The Great Bonk Ride

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

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

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

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

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

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.

.