brettsadventures

Pinned

2012-02-06T20:13:00.000-08:00

After Saturday's snowfall in the city, Ben, Les, Amy (did not race) and I headed up to Leadville for the Tennessee Pass Night Jam, the second race of the Leadville Winter mountain bike series. It was the first time a pinned a number on the Pugsley and it was the first race of the year. Thankfully Leadville did not get anywhere near the amount we received in the front range (15-50 inches). We stopped at the Tennessee Pass Cafe for first dinner and 4-5 cups of coffee. Conditions were near perfect.

Ben (right) and I (left) warming up in 5 degree weather

Les and I just before staging

The start of the race was pretty cool. 65 mountain bikers with lights on all set to go. Two short but decent climbs lead to a long winding decent. The course was groomed and in great shape, but its still snow. The easiest way to descend in snow is to just let it go, but that gets pretty sketchy with turns and trees. Add in a few noticeable "ruts" in the snow where people in front of me wiped out, and negotiating the descent became interesting to say the least. Case in point, I started wandering a bit to the left halfway down. Braking hard would have surely caused me to crash. I continued to head to the left, sort of planned as it looked untracked. All of a sudden my front wheel hit soft snow. My bike stopped instantly, sending me cartwheeling over the handlebar. Les passed me just as this was happening giving him a great vantage point and something to laugh at.

Now the chase was on. I had to catch Les. Once I got to the open meadow I upped the tempo a bit and began to pick riders off, including Les. I latched on to a single speeder and we would end up yo-yoing the rest of the race. The rest of the race was pretty uneventful. Some fun descents and a pretty difficult climb for a 35lb bike in snow lead to the finish. Even though the temperatures were around 0, I was not cold at all. My Northwave Artic Celcius shoes were amazing-cold toes are the worst, everyone else seemed to complain about them. The Leadville races are super fun, and I especially like the night races. They are usually a great test of fitness, with summer like XC race efforts. 167 heartrate for Febuary, that is crazy, as my effort was pretty much pinned the whole time. Race data here.

Les's sweet new Twenty2 Cycles Bully

Still fueled up on caffeine and telling the story of going over the handlebar

Different types of training

2012-01-20T17:30:00.000-08:00

My world is pretty cycle-centric. Its funny. All year I talk about doing different things, but biking is normally the priority. Fill in the blank sounds fun, but I am going to ride my bike. Last Saturday Eric and I hiked Mt. Sherman. I am not really a hiker. I would rather roll than walk (on wheels, yes, a bike really, going back to a previous statement). Sherman is a rather easy 14er (14,000 ft mountain). We decided to hike this in the winter rather than the summer. It ups the ante on difficulty, plus, we ran into 2 people all day, which is the way we prefer it. Out and about, doing the things we like, enjoying the solitude of the wilderness. The forecast looked good. Sunny, 40 to 50 mph winds and temps -20 to -30. Hike info here.

Mt. Sherman peak far right

Mt. Sherman conquered

Monday I went to the first 2012 RMR meeting at the Spot. It was good seeing a few familiar faces and meeting a lot of the team. I also ordered the 2012 kit, which should arrive by Aprils training camp in Fruita.

Tuesday it was windy and cold, plus there was fresh snow and ice on the ground. I needed to ride. I took the Pugsley to Meyers Ranch, which was new to me. Exploring a new park at night in frigid temperatures on a bike in snow was fun. The trails were perfect for snow biking. Data here. It turned out to be a short ride distance wise, but it was worth it to get out. The elevation gained on a 34lb bike in snow plus the temps made it enough. Meyers Ranch will be waiting for me the next time it snows.

Photo taken with stupid Black Berry which does not do the trails justice

2012 is starting to shape up

2012-01-05T11:40:00.000-08:00

We are less than five days in, and the 2012 season is starting to shape up. Sponosorships for the year has already been confirmed. I've already signed up for a few races. And I already have a few good days of climbing in on the bikes.

For 2012 I will be riding for a local team, Rocky Mountain Racing. I am excited to ride and race with new people this year. It will also be great to have the support of Golden Bike Shop, RMR's primary sponsor. Twin Six, Honey Stinger, Crank Brothers, and Schwalbe will be back for 2012 again.

I am already signed up two races that are new to me. The Whisky Off Road 50 Proof, April 28. I am really looking forward to heading to Prescott AZ to ride, race, and watch the pros vie for the $30,000 in prize money. May 12th I will be racing 12 Hours of Mesa Verde. This 12hr race is in the desert, so hopefully I will avoid the snow storm that took place during my first 12 hour race. Soon RME race registration opens up and the scramble to get into a few select races as well.

Hut Hut

2011-12-19T19:41:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I went up to the Peter Estin 10th Mountain hut. Our group had 14 or so people, most of whom met Friday morning for the trek up to 11,200 ft. The weather for hike was warm and sunny, which is quite a contrast to the previous three hut trips I have done. I think the other three were very cold, and at least one was quite snowy. A base layer and pullover were all that were needed to keep me warm this time. We even found the hut before lunch, which is a first. This allowed for plenty of lounging around.

Home for the past weekend, no electricity or water, but pretty sweet

View from the outside of the hut

Saturday I got off to a slow start, but rallied after breakfast. Most of the group took off for Charles Peak, which sits at 12,050 ft. Five of us motivated sorts chose to go on. Eric and I set the pace and our destination was the highest peak in the center of the picture below. We encountered some extended ups and downs and had to break trail in fairly deep snow. The pitches we experienced proved to be the most difficult though. Even with my MSR snowshoes, which have amazing crampons, I was sliding down quite a bit and I had to use my hands to balance and crawl up. Once we reached the hump in the middle of the picture, the terrain after it and before the long ridge were a little to dicey to carry on. A quick snack and the others decided to return back. Eric and I had no desire to head to the hut early. As long as the sun was up and the temperature was tolerable, we sat on some rocks to enjoy the view.

Taken from the top of Charles, which is higher than our turn around point

Our tracks to the top can be seen if you zoom in

Evidence of hard work and unseasonably warm temperatures

The trail back down

100

2011-12-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

In January of 2009 a group of friends and I challenged ourselves to ride a century a month. It became what we did. Every month, we would get together, ride, stop for candy, cokes, and ice cream. At first it was a challenge (not the eating part, the riding). Can we get the ride in before it gets dark in the winter? What about the winter, which Denver does get. Early on, it was something I had to prep for quite a bit. But it was fun. I mean riding your bike all day with friends. Its tough to beat.

Chris, me, Brady, Erik, Jeremy

It also paved the way for bigger things. Some of the rides were quite difficult. I learned a lot while I was out there, wherever there might be. What works well to keep me going. How far can I push myself.

36 months later the streak continues. 36 consecutive months with at least 1 100 mile bike ride. How it goes down changed a bit. People moved on and don't ride as much. Unfortunately I rode a handful of them by myself this year. Will it continue, I don't know. I will still ride my bike and get big rides in, but the 100s, well its not quite the same doing this by myself.

1999 Specialized M2Comp after its 1st 100 mile bike ride

Sundays ride, while not the most difficult (Mt. Evans from town? WRIAD with lots of wind? Wrist canyon with rain and maybe 50 degrees?) was up there. I departed at 6:38 AM. It was cold. I turned back for more clothes. The hose on my camelbak was frozen for at least the first two hours. It was icy and snowy, which is why I chose the Specialized. I certainly would have died had I tried to ride my road bike. The ride itself was pretty uneventful. Lots of bike paths, a few roads, some state parks, and a pretty fair headwind out of the south. About the most exciting thing that happened was passing a pack of roadies as they were walking on ice and snow a few minutes after they blew by me. I rode the snow. They hiked it, ha. Oh, and I had to get done by 1:50 or so so I could see the kickoff of the Packer game. Almost 7 hours of pedal time, and I made it. 36 for 36.

Well I guess if its going to be winter.....

2011-12-04T20:28:00.000-08:00

Snow and frigid temperatures hit the Front Range this weekend and this called for an activity change. I have a few snowshoe trips planned, so I decided to get my winter gear dialed in. Saturday I went up to Rogers Lake with some friends that will be going with me to the Peter Estin 10th Mountain division hut shortly. 4 hours of snowshoeing, 2,000ft plus of elevation gained to reach a max elevation of 11,300ft, and temps hovering around 8 at the car made for a good test.

Sunday I rolled out the snowbike! Few bikes give you more smiles per mile. Tim actually rode with me to, and he was on his regular mountain bike. I wasn't really sure how this "ride" would turn out as I've not ridden the Pugsley at Bear Creek State Park. We rode around aimlessly for a while finding a lot of trails that had a little to much snow to roll consistently. Then we found a fun loop consisting of 50% or more of wooded singletrack. A few laps, and we had a small course that was getting good and packed down. A little exploring and we were able to make a figure 8 that was quite fun. My new winter shoes and Twin Six Metal jacket kept me quite warm. Details here. I will be heading back Monday for more laps, but this time it will be at night with lights. Sick! Will you be there?

Burning Turkeyday extra weight

2011-11-25T16:07:00.000-08:00

Its been almost a month with no blog like activity. Got out for a great ride today. Rode mostly dirt from home to Bear Creek state park to Mt. Falcon to Lair O' Bear and back. Info here. It wasn't fast, but the legs are beginning to like to turn pedals again.

TwinSix and Honey Stinger will once again be on board for 2012! I am hoping to hear from others shortly.

Moab and Fruita

2011-10-26T20:10:00.000-07:00

Things have been fairly quiet for me lately. I fell flat on my face (not literally) at the end of September. Most of October was spent being lazy. A few easy bike rides here and there, but nothing to taxing. It had been a long season, but a trip to the desert still was in order. Tim and I put a few things in the E Thursday after work and drove to Moab. We got to camp late and the stars were out in full force. I never use a tent in Moab as I really like looking up at the stars from my sleeping bag. Words can't describe a clear night in the desert.

I guess thats a few things in the E

Home for 3 days

Friday morning we got up to ride Amassa Back. I had never ridden there, so it had to be done. Its a shorter ride with many rocky features to ride. We even rode Rockstacker, the wrong way mind you. Rockstacker is an all mountain sort of trail well suited to short travel cross country bikes, I mean 6 inch travel bikes (we don't have these). After Amassa Back, we packed up the E and drove to Sovereign Singletrack for another ride. A wrong turn and my tired legs lead us to a little earlier quitting time than anticipated. Saturdays totals here. Paraxdox Pizza fueled us for the the next days rides.

Paradox Pizza, the best place in Moab for a Pizza Pie

Saturday's ride was a ride I wanted to link up for a while. Moab-Slickrock-Porcupine Rim-Moab. I thought this would be a fairly big ride. Turned out it was fun too. Fred joined us for the ride out of town and through Slickrock. The crazy pitches at Slickrock were difficult for me as I had little to no pop in my legs. The descending is fun though. You can descend and climb (typically) pitches far steeper than you usually can due to the tackiness of the rock. Quick lunch and it was on to the climb up Porcupine Rim. This is one of the first times I actually really wanted a longer travel bike. Porcupine Rim. Saturdays ride data here.

Follow the white line

Me, Fred, and Tim overlooking the river below

Sunday it was on to the Kokopelli trailhead for some exploring. Every previous ride here I had been on the same few trails. The area is a nice mix of flowy technical trails. But I wanted to ride more. We rode the usual trails and then continued on to Steve's loop and then Troy Built. The new to me trails were great. Its always good to get in new trails. Sundays ride.

Rocky terrain

Wednesday night mountain biking tradition

2011-10-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

The city, full moon, and me

Eric D.

It started a little over a year ago. A handful of friends head out for a weekly night mountain bike ride almost every Wednesday starting in late August as the sun starts to set a little earlier. Its turned into a pretty nice tradition. We typically aim for 2 to 2.5 hours, and most of our rides take place at Buffalo Creek, one of my favorite close trails. Riding at night adds a new element of fun to familiar trails. Also very few riders are out, which is a nice change of pace compared to the weekends, which are especially crowded this time of year. While there may be less people to see them, these night rides always bring plenty of smiles to my face.

Chequamegon 2011

2011-09-22T18:50:00.000-07:00

Saturday September 17 was the 29th annual Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival (8th in a row for me). The "40" is the biggest race in the midwest and attracts riders from all over. This year Christian Vande Velde (Cervelo Garmin) and Jason McCartney (Radio Shack) took the line. I made the journey to the Great North Woods of Wisconsin by myself this year, which gave me a little more flexibility so I took another day off of work.

After the long drive I got to Eau Claire Wisconsin mid afternoon to spin out the legs and to meet Jim. Perfect temperatures and dry ground made for a fun ride. Afterwards we met up with my parents to find a place to stay and get some dinner.

Close trees and wide handlebars, I probably hit 3 trees between Thursday and Monday

Lowe's Creek Eau Claire-tight, twisty, fun

Friday morning the drive continued on to Hayward, Wisconsin to meet the other Fat Tire participants. I pretty much parked across the street from the Angry Minnow where Nate, Kim, Paul, and Melinda happened to be eating lunch. After lunch I found the cabin and got settled in until it was time for registration. After a long season highlighted by finishing the CTR, my approach to this race was somewhat ho hum. Its amazing what pinning a number on my bike did to my mentality. As soon as #628 was on the Lev, there seemed to be a flip of the switch. Baked Ziti, a visit from a couple friends fresh off the Boundary Waters trip, some time spent race strategizing, and it was off to bed.

The 4:20AM wake up seemed crazy, but row three staging was worth it. Jesse, Erin, Justin, Jeremy Vogels, and I all had solid placing. The 10AM start is unlike anything I have ever seen. 1,900 plus mountain bikers rolling down the crowded streets of Hayward makes for quite an experience. Starting, slowing, turning, turning into roads with medians, and then finally the right hand turn to Hwy 77. This is where the race truly opens up. Speeds in the upper 20s on mountain bikes! I ran into Jesse and Erin, and we picked the pace on 77. I think this is the hardest I ever went off of the start, but I felt good. I backed off a little before the turn into Rosie's field where the race hits dirt. The trail is wide open and bumpy, but after the first decent, I turned it back on.

Road race tactics on a mountain bike

My turn to pull, going all out

Completely gased at the finish line

At this point Nate (preferred start), Jeremy, Jesse, and Erin were all in front of me, but I could see a couple of them from time to time. I decided I would let the race come to me instead of attach them this early. 9.5 miles in I picked off Nate. The next 15 miles would be pretty consistent. Work the rollers, push it up the hills, work in groups when I could, and let if fly on the descents. Mile 25 I passed Erin. Mile 26 or so I passed Jesse on the false Firetower climb, which is the hardest point in the race. I think the actual climb starts about mile 28 or so, which is where I passed Jeremy. Its loose, rocky, and has 3 steep pitches (upper teens for grades). I was weaving in and out of riders up this tight two track climb, often picking the worst lines because it was the only free area. By the time I got to the top, I was with one other rider. We passed many riders and put some distance on a group of 10 or so I began the climb with. I typically redline up this climb as there is a nice recovery descent on the backside. If I soft pedal down this I keep moving pretty well and usually open up gap on those surrounding me at the top. Mile 32 I started to cramp and pop though. I had gone pretty much flat out from the start. My legs were not used to such an effort. I was worried. I did not really have the extra gear I had in years past as I spent the whole year training for 5hr plus races and really only had 2 weeks of solid training since recovering from the CTR.

From mile 32 on I was frequently looking over my shoulders. Mile 34 I stopped at an aid station and downed 6 cups of water, which helped a lot. I began to regain my composure as a fast group flew by. I latched on and even worked in a few times. We were flying, and I even got a little recovery when I got to sit in. A strong finish lead me to a time of 2:31:52. Not a PR, but it was my best ever placing at 173 overall out of 1919 finishers (27/161 age category). The coarse was in great shape, maybe even a little to dry and loose. I was thankful that I used a Schwalbe Rocket Ron on the front. The Stan's Raven I used last year would have made things a bit difficult with limited traction up front.

Race stats here.

After the race I ran into a friend I had not seen since college. We both noticed that we would be racing based on a post on Facebook, one of the actual real benefits of that. It was his first race, and he had a blast. Post race BBQ at the original Famous Dave's, fires, and drinks highlighted the evening.

BBQ and flannel

Sunday after parting ways I met up with Jim again. The plan was to ride bikes, but rain spoiled our fun. We mulled around at a local bike shop for a while and then found a spot to watch the Packer game. I think the record player stopped when we entered the bar. Everyone there was huddled around the oval bar in the middle, no seats outside the bar area were filled. The walls were covered with NASCAR signs and many signs for many sports teams. After a long day, all I wanted was water. I asked for a pitcher, and apparently there was not one behind the bar-the bartender had to go to a back room to get one. I asked for a menu and was promptly given a strange look. Guess the grill wasn't on today? Oh, then I noticed it was a potluck lunch and everyone was to bring a dish. Really, who does this? Needless to say, as soon as the Packer game was over, we got out of there.

Mondays weather was much better. Jim had ridden the Hatchery Creek trail system and thought it would drain well, which was true. The trail consisted of deep forest twisty fun rolling singletrack (need more adjectives?). The trails also crossed the beginning of Saturdays race. I saw the trails during previous races and always wondered about them. I would definitely go back. We also rode a bit of the race course, which was kind of interesting since I was on my single speed mountain bike.

