Everything that’s happened to me recently has been about frame of reference. For example, I was up at Winter Park early yesterday to preride the course for next week. I arrived at 8AM and the temperature was 47F. Yikes, this seemed very cold… mainly because it was the summer. Image a day in February that was 47F at 8AM. Totally different… frame of reference.

Much to my surprise, the race organizers published a map of the course, including trail names, distance and elevation at intersections. I thought I was golden. Somehow though, I missed the first turn on the course and went straight up the road instead of heading right up Sunken Bridges. The sun glare was bad, but on the map it looks like a straight shot, the trail turning into Sunken Bridges. It would be REALLY convenient if the map had other points of reference including other trails. Like Gilligan, that was the beginning of my two hour tour. I arrived at CR159 as the directions said, went left and saw a turn for Upper Elk Creek. My directions were explicit, turn right at the second junction of Upper Elk Creek. I rode on, not realizing I was lost. A far as I knew I was right on track. I headed up the road, looking for the second trail junction 0.9mi ahead. I continued for almost 1.9 miles without finding the trail before finally turning around. Though I had a map, I didn’t trust it! Past experiences following published course information had been scaring. I turned around and came back to the 0.9mi mark. There I found a rough jeep trail that was at the exact elevation and distance from the first junction. This must be it, I thought. I headed up the trail, climbing steeply. Every time I suspected I was on the wrong track, it seemed to turn right as if it were looping around; I kept on. I finally climbed to nearly 10,500 ft. and the trail simply ended. Damn. Now I knew I was lost. My frame of reference suddenly shifted and of course I blamed the map. I finally found my way down after a few more wrong turns and rode the opposite way on CR159 and bingo, there was a sign for Sunken Bridges and the other trail junction for Upper Elk Creek. At this point I was over 2 hours into my ride, and I’d climbed over 2500 vertical feet. I decided to skip the Upper Elk Creek loop and press on, probably a mistake since I went all the way up there to pre-ride the course. The rest of the loop went OK, my energy level was dropping though, and I was really sore from the day before (I’ll get to that). I made my way through the rest of the course, but near the end, made an error because I ended up going down Tunnel Hill, instead of up the rest of Little Vasquez and down Lower Arapahoe. Without realizing I had made a critical error early on, I blew 2hrs trying to find my way, but I thought I was OK… frame of reference. If I hadn’t been lost two times before following directions from the race organizers, I would have trusted the map sooner… frame of reference. I ended up with 4hrs exactly, 4,400 ft of climbing and 35 miles.

The day before I helped Jeanie’s dad build a retaining wall for their patio. After five or six hours of lifting 75lb blocks I was pretty tired. But after a little rest, I headed out from their place for a ride. I quickly mapped out a ride on mapmyride.com and took off. I was fatigued but felt pretty good. I was surprised when the road turned to dirt. The dirt road continued over seven miles and climbed considerably, some climbs were fairly steep, up to 18%.

Coming down the backside, I passed by some cows off the side of the road. I’m pretty certain these cows had never seen a bicycle… ever, until I came flying down the hill next to them. Three of the cows FREAKED, with the look of terror in their eyes, they sprinted away from the road looking over their shoulders as if I was chasing them. hehe… frame of reference… that’s a country cow for you. Have you ever seen a street cow (grazes along the side of the road) lose it’s cool. Nope. Frame of reference.

I propose there be two distinct classes in professional cycling. One no holds barred, doping, steroid taking, body modification mutant class (like professional wrestling) and one clean, regulated class. I read yesterday that some news papers and television channels are boycotting any coverage of the tour and only running articles about doping. Do you think that would happen in the US? Haha, what a joke, I’m surprised coverage in the US hasn’t increased!

Speaking of doping, this is a great article on the subject passed on to me by Plesko.

So yesterday, I was late getting out of work so I skipped the Wednesday night group ride and road the mountain bike at Deer Creek Canyon. I pushed off at 6:50PM and a big storm was rolling in…

I was far west enough that I just skirted it. I got hit with a lot of wind, periods of drizzle, and big crashing thunder. Luckily at Deer Creek there was a lot of tree cover. I hadn’t been to Deer Creek in two years, and I forgot how steep and technical parts of the climbs were. I did the upper west loop twice and the upper east loop once before heading back down as darkness descended. I took a pretty good digger around a sweeping turn in the sand. It was difficult to tell there was sand there because it was wet and dark from the rain. I gradually slid out and came down on rocks on my knee and hip.

