Bike Commuter

We've been a single car household for quite a while now but between gas prices and Marni's stop and go commute, I think she's finally had enough. This morning we headed out early and rode together to her school. Will this be the beginning of the end of either of us using a car to commute? She'll be a beast next season if she rides to work everyday!
Heading out of the subdivision.
Others commute around here too although at 15 miles one way, Marni has a longer haul than most.
Train! I had scouted the route for her before but never this early. Luckily it's not a long one.
Once we get past I-70, the route is quite nice side streets, many with bike lanes or as designated bike routes.
Heeeere we are at her school.

After I dropped her off I headed home with a quick stop for some fresh veggies at Safeway. Now time to have our demo dog (we're dog sitting for my brother and sister in law) picked up. Then I've got some work to do here from the house and later I'll probably head down early to pick Marni up and get some training in around Golden. She doesn't quite know the route perfectly yet and I found a little better one on the way home too.
Yes that's snow on Longs Peak. Apparently the upper elevations of RMNP got 6"-12" of snow this weekend. Ah well, it will be gone soon but after a little indian summer I'm looking forward to more snow on the big peaks. Edit: Make that 2-3 FEET in the Boulderfield! :o

Lookout Mtn

Yesterday Marni and I rode Lookout Mountain from our house. It's a little over 3 hours, 44 miles and 3k feet of climbing.
Now that she did so well, that's one more climb where the car will have to stay home.
She went up pretty quick too, her second fastest time ever and fastest non-race time.
The climb is about 4.5 miles and 1400 vertical feet, 20 to 30 minutes for most people.

Plus it's got cool views of Denver and Golden plus all the paragliders.
Hmmm rare does a flat tire's cause present itself so easily.
Some minor CO2 drama and we were on our way home.
She looks too happy huh? :)
Big thanks to Darn Tough socks BTW. I did manage to kill a pair of their socks and true to their warranty they shipped another pair right out. Nice to have that kind of service and great sock to boot.

Snow in August

Snow much for racing this morning. Winter Park XC race #6 was postponed due to heavy rain and accumulating snow on the course. They're going to try to hold it next Saturday instead which presents a bit of a problem for me but I guess we'll see what happens. Crazy eh? I also heard the Boulderfield on Longs Peak already had 6 inches of snow as of last night. Looks like this weekend will be spent at low elevation and either on the indoor trainer or wrapped in Goretex.

I guess that just reinforces the fact that winter is never far away in the Rockies :)

Scheduled

Josh emailed a while back about taking a spin on Capitol Peak after the CTR. Since Marni isn't quite ready for this 14er she gave me the thumbs up to scout it out for our future trip on it when she's ready and maybe a winter attempt by me as well. Assuming we get a reasonable weather forecast, Josh and I are planning it for two weeks from now. We'll do the approach on Thursday night, bivy until first light and then head up for the summit. Looking forward to it!
As an added bonus I get to scout this ridge for a traverse I really want to do someday. I know someone on 14ers.com looking for a partner but I wanted to get a look at it first hand before I commit to an attempt. Looks awesome eh?
Now I just have to hope for good weather on the 28th and 29th!

Athletic self expression?

I'm not sure if it's friday or the rain but today's blog has me (poorly) waxing a bit philosophical. I had another post ready but the weather put a damper on that until Monday. So instead you're now stuck with my rambling...

I've not a great artist. I don't sing in public lest non valuable things be thrown in my direction. My high school cello playing left much to be desired for those forced to listen to it unaccompanied by the rest of the orchestra. However athletics have often been an outlet for me where those watching at least didn't have to run away in horror. From the early days of endless late nights perfecting my basketball skills to the current almost never ending bike rides, I find solace and an avenue for expression through my muscles. Consistently pushing harder and further, muscular strength has given way to increasing mental strength whether that's pushing without sleep or focusing my way through technical downhills alone and where a fall would be most unwise. And as I ride, the further I go, the more beautiful things I see. The more beautiful things I see, the more I wonder how to share them with others and also as my dad points out, bring about a greater good from the experience. What's the answer to that? I don't know but I'm working on figuring it out.

Certainly one positive aspect of my cycling progression has been an in depth understanding of what I truly need as a person, both on a physical survival level and gradually on an emotional level as well. As Marni can attest, I have a deeply ingrained drive to live simply. Sure I can be distracted by shiny bikes, cool electronics and flashy gear as much as the next person but given time to settle down I'm usually longing to jettison unneeded stuff. The point of all this chatter of course is "what next?" and "where do I go from here?". While walking home from our Starbucks date this morning, I couldn't help but ponder a reoccurring viewpoint of mine or perhaps it's a hypothesis.

Foot travel is the purest form of athletic self expression.

I used to run. I like running and hiking a lot. And when you're on foot, you free yourself of the bike equipment, many of the things which can break, the need to upgrade components and the consumables of tires, brake pads, chains, etc. When you run, all you really need is shoes and some would argue you can do without those. Running is allowed everywhere with no Wilderness restrictions. When you're on foot, scrambling on unrideable terrain is much faster and snow travel is viable with far fewer restrictions.

