Firecracker Fiddee 2012. Happy 4th!

L-R, Brian, Kenny L., me

 Man, the fourth year of doing this.  Other than the first year being memorable, the other years stunk.  The last time I did it I triple flatted and course officials had to use radiometric dating to exactly figure out what time I actually finished.  This year was different.  I actually trained.  It is amazing how much a little support for one's endeavor can do for results (that is another story as well).

The Natural Grocer's (unofficial) Dirt Team had a good turnout for this event.  Let's see, there was Bill  Herwig, Dr. Timothy Bauer, Tim Fandrich, (the irrespressible) Kenny L, (new guy) Brian Link, and moi (not to be confused with a moa, a flightless bird found in New Zealand).  That's six (and I kept my shoes on too for accuracy!)!

Bill and Tim B. were obviously on another plane of fitness.  They rode all fiddee miles as individuals. Tim F. pardner'd up with a long time friend and did it as a team (one lap for each).  The remaining three-we-stayed together on the first and part of the second lap.

Each lap is 25 miles long with 3300' of climbing.

Gnarly don't you think?  We did this twice.  

The promoters made slight course changes for the better (i.e. no more two-way traffic on a screaming downhill!) and I think they cleaned up the super-rocky descent back into the finish area.  Either way it made for a smoof day or at least as smoof as one can be in a 50 mile off-road race.

The beginning.

E(xpert), 46's my age, and a bad looking ankh above my ankh-el.

We got there early enough to get our race plates, t-shirt, socks, (and the pint glass filled with beer, post-race).  They mark your calf with age and category and for the sake of aesthetics I had the girl put an ankh on it for luck.  Kenny had a pentagram and his number had horns and a pointy tail.  That girl was cool.  The guy after Kenny plagiarized Kenny's idea-the bastard!  The socks are black, Wooly Booly 3/4 length sock so I wore 'em for the race because I want the extra cush-cush for when my feet get wet during the creek crossings.  The creek crossings-once on the course-were a trickle this dry summer.  As we're dressing from the side street, an old racer teammate and good friend back from Tejas comes up and we hug and say our mutual salutations.  Right before that, I asked Kenny, What are the chances of meeting a co-worker up here?  Well he's no coworker but he was a good friend.  Rob tells me he's volunteering at Aid Station number 1.  How cool is that?  Later after Rob leaves, Kenny asks, Hey man, you some secret weapon stuff?  It's from one of our sponsors-Cliff- it's a Cliff Shot Turbo (Double [sic]Expresso) Energy Gel with 100 mg of C₈H₁₀N₄O₂.  I take three.  After we locate Brian (through my magical powers of echolation), it's off to stage in our respective category-Expert Men.  I'm no expert ('cept for maybe belching really loud, long, and baritoney), but dammit I'm a Man-or at least that's what your Mom said...LAD NIGHT!.....I'm sorry.  At the staging area, I ingest the secret weapon (bwahahaha!). 


After the promoter counts us down we roll out neutral for like a mile because all the racers are part of the fourth of July parade in Main Street Breckenridge, CO.  We're rolling down Main Street separated by barriers from the spectators and the kids stick their hands in between the fencing to side-five (or high-five) us as we begin the race.   It's pretty cool and inspiring seeing all these people watching and cheering you (and flashing us their boobies-c'mon there're families here!!) on before you begin the pain.  No. They don't flash boobies here.  This is a respectable town.  Incidentally between Brian, Kenny, and the flightless NZ bird our number plates are 89 (Brian), 90 (Kenny L.), and 91.  We would finish in reverse order today.  That's a good omen right?  For a man who teaches science, I sure am superstitious about my race day rituals.  To name a few examples, I don't shave my face two days prior to event (legs are different) and I ALWAYS wear black, 3/4 length crew socks from our sponsor.   I don't carry food nor water for this event because the Aid Stations are plentiful and the promoter's left no stone unturned for feeding and hydrating the racers while actually racing.

Lap 1.
Jeez.  You'd think there's a race going on with all these people pedaling so darn fast!  Kenny, Brian, and I don't match their speed (and they are cooking!) up the long-arsed climb.  We have to conserve for the last lap.  We climb as a trio and once we get into singletrack we pretty much stay together too.  On the climb there are usually some fun loving criminal spectators that setup a ramp where riders, if they choose to, will get up to ramming speed and get airborne.  Hey!  I'm riding an Airborne!  A Guardian to be precise.  Once they land, after a boisterous show of appreciation from the peanut gallery, they are rewarded with a shot of Wild Turkey.  Unfortunately, they didn't wake up in time for our category. The singletrack was WICKED!  I was thankful at the SCREAMING downhills where I could follow a pack of riders and not ride the brakes because I had no reference of the speed handling capabilities.  The highest point 11,000-ish feet or so you had to climb a scree field that crossed a creek a couple of times.  Since it's been a dry summer my feet weren't too soaked.  At the top, the single track was so narrow you had to be careful on the leeward pedal stroke so as to not launch yourself on the downstroke sending you careening down the steep embankment!  It was almost like a tightwire act.  Made a mental note to be more smoov with no deathgrip on the handlebars here on the second lap.  Last 1/3d had the new singletrack cut.  It was in a relatively clear patch where the singletrack was super dusty.  They cut the trails with berms so you can keep it fast while carving.  Very cool as well as rocky.  On any given part of the course-especially the downhills-you'd see riders patching flats.  Not me, I run tubeless.  The only thing I scan for is tallish rocks with sharp, side-wall cutting edges!  Then a roller-coastery tight singletrack with a wee stiff climb that dumps you on the technical descent into the finish line to begin the second lap.  We had a pack descending into the park when a group of Pros asked us for a pass rather politely so we pulled over.  These guys have to be hitting 40 miles per on the super screamers.  First lap done with a time of 2h 20 mins.  Hey I can do this is less than 5h!

