New treads for the Cervelo... and me.

Bought these primarily for cyclocross, but will get a few rides on them when I cut my teeth with the road races at the Tour Del Sol (Registration finally opened today by the way) 2/23 *Update - cancelled! Booo Hissss! and the Iron Horse Classic along with some local crit's and TT series. Topped the new wheels off with a pair of Conti competition tubulars and a Sram red cassette. Haven't glued tubulars before so crossing my fingers I get the install right and don't end up rolling a tire off the wheel the first time out - give it a 50/50 chance. Got the Tufo glue tape so it shouldn't be to tricky.

And my new Mtb shoes....I'm a fan of the boa system, but not willing to drop the money for a pair of S-works shoes. Pearl Izumi made a few batches of these before Specialized put a stop to it, so when I saw them for a good price I snatched them up.

Annie went to a Yoga retreat today, and I owe her a bunch free time, so I volunteered to stay home with the kids all day. Couldn't join the Zeph on his road ride, so threw in the Alpine Classics video I got for the new trainer and climbed the Alp d'Huez - it really is a pretty fantastic piece of equipment thus far, the motorbrake system seems to work flawlessly with the grades of the mountains/descents. Can't say as much for the rider, I cracked pretty hard trying to be a hero and ended up having to get in 2nd to granny gear and spin my way up it. This thing may be my saving grace for the Leadville goal - plenty of fun and challenging stuff with it to keep me on task with conditioning - and I've got enough conditioning to do that there will be plenty of late nights on this thing... after the day/post work rides with the gang between now and August if I hope to have a shot at it. Like hell week at the beginning of football season - two a days until I'm in shape.

Just got an email from Sam who'll be spectating at the Tour of California tomorrow - said he's going with the man capris vs. the speedo and wasn't clear on if he was going to take a quick sprint with the lead group or not. I've got it set to record just in case, we'll see.

Have a new guy for the hardcore spinners - was about 5 minutes into a class last week when dude decides to one up the full kit and walks in with full length tights - not sure if they were bib tights or just plain ol tights - but really, it matters not, the dude's hardcore and I think he won the spin class.

Gearing up gear

One of several new cycling related purchases arrived on the doorstep today - check it out.


Took forever (talking hours) to get all the software updates, etc.. but once it was working, I hooked this Tacx Fortius up on the projector and gave it the first test run tonight. Few kinks to work out, but it's going to be a welcome upgrade to the braindeadness I've gotten from pedaling the spinbike.

It tracks heart rate, cadence, power, speed, miles, etc.... all the stuff that's fun to download off your Garmin after a real ride. I'm an admitted gear junkie, and this one's kind of a crossbreed between a nice piece of training gear and a Wii for grown ups. They've got these "real life videos" that go with it, haven't tried those yet, but picked up a TDF stage, some Mtb course, and the Ironhorse Classic race so looking forward to giving them a run. I plan on getting the conmen over one night for some power testing and then see what kind of progress we can make between now and that damn race they suckered me into.

Follow up on The Problem

The problem turned out to be what we suspected, a cancerous tumor a little larger than a fist in my sister in law's chest. The problem has now been nicknamed Dumbmass - as in dumb mass - and the fight started yesterday with the first round of Chemo. There are some positives - within the major suckage factor of having cancer.

• This particular cancer is non hodgkins lymphoma - apparently, if your going to be attacked by a dumbmass, this type is among the more treatable.
• It's stage 1, meaning the cancer looks to still be concentrated at the original site and hasn't spread (bone marrow test pending, but everything else looks good).
• 80% cure rate.
• The swelling that tipped us off to this whole thing should retreat early on in the treatment.
• Really solid support system between her husband, family and friends. It's been impressive to see how the troops rally around something like this.

I've lost close friends to this disease, and this one doesn't feel like those did - I think we'll get it beat. But this is as close to home as it's ever hit. It pisses me off.

I ran to the mailbox

I saw Sam's post today and right then and there set the computer down and took off to the mailbox.

Suncrest is going to be all over Leadville this year - this means at least 7 of us are going, with a few more still yet to announce whether they're in. My wife is laughing at the huge grin on my face that's likely to be stuck there for a few hours - pure giddiness.

I need to milk this feeling of this being a fun thing until reality sets in.

