The Most Funnest

Playing in the Mud

2011-11-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

The team has just been killing it all season! We're only halfway through the season, but I'm pretty sure we've already had more mud than most years. Forecast is shaping up to provide more of the same this weekend. I know most of the guys are getting amped up for SSCXWC, which I won't make this year, but hopefully this mud training will only help! Though at the same time, I hope that everyone remembers to have a ton of fun!

Ugh... winter is here... and I hate it. Even worse, the time-change is almost here as well.

Lust

2011-10-31T07:59:00.000-07:00

Pure lust right there... the Triumph Bonneville T100 Steve McQueen Edition! Based on the classic T100 and inspired by the Trophy TR6 McQueen rode during the stunt scene from The Great Escape. Lots of blacked-out parts (love the black rims) and the single-up seat and rack combo. Too sick. So you know... baby Jeebus' birthday is coming up if anyone needs ideas.

Still Here...

2011-10-27T13:34:00.000-07:00

The boy continues to grow, and boy is he cute!

Hopefully you've been following the Team Gates Carbon Drive cyclocross updates on the Gates blog.

More stuff coming soon!

Marco Simoncelli; Jan. 20, 1987 - Oct. 23ober 2011

2011-10-24T09:37:00.000-07:00

A horrible crash took Marco Simoncelli yesterday at the Sepang circuit. He was probably my favorite rider to watch, riding aggressively on the track, and giving lively interviews to the press. No doubt, a first of many MotoGP wins was in his future.

Marco's spare waits in the Sepang paddock for his return.

Winter is coming, and my moto rides to work are likely very short in-number for this season. So it seemed fitting to ride in today, enjoying the crisp fall weather, and changing leaves.

Team Gates Carbon Drive Bikes!

2011-08-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

I was trying for the longest time to get the blog caught-up, but time wasn't cooperating and it just wasn't working out. So now it's time to just start fresh and pick up from right about here. And might as well start with a brand new bike for the first post!

I am lucky to once again be riding the amazing crew at Gates, on the Team Gates Carbon Drive cyclocross team for 2011! We're hoping to have another, increadibly succesful year, and definitely have the bikes to do that! We'll be riding carbon fiber single speed frames from Raleigh, designed to accept the Gates Belt Drive of course. The belt break is very clean, and uses a removeable portion of the metal dropout, to allow the break right at the droupout;

We are riding the newest CenterTrack version of the belt drive. This belt offers a lower profile, even more amazing mud and debris cleaning and tolerates misalignment better than the CDX systems we were running last year. On my first ride, I didn't expect the drivetrain to feel any smoother than the CDX, but I was shocked that it was indeed, noticeably smoother!

And lets be honest... it's not a bad thing that it looks a lot cooler too! The bike itself rides amazing! It was a lot of fun to check out the variety of new trails at the Valmont Bike Park in Boulder. The Raleigh has that incredibly smooth carbon ride that doesn't sound like something you "have to have" on a cross bike... until you ride a carbon cross bike. Then everything else seems old-fashioned! It definitely doesn't hurt the ride (or the run-ups) that my bike weighed in at 15.2lbs. That's even without getting too involved with using extra lightweight parts!

The excellent components from FSA and EA90 wheels from Easton are all great, high-quality bits. Even more importantly, they'll handle the rigors and extra stress on the cross bike. And I was pumped that TRP provided us with not just their EuroX brakes, but also the sweet new single speed brake levers as well! The shape of the hood and lever are awesome; bringing updated shapes to single speed riders, and the push-button brake release is perfect on a cross bike.

10 minutes into my first ride, and I didn't even think about the bike - which means it more than passed the test! I can't wait to mount up the tubulars and really push the bike!

Keep an eye on the Gates Blog for updates from the team's exploits this season, and I'll have some more updates as well!

Busy Weekend!

2011-05-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

Definitely a busy weekend; starting at 4.30am on Friday! Sebastian was born at 11.20am, Friday the 13th (my little monster), 5lbs. 11oz., 19in. long. All three of us made it home Sunday afternoon, and have survived the first night. Time for a Monday that's different from all the previous Mondays!

More details soon, since I have a tiny human sleeping in one arm, and only have one arm to type with!

DEFCON 3

2011-05-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

Holy shit... today means there is just 3 more weeks until the due date for Magnum Excaliber Skelator to show up. That's a bit frightening.

In the meantime, I've been trying to get a good look at the incredible planet alignment that's going on. Though the weather really hasn't been cooperating. I thought this morning would be good, but it was so cold, that we had a lot of fog in the air. At least I learned I should set my alarm a bit earlier for tomorrow, though getting up at 5am sounds like a horrible idea. Anyway, here is what things SHOULD "look like";

I killed some time last week, building up a pretty cool set of wheels too. I haven't used the Tune Schwarzbrenner 24mm clincher rims before, so it was interesting to see how they built.

They were actually quite nice... a good thing given the pricing! But overall had a great finish and built up round and true, without too much hassle.

It was also nice to build these up with a much more "reasonable" pair of hubs. A pair that you can use every day and don't need to baby. These used Sapim CX-ray spokes, laced to an Alchemy Elf front hub - far and away my absolute favorite front hub. Nothing else even comes close.

The rear didn't have much flash, but that's fine, it was built with a lovely, standard DT-240 hub. No nonesense and pretty much bombproof.

So yeah, I still don't totally get the plan to use a carbon clincher rim on a wheelset like this, given the cost:benefit ratio, but this did build a nice, relatively low spoke count wheel, that was still a very cool weight - just 1,287g for a clincher wheelset.

Starry Night

2011-04-29T14:25:00.000-07:00

The stars were finally out the other night.

But it was still only 28 degrees and windy, so my time outside was very limited.

Moonstruck

2011-04-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

It didn't take long, walking around in public last weekend, to realize that the full-moon was upon us. People get absolutely (more) insane whenever the moon is showing it's full brightness. I wish I knew why. Anyway, that made me want to mess around with some camera time, but the clouds and crappy weather had already started to blow in. Still, had some fun over-exposing some shots; like this one. Cool around the moon, but wild that there really wasn't even any of the city-light visible to the eye at the bottom of the picture.

Clouds, haze, and a full moon... not to mention some light rain blowing around, just to make things wonky. Still kinda fun though.

The next night had a lot fewer clouds, but there was still a good amount of moisture in the atmosphere. Still... with some playing around (quickly, before my battery died) I got a moon pic with a fair amount of detail.

I have a few more thinsg I wanted to play with trying to capture... but it has literally been raining and/or snowing for the past 10 days or so. Ah, spring in Colorado.

Weekly Sightings

2011-04-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

Last week (mostly) wrapped up with a loud and fun dinner to celebrate Bonnie's birthday! I think she's old enough to drink now... and definitely wanted to prove that point with the margarita that she chose.

If you want to be "that guy" walking around looking like a complete douchebag... then you need flipflops with LED headlights. Just $60 at REI, and not a single chick will come up to bother you.

It seems like every year I try to give Indy Car racing another chance... but every year I make it through about 2 races before I remember that it's silly, and completely boring. This year, I had the back-to-back ridiculousness of the current top drive, Dario Franchitti wearing not one, but TWO Breathe-Right nasal strips during his pre-race interview. I wonder if the plan was to be able to breathe twice as well, or if he was going to use them like tear-off visors? Then, if that wasn't enough... ALL of the Versus commentators down "trackside" doing interviews, had their own Versus driving suits on. Riiiiggghhhht.

I took a first aid class this week, to renew my first aid and CPR certifications, as usual, it was an interesting class. This particular class, definitely had one of the more entertaining/comical videos to accompany the teaching. Plus, the book even had a tear out cell phone in the back cover, to be used in practicing to make emergency calls;

One of the ladies in my group MIGHT have overdone it on the lipstick that day;

And of course the training was on campus, on 4/20. And leave it to Boulder to have several planes doing aerial advertising, for local dispensaries, flying over campus. Might as well, all your key customers were in one spot... I've never seen so many people suffering from chronic back pain in one spot.

Visitors

2011-04-22T07:38:00.000-07:00

We had a couple busy weekends with visitors lately. First up, Harry, Danielle and Nate came out just a couple weeks after our visit to their house. It was Nate's first birthday, and we were all set to do some partying! We went all out and made up all of Nate's favorite food; cheeseburgers, chicken, french fries and mac-n-cheese!

Jesse and his mom came up to join the celebration too, and it was an all-out party. After dinner it was time for Nate's awesome birthday cake. Chocolate with butter cream from the awesome Spruce Confections bakery in Boulder.

No doubt that Nate loved his cake!

The weekend after that, Jessica was super excited that her good friend Stephanie and Addison were able to come out for her baby shower! No matter how many times we tell Addie to "stop growing", she never seems to listen, and is bigger everytime we get to see her! But, it still doesn't keep her from looking like a bobble-head when she tries on Jessica's helmet.

On one of the days we got to go into Nederland, so that Stephanie could show Addison where she grew up, and of course to see all the changes since Steph was last there. This of course meant a stop at the Carousel of Happiness was mandatory.

Jessica even got to take Magnum for his first official ride on the carousel.

Other than that, we mostly hung out for the weekend, did some good catching up and the ladies had fun at their shower. Addison and Cyrus also became best of friends - he's always a ladies-man, for sure.

A fun diva picture or proof for next time we see Addison, so that we can yell at her for continuing to grow-up;

Not an iPad

2011-04-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

There was a good "carpet" of clouds laying down on Boulder this morning, when I came around the hill and started my way down.

I had pretty much forgotten that I had a tour of our new supercomputer on my schedule this morning! A nice distraction for the morning routine, minus the fact that I couldn't take my coffee with me. Your tax dollars hard at work... this is a roughly $8m Dell supercomputer that intended for research on the University campus. There wasn't a building set for it to go into, so instead, it went into a custom made container, that sits in a parking lot - but at least it's out of the floodplain, unlike most of our equipment. It definitely doesn't look flashy from the outside;

The second row of four rows of racks;

1,348 nodes, each with 12 cores and the machine has a bit over a petaflop of memory. The racks are separated into cold and hot zones, the hot zones being contained inside these "rooms" and averaging about 150degrees, vs. 60 degrees for the cold.

Here is the mechanical chiller;

And a good portion of the passive chiller. The system has been running quite efficiently, at about 1.07 - 1.2 Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). Still, that's about $20k of electricity per month.

Now that's a pretty serious circuit box!

And this, of course, is the Mani-corn that sits outside and guards the supercomputer.

Random Pics

2011-04-07T10:33:00.000-07:00

Crazy color in the sky on this evening!

I hate snow... but sometimes it can be somewhat pleasing to look at.

Early spring skies at sunset.

Windy, early spring skies at sunset.

Crazy-high clouds filling the sky.

Neo

Daytime moon with clear skies.

I just liked the contrasting colors

Kodoma, up close and personal.

Name Game

2011-04-07T10:05:00.000-07:00

Gotta come up with a name for the little guy known so far as "Tadpole"

I knew right from the start, that I had the perfect name for this mini-human... Magnum Excalibur Skeletor Hutchison

What combination could possibly be more perfect and "powerful"!? I even have pictures to prove my point...

Magnum;

Excalibur;

Skeletor;

However... I don't think that Jessica and I are on the same page with this one...

Updates

2011-04-07T09:04:00.000-07:00

Judging from my blog, it definitely looks like life has been boring and lazy, but actually it's been anything but! With the news of the little one coming, there was an urgency to finally do some of the "planned" (only in my head) projects, in preparation. Plus... apparently, a vicious case of nesting for me.

First up was the spare bathroom! It needed some love, updating it from the fixtures of the 70's, refreshing the boring white walls...

...and fixing up the "enclosure" that was created to hide the hot water heater - the poor construction of which had long been driving me mad.

Not to mention the ugliness that was behind the enclosure, and the fact that really killed the light in that corner.

So... new fixtures, trim, paint, blinds, sink, faucet, staining, outlets and switches along with some general TLC, transformed the bathroom a good bit!

Especially the corner where the hot water heater resides.

It was a ton of work, reclaiming, repairing and refinishing the wood that was used in the original enclosure. Not to mention, designing a piece that would be removed easily enough for maintenance and repair at the heater, while making it secure enough to not just fall-off and crush someone; especially with a curious, small, climbing human on the way. I was pretty happy with the results though. Now we have a new shelf and more light in the corner as well.

Up next was the spare bedroom, which would of course become the room for the new mini-human roomate we'll have. It too was drab white, and needed paint after I removed the bunny wall-paper trim a couple years ago. Plus had some broken doors and a host of other small touch-up stuff, not to mention more fixtures from the 70's again.

Touch up on the walls, new paint, new fixtures, new outlets and switches, new closet door, and new bedroom door later, we had a much-improved room.

I think the cleaning out of our general belongings in what was our spare room, probably took the longest in this change!

Clarence was tired after all this, but there was plenty left to do!

Up next we were scheduled to have some workers repair and refinish our wood floors in the kitchen, bathroom and mini-human-roomate bedroom. Which of course just also happens to be the center of our house! Ugh... but the floors definintely needed some love! Here is the kitchen after the first day, which included replacing a couple of the boards (but which let us keep the great design that we loev, on the floors).

We were super-happy with the job they did, especially when you compare the same section a few days later!

And more of the kitchen floor!

The bedroom came out great too! And if you compare it to the floor in the picture of the updated room above, you can really see how much it lightened up the floor, as well as brought out the great look of the natural wood.

Neo was really psyched, and was jumping for joy at the completion of these major projects!

Of course, it just meant we had a ton of cleaning, re-organizing and a host of other "small projects" up next, that I still wanted to complete. But at least the house was liveable and getting back to normal!

Lately

2011-03-08T15:31:00.000-08:00

Last week we had to break in Jessica's new car, and decided that a trip to visit the Berger's would be perfect! So we packed up and headed west to visit the gang, especially looking forward to seeing the quickly growing Nate!

Nate should be as tall as me within another year, I figure, even at only 11 months old right now. We also found out that he loves to play peek-a-boo around the corner.

Over and over again...

It was a pretty chill weekend for us. We mostly just spent time hanging out with Berger's, doing some shopping and getting to bum around Glenwood Springs for a bit. I did see an awesome jacket that I'm hoping Jessica will get me for my birthday;

I think we tired out the rest of the family during our visit... Cooper is always ready for a nap;

With Daisy not far behind;

Definitely a diva;

Sunday came and we had to leave earlier than we wanted to, simply so we could beat the ski traffic. Jessica loves her new car;

And we had clear skies the whole way home, especially going through the always scenic Glenwood Canyon.

Since we've been back it's pretty much been non-stop preparation for the tadpole growing in Jessica's belly!

It was a foggy and snowy evening for the Elk the other day, but they didn't seem to mind one bit.

They must have known it was going to clear up and be a quiet and beautiful morning the following day. Even Kodoma seemed content in his frosty field.

Man in the Moon

2011-03-04T09:51:00.000-08:00

Did you catch the launch of the space shuttle last week? Mostly, I really liked this video I came across, definitely sweet. Man, I really would love to get down to Florida for one of the final launches, before the program gets scrapped.

I also came across this amazing ground photo of the International Space Station, including the docked ATV-2 and the Space Shuttle Discovery! Pretty amazing stuff, but unfortantely, no information on the equipment used to capture the photo.

On the same topic, there is an AWESOME chance for viewing the ISS next week. If you're on the front range, on Tuesday 3/8/11, at 6:52pm you will be able to see the ISS, traveling from 16 degrees above NW through 19 degrees above East, South-East, with a max elevation of 63 degrees which will be pretty good. The best part is that the Discovery should undock about a day before, so it will be following almost the exact same path, less than a minute behind, and should also be visible to the naked eye. I caught an almost identical pass a couple years ago, though with a better elevation, and it was so very cool. Fingers crossed for clear skies!

Kinda space-age related... I built another pair of purty wheels last night. How about a 42mm deep, aero wheelset that weighs less than 930g. for the pair!?

This set was built up using the AX-Lightness rims, Sapim CX-Ray spokes, Tune Mig 45 front hub and really crazy Tune Mag 150 rear hub.

Takes some careful work to lace the spokes on these bad boys, since it involves removing and reinstalling incredibly light aluminum endcaps and carbon fiber axles so that the straight-pull spokes can be installed.

The AX-Lightness rims are so very expensive. But at least I can say, they've been incredibly consistent in all the wheelsets I've built with them, much more so than any other carbon rim I've used, and they are incredibly well finished. Beautiful.

