Psssssssssssss . . . Flat!

I had my first flat in a long while yesterday while out and about riding in Denver. It might have something to do with the fact that I was running two tires per wheel on my winter training rides which is when I used to flat most often. I had the heavy wheels, with goo filled tubes, a 700x23c tire with the bead removed as a tire liner, and a 700x25c Continental Gatorskin for the rubber that met the road.

I was on my way towards City Park, cutting through all of the other parks, to see what the road looked like for Sunday's extended course. On the way to 7th Ave. Parkway, heading up Downing, I hear, "PPPPFPPSPSPPPTPPPFFFTTTT!!!" This was no slow leak, my tire went from 105 to 0 PSI in about .4 seconds and then there was a strange buzzing sound. My tire the victim of a killer sheet metal screw attack.


"Instantly penetrates and engages in heavy gauge sheet metal and layered light gauge . . ." or rubber. The inner tube was fairly well shredded, fortunately the tire had just one point of entry as opposed to a giant gash. The buzzing noise I heard was the screw (and accompanying washer) rattling between the wheel and the fork where it decided to lodge itself after doing its damage.

I fixed my flat and kept heading north to City Park. The course is about as expected, there were some corners I couldn't get much of a feel for because of parked cars and traffic, but it should be an amusing course.

I get to make a local television appearance sometime in the coming days. Reggie Rivers, who is a former teammate of mine from the good old HART days emailed me a couple weeks ago saying he wanted to do a story on me with the focus being the transformation from a cycling ugly duckling to a cycling slightly less ugly duckling.

Back in 2002, I was about 45 pounds heavier than I am now and no where near as active as I had been thanks to a 4th degree AC separation in my right shoulder. Apparently my dental hygiene suffered greatly as well.


Thank goodness Les saved all the pictures from back in the day when he was my absentee tenant. The before and after, at least from a fitness standpoint, makes for a decent story and speaks volumes for my work with Mike Carter. My sister still says I have a face only a mother could love . . .

Keepin' It Real

I never really saw lawn maintenance as being that much of a hassle, but apparently some do. Today's WSJ had an interesting article on the latest and greatest applications for artificial turf, your yard.

The allure isn't just the labor side of it, there are cost savings, and as in many trends currently, the green aspect (bask in the glory of the pun). Still, the first image that comes to mind when talking about artificial turf is the faker than fake, common on the front porch, driving range, or back of an El Camino AstroTurf.


There have been significant advances in synthetic turf. I have played tennis on a simulated grass surface that was super short astroturf with sand on it. When you fall on it you looked like you went ten rounds with a cheese grater. I have played lacrosse on old school, faux turf as well. When you fall on it, you were guaranteed to lose at least the first few layers of your skin unless you were crafty enough to put a layer of vaseline on your legs in which case that got scraped off first. I have also had the opportunity to play on the late 1990s versions which had longer blades and chopped up tire bits in the mix. When you fall on it you lost skin, but made up for it with bits of rubber in your teeth, hair, and eyes.

I let my natural, grassy tree lawn (between the sidewalk and street) go a little too long without mowing so it took 10 minutes to get it cut down with the push mower. It looks a little scalped but should return to its former glory in short order. Taking care of it wasn't really that difficult and I don't plan on replacing it with an artificial substitute, nor will I be putting any in the backyard when the time comes. I think the real deterrent isn't the aesthetic, but the fact that artificial turf can and will heat up to 60 degrees hotter than grass, no thanks.

On the riding front, I am still in recovery mode from the weekend of riding, traveling, and whatnot. I get to test with Mike tomorrow, should be interesting to see where early/mid-season fitness is these days.

In the Money

Thanks again to our very own Durango Resident I was able to get a line on the time trial results as posted in the sports section of the Durango Herald prior to them being posted online. I was very happy to find out that I eeked my way into the top 10 despite my concerns about the quality of my effort.


I was joking around with a couple teammates at the team meeting last night about getting them on speed dial so I could get the pre-race pep talk. Alex and Duane were pretty helpful out at Cherry Creek when I wasn't too excited about conditions or some other such nonsense. If you guys could just record the speech and send it over as an .MP3 we could avoid some calls at inopportune times, some of the time trials start pretty early.

A top 10 finish in the TT was enough to put me in the money, $1000 prize purse, paying ten deep, time to quit my job and go pro, I bet I could make a living at this rate . . .

Iron Horse - The Time Trial

If you want to be aero, you have to think aero, you have to act aero, you have to eat and drink aero . . . might as well drive aero too.


