Dodging weather

Friday led to changed plans, a gamble and some weather dodging. Basically Marni and I stayed in town and celebrated her first DPS paycheck while letting the brunt of the storms blow through Colorado yesterday and today. This morning I got out on a big dawn ride, also storm dodging up Peak to Peak highway and really enjoying myself. The fall colors were hit and miss but some areas were really wonderful. Things feel right when a 6 hour ride is no big deal. I also stopped by the Boulder Cross scene but only Mike B was around, just finished with his 35+, Cat 4 race. While napping this afternoon we heard a phone message that the 14ers.com group didn't summit today, leaving time for us to join them for another summit bid.

Now we're off to run for the border (almost, 9 miles from NM) after dinner with some family. Tomorrow we're hoping the winds die off early and Marni, Turbo and I can make the summit of Culebra together. It will be #9 for us and #7 for Turbo if we're successful. Time to run the last minute errands!

I rode most of the uphill today like this. Haha.

Proscribed burn at Betasso.

What kind of bike is that?

The Pugsley informational tour started last night at Green Mountain. We had a small group but it's hard to go unnoticed when 2 riders out of 4 are sporting bikes with Endomorphs. Marni was probably wishing she was riding a fatty. Her 2.25" tires looked tiny.
Dave showing off the fixie fatty wheelie skills. Say that 5 times fast!
Truesdale coming out again for more dirt action. With 55 Watts on his helmet and the same at his rear wheel, would it be enough?
We wound our way around the lower trails from Rooney Road and weaved in and out of the trail runners and dog walkers. The fat bikes got lots of looks, stares and questions. As the sun's light diminished so did the number of people on the trail.
Darkness saw Dave turning around to attend to some mechanical details on his bike while the group of 3 continued on. I led up and climb and had a bit of a gap at the top so I posed fatty #1 for some pictures with the nearly full moon in the background.
Then Marni came up to join the picture party.
I had to stand by my steed since I'm never in any pictures myself other than the self portrait shots.
Whee. Riding fatties is fun! Haha.
Soon we headed down although we almost didn't want to since it was a beautiful night and the moon and city below made for a cool view. Marni and I flipped on our "freakin midnight sun monster zillion candlepower nuclear fusion bomb flood light(s)" and followed Truesdale. I declared this the easier way down, apparently that angered the trail gods. I reached up to futz with my light angle and next thing I knew I was laying on my back hoping the Pugs didn't come tumbling on top of me. Luckily I wasn't hurt, just a minor bang on my elbow, some prickers in my clothes and wounded pride. Steven was next when my lights washed his out in a corner and wicked shadows found him lying in the dirt. Luckily he was okay too because "skin grows back, jerseys don't." Marni was the only one to keep it on two wheels all night, hmmm maybe she's onto something.
Soon we arrived back at the car, a nice little 10 mile ride completed. Said hi to Hillary and a few of her friends about to head out on their own little night ride. The Pugs also got some test rides to admire it's wonderful squishyness. Truesdale had to free the babysitter but Dave treated Marni and I to some delicious dinner after we dropped him off at the distillery, thanks! I'm not quite sure where the rest of the crew was, Scott and Mike are on injured reserve but the rest have no excuse :) Get out and ride if you don't want to be slow in the spring!

Tonight I've got some more errands to run and if I'm lucky I'll get up to join Dave and DP for a ride in Ned. Tomorrow night Marni, Turbo and I are off for a Saturday morning hike of Culebra baring any weather catastrophes and then have to drive back for dinner at Betsy's parents on Saturday night. Sunday will be a long ride of some sort and maybe a cross race if I can get my ducks in a row.

Impatient

Work has sucked the last 2 days and cut into my desired riding time. I guess I'm paying for my Monday fun, oh well. My saving grace is that the Pugsley is built back up and I'm riding it today. While I didn't get a fun ride in at lunch, at least I got to take it on an errand run to FedEX and the post office. It's impossible to NOT smile riding this thing. Oh yea, it's also impossible not to draw a ton of attention to yourself.