About 1.5lbs. lighter than the carbon wheels I I currently have... but I could definitely stand to take 1.5lbs. off my belly at this point anyway.

NAHBS Jumps the Shark

2011-02-28T13:53:00.000-08:00

Face it... the North American Handmade Bike Show has jumped the shark. This year, the bikes that I've seen so far, seem incredibly blah. It doesn't help when you have the same shitty cycling "news outlets" oohhing and ahhhing over the slightest change in powdercoat color of a bicycle top tube.

"What we did here was make a steel stem, just like people would do in the eighties... BUT THEN we got fucking crazy! We bought a stock, off the shelf stem face plate from Paragon Machine Works, and left it polished so that it wouldn't match the painted stem. And for the icing on the cake!? Well, we dug deep into our collective artisianal minds, and installed a grossly incompatible stem spacer under the top cap"

I'm not sure if you've ever seen a "slick" design... but this sure as fuck isn't that.

I admit that in part, this one partially pisses me off in that I'm currently working on a frame for myself that has a VERY similar design for the seattube, seat clamp and seatstay/toptube junction. However... I really think(hope) mine will look a lot more slick. I mean, one of the best (read: only) benefits of an integrated seatpost, is the very clean look you can achieve... and this one doesn't even come close to looking "clean".

How about this one!? Now, no doubt, I love the attention to detail that every single Vanilla bike proudly shows off. But this one is out of control! I mean, they didn't just stop with putting Di2 on this bike... they went the extra step and painted that shit PINK!

Really, the worst part is that I love the attention that most builders put to their bikes, and the little touches that they do when they build them. I can only hope that people notice the little things that I do, even when I'm just building wheels. I think the real problem comes from the shitty writing of the typical online bike news sites...or I just like to complain.

Wait... what!?

2011-01-07T13:41:00.000-08:00

The other night I made it home in time to snap a couple pictures and play with the camera some more. The moon was looking really cool last week. This pic came out fairly cool... unfortunately, I nearly froze to death, and the wind was bad enough that it blurred the shot a bit, even with the camera situated on a tripod.

Our pets live a really tough life and after a full day of sleeping, lounging, eating, and general laziness, they are usually pretty wiped-out by late evening;

Neo occasionally wakes up to be crazy for a bit.

But let's be honest... Jessica isn't the best influence, since she's usually passed out by about 8pm anyway.

Though, I guess to be fair... she does have a reason to be tired these days...

New Year's Eve

2011-01-07T13:22:00.000-08:00

After tearing up Denver on New Year's Eve last year, we decided to hang out at home, and have a few people up for a bit more relaxed party. It was a lot of fun, Jesse, Brittainy, Craig and Bonnie all came up to hang out and hit the hot tub on a frigid night. For dinner, we decided everyone would bring a favorite appetizer, and it quickly turned into an out of control feast! The kitchen was crazy-busy!

I had the FryDaddy working overtime making deep-fried pierogis for people;

Bring us more chicken wings Bonnie... and some ketchup too!

There was barely any room on the table for all the delicious food! We had chicken winds with two types of sauce, peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches (with the crust cut off) shrimp scampi, sauges links wrapped in bacon, stuffed mushrooms, deep fried pierogis, bread with dip, a bunch of other stuff, and of course, more than a few delicious alcoholic drinks.

After dinner, it was all of about 3 degrees outside, and the windchill was down to about 30 below! But we decided to brave it, and went out for a dip in the hot tub. I was wishing a few times that I had my snorkle with me, so I could have stayed completely in the water! Brittainy found a warm robe, and decided to play it safe indoors;

Yippee... made it through the New Year, and I think this is what most of the crew looked like by 12:36am

Good Enough for Santa

2010-12-30T07:48:00.000-08:00

The awesome wifey spoiled the shit out of me on Jeebus' birthday, with my favorite gift, the Sony NEX-5 that I've been lusting after for a few months now.

It's a totally dope camera so far. I love my Sony DSC-T200 point and shoot for it's absolutely small size and good performance. It's so easy to throw in a pocket and does a good job of taking pictures of all sorts. But I was really itching for a better processor, and a camera that could put a bit more control into. But I didn't want a big-ass DSLR that I wasn't going to take anywhere with me, because of it's big size. Enter the NEX-5. I love the tiny design, minimal buttons that you can even program, the tilty-screen and the ability to shoot HD video and 3D panaromas even. I've only played with it a bit, and mostly experimenting at that, but it's definitely fun. Quick picture of Tayler;

The dogs have been my test-subjects, doing portraits and action shots... though they aren't very predictable. We're dog-sitting my nephew Duncan for the holidays as well;

I took the camera outside to freeze my ass off the other night. The International Space Station was going to be visibly flying overhead, and I figured it was another fun test to try out the camera. This is the light it was able to pull, shooting from my hand, at 5:40pm, so it was nearly night-time out;

And it was even able to capture the space station! If you haven't seen it before, it typically just looks like a very fast, non-flashing airplane sort of light. I took this picture, tracking it by hand;

New Year's should provide some more testing subjects for the camera. And speaking of New Years, I'm finally better prepared this year! I really don't care for champagne, but this year managed to track down a bottle of Infinium to ring in 2011! For once, I'm definitely looking forward to the toast!

In the meantime I'll kill time waiting for the New Year by building my new Lego sets!

Blah, Blah, Winter, Blah

2010-12-29T14:35:00.000-08:00

It's been winter... it's cold and stupid. And even worse, cold without even any useable, playable snow. It always seems to be an extreme. Well, maybe I can stay inside and have some hot chocolate made with hemp milk... gotta love Nederland.

I've been up to a whole lot... and at the same time, not a freakin' thing. So I started messing around and have a new project in the plans...

I love when Mrs. T comes over for dinner, like she did the other night;

But I was too drunk from finally cracking open my Odell's aged Woodcut ale... which was freakin' pretty damned tasty!

And of course the holiday season has kept everyone extremely busy. Especially Leigh who has volunteered to guard the baby Jeebus tree, day and night, in order to make sure no harm comes to her catnip filled gifts!

And of course last week... was it last week? Was the Winter Solstice. So at least that means the days are getting longer now... but I think we have a really really long time until it starts getting warmer. Especially since it hasn't even started snowing yet! But this year had a full-moon winter solstice WITH a full lunar eclipse! It was pretty sweet. The skies were overcast, but cleared up just enough, as the eclipse got rolling. I was fully armed with binoculars, camera and the telescope... freezing my ass off, in 16 degree temps at 2am. But that's okay, it's always worth it. Taken with the iPhone4 through my telescope eyepiece;

Yesterday I trotted over to a local retailer in order to pick up the newly released first season of Archer (From the makers of Frisky Dingo, and one of my favorite shows since Frisky Dingo!), when I came across this highly-modified transport machine. Mostly it's really fucking funny... but part of me really loves that the driver of this machine obviously had a look around his shed, and pieced this together from the bits that he had. And that is pretty freakin' cool. But still, it's goofy.

Until next time... enjoy my favorite video of last week - I'm sure this one will have people going nuts - the KillCam replays were cracking me up! Enjoy!

Ride Like Tommeke...

2010-12-13T08:19:00.000-08:00

Ride like Tommeke...minus the coccaine!

I guess it's never too early to start prepping for "classics season". This was a pretty sweet pair of wheels that I built up for a friend of mine, using all the sweetest components that appear to be the choice of the real hard men of the sport.

Only proven stuff here, the Campagnolo Record hubs were zooted-out with the CULT ceramic bearing system.

Super strong, hard to find and very much sought after, Ambrosio Nemesis box section tubular rims.

And ultra-proven Sapim CX-ray spokes and nipples, laced 3-cross all -around of course.

The wheels built up quite well, with super even tension and with minimal hassle. The CULT bearings feel incredibly smooth, it will be interesting to hear how they hold up over time. Unfortunately my scale was screwed up, but it's not like you are overly concerned with weight on a set of wheels like this. They felt very reasonable though. All they need now is a proper gluing job, and I can only hope the owner does the right thing and insists on Vittoria Pave Evo CG rubber!

St. John, The Rest

2010-12-10T12:31:00.000-08:00

Our next day in St. John was bound to be epic... The plan was to charter a boat for our little group, that was going to go over to the British Virgin Islands for the day! We met at the dock at 9am, and we were off with our captain, who just happened to bring along 4 cases of beer and two gallons of fresh made Painkillers. The first stop was Tortola to get our passports stamped and "enter" the country. Not a bad little bay to sit in, while our crew handled the paperwork.

Along the way to our first stop we passed Gilligan's Island... no, really. This might look familiar as it was the island filmed for the opening sequence.

We had time to kill before the bar opened, yes, really, so the captain took us to this absolutely amazing little cove, where we could do some snorkling. I am sure the fish were used to getting fed by the boaters that came here, but that just meant that there were that many more fish out! This was some of the clearest water we snorkled in, ranging from about 35 feet deep to very shallow on the steep rock walls. There were also three seperate caves for us to snorkel into, and massive reefs, teeming with life! After about 90 minutes of snorkling there, we were off to Willy Ts, a bar on a "pirate ship" anchored off shore, in another stunning cove.

Like I said, the cove was pretty stunning. Not a bad view while I munched my conch fritters... and the beginning of the alcoholic beverages for the day.

But our next stop, was the one that everyone was REALLY looking forward to... The Soggy Dollar Bar. The only word I could use to sum this place up, would be "Heaven".

The name of the bar comes from the fact that the only way to get to this bar is by boat, so that means you're swimming into shore to get your drinks. But that really, really wasn't a problem. The water here was no doubt, the most insanely perfect shade of blue I have ever seen.

Jesse, Jessica and I did some snorkeling for a bit, though the reef wasn't that interesting. But I wasn't going to miss doing some swimming in this water. Especially since the plan for the rest of the day consisted of sitting on the beach drinking. Jesse and I volunteered anytime people needed us to swim out to the boat to pick up a few more beers.

I only managed to sit on the beach for about half an hour, before deciding it sounded like a much better idea to stand neck-deep in the water while enjoying my drinks. I really really loved the fact that the water was so warm, that you had to keep your drink above the water, in order to prevent it from getting warm too quickly. Right here is the life... relaxing on your sick boat, as the sun starts to drop at Soggy Dollar;

An amazing day out! Though people were getting pretty tired after a full day of sun, swimming, boating...

...and drinking... as one of us were about to get especially "bitten" by the alcohol.

The next morning was another rough one, but I wasn't about to miss another chance to hit the beach. So we were back at Salt Pond Bay, for an epic day of snorkeling, and saw some great sea life as well! Including a solid 40" Mackeral who was not very amused by me swimming up next to him so Jesse could get a good idea of scale! I really have no idea why I came back out of the water this day...

Jeff made a mass of kabobs that night and we all worked hard to drink up the last of our alcohol, you know, to make sure we didn't waste anything. Except for Brittainy... I'm pretty sure she didn't have any drinks that night!

The next day we had one more view from our amazing patio, and then it was time to start the long trip back. I swear it was all I could do to keep from throwing myself over the rail of the ferry and swimming for "freedom".

So my advice? Absolutely, most definitely go. But make sure you only get a one way ticket and by no means plan on coming back. Even if you aren't sure now that you don't want to come back, you'll understand once you get there.

St. John, part 1

2010-12-09T14:38:00.000-08:00

Well... it's been a bit over two weeks now since we returned from St. John in the US Virgin Islands. I've been hoping to do a blog post for awhile now, but I've been having serious issues adjusting back to "real life" and the colder weather here in Colorado. Ugh... I'm still not over it... I'd trade to be at the beach without a thought. Like I said, about 24hrs after my last post, we were unloading on the dock at St. John, after a short ferry ride over from St. Thomas. Jesse and I arrived before the girls, and we were waiting on the beach, dipping feet in the sand and ocean, waiting so we could get a live webcam shot from the phones. Jesse and I are in the bottom left of the picture, and that's Jessica at the bottom right of the picture, hurrying down the dock to meet us.

It was pretty surreal to be in the warm, salty air, standing on the dock that I've been staring at on my computer screen for the last 10 months! Once we were all gathered up, we were off to our amazing house, perched on the hills above Cinnamon Bay! No, really, click that link to see some pics of our amazing house. It was dark by the time we made it to the house, but that's okay, we woke up to amazing views, and every single morning, this was pretty much my view as I had my morning coffee and slowly woke up in the warm air!.

As you'd expect, I was in a crazy rush to head off for our first real shot at the beach. Up first was going to be the amazing (and most popular) Trunk Bay.

Though some off-shore weather meant this open beach had some very rough surf, with a short, crushing break. I braved it for a bit, but after Jessica got tossed pretty well with some bad timing on coming out, we decided to head someplace a bit more calm, where we could do some "more productive" swimming.

We ended up at Hawk's Nest Bay, which was a little bit more calm, but also safer. I could do some snorkling, but not too into the reef, as the waves were trying their hardest to drop you down upon the coral. No worries, it was all a real blast to be out and the beaches and weather, and sights in general were just amazing. Plus we had to be home for dinner... and what was our usual nightly plan... drinking island rum, Pain Killers, and locally crafted beer!

The next day we were off early to the far end of the island, where we hoped to hit Brown Bay. This beach was accessible only by about a 2 kilometer hike over a saddle in the hills and down to the bay. This bay is usually not very crowded due to the necessary hike, but we were really psyched to see that we were literally THE ONLY group there for the entire day! Our own beach with a great reef and crystal clear, flat water!

The snorkeling was pretty great, with tons of conch, crab, countless types of fish, starfish and colorful coral. After a few hours of snorkeling, we went back past Coral Bay;

And to the bar Skinny Legs, where I had the best jerk seasoned cheeseburger with local mango chutney, and I sat outside in the scorching sun, while the television covered a huge pile-up in the snow along I-25 outside Denver... I wouldn't have even considered going home at that point... That evening we threw a party and BBQ at our house, with our fellow travelers coming over from their house to party at ours. Massive consumption of theraputic alcoholic beverages took place.

The next morning, everyone was a bit slower to get up. But you know where we were headed... off to the beach! Today's goal was Salt Pond. Another beach with a short hike to get to, and on the far end of the island, so it should be a bit quieter again. I wasn't prepared at all, even with our last few days, for the beauty of this beach. It was simply stunning.

No doubt it helped that the beach had a total of two other groups besides us on it! And even better, the water was simply amazing and the coral was the by far the best I've seen since the Great Barrier Reef! The reef was just teeming with a crazy variety of fish! I think the part I tend to forget about having a beach like this (nearly) to yourself is just how quiet and relaxing it is.

Jesse and I snorkeled for a solid 3 hours easy. And after that? You guessed it... back to the "busy" side of the island for rum drinks and a tasty dinner at the Beach Bar.

Did I mention that our house was amazing? Our bedroom was pretty secluded, accessible only by outdoor pathway and staircase around the side of the house.

We had our own outdoor shower next to the patio (which took a bit of getting used to!), a patio, and even another section of patio around the corner with chairs and table, which had you neatly tucked into the jungle vegetation all around the house. In the room itself, the massive bed completely dwarfed little Jessica!

Another day, another amazing drive on the ridiculous roads on the island!

This time we were off to another island with a shorter still, hike as the only access, Waterlemon Cay. This beach again, absolutely stunned with it's beauty!

Lots of starfish, turtles, flounders and countless other sea creatures were found here too. Jesse and I snorkled out around the cay which dropped off quite a bit and the sea life along that deeper reef was just crazy. We were endlessly distracted as we circled back around to head to the beach. Not the least of the distractions was a huge ray that was nearly 5 feet across.

By now, everyone was definitely settling into full-on-vacation-mode.

And we definitely wanted to rest up for what the following day had in store...

Beach

2010-11-12T07:05:00.000-08:00

That's it... that's enough snow for me. In 24 hours I'll be walking down the dock;

The only problem being gone this weekend, is that it's time for the final Formula1 race of the year! And the championship isn't going to be decided until the end of this final race, at the amazing Yas Marina track in Abu Dhabi.

The only question is whether I give myself a complete media blackout, or not. Of course, I really hope that I'm floating around, breathing through a snorkle for the next week anyway, so that should make avoiding the media that much easier!

Last Weekend of Light

2010-11-10T07:50:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was shaping up to be pretty fun, with some great weather in the forecast. Saturday it was just entirely too nice to go to the Boulder Reservoir (again) for another race there. So instead I went for some Brian-time out on the geared cross bike, riding quiet singletrack from the house. It was pretty awesome, not just because it was November, and I was riding in shorts, at more than 8,000ft under clear skies!

