Cyclo-what!?

This past weekend was the Dillon and Copper mountain crits. I made it up for the Dillon one on Saturday. Jessica, Neo and I jumped in the car and drove up to the mountains. The rain just barely held off for our race, which I think everyone was more than happy about. Especially since it was a tight, short (under 1k), twisty course. Not typically my sort of course, but I was feeling good, so the race went fairly well for me.

I spent the first 3 or 4 laps frustrated, near the back of the pack. The legs felt good, but it was really difficult to move up. Then people settled into the course (myself included), figured out how to ride it, and things got better. I was able to get up to the front and do some work. Worked chasing down some people, followed some wheels into breaks that didn't really materalize, and worked to string out the field and make things uncomfortable for those following. I think I spent over 15k on the front of the race. It was one of those days where you pound yourself into the ground, figure you are done, but then are able to recover and do it again. Even better when you are able to do that at 9000ft! So I was pretty happy with my race. Unfortunately Paul went down in the last corner, but Brent still wound up in 6th at the end.

It's been a rough summer, but I have been feeling MUCH better lately, and this was another race where I was feeling strong. I was hoping I would feel good, as I was riding well all last week. Hopefully I can hold onto some form as we head into cyclocross season!

Sunday Jessica, Neo, Lucy, Alex and myself got up early, and went for a hike up to the top of Twin Sisters. It's usually a great hike, nice and quiet without people, and there is no drive involved. A nice way to get out and feel like you did something for the day, nice and early! Plus, the views are awesome. It's amazing how green everything still is, even this late in August!

Last night was a funny Bus Stop ride... it's always funny when guys roll up with World Champion jerseys on. One of my pet-peeves - you just shouldn't wear the stripes if you didn't earn them. They are something special. Of course, you also shouldn't wear your national championship jersey for winning Cat4 races, but that's a whole other story. This time however, Ivan Stevic decided to join us for a ride! Pretty cool, just so I don't have to sprint him... there are fairly often some big guns that make it out for the ride. Testerone is a funny things, and yesterdays ride was a great example; suddenly, you have all these guys that feel like they have to show Ivan how fast they are. Guys you have never seen on the ride, since they are usually safely tucked in at the back, are trying to drill it at the front, during what's normally the nice relatively mellow cruise going north. The slowest we went going north, was when Stevic himself was on the front. People are funny.

This morning it was tough, but I made it out of bed in time to hook up with the Wed. morning cyclocross ride. I'm glad I did too, it was a fun ride! It's only the second week for it, and road season is still swingin' so there were only 6 of us. But it was great to get out and hit some dismounts at full-speed, and get used to diggin' deep on the cross bike again. Plus it was a beautiful morning, and it's always better when you are missing a little bit of work to ride your bike! I should have stayed out longer...

Mountain bikin'

This past weekend, it was time for some long over-due mountain biking! To celebrate, I dusted off the ol' Dean Colonel, and took it out for 4 consecutive days of thrashing. It was really nice to be out in the woods again, picking my way through rocks and exploring trails. I found a couple new links, to assemble some very nice loops, right from the house. And with all the rain we have been getting up high, the trails are in awesome condition! And super green, even this late in August! A couple of the thicker wooded sections were giving me flashbacks of the ol' trails back east...

All complaints must be held in check, when this beauty is right out your back door!

Sunday, a couple of the guys from the team came up, and I played "tour-guide" as we trolled around some of the local Neder-Nederland trails. It was a great ride, with 6 of us out rippin' it up.

All this mountain biking, and my recent running, can mean only one thing - it's nearly cross season! With that, the cross bike was rebuilt this week also. It took till yesterday to get a real ride on it, but it was SWEET! I was riding home from work, heading up the Flagstaff mountain way. You just have to love a commute that includes 3500 feet of climbing, paved roads, fire roads, and single track. Good times.

This weekend it's out to Dillon for a crit. Maybe Copper Mountain on Sunday, if I can motivate to get back out that way, two days in a row. Should be interesting; a flat, barely 1k course, at 9000 feet.

Racin'

This week I traded my sweet racin' slicks...

For something with a little more meat on 'em...

Hey! There is still a trend line on the old ones. I wanted to get my money's worth out of them, plus, only the front ones were that bad; isn't that why I have 4-wheel drive!? Anyway, it makes Clemmie feel tough! Bring on the crappy weather!

In other news; this weekend was the Federal Center race. I had a decent race, doing a good amount of work. But a break couldn't get away with the right combination of guys... until right at the end. Randy made the group, and then promptly flatted, leaving us out of the mix. Crap.

Sunday was "chore-day" doing stuff around the house. Exciting stuff like caulking windows and installing new weather-stripping. Like I said, "bring on the crappy weather"! Wait a tick, actually, can that. I don't want ANY crappy weather. It's getting to that time of year where certain times while I'm outside doing whatever I can feel it... yes, fall is coming. It's not too far off. We have some warm times left, but if winter didn't come at all, I think I'd be perfectly happy.

Slackin'

Yep... totally slackin' on the posts.

This past weekend was the Salida Omnium. Salida is a surprisingly cool little town, out towards the middle of Colorado. Just ignore the occasional angry redneck, and you'll be fine. Really, it's gorgeous there.

Even the view right from the hotel was really cool.

Typically, Salida is a hot, hot race. Instead, this year it was incredibly wet. The TT went alright for me. I switched from my unlucky shoe covers, to a pair from a couple years ago, and it seemed to do the trick. I had a decent TT - even though I was racin' blind on a brand-new course, my warm-up suffered due to thunderstorms, and the start was delayed 15 minutes. I wish I could have pre-ridden the course, I know I could have shaved a healthy amount of time off the ride, if I knew what to expect going in. It didn't rain much during the actual race, but there was no shortage of dangerous lightning very close by.

Saturday was the road race, and it went okay. I don't know about this race, I never seem to ride well here. I was determined to finish, and was happily plodding along, but I had dropped out of the points for the omnium, and had two laps to go, when some nasty black clouds and lightning rolled in. I decided it wasn't worth it, and my energy would be better served in the crit for Sunday, so I pulled the plug. It basically rained most of the rest of the evening.

Sunday was the crit. Actually, it was mostly waiting around all day for the crit to start. Dan and I got out for a nice ride in the morning, and the weather was perfect. In fact it was nice all day, right up till about 10 minutes before our race when the wind started howling away. I was on the rivet from the word "go" in the crit. 20 minutes in, and the wind got crazy, and this storm just absolutely dropped down on us. It poured, like I haven't seen it pour in quite some time! Salida is pretty flat, and right on the river, so they don't really have sewers - just those gutters running along the curbs of the roads. These quickly turned into 10 inch deep rivers of gushing water, on all 8 turns of the course! It was epic, with zero-visability, cracking lightning overhead, and pouring rain. But damn it, I stuck it out and finished the race. After thirty seconds of riding in that storm, it's not like I was going to get any wetter, so what the hell?

Jessica and Sara were real troopers this weekend, working the feed zone in the rain, traveling with smelly, bike-racin' boys, and working the radios and cheering during the rainstorm that they called a crit.