Eight Chequamegons in a row. Its been a good tradition. Its always nice to see my parents and friends I used to race with and against. The Great North Woods of Wisconsin are always a good time, and I regret not exploring them more when I lived in Wisconsin.

The 2011 Colorado Trail Race

2011-08-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

Like all seemingly great ideas, mountain biking the Colorado Trail came to Eric and I while sitting around a camp fire, this time in Twin Lakes, one of our favorite spots. I am sure a beer or two was involved. This adventure was out of the norm as Eric had never really even ridden a mountain bike at the time. I had no concerns about his endurance, but we had to get him going on a mountain bike, and fast. The idea of the ride turned into the idea of doing the Colorado Trail Race as Chris Plesko recommended that because there would at least be other riders out there. And so the obsession began...

Months of planning, reading, and studying the route began long before my first bike race of 2011. This ride (race!) has so many details you need to cover. What type of equipment do you need? Food? Where do you get food? How much does my setup weigh? Can I knock 3 grams off of that, ha ha.

Race day seemed to be approaching fast as July came around. Weeks turned into days and nerves grew. There are so many things that can go wrong when riding a mountain bike 20 miles, let alone 500 miles through extremely remote wilderness. We thought we were preparing well, but a series of attempted bikepacking trips went wrong. Yes, trips that turned out to be less than 10 miles (a lot less than 500 miles).

CTR start line. 80ish bikepackers!

The start of the race was broken into waves due to the amount of people and how soon the trail bottlenecks. Eric and I lined up in the 6-8 day wave. I would guess 40 to 50 people started at the same time we did. I took off and was sort of cautious. As soon as we hit the trail, it was like a cross country race in that riders were wheel to wheel. I knew this was make Eric jittery as this was his first mountain bike race (yes folks, thats right). In the first 6 or so miles I saw one rider with a broken rear rack and all his gear strewn across the trail. Another rider tried to ride a punchy rock feature. As I called out "walking," the rider fell and broke his seat. Game over for these two, and so soon. I crested a climb about 7 miles into the race. Eric was no where to be seen, so I waited. 15 minutes later he makes it up the climb and has a look of disbelief on his face. Something was wrong with the free hub body and his cassette would barely turn. He could ride it, but it was strange. I calmed him down and said we have two options. Limp in to Breck, or quit. Simple choice, off to Breck it was. As we rolled down Segment 1, his free hub seemed to be working ok. I tried to complicate things by crashing on one of the switchbacks at the end of segment 1. When I put my hand out to soften the blow, I smashed a rock and hurt the palm of my hand and thumb quite a bit, It would be quite sore for 2-3 more days and very black.

We experienced a little bit of rain and a closed gas station in Bailey, which was to be our first resupply point. Neither was an issue though. A quick stop for a hot dog and the fact that we carried a little more food than "needed" and this was not a problem. Both of us agreed we would prefer to err on the side of to much food and water for this trip. A road ride up 285 and it was on to Kenosha Pass to Georgia Pass, one of my favorite trails.

Matt, me, and Eric. The camaraderie of racers was amazing

First nights campsite about 7 miles up to Georgia pass after 72 miles

Day 2 we started with the remaining climb up to Georgia pass. The ride down to Tiger road/Breckenridge was pretty fun. There was rolling singletrack that lead to some rocky hike a bike sections for us. I typically thought that I should ride at about 65% of my technical ability so I would not crash, end the journey, or break something. A quick detour due to some forest service work lead us to a part of the CT that was new to me. On to Breckenridge to resupply and to get Eric's free hub fixed. Carver bikes was amazing. They took care of the wheel and off we were. The 10 mile range was our next obstacle. Its a pretty burly climb with about 2,000 ft of hike a bike to get to the summit. The reward was an amazing view of Breckenridge, Copper mountain, and the approaching storms....

The Lev on top of Georgia Pass

Summit of the 10 mile climb overlooking Copper mountain

We descended into Copper as the storm approached and pushed on in the rain and darkness. After an hour or so of that we decided it was time to set up camp. Night two was cold, rainy, and quite miserable. I found out my tarp was not completely waterproof, and most of my stuff was sort of wet. I was very thankful for my bivy for keeping my sleeping bag dry. The cold and wet night lead to a miserable start to the next day. Thankfully we got to climb off of the start and quickly warmed up.

Marmot disappointed due to no snowmobiling

Our first obstacles on day 3 were Searle and Kokomo, two 12,000 plus peaks with amazing views and great weather. The ride down from here was one of my favorites of the trip. Lots of singletrack, some quite steep and rocky. This descent seemed to go on forever through the lush forest. It would make an amazing day trip. It was also the first places I noticed myself bonking. I had nothing on the climb out and was starting to get agitated at stupid little things. Eric noticed this too. I started to force food down. First it was a caffeinated gel, and went to a few other things. A root beer at the top of Tennessee pass that we found in a container labeled "Trail Magic" courtesy of Leadville Hostel had me flying! I felt great again and the trail down was sick. I even rode into a segment we were not supposed to ride, and thankfully stopped before I got lost. We hit the road into Leadville with visions of large burgers dancing in our heads. On the way we came to a point where the road was one lane due to construction. I warned the stop sign holder that she best let us through in a sarcastic tone because she was holding up our bike race and costing us about one minute on the way to Durango.

Pulling away to get that burger!

We left Leadville happy after a large burger, fries, and many Cokes. Segment 11 north of Twin lakes was a lot of fun and things were looking good. Once at Twin lakes though, rain for the 3rd day in a row was imminent. The crazy idea of pushing on into Buena Vista for a hotel room became the goal. My mindset changed to mission mode as I pushed hard around the lake and into the next section of segment 11. We rode through rain, lightning, and darkness for the next 4.5 hours. Towards the end of segment 11, I could tell Eric was hitting the wall. On the long descent I was periodically looking to the right to see if I could see the signs of the road 800 ft below. Every time I turned my head to the right I noticed that he would too as I could see his headlamp a second or two after me. After doing this several times, I half turned my light two consecutive times only to see him do the full turn. I broke out laughing as I was messing with him, which we tended to do at times. Seriously though, it was helpful for us to ride together to help each other through the bonks and to suggest things like eating, resting, or anything else that we needed to do to get though the adventure. The rest of the night was road riding into Buena Vista. We ended up arriving into town at about 11:30 PM, which made for an amazing push and a well deserved hotel where we each devoured breakfast twice in the morning.

Taken before the ride down to Twin Lakes

Buena Vista hotel room destroyed by dirty bikepackers, sorry

Departing from Buena Vista happy, full, and well rested

A 10 mile road climb up from Buena Vista dumped us into segment 13, which had some pretty fun stuff to ride. Another great meal at Princeton Hot Springs and it was on to segment 14, which I dreaded since riding it with Brad about 6 weeks ago. An extended hike a bike climb, followed by a valley that we rode in while getting rained on and long rocky sections barely rideable with camping equipment pursued. This section went on for what seemed like forever. We reached hwy 50 late and decided to camp about 30 ft from the road. A RV site 1 mile east was our last resupply point until Silverton, some 150 miles away. The RV place had Gatorade, breakfast Mountain Dew, more candy bars, and little packages of cereal. After this, it was time to tackle Fooses creek trail.

A little steep as you can see

Fooses Creek brought us to the iconic Monarch Crest trail. Here we rolled past many day trippers while rocking our full setup. It was great seeing faces of riders as we rolled past them with a loaded bike. The occasional "are you guys in the race," which we got every so often throughout our ride was inspiring too. It was pretty cool that people knew of the small underground race we were participating in. If you have heard of the the Monarch Crest trail, you know the downhill and singletrack here rocked and was more than worth the effort to get to the top of Fooses Creek. The next few segments flew by, as the adventure often times seemed to. There was a long section with very limited water.

Local wildlife as seen in Segment 16

"Apple's" camp, a Trail Angel after a tough Segment 17

We departed from Apple's camp with stomach's full of breakfast Oreo's and Cokes. The trail after hwy114 started off with a fair singletrack climb but rolled into a long valley. The long rolling valley was a nice treat after days of high mountain passes and burly terrain.

At this point of the race we were literally in the middle of nowhere. It was nice to have a pace dog for a couple miles. He seemed pretty cool. I only wish he would have been with us longer. My pace dog and I were riding side by side and quickly approaching a cattle guard. I was interested to see how a smaller dog at full speed would get past a cattle guard. Poor dog attempted to hurtle the cattle guard and ended up a little short. I did not see what happened, but Eric, who was riding a little ways behind me, said he appeared to hurt himself fairly good, but was still moving a bit.

The day was coming together quite nicely and we were well on our way for setting ourselves up for the section that scared us the most-the Coney Cataract section. We heard many tales of people getting stuck in afternoon storms there and it sounded as if it had its own climate. Our campsite was the night before this section was just below treeline and we were primed for an early start.

Campsite just past Spring Creek at 11,600 ft

An early start to hopefully avoid storms above treeline

The first few hours had a mix of walking and really fun wooded singletrack, which was a fair surprise given how high up we were. Then we hit some of the tough stuff. I have to admit, I have mixed feelings about segments 22 and 23. These segments were probably the most beautiful, but also the most difficult. We probably pushed bikes more than 25 miles as we progressed through this area. Here it was evident that I lack proper hiking fitness. My body would never fully recover or feel strong after passing through this area. Even Eric said he was beat after these sections. He runs and walks a fair amount, so he was better prepared for this than I was.

Pretty typical view during 22 and 23

Thats me pushing my bike up

The final pass before dropping into Silverton

Silverton was the final resupply point of the race. We made the long stretch from Buena Vista to Silverton with some food left over, so we were confident we could make it from Silverton to Durango. Dinner and another motel capped the night. 1/2 a box of family sized Raisin bran and a 1/4 gallon of Milk got us off to a fine start the next day.

Silverton the next day on our way back up

The day started off great 4 hours in or so there was even talk of an all night push to finish, which was 80ish tough miles from Silverton. At about noon that all ended. I fell apart. I was hungry and tired, both physically and mentally and nothing I did could help me overcome this. I dug deep though. we carried on and probably got another 6-7 hours of moving time in, which is amazing when you think about it. This whole ride/race we continued to find our limits and push them farther than ever before. Monday I found a way to continue to move until 8PM or so even though I felt terrible.

How down can you be when this is the view from your bed?

The next morning it was a lot of the same. My body struggled to find its rhythm. The last four segments, 25-28 made for some pretty amazing riding. It would make a very fun shuttle if you could get someone to pick you up or drop a car at the Junction creek trailhead.

A "sign" the adventure is coming to a close

Shortly after seeing the above sign, we reached the high point for the day. All that was in front of us was a 3,000ft descent, a 1,000ft climb, and a 2,500 ft descent. It was hard to believe that we were so close after all we went through. The initial descent above treeline was super sketchy. I rode some and walked some. Think a shoulder width path with nothing but loose shale below you and a really steep drop off to the right. Once we hit treeline though, the smiles began. The forested singletrack was amazing, and I could tell the temperature and humidity was going up. We had been higher than 9,000 ft for days, and it was strange to see the lower elevations flora. The final climb kicked me back to the reality that we were not quite done yet. But the final descent was one hell of a way to wrap this up. My mind and body felt much better with the feeling of accomplishment rising up inside me. The final trail would have been a great way to end any ride, but it was an amazing way to end this ride.

Departure time 6:42 AM on 8/1 from Indian Creek trail head/Arrival at Junction Creek 4:07 PM on 8/9

Post ride beers, Steamworks, Durango

Cajun broil dinner, motivation for months and 500 miles of pedaling

Final stats: 85.75 hours of moving time, 497 miles covered, 65,378 ft climbed

I would like to thank Chris Plesko, who motivated me through my progression as a biker and helped immensely with recommendations on equipment throughout the preparation process. Thanks to Mark Hansen for picking us up at 4:30 AM on Monday morning and driving us to the trail to see us off. Chad Behling for being our emergency contact should something have gone wrong on this journey. And luck-we needed quite a bit of it to finish, and it was mostly on our side.

I would also like to thank Eric quite a bit. He was an amazing person to go on this adventure with. We helped each other overcome many things on this journey. It was really cool seeing his progression as a mountain biker over the 500 miles. I could not count the times he said something like "this is the best trail I have ridden."

What worked:

-Scwalbe Racing Ralphs with Snakeskin and Stans-durable, handled great, and never had to pump them up and no flats the whole trip

-Steripen classic when we both left, we were nervous about me bringing this and the thought was Eric's MSR water filter would be more reliable than this, the filter died though, and we relied on the Steripen for water purification

-Big Agnes Air Core sleeping pad-so comfortable, arguably my favorite item on the trip

-Mountain Feedbag-kept food at my fingertips

-Blackdiamond Storm headlamp- fairly bright and waterproof

-Pearl Izumi Enduro II-super comfortable and great for hiking PI makes a great shoe

What did not work

-Garmin Edge 705-great one day GPS/cycling computer, worthless for long navigation trips

-Solio Rocsta solar charger-took way to freaking long to charge, though woods and overcast weather did not help its cause

-MSR E-Wing tarp-supposedly waterproof-I got wet-enough said

What I ate:

Candy bars! Snickers, Almond Joy, but may favorite were 3 Musketeers

Pringles crushed in a ziplock bag-amazing

Haribo gummy bears

Cornnuts

Honeystinger Ginsting gels, where I could find them, caffeine and carbs in a small packet

Where in Colorado is Brett?

2011-07-31T21:03:00.000-07:00

Can you find where I am?

Breck100 Race report 2011

2011-07-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

Last year the Breck100 was my first true solo endurance race. It was the most difficult thing I had ever done, but I wanted more. I signed up early this year and planned a difficult early season to prep myself for this race and to use it as a stepping stone and last big training day for this. I did not have a defined goal (maybe something I need to work on), but I wanted to take more than an hour off of last years time and feel strong the whole race.

Thursday after work I packed up the E and started the drive to Keystone to spend the night. I wanted to get up to 9,000 ft as early as possible to acclimate to the elevation. After a half day of work Friday I went picked up groceries for dinner. Tim was able to rent a sweet house for the weekend.

Dinner-Ben, Scott, Jesse , Tim

The 3:45 AM wake up call was tough, but the excitement and coffee got me going. Quick breakfast and packing up the E and it was off to Carter park.

A snow covered Wheeler pass, the first climb

The race started at 6 with a moderate procession out of town to Peak 9 to start the 2,750 ft climb up to Wheeler Pass. I started out at a moderate pace after getting a decent position at the line. My goal again was to keep a moderate pace up the climb, which was pretty uneventful. Brad passed me maybe a 1/3 of the way up and based on our times, we were probably no more than a few minutes apart during the race, but he was never to be seen again. I reached the first snowfield and carried my bike for about 200 yards. The next snowfield was just before the summit. The group ended up dropping down to bypass the snow. This ended up with a climb with pitches of about 50 to 60 degrees on scree while carrying a bike. The backside of Wheeler pass is really fun when dry and I was looking forward to this descent. The river flowing down trail made it sketchy though. The Peaks trail was quite muddy as well. I was not sure how I was pacing at this point. I lapped through about 13 minutes faster through then last year. A quick bite to eat and I was on to loop 2.

First snowfield

Loop 2 is arguably the hardest of the three loops. The second climb is where I started to fall apart last year. I felt good climbing the wooded switchback climb at the beginning. French Gulch is the second climb and with loose rock, steep pitches, and stream crossings, its easy to redline. By this time the fast Breck68 riders began passing me offering words of encouragement for the 100 mile racers. I was able to ride almost all the way up to the hight point and creek crossing, where I passed a rider who crashed in the freezing cold stream (yes, he was ok). The Colorado Trail is where I was starting to feel the effort. Even the climb in this area is fun. The descent down to Tiger Rd always puts a smile on my face. Aside from a little rain, the rest of the loop was pretty uneventful.

Entering the Colorado Trail on Loop two, can't wait to see this again!

My stomach was kind of upset going into loop three. Consuming nutrition through my waterbottles was difficult and thoughts of my previous years collapse were on my mind. I grabbedd bottles with water instead so that I would continue to drink though. By the time I started off for lap three, I knew I was a solid hour ahead of last years pace. I had a few missteps on the singletrack up, but again was able to clear most of the climb. Pre riding some of the trails helped quite abit, but my conditioning this year was way better, and it was noticable on the climbs. I got to Boreas Pass (11,444ft) an 1hr18min faster than last year and treated myself with a coke, some enduralites, and orange slices. The way down the Gold Dust trail to Como was quite wet again with rain and recent weather. I rode by myself for the better part of 10 miles down. I grabbed a couple slices of watermelon at the Como aid station and off for the 10 mile climb back to Boreas. Once I got to the top I started doing some time estimations. I was all smiles at the summit. I knew I would destroy my 2010 time. All I had to do was hang on for the remaining 9 miles which was almost all downhill. The continued descent and drive to beat 12hrs kept me going regardless of the exhaustion I was feeling. I crossed the finish line at 12hrs 7 minutes beating my previous time by 1hr 47 minutes!! I was 21st in my age category out of about 69 racers, 37 of which did not finish, which is an indicator of just how difficult this race truly is.