Riding singletrack with "skinnier" tires is always a blast! And I love practicing my handling and descending skills on some gnarly, loose sections.

And another fun downhill section - all within site of the house from here!

Someday I'll have to capture some vid of the really good descent, that's burried in the woods. That one is really fun to pick your way down. Anyway, it was a great day to be out, and I had picked a good loop, because I only saw one other person out, after two hours of riding.

A small part of me really just wanted to keep riding, but a much bigger part of me was anxious to rush home and take out the moto! It was way too nice of a day, and was the first chance I had to ride in a good while. Sadly, it was also shaping up to look like it might be one of the last rides this season, since there's snow in the forecast. It was awesome to be back on the bike, and somehow the gods were smiling on me, as I didn't run into a single car, the entire way up St. Vrain Canyon! Nothing but 18 miles of open, twisty, well-paved canyon road ahead of me.

All in all, a great day.

Sunday it was time to get back onto the cross bike for some racing down in Castle Rock. I don't know if the course description was 100% accurate, but it was definitely WAY better than last year (though nearly identical) since last year there was 10" of snow on the course the day before, which had all melted for the race, turning it into a real slop-fest. Sunday was the opposite, dry and dusty. Overall I think the course was pretty fun. I ended up in a chase with Carlos, working hard to pull back Brady and Russell Kappius. And it was a good course to go hard and suffer on, so that was fun. I finished 4th after some big work for Carlos, who wasn't quite able to catch the Kappius duo at the finish.

However, the time change sucks... and this being the first race of the time change, meant the sun was super low at the start of our race, and made it absolutely impossible to see sections of the course. Though it might have been worse, that it was dark well before I made it home. Ugh.

Catch the Gates Carbon Drive Team update here.

Now... a shitty week of snow and cold and of it being dark when I get to leave my cubicle prison each evening. But I don't think I really care, because on Friday it's time for a plane trip to someplace my warmer. I've had my fins, snorkle and mask packed for a week, and I just plan on wearing my swim suit on the plane so that I'm ready to go when we get there!

Halloween

2010-11-02T13:03:00.001-07:00

Expectations

2010-10-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

Anyone doing the road bike race at the mall this weekend!?

Sometimes I really think people around here just give up, and don't expect much from courses anymore. This course probably does a half-way decent job of making a course from what the area provides... but come on! This is supposed to be a UCI race with NACT status.

A Bit More From SSCXWC'10

2010-10-27T13:00:00.000-07:00

Some more good video... another one from the qualifiers (believe me, the camera doesn't do justice at all, to the steepness or length of "bum hill";

And some good video showing a few different portions of the course on race day. Especially since the live coverage didn't show very much of the course, with their mostly static cameras.

Catch my full family-friendly update from the weekend over at the Gates Carbon Drive blog! I love this picture, generously provided by Glenn Bunselmeyer, since it does a good job showing the condition of the course, and especially because it caught my own cheering squad at the top of the hill! Thanks for coming out Nickle and Janine!

Well... I guess it's back to racing in the jack-hammer hard-packed "grass" this weekend. Ugh. Though they're running a special deal on the races this weekend! That's right... they attached an NACT logo onto the flyer, extended the single speed category to 60 minutes (at least that part is cool), and offered up special pricing; The usual $25 for the first 45 minutes of racing, and then $1 for each minute after that. Fucking lame.

SSCXWC'10 Qualifier Races

2010-10-26T14:24:00.001-07:00

Here's an awesome vid, to give you an idea of the qualifier race, for the Single Speed Cyclocross World Championships!

The race was a total roll of the dice for out-of towners. We were armed with a VERY vague map of the course, and sent out to find our way through Seattle on open roads, bike paths, tunnels, stair cases, parks, bridges, and highway embankments - while making sure to hit several different checkpoints.

The rule of the day was "Find the fast Seattle guy in your group, and stick with him"! Four riders from each heat qualified, so right from the gun, I helped force a selection of four, and then we all worked together to drive the pace and make sure we all qualified. The legs felt great, and I was happy to do as much work as possible letting everyone know, "Just tell me when to turn!"

Awesome. I haven't had that many pre-race jitters in a long time, and they were all wiped clear once the race was over and I had won the "sprint" for our group!

SSCXWC'10

2010-10-21T08:29:00.000-07:00

It's time to head West for the Single Speed Cyclocross World Championships! Should be a real good time!

And it looks like the weather is going to "cooperate"... that is if you were hoping for real North-West cyclocross weather!

It might not be the best weather for us desert inhabitants coming from Colorado. But with any luck, I think we just might have an advantage using the Gates Carbon Belt Drive if it gets ridiculously muddy. Nothing like some proper product testing!!

(Thanks @Raleighs_Sally for the picture!)

But don't worry! No matter where you are this weekend, you don't have to miss the fun. Catch the live stream, and on demand, at MFG Cyclocross!

Winter Approaches

2010-10-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I just wasn't motivated to hit the Interlocken cross race, even though it's usually a pretty cool, grassy course. Sounds like it was a super power-sapper, and the grass was wetter than ever. No biggie, it was cold and grey and my winter laziness was creeping in. So instead I went out to hit some of the top-secret singletrack near the house, on the cross bike. I think the weather had scared everyone out of the mountains, and so it was super quiet and no one was out, not even on the roads. Some of the trees were still looking pretty sweet, though the camera did a bad job (or rather "I did") of catching the true colors.

Sunday I couldn't resist the lure of a new cyclocross course, so I piled into the car with Carlos and went out to Beuna Vista for the On the River cross race. Definitely a long drive for a 45 minute race, but at least it's usually quite scenic, and it's good to support the smaller race promotors that are brave and put on a race that's far from the front range!

Warming up it wasn't the most "crossy" of cross courses, but once up to speed in the race, it was at least a pretty fun course to ride. I had two stumbles in the race, which took me out of contention, but I was fairly happy with the legs at least. I posted a quick race report over on the Team Gates Carbon Drive Blog. Finished up in 3rd and then another long drive back home.

Some more high-country racing planned for the weekend, doing the Aspen race up in Allenspark. That should be pretty fun, and it will be intersting going the "wrong direction" from the house, for a bike race. I might even double-up, since the scheduled is switched up, and not the usual (stupid) mandated schedule that nearly all the races have.

In the meantime, Gates put together a sweet video introducing the team and high lighting our race at Cross Vegas!

And coming up next week? SSCXWC!!!!

Cross Catch-up

2010-10-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago Craig and I jumped into the car to head out to Frisco for some cross racin'. The Frisco races are always fun, the courses are well-done and a bit unique, the altitude is a dizzying 9,500ft and you never know what the weather is going to do. Plus, I like going up "into the mountains" to race; I love the atmosphere up there, and think it's only right that we should go up there a few times a year, after we make them drive every weekend to do the same (mostly boring) courses the rest of the weekends.

Check out the Gates Blog for a race report that I threw together on the race. More specifically, for me, the race started BLAZING fast. I was just off the lead group going into the single track, and felt horrible after the start - taking a full lap to recover. But then I started feeling better, and with about 3.5 laps to go, I was able to go nice and hard again. Thanks to the awesome announcing, I knew I was getting closer, but I had let the gap get to big in the early part of the race, to be able to close things back down. That's okay though, I was stoked to see the team take 1st and 2nd, and being able to ride that fast and hard at the end of the race is a good thing. with any luck I'll start to have the form coming back around, as I still work to blow the 30+ road races out of the legs from this long season.

This past weekend I was feeling lazy on Saturday, I think the colder weather rolling in, was working to kill all motivation. So no racing for me, though I got out for a great ride on some "top secret" trails near the house, on the geared cross bike. I had to wear way too much clothing, but at least the weather scared people away, so it was a nice quiet ride. A little brain-flossing.

Sunday was going to be a long day as Carlos and I were heading out to Beuna Vista for the cyclocross race out there. Quite a long drive, but it's a new (last year) course that I haven't done, so I figured what the heck. There was a decent chance of rain and/or snow, especially at that altitude, but it held off for us. Though there was an evil, steady, hard wind to make the course that bit harder. We had a smaller field, but with some real quality there. I was riding pretty well, minus two bobbles that I had, forcing me to run the sand once, and stepping off the bike on this steep decent another time. But I (mostly) chased back on both times. And while I ended up racing just for second, I was able to do a ton of work for Carlos, to make sure he would secure 2nd place, while I could hold on for 3rd, after managing to drop the other guy that was making up our group. Not great, but the legs were better.

I wasn't able to grab a picture at CrossVegas, that really captured the course and the atmosphere, but leave it to my man Elgee! Check it out! ...you were expecting strippers, weren't you!?

Cross Vegas Wrap

2010-09-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

Last week the Gates crew jumped into planes, trains and automobiles, and headed west for good ol' Interbike. It sounds like the Gates crew had a great time at the outdoor demo, with lots of people stopping by to check out the bikes! With limited time off, I wasn't able to make the outdoor demo, and got in late the day before the show started. Jesse was traveling with me, and first thing in the morning, after a few more asprin, we were off to the show.

Overall, I was pretty dissapointed in the show. It seemed pretty much like a repeat of last year, with just a few minor additions being shown off. Though I've got to say straight away, I'm pretty much in hardcore lust with the new Raleigh SSCXWC carbon cross bike, setup with the Gates Belt!

I must have one! The smoothness of the 1,050g carbon, the new Enve cross fork, the crazy-smooth belt-drive... with some proper handbuilt tubular wheels and safe parts pick, you're looking at a ride in the 15lb. range without even trying too hard. Speaking of single speed parts... the new TRP RRL Singlespeed brake levers. They combine the Campy 11 and new Shimano style levers into one, that somehow feels even more like the original Mektronic lever. Awesome. I hope Hudz gets to work on a aftermarket hood for those!

Anyway, after a couple hours on the show floor, it was back to the hotel to prepare for the Wheeler's and Dealers Cross Vegas race! Whew... the legs were definitely feeling the hours on the show floor. I'm glad I chose to ride the bike out to the race, even though it was uphill and a hot headwind the entire way. Then it was time to meet up with the Gates crew before the race, chat, and do some pre-laps together. In town were Carlos, Derek, Brad, myself, and Peter riding with us from "The Michigan Branch".

The pre-ride confirmed my thoughts going into this race... the 99% grass course was going to be hard as hell for me. Being a smaller guys makes it tough when it's time for courses that favor absolute power. On the good side, I LOVE grassy corners that you can just rail, technical sections and ridiculously fast barrier sections. This year the course had three barriers, which definitely made me smile.

It was going to be a downright vicious start, as callups were based on registration, so plenty of fast guys would be surging to get to the front right away... and that's exactly the way it played out. Luckily for me, while in 60th place, I had Matty Pronovost directly in front of me, and Mike Robson directly behind. With the three of us, we attacked hard, winding our way through the crowd together, until I had to leave them to go on their own. Carlos absolutely drilled it and made it up to the front group... yes, with all the geared guys!

I moved up well at the start, but then mostly just held my position, moving up a bit through the race, and not getting caught in the no less than 3 crashes that were right in front of me. I was feeling good on the bike, but it was hard, hard work. Hard enough that I was actually wishing for some of those dry, loose corners that we have in Colorado, where I can make some time. The crowd was much bigger than expected, already for our race, and that definitely helped the motivation! Some vid that lets you see the course, and a couple good shots of me and Derek and some other Gates kits in there;

In the end, Matty Pronovost had an incredible ride (on his sweet 14lbs. Moots - that he's now sad isn't built with a belt!) took the single speed win, with an incredible 7th place finish overall. Gates faired quite well ourselves, with Peter in 2nd, Derek in 3rd, Carlos in 4th or 5th, and myself in 6th! After the race, all the pressure was off, and it was time to drink some beer and watch the pros go at it. I wish I would have ridden better, but if nothing else, it was a super fun race - plus Colorado riders took the SS and Overall wins! I have no doubt the entire team had a great time at the race, and I know all the Gates crew that were still in town from the Outdoor Demo, had a great time cheering us on as well - all while providing incredible support for us! The Mantis...

And for your tech update? Everyone's belt drives were incredible! Just spot on, without a single creak or issue, and everyone was completely stoked with the performance from the system. No doubt, it was super-smooth and felt great.

And then... more time out on the town in Vegas... getting back in quite late... or "early" depending on how you look at it. The next day was more time at the show, and the highlight being an autograph session with Ale-Jet himself. Awesome! That will be a good one for the collection. It was also a good chance for probably my favorite part of the weekend - watching the laugh from Pettachi when Jesse told him; "You make me so happy when you beat Cavendish".

The weekend was a bit more quiet, after a very busy week. And feeling a bit under the weather, I decided to skip the racing. That's okay, because the team absolutely CRUSHED it. Carlos won on Saturday, with Ben making his first team appearance in 5th, while on Sunday Mitch took the win, and the team went 1st thru 5th in the results! Instead, I snuck out for a mountain bike ride with Craig, in Golden. It was the first time I had been on gears in several weeks, and man... it felt like cheating. But some relaxing flow on the mountain bike did wonders for clearing the head!

Game On

2010-09-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it, there was a great little press release for the Gates Carbon Drive Cyclocross Team published last week over at CXMagazine - a great site in it's own right!

As for me, the reintroduction to "race-pace" started on Saturday, when I went down to Colorado Springs for the Pikes Peak Velo Cross race. I have to admit that they usually put on a great race, but a portion of me definitely does the drive, so that we can hit one of the extremely rare Dunkin Donuts in Colorado. This race always seems to have cold weather, but the forecast looked down right hot, and it was a gorgeous morning at the house. Though I definitely worried for a few minutes when I came over the ridge, and dropped into Boulder with 50 degree temps and drizzle, even at noon!

Colorado Springs was very hot and dry with a good bit of wind though. The course was similar to last year, but definitely rode differently, since there was a constant rain shower during the race last year.

The Single Speed race was pretty much between myself and Travis, taking off together from the start. I was a mess however, and my brain and body didn't seem to be riding for the same team. It was taking a bit to adjust to the slippy, technical riding at race-pace, not helped much by a leak in my front tire. It sealed up, happily, but I didn't have nearly enough pressure for the powdery conditions. Still finding the right gear on the Gates Drive too, it turned out I was a touch over-geared for the course. That made things tough, as I had to push really hard on the short "high-gear" section, to put time into Travis, and then push even harder, to keep the gear rolling on the steeper, slower stuff, where he was making time on me.

In the end, Travis put in a huge chase to come back, passed me into the last uphill barrier, and while we raced straight to the line, he was the faster man. Whew... that was a tough race, but at least that should kick-start the body after a month away from racing.

I hadn't really planned on racing again on Sunday, but how could I resist!? Especially with the majority of the new team coming out to play? Even worse than Saturday though, it was 96 degrees at the start of our race, and the legs were feeling rough. I had a great spot on the front row though, and figured I'd drill it from the start, not being sure how long I would even last. it was Carlos and I at the front, forcing a nice selection of riders, right from the gun. Once again Travis was flying and he had a bit of a gap on me, after Carlos had a bit of an off. Mitch came flying past though, and raced right up to Travis (pretty great having teamates), and I settled into a nice steady rhythm with Garrett on my wheel.
(Credit to SixDegreesToSlush for the great photos!)

Unfortunately though, I came around the corner and Mitch was off his bike, tending to some issues - figures, he was the only teamate NOT on his Gates bike yet.

So it was back into chase mode, hoping Mitch would fire back around soon enough. It took him a bit longer than he had hoped, but he got back up to second, after a bit too much time on the side of the trail kept him from getting all the way up to Travis. Meanwhile for me, the heat and Saturdays effort, convinced me let two riders get past at the end, finishing in 5th. It was great though, being in a single speed race (both days really) with lots of battling back and forth between riders, and close time gaps all the way up to the finish!

More than anything though, I was relieved that I hadn't forgotten how to ride my bike, and after a sketchy day on Saturday, I had no dabs on Sunday, and was much, much smoother. I tweaked my gearing a bit, and that helped, and also worked a few minor things out on the bike, so it ran bombproof all day Sunday. After two really dusty days, there would have been a lot of chainlube to go through, but the belt drive was still totally smooth and quiet yesterday - the opposite of my lungs coughing up the dust. Garrett and Carlos battled through with some issues with flats, while Derek snuck in for 7th place, just warming up after a busy weekend of his own.

I definitely think we're all looking forward to a ton more great racing in the upcoming races.

And after more than a year and a half of waiting, I'm dying to do some racing of another sort, starting tomorrow!

