Ridin'

The new ride is in and ready to go, I haven't figured out how to get a bike rack on it. Probably not a good idea anyways, I could see bikes flying off the roof under heavy acceleration.

So you wonder what a car with an MSRP of $440,000 gets you? Let's take a closer look inside, ooooooh.

Everything about the vehicle is engineered to the extreme, no space is wasted and form follows function everywhere you look. The tail end sort of looks like a car, what's under the "hood"?

I think that is an engine, it sounded like a race car. I failed to get the audio recording on the phone, but it probably wouldn't do it justice anyways.

That car fits into the category of need is not a factor. Of course nobody needs a street legal race car, but when you have the money to throw around, why not treat yourself every once in a while. Now where did I put that $2.8 billion trust fund?

Sorry I got distracted, the new ride is in. It comes pretty close to levitating on its own without the hook of the scale holding it up. Look closely and notice that it is a complete bike, pedals, computer, bottle cages, etc.

The scale was calibrated and set to 0.00 prior to putting the bike up for the official weigh in.

Thanks to the team and the shop for getting me set up for the year. The new wheels are the nicest I have ever had for racing. I will probably reglue the tires since the "extreme" gluing tape still allows for significant movement of the tire laterally.

Despite the grim forecast for the weekend, I made it out for Chatfield Worlds on Saturday, with a quick, but cold trip up and down High Grade after. I brought the old Fuji out for the festivities since the Ibis was in the shop having parts swapped over. As soon as the weather clears up, I'll take the new Ibis out for its inaugural ride.

Given a horrible forecast for Sunday in town, I decided to head up the hill with Chad to make use of some free passes Sprint was nice enough to send me for Vail. Supposedly they got 20" of new snow over the past few days. The mountain was pretty crowded and new snow skied off for the most part, but it was still a good time.

We left Denver just after 6:00 (I thought of Kevin's early morning rides heading up into the hills in the dark) and made it to Vail without incident and with plenty of time to get coffee before catching the first lift up the mountain. Here's the view from the car.


"Town" went from deserted to packed in a matter of about 10 minutes as everybody poured out of cars, hotels, condos, etc. to catch the gondola.


I was impressed with Chad's skiing ability given that he started this year and has never had a lesson. When he learns about his edges and how to really use them, he'll be quite a skier. He also rides the lift pretty well.

Early in the day skies were blue and the view down the valley was pretty nice.

After lunch, the wind picked up and the clouds started rolling in making for flat light conditions and not as much fun.


We got a pretty solid day in before packing up our stuff and heading back towards Denver. Hutchison called mid afternoon and said nobody was at the cross race for the day and instead of racing against one other guy in the open "race" he packed it in and headed home as well.

Here we are again, Monday, happy St. Pat's . . . now where's my green beer?