Jessica was nice enough to meet us at the top of the hill at the end of the time trial so we didn't have to hit the highway for a windy ride back to town. I got to drive in my skin suit, I would have worn my aero helmet too, but the tail didn't fit right with the headrest and I would have lost precious seconds. If you look closely at my facial expression, it says, "I'm not riding back to no town on this here bike, get me in the car, we're outta here!"


The time trial wasn't as much fun as I hoped, that whole hard effort thing made it kind of painful. On top of that I was having all sorts of issues with my piriformis muscle, to the point where I wanted to quit a few miles before the finish. I tried to back off just before the climb, but found it to be as unamusing as anticipated. I made the mistake of gearing down too much to the point where I'm pretty sure I would have been better stopping, getting of the bike, doing a couple quick stretches, maybe taking a drink of water, and then getting back on the bike to finish the climb. I think I am exaggerating, we'll see when the results are posted. I feel confident in saying I didn't win . . . Ben Kneller goes real fast, Todd Wells is an Olympian, and my effort was not all too spectacular this go round.

I'll refer you back to Brian for the account of the return trip, he's got the pictures, I was driving, two hands on the wheel.

Iron Horse - The Crit

After killing the day waiting until 5:30 to race, we raced. As expected it went pretty quick from the gun. I didn't expect people to be fighting so hard for position on lap one. There was a lot of unnecessary bumping and shoving early in the race. We shelled a few people pretty quickly, some attacks came and went, nothing stuck until Wells and Wherry were off the front. I am getting to be a little better in the crit game, look at how I am mirroring Brian's positioning almost perfectly, minus being able to fold myself in half.


I tried to get my Native mojo going earlier in the day, but I don't think it helped, notice the inside foot is up . . .


I hope somebody has a picture of when I grazed my left pedal and made sparks fly in corner number three. It was pretty impressive as it really was just a light brush of pedal on ground, nothing significant enough to even alter my line.

Ask Steve Forbes what happened towards the end of the race when he sat up in corner number one and gapped me something fierce. I finished with my skin and had a good laugh at Steve's misery after the fact.

Since we were downtown already, I put in a call to our very own Durango Resident to find out where were should go for Mexican food . . . she shoots, she scores . . . Gazpacho hit the spot, we barely had enough room for ice cream after. Unfortunately we were on loser cyclist schedule which meant come dark it was time seek the shelter of laziness and we were on the way home when they were headed to the restaurant. A midmorning TT start time meant getting up reasonable early, plus we had a long drive ahead of us after.

Iron Horse - The Road Race That Wasn't

Brian and I got into our car as fast as possible and used our connections to get into the top notch continental breakfast at the Marriott down the road. Waffle with scrambled egg and syrup on top . . . everybody wins!


On the way back to the hotel for a long day of nothing, we stopped at the City Market to pick up some fire logs. Our room had a fireplace, we were going to use it because it was an amenity. Amenities only count as amenities if you make use of them, otherwise they are wasted opportunities! Now that's am-bee-ance as can only be created by an artificial log made of post consumer recycled coffee.


Once it cleared up, we headed out for a ride. It is sad to say, but after two days off the bike immediately following a solid TT effort, my legs felt like garbage, absolute trash! I did my best to open them up on our group preview of the TT course for Monday. Brian and I headed out with Doug and the other members of HART who were out for the weekend, dodged rain drops, saw a couple flakes of snow, and broke the cabin fever. Post ride, we hit the pool at the Iron Horse Inn . . . let us never speak of it again.

We headed downtown for dinner and a few beverages at the Steamworks Brewery which was a little quieter than the night before. Town was starting to clear out pretty quickly following the cancellation of the road race. There was still good people watching all around.


I have no idea why we thought it was a good idea to catch this shot, wait til you see some of the others we took that night. We were able to meet up with our very own Durango Resident after dinner for a few more drinks, taking advantage of the Face Plant Ale offered as a special for the weekend. We headed back to our luxury accommodations to enjoy the remainder of the fire log.

Iron Horse - The Road Trip

I knew strange things were afoot at the Circle K when the wind picked up something fierce while I was waiting at the Park and Ride in Golden for Brian and Jessica. The forecast for Durango wasn't looking good, but I didn't expect the variety of weather we drove through on the way. Technology is getting better and the cross breeds of cellphone towers and trees are being released into the wild, at least in Golden.


We got the car loaded up pretty quickly thanks in part to Brian's bikes both being "space saver" editions. Not bad for four bikes, eight wheels, a coffee maker, and some other stuff.