Gates Carbon Drive Cyclocross Team

2010-09-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

Keep an eye out this cyclocross season for the new Gates Carbon Drive Cyclocross Team!

The Gates Corporation, known around the world for their amazing belts, hoses and hydraulics, and also creator of the Gates Carbon Drive bicycle system, is throwing their might into a front range cyclocross team, that I'm definitely pumped to be a part of!

Another sponsor will be Spot, who is providing the team with their awesome new Mod SS Cyclocross frames! This past week I received mine, and got it all built up, save for a few small pieces that I'll swap out. At just 16.4lbs, it's pretty impressive for a steel frame.

And is of course specifically designed to work with the Gates Carbon Drive system. With a set of slider dropouts and chain/seat stay combination that opens to allow the belt to be fit. It's a great setup, and isn't over-done with huge, bulky slider dropouts like so many other bikes out there.

On even my first ride on the bike, I was surprised by just how quiet and smooth this belt drive is! And I'm quite particular when it comes to the setup of the chain tension and chain line on my current single speeds.

Of course, the sweet "Ernie Orange" color doesn't hurt things either!

As great as the sponsors and bike are, I'll be riding with some great guys too. It will be great to ride with Derek and Carlos from my HART days, and Garrett, Ben and Mitch, all of whom I've raced against in the past.

Can I retire now?

2010-09-09T10:07:00.000-07:00

Royalty checks should start rolling in any day now!

Almost Built

2010-09-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

More on the cyclocross season, coming soon!

Rollin' Myrtle Beach style on 35s...

2010-09-03T17:33:00.000-07:00

Seasonal Changes Coming

2010-08-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

Another busy week! Even more so this week, as road season is wrapping up, and cyclocross season is doing it's usual, and completely sneaking up to surprise! Not the least bit of surprise, was the beginning of some trees changing in Four-Mile Canyon. I swear, that is always the first place I see them changing! At the same time the week seems to be moving along slowly, as there is beach-time on my horizon!

The weekend before at the BRC crit, I cracked one of my beloved Shimano wheels. But that meant I was wide open to do some testing on a new pair of wheels that Nico at Cycling Technology is checking out. They're built (by me of course) with a new design on the C4 hubs, Sapim spokes, and using a new carbon clincher rim. They're VERY affordable and weigh in at just 1,300g for the pair. Not bad at all. They're pretty good-looking to boot;

They worked quite well in the racing this weekend too! Saturday was the Raisin Hope Crit, where I did the 35+ race, and the team took the win after we got a selection to go, including Mr. Coyle, who took out the final sprint. Sunday was the Primal (HART) Crit, in a mere 100 degrees. The race was hard, and I was on the front early in the race doing a lot. With my job done, I missed the last couple laps, but had a good seat to see the Groove-Subaru train showing it's might coming into the last lap, where they did a great job setting up Lance for the win!

Jonathan Vaughters gave it some thought, and declared that he was quite impressed;

Ever notice how all pictures of JV these days seem deserving of a funny caption? I like my captions simple though. I came across this picture this week, and I don't even need to tell you, that it says a million words without even thinking about a caption.

Anyway... Didn't someone say something about cyclocross season?

Yeah, that's right, it's sneaking up on us crazy-fast! And no doubt things are moving fast as this week I accepted an offer to join up with a new cyclocross team for this fall! It's going to be a blast, and even with all the team management work I've done, I've been nothing but impressed with how things have been handled so far! Official announcements and pictures and all that coming soon, but for now, this is all you get;

Like I said, it's going to be a lot of fun, I'm even riding with some guys I've enjoyed riding with in the past, AND it's going to be a strong team, which is always a great too!

Things are moving quickly, and I've already booked tickets to head out to Interbike with the sponsors, where the team will be jumping in the Wheelers and Dealers race too! With any luck, a shiny new bike will be here when I get back from the beach, waiting to go out and get muddy! Or more like "dusty" since we live in Colorado anyway!

Anyone for barrier practice!?!?

Empty Nest

2010-08-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

Gorgeous sunset the other night;

Unfortunately, I think it spurred Manny, Moe and Jack, to move out into the big wide world. They were starting to look pretty antsey, on the edge of their nest;

And before we knew it, they were off! At least Jack stoppped for a minute on his way out, as if to say good by (and thanks for putting the dryer vent underneath the first home he ever knew.

We missed them pretty much right away, and now as you walk up to the front door it just feels as if something is missing, with that big empty nest. Pretty wild though, Jack was sitting near the nest, on the flower planter the following morning when I was headed out the door on my way to work.

Well, there's fresh dirt on the cross bike now. Yesterday was the first day I had it out for a ride in earnest. Always feels especially wild the first day, switching to a "road bike" with a long wheelbase and squishy tires, that just wants to run really fast on dirt terrain. Just in time too, I had my latest shipment arrive of "care products" from the gang at Mad Alchemy. They seem to have something for every weather condition, or skin condition that you may run into!

I know it's not just me, and everyone would have thought math was more fun during school if we used it in such practical matters as finding "God's Number";

5,120

2010-08-10T14:33:00.000-07:00

The number of hours I've estimated that I've spent in this dandy little office. Definitely one of the more depressing realizations I've had in a while.

Guess what? It rained again yesterday. But at least I noticed this dude on the way home. I couldn't really tell if he was indeed sexy or not; he had on a full-face helmet. I bet he makes a lot of people mad that they didn't think of that license plate though.

Since it was raining, Neo, Tayler and I were just doing more of our usual chores last night. We were out plucking thistles so the neighbors don't tattle on us, and we stumbled right onto these guys. Of course, the dogs didn't even notce, only I did. Probably a good thing I'm sure.

Then I noticed they were back this morning, a bit closer to the house this time, hanging out while I made my coffee.

Manny, Moe and Jack are bigger everytime I look. Now they notice you looking at them, and you can just sense that they have the feeling that I shouldn't be so close to them. I have a feeling they'll be out of the nest really soon.

Tomorrow is Wednesday... I wonder if it's time for cx worlds to roll yet?

Insert Title Here

2010-08-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

Busy weekend... though we didn't have much planned at the start of it all! Friday I got home, and oddly enough, it was raining again. But I took the time to do some inside work, and finally wrapped up the bathroom remodel. The only thing left now, is returning a bit of the mural to it's "pre-construction state", which will likely take a bit more artistic paint talent than I possess.

Saturday I actually had a chance to sleep in. I was trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do for the day, being very indecisive when I got a message from Chuck looking for some company at the velodrome. Sure, why not... so I was on my way down there, and we had the track to ourselves to see if we remembered how to turn left. Chuck had some racing planned for later that night, and after I got home, I got an invite to come join the racing. Totally unplanned, but too good to pass up. I had plenty of time for Jessica and I to take the doggies to Barker Reservoir for some illegal swimming (more like wading) and doggie off-leash time. They had a blast. After a short nap I was headed back down to the track for some low-key racing. It was good times, even though I was just saying during the morning track session, that I was trying to be good and not cook the legs before the two crit races I had managed to convince myself into doing on Sunday. Oh well... scratch that after 3 hours at the velodrome.

Turned out we also added a 9:30am showing of "The Other Guys" with Jesse and Brittainy, to kick off the day! ...it was going to be a long day. The movie was pretty hysterical, not the best, but still quite funny in it's humor. Just plain good. After the movie I was off to the Bannock crits. I saw this course worker, doing some corner maintenance, with way more than her share of "Cat5 tattoos". How do you even do that, that many times!?!?

The 35+ race was up first, and we had a pretty solid team for the day. Unfortunately, we messed up the finish for the win, but we did manage to take three of the primes, and a fourth place. I about knocked myself out of the race, doing a huge (2-blocks too long) lead-out for Lance to take the one prime. Oh well, always good training.

The P/1/2 race was next, and the field was stacked. It wasn't too bad floating in the second half of the field... that was until the thunderstorms rolled in. It never really rained that hard, but the course was an out-and-out ice-skating rink. In just two laps I managed to avoid at least 5 crashes in front of me, before being forced to chase too long, and then pulling the plug. All through the race, there were still crashes happening, right up to the finish.

This morning it looked like more of the same with the showers coming in for the day;

Manny, Moe and Jack were all snuggled-in for the morning showers, but continue to be noticably bigger every single day;

And now, coming back from lunch, there is a MASSIVE cloud working it's way over the divide, and is looking ready to put the smack-down on us. No worries... we should definitely have our afternoon thunderstorms... for what must be the 100th day in a row. Ugh.

July Recap

2010-08-03T08:41:00.001-07:00

I really need to get back on top of my blogging schedule. Work is just going to have to wait... In the meantime, let's do a full-on, fast-forward recap of July events!

July 4th was our second anniversary, and the gift for that is of course cotton. Being that, Jessica got me an awesome (and very fitting I might add!) tshirt;

A few friends came up to celebrate with us, and have a bit of a party. Good times hanging out and waiting for the fireworks. We had our doubts, since some very nasty storms and cold rain rolled in, just in time for the fireworks in Ned, but we went to town anyway. The place was nearly empty, but that's alright, it meant we nearly had the place to ourselves, and the fireworks, as always, were great! The finale;

July is also birthday month of course, and Jessica was awesome, spoiling me all along the way. It's Jesse's birthday too, and for our fun birthday activity, we decided to go to do some go kart racing! It was a blast, and just so much fun. Especially when I was totally working over two separate guys in carts that were WAY faster than my little rental, by using my superior driving skills and tactics. It was like getting to drive your car, the way you really want to, and without worrying about "abusing" it. I was pushing my cart HARD, but I just wanted the guy running the track to turn his back for a few minutes, so I could risk losing control and really find the limit of the cart.

We got a new hummingbird feeder, and it's very popular with the birds in the yard. I was obssessed for a few days, with getting some pictures of them playing around the feeder.

The battle rages on...

Nailed the pic of this one!

I got out for a nice ride on the single speed, up in Kenosha with Craig, which was a blast.

Craig coming up to the pass;

Perfect day for the ride, and I hadn't done it before... there's not many things sweeter than completely new single track! This one is looking down towards Breck - gotta come back and do the full length to town!

The parents came into town for a week, which was pretty awesome. Good to see them, and we got to do some relaxing, but also a good amount of work. Started with some bathroom remodeling;

We hit up the big Harley shop for my dad, and even made the trip to Greeley for my favorite place, Cazadores. We spent another day in Estes Park, just doing the tourist thing.

Just to make sure the house was as full as possible, we even took little nephew Ouray in, for about 12 days of doggy-camp. Neo and Tayler had a new little puppy to teach, and play with. He was a pretty good little house guest, even with his ridiculous ears;

Jessica was the maid of honor at our friend Lisa's wedding, and after dinner, someone broke out the Slip'n Slide. Not even the bridesmaids, IN their dresses were to be denied a trip down the slide!

July wasn't the busiest month of racing for me, with so much else going on (we won't even get into the "regular job" nonsense), but I did make it out for the Mike Kornfield Crit. The race went pretty well. We weren't psyched with having just Lance in the break that finally established (simply due to numbers), so we worked until we were able to launch Baker across to the group. Baker ended up with the win, and Lance took 4th. I got to do lots of hard digs at the front of the main group.

We had a new addition to the family, after one of the little birds in the yard built a nest in our wreath! I named them Manny, Moe and Jack. It's crazy how much they grow EVERY single day! I can't imagine it will be long until the fly away, and I don't think I'll be able to convince Jessica to let us domesticate them.

The rain we've gotten the past month has been insane. The one positive is that the flowers have been growing like MAD! I've never seen so many at our house, and certainly no where near this many sticking around so long, and living so late into the summer!

Well, now it's August. Let's see if I can actually update this month, and not need to do a full month recap again!

Mmmmm... Saturday Brunch

2010-07-31T15:11:00.000-07:00

Me and My Tranny

2010-06-30T07:18:00.000-07:00

Everyone loves the curves on a sexy Tranny, and now I have my very own to play with in the woods...

Like most trannys; it's got just "one coque"

It will even open my beers for me;

Okay... enough silly Tranny references! At any rate, I broke down and picked up an Ibis Tranny. If you haven't seen one, it builds up a pretty versatile machine! You can run it with gear like a regular hardtail, or you can run it as a single speed. The unique beauty is in the "Slot Machine" rear triangle, which pivots/extends so you can adjust your chain tension without eccentric bottom brackets, chain tensioners, or trying to even-up your sliding dropouts. Heck, you can even take the rear triangle off, and pack the bike in a smaller bag if you want to do some traveling with it.

I was of course building this up as a single speed, and in this build, the bike has a nice sweet, clean look to the drivetrain.

To celebrate the new Tranny-love, I hid my road bike, and spent the whole weekend on the trails in Ned, testing out the new bike. My previous single speed was fully-rigid, so between the 100mm fork, and the buttery smooth carbon frame, this onen almost feels like cheating. "Almost"... it's still very much a single speed.

As I had hoped it would, it rides amazing... just like the Silk Road I had last year, and my Hakkalugi cross bike. It's fast, real fast. The 1,350g frame built up pretty light, right at 20lbs., though I was hoping for it to be slightly lighter. At the same time, I didn't really get any true lightweight parts for it. It will "get" a lot faster, as I spend more time on the trails, remembering how to ride the dirt - that always takes a couple rides during road season.

Now if I could just get out of this stupid cube... I could go play with my tranny.

Ever-Expanding

2010-06-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

I ate a lot this weekend, but that's okay...

New Camera

2010-06-25T13:43:00.000-07:00

Not just a new camera, but the new iPhone 4 camera. It's pretty damn sweet for a phone camera!

The video side of things might be even more awesome... I'll try to upload one of those soon. More updates on the phone soon as well, but so far, the screen resolution and cameras steal the show!

TGIF

2010-06-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

The end of the fiscal year at work has been kicking my ass!

Summer is finally getting here, and staying, with a slight relief from the daily rain. First I had to get through The Rocky Mountain Omnium with ridiculous storms on the way out to Glenwood and literally a full day of rain on Saturday for the crit, including a hail storm at 5am. Overall, the racing was very "blah", but it was good to get out and see Harry, Danielle, and the ever-growing Nate. An evening storm cloud from a couple weeks ago;

This past weekend was pretty relaxing, and Jessica and I started a busy Saturday, with a short hike at Betasso with Tayler and Neo. "Senior Portraits" are always a must;

They were all-toungue afterwards, after the day was quick to heat up, and we had much more to do for the day!

I had a chance to treat myself a bit ago, and I never like to miss one of those chances! So I picked up the FSA Tensionometer that I've been lusting after for quite some time. I don't believe they're even making these anymore, their just selling through the ones that they made.

The link above has a great write-up on all the gory details of the little machine, if you're interested. It really is a sweet, sweet little device. Especially if you're into fun, overly designed tools such as this, and you take pride in particularly well-balanced spoke tensions. I love that this tensionometer functions without a million different charts, for each spoke that you use. Especially given the number of different types of spokes I tend to build with. I've built about 4 pairs of wheels with this meter now, and am really getting the hang of how it works, and how much change I need with the nipple, to get the measurement where I want it. Probably the coolest thing though, is the consistent repeatability of the measurements, compared to using the Wheelsmith or Park gauges. Expensive, but I love it... plus it's made with a carbon fiber body and jeweled dial movement that is shock, dust, and water proof.

Two of the pairs of wheels I built using the new tensionometer were a couple pairs of Edge 1.68 rims with Sapim CX-Rays and using the new Chris King road hubs.

Always a fan of King, I was excited to build up a couple sets of these hubs. As usual with King stuff, they were no-nonsense, simple, and beautiful. I was hoping for a slightly lighter bearing feel, but I'm likely just forgetting that Kings can be stiff till they break in after a few rides. Don't get me wrong, they were great! And the wheels, even with 20/24 spoke lacing, weighed in at 1,250g. Pretty awesome for a strong yet aero set of wheels.

Apparently never content with the amount of carbon fiber in my life, a new family member is about to join us!

No doubt... more details and pics coming soon!

Grilling Season

2010-06-10T07:45:00.000-07:00

Summer season is upon us, and what could be more Amurican than grilling out on the patio!? Only one thing... grilling out on the patio with your shiny new Hot Rod Grill!!

And "only" $695. That doesn't leave much coin for high-quality hot dogs. Though you better have some money left over, because I can't imagine using this thing WITHOUT the spark plug-shaped cornholders!

