders before you bulldoze the scree to the flanks, if your front tire drifts over there you better correct it mighty quick in order to not lose traction and eventually biff it. The highlight of the ride was the climb Lemmy took me on and at the ascent we had these gorgeous 360° views of the desert and the encroaching civilization.

The change of scenery was enough to shift my neurons from teacher, working-stiff phase to mentally curious, I'm-just-a-stranger-here-myself-being-in-awe, vacay phase. The mountain biking's cool because the topography's keeping me honest but seriously? the super mild weather and extremely sunny days had this therapeutic vibe to my vacation. Yeah Phoenix sucks come Summertime but these past couple'a days have been just gorgeous (in a preventive mental and body maintenance sort-of-way too). I guess part of the mental newness too is riding a new bike (see my White Tanks Mountain Regional Park blog entry) where it's just a bit off my normal riding posture (dialed in-ness). Seeing (and riding in) all this vast, open grandeur of the Sonoran desert made me feel grateful. It was as if my brother just let me in some great big, mountain biking secret and the deluxe-ness of it was this picture, postcard climate. It's the terrestrial analog of seeing the stars on a clear night up in the mountains and feeling like an insignificant speck of a sentient being. I can see why nutjobs congregate to the desert because of its spiritual, cleansing properties (especially in the Fall) to channel energy or whatever nutjobs do. It feels like while I'm out in the desert I'm punching through some cosmic ether/fabric as I propel myself forward-especially when my brother and I are standing next to a skinny singletrack on top of a vista looking at all the spaciousness. While overlooking a vista my perception is that I feel some electric, static buildup in my chest proportionate to the elevation and my range of view.

In fact, here's Lemmy on top of Jim's Star Pass ascent.

Kinda reminds me of Taos/Santa Fe 'cept in a much grander (desolate beauty kind of) scheme. Bet the native americans thought this place was special too until the white man shafted them.

One particularly cool view as we were still climbing Jim's Star Pass...

A funny thing happened on the way back to (the) Westar Elementary School...as we were riding back to Lemmy's Pathfinder it felt as if I was getting a masking tape bikini waxing while I was pedaling. I reached my hands down to that area and my fingers felt it too. As I shifted gears my fingers felt as if I was touching ice! My brother started laughing and said, "Low hanging powerlines. I'm guessing you're getting shocked?" Damn! Ain't that about a bitch? My saddle rails were shocking my bidness. Using my rolling inertia, I stood on my pedals and kept my hands strictly on my (brother's bike's) handlebars while I rolled past the shock-zone. Funky, fresh. Never had that experience. Rode my mountain bike over a waterfall once in Austin, TX while my friends treaded water downstream to catch my bike. It just floated upside down (due to the air in the tires), pretty much stationary. Hmmm.

Here're the pertinent GPS data for y'all data hounds.
Countour

About one thousand feet of climbing taking us 13 miles.

Thoroughly enjoyed myself. Can't sing enough praises in my brother's (family's) name on this vacation go 'round. Work, you suck. Family, I missed y'all; and Mr. Bicycle inventor, thank you and you are a rockstar...

Alas, my vacation comes to an end, punctuated by my last ride in Arizona.

Trail 18

2010-10-27T19:44:00.046-07:00

Here are the Estrella Mountains (courtesy me camera savvy bro-Lemmy). Estrella means estrella in Spanish by the way (okay it means star-a gaseous ball of luminescence due to fusion reactions).

Trail 18 is located in an exclusive housing area that's feeling the sting of the recession when Phoenix's housing bubble burst ugly. Trail 18 starts on housing plot number 18 and was cut by the developers. It begins on private land but criss-crosses regional park territory. The park's area was mellow, the privately cut stuff wasn't technical per se but it was narrow. Narrow meaning, if your front tire broke traction because you're not centered on the trail and you hit the flanking scree, chances are you're falling off a cliff or face a rather steep drop-off with cacti breaking your fall.

Again, the weather was gorgeous with just a hint of broody clouds swelling off into the distance. I think the high was just in the seventies with a balmy breeze hooking us up.

We parked at a local Elementary School and it's a nice warmup on the road before we hit the serpentine singletrack starting in the hoidy-toidy neighborhood. It began with a mellow, fireroady climb and as it continued we crossed these really fast, erosion indented (dry) creek crossings. It was the Arizona version of whoop-de-doos. The serpentine single track with these indentations/erosion gullies punctuating it every so often added to the all body flow. You have to push down on the bike (I'm sure with the head bob too) to facilitate the flow when entering and (pulling up with arms and legs) exiting these gullies at tempo. Just had to make sure your exit speed and trajectory was adjusted to avoid the Jumping cholla cacti and Saguaros that were near the apices. The Jumping cholla spine has evil, microscopic barbs that ensure an easy entry in the skin and a major, pain(ful) endeavor for removal.

Pretty sure the trail cutters did this on purpose. I lean out my inside knee as a counter balancing act cruising through the apex (I'm pretty sure I picked that habit watching Grand Prix motorcycle racing and bicycle road racing). I reeled in my outrigger leg in fear of an inside leg full o'spines.

Here's Lemmy leading before the first major climbing...

The singletrack seems more rocky than the last ride. As riders push through, a pile of scree accumulates on either side of the already narrow singletrack. This makes centering particularly important, especially on climbs. A particularly cool section of singletrack was this narrow ascent leading to a ridgeline trail that contained a scenic outcropping of rocks where I photo-geeked away. Our exact location was pretty damn scenic and humbly satisfying. To give you the depth and perspective (and fun of climbing factor) of the trail-cutting endeavor/placement these people created, here's the brunt of the climb and the switchbackiness of it with Lemmy climbing.

Cruising through on our way to the second climb...

The last bit of the ride was Lemmy putting the finishing touches a la gunning it for the imaginary finish line while I was drafting as close as I could. I know when Lemmy begins to wind it up because he gets into his hunker down, reducing frontal area stance for lower wind resistance. We passed a facility that looked like civil liberties were not high on its priority--just me eyeballing it and mentally classifying it--and I asked Lemmy, "Is that a prison?" He laughed and replied, "No, it's the High School."
"Same diff, I suppose."

With the sun shining brightly overhead now and the majority of the cloud cover burned away it turned out to be another gorgeous Arizona Fall day with bluebird skies and an oh so gentle breeze giving us a smidge of evaporative cooling. As we cool down our pistons back to Lemmy's Pathfinder via paved roads, I ride no-handed because that's how I roll beetches...

When it was all said and done 16.36 miles (26 km) and 1,568' (478 m) of climbing. The climbing's not terribly steep and whenever I can I try and make the climbs a power workout by keeping it in the middle ring and staying seated. This riding in the desert with my older brother is good for my soul and my inner child fo' sho'.
The profile's are courtesy of me brah too...

Contour-action beetches...

...aerial view...

White Tank Mountain Regional Park: Maricopa County, Arizona

2010-10-23T18:48:00.050-07:00

Finished reading "The Book Thief" by Zusak this morning because work has completely screwed up my college circadian rhythm of sleeping 'til whenever. My sleeping 'til whenever has been replaced by sleeping 'til 6:00 a.m. While I was waiting for my brother's family to wake up (I'm visiting him on my October break), I laid in bed finishing this amazing novel. Its genre is young adult lit but really y'all, anybody who likes reading--independent of age--will be humbled, grief stricken, and happy for the protagonist as revealed by the narrator: death. Turn off your T.V. (unless you're watching old TdF DVDs) and return to some old fashioned story telling/reading. Zusak paints quite a picture with his words and his characters are believable. Time for some non-fiction to balance it out...

On another note, I'm riding with me brah-Lemmy-in Goodyear, Arizona. The weather's simply amazing and it's always a treat hanging out with my nephews and sister in-law. I'm missing my chilluns too but it's nice being with my older brother; and, my October break officially begins kids.

Went to White Tank Mountain Regional Park today (aka "White Tanks"). The first section we did was the "competitive track". But first, let me introduce you to my brother's fine racing steeds (c'mon neighbor!): the Moots Rigor Mootis.
I see why people rave about it as the hardtail standard. As compared to the aluminum Yeti I race, the Moots is not quite as lively (but I think that's the nature of this Ti blend, plus I ride a small whereas Lemmy's rig's a medium-I may have to switch to medium for my next bike) but it's just as responsive in the steering and pedaling department. Furthermore, the Moots takes the edge out of hitting babyheads or small, nutty terrain anomolies leaving my tetrapod body plan less abused when going greater than or equal to tempo pedaling in the saddle for 2+ hours. Aesthetically speaking, the satin finished Ti with the classic triple triangle hardtail's a giver of woodies. His dual boinger's a Titus (made in the current, lovely state I'm visiting). This too--the Motolite--is the 26" version of XC race-worthiness.

Here's the steed my brother was gracious enough to loan me...

The competitive track was pretty fun, the Arizona race scene is starting up because the summer's are too hot to begin the bike season then. There were some folks out there going fast getting ready for an XC event next week but me an Lemmy took it at tempo.
Here's Lemmy diggin' in on a quicky climb...

Pretty fun, a lot of loose rocks on sand on top of red clay-ey stuff. Really fast singletrack, not a whole lot of climbing nor is it too twisty either. You can't really lean into the corners like you can on hardpack soil so that was one body englishing idiosyncrasy I had to adjust for while out here rolling in the desert.

The next trail we did was the Waddell trail but we gave up once it went hike-a-bike.
Here's Lemmy and me at the same spot...

Here's the profile...

Here's the contoured version...

'twas a good preview of the trails to come...!

Stuff I Saw Whilst Cycling and other Non-Sequitors on the 16th of October

2010-10-16T20:41:00.085-07:00

Last Friday, due to a change of plans I was able to go for a spur-of-the-moment ride with a one member of the homey trinity-Hez Chilly. We started at his place and I felt like a fifth wheel because originally it was a ride date with his son. We rode in a subdivision called "Highlands Ranch" and it was a visually beautiful ride. The sun was about to go down, the weather was cool turning crisp and most of the plants' photosynthetic machinery started to wind down giving way to non-green organic, muted colors. Very pretty.

20.5 miles later after chit-chatting up a storm we're back at Billy's with goofy grins on our faces. A most excellent way to end the protracted work week! Hit 47.5 miles an hour (76.55 km/h) on a descent where I attacked on the ascent part but Billy shut it down and crested the apex before me. Noice.

Saturday's soccer day and we did split duty. I watched Maricel's team win 1-0 and saw her depart with her teammates for a slumber party. Great girls, all class acts. Very polite, smart and athletic to boot. Hopefully they won't fall for a loser guy. I'm a guy (hopefully not a loser although some would beg to differ) and I'm a high school teacher. I've seen my fair share of loser boys (thankfully that is a very, very small number) who hopefully will not grow up to be loser adults. There is however a high correlation between loser kids and their loser parents.
Going up Pleasant Park...

After she left and cleaning house for a bit I took off on my standard, Pleasant Park/Highgrade/285 climbing loop. By now, the weather up here at 8k's (2438 m) pretty crisp; you add some wind and it gets mighty crispy if you don't have the gear. I wore a base layer with leg and arm warmers. Frigid on the descent and near perfect for climbing. My goal was to go in the highest gear possible for near maximum chill effect. The views I normally take for granted-that if you took the time to suss it- would be pretty damn amazing and waaaaay aesthetically pleasing to the nature lover who also happens to be wearing an inordinate amount of lycra/fleece-lined spandex while riding a carbon fiber racing bike.

The brewing up of La Niña seems to have our part of the world just a wee bit drier than what I normally would've expected; or, it could be due to global climate change (if you think climate change is not scientifically supported log off now and go back to your village because they're missing an idiot). Chill mode takes the race-mentality of trying to pass people I see up the the road and forces me to work on technique. For example, pedaling in circles, syncing the breathing with the cadence, finding the sweet spot on my saddle for my sensitive man areas (I ride with Chamois cream), not death gripping the bars, belly breathing, belching super loud (I look like a snake yawning) and giggling (from said belch), expunging high-velocity Texas hankies/liquid shrapnel from my nares from this malingering head cold, standing and rocking the bike in ways i hit other parts of my leg muscles...all that I take into consideration whenst going chilly-chill. It was a singularly, splendiferous day in the high country.
One more switchback to Highgrade

Here's my dirt driveway; home...

Afterwards I took me doggies for a 30 minute walk in our favorite hiking spot: Flying J. The coincidence was when my iPod was on shuffle, it played a track from one of the most awesome pet/dog books of all time: Where the Red Fern Grows.
********BOOK AND MOVIE SPOILER ALERT******
The randomly played track was when Big Dan had already died and Little Anne (they worked in tandem saving the author's life) was dying of a broken heart (Big Dan was her brother) and didn't want to eat and was simultaneously starving to death. She eventually crawled her way (her back legs weren't working at this point of her suffering) to where the author-Wilson Rawls-buried Big Dan. This is where Little Anne chose her final resting spot. My eyes got all misty re-hearing this. A real tear jerker I'm telling you and this novel was based on his earlier years living out East in the boonies. We heard it on our way back from Cape Cod this past summer and all the adults in the 4runner cried too. Team M is very sensitive. My oldest daughter cried during the part of another excellent, animated movie The Iron Giant when the giant sacrificed itself for the sake of his friends.

Next week I have a week off for October Break. I'm going to see my older brother in Phoenix, AZ. He too is a mountain biker (imagine that!) and we're going to tear some $hit up hopefully. A minimum of three hour cycling days (every day) out in the surreal landscape of the high desert including saguaros, creosote, mesquite and palo verde trees along with the random Gila monster should be of some relaxing, carbon blowing, catching up, worthwhile fun while hanging with me bro!

Been listening to a lot of Pearl Jam lately too. Coincidentally it's what I listened to as a first year teacher back in Plano, TX. Seems like I'm a first year teacher again energetically speaking with this mentally rotten anchor called the (unpaid) sixth class. Maybe I can make a movie spoof of the Sixth Sense called the Sixth Class? In this movie too the protagonist will also see dead people-they'll be the teachers (or the students?).

My Sweet Melissa secured for us two tickets to see Dave Matthews/Tim Reynolds acoustic concert gig in a 6,800 person venue. Man, how amazing's that show going to be?! Talented, talented musicians.

Friday night ride(s) with the Homey Trinity

2010-09-18T08:18:00.007-07:00

Last night was night riding night. Hez-chilly, Kev, and I--aka the Homey Trinity--rode last night. We were all sporting our lighting systems. Night riding is an whole body exercise in proprioceptive, self-control. What you take for granted day riding is what you need to be extra careful for at night. Scanning is of the utmost, not just of what's ahead but the hidden obstacles out of the range of the lights at the ground level. The cool thing is when your visual senses are on high alert, the watts applied to the legs via the neuro-muscular systems seem to go on autopilot. It's like powder skiing sort of-you see the contours of the snow ahead but your feet are currently submerged in the snow out-of-sight. Day riding gives you a commanding view what's coming up because everything-including peripheral vision is illuminated; night riding has a distinct cut-off created by my handlebar mounted L.E.D. system that creates a distinct visual boundary (e.g. the distinct cut-off H.I.D. car headlamps create at night-especially on curves). The ski adage: don't look that way or else you will (go that way-i.e. don't look at cliff boundaries) is especially fitting for night, mountain bike riding. Due to the dry conditions the boundaries of the trail (i.e. the sharp cutoff before you go careening down the mountain) are sketchy and super dusty. There was a couple of times I eyeballed the loose stuff on the edge of the singletrack too long and sho 'nuff my nearly bald front tire broke traction and I was heading down a slippery slope. I had to physically bunny-hop (or shift my whole weight via body english, gran mal-style) my bike back on the singletrack so I wouldn't biff it at low speeds.

When it was over it was very, very satisfying. 2.25 hours of pretty solid riding, probably 1200' feet of climbing? The weather was excellent and seeing the surrounding areas all lit up with a 360 degree panorama at the apex was surreal. The quarter-mile drag strips at Bandimere was lit up, as well as the motocross track made it seem as if we were overlooking a miniature train track setup. We all concurred that living in Colorado is a damn, beautiful thing!