At the top of Boreas Pass

I exceeded my expectations for my finish. Amy Welnak and her sister Denise were very helpful and kept me going as they were there to help with bottles and cleaning my chain between laps. Carver bike shop was amazing. They happened to have a set of XTR bottom bracket cups and stayed past close to fix my bike! I think the difficult early season racing schedule is paying off as I learned and expirimented a lot with nutrition, how to keep going, and how far I can push myself. 8/1 is the next test, which I am both very nervous about and very excited, though I don't think that feeling ever goes away with a big challenge on the horizon.

Garmin stats here. I had 22 minutes of non moving time in 12 plus hours!

Firecracker weekend

2011-07-07T12:08:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I raced the Firecracker 50 for the first time. Its a classic Colorado mountain bike race that starts as part of the 4th of July parade. I met up with Tim friday night to spend the weekend getting aclimated to the elevation and get some good rides in. We rode two hours Saturday and got in a good chunk of the Colorado trail right from our camp site. As of last weekend, there is still a fair amount of snow above 10,800ft. Saturday and even Sunday's short ride I was still feeling the altitude.

Breck camping spot

Dirty E in the woods

I ended up riding in the Maverick category since I forgot my USA cycling license (wanted to race CAT1). My legs felt like boards for the first two miles, but then I started to open up. Once I entered the singletrack I started to pick riders off and get a bit of recovery from the long climb. I felt pretty good the first lap and was about on pace for a 5hr 30 minute pace. The climb off the start of lap two drained me a fair amount and I could feel my pace slip. I still had the energy to ride off of a ramp on the climb up and jumped a log that a group put off to the side of the road (as seen at about minute 11 of the video below) which I got a lot of cheers for even though I turned down the shot of Wild Turkey that was the award for this stunt (certainly would have lead to my demise). Lap two was I was still able to keep a good tempo. I even had the alertness to drop an Outkast reference after a volunteer said its down hill forever as I responded with a "for ever ever" (video for those of you who don't know).

I ended up with a time of 5:45 on a course that was longer than last year and included more singletrack. I raced my Schwalbe Racing Ralph for the first time. Its about 150 grams lighter than the tire I was using on the front but it still inspired confidence on the loose descents yet rolled a lot faster. After this weekend I now have 14 days of camping for the year. A pretty good video of the race I found here. Note at 12:35 of the video there is a pretty crazy crash. Word is the rider was fine. GPS info from race here. The race was a ton of fun and the volunteers were amazing-all the aid stations were well stocked.

Colorado Trail reconnaissance

2011-06-27T19:13:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I needed to get high. It was the first time all season I was able to camp and ride over 9,000 ft. Lots of snow and a crazy schedule have prevented me from playing in the mountains as much as I would like. Brad and I camped Friday and Saturday night at a secret spot near Twin Lakes, our altitude training base camp. The forecast was perfect for the whole weekend. This worked out great since I forgot my tent. Even though I like camping under the stars, I did mean to pack it. Oh well, I am not going to have a tent for my trip in August. Besides, what beats staring up at the stars?

Base camp, 9,300 ft

Saturdays ride took us around Twin Lakes and into the mid point of Segment 11 of the Colorado Trail. It wraps around the lake and climbs after that. The ride consists of Pine forest and really dense aspen forest. It ends with a pretty good decent and crosses a road (the start of Segment 12, which we did not realize-closed to bikes) and kicks up really good. 1,400 ft in 2.7 miles good. On our way back we avoided the out and back and did some exploring. Turns out we crossed Columbine, which is the largest climb on the Leadville Trail 100. Ride info here.

Brad surrounded by Aspens

final decent on Segment 11

Sunday morning we packed up camp to ride Segment 14. It started off with a 1,200 ft climb which was mostly hike a bike due to steep grades and loose terrain. A gradual climb lead to some pretty rocky technical trails. Segment 14 north to south (way of the CTR) is pretty difficult. It was a ton of fun heading north though. The trail flowed much better. No pictures from Sunday. Ride info here.

It was great to get into the mountains and actually ride and camp up high. I could tell that I have not been above 9,000 ft much. The thin air proved to be difficult. I will be spending the next 5 weekends camping and riding at or above 9,000 ft.

The latest

2011-06-20T18:53:00.000-07:00

No racing this June. Its been a really good thing for me. I started the month very tired from an aggressive early season schedule. The idea for June was to recover and rebuild. The focus is to prep for this, this, and, this. I've increased speed work, climbing, and gear testing.

Friday nights campsite at about 7,800 ft

Friday I went up to Buffalo Creek to ride the single speed for three hours and to camp a bit higher than where I live. Friday nights ride. It worked out well as Ben and Tim were racing the Bailey Hundo. I rode about three hours Friday night and ended about 30 minutes after dark. I explored some more of the Colorado Trail and about 15 miles of singletrack from the race.

Tim approaching aid station 5

Handing off water bottles to Ben

Sunday Jeremy and I headed out for a 100 mile road ride. I wanted to get as much climbing in as possible. Rain and weather made us kind of improvise and limited climbing, but it was a good ride. This 100 on the road bike marked 42 months in a row with at least 1 100 mile ride. The next two months could be tricky with my schedule though. Ride info here. I think next time I will add in shadow mountain so I don't have to mess around in the city as much.

Climbing High grade. It was nice and hot while we climbed.

Colorado Trail Lesson 1: What not to do

2011-06-04T14:23:00.000-07:00

1. Don't go over the handlebars 1.53 miles into the trail and bounce your face off a rock and cut the whole right side of your body up. This ruins confidence and hurts (me).
2. Don't break your chain 5.7 miles into ride. It is difficult to ride bikes consistently without a chain. Note: carry a quick link with you in case this happens because it can solve the problem (Eric).
3. Make sure your brakes actually work. This improves confidence on downhills, especially if you are newer to mountain biking (Eric).
4. When your friend breaks his chain and has to walk back while you can ride, make sure to stop at every intersection, even if the turn seems completely obvious. When people miss a turn and go the wrong way, this causes unneeded confusion (me).
5. Make sure before departing you don't have dead legs and are well rested, which I thought I was (me).

OG: Orignial Growler WIP

2011-06-02T11:59:00.000-07:00

Tim during our pre-ride

Prize for finishing. Filled with New Belgium Ranger IPA

Beautiful Day!

2011-05-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

Actual video from 5/21/11 concert

Well, for the most part anyway. Eric and I wanted to get a long road ride in with a fair amount of climbing. I barely rode my bikes in the last two weeks as I needed some time for recovery and then got pretty sick. We rode up to Golden to climb Golden Gate Canyon as high as we could before weather hit. Our climb ended at about 8,600 feet when we ran into 45mph winds and a wall of snow. Yes, that is right, it was snowing. Back down to Golden for a quick coffee to warm up from the descent. Temps were warm and the rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. It felt good to be back on the bike even though I felt sluggish the first few hours.

Michael scored tickets for the U2 360 concert Saturday night at Invesco (where the Broncos try to play football). They were General Admission, so they were cheaper than most of the tickets available. Why, I don't know. We were able to get pretty close to the stage. Two of Michael's friends went with us, and they had some sort of VIP pass that enabled them to a party inside the stadium. The passes did not have names on them, so when they got back, they handed them off to us. We got a hand stamp and headed in for a quick beer. Apparently the stamp was our "ticket" to go to a inner section close to the stage. Sweet. The Fray (couldn't care less) opened for U2, so we took advantage of our stamps. We ended up getting within about 15 ft of the stage by the time the show started.

The sun set on an amazing spring Denver evening just before U2 was to take the stage. U2 went all out for this show/tour. The stage was huge and took up about 40 yards of the field. Setup took 4 days and required 54 semi trucks to move everything for the stage. It looked like 4 claws and housed all of the sound equipment and lighting equipment. They played for about 2 hours and it was amazing. Denver Post's story.

Set list

Main Set: Even Better Than The Real Thing, I Will Follow, Get On Your Boots, Magnificent, Mysterious Ways, Elevation, Until the End of the World, All I Want Is You, Stay, Beautiful Day - Here Comes the Sun, Pride, Miss Sarajevo, Zooropa, City of Blinding Lights, Vertigo, I'll Go Crazy (remix) - Discotheque - Please, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Scarlet, Walk On - You'll Never Walk Alone
Encore(s): One, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow - Where the Streets Have No Name, Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me, With or Without You, Moment of Surrender

The Edge

Bono on a moving platform

Adam Clayton on bass with Bono with the light up mic

Front Range 60

2011-05-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

Above photo courtesy of Ben

Mt. Falcon and Lair O' the Bear

2011-05-04T11:41:00.000-07:00

Last nights ride was the first time I rode both of these trails as an out and back. Both Lair O' the Bear and Mt. Falcon are probably 2 of my 4 favorite Front Range trails. The temperature was nice even though it was a little cloudy. Ride time was 2:40, and I did not even need lights! All winter long I anticipated days like yesterday. I even saw signs of local wildlife. On the road between the two trails I stopped to watch a herd of 12 huge elk grazing on the side of the road. I even saw large mountain lion tracks at LOB. Hopefully he did not see me.....

Ride data

Vodoo Fire RME

2011-04-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

Tough race this past weekend. I felt flat the whole race as I think I am still feeling the lingering effects of some big efforts early in the month (I have a 100 mile, 87 mile, and now a 67 mile mountain bike ride this month). I finished 43/67 racers in my age category and 109/200 out of riders who finished. Not sure how many DNF'd, but that isn't really to important. One of my goals was to keep riding no matter how I felt and not take time off at aid stations or pitting as I lapped through. I had 10 minutes of non moving time, which I am ok with. I pitted for a couple minutes after lap two to eat a Honey Stinger Chew, which are so easy to stomach during a race, and a coke.

Race data here.

Why wouldn't I go out for another lap?

2011-04-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

This past weekend Tim and I packed up the E full of gear to head to the Gallup New Mexico for our first race of the year and our first 12 hour mountain bike race, Dawn til Dusk. The forecast looked horrible for race day, but it was still on. We arrived at the race venue mid afternoon Friday to pre ride part of the course. My take on the race was kind of flat with a 70% chance of snow the following day. But the weather was great for the pre ride, and the course was a lot of fun. It was a nice mixture of climbs, quick ups and downs, and some nice moderately technical sections. Oh, and it was about 13 miles of singletrack, no fireroads or anything boring like that! My excitement returned due to the fun factor of the course. The rest of the night consisted of dinner, strategy talk, and getting all set at our hotel, which turned out to be maybe 5 minutes away from the race. Our Best (worst) Western looked like a scene out of The Shining. It probably hadn't been updated since 1973.

Saturdays wakeup call came at 4:45 for the pre race meal and dress. There wasn't any precipitation at this time, but I still was unsure how to dress. I was able to park the E right next to the race course near the finish line, which made pitting and changing easy. I set up my cooler with all my nutrition right by the course, which proved to work out well.

The first lap consisted of a 5 mile dirt road leadout and ducked into the last half of the course. Shortly after the start, I knew I had over dressed. My plan was to not pit for two laps, but I had to remove layers and grab my vest. My first lap and a half were kind of all over the place. I fumbled a bottle and was caught up in a mix of traffic. About halfway through lap two, I started to find my rhythm. The weather was good for the first couple laps, so I stopped and put sunscreen on. Laps 4 and 5 the wind picked up and intermitent rain started. There are a couple ridges on the course that offered good views, and off in the distance dark clouds loomed. By the end of lap 5, my back was killing me. In the first 6 hours or so, I took only 13 minutes off of the bike. I lapped through, and was about to call it a day. By this point, many riders had already quit and I saw a steady stream of cars leaving the parking lot with bikes and number plates on them. Some riders were still lapping through though. I was not sure what I wanted to do. With cold temps, rain, snow, 40mph winds, and a sore back, I was certain I had had enough. Tim lapped through, I talked to him for a moment, and asked him what his take was. "Why wouldn't I go out for another lap?" I pondered this for a few moments, grabbed a couple bottles, and rode off.

Lap 6 was great. I felt way stronger after my break. I was able to push gears I could not on the previous two laps. Precipitation held off for a while and the crazy winds dried out the course nicely, making the sandy turns more tacky. About halfway through lap 6, steady snow began to fall. I finished the lap, did not pit, and was told 5PM was the cutoff now. They were calling the race with two hours to go due to the worsening conditions. I rolled out for lap 7 without hesitation. By this time I was feeling very tired and my awareness was slipping. About halfway through the lap I had a little crash. I finished lap 7 at 5:03, so my last lap did not count.

Warm gear for the approaching weather

I was pretty disappointed in myself for a while for taking time off, but I think I needed it a bit. The fact that my 7th lap did not count hurt a bit as well, though it did not affect my standings. It was also good to get more miles and time on the bike, especially when I had already burnt a lot of matches. As I reflect on it, I am proud of myself for getting back on the bike for two more laps. I ended the day with 86.6 miles (7laps) in about 9 hrs which was good enough for 4th in my age category. My Garmin GPS tallied 9,200 ft of elevation gain before I loaded my track to garminconnect, but it was a bit over 11,000 ft after I connected it (I count pre upload stats). Garmin info here.

Dawn til Dusk is a great course and it was pretty well run. I will consider this in the future, but with horrible weather two of of the last three years, I am not certain I will go back. This was not an A race for me, but kind of a test and a big training day. I think my effort was pretty decent. Tim had a GREAT day, finishing 2nd in our age category and 4th overall for geared racers. I hope to have pictures of the race and will post them if I find them. They should be great and range from sunny weather to rain to snow.

MountainFlyers race recap here.

White Rim In a Day (5) on a Single speed(3)

2011-04-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

This past weekend Eric, Jeremy and I headed out to Moab to ride the White Rim. A rain storm destroyed Mineral Bottom switchbacks, which made the trip very difficult before this past week when the road was officially opened. The weather looked ok for the weekend. We arrived to our campsite for my first night of camping this year. I did not even pitch my tent as there was not a cloud in the sky and the stars were out in full force. 5AM arrived very quickly after a long drive Friday night after work. Fred, owner of Paradox Pizza, joined us for the lap. It was a bit chilly at the start, but the gradual climb up the first road warmed us up quickly. Once we got to the entrance, we were told we would have to bike down to the visitor center to get a permit.

The lady who helped me get my permit seemed very nice and helpful, but due to the switchback closure must not have been used to bikers. Our conversation went about like this:

Brett (me): Hi, I would like a one day permit to bike around the White Rim.
NPS lady: You are going to ride around the White Rim in one day? That takes like forever.
Brett: Actually, it takes about 9 hours
NPS lady: Wow!
NPS lady: How many people?
Brett:: 4
NPS lady: How many vehicles?
Brett: None
NPS lady: How many bikes, 5?
Brett: What? 4

I always agree you should be prepared for as many things as possible, but I guess carrying an extra bike never crossed my mind. Parts and tools yes, but a bike.... Oh well, something to consider for next time, maybe.

The day seemed to be shaping up quite nicely. It was warm enough to drop down Schaffer's without being cold. We rolled on and took pictures. Eric was in awe of the ride and area as it was his first time doing WRIAD and it was also his first trip to Canyonlands. We took pictures and made some of the usual stops to take in the sites. The scenery on the whole ride is amazing, which is the main reason we continue to drive out to Moab for this ride. For 80 of the 100 miles it looks like what one would picture the cowboys riding horses through in old wild west movies.

Somewhere around mile 40 the wind started to pick up. We ended up having a pretty strong headwind for the next 30 or so miles. After experiencing this wind, I would have to say it was more difficult than dealing with heat. The combination of the loose sand, which was worse than usual, plus the wind, exhausted us and made us reach deeper into our supplies than I would have expected. Eric and Jeremy were quite low on water by mile 80, and I didn't have much more. There was a campsite around mile 85 with a few people there. We approached them and they were nice enough to fill a few water bottles. Halfway up Hardscrabble, which is a difficult climb, we watched in awe as a carload of foreigners tried drive a Chevy Traverse up it. Reason number 263 why I would never buy a rental car. This car had no business attempting a lap around the trail.

Just before dark I was the first to bike into view of the Mineral bottom switchbacks, which is about a 1,000 ft climb in about 1.5 miles. I started up the climb to attempt to conquer it on my single speed mountain bike. I got about 1/2 way up and I was sapped. The wind, sand, and lack of water took a lot out of me. Oh well, hopefully there will be another attempt someday. As far as the repairs, the trail is in the exact same place after repair. Concrete was laid where the flood had washed out the trail.

With strong winds, clouds in the sky, and a possibilty of rain, we decided to drive down the dirt road we camped on to set up camp closer to the main road. Once I found a good spot, it was time to battle the wind to set up my tent. Post ride burgers were on tap, and then it was off to bed after a long day. Crazy winds prevailed all night and I barely slept. I poked my head out at 7:30 in the morning and rain looked iminent. I woke Eric and Jeremy up and told them we should leave. 10 minutes later it started to rain on us.

As I drove home weather continued to make things difficult. Blizzards in the mountains closed Vail pass and most of I70. 24 to Leadville was open, though I doubt it was much better. The drive home took 10 hrs (5.5hrs to get there). Pictures and ride info to come sometime this week, I hope. It was 10hrs 6 minutes of moving time and 103 miles. Its been a busy week and I have a crazy weekend ahead. Its off to Gallup NM with Tim for this Friday morning!!

Epic Ride Research Mountain Feedbag!