Afterwards I still had some unfinished business at work. I tried to get it done from home but I was having endless network and computer problems so I had to head back into the office at 10PM, and was there until after midnight.

That’s all I can muster for the moment…

Saturday was a busy day that started with the drive up to Winter Park for race #4. The course was a point to point so we opted to shuttle cars so we could get the heck out of Dodge when the race was over and not ride the 6 miles back up to WP. My warm-up was cut a little short because of the car swap and dilly dallying, and I felt REALLY flat. My legs felt awful, and I rolled up to the line nervously lethargic. Generally my heart rate jumps up into the 130s on the line due to nervous anticipation, but this time it was just creaping over 100. The race started up the same mile long fire road climb (big surprise), and I felt horrible. I can’t remember a race start when I felt this bad. My arms and hands went numb (WTF?!) and I suffered like a dog… as far as I could tell, I was the last one from my class up the climb and into the woods. I recovered some on the descent and, I gradually felt better and better. Erik and I went back and forth seven or eight times which was awesome. He really pushed me and kept me motivated, and I barely held him off over the last five miles. I had some rear derailleur problems over the last six miles too, turns out my cable slipped. By 2 miles to go, it had slipped all the way and all I had was my smallest gear in the back… luckily it was a gradual downhill to the finish. I ended up 21 out of 34, not great but I couldn’t have suffered more than I did.

On our way out, we got back to John’s car, loaded up and headed back to the Winter Park parking lot for our car. When we got there, Jeanie’s wheel was missing. She left it in the parking lot back in Frasier! We headed back to Fraiser and thankfully her wheel was still in the parking lot. That little incident led us to De Antonio’s Pizza. Halleluja!

This place was a gem… finally since moving to Colorado, we found a straight up Pizzaria, and they sold slices! We walk in and, no there was no conveyor belt “oven,” there was a big stack of Baker’s Pride ovens in the back, heating the little place up to at least 90F inside. Jeanie was a little over excited, declaring this was the first “real” pizza place she’s found in Colorado. There was no response from behind the counter, they just proudly blushed. I’m ready to buy a place in Frasier now

After our feast, we raced home. There wasn’t much traffic on 70, and we were making good time. We rounded onto c470, approaching 285 when we heard a thud from the front passenger side. We had no idea what it was but assumed it was something on the road. Two or three minutes later we start conversationally complaining that the air conditioner is sucking… then I notice the check engine light pop on and then Jeanie yells “Holly Sh*t look at the temperature”… pegged. I shoot over to the side of the road and the smoke started billowing out of the hood. I opened the hood and there was antifreeze everywhere. We waited on the side of the road for 40 minutes while the engine cooled down, assuming it was a blown hose or the thermostat. We took our last liter and a half of water and filled the radiator. I started up the car, walked around to the front, and it was pretty obvious what the problem was. The serpentine belt was missing… We turned the car off and called a tow truck and a ride.

In all, we sat on the side of the road, baking in the 98F sun, with no water (it was in the radiator) for over 2 hours. We finally got back down to pick up the kids at 7PM. Another long race day…

I took the day off work Tuesday and headed up to Winter Park with Jeanie and John to preride the course for the race this weekend. Jeanie’s parents watched the kids so we were free and clear. We got up to Winter Park, no problem, and headed of to the start with the “race journal” from the website in hand. Long story short: the race journal is shit. We got lost four or five times and finally finished up after 5 hours!

To make matters worse, coming through a meadow, I got side swiped by a bee right in the eye. He was stuck between my eye and my glasses for 5 seconds and by the time I got him out of there, he had stung me at least once on my eyelid. It stung pretty bad, but it wasn’t until the next morning that it started to swell… EEK! (Oh and it got much worse than this through the day)

Thanks God it seems to be back to normal now…

This Saturday is Winter Park race #4. In the five hours we spent there, surprisingly we actually rode all of the course. It’s a little longer than the last race, but it’s going to be fast.