Way Into the Off-Season

2010-09-12T16:56:00.030-07:00

Yeah, we live nearby

Cycling is a priority but not quite as high up on the list as my daughters' soccer commitments. This weekend was in the Springs and thankfully not in Pueblo. Being in the Springs means that we can hangout with Melissa's Uncle and our cousins-which is always fun. For starters we got to see my cousin's-Casey-touring skills at the Olympic Training Center. He is one of the tour guides there. We hooked up with him for his 1:00 tour. When it was over we-including the rest of his tour group-all clapped for him. When we were leaving his Mom, Melissa's Aunt, said, "we love you!" in front of the tour group. It was too funny. Great tour; great presence from Casey.

Maura's team lost 4-2; but the cool thing was my daughter scored their two goals. Maricel's team lost as well but they're starting to gel-especially on defense. The weather was absolutely gorgeous both days. Fall in Colorado's absolutely stunning and super pleasant/mild. The rest of the Green family met us at Maricel's game; afterwards we hungout one last time at their house (in a cool neighborhood), said our farewells and headed back home.

Sunday, Melissa ran the Neder-Nederland 10K and when she came home I did the Highway 73 to S. Brook Forest to Shadow Mountain back to 285. Another absolutely gorgeous pre-Fall Sunday. Climbed about 2000 feet (609m) in 30 miles in 1h and 47 mins. 32 minutes of descending and an hour and 17 minutes of climbing. It was pretty steep in some places where I had to stand. Wasn't used to that since mentally I've been in the off-season for quite some time-even have hair back on my legs! The weather wasn't even 70° F (20°C)! Absolutely gorgeous.
Here's 285 heading North as seen from our flyover...

Highway 73 connects Conifer to Evergreen, a pretty popular route on the weekends

On the downhills you can go as fast as the cars; on the switchbacks you can go faster.
Here's S Brook Forest, part of it goes through a National Forest.

Climbing, climbing, and more climbing

At 9,000 feet (2743m) the Aspens are starting to change.

On the last big downhill, I got behind a delivery truck and drafted him back to Shadow Mountain. He lost me on the flats where I couldn't maintain his speed. My max speed was...

(or 81 kph)
Here's Shadow Mountain

Not too bad. I definitely have no endurance but it is after all the off-season. Thinking about doing cyclocross though. It's less than an hour for my category.
Great way to start the week (ending for some countries): my Texas won (and consequently I won a wager) and we hungout as a family watching my daughters play soccer-and did I mention it's pre-Fall weather in Colorado?

Labor Day

2010-09-04T22:21:00.018-07:00

A slight change in plans. Instead of going with Team M to WinterPark the boys are homebound watching the house and dogs and doing Father and Son things. The weather couldn't be any more beautiful. Mornings being in the high 30's, how refreshing is that (it's pretty damn chilly if you're not up for it)? Pretty durn refreshing. The girls left yesterday so it's the Moose and me hanging out for the Labor Day weekend extravaganza of prosaicness and outliers.

We hit Flying J ranch. The scenery here at 8,000 feet plus is just nothing to take for granted (even though I do see this park almost every other day). First up was to take the doggies out for a walk. The singletrack here is beneath a canopy of thickly settled lodgepole pines so even in the middle of the day there is still plenty of shade with just some spots exposed. I let the dogs sniff away as we roll. I'm sure it's such a luxury for them with their otherwordly olfactory system to sniff at leisure at all the wild stuff Flying J has to offer. They're hyper from the gun but once we settle into a rhythm they kinda just walk side-by-side on the single track with Mason and me talking up a storm as much as a 5 year-old can contribute (come to think of it, my conversational skills are kinda lacking too). As we hike, some young kid on a skateboarding helmet riding with his Dad biffed it on some loose sand on the apex of a downhill turn. Nothing spectacular but I asked if he was okay and he was. I commented to the Moose on when we get back we should ride here being that the singletrack is so mild (except for said kid), topographically speaking, I kind of talked up doing a mountain bike ride for Mason. He seemed interested and once we got back to the house, we ate, I loaded the Moose's bike in my truck, and I wore my trailrunners (I would be his human outrigger just in case).

The first part's a loose downhill so I ran right next to him to make sure his front tire wouldn't wash nor his rear tire would slide past. So far so good and I'm pushing his shoulders up the climb as I run alongside him. That's pretty much the M.O. On the flat stuff he takes off. I'm imagining he's digging the way the wind feels against his face and hair and the occasional whiff of pine sap. He's instinctively avoiding the conspicuous obstacles (except when he doesn't). Every time we pass hikers going the opposite direction one if not all always holler words of encouragement to my five year-old mountain biking prodigy (he's my son afterall...). Next comes the cut-off to the shortcut. I shouldn't ask, but I do, and of course he takes me up on it. He could've done the full loop but I didn't want his first time off-road to be a chore. Next time, I say, we do the longcut instead of the shortcut okay? Like a good Moose, he always says okay Dad. Afterwards it's a caramel shake, a limeaid, and some artery clogging onion rings at the local Sonic for rewarding such a trooper. Never complained and came close to crashing several times in the loosey-goosey stuff (and that was just me!).

For our evening's entertainment we watch Toy Story 3 at the discount movie theatre. The Last Airbender was playing too but everybody and their brother gave that movie a pretty crappy review (even though I dig M. Night Shamalan).

So far so good Labor Day. I'm avoiding grading so far but eventually I'll do it (yuck!).

Monday. How many more times can one go to Flying J? Well if the one is us, another time! Took the doggies again since I feel so guilty for not taking 'em out during the work week.

A cold front's settling in as a forest fire begins out in Fourmile canyon in Boulder. Hopefully this brief front'll retard the growth of the fire.
It was another absolutely gorgeous day here in Paradise. In the mornings I'm starting to feel the bite of Fall. Speaking of mornings, when Mason and I were eating biscuits and (vegetarian) gravy as I was reading about Dublin in the NYTimes Travel Section, sweet Melissa told me about her singletrack soiree out in WinterPark. She's getting back into mountain biking (that's always a good sign!). Then old man Winter'll visit us. Not looking forward to that. In fact, I'm helping out Grandpa and Scotty for our potential cords this Winter.

Started to grade this evening. Work's reality has inopportuned itself on my vacation minded self.

Reason 342: Living in Colorado...

2010-08-29T16:47:00.023-07:00

...would you rather wake up to this

or some sidewalk cafe on your second espresso reading the newspaper Sunday morning? Okay, both are fine actually but I chose the former this morning. Hez-Billy my colleague and general homeslice got me addicted to the Mayhem Gulch + full loop out at this wonderful trailhead/open space called Centennial Cone. Been a while since I've posted anything blog worthy. Work and being a Dad's pretty hardcore time wise; but like anything else it's balance Daniel-san.

The ride was great! Been running nowadays though. Shifting disciplines. Running's a highly concentrated form of pain that physiologically for me equals hours on a bike. Getting ready to run a 10k at altitude. Gotta get my running gait on! Gotta stay busy so when ski season rolls around I'll be doing my imitation of an Asian Johnny Moseley (minus the dinner roll and Olympic caliber mogul runs). I rode with my iPod. There's nothing like riding something as picturesque as Centennial Cone at 8:00 in the morning and the weather's barely 60°F (16°C) and when you hit (shuffle) play and the first song on the batter's deck's the Who's 5:15 (I love it when Roger Daltrey sings, Quiet stormwater, M-m-my generation). Audio-visual Christmas! I am fired up and climb Mayhem Gulch in the middle ring standing whenever the ups get a tad busy. It starts at 6500' (1981 m) and tops out at 7560' (2304 m) but in between there's a lot of sawtooth climbing (and descending) so you probably climb 1500' (457 m) or so whenever everything's said and done. Here's the parking lot from my perspective after being inspired by the Who. That's Clear Creek running parallel to the road. Back in the day, people used to pan for gold down thar.

I'm getting nearer the the top. Nobody out on the trail 'cept me singing my arse off not giving a crappizzle about people hearing (like I said, ain't nobody out here).

Part of the singletrack skirts the rim/cone of centennial park.

It's simple: stay towards the mountain...

The day before, Team M went down to Pueblo for my daughter's soccer game. It was 99° F in the shade! Thank goodness for altitude and beautiful Colorado Sundays.

Brian Greene's a proponent of the multiverse theory and for me it's a reality. Working's a reality (I'd rather not do it honestly but it keeps me honest and accustomed to a certain quality of living), being a bike racer's a reality (although my arse gets handed to me come race day), being a hillbilly's a reality (preparing firewood for winter and a certain proficiency in snow removal in Winter's at 9000 feet), being a parent and husband's another reality too. What I'm trying to say is my multiverse theory's a reality for me, each needing my collection of sub-atomic particles arranged in physical, chemical laws to react producing a reality that calls for attention (albeit being a father and husband has to take precedence over bike riding but my sweet Melissa might differ from that!). I ride to fulfill that persona in my cycling universe. It's not escapism but a reality. Overall, it's not that bad.

An Old Friend and (road) Miles

2010-07-23T19:41:00.016-07:00

My old friend Rob, a collegiate cycling teammate of mine and long time friend vacationed in Colorado this past week. We used to hang out a bunch back in Austin and the last time we hung out was in Crested Butte around 1998? He's now married to a pretty cool mate and they have a family with two boys living in the Texas Hill Country, not too far from where we went to University. I met up with him in a tiny town called Empire (elevation 8614', 2685 m) down from Berthoud Pass. We were going to ride up Berthoud Pass, elevation 11, 304' (3445 m) into WinterPark (el 9052', 2780 m) and onto Fraser/Tabernash (el. 8574', 2613 m).

The climb up was sunny, a little windy, slightly chilled, but shaping up to be another perfect Colorado day. Sunny and not HOT.
Here we are, up 11,307'. The sign's right next to the PortaPotty and it was sting-keee!

We blasted the downhill and rode up the rears of some cars and Rob was ready to pass 'em down the middle of the two lanes. We hit 50 mph (80 km/h) on the descent to WinterPark. We were near the last of the switchbacks and we big ringed the ride into WinterPark taking turns drafting. We stopped at Rocky Mountain Roastery for an espresso and a pastry. Talked some and finished the goods and we're off to Fraser/Tabernash. We exit off of Fraser and ride some dirt roads to a nearby po-dunky ski area. We pull a return trip once it starts to climb.

Back in WinterPark we stop at the Cheeky Monk to replace our electrolytes for the climb back up Berthoud, down into Empire. Here's our drinks: non-approved per UCI.

Rob hiding the banned substance(s)...

We were buzzing good from greater than or equal to 8% alcohol contents in our drinks. Chit-chatting up a storm and the buzz slowly evaporating as the climb gets interesting. Rob shows his Cat II form on a climb and dispatches me. He waits at the top and we bomb it back to our cars. Not getting too sentimental but it was great seeing and riding with him again. Trying to talk him and his family to move out here...

So far, here's what I have to show for with all this riding. Don't let the funky tan lines fool you, I still need more miles...

Dave Matthews Band and Ithaca

2010-07-14T15:33:00.038-07:00

The day began going up to Cornell University, my sweet Melissa's Law School alma mater. Upstate New York is vastly different from what most people think about when they think of New York. Upstate's very green and hilly, with towns and villages (that's what it said on their speed limit signs-village!), interspersed pretty randomly, connected with super, skinny roads that makes it even more dangerous at night, when it's raining. Thank goodness we had a Garmin GPS that revealed the twisty roads to us because we didn't bring any local maps.

The main campus is built on rolling ground overlooking Cayuga Lake.

This was my first time to visit an Ivy League school and the first department we checked out was the Law School. Cornell's not that huge so all the structures reflect the lower student volume. Very stately Law Library and the classrooms were either small or slightly larger than small. Not the 200+ seating we had in my upper division Biology classes at the University of Texas at Austin.

Excellent academia vibe within the class and all the technology accompanying it. The classrooms still contained greenboards but the projectors and speakers technology for presentations were everywhere. All the classrooms had stately wooden chairs and desks/table rows with outlets for laptops, all standing on plush, dark slate colored carpet. Very earthy colors construction with windows.

The Law Library looked like a scaled-down version of the great hallway in a Harry Potter film. Cavernous with stained glass lamps and windows letting in copious amounts of natural light. The thick, oak doors had dark leather padding on both sides with its perimeters studded in brass tacks.

Here's the hanging judge in the mock trial courtroom...

Walked around the Commons in downtown Ithaca and ate at the Moosewood Restaurant (in fact, we have two cookbooks from this restaurant). This is a vegetarian restaurant sweet Melissa used to frequent as she worked for her JD some 17 years ago. Washed down my meal with a super hoppy concoction from Ithaca Beer Company named CascaZilla.

In the evening we drove 2 hours, one-way out to Bethel, NY to watch the Dave Matthews Band perform along with their Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King band mates (Tim Reynolds-Guitar, Rashawn Ross-Trumpet, and Jeff Coffin-saxes and pennywhistle). Needless to say it was an amazing show. Dave covered a song from another one of my favorite singer/songwriters Daniel Lanois, entitled The Maker. If you've never seen DMB you're missing a super special, audio-visual, talented, jamming treat. We got back home by 2 am driving at night in upstate NY crazy roads. Thank goodness for our Garmin. It was a great conclusion to a great day, hanging out with my sweetie and listening to one of our most favorite bands perform live on vacation nonetheless.

Provincetown, Herring Cove Beach, Race Point Beach, Province Lands Trails

2010-07-06T17:47:00.019-07:00

Deeem boys and girls; it's HOT, 熱,heet, chaud, heiß, καυτός, caldo, 熱い, 뜨거운, quente, горяче, caliente...etc. Get it? Oh man, the East Coast heatwave's in full effect and our Colorado bodies aren't used to it although we're tough like that and after all, we are on vacation. Can you say, "ozone alert?" I knew you could...
So kids it's off to Provincetown! Home of such distinguishing features as Herring Cover Beach, Race Point Beach, and the meandering and rolling hills of Province Lands Trails. Our M.O. of getting off to a late start is consistent and by the time we're off to rent mother in-law's Mongoose mountain bike, the sun is high overhead ready to radiate its powerful ultra-violet rays to our already leathery bodies due to overexposure. Provincetown is a colorful area. It's the Cape Cod version of San Francisco. One of P-town's mottoes are: Welcome to Provincetown: Where Gay Life is Everywhere. I'm not a card carrying member of the NRA, or Focus on the Family, or the Boy Scouts so I'm not homophobic just apathetic mostly. The vibe was cool, your typical beachy, pandering to the tourists kind of gig except in smaller doses.
The first thing on the agenda was to ride the 7 miles, of the steep and rolling Province Lands Trails: dunes, scrub oak, vistas, and the crucible of riding in sweltering heat was too much to pass up, so off we go! Pilgrim's Monument was there but we blew it off for riding and essential beach lounging. Since my five year-old son's riding a singlespeed, I ride next to him and push him on his back up the super steep stuff. This is like my interval workouts back home so I don't mind and like I said, we're tough like that. After many breaks and attempting to find a lighthouse off of Race Point Beach (to no avail), we end up at the overlook at the Ranger station. There was a flourishing forest here but the Pilgrims exhausted the flora (as well as some of the fauna) in order to colonize. So the forest are gone but you can see how the sand dunes provide the foundation.

We're hurting and Team M has just ridden 7 miles of steep, rolling blacktop so we're gonna stick our bodies in the Atlantic Ocean for heat transfering in the form of conduction. That place is Herring Cove. Look how clear the Atlantic is on this beach. The sand is hot and super rough so again it looks like we're walking on a bed of hot coals as we shuttle our bodies to and from the Atlantic from our towels on the beach. The water's pretty righteous feeling against our heat exhausted masses. Here're the kids blasting each other with bucket loads of water during a water fight. After the Pilgrims landed here in Provincetown Harbor they cruised across Cape Cod Bay and settled in Plymouth Rock. On our way out of Provincetown we drove through the colorful, downtown Commercial Street to head back to Chatham.

Providence, RI; Chatham, MA and the Great Island Cape Cod National Seashore in Wellfleet

2010-07-05T20:11:00.062-07:00

For some odd reason I keep calling it Chatham MAINE but we're in Massachusetts! Before we arrived to our rental house in Chatham-which is considered the outer cape- we stopped in Providence, Rhode Island to do the touristy thing (i.e. see the surrounding area of Brown University). Providence, the capital city of Rhode Island, was found(ed?) by a dude named Roger Williams who came over ten years (from England) after the original English settlers/Pilgrims started colonizing/imperializing (sp?) the New World. Once in the New World, the Puritans and he couldn't play nicely and the Puritans wanted him legally deported back to England. He bailed and eventually settled in what is now called Providence. His apt naming was due to its beauty coming only from God's providence. Here is Prospect Park with Roger Williams looking over his city and gesturing to the fine citizens to slow it down. Here's what the statued Mr. Williams oversees everyday...