Did the first of the Boulder TT series last night, it was somehow my first TT of the year as well. It only took about 30 meters before I remembered how painful TTs are. Mostly the good pain though... at least it helped me sleep last night. And I'm straight back to it, with another TT tomorrow night to kick off the Rocky Mountain Omnium. Should be a good weekend since we'll be visiting the Bergers as well. The weather might make it interesting though...

I hope you're bored... because you should sit back, relax and listen to one of the best radio interviews I've heard in a long while;

"On this edition of All Songs Considered, John Lydon shares some of his favorite songs with host Bob Boilen, and gets in some memorable digs along the way."

Don't be that douchebag that thinks Sid is the singer from the Sex Pistols.

Sightings

2010-06-04T14:51:00.000-07:00

I wonder if the driver of this car was forced to make this declaration under duress?

I just hope that if I have a stroke, I remember to tell those around me, that I saw this great ad for Swedish and it's awesome treatment of stroke victims;

I love Porsche's... always have. But let's be honest, the Cayenne is far from the fairest beauty out there. And then people go and add a rear mount, external tire mount and carrier to it!? I tried to find a price, but wasn't able to. I can only imagine how much extra it costs to extra-uglify your Touareg... I mean "Cayenne".

The resale value of this sedan just went WAY up! I mean, check out the attention to detail that was taken, when the owner used a Sharpie to write "I heart Weed" all over both seats, front and rear, and all over the doors and dashboard as well. Watching this driver get pulled over, would make an awesome episode of COPS.

Have a great weekend!

Bikes and Snow

2010-06-03T07:14:00.000-07:00

Just because it was snowing all through May, doesn't mean I can't get some new bikes at least! First up was the new TT rig; the Blue Triad.

It came out pretty sweet. I wish it was a bit lighter, but it makes up for it by being awfully "skinny". Not much for the air to bite into here;

It rides pretty nice too. Very stiff, and probably the quietest TT bike I've had. Position is good and it's ready to roll. Still getting used to it a bit, but I'm psyched to have it for some of the time trials that will be coming up over the next months. It works even better, now that the dreaded snow in these pictures is long gone (for now).

Also from Blue, I've been doing my road riding on a shiny new RC8, kitted-out with Dura-Ace and Aerus bits. It's been a pretty solid ride as well, and it's starting to feel like "home" now. I'm even remembering how to switch back from the SRAM shifters, to the light touch, and double levers of the Dura-Ace shifters.

Zac picked his TT bike up from me the other day, and being without a car, we made due with his RC8. So see? An RC8 can do everything a car does, PLUS win bike races! The funnest part of this picture, is that it doesn't even look all that much out of place here in Boulder.

Oh yeah, and the bike team... you may be wondering how the Subaru-Groove Auto Team is doing this year? Well, we're fucking crushing it! Two 2nd places and a stage win, plus the GC win in Cat2 at the Gila, 10 of 12 primes plus the win at Wheels of Thunder, 1,2 and 3 at Deer Trail, 1st, 4th and 6th at the Aspen crits, then 1,2 and 3 at the masters race in Aspen immediately after, 1st at Sunshine hill-climb, 1st in the crit at the Morgul-Bismark Omnium AND 1st and 3rd in the Omnium overall, 1st at the Ironhorse TT and 1st in the Ironhorse Omnium... and on and on... With any luck the team will stay on the roll. It's been great riding with a team that works so seamlessly together, always with a common goal, and everyone giving everything for the team as a whole.

Jessica's B-Day!

2010-06-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

The week after Seattle, it was time to celebrate Jessica's 30th birthday! As a special treat for such a big occasion, her good friend Stephanie even came into town to spend the weekend with us.

Saturday a group of us met up for some bowling down in Golden, to start off the day.

Jessica was fully decked-out for the occasion;

Time to gear-up!

Perfect bowling alley lunch (with cheap beer of course)

After bowling, we went outside, where Baker had brought along a little friend in her car... fresh fruit, wine and seltzer.

Which we proceeded to drink outside the bowling alley, on the street in Golden.

And to wrap up the rest of the day, we went up to Blackhawk for some gambling, drinking, and eating entirely too much at the buffet. Good times all around.

That Sunday, we had a murder mystery dinner party at Jessica's mom's house. We had a wide variety of characters, including Red Riding Hood;

And Sherlock Holmes;

Another good party for Jessica! Delicious cake too, but that sure is a whole lot of candles!

Finally

2010-06-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

I'm alive, really... Prepare yourself for some picture dumps, and fast and furious blogging in order to catch up!

Last month Jessica and I made the trip out to Seattle, to visit my dear friend Miss J9 Fierce, and her awesome, awesome family Nickle and the little ones. It was so great to see them, and to spend a bit of time out of snowy Colorado.

Typical party-time with J9, she picked us up from the airport and we went directly to a semi-pro wrestling match by SSP, at a local bar. It was beyond cool;

The next morning we got up, hit the first of many amazing (of course!) coffee shops, and then bummed around Seattle a bit. We saw Stalin;

Jessica met a new friend that wanted to give her a hug;

And we bummed around the market for a good while, doing some shopping for funky little things, enjoying the amazing flowers, and the incredible food... especially the sweet smell of fresh fish. While we were walking around, I noticed this great individual that was walking back and forth through the market. He was pretty amazing. After watching him for awhile, Jessica did a great job of asking him for a photo, and he didn't dissapoint. Probably my best capture yet, of random insane people. I mean, just take a few minutes to relax, look at the photo, and soak in all that he has to offer. The conversation with him, was more colorful and insightful than any photograph could ever capture.

That night was also Janine's birthday bash, which was sure to rock the house. We took over a karaoke bar - the best part being that the locals that usually spent their Friday nights there, had no idea that 60 people dressed up as the person they were most likely to sing karaoke to, were about to descend upon their bar. So I spent the afternoon making my homemade "Devo hat" out of a cardboard box, before letting 5 year old Damian paint it for me. Jessica was of course going as a Robert Palmer "Addicted to Love girl";

My girlz... including Janine in full Madona garb;

And Nickle went to the back of his closet for the leather pants and his best Hair-Band outfit;

Uh oh... as should happen, the party girl of honor, was having a really good time, with everyone that wanted to buy her a drink. The night was rocking!

Then before long it was time to take J9 home (sorry J9, the photo is just too damned priceless)

After a 4am bedtime, the following day was spent mostly recovering, chilling with friends, a greasy breakfast, amazing Thai food, and hanging out in general. But the following day, we packed up the punk-rock van (still showing battle scars from Friday night) and we were off to Deception Pass for some nature.

Washington is just a bit lush...

We were nearly attacked by sea monsters, but managed to scare them off!

Damien was more than happy to take "dramatic" photos for me, even helping to direct himself and how he would pose;

Sienna was of course happy to join in as well;

And we polished the afternoon off, with a perfect Puget Sound lunch. These little fuckers were swimming just an hour or two earlier, and were so incredibly sweet and delicious. I knew we were at the right place, when the lady behind the counter said disbelievingly, "Really? You just want one pound?". Mind you... this was after I had my fish, chips and hush-puppy lunch at the same place.

Not sure how I didn't get a picture of little baby Stella, but trust me, she is an absolute cutie! We had one more relaxing morning, before we had to hop back on the plane and head back into Colorado. A day or two before more snow was to come. But it was a really great trip, and I can't wait for our next chance to get out there! Thanks guys for hosting us!!!

Bummer...

2010-05-17T07:37:00.001-07:00

Macho Madness!

2010-05-13T15:44:00.001-07:00

#342

2010-04-22T09:56:00.000-07:00

Shiny new toy last weekend! So I've mostly been in the garage building up team bikes... and riding a bit. Only a bit though, since literally as soon as I took the bike out of the stand on Saturday, it started pouring down rain. It was hardly a nice day to begin with.

Oh well... at least Saturday was Bonnie's birthday celebration, so we were heading off to the Roller Dolls roller derby match. Jessica was feeling artistic and made an awesome sign for the occasion;

And even better, the sign and the group ended up on the video screen several times;

Later on "Nacho-Dumptruck" was up in the stands and took some time for a photo with Seth;

Sunday the sun was actually out, and it was a nice day for a change! I was able to start getting rid of my "knee-warmer tan" and went out to the Louisville Crit. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my legs along, so the race mostly sucked.

After a busy weekend, and some hiking on Monday, Tayler was wiped-out and ready to catch up on her sleep!

Typical Springtime in Colorado... 75 degrees one day, socked-in with rain the next day, thunderstorms, hail, more sunshine, 60+mph winds, and now snow down to 7000 feet in the forecast, along with tornados and golfball size hail in the plains, for the next couple days. There was some crazy hail on the way home last night, and then we had thunderstorms rolling through until at least 1.30am. Crazy.

But I don't care... it's time to blow town for a few days...

Feedback

2010-04-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

I was playing with some bike parts (as usual) last night, and the "industry" is just making me insane. I mean with all the different sponsors, sponsoring all the different riders how often do the manufacturers actually ask people what works, or what they'd like to see changed? I mean, isn't that a big reason manufacturerrs would want to sponsor riders and teams? Granted, too many riders have less of an idea of what they want, or how they'd change a product, and the manufacturers don't listen anyway. I've definitely given feedback during the development of new products in my time, as well as feedback on how existing products could be improved.

And yet almost ZERO times is the advice taken. But you know, it's also related to the fact that a lot of manufacturers don't really care, or do want to pay to make the changes or they just go to the Taipei show. There they can shop around for components, and determine which one has the best margins, while still providing enough room for their brand decals that they put on the product before blathering on about how they "developed" this ground breaking new product. Don't get me wrong, Taiwan makes some incredible products, and actually have manufacturing techniques that are impossible here. It's when you claim you developed a product, when you really just picked a SKU# out of a catalog and had your decals applied, that makes me nuts.

Sorry, just ranting after some ridiculous products, and some trips to local bike shops looking for products that should be commonplace.

Though, if you actually listened to some customers, you'd end up with products like this phenomenal computer mount, fabricated by a customer of Jesse's.

Definitely the best computer mount of all time. I mean, how do you not love a computer mount that includes soldering? Thanks for making sure to take pictures Jesse!

In the meantime, the bits and pieces for the team bikes are starting to show up, and maybe, sometime soon, the team will be on shiny new aero road bikes!

Randomness

2010-04-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

This weekend seemed impossibly short. Saturday I hit Rise and Shine for some morning fueling, before bouncing over to Brighton for some crit racing. The pro race was bound to be ridiculous, with a shit-ton of money on the line, and lots of heavies in town. Since I wasn't planning on racing Sunday, I figured I might as well double up and do the 35+ race as well. It the first official time I lined up for a 35+ race on the road, and I got carded for it as well.

The course was flat, pretty open, and you could see the entire thing, even from the course, so getting away was going to be tough. Even more so with the steadily increasing wind. I tried though... about 196 times to no avail. Once I got away solid, though unfortunately took no one with me, so it was short-lived. Then I pulled a Boonen, and was in the wrong spot when Paulie finally went, and we were left with an unorganized chase. Swallowed up in the sprint, by all the guys that didn't do anything for most of the race, and that was that. Oh well, it was fun to attack and cover and counter for 55 minutes. The pro race was about as ridiculous as expected, and after getting hung out by people coming off, and closing 5 gaps, it was finally too much and the wind won. Oh well. The team had a good showing, getting Lance up to the break, even though we initially missed it, and we took 5th and 11th, in a stacked field.

Sunday...

Holy shit... is that my motorcycle... OUTSIDE!?!? It is! And I managed to (finally) get a ride in. A decent one too, sucking in 125miles of mostly twisty roads. I took my lunch break and hit Jessica's play down at the Denver Vic, and on the way home took in more twisties. Though it was a tough day... spring means "squid season" and there was plenty of nonsense going on.

Gross... (it's been said to not be true since this story, but...) wouldn't this be so perfectly ridiculous!? I'd still remember how awesome it was to hear that Nirvana had a second album coming out, and staying up late to see the premier of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on 120 minutes, and then beginning to loathe them and the endless replays on pop radio a few months later...
...while all the sparkly, emotional Twilight fans would run out to buy albums from this "classic band called Nirvana". I hear the dude from the Foo Fighters really digs Nirvana - I think he and Curt might have both dated Courtney Love or something...

Speaking of ridiculous, how about if you spent $5k on a frame... and it was half a pound, a whopping 25% heavier than the manufacturer tells you it will be?
http://www.cyclingtechblog.com/2010/04/11/manufacturers-claimed-weight-versus-reality/

The world of bike wheels can be a funny place. I noticed yesterday, in this picture of Pozzato (looking awesome in that black kit), that he was running what appears to be Campagnolo Hyperon carbon wheels at Roubaix.

All the more shocking that he managed to take a solid 7th place, without 3 or 4 years of endless print and online articles and stories about designing a carbon rim that could survive Roubaix, like some other companies.

And speaking of wheels, did you happen to read this? Specifically the part about a particular wheel-building company at the bottom of the story? The article goes on about how the guy measures and records the tension of every single spoke, in the wheels he builds, and contains a picture from one of the builds. I've gotta say, while I haven't ridden or seen his wheels, I'm quite shocked at the variance of spoke tensions in his wheels. I mean the front one pictured, has a difference of 18kgf from one side to the other. That's no small number, we're talking a difference of 19%! And the tension between individual spokes is even worse; take the rear for example, there's a 23kgf difference between the highest and lowest spoke tension on the drive side... a full 21% difference!

I'm not convinced truing a wheel to a lateral run-out of .25mm is worth having a 21% difference in individual spoke tension. And yes, I of course measure the tension of each and every spoke in my wheels. It takes a bit longer and sometimes you have to compromise a bit to find that happy median between trueness, roundness and equal tension, but that invested time means a more consistent wheel.

I don't want to sound like I'm beating the guy up though, just throwing out an opinion. I mean, if you want to trash someone, then pick on this annoying little fuck, who just seems to get more and more annoying. I don't think it will be too long before he just starts to fade away and no one will care.

Wheels, Huffing and Strip Clubs

2010-04-09T08:10:00.000-07:00

Spring means new bike toys. Lately it's been wheels. I build up this sweet set for a friend, using the 30mm KinLin rims in white, Sapim CX-ray spokes, and the new C4 Ceramic hubs. A perfect crit wheelset! A bit aero, and just 1450grams, plus they just plain look pimpy.

The only problem with those wheels, is that I built them after gluing 9 PAIRS of tubulars... so I'm quite certain I lost some brain cells with that job! A bunch of the wheels are for the team bikes, and they look pretty sexy all thrown together in the same room.

I glued up my TT wheels as well, including a sweet new front TT wheel from Easton that I spent all winter lusting over. Of course, I haven't gotten to ride it yet, but it sure looks fast... and skinny!

Another pic from CultCross, going over one of the two bridges on course, taken by Dan Davis, who did a phenomenal job with the pics for the day.

Speaking of CultCross again, there was a great article in CX-Magazine where LG was interviewed on the race. Specifically how difficult things can be for a true grassroots race organizer, and on just what a cool, low-key, all about fun atmosphere that a race like CultCross has.

Last night was my first trip out for the BusStop ride, and I felt "pretty good" considering the completely random amount of riding I've been able to do lately. Of course, I was pissed after we got past Hygiene, and the group decided it was worth risking life and limb (and being "those cyclists" that very understandably piss off motorists) by not just taking up the shoulder and the entire lane, but crossing over the yellow line as well... all to not come out of the draft. Ugh. So as usual when that bullshit goes down, I took my toys and went off on my own. As it usually does, it meant riding 10 miles home in an incessant headwind, making me question my desire to ride the bike... but at least I wasn't part of that nonsense.

The weather looks good for this weekend. Doing some crit racing in Brighton tomorrow, and then avoiding the Roubaix at all costs - a promise I made to myself many years ago.

Cult Cross Rocks

2010-04-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I (finally) cleaned up the cross bikes, threw them in the car and pointed everything West. It was time for the beginning of cyclocross season! Probably my favorite spring race, it was time for third edition of Cult Cross in Eagle. Friday evening it was cold, yet the sun was out in Eagle, and I made it out early enough to stop and stretch my legs for a few laps on the course. I also needed to make sure my legs still would turn in circles, since I had been sick, and had approximately zero miles in my legs. Uh oh. The course was looking pretty awesome though! An awesome mix of fast, leg-sapping grass, technical sections, rocky downhills, bridges, and whoop-dees. It was looking pretty sweet!

After just a teaser of some riding, I jumped back in the car and continued on, since I was spending the weekend with Harry and Danielle... and now Nate! Yep, a new little boy for those two. I say "little", but at almost 3 weeks, I think the boy is nearly as big as me already!