Jessica still had a whole seat to herself.


After each subsequent band of weather, I'd call Mike, our eyes on the ground in Durango to see what was going on. In hindsight, we should have just stopped in Salida, pre-ridden the courses for that race, enjoyed the sun and some peace and quiet. Instead we headed straight for this little cell.


I don't even want to know what it looked like in the middle of the storm, because this was the fringe:


Driving on an inch of standing, dime size hail is like driving on ball bearings, but we made it through to the sunshine in Del Norte, CO, only to find a wintery scene on Wolf Creek Pass. I bet the skiing was good for this time of year.


It cleared up a little bit just after the pass and I am sure we caught the area at its greenest. The scenery in this part of the state is amazing. I don't know what it looks like during the summer, but when we passed through it looked lush and rain forest like. By the time we got to Pagosa Springs, the inclement weather was back.


The road to Durango was paved with good intentions, drowned in heinous amounts of precipitation in almost every form imaginable. Overnight improvements were not in the cards, it kept snowing at higher elevations and by morning Silverton had a foot of new snow.

Iron Horse Road Race

Great news, I won! I was the first out of bed this morning in our room to find out the race was canceled due to condtions. The word is that there was 5" of snow . . . at the base of the pass and 12" of new snow in Silverton. I can't say I am sad they canceled the race given the weather. Even if it had been ridable, it would have been miserable, cold, wet, and miserable.

Pictures from the drive will be posted when I get home, but we went through it all, snow, rain, hail (1" of standing hail on the road), sun, warm, cold, you name it.

We got to town, hit registration, checked in to our luxury accomodations, bounced through a couple places that had 45+ minute waits at 8:15, and finally ended up at Mama's Boy for some pasta and such.

I am thouroughly over-caffinated now, with no racing to be done until 5:30 tomorrow. We might not even be able ride this afternoon according to the forecast. If we are lucky it will clear up a little bit so it will be cold, still wet, but winds 20-30 mph. Riding bikes is dumb.

Some quick math . . . 2500 racers registered at $75 per . . . $187,500 in registration fees to be transfered to the crit, am I right? Think of the primes and the prize list 30 places deep, this could be the richest crit in the country!

After we finish our third breakfast of the day, a nap will be in order, followed by a trip to the pool, followed by another nap, and then maybe a visit to the mall for some people watching and an Orange Julius.

In to the ________ (n.) - A Mad Lib

Despite all kinds of funky weather patterns throughout the state, we are forging ahead ________ (adv.), full steam ahead to Durango! Saturday's race will be from Durango to ________ (place), with significant climbing to break up the bunch. The weather is going to make for __________ (adj.) conditions. I am definitely going to have to bring my _________ (n.) to keep from getting _________ (v. past tense). This is going to be like __________ -ing (v.) a __________ (adj.) ___________ (n.)!

At least I have a dozen cookies to bring along for the drive down yonder. Brian, Jessica and I are heading out of town at noon-thirty today and I'm sure we'll encounter all weather conditions along the way, plenty of pictures to follow.

The weather for the road race tomorrow is not at all promising, but I bet the sun comes out when it is time to leave Durango to come back home. The Iron Horse Inn, our base of operations, looks to have all the luxury one could want and stellar facilities.

The team set me up with the rest of the clothing, items I didn't really expect to need until next winter like thermal vest, full dry suit, fluffy knit leg warmers circa 1982, expedition weight base layer, four-season tent, and a choose your own adventure style murder mystery. If anything I'll be well prepared.

Esteemed Blog Readers, it has been nice knowing you. If I do not make it back alive, speak of me well.
- Seth

Motorin'

Every once in a while, the time comes for the student to beat the master. For me, that time was last night.


It didn't look like we would have good conditions at early in the afternoon. The wind picked up and seemed to be coming from everywhere, but mostly from the west which is the hardest wind to deal with at Cherry Creek, a la last week. To hedge my bets, I brought the rear Nimble Crosswind, just in case I didn't think it would be prudent or beneficial to wrestle with the disc and high wind. With the usual warm up under my belt and armed with a new skinsuit, I headed out to the reservoir.