Lap 2.
If you've been around awhile and watched Greg Lemond win his Tours de France you might've notice a guy before the scene named Bernald Hinault (aka The Badger).  His pedaling strategy was to always ratchet it up a notch (increase wattage) the closer you got to the finish line.  It didn't matter what the terrain was but you could not let up, or diminish intensity so within meters, or miles, or whatever measuring units of length you use you had better be bleeding out your ears near the finish line.  That would be my strategy because I survived lap 1 and my tank wasn't empty.  On the climb, I ride a bit quicker to make up time.  What do I see ahead?  My fun loving criminals with their ramp set up and the Wild Turkey flowing and applauses and screams for the suckas that get tempted.  I see the ramp!  I increase my wattage and boom I'm airborne in my Airborne.  Applause and cheers for this sucka!  Seconds later a guy gives me a professional handup.  Instead of a musette bag it's a plastic cup with Wild Turkey (aka the Kickin' Chick'n!!) in it.  Strangely enough, I like the heat when it touches my tongue and the heat following my esophagus's path as it passes onto my gullet (c'mon liver, process those toxins!).  Soothing it is.  At Aid Station number 1, I see Rob and fill up the tank.  I'm walking the scree field to the apex of the course and time's a'tickin.  Probably not going to get a sub-5h time with this.  Kenny's riding like a fiend and passes me but Brian (after I learned his situation) is starting to cramp and has to ratchet down his intensity.  So after hanging onto groups, getting dropped, passing groups, I settle into a group and I have to have the tenacity to hang because I lost so much time walking the scree field.  I see dust flying so we're near the finish.  My group passes a Sport girl and the singletrack gets tight so I get gapped from my group.  I am cool and not a road snob so I say, can I pass when it's safe?     O my God!  After an eternity she's still on Sunday driver pace and to slyly show my sense of urgency and annoyance I calmly say, Can you PLEASE pull the fuc* over and let me pass?  She pulls over and I'm riding like a possessed, twin-turbo charged, v-12 diesel motor hoping to catch my previous group minutes ahead by now.  I am pedalling at every opportunity to close the gap.  The dust is flying so they must be in the open field.  I hit the open field and I see the last guy in the train duck back into the forest.  Not too far.  I increase the watts...
Now I'm in the forest and after 10 or so minutes of roller coastery, tight singletrack and threading the needle through the tight stuff I'm on the back of the group.  We begin our last climb, and now I'm wearing horse blinders because I'm so focused on staying in this group while climbing technical stuff.  With my 10x2, I notice the guy's cadence in front of me isn't synched with mine.  Why?  Because my mind is now wandering from being tired, anxious for the finish, and getting a smidge hypoglycemic (I didn't fill up at the last Aid Station).  I have to dismiss this and focus on increasing watts applied smoofly to the pedals, or else I might lose it mentally and implode.  Roadies call it cracking as opposed to bonking aka hitting the wall.  Although a source of cracking could be bonking.  I wasn't going to bonk.  Not today at least.  We pass Kenny on the climb.  His rear tire got knicked by a sharp rock so he had to get off the bike and pump it up while his sealant plugged the cut.  By this time this choo-choo is in for the kill.  We're sharks looking to eat and spit out the chum!  I notice my legs are fresh and I'm ready to go around people on this climb but it's so narrow I have to bite my tongue and soft pedal to maintain the line.  Finally we climb the last steeper part of the narrow fireroad and pass the slower climbers like Moses parting the waters.  From our group of 8, 5 get around.   We settle in after the initial acceleration and my legs still wanna go so I pass another rider.  4th!  I see the right hander singletrack where it's near impossible to pass in the descent to the finish so the order is going to stay like this if I don't go for another pass.  I punch it (don't bother to lock the fork), get out of the saddle and I pass one more.  Years before, in this particular descent to the finish, I was fighting my bike and riding the brakes because I was so exhausted.  Now, my mantra is, DON'T TOUCH THE BRAKES!  The two in front of me have dual boingers but I am so focused that there isn't but a three foot gap max I maintain from second rider.  One more look at my top tube for Eric's (Eric from Airborne bikes and kindred spirit) words of inspiration FLY OR DIE to increase my wattage via the placebo effect....As we're flowing like water on this screamer of a downhill, I swear Penelope is screaming, WEEEEEEEEEEEE!!  Bam!!  I get Stan's sealant spewing all over me.  Second in line shears/burps his rear tire on these sharp rocks littering the downhill on the apex of a switchback.  I offer my condolences and try to hunt number one.  He's gapping me ugly so I assess how far the next guy is behind me.  They're not too far so I keep it pegged.  The last four switchbacks, you can see clearly who's behind you (and in front of you).  The guy behind me has his missile sights radar locked on me and he's pedaling like a fiend.  Probably 5 car lengths?  So I pedal with a little more desperation.  With the finish line coming up, I check my six and even though he's possessed, he's not going to pass me before the line, so I ease up, zip up my jersey and pump my right fist in the air as I cross the line.  I hear the announcer say my name correctly and one second later, homeboy behind me crosses the line.  Booyeah!  5h and 12 minutes later I finished.  A PR for me.  What I do know (sadly it's not a lot) is this:  I am humble and thankful for a plethora of components-whether organic or inorganic-harmoniously and synergistically coming together in this cosmic mish-mash (although training probably occupies a large piece o'dat pie) for the event known as the Firecracker.  Take that other years of extreme lameness!  Happy days!  Now it's time for free food, slaps on the back with my competitors/teammates, and beer in my new pint glass....   