I'm starting to dig the East Coast geographical offerings and the super-sized history backing up its reputation. We really haven't gotten out of sweet Melissa's 4runner yet to personally suss our surroundings. Speaking of 4runner, we're traveling with six hominds (Team M plus mother in-law), five bikes, travel food and clothes to last us two weeks worth of cycling, hiking, and beach lounging. Here's the faithful rig parked in front of some prime real estate off of Prospect St. located in College Hill formerly Prospect Hill. College Hill is home to University luminaries like Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).

College Hill's what you would consider old school, mansions-on-a-hill, stately East Coast pedigreed moolah. I can see why Mr. Williams considered his settlement rather providential...

I forgot any form of jacket but in hindsight the East Coast was experiencing a rather nasty heat wave but just in case it got cold (never did) we stopped in a Salvation Army clothing store outside of the Cape and bought a royal blue $4 jacket with the stitched letters C-O-S-T-A (on my right pec) and R-I-C-A (on my left pec) for myself.

Once inside our elegant Chatham rental home, we bunked in this. This view's from the front door looking towards the living room...

...and if you climbed that ladder on the right, that was the 1/2 story loft where the chilluns slept...

...and from the living room looking to the kitchen and front entrance.

An observation: there sure are a butt-load of Dunkin' Donuts here! Well Dunkin' Donuts was founded in Massachusetts, hence its ubiquity. All sorts out here, drive-thrus, 24 hours, breakfasts...awesome. Nothing wrong with having doughnuts available to you 24 hours.

For Dinner in Chatham, we ate at an establishment called The Box Office Cafe. Not only can you order some pizza/food named after well-known American movies but you can watch movies inside on the various couches while eating or rent a DVD or two, and in the morning order all manner of foodstuffs to break ones fast. Nobody wanted to go halfsies with me on the Tora! Tora! Tora! pizza whose main ingredients were wasabe and shrimp (doesn't that sound/taste appealing?). We walked on the bike path from our house to this restaurant and noticed how Chatham's flora was abundant and photosynthesizing volumes but its humidity oppressive.

Here's the local beach, within walking distance, we lounged on the 4th, called Ridgevale. It was Africa-hot that day...Chatham is pretty hoidy-toidy if you compare it to other towns out here on the Cape. Yes, it has a merchant filled, quaint, walker friendly downtown but at an area called Shore Road you'll see some upscale, world-class beach front homes and hotels.

The morning after we went for a 7 mile hike at the Great Island Cape Cod National Seashore's trail for the Great Beach Hill, located on Chequesset Neck Road in Wellfleet. We would've hiked to Jeremy's Point but it was submerged due to high tide. The East Coast heat wave was in full swing and we were dying. Of course we can never wake up early enough (to avoid the heat) because our circadian rhythms have switched to vacation mode (i.e. sleeping in)! Nothing like sand reflecting UV rays back at you on the hike. Once we arrived at Great Beach Hill (after passing some salt marshes), we decided to climb the bluff, go the shore, remove our shoes and hike back sans shoes skirting between the Atlantic Ocean and sand (rather than reversing our direction). There was hardly another soul out there for our trek.
Here's the Great Beach Hill on the left...

we hit the return, main trail from this boardwalk...

We rehydrate and fill our tummies with ice cream and candy in the hustling and bustling (downtown of) Wellfleet and head back to Chatham in Cape Cod rush hour traffic.

Reisen (auf)

2010-07-02T05:54:00.006-07:00

Went through 5 states yesterday: Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. It really wasn't any marathon driving or anything but it sounds impressive. 5 states. Traveled only 700 or so miles and took a break at a nice rest area in Iowa. In Nebraska on our way out, stopped at the Capital: Lincoln. There were some people peaceably assembled on the steps. Something about taxes, or gun control, or abortion, the stuff to peaceably assemble. I wanted to say, "Great, but do y'all know where the nearest Starbucks is?"

When we passed through Illinois I saw a sign for the town Normal, it reminded me of a Ben Folds song Effington from his CD Way To Normal.

Pennsylvania we only stopped for gas.

Friday:
Went through Lake Chautauqua and Binghamton, NY. Bunked down in Worcester, MA and change of plans instead of bunking in Boston.

Saturday: Check out Brown University

We're pushing onto Providence if we're lucky by tonight.

WinterPark's XC Super Loop (w/Kenny's Garmin info)

2010-06-26T19:28:00.047-07:00

Our bikes are parked in front of a Starbucks and a vendor selling doughnuts (not pictured) at the village

Took off again with longtime teammate/complicitor Kenny L. to do the the second XC race in the WinterPark series this morning after downing one and one-third buckwheat pancakes and two espressos.
Kenny's Garmin said it was 19.9 mile endeavor and the race description said 1,883' of climbing. A devastating urge to pee didn't wreck my start/stage time today! Nosirree! A shared, cycling idiosyncrasy with Kenny and I is that we find wearing Camelbacks an annoyance in XC events less than 2 hours long. There's nothing more cumbersome than racing with three pounds of water, fabric blocking the back's potential evaporative cooling surfaces on a hot day, and a securing chest strap to keep your breathing restricted and binding your shoulders adding to the onerosity your brain has to deal with on top of racing. For today's contest we carry our pump(s) and food in our jersey pockets with both water bottle cages mounted and full (for me: one, water only; the other, Cliff electrolyte drink); thereby looking less Dromedarian and more tetrapod in spandex. Speaking of which the course was randomly littered with ejected water bottles on the terminal velocity downhill sections.
Unlike road staging events my stomach's not all full of butterflies but a habit I picked up (from road staging) is to count the peeps in my category to distract my mind. There's quite a bit of new bodies today as well as three or four racers I recognize from last week's event. From my rudimentary counting system (with my shoes on) I estimated 40+ bipeds. Ite den. Time to show 'em how Natural Grocers roll (don't get too excited)! The announcer counts us down from 5 seconds...4...3...2...1...BLAM! Up we go, marching the middle chainring, momentarily on the fire road, sharing the same route as last week's hillclimbing event. Ahhh the pain of pushing it at altitude and the not-so-fresh feeling of doing the hillclimb route brings about Déjà vu (why, "Hello dere."). Once we roll onto the singletrack it brings in a case of Jédà vu (a strange feeling that his has never happened before). I pass three other people on the climb to the top of this particular stretch of the course then the screaming, somewhat rooty/rocky downhill begins. I'm at a disadvantage here because four people pass me back on their dual suspension rigs. What I remembered from this course three years ago is that there's a couple of flat, long sections where packs can form and can cruise into the (sometimes vicious) headwinds. If you're solo your screwed. There was a creek crossing before the flats where I fell victim of a classic case of "monkey see, monkey do". The person I was tailgating rammed it through the taller-than-bottom-bracket-height waters and biffed it. I did a copycat biff too and had to bust out my left hand, tripod style to prevent my upper body from getting soaked as well. Nothing like the feeling of ice-cold run-off water from melting snowpack completely soaking your chamois and the contents it's supporting. Mmmm,mmmm good y'all. Woke me up. When that water touched my junk it made me wanna sing The Hills Are Alive (from the Sound of Music-great movie) in falsetto.
Fast forward to the flats and I see our the tailgunners of our lead pack rolling some 100 meters or so ahead of us. So the trio I'm-feeling our sense of urgency to catch 'em-start a rotating paceline. Well until a doofus in our group attacks us disrupting our flow (he'd punch it, get a 10m lead, die in the headwind and sit back in!). After another of his attacks, I motioned to the guy behind me to let doofus extraordinaire go. He built up a 20 meter gap and the picosecond he faded, I punched it with the other guy in tow and we slingshotted past him on the opposite side of the fire road in such a way that he would have to sprint like Djamolidine Abdoujaparov to get in our slipstream. Later beeeyatch. After a while, I noticed my fellow escapee wasn't coming around me anymore to trade leads so--it is a race afterall--I accelerated in a way that it would be uncomfortable for him to half-wheel me in this headwind but also not putting me too far into the red. This allowed me to hopscotch solo to the next group of 4 (a mish-mash of other categories). As we got closer, the remnants of the lead group still dangling in front of us started attacking each other (damn roadies, oh wait, I'm one too!). No one in the lead group could ever break clear and in fact they rolled with even more ferocity once they were done attacking each other. Like my last trio, this group of four (plus me) weren't taking turns up front except for a rider I'll describe as stout, and me. After we traded pulls we simultaneously get the idea that these three are dead weight. At the slightest downhill part of the fireroad, he beats me to the punch, and accelerates after slapping his chain on the large(st chaingring)/small (cogset). I copy his gear ratio but I have to stand on my Times with all my weight to catch his draft. He's rolling Jan Ullrich-like, turbo dieseling, picking up more speed. He and I trade pulls but alas our speeding leaders are out of sight and diving back into the downhill singletrack for the return trip.
The last section has an annoying little climb and I pass people again but at this point I don't care what category they're in as evidenced by their calf markings (S44=sport 44 year-old). Although it does stroke my ego when I pass a young 'un (10+ years younger than me).
I know I'm at least mid-pack in my category. Again in the slamming downhill I get passed by 4 dual boingers (different categories) before the last singletrack to the finish line. This section's pretty rocky and rollercoaster-like and the dualboingers are pedaling where I have to stand and push down on my legs and arms to keep the momentum/inertia flowing, uninterrupted by braking. I dig my hardtail even though it has its limitations...I keep this position because I can't even outsprint anybody because the next guy's 30 seconds ahead. There's no one behind me to ninja past me, no need to sprint to the line. After repeated looks behind me to know it's safe, like a poseur, I zip up my jersey and coast in.
I took 14th out of 49 in mine (no money...again!). I do believe my legs are feeling the signs of aging (negative rationalizing).
Whereas my homey, Kenny he took 4th out of 32 in his category (money...again!). First time this season my glutes actually had some pain (did a buttload of sitting--no pun intended--while climbing).
With all this self-inflicted pain (lower back, triceps, quads/hammies...etc.) from the minimalistic hardtail resulting in endorphin release and quasi self-actualization on a bike, I feel like a cycling ascetic. In Lotus position: "Ommmmmmmmmm....."

Kenny's Garmin updates:
- 18.36 miles (30 km)
- 2,321 ' of climbing (707 m)
- painful

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.-Gandhi (a.k.a the prosaicness of the 24th of June!)

2010-06-24T08:13:00.010-07:00

Not to contradict the great Gandhi but if I had a couple'a mil on hand it might just be the source of my (good) health.

Last night we ate something that didn't agree with our tummies. Fortunately, Melissa, Maricel and I didn't get it but Mason and Maura have a wee bit of an affliction/malaise. Bear with me here...

Supervising a puppy's like supervising an infant or someone who's criminally insane. They always have to be in front of you so you know exactly what's going on (i.e. not eating poop, shredding a newspaper, not excreting the elimination of waste products on the couch or floor or the bed...etc.) During the weekdays, that's usually me so I get up when he barks (be it 3, 4, or 5 a.m.) so they can do their thing outdoors. Two nights ago, our neighbor across the way's dog started to bark at 3 a.m., which got Charlie-our newest Mequi member-fired up. When I let 'em outside (Addy too) I saw what our neighbor's dog was barking at: a mountain lion. Addy wanted to chase so I called her back and physically restrained Charlie (scooped him up) as I held a snow shovel with the other hand to use improvisational-ninja-attack style just in case good kitty goes bad...

What this means, coupled with Maura's on and off again feelings of malaise, is an accumulation of some pretty serious stretches of interrupted sleep. Which, I'm feeling this morning. Although I did get a bit of reprieve this morning because Maricel got up early to supervise the puppy (and I'm--we're all--gonna bust a nap later).

So, this morning it's another beautiful day in Colorado. The temperature's 75°F (24°C), Maricel and I in feeling the effects of interrupted sleep, we still throw the frisbee while we wait for the puppy to extrude some brown, self-serve soft ice cream in the front yard. Maura's on the bed and Mason's up playing with his cars. Very lazy, sunny start to the 24th of June. After Charlie assumes the position, we go inside and it's pancake making/eating time. We're about to go on a holiday so we need to finish up as many perishables in the fridge as possible. First consumable to go? Maple syrup.

So what does the title quote have to do with any of this? I have my health, not all of us are sick, and it's a downright gorgeous, lazy Colorado summer day y'all (AND, we're fixin' to eat some buckwheat pancakes). Take that malaise!

WinterPark Hillclimb Series: Race #1

2010-06-19T16:34:00.047-07:00

The (tiny picture of the) course profile. Starts at 9,000 feet (2743 meters) and ends 11,220 feet (3420 meters) some 5.5 miles later (Kenny's GPS begs to differ).

Teammates L-R, Kenny L, moi, and Ben

Carpooled in the Tundra with old friend/teammate Kenny L. and new friend/teammate Ben to do the inaugural event of the WinterPark mountain biking series. It's a hillclimb and to this day I still wonder why I do hillclimbs? It's painful, it's at altitude, and people cheat by using their cyclocross bikes for this particular event...I guess a race is a race and even though I'm to the left of the bell curve of fitness it satisfies my urge as a competitor.
Ben had no warmup as we got to his staging event with less than 30 minutes before his start. We all dressed quickly and got to his stage. Ben races singlespeed. His steed's a Spot. It's a belt driven, ninja quiet ride. Singlespeeders are kinda hardcore in a non-technical, purist, (non-sexual) masochistic sort-of-way because they race on one gear (not a fixie mind you) on all manner of topography and can put the beat down on some geared riders (for example, I got passed by one). Ben's warmup was when the announcer counted down his elite category to race. Kenny, who races a Gary Fisher Superfly (2.0), started before me and he lined up and took off like a scalded cat when the announcer counted them down. As an interesting sidebar, there were a boat load of Gary Fisher Superfly 100s on the course today (a $6000 ride). Me, on the other hand, had to pee something fierce and missed my stage. They didn't put too much significant time on me because after some labored sprinting (on front fork lockout on my seven year-old Yeti hardtail) I was able to catch the tailgunners in my category in less than 10 or so minutes. That sprinting though put me quickly into oxygen debt at this altitude (9,000 feet) and I had to settle down and get my breathing back. Once my heart descended from my throat, back into my thoracic cavity I slowly started to pick off riders in my group. I was able to hang with a small-ish pack that was right at my ability level, always climbing mind you, and this allowed me to mentally rest and get my heart rate just below cardiac arrest.
Once my immediate pack was starting to fade I went around them and started applying more watts to my pedals. On the last half of the course all manner of other competitors groups were in front of me (the event sponsors mark each competitors' calves with their age and their category so you can eyeball your competition). Passed some expert women, some younger sport riders (I was getting past too by some older sport riders) and it was getting pretty congested. I've done this race before and it seems every time I saw a right hand sweeper I always thought the last kicker of the hill would be right around the corner. So after a couple of anxiety attacks when it never appeared, I mentally chilled and prepared myself to not get gassed at the end.
Once I start hearing the cowbells I know the end is near. People who do this race on cyclocross bikes, I believe, are cheaters. So whenever I saw a cyclocrosser I'd do my darndest to pass them. I passed one at the beginning of the final kick and one passed me. Bummer.
When the three of us regroup near the summit we were yelling at the other competitors to pass people before they finished. We also waited for another one of our teammates, Jeff, to finish. The four of us then went down on some choice singletrack back to the base of WinterPark where we snarfed down some free food and Gatorade-type drinks. Nice touch sponsors.
Anyhoo, with missing my stage, I managed to finish 11th out of 36 hominids. Kenny finished third in his group (money) and Ben 4th but listed as sixth because an event sponsor can't count integers properly (but I won't hold that against them because it's such a great series). My fastest time doing this hillclimb was 45 mins back in 2007 and my slowest was the following year at 49 mins.
Afterwards we ride some of the legendary WinterPark ski area singletrack for some post-racing, cool down action. First time in a long time I've only ridden with riders on hardtails. Kinda cool like that...
Be all you can be... A "Most Difficult" rating

What I have to show for all this riding are a groovy watch tan...

...and a farmer's tan that a true hillbilly would envy!

As concluding evidence to another beautiful Colorado day, I present (to) you my backyard, pre-crepuscule.

Next week's the Point to Point XC event (50% committed). Yikes...