My aim was to try something a little different last night. Instead of the usual hard out of the gate and settle in type effort, I decided to keep it a little lighter on the way out and really try to drill it on the way back. I sprinted to a start, still put it in the 55-11, but instead of trying to mash my way through, I tried to simply "float" in the gear, not letting the legs load up. I down shifted a little sooner, more at the approach to the hill so I was spinning a higher cadence before gravity kicked in. After the turn around, I ramped back up to the 55-11 as quickly as possible, but shifted at the smaller rises to keep cadence up. There wasn't any point where I felt like I was going to die which is always a good sing. I also felt like I had a little left in the tank at the end which means I probably could have started my final ramp to max a little sooner.

I will not argue with the results though. I caught a couple people I have never come close to catching and by the time I got close enough to the official clock to read the time, it showed 7:01:00. It took a few moments for my oxygen deprived, adrenaline rich brain to process the fact that I was looking at a time in the neighborhood of 21:20! At 21:13:0 (a new personal best), I averaged 30.12 mph.

The coolest part of it all is that my old team sponsor, Randy Wittmer and his wife Dee were out to watch and go grab dinner afterwards. It means a lot to me that he still shows interest my riding and still considers me part of his bunch. Had I not gotten to know Randy, it is quite possible I wouldn't be racing bikes at all. I was happy to have them there to see how I have progressed over the years.

I always tell everyone that Randy was the one that tricked me into this whole bike racing thing. I met him in 2001 at Bike to Work Day happenings on Fillmore Plaza, back when I was running Transportation Solutions. I bought a bike from him since my old one was a 12 speed (13-19 cassette), not really Colorado friendly gearing. He mentioned that he was starting a team for people who wanted to race, nothing serious, just a few races a season. I signed up, got out and raced the time trial series in 2002, turning a 30:00 my first race, whittling it down to a 27:47 in the last race of the series. I DNF'd City Park and Bannock as a Cat 4 that year and that was my season.

Mike Carter was one of our sponsors, offering up a reduced rate for coaching with Echelon Sports Performance, with a six month commitment. I signed on, lost all the extra weight I put on after separating my shoulder playing lacrosse, got significantly stronger on the bike, more motivated, and here we are today. Every goal Mike has put out there for me has been attainable, even if I didn't believe him at the time. I thought he was crazy when he said I could go sub 23:00 at Cherry Creek. Two years ago, after my best season racing as a Cat 3, I rolled my eyes when he said I was still three years away from peaking. Last night's result was a good reminder why I put the time in on the trainer during the winter and encouragement for the rest of the season as I continue to prepare for Masters Worlds.

That is if I don't die from exposure this weekend . . .

Wha Huh?

Somebody tell me they send this one out every year, right? Please . . . anyone?

Price of Gas

I stopped paying attention to the price of gas a little while back, shortly after crude went over $100 a barrel (for the record it broke the $130 mark this morning). Back in the day of working in transportation and trying to get people out their cars, we talked about how the price of gas would have to triple before people would start changing their behavior. That time has come and it looks like people are trying to change their travel patterns, from commuters taking the bus to contractors leaving large pick em up trucks at the office unless they have to make site visits.

Some people are starting to use transit, unfortunately RTD is looking at cutting service, albeit on lesser used routes, due to budget shortfalls related in part to dramatic increases in fuel costs. Another piece of the puzzle is that more people are now using the Eco-Pass provided by their employer (it is the all you can eat version of the transit pass) which means RTD doesn't see any additional fare box revenue. Then there are folks looking at higher fuel efficiency when it comes to personal vehicles, enter the scooter.

Scooters are becoming even more common, not just because of their retro, hipster, metro, geek sensibilities. According to this morning's WSJ, the downsides to scooter riding when fuel was cheap (exposure to the elements, squirrelly handling on potholed city streets, getting made fun of by your friends) are being ignored for the upside of $5 weekly trips to the pump. Read it for yourself!

Since most of my trips are within about a five mile radius and my commute to work is a whopping twelve blocks, I'll be sticking to my bicycle. I even have one in the basement, my very first racing bike that could make for a very nice beater bike. All I need is a set of fenders and a lock . . . and the rest of the bearings for the bottom bracket, a chain might help too.

Gardening and Other Growths

Post Derby party, I was left with gobs of mint sprigs from a variety of grocery store packs. As I have done in the past, I clipped the ends and tossed the still living mint in water, put them in the window sil so they could get some sun, and patiently waited for roots to magically appear. I am not sure if there is any method to the madness I'm practicing, but eventually some sprigs sprout roots, others simply rot and die. I potted the ones with roots last night with the hopes they would thrive and one day take over my yard (ideally in time for the Derby next year).


I had some basil that took a liking to the water. Hopefully its instinctive affinity for dirt will kick in and take over. This experiment has been done in the past with limited success, mostly due to sporadic care of the test subjects.