I have Mr.Nice to thank for it too. He got his new fixed snow bike up and running so I had to put mine back together to join in the fun. His weighs 34lbs to my 36lbs but we both have plenty of places to trim weight. Right now mine is a hack and a half since I had stolen parts off it to get other bikes running but I didn't care and just wanted to get it rideable. I'm going to ride it once or twice a week starting now to get ready for the snow races, about which I still need to make up my mind as to which ones I'm entering. Along the way I'll be lightening it up and tweeking the position since last year I just rode it and ignored any sort of proper bike fit.

Tonight we'll be at Green Mountain at 6pm with the crew. Come on over to the Rooney Road lot if you want to try a fatbike or just have a nice social ride!

Pretend

This afternoon I got to pretend to be a bike messenger for work. I needed a cartridge for my 3D printer and no one wanted to drive up and get it. Fine with me! I'll happily take a nice ride up to Boulder and back any time they want.It was rainy, cloudy and fallish all day. There was even some pseudo snow on the ground and rooftops but it was really just hail from the morning storms. Real snow was coming down as low as 8k feet though.It felt good riding in the cool air and even the occasional bit of rain didn't melt my good mood. I think I took a real liking to cold weather riding this past winter and it's not soon to fade away. This evening I boxed and shipped out more packages. It seems like a never ending job but at least the money can help pay for the $430 hospital bill that showed up today. Grand. More wonderful bike riding tomorrow although probably after work.

And now for your moment of zen...

Tour de Front Range Pictures

No predawn pictures, it being dark and all. I rocked the knee warmers and had the hood up on the windshirt until the sun came out. Burrr chilly. Pack is the Nathan 759. Dinotte 600L on the handlebars.
This was my first time up to this particular trailhead and it was beautiful out.
Probably the picture of the day, thank goodness for accidents.
Lots of trail signs to come...
Heading out on White Ranch. Bill behind me who kicked major ass all day. Still smiling.
Saw this on Rawhide. Definitely not lightweight backpacking. My body hurt just rolling by these poor little Boy Scouts :(
My my it's a pretty day.
Climbing done, time to descend and wind down the mountain. Rather rinse repeat all day long.
From the top of Morrison Slide looking out over Dakota and Green Mountain.
Another different landscape.
Still smiling but man it was HOT. Poor man's AC was in effect and GL style shade breaks happening as well.
Finally descending the wonderfully flowy Lair o' the Bear.
Whee........
Just a little more climbing.
This one is for Scott entitled "Shattered on the side of the trail holding a Clif Bar."
Little TopoFusion track.
The profile of a 15 hour day. Fun in the sun!

Epic

Good old loose rocky climbfest. 100 miles and 13k+ feet for me. Now I'm going to bed. Don't call early :)

Ready to roll

Nice little twilight and evening spin to get ready for tomorrow's Tour de Front Range. Should be a good time, see everyone there.Whee!
Squishy bike is fun, no denying it.

Fuel Ride

Wow it was sunny and hot today, perfect to get out on the Fuel for the first time in a while despite scraping the bottom of the barrel in clothing options. Almost everything was in the wash but I suppose that's a good sign. I hammered out an interval set around my own little private singletrack and felt great. The usual first day transition from the rigid SS to my full squish gearie was apparent but after a few tweaks of the tire and shock pressures, a quick adjustment of the handlebar controls and a little seat time it was as comfortable as always. The weekend is looking to be determined by the weather leading me towards the Tour de Front Range here in town instead of heading to the White Rim in Moab. I've got a purpose for the big ride this weekend so I'm not quite willing to risk 12 hours of driving on a bust. As usual I'll be throwing a little extra into the TdFR. Can't make it too easy since it will be my first time riding it with gears. Gasp.

In other cycling related news, I choose to report that TwinSix has some hot new clothes instead of posting the big but not completely shocking news listed elsewhere. Looking forward to a lot of riding this weekend, wherever it is.

Lots of luck to Dave and Dave at their respective races this weekend. Kick some ass boys, can't wait to hear the tale! Great job to the other Dave on his excellent result! And now for some bike porn...

