Yesterday was the 5th Winter Park race of the series. I felt much better than I had a few weeks ago. I placed 17th so I’m improving… ever so slowly though. The course was the longest of the series so far at 24 miles (though my GPS clocked it under 23) with 3,600 ft of climbing. I don’t even pretend to be a strong climber; I suffered and tried to open it up as much as I could on the downhills. There were only two extended downhill sections though; not enough to pull back all the spots I lost on the climbs. I must have passed over 20 people on the last downhill though. Erik came in just 30 seconds ahead of me, and I didn’t even see him pass, but apparently he did one of the times I dropped my chain on the first long climb.

Plesko blew my mind yesterday. He crashed HARD at ~30mph about eight or nine miles into the race, snapping his handlebars and getting cut up pretty good. His bars snapped at his left shifter so his grip and front brake lever were dangling. Hmmm…. this is where I would have packed it in. Chris however, kept on racing and finished, with no front brake and his left hand grasping the center of his bar. Did that blow your mind, because that just happened. Other feats of strength (a Festivus tradition) included Big Bill pacing 1st in Clydesdale and Marni placing 3rd.

Jeanie was off on her own doing the Indian Peaks DirtFest Triahlon which sounded like a disaster. The mountain bike course she categorized as “dangerous” and the trail run could barely be described as a “trail”. Apparently the course was just recently cut, but it wasn’t cut at all, instead a few people mashed down the tall grass and put directional signs in the forest. There were impalers (branches and sticks that can impale a rider) galore, some neck level. Anyway, she was pretty bummed. A few of the Xterra pros commented that it was the hardest course they’ve ever raced, even tougher than any of the Worlds courses.

Lastly, I’ve got to share these videos. I spent most of my formative years riding freestyle bikes until switching over to mountain bikes in 1994. I still have a 1988 Haro Master sitting in my garage that I take out to one of the local skateparks once or twice a year. Anyway, these Scotty Cranmer videos left me speechless (thanks Joe):

Saturday was Winter Park race #3. I was feeling pretty good about this race. I knew the course and though there was more climbing (~3300ft) than the previous Winter Park race, the longer, more technical downhills and sections of rooty rolling trails suited me. I had a good start though I held back off the start a tad not to blow up on the climb. I kept it steady, right below threshold. Then just before we entered the woods, I turned it on to take back a few places and then smoked the downhill pretty good, claiming 4 more. As we started climbing again, I was rolling pretty good… until I flatted on the next rocky, rolling section. At that time I must have been 10th – 12th. It took me a good 4 minutes to change my flat, I bumbled it pretty good and had never used the CO2 pump I had in my bag so I was careful to figure that out before wasting a cartridge. Once I got going again I started to pick people off… a welcomed change to three week ago when the only riders I past were the ones that were standing still (literally). I finished up strong, placing 22 of 31 finishers. If I hadn’t flatted I would have been 15th or 16th. I’m happy with that. My form is starting to come on though it still has a way to go before I’m at least back to where I was when I stopped racing.

Jeanie’s brother John raced his second race ever and his first since the late 90′s. He put in a really good showing placing 5th out of 10 finishers in his class, though Jeanie still beat him by 6 seconds. Sibling rivalry at it’s best… Jeanie also put in a solid ride to end a really tough training week. This was her finish:

Other highlights came from the Pleskos who turned in a double triple, both placing 3rd, and Bill placed third in Clydesdale again. Here’s Marni accepting her awared:

Dinh Le told a courageous “from the trenches” story; as he raced, he was passed by a woman whom he then starred at for too long and crashed into a tree. It’s dangerous out there! Here’s Dinh’s war wounds:

Check out the other pictures here.

That evening we got back to Jeanie’s parent’s house to pick up the kids. They love playing in Pap Pap’s truck…

We had a pleasant surprise on Thursday when my brother Joe called me out of the blue and announced he was stranded in the Denver airport until 6:00am the next morning. Jeanie ran up to DIA to pick him up while I finished up work and then headed out for the Meridian ride. It was awesome to see Joe. He was on his way out to Seattle for the weekend with Jen.

