It sounds bigger in metric

This is what my lunch ride looked like as I started out today. Back to whiteness as far as the eye could see. My mountains are hiding out there somewhere.
Bundled up in winter gear I rode anyway (was there doubt?) and managed to take some pictures since there were only about half as many cars as usual out.
It started snowing harder and harder. Big fat flakes.
Really I'm smiling here. I know it's hard to tell but I am.
Snow was starting to stick to the grass, the roads and me.
Luckily for me it turned my singlespeed into an aerodynamic machine.
No really! Look at my aero fork! That must have been why I was so speedy as I rocked out to Fallout Boy on my mental iPod. The lunch lap came and went just about as fast as I've ever ridden it on a mountain bike.
Don't forget that ice works pretty well as a shoe cover too and wool socks are warm even when covered in a thick layer of frozen water. My tights, the winter tights as they are known in this house, rule the world. They are heavy and windstopper in front with a thinner spandex layer in back. They have ankle zips and no chammy. They are almost 9 years old now. I do not know what I will do when I have to replace them.

My lunch ride left me with 6 miles to go to reach a very big number for total riding in January. As such I was compelled to go ride after work for a bit. I expected heavy snowfall and grimiced a bit as I pulled on my wet chammy again. When I stepped out the door from work I was greeted with a nice surprise. The sun was peaking out, the snow had stopped and the roads were just wet enough to not be icy yet. I pedaled away on an enjoyable commute home, the long way. Arriving at 27 miles on my GPS I reached a mark I had never before reached. I had pedaled my bikes 1000 miles in a calendar month.
I stopped to take a picture of me and a picture of Monocog who has accompanied me for the majority of those miles. The cars certainly were wondering what the hell I was doing but everyone was pleasant and one nice Jeep'er even stopped to make sure I was okay.
Alas my ride was not complete at this point and since I was enjoying it immensely that made me happy. I pedaled a few more miles in lightly falling snow, arriving home before dark and before the ice got the better of anything outside. Turbo and I went out to shovel the driveway and sidewalk and then I came in to get warm.

January 2007 will be the month I rode 1007 miles, or 1620.6 kilometers as Kent would say. Hmmm, it does sound bigger in metric.

Tuesday

I'm not very creative with the title today. Hmmm. Well another day then. The weather was dreary outside but I had a good ride anyway. Not too many times I can say I've had a bad ride lately though.
Does my balaclava make me look fat? Haha. Yes back to cold enough weather to make the melting stop and the warmer clothes come back out. It's supposed to snow more this week, 3-6 inches in our area. Wow I think Mother Nature is making me eat my words about how wonderful and warm Denver is most winter days.After work I met up with Brady and Jim from my new team, Feedback Sports. We did an hour trainer/rollers session together tonight which was a lot of fun. It really made the hour fly by and I'm looking forward to riding with them more. We're going to schedule one team session a week and see if we can get more participation. I also picked up a team kit to wear at some of the early season races or for pictures if needed since the new stuff probably won't arrive until April or May. Jim gave me the CTS time trial DVD which will be fun to try out here shortly when I unearth the time trial bike and get it ready for Cherry Creek. I guess applications get posted Thursday morning at 6am and we should have our little block all submitted by Thursday night. It's a big group this year!

That's all the stuff that's newsworthy and some that's not. Last day of January tomorrow. This is my biggest month ever and we'll see just where I end up by tomorrow night!

Just another manic monday

The first day coming off a rest week I'm always ready to hit it and today worked out well for that. We're on odd shifts at work so I go in at noon leaving the morning for some solid work. Daughtry provided the inspiration for a killer workout ending descending set. I hoped to ride outside but the melt off and refreeze last night combined with morning traffic made me choose otherwise. Becky I think you'll find the watch's reading more OCD compatible this time around. I'm not the only one working hard though. Most of my blog roll is hitting it on the trainer or in more favorable weather all around the country. Marni and Joel have been killing it on the trainer while Dave and Jill have both put up holy whopper Januarys! Simmons and Doug are about to head off to freeze at the Arrowhead 135. Go get em boys! Last but certainly not least, LindaW, DaveH and Epic Adam are all preping for 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo like me.