Hopefully I'm a better mechanic than a photographer

Tonight the small group of Marni, Erik, Truesdale and I hit up Marshall Mesa. Close and offering good riding with minimal darkness hassles we had a good time and knocked out almost 20 miles. Here are pictures of me poorly capturing that good time. Dusty Erik post crash/tipover.Here is the group stopping on the way back up the hill. Notice how I've excellently avoided having anyone actually look at the camera in any way.
Here is Marni's testing one half of the uberlights.
Here is the front shot. I'm now blind however and almost crash off the trail.
Here is Marni and Truesdale. Really they're there. Right under those 2 bright dots.
So the photography was a bust but hey, it's my blog so I can post the poorly shot pictures anyway. I blame the camera. Seems easy enough, it can't talk back. If you'll notice the time I'm probably loopy as well. The ride was fun as previously mentioned and my legs felt crazy good despite yesterday's interval work. I sort of forgot I was riding a singlespeed at all. The new lights proved amazing once again allowing me to fully attack the trail at will and any chosen speed. Erik and Truesdale were surely impressed when I wasn't blinding them by not turning them off at stops.

After the ride Marni and I were rebuffed for dinner twice before finally settling on Qdoba. I answered a bunch of inane questions by email and then set out to finish building my Fuel back up for whatever riding takes place this weekend. Several more hours later it's done, adjusted, tuned, lubed, cleaned and admired. Tomorrow I'll actually ride it and see if it works. Other than a few new parts (like cables, housing, chain, etc) before Moab, hopefully it's all ready and the major crash damage repaired. Okay it's way past my bedtime, I'm out.

Edit: Oh yea, I finally put warranty swing arm #3 on. I'm taking bets on how long it lasts before I take it in broken to the Trek dealer again. All bolts torqued to spec too. Good thing I have a backup carbon one now.

Stress

Without a plan, even a basic one, I'd be lost right now. I've got a million things all going on at once between work and real life and today it seems like it's hard to keep everything straight.

At least riding is going well. I had a decent last block and a really great last week and a half of training so I'm trying to keep the momentum going. Yesterday I had an awesome hill repeat/interval workout and built upon last week's success. This weekend should be a great long ride no matter where it takes place. Tires for Moab got ordered this morning as well so I'll have fresh rubber on the bikes to hopefully keep any flats at bay. Just got to focus these next couple weeks and do my best!

Project: Climbing Wall

I used to rock climb but never got really super into it. Even now I think it's more of necessary mountaineering skill than an objective in and of itself. However I thought a climbing gym/cave at home would be a great winter alternative and another way to lure friends to join in the fun. I've been scouting craigslist for a couple months waiting for a deal and this week I found it. Picked up a huge lot of mostly new holds for $120 including bolts and a crapload of t-nuts. This should be enough to get me started.
Now do I put the climbing wall up here when the shell leaves shortly? It's very long since a full car fits in it with 6-8 feet more behind it. It's a little taller than the shed if you factor in that your head could go above the rafters even if holds aren't taller than the rafters. However it is a bigger space to heat in the winter and serious overhangs will take up extra space that I'm not sure I want to give up.
Or do I build a full on cave in here?
Lots of room and no restrictions (all that stuff is being sold)...
Anyone out there have an opinion? I'm leaning towards the shed since it's quite large (15ft+ by 11.5ft+ inside) and has reasonably high ceilings. Overhangs or ceiling holds would be no problem. Smaller space to warm up and pad the floor too. Can't wait to finish up a design and buy some wood!

Good riding

Yesterday Erik and I got out on a nice road ride up to Peak to Peak highway via "Super Jamestown". Lots of climbing heavily loaded onto the front half once Erik and I left US 36.
Beautiful views and some good dirt riding made it worth it though. The trees are getting ready to change.
I also learned about the hidden spare parts stash. Seems to be for community use if you need the stuff. Anyone know the history?
The climbing loop was great and soon we ripped it down from Ward on a strangely car free road. I headed back towards home, just far enough to get my September century in. My legs were cashed out and Marni had dinner ready when I walked in the door. Can't get any better than that! Today I've got a bit of a headache and don't feel great so I bailed on Dave (sorry!) and slept in. I've been running errands with wifey and talking care of house stuff, hopefully if I feel better tonight I'll get a little spin in. Even with Friday and Saturday I got some really solid riding in this week and things are progressing nicely for Moab preparations. Sounds like we're headed out there on Thursday with my dad and Marni so we can all get to do some preriding of the course. Fun!
Edit: Good old profile...