Deep In the Heart O' (North) Tejas

2010-06-08T18:03:00.043-07:00

Sunday
My li'brah Neil arrived at the airport so we head off to Whole Foods for some typical, Mequi barbecuing fare: Watermelon, Portobello mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus), corn, Belgian ale, Shiner Smokehouse beer, Salmon steak, and Prime cut beef (for everybody else, Team M are vegetarians/pescatarians and sheeyat).
Purchased mesquite/charcoal-esque briskets for the grill and got her up to ramming speed and grilled it up like Idi Amin at a daycare. Portobello mushroom burgers were Neil's idea and not only was it gastronomically righteous for a lazy, hot, bright, insouciant Sunday early evening sipping beers while involuntarily basking in ungodly heat but they also contain excellent mycochemicals and antioxidants to boot. I believe most everybody got a some sort of food/beer souvenir on their shirt/blouse while eating.

Monday
Woke up early and fired off a 38 miler, big chainring spin-ride before the kids woke up. Did the tour of Hayseeds: Murphy, Sachse, Parker, Wylie and Princeton in no certain order. Damn the hillbillies that live out here. Back in the day, riding on the frontage road and/or the farm to market (F.M.) was safe but now it's like riding your bike on a NASCAR track filled with dualies and I'm not talking fully suspended mountain bikes either. Once I started losing my nerve as well as my homeostatic thermal regulation, I pulled a you-ee to head back home in the already sweltering humidity. Said, "howdy" to an early morning jogger and she nearly peed her pants. Guess I should've announced myself better but after her initial jolt she replied, "morning" too. Trying to be a good cycling representative whilst flying the Natural Grocer's colors.

Tuesday

Woke up early to do another early morning, easy spin and the cassette body was howling! I was hoping the (ratchet and) pawl mechanism wasn't the cause of the noise making. Initially, I thought it was the frame pump rattling but alas it was the cassette body. Went to my old cycling sponsor in Plano and their mechanic hooked me up for free. The verdict? A loose cassette. Several hours later it was time to stage for the Tuesday Night Dallas Crit Series. 62 people showed up for my event. To warm up, I cycled to the course which was three miles from my Mom and Dad's. The local, summertime south winds were in full effect (gusts up to 25 mph) here in North Texas and I started making mental notes to myself on where to be in the (race) peloton to be sheltered from the head and sidewinds during certain sections of the rectangular course. As our category warms up I experiment with half-wheeling positions either behind them left or right.

I always get a bit anxious when my field stages before the gun goes off. I don't make small talk with racers I don't know and I see my li'brah on the sidelines watching and the spectators starting to line up and I need to mentally shut it down and I stare at my top tube and cycling computer with blinders on.
We're off! and I know it's going to be a long day when I think we're more than halfway done but only fifteen minutes have gone by when I look at my computer. Damn. If I could hang with the pain of the protracted accelerations and fighting for shelter from the head and sidewinds in sauna-like conditions, the attrition would manage the number of competitors. Sure enough, the pace eased a bit after we lost half the pack and I was able to recover for the remainder of the event (and now we were eyeballing each other to see who would have best legs for the final push). Before the numbers dwindled, we were diving four deep into corners going 35 miles an hour with a tailwind assist. Crazy! Like all Cat III racing nobody ever wants to start a second echelon so again I had to queue up top dozen so I could feel the effects of the pack while the last half of our peloton was riding gutters. One lap I mentally slipped and it found me on the tail end of the pack/beginning of gutter row. I was riding the curb so hard that the tall weeds were slapping my shins. I was on the curb part of the concrete where the rain gutters where instead of on the concrete part of the roadway. Now that's being guttered. Again another mental note, insert your a$$ top dozen next time. With four laps remaining a group of 4 got off and nobody chased. At that point I was conserving my energy for the final push. With one remaining we hit the after burners and I lined up seventh in the group when we hit the finish line. Awesome. It pays off to drink two liters of water along with a quality warmup. I felt satisfied with my efforts and my lack of training. I felt like quitting several times during the event along with the building up of anxiety when my thermostat couldn't regulate itself fast enough for my liking due to this nutty, N. Texas weather. Would've felt foolish though had I quit because my little brah was watching and I would've felt more disappointed than he.

In the evening, my brah, Momma, and my daughters went and saw Iron Man 2, Imax version. We all stayed up past 1:30 partying like rock stars but isn't that what vacation's supposed to be for? Yeah, dat's right. Jeez Louise those IMAX theatres are super loud (what?)!

Wednesday
Went and hung out with Plano Schwinn teammate and homeboy of several years in lower Greenville to watch Colin do a solo acoustic gig. It was a nice night listening to Colin play while we drank a pitcher of Shiner Bock, a fermented remnant of my former Austin undergraduate life. We did some catching up/gossiping of our peers and the trajectories life has taken them. Beforehand, my awesome folks bought my chilluns some summer clothes and shoes when we went shopping as a pod. I love my parents. Incidentally, North Texas is home to a whole lot of world class shopping. I tried to rendezvous with some other friends too at Colin's gig but it proved to be fruitless. It was excellent hanging out with Brian and witnessing how successful and seemingly happy he is at this point in his life as a professional and family guy. On the way back he showed me a really cool residential area of Dallas on Historical, Swiss Avenue where the neighborhood was truly a class act. Big trees, representative architectures of varying styles, with a wide tree lined median dividing the streets. Very cool. Very elegant.

Thursday
Did the PBA ride with the temps at 97°F and 76% humidity. I remember last year I was dying in the heat, barely finishing-let alone surviving-with the lead group. This time I hung with the lead group and dished out a serving of $hit-on-your-neighbor on the thinned out pack on the way back to the finish. Great ride in the sweltering heat. All these neighborhoods that sprung up while I was living in Colorado made this ride a protracted, stop sign/stop light interval session. You get a rhythm going, a rotating paceline, some attacks off the front and a splitting of riders only for the flotsam to catch up to y'all when the light turns red. Oh well, intervals are good for the body. The heat just takes me to redline quicker so I need to make sure I can recover-even at racepace-by forcing myself into a group so I can take advantage of the draft and to force myself to decrease my heart rate by concentrating on my breathing and cadence so mentally I can go again should an attack come or to launch one myself on a particularly long, uninterrupted (by stop lights/signs) stretch of road.

Friday

We all road tripped to Austin to get some Longhorn threads and to start my girls early on the way of the U of T. It was a great trip because being in the car that long you converse with everybody. I mean when was the last time you spent six quality hours in one room/cabin with family? That's how we roll: literally and figuratively I guess. In the evening I hung out with my boy Jimmy (and Colin's band's friends) to listen to Colin's electric band. Colin and his fine band busted out their version of "Voodoo Chile" and it was amazing. Colin showed 'em not only can he sing but when needed he'll bust out his axe (a Fender Telecaster) on you! Obzeets-where they played-is an odd combination of restaurant, bar, and furniture dealer that packs it in on a Friday night. Again: cervezas, old and new friends, and rock-n-roll make for a quality Friday night.

Saturday

After our slightly morose goodbyes--I mean we spent quality time with Grandma and Grandpa, my daughters were mostly well behaved, and really it was kicka$$ hanging out with them--we head on back to Colorado. One of the things I find myself doing as I drive back from such a great trip is I have to mentally decompress/debrief by going through a mental rewind of the events of the vacation. This helps me put things into perspective as I mentally insert the appropriately shaped geometric blocks into their cut-out shapes on the tablet. So I guess I need to set the mental mood and this is accomplished by the road tripping music. This and the impending severe thunderstorms surrounding us made for good audio-visual mental decompression.
The music playing on the way back was: M. Ward's Transistor Radio; Ben Fold's University A Capella!; Miles Davis' (a Rudy van Gelder edition) Volume 1; and Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago. What broke the mood momentarily was stopping for a pee break in south Wichita Falls. What an armpit for the N. Texas area (my impression at least)! There was a sign on a decrepit looking house-as we were searching for a gas station-that read (and I'm paraphrasing here), "this is no longer a crack house." No joke. Scary but slightly humorous in a bizarre sort-of-way. We stay in Amarillo at America's Best Value Inn and once we get inside our room we think they should change their name to (Hillbilly) America's Best Facsimile of a Ghetto. Damn, I guess that's the trade-off between price and quality.

Sunday
We're back. It's 40°F, foggy, and raining. It's so cold in fact, that I start a fire for dinner time. Two weather extremes serving as bookends to one excellent vacation. The WinterPark mountain bike series kicks off with a hillclimb next week...

An Hour Off!

2010-05-29T15:15:00.006-07:00

This will be my first 10 hour cycling week if I can get an hour ride in tomorrow. Yea! It seemed like work for sure but there's a reason for it: riding cleanses the soul (and allows a doughnut or two every now and again). Riding for cleansing runs the whole spectrum. For some it's just getting out there and feeling the wind in your hair as you're barreling down a paved bike trail but for the competitive cyclist the cleansing comes in the form of pain. Not the joint pain or the pain of crashing (hell yeah that hurts when you hit the deck!) but the pain the greets you when you enter or go pass your physiological boundaries. Albeit it's fleeting but afterwards it sure is therapeutic. Going LT isn't a hoot, or doing 3 minute intervals either, but when you're done your brain is thanking you. It might be due to the adrenalin release. You need more adrenalin the next time to satiate your reptilian brainstem.

Mixed it up pretty good too. Some mountain biking and road biking this week to avoid the monotony. My knees are diggin' it. Don't know when my next race will be. More than likely it'll be a crit. I used to hate doing them but now it's tolerable. Not very cost effective traveling and paying to do 'em though being that I live in the boonies. Maybe this week I can do a group ride sos I can get my speedwork in and to see how far back my fitness from the bell curve of the pack is.
I also have this malingering headcold. Nothing too disastrous, just a long-ish term low grade symptoms of hacking mucous, annoying cough, and when the body loses its inertia it's like being in absolute zero: nothing vibrates nor moves. The body just wants to become part of the couch or the rocking chair or the bed.

The end of next week, I'm taking my daughters to Texas. I miss my folks so whenever the opportunity is there, I'll take it. Not looking forward to the particularly long and boring drive but eventually I'll get there. It shakes out to 800 miles of unadulterated boosheeyat.

Things that will be cool to do in Texas:
-eating Blueberry Ice cream.
-hanging out with my folks.
-hanging out with me brah and sis in-law.
-visiting Austin (home of me alma mater).
-group road rides.
-listening to my boy Colin perform.
-hanging out with Ruby.
-playing with my daughters.
-hearing a genuine southern accent again.
-watching mindless TV (we don't have cable nor a dish currently in our house).
-taste testing new beers from Whole Foods (ooops, I'm sponsored by Vitamin Cottage).
-hanging out with Jimmy and his familia.
-wearing a big a$$ belt buckle-NOT!
-eating at Que Huong.
-sleeping in.

Things that will not be cool in Texas:
-the heat.
-the heat.
-the heat.
-the heat.
-oh, and did I mention the heat?
-the heat.
-missing the remainder of team M back in Colorado.

Pop Goes the Weasel

2010-05-24T04:30:00.009-07:00

I'm shifting gears and in some pain apparently...

Yesterday was the third in the Front Range Mountain Bike series because the weather finally held and the grounds were dry enough to ride. Wish I could say the same about me. Got a wee bit of a headcold from one of my students on the last day of school and this was my souvenir to start the summer break and number three on the race series.
Right when I become unglued, physiologically I feel it building up like a pot of water about to boil in the tea kettle. It slowly builds to a crescendo then BLAM! I completely come unhinged. Yesterday's race was a bit like that. It was a 50 minute, short track XC event and for some reason not a whole lot of people showed up in any category which is unfortunate because the sponsor who runs the event is good people.
When Eric counts us down and we take off, I'm sitting sixth in the singletrack. Best start so far. The weather's pretty warm and this is my first race where I'm not wearing any leg warmers/arm warmers, booties...etc. I'm starting to bake, when internally I hear the "Pop goes the Weasel" song. It's an English nursery rhyme. I figure good, the race is about over. I look at my watch and only 30 minutes have gone by! Not a good sign.
When verse two of "Pop goes the Weasel" is going through, that's when I Pop! The remainder of my group passes me on the one of the three gruntish climbs on the course. I concentrate to get my bearing back and in the remainder of the course I pass four of 'em back.
Good enough for 12th. My head's about to explode from the race when it's done.
Okay, this outcome is fuel for motivation to get my a$$ back into some form of race fitness (minus the headcold) now that school's over and I can get more than 5 hours in a week as a Colorado bike racer.

Moab!

2010-05-10T18:52:00.036-07:00

Finally did it. After a one (or was it a two?) year hiatus, the homey trinity busts a move to Moab. We left on a Friday night after work and got in 2300h at the Amasa Back overflow camping area. Our goal was three rides in two days.

Even though I brought a camera, I didn't capture the beautiful views of what we woke up to at the Amasa Back Canyons.

Saturday:
Our cheapness decided the type of riding we were to do in the morning. The cashier at Poison Spider bikes said this one particular shuttle was going up to Porcupine for $20 a pop. Damn y'all, that's way too expensive. So we decided to ride our bikes up to the Watertanks that is the landmark beginning of Porcupine Rim. It probably tacked on 10 miles to the 20 miles from Porcupine back to town. Here I am trying to find some Double A batteries from the group that was beginning to ride.The ride up to the trailhead was fat burning pace but it was all uphill so it was taxing even before the "real" climb up to the Porcupine lookout. At the watertanks, there were some young 'uns starting up too and eventually they caught up to us. Testosterone is a bad thing y'all. As soon as they caught up to us it kind of turned into an uphill race. I picked it up a bit and I could hear them behind us. Then it was just me and the young 'uns. They were following my lead and I could hear them not cleaning the obstacles comprising the difficulty of the climb. When I heard the clipless pedal sound of the "unclick" I pushed a little harder on the pedals to open up the gap. I never looked back because that's the Y-chromosome sign of I'm coming unglued so I just persevered and hammered away at the little lead I established. Soon enough the uphill vista's around the bend and I pretty much shot my reserves.

My semimembranosus muscles were starting to catch and that's my telltale sign of Mr. Cramps is just around the corner. At the top we eat and I try and stretch out the backs of my legs.

The downhill's hell on wheels and the spinal cord for owners of hardtails. Yup, that's me. My boys have an Ibis Mojo and a Yeti 575. A Cadillac ride anyway you slice it. I don't mind downhill technical because you can kind of pick your lines through but Porcupine-even on the flats-have some pretty obtuse rock obstacles where you have to pedal through to avoid endo-ing. Porcupine has long, technical downhills and these technical flat spots. After 2.5 hours of this after an hour ride up my 43 year-old self was getting tired! In fact, I had to walk out the cramps that decided to set up camp in all imaginable sites on my lower and upper legs. I was so depleted that the muscles below my calf was even cramping. Nuh-tee.

The lower third was spent following Mr. Clean aka Hez-Chilly aka Billy. Again I had to take a break because I needed to shake out the cramps. There was one point where a bad-ass blasted by us with some major downhilling skill and this inspired Billy to follow with spirit. I couldn't hang on the hardtail flowing through the tight singletrack with the two to three feet ledges/drop-offs and I had to slow it down in order to not lose any teeth or skin and to avoid slamming my spine any more.

They waited for me at the end of ride and it was a nice 8 miles on the road back to the Riverside Inn ($80/night oh yeah!!). This is where my roady muscle memory kicked in and in no time I had a nice, high cadence spin to begin the choo-choo o' mountain bikers back to town. We passed a couple of pacelines of other mountain bikers but we had to be careful on the pass because this road had no shoulder. We tucked ourselves into one group, drafted, rested, and I rolled up to the front to take a pull. Right when I was in pole position a group of 4 roadies passed us in a paceline too. I locked out the front fork, sprinted out of the saddle and tucked myself in behind them with Billy in tow. As we rolled the left hander into town there was a slight increase in pace and since I was riding tailgunner I noticed the gal in front of me was starting to fade. Once the gap was about half a car length I did the roady move, where I half-wheeled accelerated and pushed her back into the draft, where I settled myself once more. Our hotel's in sight and I thank 'em for the draft back to town. This is at the 4.5h mark and I am spent. I didn't parcel my energy for a second ride this afternoon after lunch and the hottub. Great first ride in Moab!

