The Adventure Pt. II

This is part two of a chronicle of the past few weeks. This part with a focus mostly on Crested Butte.



On Sunday, a sizable group of juniors, myself included, left to ride the famous 401 trail. For those of you who have not ridden this trail, I highly recommend it. Miles upon miles of single track snaking along mountain hillsides at 10,000 feet above sea level. 15 or so rowdy kids detracted a bit from the whole deal, but it was very cool none the less.

Monday brought a ride that is now solid on my list of top 5 all time adventures.
Starting from our condo at the ski area, Brae, Mike, Matt, Tim and myself rode up to Gothic. Veering right, we began the deer creek trail. This follows the East river, climbing up and down for ten or so miles, until you hit west brush creek. Turn left and start climbing. Up, up, up, and then some more up.
Right about when you're done climbing, you hit the base of the Tiocalli ridge trail. From there, its a mile and a quarter of horrendous climbing that made our group sound more like a bunch of Tourette syndrome patients than bike riders. One quote that exemplified the general feeling was "Today, we almost died" either that or "Holy Fuck!". Then a bit more climbing through the trees before you start going down. The decent is, in one word, sick. An excellent mix of challenging technical stuff, and wide open single track. Super fun, and well worth the suffering.

Pizza at the stash again that night, and some antics to follow up, not to mention Wayne's World.

The next day we drove down to Gunnison to check out some place called Hartman Rocks.
Could not have been more different than the day before. To go from high alpine to Moab/Fruita desert sagebrush slickrock insanity was a shock, in a good way.
It felt like there was an infinite variety of technical winding sweet single track that easily rivaled places like Mary's loop. lots and lots of fun.

Then came the long drive home, not as bad as I remembered it, but still long.

The Adventure Pt. I

Its been quite some time since my last entry, and a lot has happened. Lots to catch up on. I need a laptop so I can make updates when im gone for 2 weeks at a time, Add that to the list. This is part one, part two will

For the past week and a half I have been on quite an adventure. It would take forever to explain the whole thing so I will let the pictures do the talking, for the most part. I have ridden my bike every single day for at least 4 hours sometimes 8, without a break, since last sunday.
The first half of this "vacation" involved six days of intense training and learning at a regional development camp at the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs.

It felt a bit like boot camp with a soft-serve ice cream machine and more riding than you could shake a stick at. We rode, ate, slept, listened to lectures and had our television fall out of the wall at three o'clock in the morning.

There are some really cool trails around the springs, and i would like to do some more riding there. The only problem was that there were no high mountains. You could climb for 3 hours and still be in the hot, dusty, crowded foothills. No way to escape. It wasn't all bad though. We got to spend some time out on the velodrome, which was sketchy as hell but super fun.

Another surprise was one of the coaches. A Mr. Greg Frozley, I believe, who rides for spike shooter who has been a multi-year IGSSC attendee. Very cool indeed.

And, I was WORKED, almost all of me was sore. Probably not the best right before a race, but whatever. Oh, and I was witness to the birth of a new sport. Its all top secret and underground right now, but heres one of the pics.




When Friday rolled along, packed up and headed over to Crested Butte. We were staying at the area with twenty or so other racers from boulder for the MSC race. Pre-rode on Friday evening, and woke up early on Saturday to shovel down oats three hours before the gun.

The race sucked. Something about the combination of sleep deprivation, over training, under fed, and not motivated, this was probably my worst race. I dropped out after the first lap when a bottle of GU2O did not sit too well with my stomach. I had cramps, but i also felt like shit anyways. Thats the first race i have ever not finished because of not feeling like it. Upon looking back, i probably could have kept going, but there was no fun. And when I no longer am having fun, I force myself to take a step back.

In this case, stepping back was three days of truly epic riding around CB. While I probably should have been resting, Saturday evening involved an awesome hour and a half loop out of town. This was followed by dinner at the stash, and a grande round of P and H.

What a week

Not a whole lot of motivation to write lately, or time for that matter. The last week has been nuts, felt like I was moving at about 100mph for the entire thing. Lots of riding, and a race yesterday. Not to mention getting my permit, painting rooms, manicuring stupid fucking squares of Kentucky bluegrass, working, and oh yea... wondering how much trouble I would get into for drilling Mr. Sunny's Ice cream wagon with a few rounds from the 12 gauge in the garage. I think you get an idea of my sentiment for boulder right now. A tune by Mr. Eric Burdon and the Animals fits me quite well right now. I've been feeling really restless of late, not sure why, but the heat doesn't help. I really want to go into the mountains right now. but no such luck. This afternoon, I'll be leaving for the Springs and the United States Olympic Training Center for a week of riding, testing, training, etc. Then its off to CB for the race. whew. Yesterday, I did the second WP race. I blew up on the second lap and finished ok, 8th out of 13. I should have been two spots further up, but stopped to give some guy a hand, and got passed up. Oh well what can you do? I have to say, that while I do enjoy racing, there is something about trying to catch some guy in front of you, while choking down artificial glucose and your bpm's topping out at lactate threshold thats not quite as pleasant as getting lost at 10,000 feet with a map and a 32x17.

