snow

a dusting of snow and 25 degrees this morning. at almost 10 it is around 31 degrees. Hopefully my mtb foray into the woods will be fun after lunch, provided some of the snow melts off the trails. i think it'll be great. lots of upsets in the top 10 in college f-ball yesterday. cool pic of the start of the race courtesy of Greg's wife I think. that's me on-stage left int he blue, riding the orange bike.

35+ debut

it went pretty well today at the CU Research Park. They called up the top 10 guys in the series, then by order of registration. Since I got there pretty early, I was able to line up in the 2nd row, perfect. Greg got the holeshot, Jared was somewhere in the top 3 or so, and I was sitting back comfy around 8-9-10. First lap was excellent, I was 7th going into the 2nd. Laps 2 and 3 started to take their toll, with a few guys coming around my side. About halfway through the race, I caught a few guys and maintained for a while. Roger Cox came around, then I held his wheel to the finish for 10th place. pretty okay with that. Same hardpack dirt crit style course as in the past. I had to run about 50psi in my old, dry-rot Michelins. I didn't flat, but traction could have been much better for sure. But the new cables and bar tape made the bike feel pretty solid. Next week I look forward to trying out the new rubber from Schwalbe. Weather guys are saying we're getting a snow storm next wknd. We'll see, could be a techy techy race in Frisco.

upgrade

I mailed in my ACA renewal application Monday, and Yvonne emailed me back with a "Based on your performance last year, you were moved to the 2's in CX." Cool, an upgrade that removes any decisions I might have needed to make, race 3s or 35+. So now I get to leave Summit earlier in the morning, race at 11:30 instead of 1:20, and probably can get back up to Breck by 4 or 5 easily. First real test on Saturday at the CU Research park, dirt crit style. Start will be key on that tight course, but getting the holeshot won't be in my mind, esp. since I will show respect and prob start 2nd or 3rd row. Ideally, with a few races under my belt, I can earn some respect and start near the front again. Should be cool chasing Tim.

Ffej the Pinball Wizard

I know this guy Ffej (Jeff is his real name) who I met snowboarding and biking up here years ago. He is a very serious pinball player. cool article in the SDN about him this morning.

web album from the wknd

click on the album below to see pics from the wknd.

Moab / September 2007

Moab pics

a few good ones...

Moab

was great by all acccounts.

- Helen won her race, Moab's Alpine to Slickrock 50 miler. And, she set a new course record for women! super cool. what a stud. Alina and I hung out, went for a hike in Arches with the moms (the guys rode Porcupine), went in the hot tub, watched LSU, and took a nap. I got to ride Sovereign Trail Friday afternoon, 24miles worth, and Slickrock yesterday morning. Alina rode her Specialized out at the Sovereign and Slickrock trailheads. Soon I will be taking her on Slickrock (okay, not that soon), with a huge grin on my face. Good time hanging out with the other 5 families for a few nights. Great food and company. Luckily the weather held this year, unlike last September.

Pics coming tonight.

deserrt calls

pretty sore from yesterday's high alpine ride. today off, maybe tomorrow too? Good desert riding on Friday and Sunday. the air is getting crisp here in Breck. I left the house around 12:45 today, and it was still in the mid 50s.

Wheeler trail to Spruce Creek

well I started from town as seen below. 3,000'+ of climbing in less than 8 miles. not exactly a great recovery ride, but I had to do this ride now or possibly not til next year. click the photo to see the web album. way easier than uploading a bunch of pics through Blogger. fall is definitely here. Nice shades of purple, orange and yellow up above treeline.

Wheeler trail to Spruce Creek

1.5hrs climbing, finally done

dropping her off at daycare

she went to the kitchen right away to play. maybe she'll bake me delicious cakes and muffins one day.

Inbox woes

at work now I have to be hyper-organized with my Inbox and Public Folder storage, or I will lose my mind (and my job). So I now have about 25 subfolders to my Inbox. So I usually have an appropriate subfolder within which I can file impt emails. But for general emails that i need to keep around for a while, it is getting difficult, mostly because I am swamped now and we're still a little short-staffed. I liked to try and keep under 100 email messages at any one time in my Inbox. Now I have 164. uggh.

the legs were smoked last night from the hard effort. 45min of cross makes the legs feel worse than after a 2hr mtb race. I am also not used to running too much. oh yeah. it cleared up some now, but I have a BOSAC meeting after work. I'll have to wait til tomorrow to ride.

chilly

woke up to steady rain and 40 degrees, looks like a bit of snow fell up above 12,000' last night. don't think it will make it past the mid 50s today. Tonight they're saying snow level could drop down to 9,000'. Now it's rainy, 40 deg, and 94% humidity. Not exactly good riding weather, but good for being in an office. That's fine, I guess. I still have to ride some trails up high that I haven't ridden yet this here. That is hanging heavy on my shoulders. Wheeler to Spruce Creek, Lenawee, 100 Acres. I'd better get on the stick, it is already past the middle of September.

more

you know who

the first tests are done

I did great flying solo with Alina most of the week. She didn't really ask for Helen except just after she woke up, and that was only for about 30secs. Getting her ready and up for breakfast on time was a bit hard, so I ended up about 5min late to work each day. But a lot of that was Alina's being in a new room with new teachers. So she was a bit clingy when I left her. It's good to know I am not a completely helpless parent without Helen. The only compromise was that I am terrible at getting Alina's hair up in pony tails, but the teachers at school take care of that.