My grass sproutlings from my earlier overseeding took off in the front yard as well. You can see the difference between the grass existing from when sod was initially laid and the new, young, tender stuff. It may have been a little late in the season, but hopefully the seed I spread out on Sunday will fill in similarly. Those dandelions are a hell of a pesky weed.


The cookie tree I planted last fall seems to be producing some nice fruits. I picked these oatmeal craisin white chocolate chip cookies last night and plucked the low hanging snickerdoodles.


The online recipe exchange has started, meaning I am plucking recipes on an as needed basis from The Biscuit Pusher. In the spirit of giving I passed along the link to Pecan Bundt Cake with Bourbon Glaze recipe, it only seemed fair.

There are some talented people out there whose web musings enrich my life. Their time is well spent crafting something worth reading and keeping track of. Then there is this guy, although I see practical applications come winter when most of us are trainer bound.

Weekend Update

Another weekend of racing in the bag, another weekend of quality time trial training, but no displays of real racing intelligence. Both courses were new to the scene, both were nice and wide open. An occasional change of scenery is nice.

On Saturday I got to race with both Ryan and Tim, the first time out as the full squad. As soon as we made it out of the first corner, I saw Mike Carter moving quickly up the outside and responded. A group of five of us got up the road a bit, but there wasn't enough horsepower or representation for it to stick. I made the mistake of not following when Mike went after the first prime and dropped back to the group. The break formed shortly thereafter, comprised of Mike, Zak Grabowski, and surprise, surprise, one Kevin Nicol. I spent a good chunk of the rest of the race playing tug boat, just dragging everybody around, but didn't follow some wheels I should have, Henk Vogels being a great example. A chase group formed, never caught the leading trio, but stayed clear. I got somewhat stuffed in the sprint for whatever place we were racing for at that point and ended the day 21st, just behind Ryan.

Sunday had promise to be a very interesting race given the wind, but it miraculously died down just after the start of our race. I was active early on trying to get in the mix, but also wasting energy just pulling people around. I got up the road a bit midway through the race, once with Zak and once with Randy, but nothing significant. Some moves stayed away for a little bit but most everything came back. Tim got himself in the right place at the right time, following Vogels up the road as he made his move to bridge. Unfortunately he lost contact and that was the move that stuck. There was a crash with three laps to go that I was lucky enough to get around and not lose contact with the group. Going through the last lap, I did a terrible job of keeping position and found myself merely trying to stay close to the sprint instead of being involved in it actively.

There is still plenty of room for improvement, that's for sure. There is a lot that fitness allows you to get away with, but a little intelligence goes a long way. I should be able to race my way out of a wet paper bag, but right now I need somebody to tear it open for me.

The rest of the weekend was pretty mellow. I took some time to do a few things around the house. I'm pretty sure I hadn't cleaned my windows inside and out since moving it. The view is now amazing and relatively dog nose print free. I also plucked some of my "inherited" dandelions in the front yard. My neighbor altered the landscaping in their tree lawn, opting for some slate pavers, artfully laid in some mulch. The left some of their weed infested lawn assuming their fence was the property line, not the property maker. We'll see if I can successfully make it as lush and green as my little patch of grass.

Cooked

I woke up this morning feeling a little more satisfied with my night of sleep as compared to the night before, but aspects of the day yesterday were a struggle. I managed to throw a leg over the bike and turn the pedals a couple times, but I kept the workout on the lighter side. This shot was just to have proof that I was awake last night after the sun went down despite all desires to go to bed at 8:00 PM.


I had to chuckle yesterday when Todd from No Hassle Fence Company showed up to collect payment for the fence in the backyard. What does it mean if your fencing contractor drives a BMW M3 convertible?


I gave him the requisite grief called for by the situation and got the logical "no wife and/or kids" explanation. It also turns out that Todd used to race mountain bikes for the Giant Factory Team so he got to make fun of me for the number of bikes at my house.

This morning seemed like as good a morning as any to make use of the remaining buttermilk I had in the refrigerator to bake some biscuits. I was too lazy to grab the camera or the phone to take pictures, but they looked like good, fluffy biscuits. I opted for square this time instead of round, oh the options. I was going to grab a biscuit photo off the web to fill in the blanks, but everybody goes for round it seems. I did find some good reading for the day though and some good links and recipes for the future. Food for music for thought . . .