Stick a fork in me.  I. Am. Done!

Superloop 2012

Today was my first XC race of the year with Penelope making her 29er debut too.  All I can say, after dialing her in after three weeks with elongating the stem and seatpost and narrowing the bars...etc. it's what those components are mounted on that makes the difference.  When I threw my leg over my first Yeti hardtail it was like mind connecting to a Banshee (James Cameron's Avatar reference, not of the supremely lame Last Airbender avatar).  Now I have Banshee 2.0 and she's an Airborne Guardian named Penelope.  She's red with sexy lines and dare I say tubeless (blush!)?

Hoo-wee, she was FAST (too bad I ain't).

The course starts at a very low elevation of 9,000 feet.  33 in my category showed up-Mens 45-49 Sport.  After the marshall counts us down with 5 seconds to go we're off and Mr. Lactic acid shows up for our sprint out the gate.  It looks like geese flying south.  The supreme badass is on the leading edge while I am echeloned out in seventh position.  We worked up a gap on the rest and that's when I stopped counting.  People passed me and I'd mentally correct for passage, then I'd pass some and this is the first 20 minutes of the first of the next countless climbs on this badass course!  Once I settled in and I know longer noticed my legs burning, it was time to move up the food chain.    Remember I'm 5'7" and not too good at any one cycling discipline (I'm exceptional at resting if that counts) but I can sorta climb.  So climb like Satan's what I did.  I'm probably pretty average at climbing but I like to think I can climb.  So we climb and climb and the first descent hits and I'm raring to go.  I quickly get in the flow-zone of this really serpentine downhill and actually pass people kind enough to give me room when I ask to pass when it's safe.

Can I pass when it's safe?  Thanks brah.

On the first plateau, I pop it on my large chainring (my Airborne's a 10x2) and crush it.  There's a guy in front of me whom we would introduce ourselves later and we take turns taking pulls on our 29ers and there's no 26er in our group leeching a train freebee.  Why?  Rolling inertia (creating that flywheel effect) and we're more efficient covering ground per pedal stroke than their smaller diameter wheels AND we have rather manly legs.  The 26ers try to hang but we're locked and loaded at this point.

That's the truth, Ruth.

So it's off to the races with Jay and I picking off people.  He has a dual suspension 29er and once the road points down he pulls away slightly but I'm right there.  At one particular technical stretch of downhill he's screaming and I can't hold on because I'm being jackhammered by the hardtail.  I say to myself, "Self, there's a boat load of uphills. I will have my time yet just be patient and don't blow!"  Sure enough these uphills are grinders.  The first singletrack climb, my cadence goes buzzsaw and I say to myself, "Self?  Why are you spinning like a loon?"  I drop it two smaller cogs, and I roll just enough to pedal in efficient circles where the legs are pistoning.  This slowly accelerates me around my climbmates.  In fact, I pass people but don't get passed myself and I'm saying to myself, "Self?  That ride you went on with Kenny L. is just what the doctor ordered because it occurred on a grueling, hot, windy, long day."  The lack of pain was the from the physiological adaptations of these nutty training rides, now paying off in spades (whatever the hell that means).  It was almost unreal as I was passing these people I was not feeling like I was in the red zone.  By this time though, J's gone.
On the next to last uphill I see him and I pass him.  Being the non-elitist competitor I am I say to myself, "Self?  Say something encouraging when you pass."  "Job brah!"   Is what I end up saying to Jay as I cruise uphill.

Elegant wasn't it?  Yeah, I thought so (it's a truncated version of Good job kind sir).

After climbing, we're on another fireroad plateau and I see a group of 5 riders (35-38 age group, I can tell because all riders are marked on their calves by their respective age) and a hoss of a rider's leading them (looks like a track rider).  As an XC racer, you can't get lulled by drafting of a pack to rest, if you have the gumption you gotta roll so as not to give the leader in your group a freebie of increasing distance.  So roll's is what I do.  This time Jay's caught on my wheel too.  So I do a roadie maneuver and pass 'em kind of fast so's they can't catch my draft;  in fact, they have to accelerate rather abruptly to get on my train thereby disrupting their rhythm and hopefully putting some lactic acid on their legs for their acceleration.  The hoss doesn't like it and he punches it, out of the saddle rocking his bike (damn roady).  He doesn't accelerate very fast, so while sitting (saves precious kilocalories), I slowly get back in his draft.  He punches it again, and like his last result, I'm glued on his wheel.  The left hand corner into the singletrack's coming up and the minute his buttocks contact his saddle after another one of his poor accelerations, I kick in the afterburners on and get the holeshot into that lefthander singletrack.

Take that sucka (and Mr. Lactic acid says hello dere to my legs)!

He's rocking a dual suspension so I have to cherry pick my line on this downhill but since it's not too technical I put it in my largest gear ratio and actually pedal on this singletrack.  He's breathing down my neck but he doesn't have the speed to pass.  Another long-ish climb and I put some distance on him.

He's 38 and I'm 46 so I feel good and strong.

On a rather technical descent he passes me (I don't clog the trail if there's a safe place to let people go around me) but before when he announces the pass he does it On Your Right dickhead style.  So I say to myself, "Self?  You need to put a smackdown on this beeyatch."   I follow his line because he is a good descender but on the last long climb I'm basically this guy's enema.  On a particularly tree rooted, stiff uphill, I don't bother announcing my pass instead I quickly and oh so smoovly thread the needle between him and the roots we're climbing on and a tree close to the singletrack.  I did it quiet and ninja like too so V-crotch didn't even see it coming nor could he respond but I did see him flinch when I passed just centimeters from his handlebars.  From there I buried myself in the climb and put quality distance you can measure by car lengths between us.