Saturday morning it was chilly and "moist" in New Castle, but gotta be sunny in Eagle, right? Actually, the weather really wasn't too bad, though it was very windy, and definitely colder. Brr. First up, the single speed race.

It went pretty well considering I hadn't been on the bike, and definitely hadn't riden the SS cross bike at all! I also definitely didn't feel "awesome" so was happy to follow wheels for the first 2 laps, before attacking a bit. I wanted to just get a gap, and hopefully hold it, floating at that level of going just hard enough to not destroy myself in the process. It worked pretty well, and I held on for the win.

Though predictably, it was getting colder with more wind in time for the Open race, including the occasional snow squall blowing through every 25 minutes or so;

Sick, tired and freezing cold is never a good start for me in a race, but the course and the atmosphere was just way too fun to say no. So we started the race in another miserable squall. I mostly just rode around in that race, trying to remember that I had a bike with gears, until the second snow squall came through, and I was nearly ejected off my bike by the wind at that point. I was doing more harm than good to the ol' body, so I bailed on the race, cheered for a minute or two, and then hit off for a warm shower and a nap.

Once again, another awesome race put on by LG! Incredible crowd of people, all there to race, have fun, and enjoy all the suffering of cyclocross in the spring. With all the people that "live" for cyclocross out there, there should be more of them at this race. No one cares if you're at the top of your fitness, it shouldn't matter that it's not fall... don't waste your time on LSD rides, take the short drive to a cool little town and push that heartrate up.

I can only hope that LG is already planning for next year. I know I am.

The rest of the weekend was pretty cool, chilled with the Bergers, and then back early on Sunday for a Zombie-Jeebus dinner with the family.

Don't be a Fool

2010-04-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

I hate April Fools Day... it would be fine, if it weren't for all the retarded websites and "newspapers" that find it necessary to write "comical" fake stories to trick their readers. Then of course there are the forums all over the interwebz where people either a. believe the stories, or b.) feel the need to repost the stories, as if the other people on any given forum, aren't reading the same news-sources. Though this year, I'm really torn, trying to figure out whether the Velosnooze article about David Millar actually winning the overall at De Panne. - I'm guessing it's real, because otherwise I imagine there would have been a story about Millar tossing his bike, or stopping at the finish line in protest.

Last Friday was our "Spring Break", a total of one freebie day off work. But that's okay, I took advantage, and went up to Eldora for some snowboarding for the day. Unfortunately Jessica had to work, so it was just me all day. But I got in 4.5hrs nonstop, and I had some fresh snow to play with. That was pretty fun, maybe I'll actually go again.

Saturday I hung out at home, until it was time to go out with the boys and hit up Arenacross at the Colesium. I wasn't thinking, and missed that the crowd watching was pretty much second only to a WWF match! Unfortunately, my camera battery was beat! Bummer. But the racing was pretty entertaining, along with an endless stream of people-watching.

Sunday was "sick-day" and I barely managed to get off the couch, even for enough food and drink to sustain myself. The snow was melting pretty good early this week though, and I think we had one of the best "roof-curls" ever.

Yesterday was Neo's 9th birthday though! Tayler's is close enough too, so for the last two years, we've just combined them, and made a fun trip for the whole family. It's not often that Tayler gets to come down to town, so she has a blast. And was quite well behaved in Pet Smart. Neo picked out a frisbee and a football, and then we were back in the car to head over to Dairy Queen.

Neo about to chomp his cone...

Last year was Tayler's first cone, and it took forever to convince her that it was tasty, and that she was allowed to actually eat it. Not so this time, as I think it was gone in 4 giant bites!

That Tayler... she just plain cracks me up.

Tomorrow I'm off to New Castle to visit the Bergers, and Nate, the new little nephew! Should be awesome. Plus I'll be racing the Cult Cross race, the sweetest cross race of the year! I cleaned the cross bikes Tuesday night, and it was almost a bummer - it felt like I was getting them ready for a fresh season of cross races. I guess... the CultCross races, ARE the first cyclocross races of the year!

So really, if you're thinking of racing at all... bail on that goofy Koppenberg race, and come out to support one of the coolest races all season. Everything would be perfect... if I just wasn't still sick, and probably getting ready to completely stink up the race course on Saturday. Totally dissapointing, because I'd love to ride well at such a sweet race! Not to mention the potential mud, is quite likely to destroy what little power I have. Better put a short gear on the SS.

Braaap!! Braaap!!!

2010-03-27T19:57:00.000-07:00

Spring Break

2010-03-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

It's Spring Break time, where we get one single free day off from the University. Of course, it's great to have a free day off, and lord baby jeebus knows I need it this week, but it's always when no one else has off, and the weather is always shit. Oh well, I might as well get some catching up done on the blog-front, and then finally unplug my brain from the interwebs for a day or so.

The weekend before last, I hit out for the first race of the year. The move went right away, and I went at first, then hesitated - doubting my fitness, and the fact that it was 38 seconds into the first race of the year... and missed it. Should have just dug and gone. Instead, it turned into an awesome TT practice session, as I rode the group off my wheel with no one pulling through, then "chased" solo for the next 55 minutes. A bit frustrating, but I was cheered up that the chip-timers, recorded lap times for the race, and my lap times were within a very nice tolerance. No slacking even later in the race, and even with changing winds, and the fact that a lap was basically a 1-minute effort up the climb, and a 30-second recovery, plus a tricky hairpin at the bottom of the hill; I was within 3 seconds for nearly all the laps. So that was more reassuring.

After the race, it was up to Craig and Jeff's to celebrate Craig's birthday, and also wait for Jeff to return from his roadtrip to pick up his sweet new Sportsmobile! Let's just say, it's really friggin' big, and cool.

Then it was time for St. Patty's Day, which isn't one of my favorite holidays, since it's mostly just people pretending to be Irish, while they sit around eating and drinking English and Scottish stuff. Plus, there are SO many stouts better than a Guiness. Jessica had to work that night, so I just went home, for the evening. I figured we'd have our traditional car-bomb once she got home. Then I remembered that I had some Guiness to go through, so decided to try out a different combination. I was going to get some Harp to use up the Guiness and play with my Lagerhead, but I'm not that crazy about Harps either. So I picked up a pounder of Arrogant Bastard, for a little extra flavor. A darker, but better black and tan.

Then the alcohol started to hit me, and I decided to experiment... trying to make a black and tan using the Bastard Ale, and a can of OB Ten-Fidy. Unfortunately the Ten-Fidy is just plain too hardcore, and drops like a stone, no matter what. But I sure didn't mind "taking care of" the mistakes.

Then on Friday it snowed, and that was stupid.

Saturday we hit up the first Roller Dolls match at their new home at the Broomfield event center (or whatever it's called this week). Pretty good bouts, and the new venue was pretty sweet, but a bit more upscale, and it was reflected in our ticket prices. Bummer.

Sunday it was time to race again, this time the training crit in Niwot. The weather wasn't awesome, it was quite chilly, but it sounded fun, since we had the entire team out for the race, sans Seth. The race was pretty fast from the start, especially for just the second race of the year! I was active straight away, with even a move on the first lap. Might as well warm up I figured. The team had at least one guy in every move, until finally a STRONG move got away, including two of ours. Then I was back to the front policing, and then moving guys around at the end. Up the road Chuck took the win for us, and back in the field Zac took the field sprint. Not bad at all.

Then Tuesday... it snowed again... The drive home sucked - icy, white-out, windy, dumping snow, unplowed roads. But at least I didn't have to drive with all the city-slickers, who sounded like they had it worse.

Warmer today... but rain and snow in the forecast for tomorrow. Must be time for the Koppenberg race...

Either way, I think it's going to be a bit of time still, until I can open the grill up for a patio party.

Springtime in Colorado...I hate it.

2010-03-23T18:00:00.001-07:00

Gentlemen... Start your Engines, Snowboards, Coffins and/or Bikes!

2010-03-09T08:15:00.000-08:00

The past week and a half has been pretty hectic! Last weekend I hit the group ride which went well. Then off to Jesse and Brittainy's to celebrate her passing of another test on the way to being a Certified Public Bean Counter. Jessica and I hit the zoo for a day - which was cold, but the animals were actually out, and the people were actually home so it was a nice mellow visit to the zoo. Then Jessica and I spent another day of 50 degree weather on slopes of Eldora, trying out the new snowboards. That was pretty fun, and Jessica did awesome. I like skiing a lot more when the weather is spring-like, and the slopes are mostly empty. Then the rest of the week was centered around completing our coffin for the Frozen Dead Guy Days coffin races!

We were racing under sponsorship of Seth's Rise & Shine Biscuit Kitchen, and I was tasked with giving us a professional quality coffin to race in. At just 23.6lbs., I think I was able to incorporate a large amount of strength, while keeping the weight low, and even providing comfort and security for our "corpse". Even better that all parts of the coffin were from spare scrapes and bits that I had lying around the garage. Saturday morning I got the team ready for our position in the parade;

The rules stipulate that your corpse must weight a minimum of 75lbs., and Ali was kind enough to join our team, weighing in at 76.8lbs. the morning of the race. I should have made her skip breakfast... Here she is though, practicing getting into her aerodynamic tuck;

Our opponent for the first heat, saw our team, and was terrified. Too terrified to show up. So we turned in a great time without them, and qualified for the final 8, out of 40 starting teams. Here is a good vid of the second round, and you can the Rise & Shine team right at about 1.45 in the video.

For our semifinal heat, we ran into some issues battling the team that would eventually win the overall. But we were right there with them, finishing up in a very respectible third place. Ali was a superstar corpse, and celebrated our finish with Craig, after the official results;

While Frozen Dead Guy Days was going on, the first bike races of the season were starting up as well! And it was an awesome weekend for the Subaru - Groove Auto team! On Saturday we took 1st, 3rd and 4th in the City Park crit, while also taking 2nd in the Frostbite Time Trial. Then on Sunday we we took 1st, 8th and 9th in the Niwot crit. Not a bad start to the season at all!

The WRC Season started a couple weeks back, and Kimi Raikkonen has been having a bit of trouble adjusting from F1 to WRC, especially with his latest Mexico WRC, rolling his Citroen down a cliff side. Though I think the best part might be his interview afterwards. I hated his nearly-comotose interveiws during F1, but after rolling his car down a cliff, this one is just classic!

"I roll over, then went down the hill." Beautiful understatement!
But even better than the start of WRC season... the Formula1 season starts this weekend in Bahrain, and I can't wait as usual! It's going to be awesome for so many reasons, but also because the lack of refueling means teams are predicting pit stops in the sub-3 SECOND range.

Sure... USF1 failed miserably and completely at getting their car to the grid, but McLaren is back this year, with a car that is performing world's different from the mess that was the MP4-24.

Isn't Winter Over Yet!?

2010-02-24T10:06:00.000-08:00

Another couple days of snow and single digit temps had me seriously on the verge again this weekend. So Saturday I decided to see how much coffee I could drink, and I started the day off, with a visit to Seth's for the first coffee... and fried chicken, fried egg on a ranch biscuit;

It was fricken delicious as is, but next time I need to dig deeper, and add bacon and hot sauce to that bad boy.

For the day I ended up with something like 3 espresso shots, a cup of drip, a cup of chai, a medium drip from Krispy Kreme and a large crappy something from Starsluts.

To round out the day, a big ol' group of us gathered up at Cru Wine Bar in Denver for our belated "Baby Jeebus birthday dinner" and to celebrate the first night of Restaurant Week. Food was pretty awesome - had the calamari appetizer, herb chicken entree and apple crostini for dessert. The wine though, was pretty "meh".

It made for a late night on Saturday, but it didn't matter much, since Sunday was just more of this shit all day;

Too cold, pretty much useless, snow.

I have a good 250 days or so of waiting, but the only thing on my mind right now is the eventual swimming pool I'll be sitting in, enjoying the view over the bay and nearby islands.

...if I survive that long! In the meantime, I came across this view, a webcam overlooking Boulder Creek and part of the bike path. It's a shame it only updates every 30 seconds, since that is going to make the bum-fights look really "notchy".

Lent and Shit

2010-02-18T15:32:00.000-08:00

Don't forget Lent started yesterday. So like most years, I've given up religion for 40 days and 40 nights as my penance. I just hope that's good enough to get me into heaven, where I can meet plenty of people that I definitely don't know already. In other words - you're all going to hell.

Speaking of giving shit up, VeloSnooze really, really, really wants me to stop reading their website (do they still even have a magazine?). If the recent horrific update to their site, which averages 16 advertisements per page, seemingly giving me an unique combination of touretts and seizures wasn't enough, they might have done it with this article.

To paraphrase the article, they're saying this (most likely overpaid) dude Darcy Norman came up with the idea of using ice baths and core-strength training to help cyclists. How long have people been using ice batchs after hard efforts? Two? Three? Freaking centuries!? And that Cavendish is likely a great sprinter since he is so inflexible. Unfortunately, Cavendish can't get over the mountains since he rides his bike less than he should, when his back is sore from being the platform for his tight sprinting muscles.

I have to agree with Jesse who pointed out that he blames Chris Carmichael for crap like this. After he convinced everyone that he is the reason Lance is fast, and is the one behind all of his training and performance gains.

But to be fair, in the big picture, there are much bigger douche bags out there.

Fatty Tuesday

2010-02-16T12:00:00.000-08:00

Friday Jessica and I ran home early, since some professional carpet installers were coming to (obviously), install carpet. There were two guys, and nine teeth, that came to install carpet. But you don't need dental hygiene in order to install carpet, and the room came out pretty sweet!

Saturday, I went down to Golden to meet up with Craig and do a bike ride. We were going to be moving furniture later, so definitely had to get the ride out of the way early. I had hoped for the best, but the weather definitely didn't work for us. It was cold, but manageable... but it was the wind that convinced us to head to lunch early. Especially after getting sand-blasted a few times, and riding through drifts on the bike path. Ugh.

Sunday the weather was worse, but I ended up getting in a great ride at the Velodrome. We had a great, high-powered, small group, and I got to ride nice and hard for a good hour. The track seems to somehow be a great place to go hard enough, that you start to wonder what would happen if you blacked out from the effort!

I finally got to check out Archer, the new show from Adam Reed and Matt Thompson, the same pair that created my favorite show, Frisky Dingo. And man, it's definitely funny. A lot of similar humor to Frisky Dingo, so I'm going to have to get caught up with the episodes. Still bummed that Frisky Dingo didn't go beyond Season 2.

8 freakin' degrees yesterday morning, and 6 freakin' degrees this morning when I left the house. That's just ridiculous. I'm definitely done with winter... Though the coyotes didn't mind, as they were out and about this morning, patrolling their usual area. I wasn't fast enough for a good picture of the first pair, but I sorta caught this guy;

Only Tuesday and the weekend feels so far away...

Whole Fraud

2010-02-11T08:33:00.000-08:00

Ha ha ha ha ha... I hate shopping at "Whole Paycheck", and not just beacuse I don't dress well enough and can't stand patchuli or hate spending a minimum of $20 there... but here is some great info on how Whole Foods is just another bullshit big-ass company charging way too much money for shitty product;

Though, shopping can be a pretty dangerous activity, no matter which store you are shopping at. At least that's the impression I got from this guy in Home Depot, shopping while wearing his snowboard helmet, and (still on) flashing tail light;

Go West Young Man... then come back and paint

2010-02-09T11:08:00.001-08:00

A very busy, but good weekend. Friday afternoon Jessica and I hopped into the car, to head west to go visit H&D in Glenwood Springs. Perfect day for driving, with good weather, and way ahead of the evening ski traffic, so we made it in great time. After helping set-up for Danielle's baby shower, we left the girls to party and went out for some "man-time" on the town. We had some manly errands to run, and ended up at Lowe's Hardware, where I came across the latest case of ridiculousness; the single-use, disposable plunger.

Because... as Harry so nicely put... "I don't want my toilet water, touching my other toilet water". And in case you were wondering, a single disposable plunger costs the same as an "old fashioned" reusable plunger which lasts what? 35 years? And going by the flimsy design of the disposable, you aren't going to get any truly stubborn pipe-clogging turds dislodged from your plumbing.

And to think that I thought antibacterial binder, file folders, or pens were bad enough...

Anyway... back to the trip. Our second stop was at the toy store, because Harry put me onto the new AirHog Sharpshooter helicopter. I've been meaning to get a mini-copter, and couldn't resist this one, with good reviews, and of course, most importantly, real missles that fire at your command!