2011-03-15T17:50:00.000-07:00

Today I received my Mountain Feed Bag by Epic Ride Research. This year I plan on doing many long rides, races, and even overnight bikepacking trips. This will enable me to continue to eat while riding. I was able to put 9 Honeystinger bars and 5 gels inside the Mountain Feedbag. My first impression, I was able to get more stuff in there than anticipated. It seems like it will be easy to open and close it while riding. I look forward to using this for my White Rim trip in a few weeks.

9 Honeystinger bars and 5 gels were able to fit inside

Recently

2011-03-12T20:13:00.000-08:00

Not much new in my world lately. This time of the year gradually gets busier with work and ramping up time on the bike to get ready for racing season. March through May is probably the busiest time of the year for me at work. This means I work, ride bikes, and turn it off when I am not doing either of those things. I have a pretty ambitious schedule for 2011 and am kind of changing my focus. The mountain bike races I will be doing this year are much longer, pretty much all 50 miles or more. Below are the races I am already signed up for. More things to come....

Dawn Til Dusk (1st 12 hr race)
Voodoo Fire
Original Growler
Firecracker 50
Breck 100

Today Jeremy and I went out for my March century. It was the first day of week three of a fairly ambitious early season training block. I could describe the route, but the garmin track is here. I've been focusing more on hours and elevation gain this year. I felt strong today and the legs are starting to come to form. We even rode with this endurance mountain biker for a little while, who was out for a pretty good road ride as well.

Going far without going far

2011-03-03T19:47:00.000-08:00

Todays ride on the Rig geared 32x16 here.

Nuggets Celtics (non bike related, wow)

2011-02-25T11:16:00.000-08:00

Thursday night Pat (friend from back home who lives in Fort Collins) got tickets to the Nuggets Celtics game from work. Turns out they were the 9th row centercourt. Easily the best seats I've ever sat in to watch a basketball game. I've always been a fan of Ray Ray and KG, but I was pulling for the home team. The Nuggets won 89-75 in an game that was really close until Denver went on a 16-0 run at the end. They are 2-0 since the Melo trade, which if the season started after that, and ended now, that would be really good and they would have the best record in the NBA.

One of those days

2011-02-20T20:14:00.000-08:00

Saturday Eric and I met up for a big road ride with a few long climbs planned. Blue skies and warm temperatures had us excited for the challenges that lied ahead. Not long into our ride Eric flatted, and then the 2nd tube went flat. He decided to head to REI, which was maybe 4 miles away to replace the tire, tubes, and CO2. Walking and carefully riding on the rim was going to put us way behind schedule for our adventure. 2 hours in, and we had maybe 16 miles. It was shaping up to be one of those days where nothing goes right. We even discussed getting lights to finish our 100 mile ride.

We decided to change our plan from riding up High Grade (well named) to Evergreen and down to Golden to just going up High Grade, a lap around Chatfield Reservoir, back up to REI, and home. The climb up High Grade was really good and we put in a pretty fair effort considering we were not even at the halfway point of our ride. The wind picked up out of the south as we were towards the southern part of our ride and it looked as if precipitation was moving in. We picked the pace a bit and had a tailwind for the majority of our return home. A quick stop at Walgreens for some Gatorade and Snickers fueled me through the final hour and helped us beat the rain. I ended up with 106 miles and about 5,000 ft of climbing and felt great the whole day and even saw a couple friends along the way. I guess it turned out to be one of those days.

Early season punishment

2011-02-13T12:40:00.000-08:00

Today we rode mountain bikes on roads up Deer Creek Canyon and around some back roads, including a new to me gravel road named grapevine. I chased Ben, Eric, and Tim around all day. Mark and Ben's friend Ken Boyer rode with us for a while as well. Todays temperatures and ride gave us a taste of spring!

Info here.

Passing time......Indoors

2011-02-02T19:47:00.000-08:00

After three consecutive days of bitterly cold weather and very little cardio, I decided I better do something about this. I hate riding bikes indoors. I hate riding bikes indoors (duplicated on purpose for emphasis). If I ride my trainer in my little apartment, it will smell like a gym. This is no good. The workout room in my apartment complex where I could ride my trainer is locked and under construction. 24hr Fitness has a 6:30 cycling class. I decided to go.....

I got to the gym and signed up for the last class. After that, I went to check out the cycling class room. Much to my surprise, the gym has very nice bikes. Things were looking optimistic here. I found a bike and started warming up. A few minutes later an employee from gym said the trainer/teacher person was not going to show up. Fail. I had to come up with a plan, otherwise I was going to be bored out of my mind. I decided I would do a few intervals after a nice warmup and then try to outlast everyone in the gym.

Right out of the gate, half the group pulled away from the pack, I went with the breakaway (or half the group got up and left). I sat in the middle of the pack on this mostly flat course and decided the best way to finish first was to get a good warm up in and save my efforts for later. I put in a few attacks that were exactly 3 minutes each and this shelled a bunch of the group (we passed the 30 minute mark, and they were probably bored, so they left). By now I was getting a feel for the rest of us in the group. There looked to be a few strong riders left (people in actual cycling clothes). At about 45 minutes, there were six of us left. I rode behind a tall rider in Capo gear (going forward, he will be referred to as Capo). I figured sitting behind Capo would provide a nice draft. He looked strong, but he did not look like a climber. I was hoping that there would be some elevation gain eventually and then I would make my move. About an hour into the "race" two more people were dropped (left). Capo seemed to be showing signs of weakness at this point. He started sitting up and stretching, so I made my move (or I sat there and kept pedaling). At the 1:10 mark it was me and another rider. He looked strong. Some friends were talking to him and distracted him. Finally, he got up and left. 1:18 into the ride (race!) I sprinted to the finish. Victory, I was the last person standing (sitting?).

I actually survived riding indoors. Thankfully the final sprint the ended the race. I could not take any more of this. I hope the weather gets better here so I can actually ride outdoors. 1:18 isn't much, but it is most likely better than couch time. Can't wait to ride outdoors tomorrow, pretty much no matter what I am going to bike to work.

Doing Time

2011-01-30T18:29:00.000-08:00

Saturday Eric and I went down to Pueblo to put in some time riding dirt. Pueblo is usually warmer and drier than Denver, and sits at a little lower elevation. The trails there are fast and flowy for the most part, though a little loose since there is a lot of rock. It took about an hour to remember how to ride a mountain bike (2 months of riding road, bike paths, and snow). It was nice to ride in shorts with temps in the 60s. Tough to beat that in January! We have to take advantage of it while we can, as the week temps are going to be frigid. Saturdays ride info here.

Eric is a little newer to riding mountain bikes. We have some big things planned this summer. As you can see, he is picking up mountain biking.

It might be kind of hard to tell, but you can see this (yellow) on my camelbak. With a little longer ride (4hrs) planned and plenty of sun forecasted, I thought I would test it out.

We were out for about 4.5 hours, most of which was in the sun. There was very little shade or cloud cover. The solar panel was charged about 40% to 60% based on the green flashes.

I was able to charge my GPS all the way up on the drive home. Success! I will also be able to charge my mobile phone. Now, to figure out if it can charge my helmet light. Wouldn't that be sweet. It would give me more options while out for long rides.

Sunday the Front Range was supposed to hit low 50s. Fail. It never really got above low 40s. Eric and I rode out to Golden to do Lookout Mountain and test out the early season climbing legs a day after hitting nearly 4 hours on the mountain bike. I felt decent the whole way up and chased Eric pretty hard. It was a really good early season effort. Info here. With temps barely over 0 and snow forecasted the next couple days, I think I will take a day off and then get some good time on this.

2011 sponsorship news! Twin Six and Epic Ride Research

2011-01-28T16:52:00.000-08:00

Twin Six is back for the third year! They are my primary source for cycling close both on and off the bike. I think their bib shorts are probably their most under rated piece of gear. The chamois is comfortable, they are durable, and are priced much better than most other shorts on the market.

Longer endurance type races are going to be more my focus in 2011. Epic Ride Research designed the Mountain Feedbag to help give cyclists easy access to food, tools, and anything else that might be needed during a ride. It is sealable, lightweight, and even has mesh pockets for wrappers once finished eating. Checkout more info here. This will come in "handy" during this race!

Reverse 3 day birthday weekend

2011-01-24T19:02:00.000-08:00

Saturday Chris, Marni, Ben, Eric, Jeremy, and I left Denver early to head to Leadville for the winter mountain bike series. A blizzard and crazy ski traffic derailed our plans. Chris and Marni decided to head home. The rest of us went to the Peaks trail.

Sunday I met some friends at the Sports Column to watch the Packers play the Bears in the NFC Championship game. Playoff football outside in cold weather against the Packers biggest rival, what could top it? Well, a trip to the Super Bowl in Dallas made it an even better game. Go Pack Go!! Can't wait for Super Bowl Sunday.

Today, Monday, I got the day off of work for my birthday. I didn't ride yesterday, so I decided to knock out 100 miles. Tim has Mondays off, so I invited him. The weather was decent (mid 30s) aside from a few snow flakes and wind. Todays stats.

What kind of bike race do you need a solar charger for??

2011-01-16T11:47:00.000-08:00

Solar charger info

Rogers Pass Snowshoe

2011-01-10T20:19:00.000-08:00

Sunday snow and winter arrived in the Front Range. Ben, Eric, Tim, Jeremy, Jonathan Davis and I went snowshoeing at Rogers Pass before the Packer game. There was lots of fresh snow. The constant climb up made for a good quick workout. GPS info here.

Carter Lake Loop

2011-01-08T18:13:00.000-08:00

Today was the start of what I hope will be a lot of long rides in 2011. Chris, Eric, and I started off the chilly morning quite early to embark on the first century of the year. The forecast looked good, and with snow on the horizon, Saturday turned out to be a great day to ride bikes. It was amazing the amount of people that were out riding as well. Erik and I saw less than 15 people during my first December century. I started off a little sluggish after my first week "back" on the bike. The rest of the day I felt really good as is evident by some of my high heart rates. I always like the excitement of the early season rides and the base they provide for what I anticipate to be a crazy season on the bike if I can show up to the starting line of all the races on my schedule. Info for todays ride here!

2011 season begins

2011-01-03T19:04:00.000-08:00

I had off of work today so decided to go for a longish bike ride. Departing temps were about 30 degrees. The Gary Fisher Rig was the ride of choice. There was still plenty of snow and ice on the bike paths in the area. It was nice riding in the sun during the week. Few others were out, so there was very little traffic. The returning temps were in the 20s and after about 2.5 hrs I was quite cold. A warm beverage powered the final miles. Details here.

McNamara 10th Mountain Division hut, Aspen, CO

2010-12-13T19:35:00.000-08:00

Last winter I missed out on making a winter trip to one of the 31 10th Mountain Division Huts. Eric, Dru, Ben, and four of his friends and I signed up. Dru, Eric and I departed Denver at about 6AM Friday morning, and the other crew was about 3 hours behind. After a few stops on the way we managed to find the parking lot. I had a couple maps which we thought would be helpful. The McNamara hut was new to all eight of us. The Hunter Creek Trailhead has lots of spurs nestled in the very expensive surrounding Apen neighborhood. The three of us trekked on talking away and checking the maps as needed. After about an hour and 45 minutes and very little elevation gain we ran into a local skier and 5 dogs. She was quite surprised to see us out in this part of the woods and commented that she never saw anyone else there in the winter. She also told us that we missed a turn about 2 miles back.... We realized that we could not trust our maps and better pick up the pace a bit. The forrest service road that we were supposed to turn on was a steady climb with a couple trails that shot off to either side. At about this time I got a pone call from Ben, who was calling to find out why our tracks suddenly ended. I told him what we did and where to go. Typically the trails to the huts are marked with blue diamonds. Not one blue diamond had been seen at this point and daylight was ticking away. The climb continued. Finally there was a tree marked with a blue arrow, which all of us agreed it had to be the way. At this point I was kind of on a mission. My goal was to get to the hut before darkness and cold set in. I broke trail the whole way and pushed the group as hard as we could go. I saw a few blue diamonds throughout the push, but they were few and far between. The first large meadow we encountered did not have any indicators of which way to go before the open space. I hugged the treeline to the left but avoided a small depression. After breaking trail through knee deep or better snow the group made it to another section of trees on either side of the "trail." No blue diamonds, hmm... So much for guidance and reassurance. I carried on and still did not see any sign of an actual trail. Eric changed direction to see if the trail went another way. Dru stayed in middle and acted as a go between for communication purposes. After a 200 yards or so I finally found another diamond and I yelled as loud as could to communicate my find. From here on the trail was quite easy to follow. Thick pine trees covered in snow were on either side of us, but the climb still continued. I started "seeing" a hut through the trees. They always turned out to be mirages. Darkness would probably become a problem between 4:30 and 4:45. I was starting to get nervous. We knew we were on a trail, but not once did we see a sign that confirmed we were on the trail to the correct hut. At about 4:25 I saw a sign that said Hut Boundary and soon turned a corner to see the hut. I was relieved to see the hut just before dark. The door had a combination lock on it. I memorized the code and dialed it up. No luck. Jostling the lock did not help. Eric soon turned the corner and he read the look of disbelief on my face. I did not need to say anything. The door did not open. I tried again and reset all of the numbers and the door opened! Six hours and 11.2 miles and our journey came to an end. Inside the hut the thermometer read a balmy 35 degrees. Fire was the first thing on my mind. All three of us huddled around the wood burning stove drinking warm tea that Dru made in an attempt to warm up. Ben and his group followed our tracks to the hut and arrived at about 6:15. The eight of us had the hut all to ourselves Friday night.

Saturday morning Ben and crew hiked down as they were only staying one night. Relaxation was on tap for the morning. The early afternoon adventure was to summit Bald Knob. Dru, Eric, and I cut straight up looking for the steepest pitches to get us to the top. The views were worth it. We saw Aspen Mountain and several other cloud covered mountains. The hut was full (16 people) Saturday night. A group of 10 came up from Carbondale and Glennwood Springs. Three others from Boulder also made the trip. I met someone from Tomahawk WI that knows a few of my friends that grew up there. It was a fun night. Later at night Eric, Justin (from Carbondale), and I made a pretty sick sled run through the woods. Sunday morning the run got a little out of control as the mist made it very fast.

It was a great weekend. I pretty much don't like winter and snow, but I know I would really miss weekends like this if I lived in a place without winter. I just hope it continues to stay in the mountains.

thats steep

Bald Knob first track

Century Saturday and another new record

2010-12-04T19:08:00.000-08:00

Today Erik A and I knocked out a cold 100 miles on the road bike. I had to stop and get hand warmers about 24 miles in. Not sure what the temps were while we were out. The sun wasn't out either, which worsened the weather. Todays bike ride was the 24th consecutive month with at least one 100 mile bike ride. I also surpassed 7,000 miles for the year and last years mileage total as well, which marks a new yearly mileage record. Last year 7,000 was a big mark for me. This year I did not have any mileage goals, but think that 7,000 is pretty impressive since I rode my mountain bike a LOT more this year. Its time for a celebration Great Divide Brewing Co Imperial Stout. Todays numbers here.

Late season Southwest mountain bike trip

2010-12-03T17:51:00.000-08:00

Both Eric and I had a few days of vacation and wanted to get out of town. Eric just bought his first mountain bike, so I thought this would be a good chance to learn him how to ride it. We decided we would head towards Hurricane UT as the forecast looked OK and Fixie Dave lives there. You can't beat having someone you know to recommend trails to ride.

We stopped and rode Fruita on the way out

Little Mesa slickrock

Saturday nights dinner at Dave's

Saturday we rode Little Mesa. I think there were 9 riders including Dave, Eric, and Craig Bierly. It was really interesting talking to Craig as he is retired and drives all over the country to bike. He is on a non stop adventure! The trails were slickrock, but when we were out, we also rode on snow which made the rock slicker, ha ha. It seemed like a really fun place to ride and I hope someday I can go back and ride all the trail has to offer. Snow kept us from riding the outer loop. Afterwards, we headed back to Dave's place where we made dinner and talked bikes all night. Sunday we awoke to snow. We packed up the E and headed off to find dry dirt in Vegas.

Cottownwood Loop trailhead

Vegas in the background

Confused mountain bikes

Practicing bikepacking

Wait...that is indoors

The view from the 29th floor at Circus Circus, and yes, we stayed on the top floor

Off to Vegas..... to mountain bike? Yes, that was actually the plan. Vegas was about 2 hours from Hurricane UT, and with warmer temps forecasted, it seemed like the place to go. I kind of did some research before departing Denver to see what trails sounded like fun. The Cottonwood loop sounded decent. It is an area consisting of lots of random trails that go all over the place and a few big loops. The trails are located on two sides of the highway which was an easy way to divide the trails into two days worth of riding. The first day consisted of a fair bit of climbing. After about 6 miles and 700ish feet of climbing, one of the locals asked us if we had had enough climbing. We both laughed and thought little does he know. After a couple hours of heading in about the same direction we were wondering if the trail ever looped back to the car. We were surrounded by clouds that looked like they might bring rain from two different sides. The trail dropped us below a ridge that both Eric and I recognized. The road and trail up to the top was rideable, but the grades were 25% to 30%. Saturdays ride ended with about 3 hours and 3,000 ft of climbing.