The second ride was either Flat Pass or Moab Rim Trail. We decided the Moab Rim would be closer, with higher climbing intensity but not as long time-wise. We rode out to Amasa Back and the sun was blazing! No wonder my boy's name's Billy because he was billygoating up the climb. Kevin and I were walking the steepness and complaining on how close we were to losing our lunch. Mmmmm, bile. This is the actual trail that started back down by the Colorado River.

Billy says, the ride doesn't get any easier so we decided to bail and it would still add another two hours to our 4.5. Once we're on the road, a sponsored girl mountain biker cruises past us and Billy and Kevin file in behind her. My lateralus' start to cramp and I'm banging them with my fists to stave off the cramps.
I glue onto Billy and he attacks me road-style (this is how we roll as competitive, close friends). Opens up a three car lead and I dig into my reserves to close the gap. It was awesome fun and just what we were looking for for quality miles in Moab. At the CityMarket, I am three sheets in the wind. Billy takes this picture of me as I drift in and out of consciousness while the remaining Homey Trinity purchase our Dinner by the pound. We eat our dinner at the newly erected Moab Rec center and enjoy the shade, the A.D.D.-ness of a local describing the sweet trails, and each others' company while we replace the 3,000 or so kilocalories we combusted earlier.

Sunday: Sovereign Trail

We link up the Sovereign Trail spurs before we head back to Denver. Billy and Kevin are doing their Mr. Clean impression while I'm suffering on the insufferable moon rock formations they have out here. On the return trip we kick it up a notch as an icing on the cake deal for our last cycling hurrah for the weekend. Here's Billy and Kevin bustin' a move...

Oooweee kids, that was fun!

Hillbilly Workout

2010-05-02T10:53:00.024-07:00

It's May and most people in the northern hemisphere think the bulk of snowfall(ing) has stopped and pretty much that's true. Although, up here at 8k'+ (2500m for my metric friends), Old Man Winter's malingering. I call it the protracted-cold-as-hell-part-of-Spring-that-pretty-much-sucks. Down the hill it's nice but up here we still need a reserve of firewood. This time though, I can use the ATV instead of using the Rocky vs. Ivan Drago winter workout to bring up the posts from the bottom of our yard.
Here's my sweety-pie riding figurehead on the ATV.

I probably sectioned and quartered three weeks worth of wood if we don't have to burn through an entire evening. Just enough burning to take the edge off when we get home and the coals will radiate enough heat during our sleepytime. Every now and again (like today), I smack/quarter the thick chunks of wood so hard with the splitting maul it eventually splits the trunk. Oh well, that'll eventually make its way to the firebox too...

Maura, my middle daughter helped me out tremendously. She helped pack and stack the firewood and kindling. She moved three wheelbarrow's worth of firewood to the side of the house. What a great help she was!

No riding today up here, it's hovering around freezing so later it's hello, "Mr. Rollers, could you please make my ding-a-ling go numb (again)? Oh and while you're at it could you please round off my rear tire too? Thank-you..."

After Maura and I stack the wood loot, I treat myself to one of the beers I acquired from the party the day before.

An interesting note about the bottle opener:
when I was stationed in Germany my buds and I road tripped to Munich and the bordering Austria to check out the sights and to continue with our "beers around the world" tour. A souvenir from München was this lovely bottle opener from the Hacker-Pschorr Bräu. I loved Germany. What an experience for an eighteen year-old. The handle is a purple anodized, non-drive side Cook Bros. Racing crankarm, 177 cm length back when racing was my life. Racing on a steel, hardtail mountain bike...

Here she is again proud of her vegetable cutting skills as we're preparing our Vegetable Jambalaya dinner. Notice her Longhorn beanie kids!

A Whole Lot of Nothing Going On

2010-05-01T17:05:00.004-07:00

Friday was funk day. It was the end of a protracted work week (even though I had no students on Wednesday) and when my kids filed in for class the energy level wasn't there. We're getting ready for finals and it's about as much fun as watching paint dry. Our district gives us a standardized test and the week to assess them is coming to a close. So, I'm reviewing and giving them new stuff. Needless to say, I was like the jockey smacking a horse that doesn't want to be in the race. Afterwork we had a going away party for our student teacher and for one of our colleagues who had to be reassigned due to budget cuts in our district. Brought the Paulaner Oktoberfest. It has a great bock(y) taste and a clean finish. It almost reminded me of my own Shiner Bock (brewed in Texas) hill country experiences where I received my undergrad in Austin.

The weather too has been a biscuit. Beautiful all work week but come weekend there's always a chance of snow-if not just flat out snowing-and the wind still makes it feel sub-freezing. That translates to barely any riding. The only hours I got in for this past week was three hours on the roller (not at one time). I think I'm the only one riding rollers indoors on sunny, rideable days. It's boosheet. Oh yeah, I had to change out my leaking, front shock and that was an awfully long, very physical job. That was Sunday. 7 hours of trying to cram a coilover shock in the lower arm with my brother and father in-law. So yeah, no riding, and my students are getting a case of senioritis and our house is in its usual state of turmoil. I might be going through a second round of mid-life crisis. Not enough therapy on the bike makes for a grouchy and non-responsive father, husband, and teacher. Not enough cleansing through self-torture on a climb or duking it out in a pack. Not good.

Fired off a couple of hours this morning though and finished it off with a climb up Highgrade with me trying to politely stick to other riders' wheels that were knocking off a pretty fierce pace. I used to be a good rider but work and fatherhood's currently kicking my ass!

Tomorrow, I'm going to collect some more posts sos I can section and half (or quarter) them with the axe/splitting maul. Our firewood's getting low again. I'll do it early so if it warms up and Melissa can watch the kids I can get another couple hours so I can be pack fodder this year...

My XC short track event has been canceled for tomorrow due to all the precipitation we've been receiving. The sponsors don't want to tear up the grass and give cycling a bad rap. Was looking forward to it. I swear...

Spring Break

2010-04-04T20:38:00.007-07:00

one of the best post-race drinks

One of the perks teachers have is this wonderful invention called Spring Break. This allowed me to do two group rides I normally wouldn't be able to do as father of three who has a 106 mile commute, roundtrip, each day and whose two daughters are involved in weekday soccer practices. I can probably do night rides if I plan it accordingly with my sweet Melissa but usually the hours I log in before my summer break are on weekends (after my daughters' soccer games) and riding rollers either early morn or right when I get home (which sucks either way because the sun's out longer now). I repeat, I got in two group rides and an XC race Saturday.
Tuesday, group ride #1 was in Boulder. On my drive out I was watching the wind play havoc on the trees and knew it was going to be a long day in the saddle. Sho' nuff, at the bus stop ride only a handful of people showed and that meant I can't chill in the back. The gusts made pack riding tricky because it would randomly blow riders off their path starting a ripple effect from that point forward; and mind you we were already in a tight echelon, hiding out from the wind. Before the right-hander into Hygiene (a name of a town for y'all non-Boulderites), one of our elite riders, Dirk Friel, opened a can of whoop ass and starting cranking the pace! He cranked it so much that me, hidden nicely in the pack, was spinning my 53X12 with everything I had and still got dropped. As my heart was beating in my throat I looked down at my cyclecomputer and I attacked backwards at 42 mph. Ouch. From there, I hopscotched it to other broken groups, lastly drafting off of some triathletes then soloed back to north Boulder. Not good for morale but great for my legs. The sputum I've been collecting for the past week from this malingering head cold now finally making its way outwards.
Group ride #2 in Meridian (Meridien?) in Lone Tree with teammate Garth Peters. Deja vu all over again. Small crowd, huuuge winds, freezing, down two laps finished with a group of 4. An even lowered morale, greater for legs, now considering curling as my new sport of choice.
XC race Saturday. Raced with teammates Jeff(s): Leischner and Higham.
L-R: Jeff L, me, Jeff H.

Super windy again. The beginning of race was up a nice, steep hill and how XC races differ from road racing is that it's really a mass start time trialing event. When they let us go, our Natural Grocers trio just made the front pack split and from there, there was little deviation in the pecking order. Jeff Higham passed me and Jeff L. on the first climb and that's how it pretty much stayed. We passed a couple and a couple passed us. Mr. Leischner and I team time trialed it for the remaining 4 laps and we gained no time on anybody and vice-versa until 1h later when it was all over. Click on results to officially witness Jeff H's 7th, mine of 10th, and Jeff L's of 11th. Fun and painful kinda like life itself don't you think? Best surprise of the month was meeting up with a former student of mine who got married and is an official home owner, Matt Dunn, tearing it up off-road and seeing my college roommate and his wife. My former roommate was racing singlespeed. Ouch.

Snow and Racing

2010-03-21T19:52:00.009-07:00

Saturday we woke up to a beautiful scene surrounding our house. Scraped some more snow before the rising temps made it any heavier. Here are some shots...

Here's our driveway...

Sunday's race day. I met Kenny L. at his place in Westminster and we rolled 19 miles to the Niwot to race a crit. We're all sporting our new kits and we actually have 5 people flying the Natural Grocers colors for our event. The sponsors said it was okay to sit on the back-as long as you don't work with them-for a reconnoiter/warm-up for our event. As we were rolling at the back, I noticed that this group was going faster than our group two weeks ago. I was already warmed up from our 19 mile ride to the event and this effort was stressing my legs even though was I was motorpacing off them. Before I peeled off, two people crashed on the straightaway on my left. The guy who crashed had his head down pedaling furiously and ran his front tire into the guy's rear tire who was in front of him. He literally crashed himself out of the race. Oops.

When our event went off it was our goal to have one of us in a lead group and the rest to chase or block. Does it suffice to say I was fighting a head cold all this week (didn't think so)? The first go 'round was Kenny busting a move with another rider to establish a break/lead. He was ready to settle in but his break away companion sat up. While their lead was growing though our other teammate Rich soloed for a bridge while Joel, Rob, and I blocked. Blocking's a difficult job to accomplish if groups of riders surge on either side of the peloton regardless of the leading edge (us) kinda easing off the pace. Joel's a beast blocking when the pack surges and he kinda jams his way to the front, keeps the leaders in sight that waste calories chasing but he doesn't join in the chase. This kinda of eases the anxiety to chase from the the people behind him. When Rich finally caught Kenny for the purpose of making it a two-man Natural Grocer's time trial, the rest of the peloton caught them and it's back to one big group. When the peloton decided to chase Rich and Kenny (even with our attempts to block) it made for one of the fastest lap times for our race. Another group kinda surged and had a gap, this time Rich went and we settled mid to front pack again and nobody in that break wanted to work and we formed one big group again after we caught 'em. For team tactics, you never chase down a teammate that's why it's important to keep your eyes open to see who goes. When I say big group, I'm guessing there were 50 or so of us.
Before the 5 to go sign, there was a flurry of attacks off the front to keep people honest and as soon as we caught like the 3rd or 4th attempt, Kenny busts an inside move before a big right hand sweeper, leans the bike like a moto, and he's off! I see him go and I ride the gutter on the inside to get to the front to block and that effort's cooking my ass. Needless to say, we attempt the block but by this time the peloton's a freight train where passing is almost impossible. You get out in front and the wind'll cook you. Kenny stays off for maybe a third of a lap and the peloton catches him. He eases back and settles in midpack. When it's five to go we surge for three laps hard. On lap four the pace goes up another level; on lap five I'm digging in my 12 and forcing as many watts as possible from my already wasted legs. I mean I'm in my biggest gear, with people surrounding me and I'm working hard to stay in the draft. This last lap effort splinters the group into an hour glass and as we're hammering in the last straight away I see Kenny out of the saddle standing up, not pedaling and I knew he had the worst case scenario of a crit racer-cramping on both legs. I keep my position in the northern end of the hour glass and I see Joel three rows ahead of me, Rob one position ahead of me, and Rich doing an impression of Mario Cipollini advancing towards the finish line. This effort was so intense for my lack of intense legs my hip flexors were even starting to cramp. Ugh! Joel did this race on his 'cross bike even! Look out pack once he gets his road bike back. Pretty honest effort, seems like everybody is like Tantalus, where the grapevine (fitness) is just an arm's length away. Race number two? Done. It was fast and not so furious. In my cold stupor, somewhere in the middle of the race, I remember there was in hole in the space/time continuum and I swear I thought the whole pack was in slow motion. I remember, as my perception, looking around like I was sightseeing, at people's faces to see their physical exertion and scoping out their rides just out of curiosity. It was kinda surreal. It reminded me of a Terry Gilliam scene from Monty Python.

On the way to Kenny's joint, Kenny was gracious enough to wait for my bonked-self. Ouch and thanks I guess.

It's a good way to start the season though...

It's Snowing

2010-03-19T16:22:00.009-07:00

My current residence belies the fact I have southern (equatorial) roots

Thursday
Friday's the big snow day so far for March, so what better time than to go for a night ride Thursday before the trails get buried. That's what me and Kevin did. Met at the Alameda parking for Green Mountain by 6:30 and we rolled. The front was beginning to creep its way in and the wind was making the air super crispy. Our goal that evening was to go slow/mellow on the flats and downhill and to go like men possessed on the uphills. Uphill intervals. Yup. 'Twas my first time out for 2010 too on my mountain bike. She felt great although my legs weren't used to the higher rpm spinning on the granny. Our first interval was climbing up the fireroad. Felt like crap! The legs were so heavy and I just couldn't get synched with the cadence and my breathing. Almost felt like the bike was becoming a stranger. Finally near the top when I was really pushing it, I became synchronized once more. Kevin wasn't that far off, so when I got to the top, I busted a you-ee, came down and stood out of the saddle chilly-chill, to diffuse out my friend and enemy-hydrogen ions, following Kevin to the cut-off to one of favorite downhills. From there, there was a spur we took to take us back to the main trail to begin lap two. That singletrack portion had some short but steep climbs that put my pistons into lactate hell (yes I'm lactating). I need that though. I need to push my legs to discomfort by pushing it to and sustaining some lactic threshold training. The minute the trail would flatten out, I would come near to a halt then once anything resembling an anticline showed up I'd hit it like no other.
The second lap, the final climb, the winds were beginning to howl so it was good that this was our last lap. I kept it in the middle ring and even though I couldn't spin it in the cadence I wanted on some of the steep stuff, I would sit and power through until I could. The most memorable sight for me was when I was at the top catching my breath, another cyclist with the plush light set up (on bike and on helmet) started to descend and his forward facing halogens coupled with his flashing hot-dot off his seat rails/post made him look like low flying airplane. With the fog, it put the light sources inside an opaque halo and it made for some contrasty, illuminating, otherworldly scenery. Great night ride. My legs were spend and I felt satisfaction for my down time cycling Saturday due to the blizzard like conditions up here in the high country.

Friday
Friday's here and it's snowing like a banshee up at our place, I learn from Melissa when I'm at work. So as soon as my last class is finished I sign myself out and head home to beat the truckers up the canyon before the roads start freezing and they start jackknifing (like they always do in March). Sho' nuff, I didn't even make it two miles up the canyon before traffic completely stops. And, sho' nuff, it's a grip of semis chaining up on our tiny little canyon road snarling up traffic on a Friday afternoon. Once I roll past the bottleneck I'm jonesing for some good beer to enjoy, celebrating the end of the work week, celebrating the beginning of the weekend, celebrating my trade-off so's I can race, celebrating living the high-life, celebrating how hip my family is, celebrating the fact that our new race kits come that also celebrates Halloween...etc. so I pick up a 4-pack of a St.Bernardus sampler. When I'm home our driveway needs some scraping so I drink just a smidge of St. Bernardus Pater 6 before I fireup the ATV to tease my tastebuds of what's to come (don't drink and drive an ATV kids, but relax, even though I'm not a professional I play one on TV). The snow's not being so friendly...