Heres some pictures of the week.

Winter Park #1

Saturday was the first race of a six part series of races in and around Winter Park Colorado. Yesterday's race was the Hill climb kickoff, an audacious way to start the racing season. Brae P, Mike V, and myself raced in the singlespeed category representing Black Death. Surenuf, Charlie Hayes was sitting right there on the start line, kinda weird to line up with people like that, very intimidating. But anyways, linstened to the 5...4...3...2...1...GO! and went off.

We actually started off at a decent pace this year, which was a welcome change. Everything was going alright, that is until the second switchback, when the group exploded. Everything just disintegrated into little bits. I had three guys in my sight the entire way up, but could not manage to catch them. It turns out that Brae got second by something like 13 seconds to Charlie Hayes. Very cool to have a black death podium in the first race.

Rode up to where the sun sets yesterday with mom and dad. Not so smart after the race yesterday, but it was a very relaxed pace, and nice weather to boot. Going down to golden tomorrow to do a ride with the team, so maybe a report on that later.

Summer ...

is finally here. Long days of riding and exploring the woods, chilling with friends, not going to school, not unlike this afternoon. I took my last final today, Spanish, which sucked. Mostly because I finished early and had to sit looking out at the beautiful weather. windy, yes, but beautiful. Man was it ever windy last night. One of our neighbor's trees blew over at around 10oclock last night. Riding to school this morning was like riding in the path of an F5 tornado. Maybe not quite that bad, but there were still tons of branches and trees everywhere.

Just got back from a lovely ride with Ellen P. Rode up Lee Hill, met Ellen, chatted for a bit, then went down the backside with the intention of visiting Ward. Although we did not make it to ward, we did have a beautiful spin up just past Rowena, where we took a secret trail back up to the junction of CR83 and lee hill church. Hiked back up to deer trail and descended back into town.


This "secret" trail is probably one of the coolest trails I can think of reasonably close to Boulder. I imagine that at some point it was a mining road, but it has now deteriorated to a gorgeous little singletrack. Its nothing extreme, and it only lasts for about 30 minutes on the way up, but well worth the trek.



Anyways, here are some more pictures from the ride today. enjoy:

My Ultimate Adventure

This is a bit of a spin of some stories that Dan told me, as well as stuff that I made up. It's probably completely insane, but that is where the appeal is. It would probably never happen in the next seven years, but that just means that I have a lot of time to plan.


Start:
Boulder, CO. June 20th. 0600 hours. Home. With a backpack full of clothes, gear, money, and plane tickets From DIA to Whitehorse, Y.T. and a passport. Leave the house on the trusty b.a.s.s.

1300ish hours. Arrive at DIA, pack bike in box, and check backpack. Board Plane.

1800ish hours. Arrive in Whitehorse Y.T. and ride to the campground at the start of the 24 hours of light. Set up camp and go riding. Spent 2 days riding in the area, and camping.

June 23rd 1200 hours. Begin the 24 hours of light mountain bike race. solo. on a single speed. race around the clock on the summer solstice, with out lights, and naked at midnight.

June 24th 1200 hours. end race, pack up camp and ride from Whitehorse towards Carcross Y.T. spend the night camping, resting, and eating.

June 25th 0900 hours. pack up and ride the remaining distance to carcoss, then on to Bennett, B.C. Refill supplies, by a gun, eat lunch/dinner and go to bed.

June 26th 0600 hours. Take bike, strap it to pack, and start hiking In the direction of Dyea, AK. Although it is possible to travel along the Chilkoot trail, that would be making things much too easy. Why not just hike along the trail? For one, during the month of June and July, Rangers have to limit the number of hikers to 50 a day, there is no way I would have an interest in dealing with that many people. Also, there are a huge number of fees that must be paid to use the trail and campsites. I'm on a budget.
Somewhere around 40-50 miles through the Coastal Mountains, this hike/ride would be entirely removed from any civilization for at least 3 or 4 days. About half-way along the way, you cross over from BC to AK where, hopefully, nobody notices.

Once arriving in Dyea, spent the night, take a shower, eat some real food, and sleep in a bed. The next morning, get up and ride to Skagway, where you can catch a Flight or ferry to Seatle. From there, fly back to Denver and ride home.

Thats my adventure. Whats yours.