We figured since we were in Vegas, we might as well try to find a place to stay on the strip. Circus Circus was the hotel of choice. Exploring Vegas had to be done since this was my first time there. Eric and I walked through many of the casinos and crazy buildings. No, I did not gamble at all. The only vice was drinking a few beers.

Monday it was back to the Cottonwood trails to explore more. The other side of the highway did not have much climbing, but the trails were a little bit more technical. A couple hours on the bike and it was back to Hurricane to stay with Dave.

It was good to have a long weekend. It seemed like Eric enjoyed riding mountain bikes quite a bit. Both Eric and I greatly appreciated Dave showing us around and letting us stay in Hurricane.

Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T19:09:00.000-08:00

Holidays are the hardest times to be away from family. Its easy to miss grandma's or mom's home cooked meals. Fortunately I am lucky enough to have made friends in Denver who were nice enough to ask me to share the holiday with them. This year Jeremy, Kim and Eric came over to my place. It was the second year in a row I hosted Thanksgiving. As you see above there was plenty of good food for all. Thankfully I have the internet so this could help us with dinner. At the time of posting, there are 3,000 more hits, so we aren't the only ones using this, ha ha. Football games and Dumb and Dumber were on the TV. Eric and I even prepped out mountain bikes for this weekends adventure.

Century Saturday and a new record

2010-11-07T11:42:00.000-08:00

Its probably kind of funny that I post a new record right after my last post (rest). Anyway, Erik, Eric, Jeremy and I set out to do our November century on 11/6. The highs in the Front Range were in the upper 70s and with winter supposedly approaching and shorter days ahead, we figured this was the best opportunity. In the back of my mind I kind of thought I would push myself and see how many miles I could do. I thought our planned route would put me at about 115, which it was actually a bit lower. We rode out to Nederland and did a loop, gps details here. It was a really good route and highway 72 was new to me. Overall it is a pretty good descent (72) and some surprising climbs. After we all hit 100 miles and parted ways, I decided I would head out to the Cherry Creek Res where I do a lot of my quick road rides. I was not sure how many miles I could push out because of how I felt, dwindling supplies, and the sun. Well, I ran out of sun, so I ended at 125.34 miles, which is a new overall record. Our November century was my 23rd consecutive month with at least one 100 mile bike ride.

The most difficult part of being a cyclist for me

2010-10-22T11:29:00.000-07:00

rest 1 (rst)

n.

1. Cessation of work, exertion, or activity.

2. Peace, ease, or refreshment resulting from sleep or the cessation of an activity.

3. Sleep or quiet relaxation.

4. The repose of death: eternal rest.

5. Relief or freedom from disquiet or disturbance.

6. Mental or emotional tranquillity.

7. Termination or absence of motion.

Jim's week out West

2010-10-17T18:29:00.000-07:00

My friend Jim from Wisconsin came out to visit this past week. We did not have any definitive plans since Colorado is usually in a period of transition this time of the year. Lot of biking and camping was what we were hoping for. I picked Jim up at DIA and went straight to Chris and Marni's. We ended up going "hiking" for a while up in Boulder.

Sunday we drove out to Buffalo Creek to meet Ben who did a ridiculous ride from Denver. He got in something like 80 miles and 11,000 ft of climbing including what we rode together. Temps were a bit cool but pretty nice. We rode the typical Thursday night loop, details below. The ride elevation is between 6,600 ft and 8,000 ft, which is difficult for flat landers, but not really bad. Most people who have not seen the landscape of Buffalo Creek are impressed by the rock and burnt areas. Its probably a really good transition early on in Colorado. Garmin stats.

Jim and Ben

Jim

Me riding through high mountain Birch trees

Jim

I did not have my V8 I guess

The weather looked like it was going to be bad in the Front Range. We packed up the E and headed to the desert to enjoy 80 degree weather. Our first stop was the Kokopelli trailhead just west of Fruita. Lunch was at Paradox Pizza in Moab. Monday night we camped under the stars down Willow Springs "road."

E packed with toys

Monday nights campsite

Tuesday we rode Sovereign.

Jim climbing

Tuesday night we did the tourist thing in Canyonlands national park. We even saw the sunset over the Green river.

The best place to watch the sunset in Canyonlands, on the side of the E

Overlooking the Green river and the White Rim trail, its been a while since I've seen it from this vantage point. I hope they fix the Mineral Bottom switchback before long.

The sun nearly set over the Green River

Wednesday we rode Porcupine Rim from town. It was about 10 miles and 1,800 ft of elevation gain before we even got to the trailhead. A little video for those of you who don't know. Garmin stats.

The Lev at the trailhead

Wednesday evening we did the tourist thing in Arches National Park. We watched the sunset by Delicate arch.

Delicate Arch

The Lev had a great day, I only hoped beer with the same name would be a great way to end the day

Wednesday night's camp spot

After days of mountain biking, we decided it would be fun to try to do Lefthand Canyon on the road bikes, which is a classic Front Range climb. And what good would a long climb be without a great descent. I surpassed 50 mph on the downhill, and this is not the first time I've done this on the way down to Lyons. Garmin info.

Mike and Eric joined in for the fun. Jim is third in the picture (not counting my shoulder, which can be seen).

It was a great weekend, we were able to get quite a bit of adventure in. On this trip Jim logged a few good firsts-first time in Utah and first time sleeping under the stars. Dining out at Fugo De Chao, which is a Brazilian steakhouse in downtown Denver, was the only way to finish the trip. First rate service and first rate food is all I can say. It was a great way to spend my vacation. I can't even imagine how much fun it was for Jim since everywhere we visited was new to him.

Night mountain biking

2010-10-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

Night riding a local front range trail. I am the first rider, Ben is the second rider. The video was taken by Jesse

Thursday night riding video by Ben

Normal weekend for some, not so normal for others

2010-10-04T19:37:00.000-07:00

I have not been posting as much the last half of the summer as I used to. It seems to me the content of the majority of my posts is the same. Camp somewhere that is amazing, ride my bike places that make most people envious, repeat. Three plus years in Colorado and I still think that I am incredibly lucky to live here. This past weekend Ben and I got to share some of the amazing riding and camping we do every weekend with Jesse and Tyler Welnak (Ben's brother).

Ben picked up Jesse and Tyler Friday afternoon and I met them out for a night lap. We got about an hour and a half of riding mostly in the dark. After the ride we drove to Idaho Springs for dinner at Tommy Knockers brewery. Tiger road was our camping spot for the evening. Morning temps hovered around upper 20s lower 30s, which is pretty nice for October at 9,600 ft.

Sunday we got up, ate pop tarts, and went into Breckenridge to fuel up to ride stage 2 of the Breck Epic. The ride consists of some tough fire road climbs and a really good section of the Colorado trail. The climb up the section of the Colorado trail took us to over 11,000 ft. Mountain bikers in Wisconsin do not get climbs that last for miles, and the reward, descents that last miles. All the suffering led to a decent that puts a smile on any rider no matter where they are from.

Saturday nights camp spot

Jesse on the final long decent

Typical views during the day

Ben, Jesse, me, Tyler

Sunday Mark and a couple others met us for a lap around the Indian Creek trails. Conditions were pretty much the same, perfect.

The four mountain bike rides (if you count Thursdays night lap at Buffalo Creek) were a lot of fun. While Colorado is to dry this fall, the warm weather has given us plenty of time to log miles on the mountain bikes. I hope I can find weather like this past weekends somewhere as Jim will be visiting me next week. More vacation and lots of biking, can't wait!!

Breck video slideshow thing by Ben

Indian Creek video slideshow thing by Ben

Late Cheq weekend report

2010-09-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

The Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival.... probably my favorite weekend of the year. Every year I look forward to this race more than any other. Its more an event or tradition than just a race. 2010 was the 7th time in a row I got into the race via the lottery. Most are not so fortunate. This year Erik Arentzen entered the lottery with me and made the trip. We drove to Eau Claire Wisconsin to meet Jim Parman and spin around for a while. The trails at Lowe's Creek are pretty fun, though not to technical, and they provide a nice tuneup after a long and very boring drive. My parents came out to meet us for dinner, where they surprised me with an official Aaron Rogers jeresey!!

Friday morning greeted us with rain. Boo, I don't like riding in rain and sloppy conditions, and this was even more of an issue since I had a Stans Raven front tire and a Crow rear tire-very little if any traction. I would most likely die if I rode those tires in Colorado. I decided not to change them as I figured that if it stopped raining early and dried out, they would be fine for 95% of the course. We drove to Hayward to meet the rest of the group, find the cabin, register, and eat a large dinner of pasta.

Race day started at 4AM. Jeremy, Justin, Jesse, Erik, and I drove to the start to stage our bikes and were awarded first and second row, which was behind all of the preferred starters. I warmed up on the Fuel in the frigid temperatures of the north woods and was feeling good. The gun went off and the start was hectic, picture 1800 mountain bike racers starting, slowing, and dodging road furniture. When we hit 77, the pace opened up quite a bit. I was riding with a few friends at the time, and decided it was time to drop the hammer. I hit Rosies field and was passing people like crazy. Shortly after we hit "trails" my rear tire seemed like it was going flat. I asked Jesse how it looked, and he said low, great.. By mile 12 I was dinging my rim if I went over bumps. I thought if I could make it to OO (first aid station area 16 miles in) I might find a pump and save time and a Big Air canister. Even though I was on a flat tire for 4+ miles, I was 168/1800 at OO, which I thought was ok. I found a pump, filled my tire extra full (40psi) and rolled off in an attempt to reel in the riders that passed me. At about mile 25 I hit a patch of wet mud funny, and crashed. I noticed I ejected a full water bottle after I was off and riding again. I just emptied my other bottle and swapped them out. Jeremy Vogels caught up to me again (he passed me three times while I was off my bike) at this point and handed me a water bottle. I don't typically drink much, but it helped a lot, Thanks Jeremy! I middle ringed the Seeley Fire Tower climb, which is the crux of the race and felt great still. At the top of a climb at about mile 33 I shifted from my big chain ring to the middle chain ring, and got a bad case of chain suck. The chain was doubled over between my large chain ring and front deraileur. I could not move the crank in either direction, shifting the deraileur did not take pressure off the chain, and pulling on the chain did not do much either. After maybe 3-5 minutes, I got the chain unstuck. I pretty much pulled the plug on racing at this point as I was quite frustrated and WAY behind where I could have finished. I kept a decent pace, but it was less than my race pace. I ended up finishing 225 out of about 1800 in 2:44. The course was much slower than last year. I told Erik he would get somewhere between 2:55 and 3:15. He split that and got 3:05! How about that for predictions! After the race the group went to Famous Dave's for some post race BBQ. Beers and fires rounded out the night.

Garmin race stats
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/49885286

Sunday Erik and I headed up to the Rock Lake trailhead. We rode a lot more trails this year. CAMBA does an AMAZING job of working on these trails. There were a bunch of rock features-some even had an alternate route as they were difficult. This is easily the best trail cluster I've ridden in Wisconsin. Lunch at the Sawmill Saloon provided recovery burgers and a place to watch the Packer game.It was great seeing a lot of friends and my parents, getting a short vacation, and going back to the great north woods of Wisconsin.

Labor Day weekend and some pretty good feets

2010-09-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

Stories to come tomorrow as I have time. Thought I would post some pics for now. 18,040 feets climbed Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

38 miles to our destination

At the top of the first climb, segment 11, Colorado Trail

The Lev and Aspens

Eric S, aka, Road Training Rabit, wow he can climb

The final push up Cottonwood Pass

Its amazing where my bike can take me!

Work

2010-08-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

I don't usually talk about work much. Most people probably don't really even know what I really do most of the time at work. The article in the link below is one of the main projects I worked on the first half of 2010. It is the largest deal in my companies history, the largest services deal in Cisco history, and the largest deal financed by Key Bank. I was one of three people that were very instrumental in winning this deal.

Article

Breck 100 opening climb

2010-07-30T07:06:00.000-07:00

Courage Classic: Riding for the Children's Hospital

2010-07-26T18:14:00.000-07:00

The weekend of July 31 to August 2 I will be riding in the Courage Classic, which is a 3 day bike ride . The Courage Classic is a fundraiser for Children's Hospital here in Colorado. Global Technology Resources Inc. (where I work) has always been very involved with the hospital and has actually had some families who have spent time at the facility with their children. For this and many other reasons, Children's Hospital is near and dear to us at GTRI. As such, we have started a team to raise money for the cause. Donations can be made using the link below.

Where the money goes

http://www.couragetours.com/site/pp.asp?c=tmL0KbN0LxH&b=6041715

Donations

http://www.couragetours.com/siteapps/personalpage/ShowPage.aspx?c=tmL0KbN0LxH&b=5612731&sid=ihLUIXODKjISL6PNItF

Breck 100 Race report

2010-07-20T12:11:00.000-07:00

Last Friday Amy, Ben (finished 6th in 30-39 B68!), and I departed for Breckenridge to find a campsite and to get to bed early. The reason, a 6AM start for me for the Breck100. I woke up at 4AM and started the day off with a box of Smores poptarts, a coffee, bannana, and some orange juice.

The race started a couple minutes after 6 and all the Breck 100 racers left Carter Park to take on the challenge of the National Ultra Endurance Series most difficult race.  The first climb went from about 9,600 ft to the top of Wheeler Pass which is 12,460 ft.  Before reaching the summit the race crossed a gulley with snow. The first 1/2 mile of the decent down Wheeler Pass was very sketchy.  The trail was similar to a hiking trail with lots of scree, about 2ft wide at most, and rutted. Several people crasshed, myself included. I had to straighten my handle bars after the crash.  The rest of the descent from tree line to Copper mountain was probably the best singletrack in the whole race.  The Lev handled great and I passed several people. I caught up to Ryan and Andy from Twin Six who I met the night before.  It was great finally meeting them and riding with them throughout the race. The rest of loop one took us up the Peaks trail, which was more fun then I would have guessed, and down to Breckenridge.

Loop 2 started off with a switchback climb of about 1,200 ft. I got caught up with the back half of the B68 and B32 riders which was kind of frustrating. The second climb in Loop 2 was where I started feel tired. 4.5 hours into the race climbing the rocky fire road was taxing.   A long climb up the Colorado trail led to another amazing descent. I finished up Loop 2 with what I figured to be plenty of time to get to the cutoff point at Boreas Pass....

During the pit stop before loop 3 the announcer said that time had passed for 100 mile racers to head out. I knew this to be wrong, but the news still infuriated me. I went to talk to the announcer, and he was corrected as I was talking to him. The cutoff for the race was 4:30 at the top of Boreas Pass. Relieved, I tried to eat some food and frantically head out. All I could stomach was a Coke, a bananna, and a handfull of rasins. I was not sure if I could eat more based on the way I felt, and this came back to haunt me. Mark Hansen and I took off at the sametime to find the checkpoint. We had no idea what was in front of us nor how far we had to go. We pushed on as reasonably hard to get there as there was no way I was going to accept the defeat of being told I did not meet the cutoff point. After about an hour of climbing, the trail spilled out onto a gravel road which lead to the top of Boreas pass. I got to the checkpoint at about 4:20 with 10 minutes to spare!! I was beginning to bonk hard though. I ate 6 orange slices upon reaching the top. Solid food did not seem appealling at all. The next 1.5 to 2 hours were very difficult for me. I felt like I could have taken a nap anytime. Its to bad, as I the singletrack to Como seemed really fun. I was far to tired to enjoy it and was wondering if I could carry on for another 20 miles. At the Como aid station I ate two Honey Stinger Ginsting gels. About 5 of us left the aid station and I was immediately dropped. I knew it was about 10 miles to the top of Boreas Pass, but the only thing I knew for sure was its elevation. 11,444ft.  Finishing the race was all that was on my mind. I watched the elevation and distance slowly tick away. About half way up the climb I got my legs back. I caught back up with Mark and we pushed hard to the top passing a few riders along the way. I got up over the pass and blew by the aid station as I felt strong again. After a couple miles of fire roads we entered the final sections of singletrack. Mark and I bombed the singletrack with enthusiasm knowing we overcame the highs and lows and lows of endurance racing and were on our way to the finish. The trails were really fun and pretty loose which made carving in and out of trees exciting for many reasons. We put over 4 minutes on one of the riders we passed near the top of the descent by the time we got to the finish!

I rode in at 13:54. I felt great crossing the line. Finishing the Breck 100 was quite an accomplishment.  As of a week before the race, 72 riders were in my age group. I finished 46th. I am sure if I stayed on top of my nutrition I could have knocked probably 30 minutes out of my lap 3 time and possibly avoided a major bonk. While I am glad I finished, the competitive peroson inside me is trying to determine how I could have been faster. The race was really difficult and included a lot of great technical descents-definitely a mountain bikers course. I now know of a nice free place to camp near Breckenridge and look forward to riding and camping there again. This race will most likely be on my calender next year! Much thanks to Amy for being there between laps.

Garmin track for the Breck 100. I think my GPS did not record a couple miles of loop 1.

Breck 100

2010-07-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

So it is now official. I've registered for the Breck 100. This will easily be my hardest day on the bike. The goal: to finish. I am both excited and nervous. I've put a lot of hours on the bikes over the last year and a half, so I am hoping I am ready for this. I will not know until 7/17 at about 6:30 PM though, which I should either be done with the race or very close to finished. Game on.