I got SHELLED at Meridian on Thursday night. I lasted three laps before getting spit out. Then I tried to jump back on for the next lap and got spit out again in less than a lap. That was enough for me! WOW it was much faster than two months ago. Oh well, I’ll give it a try in another couple weeks where my goal will be to last 4 laps… ouch.

I got out today for a good hard ride up Deer Creek Canyon and North Turkey Creek Rd to Evergreen, back down through Morrison and back down the Centennial trail to Chatfield where I started. I set a new PR up Deer Creek of 38:25, beating my previous time of 42:05. It was crazy HOT! I started at 11:30 and rode until 2:15. Before leaving I weighed myself. I drank 4 water bottles, ate 2 GUs, a Clif bar, and when I got home I had a big glass of water, Endurox, and 8 handfuls of Goldfish… I still weighed 5lbs less than when I left. The heat kicked my ass.

[cruising down Apex, around a blind corner there's guy standing in the middle of the trail. I make eye contact, slow and smile, he looks like he's going to step to the side but instead throws his hand straight up traffic cop style]
Ranger Rick: STOP!
Me: Hi! How’s it going?
Ranger Rick: Didn’t you see me?
Me: Yeah I saw you. That’s why I said hi…
Ranger Rick: You didn’t stop!
Me: Sure I stopped, see? Hi.
Ranger Rick: [in an escalating tone] No you were going to ride by! [takes out a pen from his shirt pocket] this trail is out of control! Do you understand the trail yield “law”?!
Me: Absolutely, I hike her too. Cyclists yield to hikers,… [interrupted]
Ranger Rick: NO, cyclists stop for hikers
Me: Yeah, and horses too!
Ranger Rick: [clicking his mighty pen, reaching for his pad] You weren’t going to stop!
Chris: [who is behind me, now stopped] I stopped
Ranger Rick: I know you stopped, but he didn’t! He was just going to blow right by!
Chris: Oh, he was going to stop too, he’s been stopping all night
Ranger Rick: Well he didn’t stop this time! [looking at me] YOU slammed on your brakes right in front of me!
Chris: I stopped, what’s the problem?
Ranger Rick: I don’t have a problem with you. You can go! Go ahead! Go! I’m talking to him [pointing to me and him and me and him is a waving motion]. You can go!
Chris: What’s your problem?
Ranger Rick: What?! I’m not talking to you. This place is out of control. Of the 10 people that past me tonight only 1 stopped and he was the guy that crashed!
Me: I stopped. Well, I came around the corner, we made eye contact and I thought we were cool [interrupted]
Ranger Rick: You need to stop! [now clicking his pen violently]
Me: I did stop when I saw you. Look I’m sorry, I understand. This place is crazy. I’ll do better next time.
Ranger Rick: Look [chest now inflated more than ever]. I’m going to let you go with a warning [pen now back in it's holster, actually his shirt pocket where a dozen other pens are]. If I see you out here again pulling that crap I’ll write you all a ticket
Me:Thank you sir. Have a great night [rolling away, WTF?]


In retrospect, I think he had a problem with my farmer’s tan…

We had a really big group last night for the Wednesday night ride at Apex. Too big to list out in fact. Jeanie’s brother John made his first appearance of the year and didn’t even crash hard… he did crash and bleed, but nothing to talk about. I felt pretty good and cleaned a bunch of the technical sections and switchbacks on the climbs. Good times.

Afterwards, I made a wrong turn out of Golden and ended up on 70 East so we just drove with it and went to Denver and hit 25 South. A little bit of a rendezvous, but it did lead us to a Taco Bell. Many years ago, after group rides around Newark, DE we’d always hit the Taco Bell on Kirkwood Highway which always let to some great stories. Great memories, bad service

Today I headed out on the road and did a set of hill repeats on Monarch. I wore the iPod for the first time this year and that made the workout fly by. This weekend Jeanie’s going on a “retreat” so I’ve got the kids mono y mono or mono y mono + mono. Hopefully the house will still be standing when she gets back…