Back in the Hunt

Now that everybody in the P/1/2 field has skipped at least two races in the time trial series, we are back to a level playing field. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to catch up with Scott Tietzel because his attendance record was better than mine, but for the first week since the series started, I'm in the lead. Next week is the last race in the series and my last chance to beat Mike.

Last night, the wind made the effort deceptively hard. Everybody said pretty much the same thing . . . flying out of the start, felt good, felt good, didn't feel so good, struggled coming into the finish. At the end I felt like I went hard, but I didn't put the same time I have before into those in front of me and I blew up spectacularly on the hill.

This weekend's racing will be on two new courses. Gone is the old Wheels of ________ (take your pick) on the training track in Golden, a course hated by many because it is wide open and you can take one of a thousand lines through the corners. Racing on that course in the P/1/2 field was much less horrifying than racing it as a Cat 3. There have been some pretty nasty crashes up there in years past. The Coal Miner Classic has also moved down the street from the old Storagetek (now Sun) site. We'll see how that all goes.

Fitness in the Modern World

I have to follow in the footsteps (pun fully intended) of Hutchison's post today, you have to scroll down past the herpes part to the bit about FitFlops. Now you can take your fitness to an all new level with your Wii gaming system, I kid you not! This stuff is for real, it works . . . check the results for yourself. Out of curiosity, do kids still go to the park and play those "actual reality" games like basketball or capture the flag?

This all makes me want to get the American Cycling Association Fantasy League rolling (will the puns ever end?) so I won't have to "actively" race anymore. I want to be able to pick my riders and let the season unfold, tracking my results and abilities as a bike racer from the comfort of my desk chair. I have the software from the Derby Party to make odds for races, any takers?

Look! It is almost a duplex. I think they started framing sometime last year, by the time they get done, the housing slump will be over. The framer does not work if there is a threat of rain apparently.


The front yard is greening up nicely, but I think it is time to get some more mulch. I will be selling gym memberships to people so they can come over and shovel mulch into place and get fit at the same time.


In the grand scheme of things, I guess whatever it takes to get people thinking about their fitness and help is a good thing, but wouldn't a slap to the back of the head be more appropriate?

What Do You Get . . .

It has been a while since there has been a post in the what just came out of Dempsey series. Ten points to whomever can identify what the boy ate yesterday based solely on the following pictures.

About three minutes after having the hydrogen peroxide dumped down his gullet . . .


It begins . . .


. . . the reverse of "over the lips, through the gums, watch out stomach here it comes!"


Yaaaak . . . what kind of neighborhood scavenger is going to eat that?


I really have no idea what goes through his head during the day when I am gone besides, "Food, food, food, food, food, food, nap, nap, nap, here comes the mail, I bet I can eat that, food, nap, food, look there's a cat in here." The peroxide did the trick and the contents recently imbibed made their glorious exit. The worst are the remnants and foam that come up at the tail end of the deed.


Good thing the rain and snow came last night to wash away all physical evidence captured in these photos. Reminder of the afternoon, the dog can reach even the back corners of the counter top when there is food involved.

Given the fact that my street is flooded, almost to the crown of the road, I don't think I am going to be riding outside today.

Welcome to Town

So you say you want to live in Colorado . . . Tim Srenaski, teammate #2 has made it to town, just in time for weirdness to ensue. Just to give a quick cross section of Boulder/Denver unique individuals . . .

You have Boulder-guy, complete with cowboy boots, man-dana, and man purse.


To contrast him, you have angry, gun totin', Republican guy. The picture doesn't have a high enough resolution for you to read his wheelchair bumper sticker, but it says "gun control means using both hands" . . . I'm pretty sure he was packing heat.


I'm pretty sure the one wearing the purple cape was on her way to some sort of witches and wizards gathering. I half expected her to run into a wall, trying to get to the Hogwarts Express. (for the record this picture was taken in Denver)


Though not part of the "Rogues Gallery" . . . I give you Brian Hutchison. Sporting the latest in retro fashionability, the Remember's Only jacket by Sessions, Brian looks with disgust at snow, that's right, snow, falling on his shoulders Saturday morning.


It was bad enough that we got snowed on at the top of Sunshine. Even worse that the snow followed us down the hill, disturbing our time sitting at Spruce Confections, enjoying coffee and scones.