First Expert race and Gold Belt Loop

2010-06-22T19:58:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the Winter Park Hill climb and my first Expert race. I've been feeling strong but did not know what to expect. 14 of the 18 riders took off like a rocket and 1/8 of a mile they gapped the field and kept going. Unfortunately I was the 15th rider. My effort was really high throughout the whole race as I managed to keep my heart rate about 180, but by the finish I had lost 3 minutes to the closest rider in my age category. I am happy with my effort but not happy with the results. I have to come to the realization that this will be a very difficult year and to be successful one will have to be very fast. The winning rider in my age category would have finished mid pack pro. Ouch. Results here. Stats here.

Sunday Eric, Erik, Jon and I went to Colorado Springs to ride the Gold Belt Century. It was kind of a strange ride as there was quite a bit of gravel and dirt roads. Some riders choose cyclocross bikes, some with road bikes with 700x28c wheels. I was the only one to choose a traditional mountain bike. The Trek Fuel with 1.8 inch mountain bike tires was my setup. The first 31 miles I averaged 18.9 miles per hour! The ride offered a lot of different types of scenery and a lot of climbing. We had a van follow us which allowed us to eat a lot throughout the day! The pizza stop in Victor was pretty good. Photos tell the real story. Garmin stats here.

One of several tunnels we biked through

Variety of bikes parked outside the pizza place

Erik and I

Victor Colrado

The riders

New bike!!!

2010-06-06T17:46:00.000-07:00

Frame: 2010 Lenzsport Leviathan 29x3.0 w Fox RP23 shock
Fork: 2009 Reba SL Dual
Crank: XTR
Front der: XT
Shifters: XTR rapid fire
Rear der: XTR shadow
Brakes: Avid Ultimate Juicy Carbon
Headset: Chris King
Handlebar: Salsa Pro Moto flat bar 25.4 5 degree
Stem: Syntace F99
Seatpost: Thomson Masterpiece 27.2 330mm
Grips: ESI Chunky black
Saddle: Specialized Phenom SL
Pedals: Shimano 959 soon to be replaced with Crankbrothers egg beaters 11
Wheels: Stans 355 with DTswiss 240 hubs
Front tire: Continental Mountain King 29x2.4
Rear tire: Continental Race King 2.2
Skewers: Crankbrothers Split QR

Bikepacking the Colorado Trail

2010-06-03T11:53:00.000-07:00

Nick, Chad, Dave, Brett

At the start of the Colorado Trail

Not far from our campsite

Zoka burger, I hope you are not the culprit!

A few years ago Nick and Chad started an annual Memorial Day weekend camping trip. Last year I joined them for the Goose Creek loop in the Lost Creek Wilderness area near Buffalo Creek. For 2010, we wanted to do something different. I recommended spending three days bikepacking on the Colorado Trail, which is something I've been itching to do for a while. Bikepacking combines mountain biking and camping, which are two of my favorite things to do.

Saturday May 29th Nick, Chad, Dave, and I met at the Waterton Canyon in southwest Denver. Waterton Canyon is the beggining of the Colorado Trail. We had no idea how far we could get or where we could or would camp. Neither Nick or Dave are really cyclists so I had no idea what to expect. This trip was the first time bikepacking for all four of us. I've never been past Lenny's rest (8.9 miles from the trailhead), so I did not know what the terrain was like. Sounds like the making of an adventure, right.

The weather for the weekend was near perfect. The trails were in good shape as well. Though there is a pretty fair amount of climbing in the first 20 miles. The terrain is rocky in places, and there is a bit of hike a bike, especially for people loaded down with 3 days worth of supplies on the bikes. I rode my Gary Fisher Rig, which is my single speed, and used a 32x20 gear. The first day proved to be great strength training. We crossed the South Platte trail and had lunch (pizza Dave brought, thanks Dave!) after about 16.5 miles and were able to filter some water to re supply. The beginnig of Segment two of the CT (Colorado Trail) is a pretty good climb and enters into the burnt out area as a result of the 2003 Hayman fire. As a group we decided it was within our best interset to find an area to camp about 2.5 miles up the climb. We found a flat area on top of a ridge which looked good. It was next to the trail but a bit higher up. It provided a pretty good view of most of the surrounding area. The rest of the evening consisted of setting up camp and relaxing. There was a rock we climbed up onto with a nice overlook, and here we spent most of our evening. Both Nick and Dave agreed that day was the hardest thing that they had ever done. Day one numbers.

One of the things I was unsure about was how do you do an out and back in three days. Well, the second day we dropped our camping gear and carried just what we needed for a day trip. The plan was to ride about 7.5 miles on the CT to highway 126 and head into Pine to catch get some burgers at Zoka's. The start of the ride still included a fair amount of climbing, but was a lot of fun overall. Rolling pine forrested singletrack led us into more of the burnt out area. 126 took us to Pine on a little over 6 miles with a fun downhill which I hit 44.7 mph on my single speed. Nick, Chad, and I hung out in Pine and had lunch then made the return trip back home. The climb out of Pine was a good warmup with 700 ft in 3.2 miles. The rest of the trip included mostly downhill back to camp. Frisbee disc HORSE and a campfire was the nights entertainment. Day 2 numbers.

Monday... oh boy. A little after midnight I had a rumbling in my stomach. I felt like I was going to be "sick," and was I "sick." I am not going to go into it because I want you to continue reading, but I am pretty sure I got food poisoning. Monday when I got out of my bivy to begin to pack I felt horrible. I did not have any energy, I was moping around the campsite, packing my bike pretty much took everything I had left. I was not able to eat food, which is a great start to a 20 mile bike ride (sarcasm). I was nauseous and had a headache. I biked 2.5 miles to the South Platte trailhead and I had enough. I could not go on. Nick and Chad dropped everything but what they would need, and Dave and I hung out awaiting their return with cars. I ran every scenario through my head which would lead me to get back to the cars on bike, but I thought it was impossible. The main reason I decided I could not push on was because I could not eat. I felt terrible that I could not finish my trip. That really bothered me, but ultimately, I think it was the best decision. Still a couple days later, I am not fully recovered. Day 3 numbers.... not worth posting.

Things I learned on my trip. I am terrible at estimating the amount of food I need for a trip. Thankfully I always guess WAY to much, but my legs were not thanking me on the way out. My bivy was really nice and much smaller than my tent. I will always use that when I camp and weight is an issue. Chris's Epic Design Super Twinkie was great, and if I do this more, I will most likely get one. I am really fit, and I always underestimate what a group can do because I base it on what I think I can do, and I pretty much tore the legs off of my friends even though I was on my ss. Colorado is great, you can camp in so many places and the beauty of the state never gets old. When you ride a bike with three days worth of stuff including camping gear, you get a LOT of attention.

Surprise!

2010-05-18T18:46:00.000-07:00

I was extremely busy during March and April with a lot of work and two consecutive months of over 700 miles on the bikes. Life was taking its toll on me and I was both mentally and physically exhausted. The second week of May everyone in my family has a special day. Mothers day, my sisters birthday, and my dad's birthday all fell within four days each other. I thought this would be a good time to remove my self from my hectic Colorado lifestyle and take a quick break. I found a well priced plane ticket and plans began. My first call was to my sister to tell her to cancel plans on mothers day, as I figured that would be when they would get together to celebrate. I then bought a ticket and Erin said she could pick me up in Green Bay at the airport. Mothers day came and went, and I built it up by asking several times if my mom had gotten her card, which I knew had not even mailed. The same game was played with my dad for his birthday. His frustration with the post office was expressed, and I laughed to myself as I as I was talking to him on his birthday, which was the day before the surprise. Friday morning I boarded a very early plane out of Denver. Erin, Brendan, and Jasmine greeted me at the airport and we off to Curly's Pub at Lambeau field to have lunch with Nate. Friday happened to be Nate's birthday, and he got a double brat burger sort of thing that was completely Wisconsin and ridiculous. Both my mom and my dad were equally caught off guard when they saw me. My mom first saw me at my parents house as I was sitting in a place that was not in direct view as she entered the kitchen. She stopped mid sentence as she was talking to my sister and had a look of shock on her face upon realizing who was in the kitchen. I caught my dad off guard in similar fashion at a restaurant later as I was hiding behind a rather large menu. I got in lots of hanging out, eating and relaxing. Jasmine and I played with Lincoln logs. I was only in WI for 52 hours, so I was not able to visit a lot of friends. I had hoped to spend the majority of time with my family and get lots of rest, and it worked out well, plus on my way back to DIA, I was upgraded to 1st class or whatever they call it now!

Desert Riding

2010-04-26T20:32:00.000-07:00

Chris following me up a climb

Ben and Chris riding a small climb

Ben on on his new Siren Song 55

Most of the White Rim Group

Standing on Musslemans arch

Way to much food for a 100 mile ride, but I was a hit with extra cookies!

My campsite for the weekend!

Ben and I had been planning a weekend trip to Moab for a couple months. Both of us have had a couple busy months at work and a break was well deserved. Mid week Chris decided to join us. Thursday night we left town as soon as Ben and I could get out of work. Vail was the destination for Thursday as Ben has a friend a little west of town that let us stay the night, which worked out well as we were able to get a jump start on the weekend and more importantly beat the snow. Friday morning we drove to Moab, UT to ride Sovereign and some trails nearby. Fridays ride info here. Sovereign is a lot of fun. We ended up riding for about 3.5 hours, which made me a little nervous since we had a 100 mile ride on tap for Saturday. After our ride, we went off to Paradox Pizza owned by Fred Wilkinson. The evening was capped off by setting up our tents, going for a little hike/climb, and kicking it by the campfire with the other riders.

Saturday was Kenny Jones's annual RAWROD, (Ride Around White Rim in A Day), so a lot of the Utah enduro riders were there. We even got to ride with Fatcyclist! We got a late start, but kept a consistent pace for most of the day. The temperature was perfect for riding, 70s and sun, which beat rain and snow in Denver. There were probably somewhere around 50 people that did the full 100 miles, which was an amazing turnout. This was the fourth time I did this ride, and it went about the same. I felt really good for a lot of the ride. There were two points that I kind of felt burnt out. 50 miles or so we had a gradual climb. It never kicked up, but the time in the saddle was taking its toll. Towards the end of the ride I was quite tired as well. The rest of the ride I felt really good. Even after Fridays ride I still climbed pretty well on the single speed and even made several short steep climbs. Ben, Chris, and I made burgers on my little grill and had a few beers and enjoyed the campfire once again. RAWROD info here.

Sunday we decided to ride the Kokopelli trails in Fruita. I felt really good on the mountain bike and with three days in a row I was riding technical stuff pretty well. The trails we rode had a lot of rocky ledgy stuff and rolled really well for the most part. 29ers feel at home on this trail. This weekend I've concluded that I am sick of my Fuel, am done with 26 inch wheels, and disc brakes are much better than rim brakes (really???). I felt so much better on my Gary Fisher Rig even though it is a single speed then I typically do on my Fuel. I can't wait to get my Leviathan built up. 148 miles on the mountain bike and 14 1/4 hours of moving time. It was a lot fun as I really like riding in the desert and camping.

Great weekend rides!

2010-04-11T15:24:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like being up against the clock or following others around for some good speed work. This weekend I did both. Saturday was the second round of the RATM Death Match. I was the last person to start the climb up Lookout Mountain on Saturday. Lookout gains about 1,266 ft. in about 4.5 miles. My legs felt like boards the first 9 minutes or so of the climb as I had about an hour off after got there (21.5 miles to the start 1,050 ft already climbed). I reached the end of the climb with a time of 23:50, knocking 1 minute off of last month's time. Eric, Jeremy and I, who all bike to Golden together did another lap up the climb after we parted ways with the rest of the team. The second time down seemed quite a bit cooler. We rode straight to Starbucks on main street of Golden where we hung out for an hour or so.

Google earth map of Sundays mountain bike ride

An example of the trails. Fun!!

Sunday I met Ben at the Deer Creek trail head. DC is still snowed in, but Ben knows of a bunch of other trails open in the area. We rode a bunch of the Ken Caryl trails, which you need a pass that is only available to residents of the area. One of the trails we rode had a constant grade of 15%-20%. They were in pretty good shape and we encountered very little snow. There were even some places with some nice technical sections. Following Ben around made for a good workout, and then when we were about done mountain biking, we followed some road riders up the canyon until I had had enough. Between both days, I got in about 80 miles and 7,000 ft of elevation gain. Sunday's ride info.

Cheq check cleared!

2010-03-24T17:54:00.000-07:00

Once again I applied to race the Chequamegon Fat tire festival. My check for the fee cleared 3/23, which is an early indicator I am in. 7 years in a row and 7/8. This year Erik Arentzen is making the journey to WI with me to compete in the "40." Game on....in 6 months!

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Untitled

2010-03-16T18:41:00.000-07:00

Garmin Connect -
Activity Details for Untitled

Lookout Mountain Death Match 1

2010-03-14T12:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the start of the Death Matches, which is a timed ride up Lookout Mountain. The climb is a little over 4 miles and 1,200 ft of elevation. Yesterday we had a great turnout with I think 9 from the team and Ben. Lookout Mountain is at the base of the foothills by Golden Colorado. It is one of the rides I do right from home. By the time I met up with everyone else, I already had 23 miles and 1,200 ft of climbing. I felt pretty tired on the ride there. The idea of the Death Match is to start people according to speed so that everyone gets to the top about the same time. Its a great idea so that people of different fitness levels can gauge improvements against each other. I rode at a pace that I felt was just below cracking the whole time. My finish time was 24:50, which I was happy with considering how I felt that day, my ride time to the start, and and the fact that I've just started doing speed skills a bit. Erik, Bill, and I stuck around for a second lap up. The temperature for Saturdays ride started out in the mid 30s when I left but got up to the low 60s upon returning home. 64 miles and about 4,500 ft in elevation gain for the day.

Crank Brothers is now an official sponsor of Ride Against the Machine

2010-03-11T18:19:00.000-08:00

Today I have been officially registered as the point of contact by Crank Brothers for Ride Against the Machine. I can't wait to get a new pair of TI egg beater pedals as they are super light and I think the blue skewers will fit my new bike very nicely!

Another Saturday, another 100 miles

2010-03-08T19:52:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday Jeremy, Erik, Eric, and I set out for our March century. It was the same route as the week before, but we decided to head up Lookout Mountain. Eric, Erik, and I took some hard pulls leading into Golden before a refuel at a local gas station. Once we started the climb, Eric and I pulled away and kept a pretty good pace for being 40 miles into a 100 mile ride. We topped out at about 7,500 feet. We flew down the backside of Lookout where Erik and I reached speeds in excess of 40 mph! The rest of the ride was pretty standard. I felt sleepy tired by about mile 60 and refueled with a Cherry Coke, which gave me my wings back. I felt strong and alert the rest of the ride and led the charge back to town. The winds out of the east were just strong enough to be pretty annoying and take their toll. At mile 85 Erik, who has a power meter, was impressed by my power output. He was putting out 320 watts in my draft, which means I was putting out a fair amount more than that. With all of the early season riding, I am starting to feel pretty good, especially as I work in some speed work. Stats here.

Cyclocross like century

2010-02-27T19:57:00.000-08:00

Todays route was the pretty standard metro century. Erik, Eric, Jeremy, and I set out for the monthly ride, which makes 14 consecutive months with a century for me. The day started off very nice. Departing weather was low 40s and sun. Can't beat that in February, though I am hoping soon to be able to ride in shorts without freezing. There was some snow and ice, but not that much considering we had snow a couple days ago. The first extended tunnel we were in turned out to have a nice base of glare ice. I was leading the way and was the first to slow speed crash, which caused Erik to crash into me. A couple tunnels later started out good, but had ice, then snow, and then hub deep water. I made it through unscathed, but looked back and the three others were all on the ground. Thankfully no one was injured, though there may have been some lost keys. We encountered some barricades we had to hike around and plenty of mud. Ride info is here. It was a pretty easy group ride for me. I felt pretty decent after not riding much the last week and a half due to tapering for last weekends snow race and a mid week work trip. My gps says I burned 5,400 calories. I don't buy that, but I bet it was a lot. Being able to ride all day in WINTER never gets old!

Extra lap.....

2010-02-22T18:50:00.000-08:00

My race course, which I was 1st place, out of 1!

Yes, there was a bike race in the snow

Start of the race

Riding the snow bike

Decked out in winter snow racing atire

Pugs on left Bens bike on the right

snow packed road to Mt. Elbert

Ben with his Snowshoe caught under a branch

February 20th was the 2nd Leadville winter mountain bike race. It was held at Tennessee Pass nordic center at 7pm. The starting temperature was hovering around 10 at the start. I was lucky enough to be able to demo a Surly Pugsley (as seen on the right). For those of you who don't know, the tires are really wide so they float through the snow. The race was supposed to be 10.5 miles. Its on mostly wooded double track with one lollipop done in an open flat section. I guess there is one big loop and then a smaller loop up top. Thats where the story gets funny. As I was riding the start of the second section, I guess I missed the lap. It could have been marked more clear and there were not any coarse marshals. I was unsure if it was the turn as I approached and hesitated. My thinking was since it was not clear one way or the other to keep going with the thought in my mind that I would hate to cut the coarse and maybe the lap is up ahead. Nope. Wrong. I went down a pretty steep decent and once at the bottom, I realized I made a mistake. I had been riding by myself for about 25-30 minutes which included a while on the first lap. When I lapped through, I was probably 15-20 out of 48, I knew how to get back to the finish, and just rode it out pretty disheartened. I pushed on and enjoyed the ride not knowing when I would get to ride a fat bike again. I had been out for almost 2 hours. When I got back, a couple of friends said they were about to get on bikes and look for me. I thought it was kind of hard to believe, but I was not last. I was greeted with a warm fire, pasta, and some Oskar Blues brews-a sponsor of the race. I ended up with 1,700 feet of climbing and 15 miles on the 30+ pound snow bike, which was 4.5 miles and I think 600 ft more then Ben who had an awesome race as he finished 4th overall.