Die Wochenende

2010-03-07T06:35:00.007-07:00

Saturday morning was spent riding about 17 miles on the rollers, getting warmed up for the hour of power. At this point I need to pile up miles as I can get it. It was a great ride up until the point when a sheriff pulled out speeding pack over with his lights and sirens a'blazin'. Apparently we cyclists where scofflaws when it comes to being on the road. We stopped and listened to his lecture, said our, "Thank-you sir(s)" and off again we went. For the first couple'a miles we double filed it but once we got into the reservoir it went back to shit-on-your-neighbor mode. The climb to arrowhead golf course seemed fine. They were flying. I managed to keep contact with the main group before the last little crest then I popped. Made sure to be in the top dozen on the downhills so if there was going to be a significant split I'm going to be in that group. Yeah it was a good ride. People lost water bottles on the speed bump at the entrance to the park. Every now and again I guess they forget and they nail the speed hump at 32 mph and they have a yard sale right then and there. I remember the water bottle rolling around on the deck like a chicken with its head cut-off and said to myself, "That's a nice colored orangy solution inside that water bottle." It reminded me of the types of ice cream selections you get at the lunch line back in the day of those orange pushups. Remember them?
As we wound up the sprint I remember the dude next to me nailing these pretty good sized potholes. Holy mackeral I heard his wheels take the brunt of that and boy did it not sound mechanically forgiving. Reminded me of the physical characteristic of metal being brittle. Yikes.
After that, chatted with a dude named Tom flying the old school Vitamin Cottage colors on the way back to the cars. From there, chatted with another old acquaintance on the bike about his new ride and it's off we go to do some climbing up Highgrade road with some racers on the Acme team. On the way up to High Grade, rode with a staple of metro area cycling and historical badass, Dean Williams. Back in the day, he would pretty much top 10 any race in the metro area and the surrounding states that had altitude. He was a pretty fast dude, could TT and stage race as well. It was honor cycling next to him. Apparently the sponsor owns the trademark to Acme with Wile E. Coyote. After the big chicane at Highgrade I pulled a U-turn so's I can make it to my son's bud's party down the hill where I'm going to eat ice cream and pizza. Total it up at the truck: 54 miles in three hours. That's ite. There goes my girl-ish figure for March! As I was pedaling with a fast cadence my left hamstring cramped up. Not a good sign. Just shows my intensity's too much for my lack of fitness this time of the year. Speaking of which, I'm tentatively doing my first crit today. Nervous Nelly I am and I'll probably have multiple bowel movements before we stage to the line. That's good though, gastric emptying is good for racing...

Sunday.
On the way to Niwot the mercury kept falling and falling. It was 42° F in Conifer but when I arrived in Niwot it was 37°F! As long it wasn't raining that's cool, but it was durn chilly. Lined up for the first crit of the year next to Kenny and off we go! It was amazingly fast with a bit of the jitters as would be the first criterium of the year. Nobody went down and it was a blast. With 200 meters to go I didn't get around a whole lot of people because we were cooking but Kenny whipped out a nice sprint. Covered 25 miles in 45 minutes. That's an average of 33 mph. Not bad. Nobody wanted to work in the breakaways. The only time the pack would respond was when somebody would rocket off the front; otherwise if the breaks would've just noodled a bit quicker with no response from the pack, I bet one of 'em would stayed clear. It was odd diving in a corner, sometimes 4 deep, and there's somebody below you carving a turn and somebody on top of you doing the same thing. On one particular corner I felt a handlebar end slide off my hip but nobody went down. Every now and again people's pedals were scuffing the deck as they were pedaling through corners as was I (but my pedals didn't hit the deck). Now and again somebody's carve went wide on the turns but nothing you couldn't adjust in such a way that it didn't get too exaggerated. It was a great weekend of riding.

Hopefully I can do this again one week from today.

Finally a long-ish ride!

2010-02-28T11:21:00.004-07:00

Got in 64 miles in 3.5 hours Saturday. Cloudy but not too cold. Started by warming up before the hour of power. Seemed like they went slower than hair-on-fire up to Arrowhead Golf course. The wind was pretty fierce that morning and we were all huddled up so that the poor soul in front of you was going to get the full effect of the wind whereas you were nice and tucked in. Being that bunched up of course made the hive squirrely because when somebody would stand up to get more watts in the climb the dude behind him would have to swerve or even worse hit the breaks (I swear people in here in Co are strong but squirrely, at least in TX where I started racing, people had pack skills), causing a major ripple effect so three people out the effects were exaggerated! The lead group broke up into three echelons with me in the...you guessed it! the third echelon. It wasn't really an echelon either because out here we like to be guttered in the wind. It's nice to make the climb with a large group, at least they were going slow enough.
The downhill though was another story. We attacked hard. I just got a cycle computer and at the short but steep uphills we were still going 32 mph and we just kept slingshotting past the leaders so the head of steam going into the climb never let up; in fact we were accelerating to the point where people in front of me were getting peeled. At one point I was in my twelve, hands in the drops, ass on the point, toes pointing down drilling it with everything I had in the draft! Loved it but I couldn't hear anything due to my labored breathing. Groups kept separating off the front but we'd surge and they'd be pulled back in. This happened at least four times going into the reservoir. When we got closer, the park's service closed one of the entrances into the reservoir due to a running event, so we pulled a U-turn and drilled it back to the arboretum.
On the last series of hills I tried to organize a rotating paceline so we can at least take a break from the headwind but everybody wants to prove how strong they are to their competitors so it turned back into gutter central again. One particularly long climb popped me from a lead of six and I was in no-man's land. I sat up, took my hands off the bars and placed 'em under my armpits for warmth, and was going to coast this one in but a dude from the chase group said, "Hang on, we can catch em!" Really though, I wanted to chill on the way back, so of course I put my head down, hands on the drops and half-wheeled myself to the last guy in the chase group. Sho'nuff we caught 'em and after playing what seemed to be 20 minutes of shit-on-your-neighbor collectively we chilled on the downhill to the last stoplight. I add another 2.5 hours to this and I get a 64 mile trip today. Yea!
If I can keep this up I might be able to be competitive in an 80+ mile road race this year. Imagine that!

Saw my boy Javier Collier in my 2.5 hours of steady state piling-up-the-miles-with-my-iPod-on. Saw what he did with this new house (loooved it!), chit-chatted, made a cheese sandwich (thanks brah), met his new poochie: Emily, said our good-byes, and back to my truck I go. My bike was dirty after all the puddly spots I rolled over sans fenders.

Before my fam-fam woke put myself on the rollers and fired off another 7 miles before I mentally said, "this stinks." and summarily got my sweaty self off to make biscuits and veggy gravy for the breaking of fast.

Our NYTimes delivery person's slacking. After walking to our mailbox in my shorts and Sorels (we have a long-ish driveway and it's the tail end of winter mind you), we are conspicuously absent of a paper in our paperbox. No NYTimes. Dizzamn y'all.

Ooops bless you NYTimes delivery person (2H later)...

S.A.D.

2010-02-20T16:08:00.035-07:00

I have S.A.D. Not seasonal affective disorder; but seasonal ass distribution, meaning the snow's keeping me from riding and hence my behind is getting distributed over an area not seen (or touched) from my saddle previously. No riding outside today. Weather too crappy; not only that but we're also running low on firewood (is there a pattern here?). Kinda broke 'til payday to buy a cord of wood so I did the Rocky IV thing. Remember that lame movie? Rocky has the retribution, (because Ivan killed Apollo) showdown, cold war metaphor match in Russia (of course us Yanks win). While in Russia, for his training regimen, he's cutting down trees and chopping them up in the middle of the Russian Winter. Remember that nonsense? That's what I felt like. I was Rocky and Ivan was Winter.
Here's the path I laid down as I gathered the trunks from our backyard. It's as cold as it looks.

Walking in coupl'a feet deep snow and hauling out wood on my shoulders where the original owners felled trees to make a defensible space. My mental distraction came from my iPod.

I have an old school second generation 65 Gigs worth of shuffled music wafting through my mellon. Every time I hear Wagner's Ring Trilogy (Tolkien uses similar theme in his trilogy too-great read incidentally) of operatic music suffused with that Wagnerian symphony it gets me all chicken skinned. The version I have was recorded back in the seventies during the Mecca of Wagnerianism-the Bayreuth festival. Awesome. Not quite high-def sound but close enough for my hard of hearing self to appreciate. I actually have filled it with 50G's worth of music/podcasts/pictures but no video. Too primitive for that technology. What a great little invention.

Before:

From there-our driveway-I crossed sectioned and quartered the goods, and stacked 'em in and next to our house. Hopefully it'll make it 'til Thursday where we'll get-purchase-another cord of wood. It was a great workout. I'm telling you 70lb trunks on your shoulders walking in snow's quite the resistance. It also reminded me of that movie with Mathew Modine, VisionQuest. In that movie about wrestling Mathew meets his competition lugging around a pretty hefty chunk of tree trunk on his shoulders (like an English torture yoke) going up and down some nondescript stadium (steps).
After:

Do that a couple three times...Took a break and ripped John Coltrane's LP coltrane plays the blues onto my iTunes library. That was an Atlantic redo. Great LP. Thank goodness Coltrane was rather prodigious with his cataloged music. After putting it on my iPod, I went back out to get some girthy trunks. They were heavy (coupled with my weak self) and I called it quits after I hauled them out. Don't know how many kilocalories I've combusted but I think it warrants drinking some Maredsous. After round two of out-hauling, I took my eldest daughter to spend the night at her bud's house. Her bud's Dad--Andrew, gave me a bottle of his IPA homebrew. I took her so my sweet Melissa wouldn't have to get out of her PJs. In fact my middle daughter didn't get out of her PJs today either. It's been that kind of day. Really gray, snowing-on-and-off-all-day kind of day. Almost has the same languidness of a drizzly, cold, overcast, winter Sunday where the remedy is listening to sixties era jazz--bop mind you, not that goofy, west coast jazz--from LPs, nosing and tasting single malt scotch and a seegahr. Truth be told, Scotch's too heavy and haven't acquired the nose nor the taste--yet!--and cigars are stanky but rollers and a Maredsous 8° Brune? Ohhh SHNAP! I need to get on the rollers quick, the call of the Maredsous is quickly moving up my priorities list in my reptilian brainstem. Got the fire kickin' now though!

non-sequitor section: Last week some students of mine saw me walking into this used CD store that's also known for its accoutrements/hardware of anything cannabis. As they're walking out they jokingly ask if I'm getting myself a bong or something. I tell 'em I'm strictly a CD kind-of-guy but when I see them in class they kind of goof on (their version of) my dubious purchase. High School kids. They're funny.

I didn't get to the Maredsous. Andrew's IPA, which was hoppy goodness, oozing of alcohol, pretty much put me in a state o'groovitude. In fact, I'm going to read the library books i checked out for the Moose and put on Miles Davis' The Complete In A Silent Way Sessions (okay so it's not bop but it was recorded in the sixties-just barely).

Sunday's pretty much the same except I finished reading Philip Pullman's last of his trilogy (how many times can i say Trilogy in this entry?) The Amber Spyglass. Highly recommend it to y'all (the trilogy that is, there it is again!). Gets me inspired to read Milton's Paradise Lost (or not). Right before din-din my old brah Eric called and we caught up, talked bikes, and general living from a y-chromosome perspective. A wave of reminiscence flowed through me after we hung up.

Monday, you suck.

¡Un gran rato!

2010-02-12T05:11:00.067-07:00

Happy President's Day (Morning from our backyard)!

Didn't ever think Friday'd ever roll around. Been a pretty long work week. Not that work's bad or anything but after a 4-day work week last time, it was pretty difficult to switch the gears from funtime to worktime. Rode the rollers twice this week. Friday, I started the morning riding rollers and watched a 2007 foreign flick Melissa picked up at our library called, Du levande (You the Living). Watching scenes from Europe starts the wanderlust seed. It was your typical (like movies you've normally watched) voyeuristic-point-of-view-of-a-day-in-the-life-of-the-ennui-of-mostly-pathetic-people-of-pastey-white-scandinavian-haplotype(s) genre 'cept subtitled with artsy cinematography with parsimonious amounts of quirky, visual effects. It wasn't enough to rate the film better'n "ite;" but I believe rating art is an irrelevant, moot, categorization-as opposed to owning a categorically cool, relevant Moot(s). Speaking of which, this film's from Sweden shot during the pre-wintry months so it's kinda drab but it also makes me miss my first sports wagon (which was not drab, instead quirky), a Volvo 850 (855 actually) GLT (light turbo). Quirky but functional interior and it'd hold a boatload o'junk replete with a Thule bike rack up top-with fairing!-clamped onto the stock railings. When cheese eating high school kids (as opposed to the ones you'll read about later) in their 4 cylinder Mustangs would attempt to get jiggy with me at the (red) light, I'd step on the brake pedal and the accelerator at the same time to spool up the turbo and when it went green my Swedish Fish would launch like no other when I released the brake and floored the accelerator even more. She was cool (see, the film and my Volvo_were_quirky-not to be confused with quark((y)).

As school was ending on Friday, two of my former students and three current students came by to say hello at the same time. It was a real nice surprise. I wanted to leave because it was, after all Friday, but it was just too nice talking to them and hearing what they had to say as (relatively) mature, empathetic, classy teenagers from a Dad/teacher's perspective. Kids are cool generally except when they're not. Imagine, teenagers just stopping by to say hello (to me even!) The perks of teaching.

Saturday, pre-Valentine's day, was spent skiing with sweet Melissa. We went to WinterPark for ski-action and we had a blast. For a while, it seemed like the sun was trying to make an appearance but alas she didn't. We spent time on the Mary Jane side on the only runs near the Panoramic Express (lift) hoping they would open it so we could ski bowl-side; but I sadly regret to inform y'all that too didn't happen. During our hoping and praying it would open, we skied some moguls and blues. We hopped into the singles line to avoid the crowds in the lift lines. It worked out quite nicely. When we did ride singles (when the lines are mellow we actually ride together and converse) you meet a hodgepodge o'interesting peeps. For me, there were these free-heelers I rode up with and they were going on about the last episode of Car Talk (the click and clack bros.) and This American Life and it turned into an interesting conversation of people's favorite, free podcasts. I shared my The Moth and Radiolab gems with them. Melissa was turning nicely into the ungroomed snow (2-4 inches) laying on top of the crunch and the bumps. After we had a quick lunch, the weather opened up and down came the white stuff. We skied for another hour in the downpour then we called it quits. When weather turns south, it makes all the difference on the equipment surrounding your body that acts like a movable barrier and as an extension of one's actions. I'm very pleased with the gear we both have. Never got cold, nor wet and the skis were always responsive due to the glove-fitting boots. We relaxed at the Cheeky Monk Belgian Beer Cafe and ordered several St. Bernardus abt 12 and warm pretzels. Leave it to monks to create some of the world's most scrumptious, consumable liquids: beer and a certain espresso drink. I sometimes feel closer to the Supreme Being (just don't ask Philip Pullman) myself after absorbtion (as opposed to adsorption) of these liquids (my mental oneness with the SB is proportional to the quality of contents inside liquid palliative). Inside the Cafe we were warm and getting slightly buzzed while outside the snow was falling sideways. There was one point, after looking out the window, where it was a near whiteout (albeit brief). After taking the Cabriolet (a lift were the occupants stand completely open-no windows-but encased 2/3rds of the way up) from the Village to the nearly empty parking lot
in our happy state o'mind, we changed out of ski-gear into our civvies. It was an excellent way to wind down, skiing a great mountain with one's honey bunch(es). On our way out of the nearly empty parking lot, the WinterPark Fire Dept., standing in the intersection, informed us of a nasty accident at Berthoud Pass (our nearest way out), so we pulled a U-turn and back to WinterPark Village we go again. When we did leave it was close to 1930 and the roads out were pretty bad until we got onto the highway back home.

Sunday, as sweet Melissa's waking up, I start the morning stoking the fireplace and doing a 30 minute workout (10 warmup 2X5min interval with 5 min recovery, and a 5' cool down) on the rollers facing my snow filled backyard as the snow continues to fall. It's purty. Next up? Reading the NYTimes (the actual newspaper not the on-line version!) and cleaning the house for when mother in-law visits later returning our wee-urchins o'love.

Monday is Prez day. A day spent for remembering our current and past presidents by doing absolutely nothing. We did familial somethings instead of nothing.

Happy Valentines day to y'all (if you choose to recognize this commercially lucrative holiday for a bunch of shameless, profiteering hedonists, that is)...

Is it me, or is it getting cold?

2010-02-06T19:53:00.003-07:00

Well kids, did the hour of power and got waaaxed! Maybe WinterPark taxed my pistons but I don't want to make excuses for my lack o'fitness. I thought it was going to be in the 40s but it was right at freezing y'all when I showed up at Chatfield. Of course I forgot my head gear so trying to be resourceful I positioned my toe-warmers, a la Spock-like over my pinnas. It looked hella dumb but I was warm! While I was shoving it over my pinnas and under my helmet those punctual bastidges took off. A Team "Bang Salon" guy and I were both caught unaware and we chased like cat Vs trying to win a Schrader Valve inner tube prime. Once we caught up I noticed my heart rate was kinda off-the-charts. I chilled at the back to get it down to normal. Once we made the turn to Waterton Canyon trailhead dem bastidges drilled it.