For me, the race went about as expected. I tried to stay towards the front as long as possible before drifting back in the steeper sections. I managed to keep the front group in sight almost to the dirt, but as soon as I fell off, it became an exercise in riding at a sustainable pace for the remainder. I stayed with the rider from Horizon as long as possible and then just kept turning over the 39-23, hoping that nobody was coming up behind me too quickly. I met my first goal which was to stay in the top 20, finishing the day in 17th place. Times were not as fast as last year due to some lallygagging at the start and wet conditions on the dirt section. At the top, the wind picked up and snow started falling. We headed down the hill as quickly as possible to seek shelter and comfort in the form of scones.

I headed back up to Boulder, in much nicer weather on Sunday to ride with Hutchison, Reichardt and to show Tim some of the wonderful, local rides. We met at Spruce Confections and headed up into the hills, see ride route here. According to the GPS info, we rode 47.5 miles and climbed just a hair under 5000 feet, not a bad day all in all. I'm sure Tim enjoyed the additional elevation change, topping out at 9400' . . . Minneapolis is at an elevation of 866' just for reference.

It really was a pretty day in the hills, you can see Lickskillet Road drop off the face of the earth.


I'm not sure what the story is in the next two shots, use your imagination, if your story is good enough, I'll publish it on this very site!


The roads weren't this bad.


The hippie muffins at the Nederland Co-op weren't amazing yesterday, but still pretty good. I think this was the Halfwheel zucchini and strawberry. I'm sure it had some sort of flax seed and spelt goodness. The climb out of Ned to Magnolia was not aided by having it sitting in my stomach.


There were many other activities this weekend . . . sushi party, tennis, eating gelato, napping . . . oh weekend where have you gone?

Getting It Done

In some instances it is all about the tools selected for the job. I want one of the Bobcats in the picture below, specs linked . . . I'm not sure why, but it looked like the coolest toy ever when I spied it walking the neighborhood with Dempsey the other day.


I'm still a ways away from being ready to landscape the backyard, I'll build the garage first, but when the time comes . . . there better be some sort of Bobcat action in the yard.

Meanwhile, at sunrise across the street, we have walls on the second floor. The framing crew of two keeps moving along at a pace expected for two dudes and a saw. There are still no indications of design, besides large windows on the second story. I can only hope there aren't any "juliet" balconies.


The race for tomorrow is the Sunshine Hillclimb. I will be practicing another bike racing skill . . . opening gaps.


I will put up the good fight against gravity, we'll see how that goes for me.

A New Personal Best

Despite the rain early in the day, conditions at Cherry Creek turned out to be pretty good. There wasn't much wind, but there was a small river flowing across the road, not in the usual spot at the "wetlands" but just before that. Nothing like hitting water of an unknown depth at 29+ MPH on tires that are only 21mm wide.

I hit my goal for the series which was to break the 21:30 mark. The time last night was 21:27 . . . a new personal best. It also kept my streak alive of going faster each subsequent week. I hope to keep that up for the last two weeks and I think there is more speed to be found. While conditions were fast last night, they weren't the best of the best because of the flooding.

My coach is a jerk and by jerk, I mean he rides really fast. Mike was finally back in town and out at Cherry Creek last night. He beat me by 1.7 seconds according to the results which goes to show his theories are correct. When you come back from a 5-day stage race you're either flying or dying. He chose the former.

Dempsey hit the jackpot this morning at the tennis courts. We arrived to find a pile of tennis balls on the far side of the court. I let Dempsey run around like a madman amongst the balls while I picked up some trash left on the court as well. He tried to pick up all the balls at once and when that failed he moved them from one side of the net to the other.

The Scoop!

If I type fast enough, I think I can scoop my other neighborhood food bloggers on Pajama Baking Company. I stopped by yesterday, mid-morning after seeing the sign on the door the night before saying they would be open at 10:00.

Selection looked pretty good, but there are some spaces still to be filled in cases before PBC is open for regular hours. I wasn't in a loaf buying mood at the time so I will have to go back later and sample more of the wares, but I was a little surprised that they weren't trying to pimp out all of the goods to people like me who wandered in off the street. One of the counter peeps did encourage me to try every flavor of ice cream. They will have phenomenal ice cream sales. All flavors were good, but the ice cream with chunks of banana and chocolate was outstanding. I foresee summer evenings of me walking to PBC for a scoop, followed by a scoop of gelato at Nosh.

I opted for a double shot of espresso and a cookie for lunch, truly the lunch of champions. Nobody knew what the cookie second from the left was, but I went with it anyways. Oatmeal raisin with golden raisins instead of regular ones is a genius move. It gives the cookie similar flavor but a completely different look. The espresso was one of the better shots I have had in a while outside of the Brenner house. I'll stop by this afternoon for my pre-TT double (or quadruple depending on the weather) shot for sure.

