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

The Wednesday night ride this week was at Centennial Cone, a horrible, worthless place to ride… honest. We had a good size group- Jeanie, Chris, Marni, Truesdale, James, Scott, Melissa and Tyler. The weather held out and it was even a little cool. That’s all for now. Here are a few pictures:

more…

Free Mandela Paris!

“…With cameras flashing, she made her so-called perp walk from jail to a waiting SUV by smiling, waving and strutting past the assembled masses in tight jeans and white stiletto heels. She ignored shouted questions, but occasionally said hi or slapped hands with sheriff’s deputies holding the photographers at bay until she reached the SUV and hugged her mother…” more

Macgyver didn’t exactly keep it simple, but he certainly could do a lot with a little. He was (ahem, IS) the master of using what he had instead of focusing on what he didn’t have.

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In a culture that’s all about choices, we never seem to have enough and we’re not happy with what we have. Too many times I got wrapped up the creating rationale for more “stuff”… basically if I get X, I can do Y and then I’ll be happy. It wasn’t until I became a Christian that I finally broke that cycle. This new perspective have been extremely liberating…

Anyway, Lee Lefever wrote a great post about the constraints he defined to govern the creation of his Paperworks shorts. This sums it up pretty well: “You might think that having constraints is limiting, but I think the opposite. Constraints are liberating. By narrowing the scope of possibilities down to only a few ways to present ideas, we can eliminate needless decision making and complexity.”

Life is only as complex as we make it. My life would be so much simpler if I didn’t get in the way, but I digress…

Saturday I headed out to a friends house for dinner. Jeanie was away for the weekend, and his wife took pity on me. Instead of drive, I decided to take the new “rig”: Jeanie’s single speed with a pannier style bike seat and the Burley trailer on the back. I loaded the kids up and first headed to the liquor store. The liquor store up the street has three drive up order spaces. I pulled the “rig” up to one of the speakers and asked for a 12 pack of Corona. The attendant came out and had a good laugh commenting that it was the best drive up he’d ever seen… so there we were, headed away from the store. Joseph on the back and Luke in the Burley, with his elbow propped on the half case of beer seated next to him. I wish I had a camera…

I spent an hour and a half dragging them around like that on Saturday, and I was surprised how sore my legs were the next day. Sunday we did a ride at Winter Park, preriding the course for race #3. We had a big group of the usual suspects and was joined by Jason, the towering Clydesdale rider I mentioned a few weeks ago. He’s a bike manufacturers worst nightmare. 6′8″ (roughly), 260lbs and powerful- eats freehubs for breakfast.

Courtesy of Plesko, here’s the profile of next Winter Park race:

Anyway, I need to start carrying my camera around more often…

Inspired by Bill’s outstanding Clydesdale win on Saturday in the Winter Park Hill Climb and by Plesko’s comment about him and Mrs. Pivvay doubling up on the same sled to enter Clydesdale, I’m trying out a new race strategy. Since I’m much heavier than Chris, I don’t need an adult to tip the scale over two bills but merely a small child. Luckily I have a couple to pick from. So here it is… Clydesdale, on a single, with Little Joe strapped to the back

And if that doesn’t pan out. Here are the secret weapons in training…

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