Sunday our plan was to get a few hours on the snowshoes to increase our high elevation activity. We drove towards the Mt. Elbert trailhead. The drive ended about 4 miles from the Mt. Elbert trail is as that was as far as was plowed. We hiked a mostly flat trail for maybe 1.5 miles or so. At that point Amy challenged us to head out of bounds. Ben and I trudged through Mid thigh deep snow for about 30 minutes. It started out as a gradual trail, and then we went up a wall with a 40+ degree pitch. After 2 hours or so it was off for lunch and back home.

Typical week day ride

2010-02-10T18:48:00.001-08:00

Departing temp at 5:50 AM 13 degrees, 1 degree wind chill. Temperature upon arriving home at 6:30 PM was about 33. 22 miles in 1:33. Bike of choice, 2007 Gary Fisher Rig geared 32x17.

Century Saturday

2010-01-30T20:25:00.000-08:00

Today was the 13th month in a row with at least one 100 mile bike ride. We rode around the Denver metro area. Attached is a map of the ride. I felt pretty good today. Eric, Erik, Jeremy, and I did the ride in a little over 6 hrs. Its nice to be able to ride in upper 40s and sun in January!!

Leadville Mountain bike race 1

2010-01-23T20:20:00.000-08:00

Start of the first mountain bike race of the year!

Warm up in snow, starting temp, 14 degrees

Ben breaking trail after bike race

Mountains in the distance on the way home from race photographed while snowshoeing

Today Bill, Ben, Chris and I along with a host of other characters, 47 total, kicked off the Leadville winter mountain bike race series. Starting temps were in the low teens with threats of snow. It actually snowed until the start, then magically the sun peaked out for much of the next hour. Due to fresh snow, the course had to be re routed. The race was fun. I was able to bike a lot, but still had to run in some of the snow. My finishing time was 1 hr 1 minute. I had an average heart rate of 159 and got in about 800 ft of climbing. I won a $20 gift certificate which I turned into Geology of Colorado Illustrated thanks to the Rock Hut, which donated the gift certificate to the bike race.

Ben and I did not have enough. After the race we stopped at a random trail. The place we stopped was Clinton Gulch Dam Reservoir. It was at a dam high elevation of 11,000 plus feet. We hiked around for about 1.5 hours or so. Some areas of our hike we were post holing in mid waist deep or more deep snow.

Franktown

2010-01-17T15:45:00.001-08:00

63 miles 2000 ft elevation gain. 3.5hrs

Deer Creek canyon and edge 705 data practice

2010-01-16T16:30:00.000-08:00

Todays route home to Deer Creek canyon and back

Today I started with structured riding for 2010. I met Ben near Deer Creek and went up the canyon. I felt kind of sluggish as I have not really done structured riding since September. I did do a ton of riding to end the season, but there weren't regular sustained efforts. Todays ride was about 57 miles, 3031 feet of climbing, and 3:24 ride time.

Cardinals vs. Packers

2010-01-16T16:12:00.000-08:00

Andrew, Brett, Saguaro

Packers about to score

Andrew, Brett, Andy

University of Phoenix stadium

Andy and Brett cooking

Andy, Andrew, and I have the idea that we want to see a Packer game in every stadium. We've been to Tampa twice. Since our last visit, the Packers were on quite a run, which they needed to to make the playoffs. We got three pretty decent tickets to the Packers Cardinals game, 16 rows off of the field to be exact. Andrew and Andy flew in, and I drove 900 miles to Phoenix. I brought all of the necessary tailgating gear that I had, which included 2 cases of Fat Tire beer since glass is not allowed at the stadium. They also don't allow grilling with charcoal. WTF? I picked up a grill as soon as I got to Phoenix so that we would not miss out on traditional tailgating of brats and burgers. Our tickets even came with a blue lot parking pass. We got to the game a little before 11, and it is a good thing. My grill had WAY more parts that needed to be assembled then I would have ever guessed. There were quite a few Packer fans near where we parked, which was pretty sweet. About an hour before game time we went into the stadium to check it out. The University of Pheonix is a really nice stadium. I've never been in a dome before, and I would say the ratio of Packers fans to Cardinals fans was 80/20. I could not believe how loud the stadium was. Didn't help that the Pack got off to a terrible start. They did turn it around and it ended up being a really fun game to watch. The final score in OT was 51-45, but the outcome was not as we hoped. The Packers season is now done.

End of the year beginning of the year ramblings

2010-01-05T19:33:00.000-08:00

I thought about doing a year in review, but thought otherwise. If you have been reading this regularly (and you should be), then whats the point. The author of besadventures (me) does not believe in blog cliff notes. It has been a while since my last post though. I went back to Wisconsin for Christmas. It was a short stay and I did not have an major traveling issues. It was good to see some friends and family, but wish I could have seen more people. It was really fun going to see the Packers whoop the Seahawks to a tune of 48 to 10, and I did survive the frigid weather of Green Bay in December. My trip to WI consisted of a lot of just hanging out, which was kind of good. When I got back to Denver I felt physically refreshed, which is something I had not been able to say for a while.

New Years was nice and pretty low key. Chris P and I got up to head south quite early on the 1st to go ride some dirt in Pueblo. It is less than 2 hours south of Denver and is typically quite a bit warmer. The trails were 99% free of snow and ice. Wow was it fun to get on the mountain bike again. The riding was quite a bit like Fruita. Cruising trails in the desert, and there were even some nice technical stuff too.

Next weekend it is off to Phoenix Arizona to watch the Packers play the Cardinals. I've never been to Arizona, so am looking forward to seeing the state. It is going to be quite a long drive by myself to meet Andrew and Andy, but am excited for the adventure. We have pretty good seats which are 16 rows off the field in the end zone. I hope the Packers can come away with a win. Check back for stories and pictures soon of the trip!!

December

2009-12-14T20:11:00.000-08:00

Things have been kind of slow lately. Denver and Colorado is kind of in that lull between fall, which is typically not to bad and winter. I'm still riding a fair amount, but am willing to shut it down in poor weather, or at least try to make the trip to and from work. I've already made the commute in below zero weather, which caused many people I run into to question my sanity. One of the days I even questioned my own sanity. I think its a bad thing when one questions ones own sanity. I am close to what I thought was kind of a crazy goal. 7,000 miles in 2009 on the bike. Yes, that is 7,000 miles of pedaling OUTSIDE, no "trainer miles." That is better than 1/4 way around the world, freaking crazy.

Saturday Chris and I headed out for our monthly 100 miles. The weather was supposed to be nice and reasonably warm, upper 40s. Once we started the initial climb out of Chris's subdivision, we where greeted with a strong wind. The wind helped me establish a new land bike speed record of 56 mph for me down the Wall-as seen in American Flyers. We were going to do the Carter lake loop, but as things progressed, we were not so sure about that. During a break at a convenience store in Hygiene, we ran into a few other bikers and thought it was best to battle the 20 mph plus winds back through Boulder to Westminster. To the west above 8,000 ft the mountains looked very uninviting to bikers, it was quite dark. The wind made for a pretty difficult bike ride back, though I think the wind let up a bit. We made a couple loops around Westminster to tack on some miles, and ended up with about 6,000 feet of climbing and lots of added resistance because of the wind. Both Chris and I agreed it was a very tough day in the saddle. The 100 mile bike ride was the 12th consecutive month with a century. After Monday I have 170 miles to go to 7,000. I would really like to have that wrapped up by the time I leave to WI.

Once I get 7,000, it will be time to reduce the time on the bike a little and incorporate some other activities to change it up. The best way to stay in bike shape is to bike, so I will not be completely turning it off. I recently bought some new skis, and hope to get decent using them. Snowshoeing and yoga are a couple other things I will be mixing in. Oh, and it is indoor rock wall climbing time too.

Tampa Bay year 2

2009-11-14T15:09:00.000-08:00

Brett and Andrew on beach with beer.

Andrew, Andy, Brett, Mike

Ticket and media pass compliments of Rhonde Barber

Brett and Erik

Brett, Andy, Andrew, and Mike on the field.

Almost on the field, and on the wrong side of the yellow lines

Packers coming down the tunnel

Climbing Florida style.
A week ago today I left for Tampa Bay Florida to hang out with Andrew Huebner, Andy Wylie, and Mike Jung and go to the Packer game. Both Andrew and Andy are from Neenah, my home town. Mike is a friend of Andy's. This year we stayed Saturday through Monday, an improvement on last years 36 hour car to car whirlwind trip to Florida. Andy and I got to Florida within 10 minutes of each other, which is pretty sweet considering I flew from Denver and Andy flew from Minneapolis St. Paul. Upon arrival we headed straight to Clearwater beach for beers, football, sun, and swimming. Saturday night we had dinner at a restaurant in the hotel complex and then were off to Channelside, which the valet recommended, for a few late night cocktails. Don't trust valet, as Channelside was not where it was at.

Sundays pre game meals consisted of egg and sausage bagel sandwiches on the grill. Then we made brats and burgers. It was a tailgate setup that would have been perfect at Lambeau field. Erik Roach stopped by as we were eating. Erik is a friend of mine that I've not seen since college. Per facebook we both realized we were going to be at the same game. It was nice catching up with Erik, who now lives in Orlando and has a successful chiropractic office.

Andrew got our tickets from some guy named Rhonde Barber. I think he plays cornerback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We also got media passes to go onto the field for an hour before the game. All I can say is kid in a candy store. It was pretty much a dream come true being on the field on game day along with both NFL teams. I was able to high five most of the Packers as they ran out onto the field. It was amazing to see how big the players are. Once that was over, we found our seats. They were in the end zone on the same side as the pirate ship. The game had its moments, but overall was quite disappointing. Two years in a row I've gone to Tampa Bay to watch the Packers play, and two years in a row they've blown the lead late in the game. This was especially disappointing as the Bucs were 0-7, and we thought the Packers were playoff contenders. After the loss, we went back to the hotel. While watching Sportscenter on ESPN, I saw the four of us in Packer lowlights. It was a fun weekend and Rhonde Barber is my new favorite Buccaneer for hooking us up with sweet tickets and Media Passes to on the field. I doubt the Packers will be in Tampa next year, so I look forward to heading off to a different warm weather city to watch them. And hopefully I will get to fly back after watching a win!

Denver has a visitor, from WI

2009-11-01T18:38:00.000-08:00

This weekend Jesse Shoemaker visited Ben and Amy. Mountain biking was out due to the early season Blizzard Denver got. The only other choice was to torture Jesse on road bikes. Saturday we road up Deer Creek Canyon to High Grade road. For flat landers, the extended climbs of Colorado are typically pretty tough. Deer Creek is pretty well graded. It was also quite cold going up with late afternoon shade and snow on either side of the road. I've not ridden High grade before Saturday. There is a decent climb of 2.1 miles and then the switchbacks start. It does not look to be to tough to me, but it is a climb, and I can't wait to go back to try it in full. Saturdays temps at 7,500 feet were just to cold to push on. Jackets and warm clothes were needed for the ride down. When Jesse, Ben, and I stopped climbing, we could see our breath. I hit a max speed of 42 mph on the way back down, brrr.

Sundays ride was a bike path ride that consisted of the E470, Cherry Creek, some city, and the Platte trail. 67.5 miles, with some snow, a few attacks, and lots of sun that lead to some fair November sun burn. Oh well, off to Florida next weekend, so some sun should be good for me, unless I can't sleep because of it.

October started out with me feeling pretty burnt out. The first week I could barely turn the pedals, and it was mentally frustrating hitting the wall. I ended the month feeling much better setting some pretty good PRs for me. 757 miles and 51 hours of biking!!!! 7,000 is still a ways off, but I put a pretty good dent into it in October.

The Great Bonk Ride

2009-10-25T18:50:00.000-07:00

Today Golden Bike Shop led a ride called the Great Bonk ride. It was at least 6,500 feet of elevation gain in 42 miles. Ride notes here. Todays forecast, mid 30s and 40% chance of precipitation. And this was at 6,000 feet. We climbed to over 9,000, and experienced, snow, fog, and sleet for a fair bit of the ride. About 12 riders showed up for the ride, with some notable pros (Kelly Magelky and Yuki Saito) so it was a strong group. We rode a fair amount of singletrack with some roads and double track mixed in. The singletrack at higher elevation was covered in up to 3 inches of snow. There were several long, wet, and snowy descents too. The last half of the ride was really cold and wet. It was probably the craziest mountain bike ride I've ever done. It was tough, the conditions were bad, but it was a lot of fun. The guys at Golden Bike shop organized a really fun ride and when we finished, we had pizza, cookies, brats, burgers, and a 1/4 barrel of beer waiting for us. It was a really fun ride as I've never ridden any of the trails we rode. I met a bunch of good riders and shared some good stories. Epic day, you bet so.

Moab

2009-10-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

No Cisco Service equals a bad idea!

24 hours of Moab with the La Sal's in the background

Ben Welnak, 11th overall 24 solo 193 miles

Singletrack on Porcupine rim

View from beyond the Jackhammer

Jackhammer, yup, thats the trail

Porcupine Rim, GF Rig 32x18

Friday Ben, Amy, and I took a half day to head to Moab. Ben was going to race 24 hours of Moab solo, Amy was going to crew, and I was going to ride Porcupine Rim on my singlespeed. Once we got to Moab, we went to Paradox Pizza, and Fred took care of us. We had the Margherita pizza with sausage, and it was good. Friday night was a pretty easy night of camping at the racecourse and an early bedtime. Saturday we woke early to head to the Jailhouse cafe, which has great omeletes. Ben and Amy dropped me off just past the Slickrock trail so I could ride the Porcupine rim. It was 5 miles of climbing to the trail and then 4 more miles of climbing on ledgey rocky trail. Even with perfect temps, I was toasty and pretty beat once I got to the top. But after that, I got to descend 2,800 feet, so it was worth it. Porcupine rim is one of my favorites. The trail consists of pretty amazing views (is there one in Moab that doesn't?), lots of ledges to climb and drop, and lots of good sized rocks. It is pretty harsh for a hardtail, but I was fine except for a couple spots. I had the trail all to myself. I either beat the crowds and or no one was in town thinking the 24 hour race would draw to much of a crowd. Once I was done with the trail, I had about 20 miles to bike to the racecourse where my ride was. As I biked through Moab, I stopped at subway. The Moab Subway has to be the slowest dam Subways in the country. The last two times I went there it took at least 20 minutes to get a sub. Really?

Once I got back to the race, I sat around for a while and helped crew for Ben when needed. He started off decent, but kept riding straight through the night. There were only a few hiccups during the race. And they were quite minor. A couple flats that did not completely flat was the worst. The highs and lows of the race were amazing. Ben rode a consistent first 12 hours, but at about midnight when he lapped through seemed out of it. I am sure this is pretty typical, but he kept pedaling and fought through it. Because of his consistency, he ended up 11th overall in the mens 24 hour solo category. Awesome race. It was fun getting out of Denver, especially with a miserable forecast. In the past 6 weeks, I've been able to ride three amazing trails, Monarch Crest, Kenosha Pass, and now Porcupine Rim. FUN!

RATM storms WI and the Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival

2009-09-21T19:59:00.000-07:00

September 19, 2009 was the 27th running of the "40." The Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival is probably the biggest race in the midwest. I've done this race every year since 2004. It is more than a race, it is a time to hang out with friends and spend a weekend in the great north woods of Wisconsin. This year Chris, Marni, and Scott made the trip back to WI to see what it was all about. Wed after work we loaded up my Element and headed east. We ended up driving to 2 A.M. CST. which was longer than we expected. Thursday morning we got on the road and headed to Eau Claire WI to meet Jim Parman and ride Lowe's Creek. Man that trail is fun. The riders in Eau Claire do a good job of keeping that trail in good shape and adding new fun trails. After about an hour of riding we went out to dinner and my parents, sister, and niece met us out. Friday morning lead us to Hayward and the rented cabin were all were awaiting our arrival to register. Jim cooked everyone an amazing dinner of chicken, pasta, and broccoli. An early rise and pancake and egg breakfast was the making for a good race. I had a goal of 2:35, which would have been a pace of 15.8 mph. I got a good warmup and a better start than expected. The gun went off, and we left the start. This year the pace was quite a bit slower than usual the first couple of miles. Once we hit hwy 77 the pace jumped to that of a road race. I hit Rosie's field, and it was game on. The rolling terrain of the Birkie was tough, but I was feeling good. I made the first split at OO which is at mile 16 in 58 minutes, and I was very happy with the speed at which miles were ticking off. I made it a point to work with riders as much as possible. My heart rate was in the 175-185, which I felt comfortable maintaining for the whole race. The Seely Fire tower climb is at about mile 28. It is a four pitch loose climb. Strong riders can middle ring it, but many people are forced to walk because of how tough it is or someone choosing a poor line in front of you. I felt great, and middle ringed it the whole time. About 2/3 of the way up, some random dude behind me said "you climb like you are from Colorado." Flabbergasted, I stuttered a few words and asked if he recognized my jersey. He had no idea where I was from or who I was and it turns out he is from Westminster CO. He likened it to climbing Mt. Falcon, which I would not go that far, but it was funny. At the start, the announcer stated the race was 40.9 miles. At the low 30s I started doing the math, and realized if that was the case, I would be close to being sub 2.5 hours, but would have to hustle. I again started to work with a group of riders, Don Edinburg among them. I stayed in my big chainring through most of the climbs and rollers. I fast approached the final climb, flew down the backside, and jumped up the last little climb to a time of 2:28:13. I smashed my goal. Shortly after I was done, Chris rolled in too. We celebrated the evening with a trip to famous Dave's and several beverages and stories.