Running is not without it's problems however. Even for those with relatively indestructible bodies it's hard on the knees and feet. Plus it's definitely slower in most terrain requiring an increased time to travel the same distance which in turn requires more food and for most of us, vacation days. Let's not forget too that running downhill in no way can compete with the fun of down hilling on a mountain bike.

So foot travel is back on the radar this fall and winter. I'm not ready to give up cycling because, well, it's awesome and I love it. But I'm hoping I can reach some sort of equilibrium where at least for certain parts of the year I can do both without totally sucking on my feet. I do have unfinished business with everything from my goal 5k PR to a real actual marathon not done in training. And of course there are many fastpacking type trips bouncing around in my head in non bike legal or accessible terrain. First up, Yellowstone adventure with DaveC...

What a wonderful 4 years

Some of you have already seen this, both on the blog and in our house. Amazingly this picture is already 5 mountains out of date and we'll probably be on frame #2 by the end of the year!
To celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary this year (August 6th), Marni gave me another wonderful picture present which I've hung in our almost finished "new" basement.
Even though I'm a few days late (it was on the camera with 300+ CTR pictures) I wanted to share it since I think it's really cool. The picture of Marni riding on top is actually her riding up a 4wd road to climb Mt. Huron with her pack and trekking poles strapped on. It's one of my favorite pictures of her and all the rest of the pictures were taken by us as well. Happy 4th Anniversary babe, may there be many many many more!

In other news, I spent most of my time today riding, thanks Bill, and cooking. I spent about 5 hours out on the Monocog seeing how my recovery is coming along including a trip up Belcher. I made some slow cooked ribs, couscous and a killer salad for dinner. Now I'm blogging while waiting for a highly unreliable car person to come pickup a part.

Also Scott and I plus whoever else is interested should join us for the 2011, Paris-Brest-Paris. Yes I am very serious about going to Paris and also riding the route fixed. The next couple years I'll be doing some of our local rando rides in order to qualify and it one of those things I've always wanted to do since I became a cyclist.

Alright that's it, Olympics time!

Real Life

Today wifey went back to work although her new class of kiddos doesn't start until Monday. What it means for us is that our string of perpetual Saturdays must come to an end. It's not all bad though, work means routine and productivity which are Good Things (tm). Healthy eating is returning as my CTR recovery progresses and lots of new things are coming down the pipe.

While it seems like we're abruptly back to the real world today, I don't regret this summer one bit. Never have either of us lived life to the fullest as we did in summer 2008. Travel, racing, climbing mountains and just being together. We pushed each others limits and lived up the recovery on the couch. It was absolutely amazing.

For now I've got to establish my own new "real life" but don't fret, summer 2009 will be here before I know it so I'm going to enjoy fall, winter and spring to the fullest as well. I'm off to go help Marni move furniture in her classroom and then ride with the gang. At least a regular routine should lead to improved blogging...CTR trip report coming soon.

Colorado Trail Daze

I sit here hanging out at Matt's place with my lovely wife and my feet up, content and tired. The numbers don't tell the story but I spent the last week according to my GPS climbing 61,500 feet of Colorado mountains over some 550 miles. My legs and feet are swollen and although I have no scale, I am sure I lost a lot of weight. And yet, sitting on the ground at the Junction Creek trailhead, my bike and gear in a pile, a couple of 2-Epic's old teammates asked me if I'd do it again.

I said "yes" without hesitation.

The Colorado Trail is extremely beautiful. It's high, it's rugged and it's filled with flowers. There were beautiful sunsets and thunderstorms that pounded me with hail. I slept (a little) under the stars. I rode (a lot) under the stars. I spent a great deal of time alone and some with great friends, new and old. The sun baked me and clear skies at night left me shivering. The experience was amazing and it was just what I needed.

In March of 2007, I raced Fred's Rim Ride in Moab. Coming off a DNF at 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo, what I felt I needed most was to finish. Last Monday I felt very similarly about this year's CTR. On Saturday at 6:31pm, I realized I was right.

A huge thanks to all my family and friends for the support, you were all with me out there in so many ways. There are hundreds of pictures to post and a much more detailed story to relay if I can figure out how.

But for now I think I need another nap and then some dinner.

Where, oh where, has my little SPOT gone?

Chris's SPOT hasn't refreshed since 9-something last night...

It never seems to work quite when I want it to...

I have a few scenarios in mind though:

1)Chris turned it off and forgot to turn it back on (or went to sleep at 9 and didn't wake up yet-- unlikely)
2)The batteries died
3)It jiggled down into his pack and now it's not connecting or turned itself off
4)It has a mind of its own and has a personal plot against my sanity

-Marni

Silverton!

Chris called around 6:00 this evening saying he got to Silverton! Wow! He stopped and had some pizza and then called back one more time before hitting the homestretch. I will be leaving to pick him up straight from my own race tomorrow afternoon in Winter Park (that Chris won't let me ditch in favor of coming and seeing him finish -- he's sweet, considerate, and stubborn... that's why I love him though). He has a really rough 70 more miles to go, but he's strong and has already gone 440 miles... so what's another 70? Haha. It'll be a hard finish but I'm psyched to see him do it.

Next you hear from us will be from Durango I hope!

GO PLESKO!

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!