My goal for this afternoon is to keep the streak going out at Cherry Creek. I have ridden faster each subsequent week so far. Hopefully the weather will hold out this afternoon, otherwise it will be a very wet race, see 4/25/07.

Gringo de Mayo

I'm amazed that Cinco de Mayo has not yet hit the pages of Stuff White People Like since it seems like it is just a bunch of Gringos sitting around drinking Coronas and celebrating something they know nothing about.

A few of us gathered around the fire pit in the backyard to drink some cervezas and enjoy traditional specialties like the Mexican Hamburger. I am pretty sure this tasty treat has zero authenticity but it should because it is genius. You grill a hamburger the way you normally would, put it on a warmed tortilla, cover the burger with refried beans and cheese, then wrap the package shut so you can flip it over and get the cheese to melt inside. As soon as you take it off the grill, you smother it in green chili, lettuce and tomato and enjoy. The topping opportunities are pretty limitless, if you can dream it, you can probably eat it.

It looks like spring has sprung in Denver. The Lilacs are in full bloom and the weather has gone from random to predictably random. Translation, expect to get caught in an afternoon thunderstorm when you least expect it and yes, it might snow still.

This week is a bit on the light side when it comes to racing. There is the Sunshine Hillclimb on Saturday which will equate to just under 50 minutes of racing. The rest of the weekend is open for riding wherever for the fun of it. I'll probably get in a nice cruiser of a ride after the race Saturday and then go torture myself with Joey Brenner on Sunday.

Derby Days

Another Kentucky Derby has come and gone, horses ran, mint juleps were consumed, cakes were eaten, biscuits disappeared, more mint juleps were consumed and I think I am now a victim of adult onset of Type II Diabetes thanks to all the sugar.

Co-hosting with Gwyn made it a lot easier to get the house ready for the party. She also provided the elements of class and grace that I certainly would have forgotten like floral arrangements, serving platters, etc.

Deb keeps her rent payment low by cooking, cleaning, taking part in party prep. It is a pretty good system actually and I might have to hire her back after she moves out.

We started getting the table set up prior to party time and quickly found out it was going to be necessary to pull an extra leaf out of the basement and give ourselves more space for the bounty of cakes, biscuits, crudites, deviled eggs, phyllo purses, and more.


You can see the expanded table, completely covered with food in the background of this shot. Amazingly there were only a couple pieces of cake, some fruit, a few vegetables, and eight biscuit sandwiches left over at the end.

As the call to the post approached (we told everybody 3:00 to get them there earlier, suckers) the action picked up. Having 30 people in an 850 square foot is kind of nuts.


From approximately 4:00 to 4:05, all attention turned to the TV to watch some horses run. Nothing like adding gambling to the mix to make the race more interesting.

Dempsey has some serious action riding on the bone he dragged into the dining room to gnaw on.

After the dust settled, the party resumed. The Applejack Rabbit (punch made with applejack, lemon juice, maple syrup, and seltzer) was much to JD's liking, but he did share with Walker.


In the end, we all got to sit down, relax a little, and recover before removing all evidence of said party from the house.


With the exception of the coffee table on the front porch and the bushel of mint in glasses of water (hopefully they'll grow) . . . you'd never know anything happened. The house is clean, maybe a little too clean.

With all the party prep and festivities, I still managed to get out and race both days this weekend. The 8 AM start time for the Lookout Mountain Hill Climb was both cruel and unusual. I think it got up to about 38 degrees by the start of our race. I did alright, finishing 9th, a little more than a minute off the pace. Sunday was the Rabbit Mountain Time Trial up in Hygiene, CO. I did alright again, finishing 6th a mere 5 seconds out of 4th place. I was a little upset with myself because I didn't race a very intelligent time trial, going out way too hard, ignoring the fact that the second half of the course was more "demanding" than the first.

After the race, I rode up St. Vrain with Professor Brenner who stated earlier in the day, "Yeah it has a navigation system, but I don't know how to use it, I just sell the things" referring to the Porsche Cayenne of the week as he drove around north Loveland aimlessly trying to find Hygiene.

All in all, it was a good weekend . . . can't wait to get back to the daily grind! Speaking of, I hit an all time low this morning in coffee consumption. It is bad when you reuse a filter out of desperation, but even worse when you craft one out of paper towel to feed the addiction. I will let that serve as the culinary foil to the Pecan Bundt Cake with Bourbon Glaze.