My leggy-legs were definitely feeling the bump runs at WinterPark and I was just hanging on for dear life. Couldn't find a cadence that was comfortable when the watts were turned up and that put me in a mental asynchronous condition called "mental asynchronous syndrome" (I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV). Have I mentioned how warm my pinnas (made you say, "pinnas") are?

Popped like Mentos in a two liter Coke bottle. This was on the second hump on the climb. Saw my fellow Natural Grocer/Vitamin Cottage compadre Bill Herwig motoring like the fiend he is with the leaders on the climb up the road. Hanging out in Purgatory (behind the leaders, in front of the shlomos), I decided I better shut down the HR ASAP. I slowed waaay down and pulled a you-ee to catch 'em when they're going like bats-out-of-hell on the descent. My nutty-arsed ear warmer contraption needed adjustment anyway.

Sho' nuff they're blasting down the road like a diesel truck hauling two trailers and I insert myself somewhere in the middle. Before the turn into Chatfield, somebody kisses somebody's rear tire and you hear the breaks squealing like pigs at a Jimmy Dean sausage factory (that's right, I'm a pescatarian). I see Bill bust a cyclocross move on the right shoulder/ditch to avoid the almost crash. Believe it or not, nobody went down although I did see a competitor temporarily sideways. Nutrageous.

As we're heading into the park we're completely drilling it and my body's back in sync with my cadence (53X12). Hands in the drops, I'm feeling frisky and I want to drift towards the yellow, centerline and surge to the front of the group to push the pace a wee bit. A dozen or so riders beat me to the centerline and they're ripping it, somebody yells "Car up!" and they get their sensibilities and get back towards the correct side of the centerline (that aint cool, centerline violating chumps!). Almost at the same time another group to the far right is doing the same thing. Since I was closest to the right-hand surge I picked a wheel and kept my line so nobody would try to insert themselves between me and my wheel suckee (dude in front of me). For each 10 yards as we approach the finish line some .5 miles away, there's at least one rider getting cooked and going backwards as we're rolling.

They're going so fast I'm probably now top ten and I see Bill Herwig and six others jump out of the saddle for the final drag race to the line. The group I'm with is content to motorpace off the sprinters and they tow us to the line (I gotta save my energy because I'm doing two more hours after this nonsense). Probably finished top twelve just getting sucked along in the slipstream of the surging group.

It's officially freezing once we get back to the staging/parking. Bill changes his wet jersey and I ride with his group for about an hour and they meet some friends and chat. I need to keep rolling to get to hour three so I say goodbye and head back to my car to take off these ridiculous toe covers from my ears. Put on my Texas beanie and rode towards my boy's house: Hez-chilly to complete the two out of three union of the homey trinity (Kev's the third). He wasn't there so I eat my one PowerBar at a grocery store and head back as the mercury continues to dip.

Ahhh, three hours. My legs are done from two days of trying to act like a bike racer. Time to drink some green tea and clean our house. Didn't feel quite as accomplished as last week but I still loved it anyways y'all.

WinterPark On My Comp Day

2010-02-05T21:19:00.014-07:00

Made some wicked buttermilk biscuits and gravy (vegetarian-style, that is) for my kids before they left off for school and before I left to head out to WinterPark. Wednesday was Parent/Teacher conferences so they gave us today for a comp day. Using the WinterPark 4 pass reduced my magic number to two now. Never gone skiing on a weekday. I see why people do it. No traffic, no lift lines, and pretty convenient.
I absolutely love my gear. First time in ages that I'm not skiing on five year old equipment (although it's coming close). The Völkl Karmas and my Tecnica comp Alus make for some responsive/feedback-inspired steering. 90 underfoot and close to 119 at the tip. Made for terrain parks but can handle mid-size moguls and loves off-piste, steeps. It's like punching the accelerator and feeling the G-forces on your butt, or riding tubulars versus clinchers, or ice skates vs roller skates.
Biffed it today. Was absolutely cruising in a mogul field with about 6 inches of new snow covering the top and didn't see the trough (thought I had my mogul line sussed) and pitched forward with my left leg planted and the right leg behind me like a figure skater and my left ski binding kicked out. Kinda hurt my good ankle; but not enough to stop skiing or nuttin'. The weather forecasted clouds and slight snow. There were clouds but they eventually burned off leaving mostly blue skies.

Being the cheapskate that I am, I spent no money on food nor drink there.
4.5 hours later after absolutely no lift lines all day, my gams are hammered. Wanted to save it for Saturday's hour of power so we'll see. Left with just enough time to pick up the Moose at Evergreen Academy and my girly-girls at their ES. Great day.
Great way to start the weekend and makes me appreciate work even more (if that's possible).
Unlike my last pair of boots, everytime after I go skiing, my doggy covers get dried.

That There Sun, Sho' is Deceiving

2010-01-31T19:48:00.011-07:00

After I change the front brakepads on Melissa's 4runner at Grandpa's I get a quickie ride in up here where I live. The sun's kicking it and I'm thinking hmmmm, it's not so cold. The temps at my house read 37°F and that was enough for me to just wear a jacket, knee warmers, neoprene booties and gloves. I don't fire up the Tundra and I pretend I'm doing cyclocross as I ride out of our snow covered, dirt driveway. Reminds me of Koppenburg as the rear wheel gets loose and tracks independently of the front. As usual, the clothing's not enough and the downhills are chilly. C'mon, it's 8K in elevation, nearly February, and I should know better right? I need to climb soon, so I do the Pleasant Park, Oehlman Park, Hilldale Pine, City View back up to 285 loop.
The legs where heavy after yesterday's effort so I go chilly-chill with no out-of-the-saddle climbing on the steep stuff. I'm the only yahoo out there cycling even though it was a nice enough (but cold!) day. The climbs started off nice, nothing too steep, just annoyed by my lack of dressing myself.

Here's Pleasant Park...

Here's Oehlman Park/City View...

...The overpass that leads back to my house looking at Southbound 285...

The scary stuff was the sandy, slushy/wet, north facing parts of the route as evidenced by this...

Still real pretty out here this time of the year. Would've loved to go to Denver or Boulder but it's just too much time away from the family when I can get a quality ride nearby; plus, I be needs to go easy on gas expenditures. To spend two hours driving for a three hour ride might be justifiable but that takes too much time away from the family and doing familial chores to keep the household running. Hence my endurance issues in 80+ mile (128+ km) road races when the season begins; and when the season does begin, it's hard to justify driving two hours for a one hour timed crit (see the pattern?). Last year at this time I was getting crazy miles with Kenny in Boulder only to be negated by fierce March snowstorms.

I'll take what I can get but not at the expense of hanging family-side. I have no desire to cat up but I do have desires to continue to drink beer and eat crappy food (one of the main reasons I race). Balance Daniel-san...

The Hour of Power

2010-01-30T07:24:00.014-07:00

It's going to be in the forties Saturday, so I'm going to head out for a group ride. If there's no group ride, I'll do my own thing but at the very least it's still riding. Called the local bike shops to see who was doing what during our frozen time of the year and I had to go with the closest one to me. Kenny was riding in Boulder but I can't justify the time and gas to go out there. The old South/West (Chatfield) group ride was about thirty minutes from me and another one-also equidistant-was in Golden (Twin Peaks?). What I like about the Chatfield ride is that it's an hour long (an hour of power, or an hour of ill) and they go like their hair's on fire. You could get dropped from the downhills if you lose contact with the group because they roll hard on the downs too. I pull out when the sprint's starting up a mile away and all the strong Freds start their giddy-up. I've seen the nastiest crashes when they touch wheels so I just sit in back of the choo-choo and watch the mayhem begin. If I'm feeling a bit randy though, I'll get to the front for a serious pull ('bout three nanoseconds) to add to the momentum of the charge of the two-wheeled brigade. This is Friday night.

Saturday. 10 a.m.
Chose the Chatfield ride and saw teammates from our elite masters team: Bill Herwig and Vic Williams. I swear, if you're late a minute to this group ride they're off and rolling and you're left marching the big gear to catch up. When a group of 40 or so riders start downhill, it's a daunting task starting late at this particular group ride; needless to say it wasn't me today...

It's pretty fast once we hit the slight uphill before the turn to Arrowhead golf course. A gentle little uphill but people like to hit it hard. Probably dropped about 10 or so. The real biscuit's the climb to Arrowhead golf course where the topography's like a canyon so it seems like there's always a side wind to keep you honest and to test your echeloning skills. We like to gutter people here in Colorado. I know better but for these early season rides you need to be up front but today I just like to chill in the back and motorpace. So when the riders in front of Alex (from Team Subaru, not my colleague) and me start to fade, we had to punch it around them which means getting a face full of head/side wind. It was like that to the top of the turnaround at Arrowhead-hopscotching to the next group until they popped too and we'd repeat our hopscotch routine. This was too much for me and I popped as well and I gimped it for the rest of the climb to the front group waiting at the top/turnaround. The riders that got popped on the climb to the top, stop and turn around to wait for us when we descend to catch back up (they don't finish the climb-slackers!). Alex came around me pretty quick the last 50 or so yards to the top.

Like I said, this group's fast. I was talking to a group of riders when I noticed a gap open up on the downhill. Nobody was going to chase and the gap was getting bigger so I dropped it in my twelve and craaaaanked as hard as I could and the rest of the lame-oes glued to my wheel and I bridged the gap for myself and them (nobody came around). It is a training ride so usually nobody tries to be a dick when we're acting like a collective. No more of this so I moved to the front where I had no fitness to be there in the first place. A small group ahead of the main pack was beginning to put some distance between us, so we five started to chase. I went in front and as I rode the right hand side of the road to break wind (I said break wind) for the last, leading guy, with my left hand pointing down around waist level I did the international sign of "the rotation's clockwise" and proceeded to "air" stir the "pot" clockwise with my index finger so's they can see (and hopefully understand) my visual. Clockwise it was, but us five were the only ones doing the rotating and remember this is my first, hard group ride of the year after I broke my ankle so I'm cooked-again! I raise my hand and begin to exit left and back from the pack. After the third choo-choo passed me, I got out of the saddle to get a head of steam and transitioned/glued myself onto the fourth choo-choo breathing like a steam engine. My heart came back down from my throat and I was in business again. We worked together and we eventually all assimilated into one rolling pack albeit a bit smaller due to attrition. I'm loving it at this point and this is why I race. When the green flag drops and everybody's in their handlebar drops trying to push their will against the group, we look around after the dust settles to we see who's around that made the cut. Today it was me and a fecal ingesting grin settles on my face. Thank goodness they were going slow today!

Inside Chatfield we're echeloning like crazy (and the back of the pack's all guttered) because what little sidewind there is today is amplified by the velocity of our peleton charging to our imaginary finish line in the reservoir. People are starting to peel off backwards and what's dangerous is that they're in the middle of the pack going backwards but thank goodness people's bike handling skills part the pack like the Red Sea to eject the racer whose spring lost all potenial energy and the kinetic's already gone. The sprint's in sight and I get to witness Vic Williams and Bill Herwig wind it up in the comfort of my motorpacing position. I could've read a newspaper I made such a great space for myself. I was in the twelve, hands oscillating between the drops and tops and for eeking out as much watts as possible that means I'm almost sitting on the horn of the saddle with my toes pointing straight down, doing an impression of a dynamo for the last three miles. I have a Selle San Marco saddle and the horn's pretty rounded and padded...

Ladies and gentlemen, this is known as the hour of power. It's only going to get faster so I need for my body to get used to the speeds and how to physiologically manipulate it as I enter the meat grinder we call racing/training. It's left me physiologically satisfied with a nice case of time-trial cough that persists the rest of the day.

Hello meat grinder, it's me Mike. Remember me? Ah likes you Mr. Meatgrinder...

I ride/cool down for hour two with Alex. Seems like there's a bunch of them on Team Subaru this season as compared to last year. Alex is going to be a beast in the crits. We chit-chat, gossip, talk mountain bike, and reveal our potential racing itinerary for this season. He's a good guy and I meet some of his Subaru homies. Nice guys and pretty fit for Feb. Two hours needs to increase to three pretty soon but it's a difficult task with a family of three kids (boo-hoo). I'm wearing my old Vitamin Cottage race kit that parallels Barney's (the singing dinosaur) color scheme.

I meet Melissa at her Mom's and I wash and change the oil (and oil filters) on both our cars (which I recycled at the auto parts store-12 quarts of oil!). I guess that's why I buy full synthetic so's I can change the oil at 7.5K miles. For din-din we eat a hearty dinner of Manicotti and Cesar Salad and I drink a couple of Cokes for my earlier efforts.

Hopefully I can get another ride in Sunday.

Saved gas, froze my arse off...

2010-01-23T20:18:00.020-07:00

The weather wasn't supposed to be that warm up here at 8,800 feet but I didn't want to get in my truck to ride down the hill to ride where it's about 10° warmer on average. It would be 45 minutes of driving if I did that and I wanted to save my gas. I busted out the big guns of warm weather gear: fleece lined windproof tights and my mostly neoprene jacket (replete with neoprene booties and gloves and head covering). My driveway has various stages of dirt, ice, and hardpacked snow where our vehicles roll over so I cherry picked my route out of there on my road bike to get out on highway 285. The Colorado Dept of Transportation does a great job scraping the white stuff off the roads and I had no problems with icy patches or slush up here. I never think of how quickly the mercury dips when you descend with your very own self-induced wind chill and I said to myself as I was rolling down the ridge where I live self, you is stupid, son. As I rolled down Aspen Park the bank's time and temp display read 34° F (1° C). Not a good omen to begin the ride.
My route today was City View in reverse. Mostly climbing route, pretty steep so the climbs warmed me up but I was not looking to any of the descents that would take me back to 285 for my one and a half hour loop. Any more time than that and I would've probably called sweet Melissa to pick my frostbitten self up! Of course I was the only out on the road today at this elevation and my face was so cold I rode no-handed (on the descents) with both my hands covering my face so I wouldn't get facial frostbite. Bought a nice, heavy kevlar lined clincher tire, 700X25 to roll over the winter road debris so as not to get a repeat of last weekend's flat-fest. The ride was uncomfortably cold and the climb was difficult and laborious. I tried to not stand during the climbs to get the legs nice and taxed. No endurance, no snap but that's okay. Not wanting to overdo it; just base, quasi-climbing miles. That's what my body needs to get ready for race season (if I'm racing in the south pole!). The temperature was 28° F (-2° C) when I returned home. In addition to that, a cord of wood was waiting for me to pitch it out the delivery truck and to stack it. It was Grandpa's hook up that got us the wood (our neighbor Genaro) so I went to his house to return the favor of pitching it into a pile. After Melissa and the kids stacked our wood when I was at Grandpa's I did some hunting and gathering of kindling around our property and took the handsaw with me to cut the long branches in order to fit inside our firebox. Yup, riding and getting our ducks in order to make this winter comfortable. So far so good in that it's not a record-breaking winter like years past. January's almost done and we're getting ready for a cold February. March is the month I'm biting my nails over. The heavy snows always snap power lines and we're going to be electricity-less (including the pump for our well) for multiple days-that's going to suck! It was a day spent burning calories in a way that included cycling and keeping old man winter at bay. After dinner time it's tennis with my kids on the Wii!!!

Sunday and we're doing preventive winter catastrophe and de-cluttering the house. I go out and finish gathering and stockpiling more kindling and cutting it up for the next round. As a luxury I'm ripping LPs onto my iTunes. Here's what I'm ripping onto my laptop: Def Leppard's High 'n' Dry, Asia's eponymous LP, Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays' As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls, and The Stray Cat's built for speed. Pretty much the stuff I listened to when I was in High School. No cycling today. Temps too cold and much too windy to do anything good other than crash or get frostbite. Maybe rollers in the morning?
this is the weather for Sunday (and the rest of the week), today...
7-Day Forecast for Conifer

Not only does my foot fit in my road shoe, but also in my ski boot...

