The sun does set

Yesterday was good times. Rage Against the Machine concert, Ride Against the Machine group ride and some great colors as we were almost back to the parking lot. I'll shut up now so my words don't ruin the pictures.


Last night was one of those times when I felt like I wish I knew more about how to take a good picture. Even my little point and shoot digital camera's full usage eludes me.

Random Update

This will have to be fast and way random as I'm already late to jet out of the house but this is also long overdue.

Last week I saw these guys hanging out in the water on the big lake. Then I thought, "this lake is really big, I wonder if I can packraft on it?" I still don't have an answer but it would be cool to float closer to these guys and the eagles to shoot more pictures.I other news we raced last weekend. After the race I spilled recovery drink on our good camera which now is refusing to take pictures in any color but black. Dammit. Oh well, it does give a good weird picture of Bill here though.
And his rental bike after he found a MASSIVE crack in the headtube weld of his Yeti, RIP.
Here is Shawn avoiding actually being in the picture.
Nicolette rolling in to the finish, complete with war wounds.
Followed by Shawn avoiding the photo again as Marni finishes.
Happy Marni rolling up to the group. Why is she happy?
See she's still smiling...
Maybe because of this? Her first "real" podium in Sport class as she took 3rd place!
The girls kicked some booty! 1st and 3rd for this race and 1st and 2nd locked up for the series. I think we may have some Expert women next year.
I guess in order to train for that Marni wanted to be like me. Look who is rolling a new singlespeed. Oh wait, she's cooler than me 'cause it's a 29er! Thanks Salvagetti!
Still loving the sunsets around here. Beautiful end to our ride last night.
My cute sweetie.
Foothills looming in the background. It's still early in the "new bike cycle" but if the 29er makes Marni half as much faster as it appeared last night, I'm totally going to have to get one. It really hits home when you're following someone down terrain you know and they're going faster than they've ever gone and on a fully rigid bike at that!
Give me more ice cream bowl to lick!
And now your moment of Zen...a panda bear going buildering.
That's it, I'm out. Brett and I are going to the Rage Against the Machine concert!

Less serious

The last two posts have been a little serious for my tastes so today is going to be pictures from this week's riding. Tuesday's climb leads to a little peak of the big mountains when it tops out around 8500 ft. I see you!
Last night we rode Chimney Gulch and Apex. Our starting group of Erik, Brett, Marni and I added Matt, JimB and Steven as we climbed.
We had a regular party at the windy saddle but we had to keep moving to beat darkness.
Sun says bye bye much earlier these days, summer is waning.
This little guy was not eager to get off the trail and was quite irritated with us so we actually had to bushwhack around him! Quite a bit of fun riding this week already and now I'm off to figure out where to ride today. Tonight will be early to bed to rest up for this weekend's XC racing. Marni has 2 races to go in the WP series (next 2 weekends) and she's doing really well in the Sport womens field so I'm excited to go support her in finishing off the series strong.

Teaching High School Math and Science?

A while back I submitted an alternative teaching license application to the Colorado Department of Education as some of you already know. This morning I got a big envelope with the results of their review of my transcript and so far I'm pretty happy. I'm qualified in terms of coursework to teach secondary math pending passing the PRAXIS or PLACE math subject test. Considering I've done math for engineering beyond differential equations that should be a given but I don't make the rules. In science they say I'm just missing 6 credit hours of biology which I actually may already have but I need to contact the CDE about that. I'm hoping they missed the credits given for my 5 (highest score) on the AP Biology test in high which CU has recognized on my college transcript. Either way I need to rectify that through coursework or my transcript and also take the science subject area tests on the PRAXIS or PLACE.

So my next steps look like this:
1) Schedule my tests since I'll need those regardless. I've looked at the material and it's no problem as long as I do a little studying and review. Some stuff has been years since I've covered it but I'm confident in my overall understanding.
2) Contact the CDE and see if I can use my current coursework and life experience (testing in a laboratory for my last job) to round out my needed 6 biology credits.
3) Take some community college or online biology classes if the CDE still deems me deficient in that area.

If I can take care of that stuff then I should earn a letter of eligibility with which to apply to schools directly for one of several alternative teaching programs. My guess is the latest I would start teaching would be one year from now but of course that is still dependent on a few things out of my control. I would prefer (I think) to teach science but at the very least it would be nice to have both math and science endorsements to fall back on.

