why cats never got the name 'mans best friend'

Hectic

I thought that summer vacation was supposed to be a nice long time for kids to lounge around, eat watermelons, and go swimming. I guess I'm not quite lucky enough to fit the stereotypical definition of the average summer. between the intensive O.E.C. training five to six hours a day the last two weeks, the crested butte race last saturday, leaving for deer valley, ut this thursday, and trying to go ride, not nearly enough hours in the day.
Earlier this summer, I had all these grand aspirations to go on epic rides all the time, go to a couple races, and have a generally all around good time. well here we are almost a month through the summer, and the epic ride count remains at like 1.5 or maybe 2. I've only been up to ned two or three times (something i wanted to do two or three times a week) and all I've managed to write here are is stupid whiny bike racing b.s. and a nicely typical fucking flatlander report about the conditions of nederland trails. thats not the kind of thing i like to write about, and most certainly not the kind of thing i would want to read about, so sorry if this site has been boring. i think its time to bring back the cool to my writing. no more shit, thats what i say. hopefully my new abbey book can help me out a bit with that.

trail season in ned is officially underway, not that it hasn't been for a month or so, but now, the real trails are prime. except, that is, above elevations of 10,000 feet, or northern-facing and or shady aspects.

caught the early ned bus this morning with mike, and proceeded to explore the large climb. asides from one pile of avalanche debris in the first twenty minutes, it was clear up until the last half mile or so. from then on, it was slipping along the thawing plateau. we were following a trail, that when not blocked by large drifts was really more of a stream in the first place.


all the water had frozen over night, but was loosened up by the sun, and left a thin sheet of ice covering the trail, really cool to look at, but cooler to ride over. descended the unconventional route having a really spectacular time and returned to ned around 10:30 or so.


with so much time left, we decided to make more of the day and traverse the freak to freak towards pennsylvania gulch. got to sunset and made a quick detour to get some potatoes. finished out in boulder at 12:30, cooked and tired but wanting more. twas a truely beautiful day.

O.G.

after a tough week of sleep deprivation, hot riding, and the SATs, rallied down to gunnison for the original growler race this sunday. I have to say, it completely blew me away. I knew I was signing up for an epic race. dave wiens put it on, and he said it would be epic. I guess i just didn't quite gauge the level of epic-osity that would be delivered. I guess I underestimated Hartman rocks' ability to dish out brutally technical, steep, and winding singletrack. I also took a complete shot in the dark with my fitness that seems to have ricocheted and hit me square in the buttocks. I am far from the level where I need to be to compete for six hours on the bike, and just barely passing at the level of carcass dragging for eight.

At least I did get to witness some very spectacular riding from the other two juniors who competed. Brae took home second overall just behind T-Bone himself, and the Old Man Vigers once again handled the singlespeed men, deftly increasing his wins-this-season-to-races-this-season ratio to 4:6. yes, and that is at 15 years of age, and on a singlespeed.

In other news went down to the velodrome today with the tokyo joe's kids, and scared myself silly on the steep concrete, too much fun.

summer

I think has arrived. Rode with the devo crew yesterday, ~5 hours for superwalker with maybe three hours on the bike. slightly frustrating to ride for 20, then rest for 15, then repeat. Such is the nature of the beast i guess. First short track this evening, sucks that ill be in the fucking SAT class, at least that will all be over on saturday. last standardized test ever! well, not ever, but for a while at least.
kicked off the OEC course last night, just when I though I could have a reasonable break from classes for a while, no such luck. at least it means i can patrol next year with less red tape to cut through. loveland or brian mountain i think. in the mean time, lets go ride.

happy june everybody! set out to ring in the changing season with the first ned ride of the season. finally a great summer ride, not too hot, until the very end, sweet trails, and hopefully a sign of things to come.


took mostly to the east mag trails, remaining solidly in stupid-flatlander territory. wouldn't want to piss off any nmbys this early in the season. not for want of trying, spent a good turn looking for some of the trails from two summers ago, its really astonishing how tangled the memories of all those secret carryings through the woods get. didn't find anything except the exit to king nmby's private ridge which caused so many problems a while back.


took the legal route back down to flag after a nice break (with a coconut) and finished up with a fine lunch at tokyo joe's. now it's just gearing up for the race next weekend: 64 miles of hartman rocks single track. ooh la.