Buh-bye dickhead hoss.

The last part of the downhill was just cut a week ago and it had the characteristic of true mountain, XC sadist.  It was super narrow, dusty/chalky, with baby heads and tree roots abounds.  People in front of me where hitting trees and going down and cussing in such a way that would make a nun blush.  I again was in the flow as was Jay.  The last kilometer or so was flat and it paralleled railroad tracks.  With about 200 or so meters left, I jump and Jay slowly comes around me and I run out of finish line.

Awesome.  I towed that savvy sumbitch to the line.  Rats!

At the end, 2nd-5th places were separated by mere seconds- it was that close.  Our winner put in 3 minutes on us.  That is what's called sandbagging folks (our winner, not me).  I was fifth, Jay was fourth.  Fun.  In two weeks the next XC race is on.  I think I wanna do it if the Firecracker doesn't break me.

Amen.

PS.  If you don't believe me here's the link showing the final placings (click on "link").
PPS.  Click link for course profile.
PPPS.  On a sadder note, my younger teammate Samer-the Hammer, sheared his sidewall, patched it, and still managed to be 2 minutes faster than yours truly.  I hung out with his family (his wife raced it too-came in 4th) post race and they're a class act.
PPPPS.  Samer-the Hammer-3rd; Danielle-4th, me-5th.  Coincidental don't you think?
PPPPPS.  I met a former student of mine and his lovely wife Krista.  'Tis a small world...
PPPPPPS.  Got in a 4h road ride the following day, 60 miles worth of climbing for one more practice run for Weds.

The Lycra Brother (and Sister) hood.

I rode my hardest ride of 2012 during the hottest part of 2012 (at least until that record is broken, which will probably be today).  Our Natural Grocers team leader and general good guy, Kenny L. picked a ride from Strava.  Strava, loosely, is a social networking gig where competitive people or competitively voyeuristic people who want some anonymity can check other people's timed events.  These events can either be segments of road or off-road courses or anything GPS can track.  Obviously if you're running in mine shafts GPS can't track you.  Kenny picked Taylor Phinney's "medium" ride for our poison (aka transcendental therapy session) yesterday.

Cycling friendships are a little more special than non-cycling friendships (my opinion) because they have an added bonus of this:  everybody-your cycling brahs and sissies-embraces suffering in one form or another (i.e. more layers of the onion, peeled away).  This embracing of suffering isn't temporary; in fact, your friendships become more entwined because we frequently inflict-and expect-this collective suffering upon each other.  Bike geeks (racers, bike marathoners, RAAMers, mileage junkies...I'm sure I'm missing another specialty of two-wheeledness-recumbent riders are just plain weird) can suffer more than the self-perceived bike geek who rode to 7-11 and got caught in the rain ONCE and thought, "Wow!  That was a Marlboro Man experience!  I probably can do the Tour de France now." It's this common denominator (and general aiming, through digital manipulation of self-propelled mucoid substances while riding) that binds us; probably complimenting the friendship that precedes the commonality of suffering.  It's like, "Yeah, they're all nice guys and none have been convicted of any felonies (in Kenny's case, he was acquitted);" but, when experiences of universal bike race suffering (we're all from difference necks of the woods) occur before meeting each other, there's a kindred spirituality that makes that person even more likable.   
Now if it's just you suffering on a constructive training ride, the fact that it wasn't shared-in my humble opinion-kept that cosmic energy expenditure of positivity bottled and resonated only with you.  It's like having an out-of-body experience that nobody else was there to witness (it's like cosmic validation but truly it's you who has to be convinced) that experience.  You add another (or several) bipedal hominid(s) on a modified penny farthing (today's bike silly!) and you get the racer's phenomena of what I call collective suffering.  

Collective suffering is akin to hive mentality via resonance.  Take the sleestak example of Land Of The Lost fame.  They were a collective and before Marshall, Will, and Holly tore the fabric of space/time to drop in on them-while still on their kayaks nonetheless-like uninvited guests (through no fault of their own).  Before that happened the sleestaks were happy keeping their hive in order, tending to their young, flinging poop out of the hive for cleanliness sake, and hatching out of eggs.  Probably had a caste system too.  When the humans came something clicked in their collective brain.  An abstraction that led them to a higher purpose, which was:  let's kill da human beeches foo's (or more likely this: aasdienbqpzvcmxiweytnxalki!)!  This abstraction resonated with all the individuals in the clutch (you can't resonate with one-but you can originate the impulse), the hive, the collective or whatever word or phrase you wanna use like E pluribus unum (in Latin, it translates roughly to E pluribus unum).  So this reptilian homeboy/girl society was further galvanized, with more purpose because pre-humans they were bored, now they banded together with their toe-up bows and arrows (and couldn't shoot their way out of a paper bag) to kill the humans.  Incidentally, if you were at point blank range from a sleestak you'd have a better chance of living than if you were equidistant from a highly used kitty litter box ripe with Toxoplasma gondii protozoans.  Hell you could probably fire off six or seven fierce, highly accurate kara-te kicks to that sleestak's groin before it fired off that arrow in your general direction (don't forget to kiai!). 