Sunday saw the four of us head up to Rock Lake near Cable. That is another amazing trail system. Lots of flowing midwest single track with rocks and other obstacles. I would strongly recommend riding there if ever near Cable, WI. I could not have predicted better weather or how things fell together for the weekend. It was great seeing a lot of friends, even if brief, seeing family, and introducing some of my Colorado friends to my Wisconsin friends. The biking was great all weekend. The driving sucked, but was well worth it.

Guilty parties

Nate Jasperson

Paul Kekstas

Jim Parman

Justin Lund

Jeremy Vogels

Sara Birdsall

Luke Utech

Chris Plesko

Marni Plesko

Scott Deleeuw

Jesse Shoemaker

Brett Ebben, of coarse

Results for:
Brett Ebben
Chequamegon 40

Bib #	578
Age	31
Gender	M
City, State	Denver, CO
Team Name:	ride against the machine
Age Group	M 30-34

Split Results

Split	Time	Pace
Hay-OO	00:58:56.5	16.2
OO-Finish	01:29:16.4	17.4

Finish Results

Finish Time	02:28:12.9
Pace	16.5
Overall Place	180 out of 1778 Chequamegon 40 finishers
Division Place	160 out of 1475 Chequamegon 40 Men finishers
Age Group Place	24 out of 161 M 30-34 finishers
Gender Rank	176 out of 1622 M finishers

Monarch Crest Trail

2009-09-07T07:31:00.000-07:00

Friday nights place to sleep

Its a trail, its a river

Chris on a hidden trail

Erik, Michelle, Chris, Marni, and I
The Monarch Crest Trail is one of the higher rated trails in Colorado. This past weekend Erik, Michelle, Marni, Chris, and I set out to ride there. It starts at 11,300 ft, climbs to 12,000 ft, and then descends to 7,500 ft in about 33 miles. Typically, you would shuttle this with a vehicle on the top of the pass and one at the visitor center in Salida (more on this later). The day started nice and sunny, though a little cool, but that is to be expected at that elevation. The ride has quite a wide variety of terrain. We climbed for a while to start. The first extended downhill section dropped us 1,000 ft in no time. Most of the descents throughout the trail are rocky and contain a fair amount of roots. Some of them were really loose. We occasionally went through small scree fields. But there was nothing that was really tricky. After a while the the skies became overcast and there was light rain and thunder. In a bunch of places the trail was overtaken by flowing water. There was a fair amount of hail that missed us. At lower elevations the weather was better, almost warm for the last bit. The day went pretty well. The only thing that made the trip interesting was that the keys to the shuttle car at the bottom were locked in my car at the top. Fortunately there were many others out riding and I was able to get a ride to the top.

Last Winter Park race

2009-08-30T18:42:00.000-07:00

The King of the Rockies is the 6th and last race in the Winter Park series. It is a 25 mile point to point race that includes a good mix of what the area has to offer. We started the nearly 4 mile lead out at a pretty relaxed pace for a group. After about 2 miles the attacks came. Two riders sprinted off from the group, and then there was a second attack. I was able to cover both of them. After the second attack, there was a 200 yard or so gap between about 12 riders and the main group. I was hanging on to the back of the lead group knowing we had a good climb in front of us. We hit the climb and caught a bunch of riders in the group before us. I felt pretty good and snaked through some of both of the groups up the climb. Even though it was my first race in quite a while without my heart rate monitor (died this week, sweet) I found a good tempo that I could push without cracking. The backside of the climb is an equivalent distance and elevation change. I did not ride it well last year. This year I bombed down and felt great descending. We ducked into some single track that reminded me quite a bit of north central WI. Twisty, turny, rooty trails with pine trees. I stayed on it here. A long gravel road climb lead to the most technical part of the trail, and we got to climb that. WTB has a lot of rocks and roots and really saps the energy out of every rider. From here, I knew all of the trails except the very last part. I did not make the main creek crossing as two riders dismounted in front of me. I was forced to get off and run my bike through freezing cold water. I rode the rest of the trail pretty fluently and felt good until the finish. I hit the last section and sprinted to the finish passing a couple riders and dropping two riders I worked with in the final section of the race. I felt pretty good from start to finish and I think I am going to be in good form for Chequamegon if I can get two more good weeks of training in.

Saturday night a few of us camped. Jeremy and I got up and rode the race coarse backwards from Vazquez road to the start and back to the car. It was a good ride. I felt pretty good for the day after the race. It was nice to finally ride Winter Park for the fun of it. There are a ton of really good trails there and I need to ride it more often. The ride was fun and the weather was really good. Surprisingly, hardly anyone was out. I noticed as I was going down Tipperary, my front tire was a little squirley. About halfway down the trail, I hit a root and got thrown off of my bike. I landed in a puddle of goopy mud. My left arm looked like I dipped it in Hersey's chocolate, though I doubt it would have tasted as good. 60 miles of mountain biking between Saturdays race and Sundays ride. Relaxing by the camp fire both Friday night and Saturday night was great.

Mt. Evans Hill Climb

2009-08-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

For August, Jeremy, Chris P., Erik, and I decided we would climb Mt. Evans. For a century. From Morrison. The elevation at the start of the bike ride is somewhere near 6,300 ft. The elevation of Mt. Evans is 14,130 ft. That is a lot of climbing. 10.900 ft counting all the ups and downs on the way to and from the car. We started a little after 7:30. Ouride started up from the beginning. It took about 18 miles to get to Idaho Springs, and we had to ride on I-70 for about two miles. We got maybe a few miles of downhill in the first 18 miles. My max speed was 49 mph during the second short descent. From Idaho Springs, it is 28 miles to the top. Though we restocked as we had some cars with food and water waiting for us. We started the next leg of our climb which took us from 7,600 ft to 10,500 ft. I started to set the tempo here, and due to the elevation and constant climbing, the conversation and screwing around ceased. It was time to work. We rotated through a bit and took a few breaks along the way. At Echo lake, we resupplied and took off again. It is 14.2 miles to the summit, and there are mile markers every mile. We thought it would be great fun with 3,500 ft. of elevation in front of us to sprint at every mile. I think Chris won the first mile. Chris and Erik crashed the second mile, and the fun continued. It took us 4:51 of ride time to reach the summit, which was really cold. Fortunately for me, Erik brought along more warm clothes than he needed, because I did just the opposite. The first leg of the descent is really bumpy with a lot of cars, really narrow roads, and tight switchbacks. It is ok, but really rough. The ride from Echo lake to Idaho Springs is just the opposite. We could carry a ton of speed through turns, keeping speeds of 30 to mid 40s. We had two climbs left once we left Idaho Springs, and they were not big, but they were painful by the time we got this far. The second hill climb was at the end of a stretch on the freeway. Erik and Chris started to sprint. I joined in shortly after. Erik won, and I was able to gap Chris a bit. After this, it was all downhill to cars and pizza. The weather was perfect. It was sunny, and warm at lower elevations, and we did not really ever get threatened by rain. There was a little headwind, but not bad. Michelle and Marni climbed from Echo lake to the summit. Thanks to Kim who drove the car the whole way bringing food and warm clothes.

2009-07-30T19:47:00.000-07:00

The weekend

2009-07-20T21:45:00.001-07:00

This past weekend I did something I'd been kicking around for a while. I looked at and bought a new car. Actually, an SUV. I got a 2009 Honda Element EX AWD black. I liked my Vibe a lot, but I had been cursing its inability to go the speed limit over the mountains. The E provides more power and a heck of a lot more cargo space and functionality. I will miss the gas mileage of the Vibe, but living in Colorado my needs out grew what it is and could do. Funny thing too, I got 5 speed manual transmission, which I am not very good at driving. I am still learning how to drive it, though after a couple days, I am getting better.

Saturday night I hung out with Erik, Chris P. James, and Scott. Scott is getting married on July 25th, so we took him out for some fun. We went go carting in Littleton. It has been a few years since I've gone, and I've never been in go carts that were this ridiculous. The attendant said they had a top speed of about 45-50 mph! It took me about three laps to feel comfortable. Then I spun the car.

Sunday I did my monthly century. This time because of a few things that came up, I rode all but the first 9 miles by myself. Scott joined me for a bit, then I was off by myself. I rode to Golden and up Lookout Mtn, which is 4.5 miles and about 1,700 ft. Then I went down the C-470 trail to ride Deer Creek Canyon, which is about 7 miles and I am not sure of the elevation gain. On my ride home along the Platte I noticed a bunch of tubers in the river. At one point while I was crossing a bridge, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a body floating face down in the river. I had my mobile phone on my, so I quickly stopped, hopped off my bike and ran as best I could with carbon soled road shoes back to where I could see the body. At about this time an older couple was crossing the bridge opposite me on a tandem bike. I told them what I saw and they got off of their bike to see what I was talking about. The guy on the tandem was first to view, and he noticed the body in the river had a snorkel and was searching for something in the water as he had some sort of sucking contraption. We all got quite a kick out of this, but it startled me quite a bit at first. I ended up with a shade over 100 miles in just under 6 hours by myself with two big climbs, a coffee break at mile 50 and a Coke break at mile 85. 7 for 7 for centuries done in a month this year!

WP race 3 and the weekend

2009-07-13T19:08:00.001-07:00

Friday as soon as I was out of work I took off for Winter Park to camp the night before the race. Angela and her roommate found a site off of Vasquez road that was not to far from the river but a nice distance from the road so we would not here traffic. We relaxed after dinner and had a campfire that lasted about two hours.

Saturday's race was 24 miles of mostly double and single track with some fire roads thrown in occasionally. It starts off with the same 1.5 mile gravel road climb that I like so much (sarcasm). I was about 10th going into the trails and got stuck behind some riders that were not good descenders. I had to ride the brakes more than usual until I could find a safe place to pass. Good starts seem key with all of the tight trails, and because of being stuck behind slower people, I lost a lot of time. There were a couple crashes in front of me and I was able to pass some others on a tricky climb. I worked pretty hard to try to catch some people, maybe too hard. My race heart rate was 175-183 for most of the 2:07 it took to finish. The climbs were not difficult, but the single track was. The course did not present much recovery. Most of the trails were very rough consisting of a lot of roots, rocks, and other obstacles. I felt pretty good until about mile 19 or so. I knew the race was about 24 miles, so I kept as hard of a pace as I could. At about mile 22 a rider along side me looked equally crushed. We exchanged a few glances and realized we were in the same age category. I stood up and attacked to gap him. At this point, my hands were so sore I could barely shift and there were a lot of tight turns meaning accelerating in and out of corners would be key. I crossed two tight bridges and sprinted to the finish putting 17 seconds on him. 12/32 in my age category. I rode hard, but my heart rate and legs were not in agreement as they were in two different zones I think. I am not surprised as I did not have two good weeks of training. I was completely cooked at the finish. After the race I rode back to town adding another 8.5 miles. In the post race raffle I won 4 rockies tickets for late September, which was pretty sweet. My team, Angela, and I went out to Lime for supper. I then went back to Denver shortly there after. Its funny, in WI. I thought 2,500 ft of climbing would kill me. Now that amount in a 24 mile race is not to bad

Sunday I woke up and did a 21 mile recovery ride. It was probably the slowest I've ridden 21 miles not doing a crazy climb. Chris P. and I went rock climbing in Boulder canyon. It felt really good to get out again. I was a little awkward the first time up, but fine really. Each time Chris and I go out teaches me new things. I cleaned the line he set removing multiple nuts and cams.

Recently he finished the Tour Divide race 3rd overall and set a new single speed record. 2745 miles in 19 days from Banff Canada to Antelope Wells NM. He and Marni had a party Sunday night.

FINALLY!!!!!

2009-06-27T19:56:00.000-07:00

Today was the second bike race of the Winter Park series, and it was a course I liked last year with some changes. It is about 18 miles with about 2,700 ft of elevation gain. The race starts off with an annoying 1.5 mile gravel hill climb. After about 200 yards, I was maybe 15th. But then things changed. I got a really good rhythm and kept a steady effort. Most of the people in front of me started coming back to me. We hit the single track and I was 5th. The first couple miles are pretty tight with limited room for passing, and it is a rocky gradual downhill. I let it rip and was attacking as soon as I got to the trail. After maybe 1/4 mile I passed the 4th place rider. I was feeling really good uphill and downhill-which is normally a weakness of mine. I rode a really clean race for the most part. There were some wet areas with roots that I got caught up in with some other people and had to run my bike until I found a good spot to get back on. A little bit later there was a fast tight rocky downhill that made a 120 degree turn and went uphill. I was screaming downhill into it and had to lock up the rear brake to do a controlled skid and was able to point my bike in the right direction without skipping a beat and in doing so I passed a rider in my age category. There is a stream crossing on the course that we were warned was tire deep, unrideable, and pretty strong. I came around a corner and hit the crossing pretty fast and managed to make it 3/4 of the way through before being knocked over by the current. The water was most likely snowmelt and it was freezing. I was alone for a while to make the final push to the last real climb of the race. I knew were I was and for the most part what was in front of me. I had about 4 miles of switch back single track to the finish and knew without any major mistakes I had a good position locked up. My new Continental Mountain King 2.2 run with Stans @ 28 psi hooked up amazing on all the downhills. I could not believe the control of the bike. I entered the last section of single track to the finish by myself, and quickly caught and passed a few riders. The raced ended with a 200 yard long gravel road. As soon as I was dumped out to the bottom, I sprinted against no one. I was 4th out of 30, which is my best race since moving to Colorado. I felt strong the whole ride and was able to maintain a high heart rate. I even talked to JHK before the race and saw his new GF Superfly 100. It is HOT. Oh, and he beat me by 30 minutes! JHK rolled in for the win 4 minutes up on the next fastest pro. I finally put together a strong race from start to finish. I was beginning to wonder if this would ever happen in Colorado.

Squaw Pass Hill Climb

2009-06-14T20:04:00.000-07:00

Today I wanted to redeem and punish myself for what I thought was an unimpressive first mountain bike race. Jeremy (I think I punished him more!) and I went to Evergreen to try Squaw pass. The road starts at 7,800 ft. and summits at 11,200 ft. I thought it would be about 8-10 miles. I was wrong, it was 15. It is a really nice and steady climb. The two of us started out about the same time as some other random dude. We latched onto his wheel and followed him for a mile or so not knowing what to expect. It was time for my pull, and I was starting to warm up. Every time I looked back I noticed they were a few bike lengths behind. I tried to keep a good rhythm and not redline but the tempo was a bit much for the others. The sun was out and it was a really nice day, not to mention we saw snow capped mountains all around us, so I sat up a bit and enjoyed the view as much as the company and effort. At a decent effort, it took me 1.5 hours to reach the summit. We rested for a moment, ate cliff bars, and put on arm warmers for the descent down the winding road. There were quite a few switch backs and blind corners. It was a really fun descent, and we were able to haul down, except for the times when a few cars slowed us down. We had to pass them to keep from riding the brakes. The reward for the tough climb was a 30 minute downhill with speeds ranging from mid twenties up to forty miles per hour.

Winter Park Hill Climb

2009-06-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

Today was the first Winter Park race. It is 5.2 miles and starts at about 9,000 ft. and goes to a little over 11,000 ft. My game plan was to start off and not blow up. The first mile or so is pretty steep, so I thought I would spin a high cadence. For most of the first three miles I was not to far off the lead group. About that time they started to pull away and I could not keep the same pace. My heart rate for the race once I got in a groove was 177 and up, which is quite high. This is the first time I've done this race, and I thought based on last years times I could beat 45 minutes. Unfortunately when the clock stopped, I had a time of 48:26. This was only good for 14/30 in my age category. I was completely gassed at the finish, and am pretty happy with my effort, but I am not happy with my results. I don't think riding at elevation was a limiting factor, I just think I did not have it today.

Elevation Training

2009-06-09T17:25:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a day of recovery and with the Winter Park mountain bike series approaching I thought it would be best to recover at elevation. Most races start around 9,00 feet. Jeremy and I went up to the Squaw pass near Mt. Evans. I am not sure what the elevation is, but I think it is over 10,ooo feet. Any attempt to get acclimated to the elevation. It also looks like one hell of a climb on the bike. Can't wait to try it.