Buena Vista!

Chris called at about 3:15 from Buena Vista! He said the previous segment was really fun and nice. He was restocking, eating a delicious hamburger and shake, and meeting up with Doug before heading on his way. He is excited to have someone to ride with and sleep near tonight. I'm not sure if they'll stick together tomorrow or not, but either way, knowing he will have company for at least part of this long section seemed to make him excited.

I should hear from him next maybe Friday night or early Saturday, so until then I'll be refreshing his SPOT page obsessively.

Haha

In case you follow along Chris's CTR attempt here but not on MTBR, I think you'll find his call-in from Leadville quite hillarious:

Hey everybody, this is Chris Plesko. I'm here in Leadville. It's 8:30 on saaa... not Saturday, Wednesday morning. I had a pretty good night last night. Me and Doug hooked up outside of Copper there and rode over Searle pass and that really high ridge over Kokomo too. That was pretty epic sitting up above 12,300 at 10:30 at night! And bivied at Camp Hale for a bit and took off this morning. I expect he'll call in in a minute. Other than that, doing good, gonna get some kind of food here in town and push on to Buena Vista.

Apparently, even during the Colorado Trail Race, Chris is living in the land of perpetual Saturdays. Ha! Yay for Saturdays!

Leadville!

Just talked to Chris around 8:30 am our time. He has made it to Leadville!

After a rough day yesterday, Chris seems to be having an awesome morning. He's been riding with Doug Johnson since Copper last night and together they tackled the rough stretch with Searle Pass between Copper and Leadville. They stopped for the night and slept for about six hours. Chris said it was VERY cold -- cold enough to freeze their water bottles -- but he slept ok and is feeling much more perky this morning. Doug was getting tired on the track into Leadville, so he told Chris to go up ahead and they plan to hopefully meet up again either in town or in Buena Vista tonight.

Here at home, I'm doing pretty well. I was very happy to hear Chris so happy this morning -- I woke up very early from a dream that Chris lost his glove somewhere and didn't think he'd be able to go on without it. Since then, I've been drowning myself in I Love Lucy in an attempt to go back to sleep. Now that I've heard his happy/excited voice, I think I can go for a ride myself and then take a nap. I hope to hear from him in Buena Vista around 5 or 6 tonight. Then he'll disappear into the black hole between Buena Vista and Silverton without any contact for a few days. That'll be the crux of this route for Chris, and if he can make it through that, and barring any further problems, I will surely be picking him up in Durango this weekend or early next week. Go Chris!

Copper

Chris has made it to Copper in a few minutes shy of 29 hours.

He sounds good, hungry and tired, but good. The call reminded me a bit of the Divide, but I tried to remind him that with more sleep and some food, things will be looking up. He crashed yesterday and did something else today, so he said his knees are a bit banged up. Other than that he's feeling ok physically, just pushing through the mental stuff at the moment.

He's only two hours behind the lead guy and a half hour or so ahead of the third place guy. Hopefully the guy in third place will catch him and he'll have someone to ride with for a bit. He reports lots of walking, but that was only to be expected.

Next call should be from Leadville tomorrow afternoon.

Pedal swiftly my Christopher!

Durango Or Bust!

(It's Marni, posting on Chris's blog)

He left the trailhead this morning for the CTR. We had a last minute job of being race directors, as Stefan's wife is currently in labor with their first son. Congratulations Stefan and Sheryl!!!

We were running around like crazy this morning before the race, but he got off and seemed to be still exicted. In all of the excitement, he seems to have forgotten to turn on his SPOT, so if you've been trying to track him and he appears to still be home, that's why. Silly Christopher. Either he'll remember to do it today sometime, or I'll remind him when I talk to him sometime tomorrow.

He's off and rolling! Go Chris!

Colorado Trail

Denver to Durango, here we go!