Our peloton yesterday of six behaved like a hive.  Instead of clearly defined castes though, we had roles of I'ma-inflict-this-specific-type-o'pain-on-yo-arse.  For example, roles like:  the billy goat, the descend-like-Satan-descender, the flat terrain human diesel motor, the sprinter...etc.  When the topographically-dependent situation distilled that role from an individual in the hive-the roles can switch-we got down to bidness (i.e. the buzzing in the beehive).  Our transcendental plane destination was suffering; and to get there mentally you have to bring your admission ticket of resonance.  When riding, sometimes there's talking, sometimes it's church mouse quiet and the only thing you hear is the gravel crunching underneath the skinny tires, or the whir of our drivetrains as our 12 wheeled hive rolled along on all manner of rode surfaces as the Sol blasted us with unadulterated UVA, UVB, and UVC radiation.  The gravelly part SUCKED!  In fact, my damn Speedplay's came loose with all that shaking going on (I had to bum a screw in Ward at a store to refasten my cleat!).  Five hours later, with close to 9000' (2743 m) of climbing, in 99° F (37°C) of heat, mentally ensconced in our suffer-fest bubble we arrive to our parking lot (and our cars didn't get towed!  Boulder is parking nazi central).  You'da thunk it was Christmas (or fill-in whatever joyous event comes into your mellon) by the expressions on our faces resulting from our collective suffering via resonance.  Racing amplifies this abstraction.  So the next time you see a bee or a sleestak for that matter, know that there's a lot going on in their neural networks (and run from the sleestak).  Furthermore, the next time you see members of the Vitamin Cottage/Natural Grocers Racing Team riding as a collective, pass 'em with at least three feet of space because it's Colorado law (and buy more vitamins and cottages please)!

It doesn't matter what gender you are to achieve this type of enlightenment (brothers and sisters!); but it has to be greater than one to make it logarithmically mo' bettah.  Because (and remember-say, remember like Mufasa) the whole (collective) is greater than the sum of the (individual) parts my grasshoppers.

Ruminate on that...

'Tis Hot

that's 36° Celsius for you metric losers (just joshing).

After an enlightening ride with my Natural Grocers Dirt Team (Kenny, Tim X2, and Brian)-in which we all are doing the Firecracker 50- last week preparing for said race, I rode on with Dr. Tim.  Not only does he play one on T.V. but he is one, so when it comes to training advice, I'll listen.  Even though we didn't get in our planned 50 mile mix of on and off roading due to some fierce looking storm clouds rolling in, the training gist I got out of one of our many conversations was the magic number of 4.  He said there's really no need in training more than 4 hours off-road to prepare so that's what I've been doing.  Been coming close.  After that day the most I got was 3.5h with Billy and who did I see on the trail yesterday?  Tim (again).  He's rocking.  He saw me at hour 3.25 and my tongue was draggin'!  On a related note, I was the receiver of two pinch flats as I was riding my old 29er.  My Guardian's tubeless so I guess I ride sloppier than I thought.  I try to pick the sweet line being that both my 29ers are hardtails.

a more dialed-in cockpit version 2.0

This was yesterday, now I'm rocking the new and more dialed-in Airborne Guardian.  Put a narrower, riser handlebar with a 0° rise, 120mm stem and much longer seat post to get a more aggressive stance when I turn into an XC racer wannabee (I actually have a USAC license and actually race, not last place mind you, but one DNF on the first race of the season).
It was HOT!  So I wanted to do Mt Falcon-Parmalee loop-Lair O' The Bear as a big circuit.  Probably 24 miles with about a smidge less than 3000' of climbing I'm guessing.  As I'm climbing-in Colorado if you mountain bike you start either climbing or descending-the very first part of Falcon some iPod wearing pedestrian warns me, "There's a rattler a'ways from you on the trail."  Not only is it hot and I'm sweating like an obese man at a buffet at Sizzler, but now I'm hyper-aware and hyper-sensitive that all tree roots that I see are indeed roots.  It reminded me of the days I lifeguarded at the YMCA, especially my shift during the toddler learn to swim sessions.  I'd be a scanning fiend looking for any toddler drinking an inordinate amount of pool water (I actually pulled three kids total who tried to daredevil it and got too far from the edge and I yanked their thrashing bodies back onto the ledge).
So not only was I overheating but I was also like Nightrider's LED on the front of that Firebird (yes I'm dating myself) scanning and listening to the pre-strike rattler sound.  Of course when I free-wheeled (as opposed to free-balling) that sound too sounded like the rattler (coincidentally, free-balling makes no sound-or a slight swooshy sound?) so I had to keep on pedaling.  After what seemed like an eternity, I saw no rattler so I hunkered down and focused on the hot-arsed, exposed ascent.  You know what I'm going to do next time to jack with a hiker?  I'ma say, "Rogue Ninjas ahead and they're out for blood especially when you rest."  I will punctuate my sentence with "foo' (fool)" so 1:  they'll think it's normal mountain bike vernacular and not heed my warning; or 2:  there really might be ninjas and to continue might be a foolhardy test of living.  Get it?

albeit the commute was hellish, the scenery was lovely and I'd take mountains over beach anytime.

At the top of Parmalee you can see highway 285 as a road in-between the valley.  I used to travel that road daily when I lived in these foothills.  It was a 106 mile round trip excursion, more if you added miles as me being a soccer dad and even more hours during torrential snowstorms.  What prompted me to stick to that hellish commute?  It was a mountainous Garden of Eden though on the weekends looking out over our 5 acres at 8,600'.  Now I'm a divorced, single Dad living less than six minutes away from work.  Quite a trade-off I'd say.  There's more trade-offs too numerous to mention on this particular blog.   Maybe another time...
The effort at White Ranch with Billy the other day coupled with the heat really took a lot out of my legs and it showed in my efforts today but I was still determined to finish my predetermined route. Why?  Because my other ninja, Eric (no relation to rogue, trail ninjas), had this lovely aphorism on a nice piece of vinyl that I proudly display on my top tube where it meets the steerer tube.  "Fly or Die." 

because, "Harden the Fuc* Up" took too much space.