One rolled over tractor trailer, thousands of gallons of cake frosting, and 13 hours later, we returned home from Winter Park on Saturday after the second race in the summer series. My race was 15.2 miles with 1770 feet of climbing composed of primarily all single track. Typical of Colorado the loop went up…. and then down (repeat). My race took off fast, and I was redlined in less then 30 seconds. I proceeded to climb errrr… crawl up the climb. I felt much like I did the week before; I just didn’t have any power and couldn’t turn the pedals. The downhill was a blast and the only place I past anyone that wasn’t completely stopped on the trail. The first lap I passed eight people (who all gradually passed me on the subsequent climb) and four people on the second lap. I placed 27th out of 36…

Ordinarily I would had been pretty frustrated with that result, but now, not so much. Having kids, I’ve developed a much better appreciation for the opportunity to ride and race. I’ve got a long way to go to get back to form…

Jeanie had a rough race following a tough week of training in the pool and running. Cycling was her strength last year in the triathlons she competed in so this year she’s focused primarily on her running and swimming. She couldn’t help smiling after finishing on that downhill though:

After the race we decided to head home and stop in Idaho Springs at Beau Jo’s Pizza. I’ve never been a big fan of Beau Jo’s. The pizza is a huge mound of bread measured by the pound and the sauce and cheese is squeezed into the middle of the pie with the crust taking up the majority of the real estate. It’s no Lombardi’s that’s for sure. On this particular day, it tasted pretty damn good. We left Winter park around 3:30PM and arrived at Idaho Springs 3 hours later, a drive that should have taken less than a half hour. Apparently a tractor trailer flipped onto a car and then slid into another car around the bend near Central City. The tractor trailer was carrying barrels of cake icing, go figure. They had 70 closed for hours while they mopped up the icing rink. After we finally ate, we sat on 70 for another hour before it let up. The highlight of the dinner was Bill’s 16 block walk across town when he parked his car on the opposite side of Idaho Springs. Forever more a long walk across town will be called “A Bill’s Walk.”

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key, we headed over the in-laws house in Castle Rock where I proceeded to stuff myself on Brats (plural) and beans and brownies and ice cream…. so much for my diet. I’ve dropped about 10lbs since March, and I’ve got at least another 10 to go. Jeanie and the kids made me a t-shirt for Father’s Day that says “Best Dad. Hands Down!” and the kids hand prints were painted on the shirt, it was awesome. For all you suckers out there who don’t have kids yet, don’t bother, unless you’re OK with second best.

I spotted this photo of sunrise at Rehobeth Beach, DE on my brother Joe’s website. What an awesome picture. Until next time…

So I race the first race in the Winter Park Mountain Bike series yesterday. It was a 5.3 mile, 2050 vertical feet mass start hill climb. I got off to a good start but then reality set in as my legs felt like garbage, and I could really feel the altitude difference. I slugged it out pretty good, but I just didn’t have the power in my legs. I hadn’t ridden in a week since I was in San Francisco last week and camping last weekend into Monday. I was no where near the podium, but the 1st place Sport racer in my class would have place 2nd (out of 30) in the Expert class. Congratulations Geoff Williamson! You win the sand bagger of the day award. [major retraction: I initially said Jared Berg won the sport class, but he in fact won the Expert class. Damn it, two days into this blog, and I'm already wrapped up in scandal. Sorry Jared. Geoff's resume isn't quite as impressive as Jared's, and in fact he's a runner... that explains a lot. It's too bad though, it makes for a much worse story! Also, it hurts to think Geoff probably could have ran the climb faster than I road it.]

The next race in the series is Saturday which is a normal cross county circuit race, when I should fare much better. After the race, I sampled some of the single track coming down from the top of Mary Jane. Most of the stuff up top was still covered in snow so it wasn’t until half way down that the trails were rideable. What I found was sweet flowing, twisty, rocky, rooty single track…. can’t wait until next week.

Big props to Bill who dominated the Clydesdale (200lb+) class yesterday. The 2nd and 3rd place Clydesdales looked Bill up and down a couple of times eying up his weight. The third place guy could have doubled for the jolly green giant. He was HUGE… still taller than Bill when he was propped up on the podium.

I was checking out a new feature from Google Maps called Street view. It’s pretty incredible. There ‘s a car that drives up and down city streets capturing still shots through a camera on top of a car that has 11 cameras. The result is that you can see certain places on a Google map from a street perspective. Check out the camera rig.

Lastly here’s a picture from our camping trip to Buffalo Creek….