I’ve got to go find Adrian now…

I went out on a ride Saturday late in the afternoon and was greeted at the start by the pending doom of dark clouds, lighting and wind. It was late in the day so there was little time cushion to change plans, and I decided to go on anyway. I parked near Chatfield and headed up Deer Creek Canyon as the storm rolled in. Two miles into the climb, the rain came and there was thunder and lightning all around. I was banking on the fact that I was “protected” from the lighting by the canyon walls. It was pretty crazy, and visibility was horrible. That said, I beat my personal record up Deer Creek again with a 37:59, 26 seconds faster than 3 weeks ago.

After I rolled over the top of the climb, I was still getting dumped on but could see cloud break over the horizon. I climbed up N. Turkey Creek Rd, and the rain didn’t stop until I got to Rt 73. The temperature now was around 60 and I was cold. I continued to climb up to Conifer and took Pleasant Park Rd. back to Deer Creek, cooking down the long downhill. At the intersection of High Grade and Deer Creek Canyon, my 16 mile downhill was interrupted by police cars and emergency vehicles. They had the entire intersection blocked off. Turns out someone when down on a Motorcycle and from the sounds of it, it was bad… They brought in the Flight for Life chopper and airlifted out of there. I can’t believe they landed the chopper in the canyon between the power lines. It was insane.

After 25 minutes I was on my way again…

Yesterday, Jeanie competed in the Danskin triathlon, her first tri of the year. Though the event was chaos, she made big improvements over last year finishing 40 out of ~250. Last year she placed 100. She made up time on both the run and the bike but her swim was longer than last year. It actually looked like everyone’s swim was longer so the course may have actually been longer…. The traffic and parking situation was crazy stupid. She got there 1.5hrs early but was stuck in traffic for 45 minutes and then had to wait for buses to shuttle them to the start/finish. She had just enough time to get to the transition, change and get in the water. All things considered she did great!

The Wednesday night group ride last night was at Mt. Falcon. We had a sizable group even though the Mr. and Mrs. Plesko were MIA. Jeanie, John, Scott, Erik (aka it’s not my fault when I crash), Dinh, Truesdale, Bill, Nicolette, Dave Nice and I headed up Mt. Falcon from the lower parking lot…

I’ve been having lots of fun recently with the video mode on my camera. The quality is poor and I hadn’t had a use for it until I started this blog. I’m considering making a 2 minute short filmed with just the point and shoot camera video mode… we’ll see how that goes. Anyway, here’s the first video from from the ride. Bill and Erik (aka it’s not my fault when I crash)

I felt pretty good tonight on the climb. I middle ringed the whole thing but my legs were definitely feeling the workout I did the night before…

Custom 29er Black Sheep fixed gear, platform pedals, and packing a flask of whiskey, Dave Nice road out to meet us from downtown. How he cranked up (or down) Mt. Falcon on “that thing” I have no idea. After the ride we stopped in Morrison for some eats and I made an ass of myself, finding out that Dave is actually a professional distiller… last year on a ride at Centennial Cone, we rode into the darkness, and my car battery went dead in the upper parking lot. Dave whipped out a flash of whiskey from his pack and passes it around. Wow, that his the spot. Anyway, our conversation at dinner started with me telling Dave that I was less impressed now that I knew he was a professional. He responded with something like ‘oh, sorry to disappoint you that I’m not a bootlegger making moonshine in my bathtub illegally…’. Luckily the conversation improved. Good company…. Here’s Pimp Dave cranking up a climb:

Last is “The Conversation”… my best video clip yet. Notice the unzipped Jersey, the exposed chest, the stance, the blueish camouflage shorts and the reaction to Dinh’s second place. This one’s dedicated to you Truesdale!

The Tour de France kicks of next weekend, and though the state of professional road cycling is in shambles with doping scandals, I’m still excited. Here’s a quick Lance Armstrong highlights video to whet your appetite. It’s a wide open race this year. From an American perspective, Levi Leipheimer is our only hope for GC. In past years he’s been on “the list” but never rose to the occasion. Actually, he never seemed to quite have it in the big stages… my theory is that he’s been clean all along while everyone else was doping which is why he’s done well in the early year races and showed good form. Completely unfounded, but it would makes sense that most riders would only risk doping in big races. Go Levi…. though I never have been a big fan.

I just found this little gem. This is a good time to give a shout out (yeah, I said shout out) to my brother Tom and his blog at Marvel. Yeah, I know the Super Friends are DC characters, so what?

While I’m sharing, this is great…

I need a catchy closing phrase like “see ya!” “peace out” “keep it real” “stay in school“…
Cah-chow