I don't wanna die, nor is man capable of self-sustaining, no-simple-machines flight.  It's an enigma don't you think?  Eric is an enigma too (wrapped in a riddle-I heard that somewhere so sue my plagiarizing arse). On Parmalee, after you climb out of the blast furnace, the single track is fast, sandy, and underneath the canopy of evergreens.  The nice dessert after a main course of Hot (with seconds).

Nice singletrack under the canopy don't you think?

After I climb out of the upper Mt. Falcon parking lot,  I have to hit the roads to get to the trailhead of LOTB.  I turn into road-geek and try to rest the legs on the nice, smoov, asphalt as I soft pedal  through the small town of Indian Hills.  LOTB is more roller coastery with a net downhill.  Most of it too is shaded.  There are a couple of technical parts.  Here's me...

What's wrong with this picture?  Leave a comment if you got it.

attempting this...

I can clear it.  Don't believe me?  Ride with me then (and can you bring your cute sister?  thanks).

Here's another rocky uphill.  I can make it all the way to that darn tree.  Then rogue ninjas come out and punch me in the bread basket and taunt me asking rhetorical questions like, "Why do you, grown man, wear spandex?" then laugh, and then I look like a fish out of water, holding my break basket.  Damn you trail ninjas!!

Named after Doors singer...NOT!

After a nice, twisty, singletrack downhill, I hit the road again (Highway 74) to take me back to the beginning where I parked in Morrison. 

Morrison is kind of a touristy mecca but bikers and rock climbers flock to this place as well and it's not that far from Red Rocks amphitheatre (as opposed to the extinct Red Rocks amphibian).   I need to train wisely so at my truck, there's a cooler with a recovery drink for me.  At home I have another recovery drink and it's this (it is summer after all)...

and yes I did graduate from Texas.  Hook 'em!

Cleansing, Self-inflicted Pain

If you squint really hard you can see Denver in background.  This is Kev.

The last ride I did was with Kevin.  Kevin plus myself make 2/3rds of the homey trinity(definition:  it's like three peeps who are homeys, c'mon, work with me here).  Where?  You ask is the third?  Good question.  He was doing work stuff.  Yuck!  But he is Teacher of the Year 2012 at RHS so I will not disparage my brother on this blog (maybe the next one though).  That last ride was before my vacation to southern California to visit me Mum (yes, I'm English, Southern English that's why I have this tan) and li'brah and sweet sis in-law.  It was amazingly cool and I learned two things.  One, the sweet tooth my mother has is genetic; and two, I can honestly say I don't like sitting around on a beach (not conducive to my ADD) and the hotel pool's just fine!  The only beaches I gravitate to are the rugged Oregon or Washington coasts where you can hike and decompress looking at some magnificent, water sculpted shorelines.  
The first thing I learned added girth to my waistline.  My Mum loves DQ desserts (really who doesn't).  So whenever there was DQ around we bust out a Blizzard, a dipped cone, a Caramel Shake, French Fries-and that was just for me!  Do that habitually on vacation and you end up with some sweet potential energy in the form of adipose tissue 'round yo middle.  Being a cyclist-and if you've spent quality time with cyclists-means I'm hypersensitive about my weight.  Call it vanity but you can't have extraneous girth when you're busting an uphill move or in an 80 mile race where thin=proficient, efficient use of transporting and burning crucial kilocalories.  Anyhoo it was my plan to store this potential energy and to transform it into kinetic energy as soon as I returned to Colorful Colorado (not really, I just have no self-discipline).  Today was that day peeps.
Kevin and I did a looped ride called Mt. Falcon to Lair O' the Bear.  I wanted to do the climb up Mount Falcon twice, so the plan was after the big loop, I'd just climb to the top of Falcon again and descend to get ready for the protracted pain threshold I will suffer through doing the Firecracker 50.  My new toy's Airborne Bike's Guardian 29er spec'd with the Goblin's components.  I just added my CrossMax wheelset that I'm running tubeless.  Penelope, after I did my pre-flight ritual of airing the + and - air chambers (10 pounds higher than manufacturer's recommendation), pumping tubeless tires to 40 psi (I know it's high), nighttime soak of chain lube (not me silly, the bike), was raring to go.  Once you've gotten over where the bike's center of gravity is, it's just a matter of expectations of what the bike's capable of doing and the driver's abilities (now I ain't saying she's a gold digger, but she ain't going for no broke...).  So-and I've been racing for a while-my expectation was for Penelope to deliver me a predictable, high performance translation of my pedaling and body english, to speed on the ground and to confidently track on the hardpack...which she did.  The big wheels coupled with the tubeless setup has a characteristic of beach cruiser wheels.  Kinda bubbly and bouncy but extra force dissipation (as oppposed to those forces dissipating via your spinal cord) is a plus.  When I lean to corner, the squish goes away and it tracks confidently (wish they made a UST version of the Small Block Eights). 
Here's why predictable ride quality is important.  Once the bike does what you ask for and you are intimately educated about how to get every nuance of performance out of her, the racer mind kicks in and you can get in the zone-the trance.  Once you're in the zone all the energy is spent on where your focusing your eyes (in tandem with:  setting up the body english, using arms and legs as shock absorbers, and visualizing) towards your desired path (obstacles or not).  It's like skiing moguls as fast as you can, except when you crash at speed in an XC race there's no snow to break your fall.  You worry about equipment (or your equipment flat out sucks), you lose that edge and focus and probably some time.  So thanks Airborne for spec'ing Penelope better than ite. 
Quasi big rocks, at speed mind you, needs a float like water stance and approach once you hit it.  It doesn't look pretty here but that's what I'm doing.

