WinterPark Hillclimb Series: Race #1

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

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!

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

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!

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

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

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...