Not Much To Say

I'm going to take a blogging sabbatical. See you when I get back...

Take the Stairs

Descending Dry I decided to bypass the stairs, I never know when I'm going to create a spectacle. I rounded the corner with a lot of speed and ran into, almost literally, this...

Trail work anyone?

Last Chance

It's sad when a perfectly good road gets covered in gravel. Wouldn't it be more cost effective to leave it dirt and periodically grade it? The last mile was stained green, so Wadsworth will be shitty!

Another Race

The ICUP at Sundance was last weekend, in case anyone that reads this wasn't there. Jamie and Brennen decided to stay home. Not that I blame her for not wanting to come. Would you want to stand around for hours occasionally seeing your significant other ride by? Didn't think so. Besides, Grandma and Grandma (grandpa) came out. So Brennen had way more fun with them.

I did better than last year. So guess I'm still improving? Maybe it's the coaching? Maybe the fast guys didn't show up? I passed a couple of spent riders on Archies on the first lap and caught up with Chad. He and I spent the rest of the race working together to pick off anyone we could see in our category. If you call it a strategy it worked. I brought us onto forth places wheel on the final climb of the last lap. The three of us hit the bottom of the road together, shared a glance to make sure we were all ready. Then no more team work. I made about twenty yards before my quads both cramped. Hours of riding only to blow the race in the last minutes. I knew it was coming. The pace we were pushing combined with the limited refueling opportunities, it was only a matter of time before I ran out of gas.

Unfortunately you can't call timeout take a drink and rest for a few minutes. Wouldn't that be an interesting twist? Everyone stop where ever you are and take five. I like it the way it is.

Karl snapped this at the finish line.

I couldn't decide if I should laugh or cry. But doesn't the new kit look good?

How do you measure a workout?

I used to measure my workout by how difficult it was to climb the three flights of stairs back to my desk. Today's ride was nothing out the ordinary. Except the sun was shining, it wasn't windy and I had really good time!

I brought my mountain bike and headed up Squaw Peak, pealed off on to the dirt by the paintball range then up to the BST. The trail conditions were perfect, I even had a couple of "puker" moments descending the BST toward the park. I had so much fun going down I turned around at the bottom and went back up and down to the paintball range. I was having shifting issues that couldn't be resolve bouncing around on the single track and thought the rest of Squaw Peak would be a great opportunity to fix the problem. As I approached the gate the Forest Service was there taking it down. I asked if they would leave it up for a couple more weeks. They didn't respond. Just before the big turn, about half way, two cars came flying by... I opted for the dirt again and took the sketchy single track down to the BST and over to the cemetery. Great ride!

The stairs weren't a bad climb at all. I was feeling like I should have gone harder or longer. I went downstairs to meeting about 45 minutes later and almost fell. I think I did all right.

May is looking much better than April.

New Month

I'm so glad to have April over. Nothing against that month, just the consecutive strings of shity weather. I was supposed to be training for the heck-tick May races. I probably only road my bike a dozen times. I did time-trail the White Rim, but one long ride doesn't make up for a month of consecutive riding. My yard is a disaster, except the grass. With the extra rain my lawn is thick and green. Good thing I bought a riding mower and trailer to take care of the waste. Jamie and I decided to put cement curbing around the back yard. Now I need to bring in a few tons of playground bark and gravel. Not mention killing the grass I worked so hard to get to grow. It really makes me feel bad! Because we put the curbing in after the lawn they had to cut out a path which left small sections of grass in the rocks and bark. All attempts at spraying the leftovers and other weeds have failed. Funny thing, weeds germinate and thrive in colder temperatures, yet sprays don't work unless the it's warm. Damn weeds!

Enough complaining. It's May, a new month with more opportunities to ride my bike and play in the yard. Maybe Brennen and I can finally ride our bikes to the park.

Disneyland - Part 2

On the second day or our trip we dragged our tired behinds to California Adventure. At first glance I thought this park was going to be more fun. Someone in our party wasn't quite tall enough to ride the roller coasters.

He won't go in the dark but cries when he can't ride a big, fast, scary roller coaster or two... So we found the next best thing, a great big ferris wheel.

I think he had a good time. We wanted to ride Toy Story Mania, but the line was forever long with no fast pass option. Jamie offered to stand in line while Bren and I tried to find other rides. We found two with short lines and on our way back ran into Jamie. She had gotten close to the front and didn't want to "anger" the other people by letting us cut in, so she left to find us. If only we'd had a way to communicate, like walkie talkies or something?

It was warm, Brennen needed to cool off. We found It's a Bugs Life, a surprisingly good time.

Because Brennen loves knights, pirates, guys and pretty much any action figure. Jamie thought it would be fun to have dinner at Medieval Times. We ended up in the Green Knights section. He was the coolest and also the villain.

All was going great! Guys were fighting, horses were doing cool stuff, the story was entertaining, we were eating baby dragon with our fingers. Then the Green Knight got killed.

Brennen cried and cried. Mom and dad were sad, the serving wench was sad, the people next to us were sad. It was just sad seeing a little boy cry because his knight died and no one bothered to tell him that this was all pretend.