2010-01-18T07:15:00.008-07:00

On Friday, since my buddies and I planned on going skiing (my other buddy gave me a lame excuse to NOT make it) I needed to see if my foot fit into my ski boot. Sho' nuff with a little bit of pushing and prying of the boot (and placing it next to the fireplace for thermal expansion-kinda like my waistline!), my foot slid right in. No hot spots hitting my ankle either. I have a 4 pass, meaning me and sweet Melissa can ski at WinterPark 4x, so it's off to WinterPark we go.
I'd show y'all some great pics because the weather was outstanding (although the snow coverage was slightly poor) but my camera ran out of juice. I was, however, able to fire off one picture of my homie-G Pablo before the screen said, "Batteries exhausted." Took it easy mostly. Practiced on some mellow-ish type moguls when Pablo's binding needed to be tightened on his snowboard (damn knuckledraggers and their inferior equipment!). After that we just hit the "Blue" rated slopes for the rest of the afternoon. After skiing, we (meaning sweet Melissa and I) also planned a get together at our house with some good friends we've known since we moved to Denver back in '96. Since then we've always kept in touch (camping, destination ski areas, birthdays...etc.) even after we (all) moved out of Denver. We've known them since we were childless newlyweds and now we all have three urchins a'piece. Nutty. So it's a house full of nine children whenever we all meet up (I counted that all by myself thanks!). It's always loud; eating outstanding, healthy food; some kids not getting along temporarily; moderate drinking; and time for catching up when we congregate at one of our houses. We also own Wiis because it's such a great, family friendly gaming console. The apres-dinner entertainment was watching the kids battle it out for dancing supremacy and the adults playing tennis (I got hosed). It was too much fun and we worked ourselves into a good sweat; in addition, Pablo was mixing up some delicious Mohitos which was adding to our general, homefries bonding. Coincidentally general, homefries bonding energy's right next to polar covalent bond energy (relative strengths, even though they're not related).
The next morning--Sunday--I rode the rollers to work out the stiffness in my quadriceps and glutes. It didn't do a whole hell of a lot; I was still walking like Fred Sanford. It felt as if I was doing some serious squats at the gym.
MLK day (thank you Dr. MLK for your contributions to humanity) was spent super chilly-chill. While the kids were either napping, watching movies, or playing with the Wii, I went out for a quickie road ride. It said 52° F but it was waaaay colder with the wind. Chris Carmichael said that if you can't get hours riding, the next best thing is to ride hills (with your limited time). So that's what I did. I started from Morrison rode up to Green Mountain, rode over Dakota Ridge to Co-8, up Mother Cabrini, back down past Matthews Winter and up Red Rocks. I don't even think it was 20 miles but gravitational attraction between two masses (three if you count both my buttcheeks) and their inverse distances made pedaling quite a chore. Note to self: I need at least a 24T cog on my cassette. My ankle was getting kinda sore and the quads dull pain were getting sharp when I got out of the saddle so I know when my body's telling me to back off. Back off I did and I went home to my sweet familia to get ready for Tuesday.

I can get my busted ankle (foot) inside my cycling shoe!!

2010-01-10T07:52:00.009-07:00

It's been a week since I broke my ankle and the soft tissue swelling has significantly subsided in such a way I can get it in my specialized road shoe. In fact, yesterday before the kids woke up, I put on my sock, shoes, gloves and shorts and rode the rollers for three-quarters of an hour and there was little to no discomfort. I kinda had to preset the foot angle to make sure it was in the position of no pedaling discomfort. It was great! Today, I ride with the team manager, director sportif, homeboy extraordinaire, satanic mechanic, brew-master junior, grizzly adams, and general good guy: Kenny L. and nice guy/new recruit Garth!

But before I begin, sweet Melissa started her Saturday by going skiing with her girlfriends (picture perfect weather Saturday by the way). That left me, gimp-master, with our kids. Dat's okay though, my kids are generally badasses.

If there's no other breakfast that's stuck with me growing up in Texas other than breakfast burritos with chorizo, chilies, and salsa, it's biscuits and gravy. But being the pescatarian that I am, I had to go on-line to find a "vegetarian, white gravy" concoction. Lo and behold I found that recipe and it's vegetarian biscuits, gravy, and sausage. Yummy. My kids usually dig the breakfasts that I dig with the exception of my middle daughter drowning her sausage in ketchup.

Earlier this week since I can't walk in deep snow, when the rest of Team M was off, they rounded up some cut tree trunks worthy of becoming firewood. So the kids set themselves up with the Sports Wii disc and off I was in our snow covered driveway cutting up firewood. I put a plastic bag over Das Boot (I know it means boat, but as written, it's wrong syntax funny) to prevent wood hubris from attaching to it but it still got peppered. 2 hours later, we be gots firewood!!!! This and what's remaining from the cord I requisitioned last month should take us to the end of January where we can buy another cord from our neighbor, across the way. Have I mentioned how much I dig my chainsaw. It's a Stihl "Wood Boss". Been three years now and I haven't even sharpened it. Should. I do take it apart and tension the chain and lube what needs to be lubed though.

Next, we head down the hill to go visit Grandma where they can watch "Home on the Range" and some random R. L. Stine "Goosebumps" DVD. I also wash and wax my truck. I like to put a layer of wax on my truck as a barrier to the magnesium chloride they spray out here on the roads as anti-freeze measures. I get a text from Kenny L about our ride Sunday. As my kids are chillin' with Grandma, I ask 'em "who wants to go visit Kenny with me?" Mason volunteers and we go over to Kenny's who's conveniently located next to Grandma's house. As the satanic mechanic that he is, Mason and I enter his garage where he's inspecting a corvette transmission he liberated from a junkyard that's potentially going into his Volvo 740 that runs 11 second quarter miles! We chat about the location of the start of the ride and other stuff bike related. When he was in graduate school attempting his Ph.D in organic chemistry he made friends with a Kinesiology doctoral candidate who's involved with an American, UCI pro-tour, licensed team. He was telling me how his friend said it was kinda sucky with his current outfit and was considering different options. Then one night, as Kenny and his bud were out at dinner, his friend's phone rings and it's Lance asking him to be part of his team. Of course he accepted and within days, Lance's private jet picks him and his gear up and they're off to do some structured, world class training. Geeky, bike gossip are just some of the types of conversation bike trash (term of endearment) talk about. If you've ever been involved with bike trash and you're at a party where they find other bike trash, and you're their greenhorn date/significant other, it'll sound like a foreign conversation and incredibly boring. We can go on for hours about bike personalities, gear ratios, quality of chamois, bike fits, plushness of forks, personalities of bike frame materials, differences between: shoes, pedals whatever, team rosters, candidates for winning the Tour de France in 2010 etc...it's kind of our holy grail.

Sunday I meet Kenny and Garth in north Golden for 3.5 hour ride that turned into a 4 hour ride if you include the flats (3 total; one from me, two from Kenny L.) and stops to increase the glycemic index. The ride on the roads and bike trails were amazingly slushy to icy and of course I didn't bring my fender. No worries though because the company we kept distracted us from the wet cold creeping into our kits and drinking the rooster tails of water from drafting one another and the headwinds both directions. It was a blast and the occasional hills we encountered was just enough to tax our prime movers. That last hill going up Washington Street in Golden was a rude but honest effort to end the ride. I was probably the weakest one in our group because I instigated the stops to spike my blood sugar. I'm digging the new batch of racers/recruits with Kenny as the DS. We probably put in a just-shy-of-60 miler today in 4 hours (including the stops and flats). If I'm worth anything I'll hop on the rollers tomorrow...

My bike's a mess and it needs some loving but not not tonight kids. I'm pooped out.

Big Bend (didn't bend enough!)

2010-01-02T20:14:00.071-07:00

But let me begin with up until that point, things were pretty durn peachy. It was a pretty good two weeks, the first week was spent riding the rollers on a daily basis, sometimes 45 minutes, sometimes an hour. It was not great but at least I tolerated riding the rollers.
This year we-well Melissa actually-had an idea to spend Christmas break catching up with her best friend's (of two and change decades worth of knowing) family at Big Bend National Park. We took my truck and loaded her with all the gear and food a family of five can sustain for three days worth of winter camping and 11.5 hours of getting there and coming back. It was a tight fit but it all got shoe horned in. Thank goodness for a full-size Tundra.
There's an enclave of west Texas, Bohemian-wannabee, artsy expatriates with a knack of self-sustaining, locally producing behaviors colonizing in surrounding Marfa,
Alpine, and to some extent Fort Davis. When I was an undergrad at U.T. I did some racing out here and before they got all artsy, they were quaint and quintessentially west Texas (colloquialisms, no racism, great food, and that west Texas twang that pervades all art, music, and history). My friends Chip and Grant (and I), armed with Shiner Bocks, went out there one evening (when we were racing the Ft. Davis stage race) to see if we could see the mysterious Marfa lights. No such luck. Revisiting these places was sentimental and not the romantic ideal I had setup in my cerebral cortex; but it was cool nonetheless.

Speed is inversely proportionate to surrounding vegetative covering...
The first night we spent was hanging out with Melissa's uncle and his wife in Las Cruces, NM. I used to be stationed nearby at Holloman AFB in Alamogordo, NM and Las Cruces back then was almost but not quite as podunky as Alamogordo (although Las Cruces is home to the New Mexico State University Aggies). Now it's all grown up! Here's the views we had as we woke up and ogled the sights from their backyard overlooking the golf course. The background contains the Organ Mountains.

Finally we arrive...

We also packed firewood and kindling for three nights worth of catching up and getting our innate fix for howling at the moon. The winds were blowing when we arrived just a smidge before sundown and after we got our tents up (we now have to have separate tents for the boys and girls) I was sooo looking forward for producing water and carbon dioxide from combusting cellulose, but get this: there's no wood fires allowed at Big Bend (the desert's apparently like a tinderbox out here with various types of grasses, trees, and shrubs growing out of the sandy soil). This slight oversight would result in three, very cold, sub-freezing nights. I slept with a down vest, down jacket, beanie, leg warmers, khaki shorts, and socks-and I still got cold. Mason apparently doesn't get effected with the cold as I do.
This is what we woke up to: 38% humidity mixed with 32°F made for a miserable night of minimal REM sleep. This picture is as cold as it looks. Rugged though, ain't it?

The days were fine and warm enough though. First day out we went to Boquillas Canyon where we can see the quaint Mexican town of Boquillas right past the Rio Grande. I didn't snap pictures of Boquillas but I got the Rio Grande and the steep canyon walls resulting from eons of the erosive powers of hydrogen hydroxide.

Mason's in the foreground with his souvenir, bamboo chute.

Wednesday we go hiking on a trail called "The Window". It leads to a notch in the mountain where melting runoff carved its way through the low spot on the mountain thus giving spectators a window to the valley. Pretty awesome.

Broke my ankle here portaging the Moose on my shoulders over a kinda technical trail cut over the creek. Here's the beginning of the 5 mile, roundtrip, trail.

Here's our family shot with my non-weight bearing right leg in some serious pain...

After I hobble back to the lodge, we buy some souvenirs and snacks (they had the candy bar "Zero" there, I thought they went out of business!) and head out to the Santa Elena Canyon. The ride out to the Canyon again reminded me the uniqueness of the Lone Star State. The scenery coupled with our Sirius Radio channel of Outlaw country playing some outstanding Texas singer-songwriters made for a religified audio-visual experience. At the canyon, the sun's setting and the Moon is making herself known over some uknown clump of mountains.

Melissa got her moonlight hike in as well. The sheer drop-off off the canyon walls and the chalky ground cover highlighted by the near full moon made the hike back to the trailhead parking an illuminating, humbling, cosmic one-ness experience. Here's what we walked into...

To offset that, me and the kids took decent sized rocks and flung 'em into the Rio Grande. It made these cool, bassy splooshy sounds as it smacked the water (and sunk)while the tinny sound reverberated off the canyon walls. Surreal and humbling y'all a good combination. Here's what we walked out of...

One more freezing night because of no cloud cover and in the morning we packed our stuff, said our awkward goodbyes, and promptly got the hell out of Dodge. Once we arrived back at Mike and Kathy's we had a belly filling dinner with a quick sightseeing stop in the historic old town of Mesilla. At dinner we had an enlightening history of the Barber side of the family and settled back down at their house for the evening.
The ride back was exactly the reverse of the ride coming. The 11.5 hour drive back would be broken up with a play stop in Santa Fe where the kids would run around at the Rail Yard Park. We bought Raising Sand in Las Cruces to commemorate this trip. It's a duet of Robert Plant and Allison Krauss' efforts.
Other than the break occurring during my break, the break was great!

Thus beginneth the break

2009-12-17T19:07:00.037-07:00

A prelude of things to come...

Thursday. Got a bunch of stuff coming up: Mother Nature's going to be quite cooperative with me and my cycling/firewood gathering endeavors this weekend; and, my friend Rob's (and his family) up in the Vail Valley this weekend.

Friday. I'm mentally decompressing in my house. It's been a long, busy week culminating in giving final exams, grading those final exams, and entering those grades along with comments via computer into the district website where parents can log-in and check out their kids progress (or lack thereof). My only outlet for this stress is riding the rollers. Usually it's at 4 in the morning before I do my morning, weekday breakfast rituals. Riding the rollers is no substitute for actually riding in the streets, feeling the wind, hearing the whirr and hum of the drive train, and the friction of the tires and wind resistance opposing my progress. Those sensory inputs are like doses of a drug that needs to be increased because previous doses' have no affect for the current high. If it wasn't so sunny here in Colorado I'd be a real mess. This weekend though my friends (talking to you), the weather's going to be cooperative. Cooperative means: sunny, above freezing, and with little to no snow on deck. Stressing out about finishing up the year coupled with a serious case of the jonesing-on-the-road-bike fix can be mentally disastrous. If I can get a 2h+ ride in tomorrow, it'll be exponentially therapeutic. I also have to buy a cord of wood as well. About to run completely out.

Saturday, I was pretty pooped out from loading, delivering, and stacking a cord (of lame pine as opposed to hardwoods) that I didn't get out on my road bike. I leave that for the Sunday team ride with the newbies up in Boulder. Hopefully chilly-chill because my legs haven't been riding at all since October. My wish is that everybody's in off-season mode and it won't turn into a shit on your neighbor ride (if the nudniks don't show).

Here's the wood on our front yard (after I hammer threw it all manly-like from the truck)

Here's the end result with my daughter for scale (she actually helped in stacking)...

A couple of days ago, Melissa got some washable markers for our kids to embellish our sliding glass door with a Christmas motif. Instead my second daughter inquires about her chances of NOT being on the receiving end of a gift from St. Nick.

I know it's hard to read but she articulates: Dear Santa, I like Christmas, I am sometimes a good girl. Will you still give me presents? Circle Yes [or] No. Too cute that girl...

Sunday was a day or riding with the Vitamin Cottage-Natural Grocers newbies. Great new kids on the block. The coolest surprise was immediately recognizing (my sweet) Melissa's old friend and ex-colleague John showing up for the ride. John's going to be racing for us this season (45+ Cat I.V.). Seems like the new people are mellow and interesting. I love mellow and interesting. Appears the chemistry with this group will be goods to gizzoe (sorry Snoop Dog)! We rode a mellow 2 hour (20 mile/hour pace) ride skirting the outline of Boulder while the incumbents (us old guys like Kenny and me) sussing the abecedarians (recruits), and general jawing. Kenny looks different in a cool, non-threatening, Ted Kaczynski beard in full effect sort-of-way. Not a lot of new guys but at the very least a decent core of like-minded, riding hominids to start the new season with.

Heading out of town...

Heading back to Boulder on the Diagonal Highway with the Flatirons in the horizon

On the way back we hit a local bakery and absorb various forms of solids and liquids in the form(s) of lattes, soups, and muffins. It was a great way to start the week (or end the week depending on where you reside on Earth). It's forecasting snow for Wednesday night, better get it while the gettin's good y'all.

Got Firewood?

2009-11-29T12:17:00.012-07:00

The weather was good so it was another opportunity (albeit lackadaisical) to gather, split, and stack some more firewood. We had to hike it in because the snow pack's too high for the ATV nowadays and the only trunk-like pieces left in our piles were the big uns so we didn't haul too many away from our lot. I'm starting to work off some of the potential energy I collected from Thanksgiving as kinetic energy via (not so efficient) work.
Here's what we were able to bring up...

Here's what it translates to (three, huge, wheel barrow's worth) after splitting it; doesn't seem like much although it's better than nothing I suppose. Thank you maul splitter, axe, and Stihl chainsaw.

Note to self, this sucks, I'm gonna get an earlier start on this nonsense next year.