Approach, setting up the english...

Not particularly floating either but the big wheels have inertia baby!



Lair O'The Bear is roller coastery singletrack with these big-ish rocks as either uphill or down hill obstacles.  Another advantage of big wheels is one of my pedal strokes means my wheel will cover more distance than a 26er.  It's like disc wheels, you need leg strength to get the rolling inertia going.  If you have it, you win; if you don't, it's a waste of energy.  They also have rocks strategically placed where you have to thread the needle or else Mr. Rock will shear off your rear derailleur (Moab did that to my Yeti) or shred a sidewall (my tubeless tires are expensive!).  Either way it's not fun...

Kev threadin' the needle...

...me threadin' the needle.

Punctuating LOTB is a rocky, stair-steppy path.  'Tis better to descent it than ascend it so that's what we do...


This is actually pretty steep!

Almost done!

Back at the cars, Kevin gives me the remainder of his Cliff-Bloks and I still have some more potential energy hanging around.  Better do that second climb up Mt. Falcon.  Saturday's going to be an off-road Natural Grocers Dirt Team ride at White Ranch-a bunch of grown men sporting Halloween's colors wearing spandex.  Funny if you think about it.  If Penelope's going to be this confidence inspiring I await her debute at the first WinterPark XC race June 30th 'til then it's self-inflicted pain mixed with spiritual cleansing after epic rides setting up for the Firecracker 50 (guess the date). 



Eric and Billy are Ninjas

Eric (this is a pseudonym by the way, names were changed to protect the innocent and besides he’s in the witness protection program) and I had post-ride talk today.  It all started with the ride with my teacher-of-the-year home skillet and 1/3 of the homey trinity: Billy aka Hez-Chilly (which is a variant on the militant Islamic group Hezbollah, which is a variant on Hez-Billy, where I arrived on his moniker:  Hez-Chilly, get it?).  I could write a whole blog on Hez-Billy (that's his real name by the way), also my Ninja, but I digress…

…Eric and I have very similar life trajectories.  Even though he is merely a child as compared to yours truly who’s in his twilight years, we are quite sympatico.  We both love bikes, not solely as a vehicle of utilitarian purposes but for the simple aesthetics of it (I can stare at a clean bike for hours given my druthers);  we love the athletes who suffer for a pittance in National Tours;  we raced and still race all manner of bikes (‘cross, mountain, road-well I guess that’s all), we went through a mind numbing divorce of nutty, mental proportions, we actually lived in Alamogordo, NM (‘nuff said),  we’re single Dads and we truly love the simple (I guess simple is relative) things in life.

It all started after Hez-Chilly and I did our annual post-graduation cycle-fest.  About 470 kids at our HS graduated today and to commemorate that, we went on a bike ride, a mountain bike ride.  So, I like have this new ride from Airborne called the Guardian (same frame as the Goblin) and it’s red.  Red is the color of passion.  It reminds me of lips.  Billy showed me a statue of lips today at the University of Denver’s Ritchie Center and I liked it.  In fact, I wanted to kiss it, it looked so inviting (but I didn't).  Coincidental?  I think not.  When unpassionate things are colored red it’s like polishing a turd.  It just ain’t happening.  My new, red Guardian is truly a work of art that’s race ready (and diametrically opposed to said turd).  This was my second ride where I can truly push the performance envelope.  Yesterday I took it on a hill climb workout and it rocked but today with Billy, we did rather rocky climbs on tight singletrack, off-the-beaten-singletrack in a place called Green Mountain.  We went chilly-chill and after a lap, Billy had a tutoring gig and after our teary-eyed goodbyes (c’mon, I’m a guy, NOT!) I tore off for a second lap of $hit on your neighbor intensity. 

I’m 5’7”and weigh 135 lbs.  Ain’t a whole of competitive cycling disciplines this morphology is good for.  I suck at individual TTs, can barely tolerate criteriums, and long road races usually get me cramping but you know what I can do?  I can climb.  I climb all right (for an old guy).  I haven’t checked out my prowess in a climbing road race so I might just be talking out of me arse.  I’ll let you know if I do the Colorado State Road Race Championships.  On the second lap I tried my darndest to go at TT pace without being a dick to other trail users (I always yield to other hikers and uphill cyclists).  The Guardian was killin’ it!  There was a valley on the course where the downhill was shorter than the uphill but if you have sprint intensity you can punch yourself up the hillside marching the big gears.  I stood on the pedals mightily, cranked and wailed and contorted myself on the cockpit to get every ounce of energy delivered to the rear wheels with the lockout on, and not only did she not break traction but she was super quiet (nice component build-X7), tracked nicely due to its wheelbase, and the gearing choices were sufficient from the 10 x 2 setup (goodbye 9 x 3)thereby punching me over the top.  At the top, she whispered in my ear, is that all you have?  I replied with a smile.  I stood on the the crankarms with so much force it actually hurt the bottoms of my feet due to my shoes' stiff carbon insole.  Sho-nuff peeps there is little left to do in the dialing-in department.  She was an extension of my piston-type legs!  The big wheels, should you daydream at speed, will take you flying off the mountain.  When Billy shot out of the cannon at the beginning of the ride (I thought this was going to be chilly-chill?), I saw him down the course and I punched it.  I was also noticing how picture perfect downtown Denver was in the distance.  And in just that short distance, Peneolope picked up so much speed that I was about to go flying off the trail into a ravine. I did a supreme counter steer, contortionistic body English while locking up the brakes to get me back into my line.  This bike is FAST yet compliant enough to take your orders and translate it into manners on the trail.  The Kinesis geometry is aggressive while the 29er takes a wee bit of edge of the babyheads if you can’t thread the needle in the rock garden.  Great second lap and Penelope continues to impress me with what she’s capable of (translatable speed with confident steering, including very fast avoidance maneuvers, while looking sexy in red).  She has balance too.  On somewhat downhill sections of gradual serpentine profile, without too many babyheads, I take my hands off the bars and steer with my hips (yeah ladies!  I apologize…).  I rode nearly all of that short section hands free but needed to hit the brakes because I had to scrub off some speed.  No shimmies, no nothing, like a sled y’all.  Except it has wheels because you know, sleds have rails?