Disneyland - Part 1

So Jamie convinced me to go to Disneyland, I convinced her to drive... We loaded the boy into the car and headed for Vegas, South of there just a bit. We thought about driving all night but couldn't figure what we'd do once we got there at 1 in the morning. Twenty minutes into the drive Brennen started asking if we were there yet. For some reason, only known to him, he thought we were going to the Payson swimming pool. We made it to sunny Anaheim, the weather was perfect. Unloaded at the hotel and caught the bus to the park. We don't have a bunch of Disney movies so I wondered if Brennen would recognize the characters. Didn't seem to be a problem. That or he was just excited to see all that is Disneyland.

Jamie decided our first ride was going to be Pirates. Not for selfish reasons, Brennen loves pirates and the movies.

Maybe this wasn't the best idea! The Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain and a few other "kid" rides were no goes because we scared him. Don't fret we road Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters enough to make up for it.

Shooty things, can't go wrong with that...

Brennen got to take part in a parade, actually pretty cool! They took all of the kids out a couple different times to dance the characters and do conga.

Mom and Dad were tired, we missed the fireworks.

ICUP and GB

I spent Easter in southern Utah enjoying another break from the snow. ICUP #2 was the very iffy Cholla course south of Hurricane. This year I actually liked the it! That said, I still prefer the mountain courses. The race went well despite starting back row. Again the group was large, 25 I think. The start resulted in a dust cloud that brought the back row to a stop 50 feet from the line. After some catch-up just trying to get into a rhythm I hooked up with Derek from UMB, we worker really well together into the last lap catching up with the top 5. Unfortunately he dropped his chain leaving me to finish alone. I managed to come in 5th to my surprise, catching up to the front row starters. Maybe I should start on the front row?

I hooked up with the Holleys on Sunday for a post ride lap around the mesa. Though I only road with them for a short time, it was the same as always: KC setting a  blistering pace, Chris bouncing off of everything along the trail and me just trying to keep them in site. I didn't get much breakfast before leaving so I was really hungry toward the end. Then it happened a little drop, someone spilled some trail mix, I wasn't paying attention, you know the rest. I somehow managed to break the valve stem off of my wheel. KC, pit chief, was on it. Her and Chris had my spare ready to go before I had broke the bead. Then Chris filled my tire while I tried to figure what damage I had done. What a way to crash!

Friday Sun

I had to take advantage of the Friday weather, warm and sunny isn't something that we've had much of lately. I decided against the road bike (wonder why?) and headed for the ESBST. There isn't any snow on the East bench, so I figured the trail would be dry because of the sand and gravel. I was wrong. North of Slate Canyon there was about three inches of slush. I made it to the Y parking lot and turned around. Not defeated I went South toward Springville. No snow, the ground was firmer but plenty of large puddles. Brennen likes to jump in puddles. I try to jump over them, only I can't bunny hop that far, splash! I went up the hidden trial. 

The only snow was on the trail! What's the hidden trial? It's just that, but it's a fun section of single track in the middle of nowhere. So where is it? Here's a hint..

 

The first ICUP race is next weekend. It's going to be interesting.

Almost Normal

Last Sunday was almost back to normal: going for a ride and hanging with Brennen. I road the Extreme South BST, as KC calls it. Most of the slush is gone and it's dry for the most part. South of Rock Canyon the snow came back along with some nasty muck. I wanted to go for at least two hours, I know big whoop, but that's longer than the upcoming race. I figure if I can ride for a couple of hours without collapsing I should be able to race for 90 minutes. Well, race the first lap then struggle for the next two. I took all of the out and backs along the trial and even made one up. Someone started a new section of trial but I lost it quickly and ended up free riding down to the BST double track.

 

When I made it home Bren and I went for a walk. It's nice having the river trail behind the house. We spent longer than the ride throwing rocks and playing with sticks. Even practiced subtraction. If you have three sticks (swords) and I take away one how many do you have left? He got tired of this and opted for a sword fight instead. If you look close he is in this picture.

When I finally caught up to him, he said "hurry dad...". Maybe I should remember those words and use them as a motto.

Crap...

The first ICUP race is fast approaching and I'm a little nervous. I'm finally feeling better after hurting my back (again) and catching something nasty from the boy. Kids are great! No, really. Except the whole getting sick thing. Jamie and I rarely got sick until Brennen came along. Now everything he gets we get as well, only twice as bad! Back to that racing thing. Earlier I had thoughts of Sea Otter, nope. Karl and I missed the first race of the Temecula series. Now I'm starting to feel a little 'ify' about this one. I shouldn't care, just show up for the race and get some extra riding in during the weekend. Maybe head a little farther south and lose some money with Jamie. I'm still on the trainer but it's not riding. Not to mention boring as can be. I have caught up on all of the Dexter episodes I've missed over the last year. That's a plus. I've made a few attempts at the BST, what snow is left is difficult to ride and preventing the ground from drying. A teammate mentioned Rock Canyon, that was fun where the snow was frozen once I made to where the sun reaches the canyon floor I was stopped and had to turn back. I ended up doing hills on the road on my mountain bike with about 10 psi in the tires. Good times! I miss the Timp foot hills, Diamon Fork and Mt. Loafer. Can't wait for spring...