Thanks to all of you for inspiring me to keep training hard. It soooo much easier with a big community to suffer with.
Alright I've got to finish my great pesto gnocci Marni made last night and get to work! Recovery time, office style!

Rebuilding

It's a recovery week and so far I've been lucky enough to get some great sunshine and warmer temperatures (mid 40s) amid more snowfall for week number 6 in a row.
Nevertheless the grass is escaping the snow's grip more and more everyday.
The legs spin easily, trying to rebuild from 3 weeks of torture. It's much easier to train hard in the bad weather and go on recovery rides in the beautiful sunshine. Mostly because you have to ride hard just to stay warm when it's 5 deg F and snowing. I've got one last trick up my sleeve aside from normal training for Old Pueblo. It's hard to be heat acclimated living in Colorado in January but I might just pull it off.

In other news the local road racing calendar is beginning to take shape. Looks like I'll be back at the time trial series and picking off some early season road races. If the right omnium with a time trial falls into place I will be very excited otherwise road racing will be pretty much for fun and high intensity work again this year. Marni says a bike shake up may be allowed this year but we'll wait 2-3 more weeks and see what happens. Well I'm off to start our taxes, woohoo!

Late Edit: Sweet!!! We get a freeking tax refund this year! Last year we owed a lot and it sucked. This year we got the benefit of our house for the first time and ended up getting a nice refund. Marni is very happy to have the baby fund restocked :)

Moab Pictures!

Dave reminded me that I needed to post our Moab trip pictures! There were a lot of them so I've been procrastinating the commenting process. But without further ado, here they are.

We rolled in around 10pm that night and pitched the Element tent. Dave getting ready for bed.You can see the uber sleeping bag peaking out on the right. The lazy way we set up the Element doesn't give the most room possible but it's quick and good enough for a short night's sleep. All we needed anyway.
Me in my Patagucci jacket and hat my mom knitted me. That jacket was on sale for 50% off this past fall, best money I ever spent on winter gear.
Burr. Early morning preparations. There was quite a bit of snow around. Maybe 4" in the unpacked spots?
Dave and Dave ready to rock. The Xterra and the Element make good adventure vehicles.
Monocog ready to ride. Skinny rear tire held up okay to the snow since it wasn't too deep.
Dave C cruising in the predawn, rocking the KM 29er with a fat 2.5" front tire.
The bit of pavement that makes up the loop...
The La Sal's lay in waiting behind the dark skies.
Sun begins to shine as we duck the closed sign and head down Shafer.
Dave and Dave again.
I was first down most of the snowy sections so I stopped to take some pictures. The road was plenty rideable though.
Fixie slide!
After Mr. Ranger snuck ahead of us then made us turn around and hike back up because "Shafer is too dangerous and closed. I think it's even dangerous in the summer." Why do you work here again? I guess you think ruining my ride is funny enough to take a picture of? Right back at ya.
Can't really stop us from going the other way though can ya? Top of Mineral Bottom switchbacks.
Blue skies and warming up nicely.
Snowpacked down below but still rideable.
Bikes wait patiently while their riders refuel and take a bio break.
Back near the cars. This is what I think of winter restrictions. Kinda clashes with the jersey, eh? Winter is a beautiful if harsh season. If you're prepared to deal with it though you are rewarded with sights impossible to experience any other time.
Three vehicles. 3 single speeds. 3 Daves.
After some pizza and warming up from the morning's adventure we hit up Soverign. Gorgeous backdrop to some really fun and moderately technical riding.
I think Dave and Dave enjoyed smoothly rolling the sand while I tried to keep Mr. Skinny rear tire afloat.
Does it get any better?
Worth riding.
Monocog was happy and so was I.
Although it didn't turn out quite the way I intended, we all had a great time. Riding Soverign I remembered how much fun it was to ride singletrack considering it's all been snow covered for almost 6 weeks straight here in Denver. This was my first trip to Moab on a rigid singlespeed and I can't say I didn't enjoy it. Even running XC race type tires and high pressures I still found everything rideable. We headed back Saturday night and I'm glad we did as bad weather rolled though Sunday and closed much of I-70 back to Denver. Good we were safely home since I had a flight for a business trip late Monday morning. The trip was too short though. I need another fix soon and if the weather holds out it looks like I'll get it as part of my last bit of prep for 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo.