Tomorrow at noon the Colorado Trail race kicks off. 530 miles and some 60,000+ vertical feet of climbing or so I'm told. I'll be tackling this beast on my rigid singlespeed. Dave Nice and Travis are also crashing at my place and will be rigid and single as well with Dave on his trademark fixie. I'm excited and can't wait to get riding. My bags are packed and all that's left to do now is eat, drink and sleep until tomorrow.All you blue dot junkies can follow along the CTR leaderboard and also my direct SPOT tracking page. In addition we'll be calling into MTBCast and there will likely be some MTBR chatter in the Endurance forum. Supposedly there are 16-18 starters plus the possibility of those showing up unannounced so we'll see tomorrow I guess. Good luck to all you other racers and sleep we tonight!

Tagged

Apparently I have to get tagged to make a new blog post. Thanks to Fatty and then Dave for the chain letter style action. Life here is good in the land of perpetual Saturdays, I don't think either of us want it to end. Last weekend I raced some short XC stuff and had a surprisingly (honest!) solid race on the Monocog vs the squishy, gearie experts in the 25-29 age group. I stood atop the box on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday's race was difficult as I was first on the scene to a girl who knocked herself unconscious in a crash right before my start. She was okay eventually but it was too hard to focus on a good SuperD with that image in my head and Marni racing so I took it pretty easy down the hill. Nevertheless it was fun to get some good racing and technical riding in.

Last week was mostly focused on sharpening up my legs for the CTR and it has to have been one of the best weeks of that kind I've ever had. Lots of mountain bike time, good recovery. Then Marni and I headed up to Huron Peak this Wednesday for some bike and hike action above 14,000 feet. The picture above is one of my new favs!

Now all that's left to do is the final CTR prep. A few more food supplies to acquire and a little packing. We'll be hosting some other racers here at Casa Plesko starting tomorrow so it should be plenty busy around here. I'm really looking forward to the race though, can't wait in fact. Alright, enough jibber-jabber, onto those tagger questions...

If you could have any one — and only one — bike in the world, what would it be?

A custom ti disc brake 29er in the perfect geometry for me with a disc PowerTap. Then I could at least swap tires and ride anywhere. I have to admit though, Jill's answer of a Pugs is a close second to my choice since they're the most fun bikes EVER.

Do you already have that coveted dream bike? If so, is it everything you hoped it would be? If not, are you working toward getting it? If you’re not working toward getting it, why not?

No I don't and as of now I'm not really making much headway on getting one. Why? Well for one I'm currently "retired" and as such a new bike is kind of not in the budget. Plus I've got really bad luck with getting custom things. Maybe someday! Until then I'm happy on my Monocog.

If you had to choose one — and only one — bike route to do every day for the rest of your life, what would it be, and why?

A mountain touring route in the high Himalayas.

What kind of sick person would force another person to ride one and only one bike ride to do for the rest of her / his life?

Fatty apparently. But it's not so bad, at least I'd get to ride somewhere beautiful everyday.

Do you ride both road and mountain bikes? If both, which do you prefer and why? If only one or the other, why are you so narrow minded?

I ride both although I prefer mountain. I have more great rides off road but in order to do some of those, road training is quite helpful. Besides when you ride a rigid singlespeed, some smooth pavement and pretty views are a nice reprieve for the wrists.

Have you ever ridden a recumbent? If so, why? If not, describe the circumstances under which you would ride a recumbent.

Yes. I've also ridden a penny farthing and a unicycle. I guess I'm just a slut for things that roll.

Have you ever raced a triathlon? If so, have you also ever tried strangling yourself with dental floss?

Yes, for a long time I was a tri-geek. Now I find it takes too much effort to go to the pool and that there is more to life than racing. See you don't just do a triathlon for the hell of it but I certainly go mountain biking just because it's fun. As far as strangling myself with dental floss? Well let's be realistic, I'd have to buy some first.

Suppose you were forced to either give up ice cream or bicycles for the rest of your life. Which would you give up, and why?

I'd give up ice cream. It's good but bikes are cooler. Besides there is still brownies, pie, cake, cookies...

What is a question you think this questionnaire should have asked, but has not? Also, answer it.