So, after that great ride (I truly don’t need much to keep me happy), I called Eric (mind you this is a pseudonym) for cosmic validation-a cosmic uh-huh from my Ninja.  To keep a long story short, we are kindred spirits of the highest order (my inner circle of friends are more than avid cyclists) and how simple things like guilt-free bike riding is so mentally underestimated but can also lead to meaningful satisfaction that saturates all the fibers in your body with euphoria.  To the uninitiated it looks like grown men riding a bike, a mere child’s toy.  It doesn’t make sense.  It’s like an inside joke for anachronistic weirdos (because of the UCI)  and strangely esoteric to say the least (if you’ve been to a party where two cyclists have a conversation, it’s like a whole other language).  But for Eric and Billy and for myself it’s the straw the breaks the camel’s back for making a difference in mood, identity, and self-inflicted, drug-free therapy.  Riding isn’t our life, but the quality it provides us and  the tangential opportunities that present itself in the cycling community, its absence would make us feel lost.  So, Airborne cycles and Eric-my Ninja (and Jeremy), thanks for providing me a child’s toy where my homies and I can repeatedly find our happy place (it all begins with pedaling), burning enough calories for a beer or a doughnut or a cheese pizza (all at the same time if need be), and a means to $hit on my neighbor come XC race day.   So, like Cube said in his seminal LP The Predator, this is dedicated to all the Ninja's [sic] down on day one.

Hello Airborne, it's been awhile--welcome back!

Getcha sum.  Here's my new love suckas, and she's inanimate.

Busted the inaugural off-roadmove on Airborne’s Goblin/Guardian rig. She was spec’d with X7 with a 10x2 drive. First time to run a 10x2 and it worked just perfectly. The big gear wasn’t quite as big as the outer triple and the small isn’t quite as small as the inner but it didn’t slow me down. Seemed my rpms where a tad slower than I remembered but it never slowed my climbing down. Absolutely loved the tires that are on this rig-the Kenda’s small block eights. I’m gonna transfer ‘em on my Crossmax’s and run some Stan’s to become tubeless once more. I did switch the 160 mm rotors and ditched the 185 mm and transferred the 9 nine speed into the 10 speed cassette from my original 29er. Now, after some blue loc-tite and torque spec’ing the TORX bolts, the Crossmax’s are on the Guardian with the proper hardware.

Farted around after I assembled the bike, so my first ride (instead of going during the day) was a night ride. No worries though because I’m pretty familiar with all the terrain nuances out at Green Mountain here in Lakewood. Off the get go I’m digging my upper body stance and how lively the frame is even with the stock wheelset. I remember when I bought my first Yeti racing hardtail how it seemed like it was like a sled on snow. The Airborne geometry is sending the same sensations through my brain, recalling my fondness for a fast, hardtail with sexy lines (no dual suspension evokes such aesthetics like an old school hardtail). The deluxe dealio about this ride though is that she’s a 29er. Thought I’d be the last to pull the 29er trigger but once you start rolling on the big boy wheels the rolling inertia makes for overcoming obstacles, climbing, throwing it around switchbacks almost like cheating (let alone hammering on the flats). Got the 16” frame thinking it might be too small but once I settled in the cockpit and did some counter steering around some curves it felt perfect (maybe a smidge longer stem because I’m a road weenie?). Where the smaller frame shone for me was my ability to English the bike as threading the rock needle or humping over an uphill obstacle without pedaling. Effortless I’m telling you!

Remember when you have a bike that’s so novel it’s like having the placebo effect? Once I got on the long downhill fireroad at Green Mountain she started talking to me (oddly my Yeti was red too, is red my conduit to the darkside?). A smile came over my face because it was like a sled on fresh snow. The 29ers where rolling fiercely and I felt like I was gliding. She, I’ll call her Penelope, was saying stuff to me like, “Hey Mikey, you know you can go faster….” And “What’s up with feathering the brakes?” and “Doesn’t that wind feel good against your face?” I know it’s a piece of aluminum but jeez the riding sensation was terrific. It’s like the difference between quality clinchers and middle of the road tubulars-there ain’t to substitute for tubulars. Well there is no substitute for quality ride sensation that translates to ease of clearing obstacles and climbing. It was quality. The only thing I forgot to do was to put noise erasing material on the drive side chainstay. Other than that the entire ride was ninja quiet. I love quiet bikes.

I also notice I was smiling a lot. Maybe it was night and other senses where being used, but I couldn’t get over how silky smoof my new ride was. Kept thinking to myself, I can upgrade the components on this race frame and she’d be a killer. Ran the fork at higher pressures but that’s because I’m a road weenie and don’t need the big hit setup, just enough to float over the profile that ills me.

Dare I say there are endocannabinoids floating around in my bloodstream? Yes, I think I will.