"Afternoon Canyon Snowstorm"

Picture taken by Elliot Lockwood in Kolob Canyon this past weekend. I had some pictures from today but they don't compare to this so enjoy his beautiful photography instead. Get out and find your own picture...

Grass

It got pretty warm in Denver while I was gone and yesterday. There are bits of grass poking out everywhere, something I haven't seen for weeks now.
The cracks in the road have grown though. I took the road bike out for the first time in weeks and was amazed at the road damage from the last few storms. Between bitter cold and all the plowing, there are huge potholes everywhere, even a couple on a road that's never potholed. Still it was fun to be back on skinny tires, I always forget how fast and easy they roll compared to my mountain bikes.
Standley lake is frozen over still despite the warm temperatures. That's one big ice cube!
Our friend Mr.Sun stays out an extra minute each day now that makes me happy. Looking forward to finishing off a nice week of recovery with a relaxing weekend.

Thanks for the iPod shuffle Sister! I finally put some music on it and got to use it.

Adapt

Sometimes things work against you like pesky rangers and 6 inches of fresh snow (again!). Sometimes it's just going to work at 6am when you want to write a post about your fun weekend and finish uploading all your pictures. In your training sometimes those things make you take it easy instead of doing your planned workout and that's ok. In other instances that planned workout is pretty important and it takes some adaptation to make it happen. To make that distinction you have to learn how your own body works. Last Sunday was one of those days I just wasn't going to be denied. Next time I do that I'm going to make sure that I have enough Netflix movies to cover the entire indoor torture session though!

Fear not

I am not gone, merely in New Jersey on a business trip. I hope to be home tomorrow and I'll get the Moab pictures off the camera. It's a recovery week though so my biggest challenge is eating and hydrating properly on the road.

I miss home!

We're back

Everything didn't quite go as intended but more on that later. We made the best of it though and did get some riding in at WR and on Soverign. Last night I drove home to see Marni before a business trip tomorrow. Today is the final day of my current training block. Sometimes I'd just let it go and start my rest early but today I really need one more piece of the puzzle and it's going to get done.

Pictures and the full scoop later. My bike is calling.

Road Trip!

Well we're just about ready to leave as soon as Marni gets here. Be back Sunday after some fun on the White Rim road! Have fun in bloggerland while we're gone!

Packing

Dave, Dave, Dave? and I are all planning on riding Moab's White Rim road on Saturday. Plans were originally for last Saturday but the weather made me balk and wait for another weekend. Bags are packed, cooler is full of water and sustenance, bike is clean and ready and Marni is letting me run away to the desert with the Toaster. I'm extremely excited for the trip as the 24 Hours of Moab last year was bittersweet and this trip will just let me enjoy a great ride in beautiful surroundings.

A few goodies showed up today as well. First is my new GoLite Ion pack. I think I've finally found my pack for multiday racing next year. It's just like the REI Flash but it's more durable, bigger, has wider and more padded shoulder straps, a water resistant closure and somehow manages to weigh the same. Can you survive for a week with just what you can fit this pack? I think I can...
Also got a couple new tires today, a free Durace 12-27 cassette for the Fuel with my Team Performance points, two bike mounts for the GPS and a couple more SLR saddles for the stable. Still need the big order to arrive before I can put the Fuel back together the rest of the way though.

Also Sister has a new blog so go harass her and leave comments :)