Oh yeah, and it looks like Airwolf just make things that much better. Yes... I'm already starting to look at ways to customize it, to shave some weight and add maneuverability to it. I did find one guy that modified the rockets, adding needles to the tips of course.

After shopping, we hit the Glenwood Canyon Brewing Company, always a pretty good stop. I had the special draft, which was a barleywine, but I have to say, it was pretty bland, and tame for barleywine. Not a ton of flavor, but given that, it was more drinkable than a typical barleywine. Beer, beer and more beer, made for an early morning, since we had to get up at 6am and bolt back to Denver for Jessica's first day of play rehearsal. But on the exit for "Federalis Blvd" from I70, we were greeted with this awesome display of airbrushing on the back of a mini-van. That's right, an air-brushed baby-portrait.

Saturday evening and all day Sunday we worked on our remodel of the entertainment room. I pretty much hate painting, and I'm always ready to just have things finished up. Didn't much matter though, since the weather was crap all day on Sunday, and Monday too, with freezing temps and snow.

At least it made for a winter wonderland of snowy whiteness this morning;

I don't think summer is coming anytime soon, with nothing but cold in the forecast. It's getting harder and harder to ride the trainer...

Now it's February

2010-02-05T06:05:00.000-08:00

Another week drawing to a close. It hasn't been snowy, but it definitely hasn't been warm either. Jessica and I have been busy working on redecorating our entertainment room, so that's been taking a fair amount of energy... with way more to come, I'm sure! But we'll get a short break today as we head out to the Western side to visit Harry and Danielle since it's time for Danielle's baby shower. Should be a fun little trip, though I wish we could stay longer.

The majority of the riding has been indoors lately, and the Thursday afternoon track days have been a lot of fun. Gotta love getting in a killer workout, in the middle of the work day, regardless of the weather! This past Saturday evening we got some track time for the team too. First a little meeting about next year, and then an open track where I squeezed in a bit over 2 hours. Including an hour where I had the track all to myself! Dejan even showed up to take some pictures and play around with flashes on the nighttime track.

With the track to only 5 of us, we had a lot of room to play with, and Chuck ran us through some practice on hand-slings. They were pretty fun, and definitely exciting on a crazy-short 142m track!

Round and round I went...

Speaking of next year... things are coming together for the Subaru Groove Auto team. That's right, a slight change of name, a couple changes in sponsorship, and we've added a couple real power-houses to the line-up. It should be an awesome year. A sneak peak at the sled for next season;

We'll be sporting the Blue AC1SL frameset, with Shimano components and wheels, TRP brakes, Selle San Marco saddles and Continental tires. Should be an awesome bike, and I can't wait to get it in my sweaty little hands for the build-up! More team info sure to be leaking out soon...

41 days

2010-01-29T13:38:00.000-08:00

Just 41 days out from the start of the Formula1 season, and 1 day out from the first testing, McLaren introduced the new MP4-25 today. And man... they've been busy completely redesigning last years (arguably) dog of a car.

I can't wait to see the new cars in action... there should be some really exciting changes this year, from no refueling to some really intersting driver line-ups for certain teams.

And really can't wait for the USF1 presentation of their new car, when it begins testing in Alabama!

That's Not a Moon!

2010-01-21T08:34:00.000-08:00

Finally got a pretty good weekend of riding in, this past week. Saturday we had most of the new team (more info coming soon!) meet up, and go hit the Gateway ride out of Boulder. It was nice to have everyone except the Biscuit Man there, and even more fun to have the entire team in the front of the group for the day. Not much has changed on the Gateway ride, and surprisingly, even though there was such a big group, most everyone did a good job not being embarrassingly bad about riding out in the middle of the road and messing with traffic. I hear there was a crash at the back of the group though, so of course, plenty of room for improvement. About like my fitness though - actually, I felt fine all day, which was reassuring. There is of course, plenty of high-end fitness that needs some tweaking, as to be expected.

Saturday evening we hit the town for Bittainy's birthday, which included a fun night at Lannie's Clocktower for the late night burlesque show. We popped for the VIP tickets, and managed to keep it a secret from Brittainy that she was going to get to perform on stage for her birthday. I think she had just enough "alcoholic lubrication" in the system, and she totally embraced her onstage persona, "Violet Vixen".

After getting home crazy-late, I wasn't motivated to get up early for another group ride. So instead I did the complete opposite, and hit out on my own on the cross bike, to hit some snowy dirt roads up along Peak to Peak.

Pretty sweet ride, nice and quiet and I got to check out a couple roads I have been meaning to ride. It was chilly for sure, but only snowed for about one-third of the ride.

It's been a nice diversion from the snow, especially given how cold it's been and even most of the roads have been crappy, to get out on the track. A group of us have rented an hour of track time, once a week, during lunch (which is even better to escape the cube for awhile) and it's been pretty fun. I try not to think about how many laps we end up doing, but an hour at threshold on the track, sure beats the trainer. Even though you're breaking monotony with monotony...

Overall... cycling is a beautiful sport, for so many reasons. Yet, it really can never be considered the best sport... Look at Formula One racing (Season is set to start in just 49 days now!), and their programs. Talk about living the dream - today McLaren signed 14 year old Nyck De Vries into their young driver development program. I mean seriously... playing with those kinds of toys at all of 14 years old. Sure beats the hell out of the PK Ripper I was lusting for when I was 14.

And sure as hell sounds like a better way to spend a season of racing, trying to get noticed while you are slogging though cow shit covered, wet, Eastern European roads in 34 degree temps while it's pissing down sleet.

I've been really focused on my auto racing career as well... on Need For Speed Drift... driving one my favorites... my 700hp "sleeper" Audi RS4;

But last night I took a break from racing (only after some time on the indoor trainer of course) to finish up the build on the Lego Deathstar. It is now complete, all 3,803 pieces have been snapped tightly together, and it's ready for full on re-enactment of all your favorite movie scenes.

New-ish Year

2010-01-12T14:42:00.000-08:00

Well... 12 days in, and I think I'm starting to get back to normal after New Year's Eve. I know that it was definitely a good time, but I also know that my memory gets progressively more hazy, as it gets later into the night. A group of us went down to Denver and did the only wise thing - reserved some hotel rooms. Everyone had dinner, and then we were off to Wynkoop Brewery just to hang out and have a good time.

I have so many incriminating photos, so I'm not even sure what to post. But I figure that this series of photos should sum things up pretty nicely - party hats inspired an obssession with boobs... Jessica is bound to develop back pain with those;

Craig wasn't about to be outdone;

Brittainy worked 50% harder than everyone on her boob job;

And Jeff and Jill... well, I guess you could say they went off on a bit of a tangent. I like their thinking though;

No doubt the girls were having a good time! Heck, they had already had a round of shots before the boys started to get onto that track of thinking!

And soon enough, as the night became the new year, the dancing began, with Craig and Jessica leading away;

And Brittainy and Bonnie couldn't resist the dance floor either, and they were even able to attract some dude surfing the crowds for those 1.30am chicks that needed "a ride home".

Awesome... he's in like 4 photos I have, just leering at the dancing crowd.

The dancing did in everyone, and Jessica in particular. Oddly, there wasn't a cab to be found at 2.00am on New Year's so we spent some time wandering about in 20 degree temps before finally making it to the hotel.

No hangover was enough to make us miss the opening day at Rise and Shine Biscuit Kitchen though, and we all stumbled in there New Year's Day, for some biscuits and coffee to battle the hangovers. That was about the most activity I had for New Year's Day...

2009

2009-12-31T13:07:00.000-08:00

It's 10 years late, but any chance to post a Prince video, works for me.

Happy New Year everyone!

Next Before Last

2009-12-30T12:12:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, people give me shit for being such a total cynic, and expecting only the absolute worst from people. Well, let me tell you a little story;

Once a week at least I process a bunch of purchases that have been made using state funds under highly structured state guidelines for purchasing. And without exception, every week, I have to process questionable charges. Really unbelievable shit sometimes. And it was bad enough before, but with all the state cutbacks, and shrinking budgets, shortfalls, and being paid for a position that is THREE levels below the work that I'm doing, it just seems more and more outrageous. Usually I just bitch quietly to my close friends, but fuck it...

On the eve of a second furlough that thousands of state employees are forced to take, I am sitting here procesing a charge for DVDs. Now first, a little background; last month I spoke up when someone bought a BluRay to test new BluRay players they were installing. Apparently, you can never be sure a new BluRay player would work, so you better have a Special Anniversary Edition of the Matrix to properly check brand new equipment. This month, I thought maybe things were getting better... charges came through that the same group bought "used" DVDs at least, so that the technicians could have a DVD in their tool kit so they could test machines, out in the field. Okay... sure... However the next charge was for DVD RENTALS... again, to test a specific, new, high-tech conference room located in this groups offices. A look a bit closer however, shows that they rented two Christmas movies, the week before the holiday. Apparently we needed to make sure the DVD player in that room would be able to playback both BluRays AND standard DVDs. You can never be too safe. Now... I would have thought that the DVDs previously purchased by the same individuals would have been good enough for testing, but perhaps there is some techie complication with actually being able to play holiday movies so suspciously right before the holidays?

Yeah... fucked up, right? Not even. Because after picking up some movie rentals, then "we" went across the street to buy some plates, knives, cups, and napkins "for team meetings". Oh yeah, and it didn't make it into the email, but they also, oddly enough, bought a big ass jug of Kool-Aid. I'm guessing that was for testing the reliability of the cups that they bought for team meetings. I mean, you don't want to wait until you're in the middle of an important meeting, to find out that the cups you bought, do not support the type of Kool-aid drink you bought! The horror!

I really try to not post work-related bullshit on my blog, because, who knows who will bitch or complain or read your post and try to nail you to the wall for it. But you know what!? Go fuck yourself! Try me... I'm sitting here with a whistle and a long ass list of "questionable" purchases and activities. I document EVERYTHING. You never know when you might need to blackmail someone, and too often you come up against someone with more "power" than you, so it's good to have back up. I want Governer Ritter to read this, and then ask me to his office to discuss a budget review - I know the perfect cups to bring if he's serving Kool-Aid.

This is but a small example of the bullshit that goes on in this incestious state system. Anyone want to talk about the economics and morality of using state funds to buy $200 8GB iPod touches to use as a "storage device", rather than a $20 8GB flash drive?

Driving to Denver in Festivus Traffic blows

2009-12-24T11:20:00.000-08:00

Festivus 2009

2009-12-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

It's complete bullshit that I have to work on Festivus. I suppose it's my own fault though, it is snowing, and I totally could have pulled the work-from-home card today. I actually have no idea why I didn't... oh well, I did need to come down to civilization in order to get some espresso bean for the long weekend!

Last weekend it warmed up enough for some outside riding. Just barely though... it was around 40 degrees on Saturday when I met up with Craig for a ride in Golden. Always hard to motivate this early in the off-season, for an outdoor ride, in pretty cold conditions. But still, it was really nice to be outside riding. Even better when the recovery meal was some cheesesteaks at South Philly Cheesesteaks. Not the best cheesesteaks, but even better, I had some Tasty Kakes and they even sell Amoroso's rolls for home consumption.

So after I was tired from riding, and way too fat from eating more than I had burned off on my ride, I had a new toy to build up! I've been itching forever (since before we actually had a local velodrome) to build up a track bike. And now with the promise of doing some more riding at the track this off-season, I had a reason to build one up. I had most of the parts, and picked up a Motobecane for a song.

It came out pretty sexy and I can't wait to test it out. Unfortunately with snow and ice making up the roads at my house, it wasn't really even possible to take a tiny spin.

Sunday Seth had a small test-opening of Rise and Shine Biscuit Kitchen, that we got up early and went down for. It was great to finally see the shop, and to get to test out some menu options. Bonnie says that even Canadians like biscuits;

A test-run, hot and fresh out of the oven;

Looking like an opening day of January 1st... so go get a biscuit to cure that New Year's hangover!

And as an added treat this week... after years of searching, I came across the brake I've been searching for, and managed to snag it at a "reasonable" price. So very awesome, the infamous MRC McMahon delta brake.

I knew I should have bought that pair the shop had back in 1996, but I just didn't quite need the pair back then... just a front one. Well, now I'm back to the same, needing a front one, and there it is. I should be 2 full seconds faster in a 40k TT now, or if Zipp would have made it, it would likely be worth 2 minutes in the same race.

...I wonder if that brake will save anytime on my trainer rides. That's the only riding that's going to happen the next several days, and I'd love to get off the trainer sooner, if it's possible for the brake to save me some time.

A Festivus for the Rest of Us!

2009-12-23T08:16:00.000-08:00

Happy Festivus to each and every one!

The Corpse of a Tree

2009-12-22T14:53:00.001-08:00

The dark clouds dropping lower and lower can only mean cold weather and snow are on the way. The only thing to do in such a situation is to open up my bottle of Weissenohe Monks Fest and sit around the baby-Jeebus tree, waiting for his birthday celebrations to begin!

...The Weissenohe was "okay". Nothing spectacular. Great color and head, but a mediocre nose, and not nearly enough spice for a beer of this type. Very drinkable though!

Baby Jeebus Carols

2009-12-21T08:05:00.000-08:00

You have to love sitting back, and singing some lovely Baby Jeebus carols to get into the beautiful spirit of the season...

Christmas Week

2009-12-20T19:19:00.001-08:00

It's Baby Jeebus' Birthday week, so hopefully you got your letters in to the "big guy".

2009-12-18T12:24:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again, so last Friday Jessica and I invited Alex over to set up the baby-jeebus tree, drink spiked cider, and of course, watch Elf.

The tree came out great;

And I even had enough time to fabricate a menorah for Alex;

Yes... that actually is my bloody machete from Halloween as the base, but it was the first thing I came across, that was flat, and appropriately shaped.

Saturday we snuck out of the house for some dinner and then to see "A Tuna Christmas" at the Denver Victorian. And then Sunday morning I took off for a hike with D-Rock and Randy. We did some fast paced Boulder front range hiking around Bear Peak. The weather was pretty nice most of the day, except of course for the highest 30 minutes of the hike - we had perfect timing.

It was a solid, hard workout, especially for the first hike of the year.

Only in Boulder though, would you see a no trespassing sign that includes warnings not just against hiking, but specifically jogging as well!

It's a Wrap... or a Pierogi...

2009-12-10T06:30:00.000-08:00

The weekend before I wrapped up the racing for the season. As it often is, it gave mixed emotions as part of me was very well done with mustering the motivation for forcing the body to go race-pace, while at the same time, I know it will only take a couple weeks before I'm going crazy because there aren't any races to soothe that competitive spirit. This new course, that we raced a few weeks before (with some changes to keep things fresh this time), was pretty cool, pretty flowy and definitely hard, without a lot of room to rest.

The race was pretty competitive for a single speed race, after 3 laps, there was still 6 of us riding away as a group. As usual, I had a monster of a time motivating myself to ride fast in the cold conditions, but kept on, knowing the season was almost done. I let someone pass, at what turned out to be horrible timing, as he leap-frogged me, as the dude we were passing "stopped" and blocked up the flow of traffic. Then while trying to chase back, I pushed a bit too hard in one corner that was getting faster and faster, and I went down. At least it was on grass, and made for one of those cool, mostly painless, high-speed slides. But lost more time there, and finished up in 3rd. Not horrible, all things considered, and like I said, time to relax.

State Champs were this past weekend, but the weather was looking miserable, and the conditions were going to be far from good for me... and the same goes for my own condition. Sounds like the course and conditions were far from ideal for a state champ race. Of course, I totally believe you race what the course conditions give on any given day, but also think that any possible conditions should go into the consideration of course and course design, particularly for States. But whatever, I wasn't there, so I'm just babbling.

Besides, I had more important things to do... like trying my hand (finally) at making homemade pierogis for German-Night!

If I may say so myself, they were fucking delicious. It was a group affair, as I did a good bit of the prep ahead of time, but then enlisted help in the actual assembly, so that I could also cook them, while they were being made. And it wasn't just my pierogis, everything made for the night was freakin' delicious!

I was more than stuffed after dinner, and with temps near zero, the only thing to do was to work off some food playing Rock Band. Next time I'll have to bring along my own guitar, so we can have the full band playing!

As for now... 5 days of constant 10 degrees or colder has completely cracked me. This morning, with 70mph wind gusts and 1 degree temps, while forcing the car through snow drifts to get to work in the dark, totally did me in. I'm done. Can't handle it anymore. There might still be time to get to Hawaii and check out the current 30+ foot waves at the North Shore!