Hump Day

20°C, Warm and WINDY. I went to go out for a short little ride today, just an easy spin. That is until I stepped out into Hurricane force winds. There's never an easy day when its windy, so I decided to stay home and work on my bike. Put my shiny new Surly Tugnut. By far the shiniest, cleanest, coolest thing on my bike at this time. And plus, it is not only good for tensioning the chain, but it doubles as a refreshing beverage opener. I dont care if I've got 6 years before I can drink Alcoholic beverages, this is sick. I took some pics of my B.A.S.S. to put up on here, enjoy:

Research and Black Death

24°C, cloudy and hot. Humid too. Went for a ride with the team today, down to the research park. I broke out the single last night and cleaned it up for the Hill Climb this weekend. There's been a creak in that bike since 24 hours of Moab last year and I just took apart the BB to figure out why. The answer? About 2 tablespoons of silt were grinding around in the shell. Cleaned it out, greased it up and put it back together. Now it works slick as a whip. I probably should have done that sooner, but better late than never. I also took all the stickers off the frame, it's still sticky in spots, but looks rather sharp. I don't have a picture of the B.A.S.S. up here yet, but I'll get on that. Anyways, took a few rounds of bermuda bump and thump and then a bit of a short track race. ST isn't really my deal, but I held with Brae, Mike, Matt, and Ann for the first four laps. I ended up losing them on the final lap, but felt alright.

This weekend is the first Winter Park race. The hill climb kick-off is always a bit of a shocker, 5.something miles with 2800+ feet of climbing on a 32x17. I'll be racing single speed, not only for the hill climb, but for the entire series. That will hurt, but I'm looking forward to it. A bonus for the series this year is the Black Death junior single speed team. The brainchild of DV8, B.D.J.S.S.T. is the newest, baddest, most punk-rock, killer team on the SS scene. Plus we've got some kick-ass jerseys.


This one is just a prototype, but it is sick none the less. It's a bit ghetto, just some massive black t-shirt from target with an iron on logo that i made on the computer. But, Makes me psyched to race so thats all good.

And plus only 2 more finals! spanish and german! whoo hoo!

2 down, 4 to go

Finals that is. Math and English are done, Math being without a doubt one of the hardest single tests I have ever taken (asides from the AP world history exam). But the summer is on the horizon. Winter Park kicks off this weekend with the hill climb, then on to almost a continuous 9 weeks of racing, training, and working. Also, on a side note, I was accepted to a USA cycling development camp at the OTC in the springs. Five days of eating, sleeping, breathing bikes, complete with professional coaching and OTC cafeteria food (which is a good thing). Pretty psyched for that, but a bit nervous too, the roster has some of the top junior racers in the country on it, so we'll have to see. Any ways, time to go out for a ride, then study for Bio and Spanish. Ugh, ill be glad when thats over.

Whats in Your Camelback?

This post was inspired by Jill. Her story reminded me of another camelback that is filled with junk. mine. The majority of my friends have nothing good to say about my trusty backpack, that is until they need something from it. But any ways, I carry around a ton of stuff, partly because I like to be prepared, and partly because I'm to lazy to clean it out. So, here it goes, the contents of my camelback:



1 red Camelback M.U.L.E. sans bladder

Clothing:
1 Louis Garneau insulated shell jacket
1 pair of arm warmers
2 pairs of leg warmers
1 pair heavy wool socks

Food:
2 packages of Clif shot bloks
7 Clif Z-bars (4 chocolate chip, 3 chocolate brownie)
1 peanut butter clif bar
2 vanilla GU's
1 squished rasberry nutrigrain bar

Repair Items:
1 ratty old stuff sack to hold all the fix-it stuff
2 mountain bike tubes
1 Crank bros mini pump
1 tire lever
2 CO2 cartriges
1 CO2 inflator
1 crank bros 15 multi-tool
1 Leatherman tool
1 swiss army knife
1 roll of red duct tape
6 spare single speed chain links
1 set of XTR disc brake pads
1 cat-eye opticube light
6 AA batteries (for my camera, two of which are dead)
1 six inch bungee cord
1 rubber band
1 valve stem cap

Other Stuff:
1 passage analysis worksheet for Things Fall Apart
1 roll of TP in a zip-lock bag
1 large black sharpie
1 TOKO ski strap
1 lowepro camera case, with 2 batteries
1 nikon coolpix L4 digital camera
1 Black Diamond LED headlamp
1 rescue whistle
1 compass
1 opinel knife
1 zip-lock bag (to hold headlamp, whistle, compass, and knife)
1 topo map of boulder county
1 container of Rachel Perry lip lovers grape flavored lip balm
1 pair of Rudy Project sunglasses with case
1 pencil
1 red bic pen
1 small bottle of eye drops
31 cents

I would write a commentary on these items, but I think that it speaks for its self. This camelback has traveled literaly thousands of miles with me, been to above 14,000 feet at least 4 times, competed in one randonee race and has been my most constant companion on the majority of my adventures over the last several years.