Today was the Brecktobercross. I was a bit nervous as always for the first race of the season. But things were very familiar as I got the hole shot and took off on the singletrack. One other rider from Rocky Mounts was behind me close, then a couple others were maybe 100 yds back for the first couple of laps. My dismount skills were abominal, but it didn't matter as I was riding the bike well. Guy in 2nd was right with me as we circled the lodge, then I heard some noise and I think he almost went down somehow. He said after that he almost hit my bike. Not sure if he was trying to pass or not, but I made sure it didn't work. From there I put in a little surge and had a good gap to the last run-up and finish. First win of the 'cross season, and 4th win on the bike this year. Pretty satisfying for a washed-up-dad who loves to ride bikes. But the real work is in the 35+ and semi-pro fields. Looking forward to brushing up on the mount skills, and hopefully bunny-hopping a barrier or two. Prob race a few more in the 3s, then dabble with the big guns in 35+ sometime in October. Oh yeah, my front brake stutters as badly as ever. Need to get the new brake pads/wheels/tires dialed before next race at Boulder Rez on the 29th. New cable & housing too. I had a hell of a time trying to shift today on some of the bumpier parts of the course. I think some fresh clean cable would make it better.

just a couple more

nice hair Alina

that's what happens when mommy leaves town.

fun outside

Tests

I am in the middle of the biggest test now. Helen's in San Diego for work, Alina and I are going solo til late Thursday night. Luckily Mary came down Monday morning and she stayed over last night. So just a couple more nights. Amazing how easy it is with ice cream and TV. Just kidding. We actually have been eating pretty well, but of course we do watch TV and eat ice cream too. Mostly it's Alina's favorite show, The Good Night Show, on PBS' kids channel called Sprout. Watching Alina solo after work makes me realize how hard it is for single parents. You wouldn't really have any time for yourself, except maybe late at night after the kid is asleep, and/or maybe if you could squeeze something into your work day.

Next test is Sunday's Brecktobercross at the Nordic Center. I think I am in pretty good shape, but we'll find out in 45min on Sunday. I've done about 7-8 laps on the course, and I actually like it more and more each lap I ride. There is one tough downhill barrier that I don't feel too smooth on, but if I can clip in quick and accelerate out it should be good for me. The other test is how I recover Sunday morning from drinking a few beers at the Okotberfest street party on Sunday.

Breck cross course

rode it Saturday morning, glad I did. I will need quite a few more laps on it before I feel good. It is the typical Breck nordic center course. By that I mean lots of wood, deadfall, rocks and singletrack. Not the smoother, wide grassy stuff I like to race on sometimes. Surely they will trim some of it back, and I hope to help rake some sections too. The bike just doesn't feel great yet. Hoping some new rubber from Schwalbe will fix that soon this week. My fitness is definitely in question, as I haven't raced in 3 weeks, though I still have some good volume holding me over from mtb race season. The last couple of weeks I have been doing some start intervals, so hopefully I can get off the line in the top 5 guys or so. We'll find out come Sunday the 16th.

new bike

no, not for me, but Alina. after Helen and I saw Alina riding the neighbors' 2-wheeled bikes (with training wheels of course), we fig'd now's the time. plus, we didn't want her to feel left out when we all went to Moab in a couple weeks. I could have saved 3 hrs out of my day, and prob $60 or so, had I just gone over to Target or Wal-Mart and bought a cheap Magna or Huffy. But no, I'm too vain & too much of a bike snob. I called around, and none of the shops here carried any 12" bikes, so we drove down to Denver to check out BikeSource. $120 later, we walked out with a Specialized Hotrock, a 12" pink little bike for girls. It looked good, and had some nice chunky tires on it for the construction zone we live in. Alina hopped on and was riding all around the store. short trip to Denver, as we left Breck at 11a, and were back up here by 2:40p. But we were on a mission, and wanted to come back up quickly to enjoy the sun and have Alina get used to her new bike. the seat drops down pretty low, but it's still maybe 1/2" too high for her. She can still pedal just fine, but her hips rock a bit as she tries to reach some of the pedal strokes. It'll fit her perfectly in 2-3 months. Come winter, we've already discussed bringing the bikes down to the Park Ave Lofts garage for some heated indoor riding!

love my wide angle

This first one is from my truck, at 10mm (16mm 35mm FOV equivalent). The next one is at about 35mm (56mm 35 equiv).