Mmmmm... Biscuits....

2009-11-25T12:15:00.000-08:00

Seth... a much braver man than most, is striking out on his own, and following his dream to open his own biscuit shop.

Introducing;

Located at 330 Holly Street, Denver CO 80220

Stay tuned for updates at Rise and Shine Denver

Follow the progress on Twitter;

On Facebook

Or on MySpace

Winter Doldrums

2009-11-24T08:42:00.000-08:00

Holy shit... he's alive...

Time for the down and dirty update, chock full o' pictures (though lacking detail). First a couple funnies; Last weekend Jessica and I simply drove through the "Whole Paycheck" parking lot, we did not go into the store or stop there, we were on our way out of another store. Of course Whole Paycheck is one of THE places to see and be seen in Boulder, and we (again, simply driving by) we saw FOUR completely unrelated chicks, all dressed in the EXACT same uniform. Keeping in mind is was 28 degrees out, all four had Ugg boots, capri-length grey yoga-stretchy-pants-shorts, and black puffy jackets. I can only imagine that if we were to actually go INTO the store, it would look like that scene in iRobot when Will Smith goes into the one room with all the robots lined up... minus the black dude of course;

Probably a day after that, I spotted a sweet custom exhaust on a mid-90's Volvo 740. Dude had taken a random exhaust and wired it up to the frame, pointing straight out the side by the passenger door. At least he took the time to paint it black, and make it a bit more subtle, rather than chroming it and adding one of those coffee-can-sized exhaust pipes. This, of course, is on a car owned by a dude that works at one of the neighborhood auto-parts stores; I'd hate to see what he would do without his shop discount!

On the other end of the "subtle-spectrum" was this dude Jesse and I passed the other night. Sorry for the horrible picture, but I had to at least get something. What you can (kind of) see in the picture below, is an Eclipse, so often a car that has been converted into a prop for Need for Speed, which has not just a stock spoiler on it. But ALSO an aftermarket, totally unmatched giant second spoiler bolted ONTO the original stock spoiler. As hysterical as it was to see, all I really wanted to do was follow the dude to his next destination, so I could get out and see what I'm sure was an awesome mounting job. My bet was that he used drywall screws to mount it, since that's what dad had lying around in the garage, and they sure looked pointy and strong.

It's been so long since an update, that I haven't posted Halloween photos. On Halloween we went out with some friends... that's about it. It was a good time, and everyone had great costumes. There was Craig and Bonnie;

Drew and Mimmie... I mean Jesse and Brittainy;

Me and Jessica;

Jeff and Jill... and Dangle's package;

Jesse found out that it's not easy being a beautiful woman in these superficial times, when there is a huge amount of pressure to look perfect, at all times;

Sometime after Halloween, a bunch of us went to a hockey game to watch the Avalanche play horribly, and loose to Bonnie's Edmonton team;

I did some bike racing in Brighton;

The squirrel outside my window entertained me with acrobatics as he ate some kind of berry thingies on the tree;

There were some wintery looking mornings;

I did some more bike racing. That whole deal has been going "okay". I've been very mediocre at best, but I guess that's to be expected considering I really have been floating along all week working more on my first-person shooter skills on PS3, WAY more than I've been riding my bike. So what do you expect when you sit around all week and then show up at the bike races to go for it? Oh well, it's good to have a fresh mind as well...

And now we're caught up and just a couple days away from celebrating the white-man's slaughter of Native Americans and their culture. Woo-hoo... lucky us. Jake in the meantime says "Fuck Turkey-day, they don't make fun doggie costumes for Turkey-day so I'm jumping straight into baby Jeebus' birthday celebrations!"

Unless of course someone leaves the turkey unattended, at which point I have no doubt he will eat the entire thing, and then require a vet visit... because that's the way Jake rolls.

Not a Little Bit of Snow

2009-10-28T21:23:00.000-07:00

As expected, it started dumping on Tuesday night. Quite a bit actually, as I had feared, after seeing the clouds as the sun came up Saturday morning. Luckily, I snuck out at lunch time, with some others for a Tuesday-before-the-blizzard-comes-cyclocross-ride. Pretty sweet, high 50's and close to two hours of riding and hopping the barriers.

The snow was bad enough, but I nearly snapped, when just a few hours into the storm, our power went out. Just before bed time. Ugh... that meant "camping" out in the family room, and keeping the fire going all night. Luckily the power came back on around 5am. That was way more surprising than waking up to see CU hadn't closed for the day. As usual for them, it was looking like a day of making everyone risk their life to drive in, just so they could send them home early. Forget that noise, I had work with me, and was all set to work from home. Especially once Tayler checked the pretty well blocked road;

Jessica thought about getting out, but she didn't make it either;

A bit after lunchtime and we were sitting at a solid 28 inches, with the snow still coming down as hard as ever.

Staying home is fairly hard - there's not a freaking thing on television during the day. Even more painful, is the unstoppable urge to watch the news to see what is happening down below - and hoping to see the right name in the Closures List. Which... is just frightening, because then you see groundbreaking news stories like warning college students that by playing beer pong, they are going to die from Swine flu. Or the story by the local weather chick, reminding watchers, that it's important in snowy weather, to remember to clean your windshield wipers off, BEFORE leaving. Television... OFF!

At least we could still (sorta) see where the driveway started;

And thanks to a roaring fire, the house was warm;

And Neo was having a blast, but I think he needs a snorkel!

I'm hoping the shoveling tired me out enough, that I'll be able to sleep enough tonight, and then wake up to see how the snow looks in the morning.

Burn Baby, Burn!

2009-10-26T15:41:00.001-07:00

Regardless of what cyclists like to think, they are viewed by most people, even in cycling-friendly cities like Boulder, as borderline-freaks at best. Which is why things like this weekends "Ride Against Coal" really kind of irk me.

I'm all for being nice enough to the environment and all that jazz, even though no one was ever kind enough to worry about how the environment would be for my life... So you know, go protest, whatever. But if you're riding down two of the primary roads in Boulder, blocking traffic, do you really think that makes other people stuck in the traffic behind you really think, "Hmmm... I should get out and ride my bike"? No, it makes me embarassed to be a cyclist as it is. Even better when you think about the fact that here are 200 protesters, blocking traffic in an effort to reduce coal consumption, yet while they are blocking traffic, there are 100+ cars sitting in the street idling, burning fossil fuels and creating even more waste than if they were free to move along to their destination.

I won't even bitch about the number of traffic laws that the same protesters were breaking in an effort to make cycling look like a viable transportation option.

As a protest to people that don't make sense in the way they protest agains global warming which may or may not be primarily driven by mankind depending on who funded the given study, I fully intend to be one of the first to bid on my dirty fuel-burning lawn-mower powered Lazy-Boy Recliner.

Doesn't much matter either way, since the Mayan calender has already warned that we're all going to die from this shitty movie anyway.

Satan's Birthday

2009-10-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

Sweet... almost time for Satan's Birthday again, so Jessica and I hit the pumpkin patch last weekend, laughed at the Boulder parents, and picked out some big ass pumpkins which we then pulled the gooey brains out of, and carved.

Boo!

Scared you, didn't I?

I always like a bit of a laugh with my horror stories... a bit ago, I was in a local "bike shop" pretending to browse around the mechanics area, while I was enjoying the conversation involved with the owner of a mountain bike wheel with a flat tire, and TWO different shop employees; all three of them trying to determine whether or not the wheel/tire combo was currently set up as tubeless. Something new caught my eye though, so I went to check it out.

What's this? Oh yes, the newest chain lube from Finish Line. And if you are absolutely convinced that your ceramic bearings have changed the way you ride your bike, and since switching, you've won several races purely because of all those saved watts... well then, there's no way you can live without this lube!

I mean, it's "Ceramically Reinforced". Wow... the marketing in the cycling world is so far beyond laughable...seriously, it reminds me of commercials for diet pills on television. I have no idea how I've ridden all these years without ceramic chain lube. Especially when I read on the Finish Line website how it works;

"Ceramic WET ensures maximum drivetrain efficiency. This performance level often provides a physiological (reserved energy) and psychological (confidence) advantage for cyclists during climbs and sprints."

Yep, that's right, this chainlube even improves your confidence because you know that you have the power of ceramics on your side... and your opponents are stuck with old-fashioned dinosaur juice based chain lubs.

Balloon Fiesta

2009-10-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

Last year Jessica and I hopped into the car to head down to Albuquerque, NM for our friend Stephanie's wedding. So this year we decided to hop into the car and drive down for a visit since she and her little family live down there now. Plus we had the added benefit of spending some time at the Albuquerue Balloon Fiesta. We were down on the same weekend last year, but Stefanie's wedding and some bad weather really thwarted any chances of seeing the balloons; this year the forecast looked much better!

Stephanie's dad pilots the Remax ballon, so we had some special access on the field, and even better, when one of the planned passengers bailed on Friday morning, a spot opened up and Stephanie offered up the seat to me. Kakow! I was pretty psyched, and started focusing on keeping my fear of heights in check. Jessica became part of our chase-crew in the van, and I was off...

It didn't take too long for me to adjust to the heights, and the way the basket moves around a bit. For some reason, flying is always way better than hanging on a rock face, or looking over the edge of a railing, when it comes to my acrophobia. And good thing, since there was plenty to look at. We were trying to get to the field, so we could throw a beanbag at the targets. The shear number of balloons in such a small space was amazing!

When it was time for a landing, we ended up coming down, outside of the United States of America... on Indian lands. I wish I would have taken notice of who's land it was... they had one hell of a casino just over the hill. No, really. Flying was fun, but it was also cool because we got to help inflate and then recover, deflate and pack up the balloon afterwards. Always cool to see how things work, and not something you get to do when you're just a typical passenger.

The Balloon-World is pretty fun; get up while it's dark, go fly, land, and regroup back at the field for some partying and celebrating another safe flight. By the time you've flown, had some food and drink, and are ready for a nap, it's only about 11.30. We relaxed during the day, and were back at the field that evening for the "Glow" where all the balloons inflate on the field, and then light up their burners at once, making all the balloons glow in the darkness. It was crazy, once again, how many people and balloons were there!

I really like the Space Shuttle balloon, even though this was the closest it came to flying that weekend.

And each night wrapped up with fireworks - we've gotten to see lots this year after missing most of the shows last year!

The next morning we were up early again, and it was back to the field for the Mass Ascension. ALL the balloons were on the field and taking off in waves. You could walk around and see balloons packed side by side, and be right there while they took off. It was like an hour of hundreds of balloons over-head all at once.

You've gotta love the Darth Vader Balloon - they even had their crew dressed in full Stormtrooper outfits.

Though I was mostly obsessed with the Creamland Dairy Cow Balloon. I'm not even a "boob-man", but those udders were huge...

I'm just glad it didn't leave any like-sized cow-patties;

I mostly can't believe that it didn't take out tons of people when it finally lifted off;

That thing was really, really huge!

That night we were back for more glowing, and more fireworks. The morning glow-flights were a sight to see as well; (I stole this photo from the site, since I didn't capture any good ones)

And our last night there, we went for the glow, but the wind picked up so the balloons had serious issues staying inflated and standing up. So what do you do in that case? Well, everyone still just uses the burners all at once, just without the balloons. And really, who doesn't love crazy-big flames!?

Jessica and I were a bit sick that weekend, and we were running all about with the balloons, but spent all that time also hanging with Stephanie, Craig, Addie and Lil' John. So a good visit all around and we made it back home safe without too much hassle, and of course with a stop in Colorado Springs at Dunkin' Donuts.

Frisco Cross

2009-10-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the double-header that they call Frisco-cross. I always try to make it up for both days, because the course, the scenery, the competition and the vibe are all usually pretty awesome. But sometimes the drive and/or the weather conspire to beat the motivation out of me. When I got up there on Saturday, the weather was awesome, and I was bummed that I didn't bring both bikes, so I could do the double-header, and then not feel bad if I bailed on Sunday. But I was just there for the singlespeed race...

The race went fine... started out hard, crested the "actual climb" at the start in first place, and never looked back... riding on for the win. It was a pretty fun course, and tricky to keep the momentum smooth and fast on the singlespeed. Not to mention picking the right places to pass the Cat3s so that it wouldn't spoil your movement. I love when they have that fast 4 or 6 pack of barriers... more races need those!

Oh what the hell... it only took 1.5hrs to get there, Scotty Borque and Tim Assor do an awesome job setting up the course and the race, LG was on the mic, and I'm not racing this coming weekend... I might as well head back up for some more fun on Sunday I figured. This time I was taking both bikes though, even though it was likely to kill me. The Open race started ridiculously fast thanks to Chuck, crushing it at the start. From then on it was constant chase mode, fighting the ugly headwind and going cross-eyed on the climb every lap racing at 9k feet. I came apart a bit with 3 laps to go and got caught by a few, but I didn't push overly hard knowing I had another race coming.

By the time the singlespeed race came, it was colder, with more clouds, and of course, more wind. We started out relatively sane, but I knew right from the start I was on the limit and the legs were burning, so I was happy to follow most of the first lap. I had a better line going down the steep drop though, used it and dropped to first going through the line the first time. Soon I was back to second though, and that was the best I was going to do. Of course, I had to keep it drilled as much as I could, since D-Strong had me in his sites and wasn't about to let up. 90% of the race looked like this with D-Strong close behind;

I tried to escape with 2 to go, but he came back again. Going into the run-up I knew he'd accelerate quicker than me, and that I had to be in the front going into the barriers since he was hoping them on his mountain bike (cheater!)... so I ran a bit further to carry the speed after the run-up, and then totally fucked my remount. Doh! Derek was gone like a shot, I was cooked, and I wasn't going to bring him back. Still on the podium though, and a little motivation to make D-Strong hurt a little more next time! Really, it was a good race with him, and I definitely hate it during the race, but he kept me honest the whole time, working as hard as my legs would allow and forcing me to keep the lines as smooth as possible.

Seth... reportedly... is still alive and out there in the big wide world. He put me onto this story of the milk protests in Europe, with an awesome photo gallery.

Let's face it... Americans just don't have the moxie to protest like this - shooting fresh cow-juice straight at the cops in full riot gear, burning tires, clogging streets with tractors, showering everyone around with fresh straw... Nah, we're too busy hiding in our own houses, because we have a fever and jeebus! What if it's Swine Flu!? Where's my anti-bacterial soap!? What do you mean Swine Flu is actually a virus!?

Lupus? Is it Lupus!?

Roller Derby and Singletrack

2009-10-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

It was a rough, getting home from the Interbike trip at 2am, but good to see Jessica, be back in my own bed, and actually have a full weekend ahead of me to purge out the Vegas toxins. After a slow start, the legs did their convincing that I shouldn't really go down to Louisville for the cross race. But it was awfully nice out, so I still got out for a singletrack ride on the cyclocross bike, which was really, really nice. Good to pedal some circles after all the walking (and drinking) in Vegas.

On my way out though, I noticed that the winter-winds had crushed one of the big trees that was on the list for coming down this year. Good... that thing was huge, and was going to be a pain. But it was in the road as well, so I had to chop it back before the neighbors got all bent.

Luckily it didn't take too long to at least get the offending bits out of the road, because it was time for us to meet some friends down at the Denver Roller Dolls match! Woo hoo! We were there plenty early, and got our trackside seating.

The Bad Apples killed it again... though it got way too close for comfort at the end.

The highlight was the halftime show though, when Jessica and Brittainy were chosen to compete in a little halftime racing;

The ladies on the start line;

Jessica "drove" first;

Then it was Brittainy's turn... hands on the wheel Brittainy!

And of course, no visit to the roller derby is complete, until you make sure the newbies get a chance to meet Dumptruck... this time it was Jill's turn;

Somehow I still had the energy to get out Sunday morning for 3 hours on the singlespeed mountain bikes with Fitch. But it was well worth it! The weather was awesome, the leaves colorful, and the trails fairly quiet. Plus it was awesome to ride the SS mountain bike, which I hadn't done in quite some time.

Of course, all it did was make me itch again, to build a nice, tricked-out SS mountain bike...

Time To Nut-Up, or Shut Up

2009-10-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

Last night Jessica and I braved the campus to catch a premiere of Zombieland... and while there was a point where I didn't think I was going survive standing in line, listening to the conversations around me, it was WELL worth it.

The uncut trailer;

AWESOME movie, best one I've seen in awhile. Especially if you like Woody Harrelson, who was just incredible. I already can't wait for this one to come out on DVD.