First Expert race and Gold Belt Loop

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!!!

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

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!

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

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!

       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!

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!