How many inappropriate gay men's magazines will you sign up the person who started this tagging thing for?

At least 10 or 15.

You’re riding your bike in the wilderness (if you’re a roadie, you’re on a road, but otherwise the surroundings are quite wilderness-like) and you see a bear. The bear sees you. What do you do?

Repeat my GDMBR phrase, "Hey bear, I already met your other bear friends in hoserland. Please let me pass safely, thank you!" Then I'd take it's picture.

Now, tag three biking bloggers. List them below.

Marni
Nicolette
Scott

Eat your way to fitness

So I suck at blogging lately, guess I should get a crappy desk job again. That might help. Anyyyyyway, on an AM ride early this week I came across this guy. Hello friend. Strangely enough, the more animals and wildlife I see out on the trail, the more I consider it a good omen. So I chalked this guy up to good luck, said hey and kept on rolling. Is it strange to talk to animals? I talked to the bears constantly on the GDMBR.
It's been a bit hazy lately but still can't beat riding on trails that just happen to be on the way to your destination.
It's cooler up high...sort of.
Note to self: Next time you try to put off buying a sleeveless jersey, don't. Remember there is a reason you want one. It's called JULY!
Anyway more riding led to more eating. Marni and I stopped at a bakery mid ride the next day and stole my emergency $5 for cookies. Yum.
Huh, lookie there. I'm stuffing my face again on another ride. It's still hot. 2Epic, I don't know how you do it at 110! I went through 2 bottles an hour the other day which is tough to do without a hydration pack.
Mike! So glad to have you back.
Erik smiling as always.
Today Marni and I rode up to Boulder and stopped mid ride for lunch at Murphy's. I could really get into touring between places to eat. Then we rode home, dodging storms and enjoying light rain. Now I'm hiding out in the basement working on the computer and flipping between Ace of Cakes and Deadliest Catch.

This weekend I'm off to get some (more) intensity up in Winter Park with a XC race and a super D. My strategy for the super D? Don't get hurt before the CTR! Speaking of which, CTR is going to be a climbfest and I'm excited. The GPS track I made doesn't have a huge number of points so the mileage is low (really about 530) but navigation is generally easy so I just wanted a sanity check and the detours well marked. I took 32x16 gearing on the Divide but this will be a different story. I'm thinking 32x18, 34x20 or 36x22?Big thanks to TomP by the way, looks like I'll be at the Vapor Trail in September.

Sunday recap

This morning involved me getting out of bed late. I had designs for several days to get up earlier but well, it just hasn't happened. Luckily every day is still Saturday (Marni and my motto for the summer...) so when I eventually rose from the dead I cooked us some pancakes with strawberries for breakfast. Then I lounged around unhappily for a while as I worked my way through over 1000 Google reader feeds. Turbo is the usual beneficiary of my moodiness and we took him for a walk.

Eventually I rallied and set about tinkering in the kitchen. I'm trying to break from Perpetuem to see how a non soy protein does in my bottles. The initial source of whey protein was too sweet even in small quantities so I moved on to another version. Version two was promising and version three even had some light flavoring. Eventually I'd run out of variations I was interested in trying so I grabbed the winning bottle and headed out on the bike. Two hard hours of riding later the bottle was empty and I'd managed to keep it all down despite some wickedly hard speedwork. At least that's a good sign...

Marni as usual was awesome and had dinner ready. I'm finally eating a bit more normally after the Divide and fruits and veggies are key. Now time for some recovery and more reading.

And the picture of Turbo? Well he's just awesome at climbing mountains so I had to put it up. Check out Marni's blog for a bit of the info on our climb of Massive and Elbert earlier this week.

I'm Back!

Hey everyone,

I'm back, not so much physically as I've been home for a bit now, but ready to rejoin the blog world. I've got lots of stories to share and it will take me a while to get through them all but I'll try. I also opened my Google Reader today and there are 1000+ blogs and things to read so I apologize to those who I usually read. I'm working on catching up, I swear!

Anyway short first post, lots more to come. Slip Angle is reopened!