Yikes it's all a little scary but I think it's a good thing. I've always considered being a teacher but money had been a big road block. Now that Marni and I own a house and have a good handle on our finances and what teachers can earn, it seems like a reasonable career for both of us. Sure it will never give me six figures but it's a career where I feel like I can make a difference which is more than I've been able to say about most of the jobs I've held to this point.

JCOS Meeting News

First up is info about the JCOS meeting last night. In addition to the social call after the meeting (Ed, Jeny, Steven, JimB, Kyle, Hillary...), there was lots of information presented and public comments on the topics of yielding and trail maintenance. COMBA organized and led the meeting with quite a few members of the public being allowed time to share their views. If you weren't there and you don't support COMBA, what is your excuse? Change starts with all of us. As they stated in the meeting, they need your money but ALSO your time, ideas and passion to help support our MTB access and trails. We had 200 people at the meeting last night which was great but we could have easily had over 1000. Visual impact at meetings like this, showing JCOS how big and active of a user group we are, is important.

Overall I feel the meeting was a positive thing. JCOS got some good info out about both topics although the current yielding enforcement stuff needs to be further addressed. Most trail users aren't having yielding issues and current enforcement tactics are misguided in my opinion. They also claimed only 35 "failure to yield" tickets have been given in the past 10 years but considering I know of over a dozen myself in the past two summers, that's a little hard to believe. Whatever the history, there certainly is an increase in enforcement and all of it essentially coming in "stings", legal or not, making mountain bikers feel like second class citizens on the trail. Bikers, this is our chance to continue to yield properly and also educate others on doing so. JCOS was very big on establishing communication with other trail users to initiate a pass and we can all do that easily.

My opinion is not to let anger over the enforcement tactics distract us as trail users from what we can do during and after a ride to improve the situation. Also bikers are not always wrong, hikers don't hear us (iPods) and horses and their riders can act poorly, but that doesn't give us an excuse not to try and do the right thing. Don't make excuses or be negative, think about what positive actions you can take instead.

The trail maintenance info was very well presented and helped dispel a lot of myths about what they're doing out there and the history of some of our most popular trails. For those of you who really hate the changes at Apex and the Castle trail at Mt.Falcon, did you realize those trails were rebuilt from the ground up in 1993 and 1998 respectively? That was news to me and very interesting. JCOS is actively working to find sustainable alignments for those trails and others which overall is a positive thing. The less time they spend maintaining old trails, the more time they can spend building new ones. Good comments were made about technical terrain and obstacles acting as natural speed brakes which I think is true but it seems JeffCo is in agreement with that in general and they're not trying to make trails easier. Other comments were made about users wanting directional and/or mountain bike only trails. I'm in favor of both options but we'll see what happens.

If you're in favor or against any of this stuff then take the next step and act. Write a letter to your politicians, join COMBA, BMA or whoever is your local MTB advocacy group. Join trail work days whether that's in JeffCo or not. Write letters or comment to you local advocacy group. There are people against MTBs on the trails and they have influence. As the BMA president so aptly pointed out, "the decisions are made by those who show up." So don't just bitch on MTBR, find a positive way to improve the situation.

Alright, enough of my soapbox because I'm far from perfect but I can do better and I'm going to.

Good luck!

Wifey's first day with her full new kinder class is today. I was helping out in her room yesterday evening and I wish I could go back to being in kindergarten! It looks like lots of fun.
This morning I made some breakfast and had my tea. The eating healthy plan is going pretty well, I'm running out of veggies every day or two, and the results are positive. Marni did make some fresh Snickerdoodles which are oh so tempting to eat every time I walk past them
I've also got the AA charger working hard. I was a little sick of throwing away batteries not to mention the negative environmental impact of doing that so I'm trying to use rechargables as much as possible.
Tonight is the JeffCo Open Space Public Forum. I'll be home past my bedtime I'm sure but bikers need to show up and at the very least make our presence known. Helpful and intelligent comments are even better. If you ride JeffCo MTB trails you owe it to yourself and your riding partners to put your body in the room and show JeffCo how many people ride on their (awesome) trail system. Boulder's rules and trails are severely lacking by comparison but the summer crackdown that's pretty much singling out bikers is disconcerting even to me. Alright time to take Turbs out and then off on the bike.

Do You Ride A Mountain Bike in Jefferson County?

Invites You To An Open Space Trails Public Forum!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
7 – 9 pm
Jefferson County Administration and Court Building
100 Jefferson County Parkway Golden 80401

Music: The Postal Service - Brand New Colony

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!