Duke & Julie

Julie used to work for us about 4-5 years ago. She got married the week before Jenny and Shaun. Duke broke both of his feet in a climbing accident on Longs Peak the week before he got married! cool story in the paper about the whole thing, and of course the great photo below. He's a stud athelete, so he'll be back soon.

right under my nose

Last night I rode a fantatstic singletrack jump line with Troy and Kirk. Just as you start slalom single, you veer hard left up the mine tailings right as the trail curves to the right, just before the left turn fork. One sweet little drop, then a mini tree gap, then a small drop, then some single to a big table, 2 huge, sweet berms, then 2 huge jumps, then down over a hip to a bush gap, then a small roller onto the Jesse mine site. wow it is insane. most jumps are too big and scary for me, but a couple were a lot of fun.

been riding the cross bike a lot recently. first test next weekend. I still have some fitness for a good start, my dismount/remount skills need some work though.

rainbow

Calling for some rain today, and maybe even some snow up high tonight. This morning there was a great big rainbow pouring down on the foothills of the TenMile Range.

Mary on the podium

this was Sunday at the Breck Crest. Mary won her age group by over 4 minutes!

Leadville 100

below as from a Colorado runner magazine website-

"Helen Cospolich of Breckenridge gets a little help from her daughter at the Winfield aid station. Helen finished as the fourth female in 23:35:54."

Little did Alina know that she wouldn't see Helen again until about 9:30p that night at the fish hatchery.

Breck Crest

Helen and I were up at 5:30a yesterday to help out with the race. I was lucky enough to get in about 90min of riding as I swept the lower 5 mi of the course and took down course markings. Helen was at registration. Mary came up to run the 5mi course. Not surprisingly, she won her age group...by over 4 minutes! Unfortunately I was up on Four O'Clock taping a turn that some were missing when Mary had her awards presentation (pic coming soon). Helen said Mary got to stand up on the podium! Like mother like daughter, running and winning are in the family!

RGO race report

Friday night it went down, and it was awesome. We met at the back of GAS around 5:15p. By the time most all riders were there, we loaded up 3 trucks and shuttled up to the top of Baldy. Luckily the rain and thunder passed. We had 17 riders at top. 2,200' plunge in 6.9mi back to town. As the start hat was dropped to the ground, a bunch of us stood up out of the saddle and began hammering down this gnarly, boulder-strewn excuse of a jeep road. After the first half mile or so, the top DHers Kirk, Troy, Frank and Soller all flatted. I eased up on the speed and figured I just needed to descend down to the pavement on Baldy Rd. without flatting, then I would still be in medal contention. As I neared the bottom I also passed Neil who had flatted. On Baldy Rd I flew by Dan and was cautiously heading to the start of Juniata Trail. There I was riding solid and stopped at the Juniata bridge for the mandatory 12oz PBR gulp. After a few swigs it was done, and I was back on the trail. Crossing Baldy Rd to the connector, my confidence was soaring as I crossed the street again and hit the Moonstone section. I know that trail so well, I was quickly catching the guy in front of me. Soon it was down to Carter Park, and there the dog park screwed me as I had to go far north and detour around the Pavilion and tennis courts to get back to the ball fields and French St. There, it was the long metal staircase, then across LaCima parking lot to the peanut gallery. This was surely the highlight of the race. As I rolled across Ridge St and saw Ryan spotting everyone, I then saw a huge crowd of about 50 people gathered by Empire Burger, ready to watch the skilled riders gap the stairs. Since I knew I was in medal contention (and more so since I didn't want to wad it up in front of the spectators), I pre-jumped the stairs and landed smooth, to the extreme disappointment of the crowd. From there I crossed Main and headed down behind Dippin Dots to the next metal staircase down to Rasta Pasta. From there we headed near the Riverwalk, behind Jalapenos, across Ski Hill, then down the covered brick bridge across the Blue, then on the alley behind the art show, and from there on the path back to the shop. I passed Ray as I dove under French St on the path, and he went above. I managed 3rd place, pretty good for xc guy amongst the downhillers. Unfortunately I missed a medal by one spot. Super cool pirate Chinese downhill race. One of the better nights on bikes with a bunch of great riders. Great to ride such a huge downhill, from an epic start gate at the top of Baldy.

Labor Day wknd

just in time, the last wknd of summer. While the air is still mostly warm, the breeze is cooler and has fall on deck. Great rides these past couple of days helping Westy get ready for the Breck Crest marathon. Work is good, but busy. Can't decide if I should take any more time off the bike. Don't think I can afford any more brakes. First test in 2 weeks up at the nordic center.