When the problem is not THE problem

It's 1:00 am and I just got back from the new hospital in Murray. Was up there to see my youngest brother and his wife (just married this fall) whose day started with going in for a CT scan to try and pin down the cause of some recent swelling in her neck and chest. She get's scanned, they head home, optimistic about getting the call later and finding out what the issue is and getting it fixed. Right about when they got home is when the day started to change. They get the call asking them to turn around and come back in.

General assumption is that that's not a positive.

They get back and are told Superior Vena Cava Syndrome is the culprit for the swelling and chest discomfort. Call goes out to family, we all start digging around to find out what it is, etc.... My brother and his wife are sent down to the hospital in Murray and admitted for the weekend so she can get a few more tests and the biopsy.

You'll probably google SVCS after reading this, but I'll give you a readers digest version. While this SVCS thing is the problem that caused the swelling, etc..., it's actually just a symptom of the real problem, and there's a decent chance that this gets real hard for this little family in the next couple of days.

Scenes from a west desert weekend

Friday night we loaded up the Honda Pilot and made the three hour trek to Garrison, Utah - home of my dad, Leslie (step mom), some cows, horses, and a few other folks. It's one of my favorite places to go for some unwind time - and it sounded like a nice place to go to celebrate my 33rd birthday and watch the Superbowl. Two dangers in driving across the west desert at night:

1 - breaking down, you may spend a night before potential help arrives via another vehicle coming by.

2 - Hitting a cow or antelope at night

We managed to dodge the black cow standing in the road about 20 miles outside of Delta - were fortunate enough to be watching and saw it with some room to make a Nascar pass around it. But as we pulled into my dad's driveway, we noticed right away that someone else hadn't been as lucky - and they were sitting at the kitchen table when we pulled in. My dad is the local constable so his place was where these locals came after hitting a bovine at about 55 mph. Yep - cows will leave a mark.

In the country you make do with the cards you've got in hand - so instead of calling AAA or a tow truck, the wife, who was sitting in the passenger seat (these folks must have been late 60's/early 70's) does her best to pick the glass off of her face after getting decked by the airbag, grabs the quilt she was knitting when the accident happened, and uses it to hold up the windshield as best she can while her husband, who was also rattled and had been decked by an airbag, drives the 40 miles to get to the next village - Garrison - where my dad lives. While desert climates can get toasty when the sun is up - they get brutal cold within a few minutes of the sun going down. I know my kids last about 5 seconds when I yell freeze out and row down the windows in high teen/low 20's temps - and their young with good circulation. Not sure what it might feel like to go 40 miles in said freezeout, i.e. no windshield, but am pretty sure it could not have been much better than miserable. Maybe the adreneline from the wreck helped, but probably not enough. This all happened Friday night - the photo was taken the following morning. A short follow up to this in a moment.

Annie and I took the road bikes down - so that I'd have something to distract myself from the homemade bread and other goodies in Leslie's kitchen - on the topic of cows, I tend to eat like one when I go to Garrison. Grazing begins just after hello hugs, and doesn't end until just prior to goodbye hugs. We got out Saturday morning for a couple of hours and rode up into Great Basin National Park until ice/snow on the road turned us back. All in all it was about 30 miles with about 2500 ft of steady climbing between miles 8 and 15. A solid workout where your burning up on the climb up, and bone cold on the decent. Am thinking this may be one of my best little training destinations this year as I try to get in shape for leadville - once the snow melts and the roads are clear all the way up, that mountain will be a stout ride.

One of the cons of being out in Utah's west desert - if you hit a cow, your not going to have much traffic come by to help. One of the pros of being out in Utah's west desert - if you feel like riding your road bike, for the most part, you've got two full lanes of prime road/highway pretty much to yourself - with some really fantastic climbing if you want it. Just don't hit the cow.


As we're descending from the park, the van pictured above that had been run over by the cow, comes cruising by with our new friend from the night before driving at about 35 mph - apparently taking his trusty steed home to be put out to pasture.

As much as I love a weekend in Garrison - the rats of the rug get even more excited about a trip to Grandma and Grandpa's. Horse riding, chores (feeding the animals), climbing haystacks, chasing cats, the nearby playground, the novelty of different toys, etc... and adoring grandparents all are things that they look forward to a lot.
Annie riding "Chief" - the girls favorite horse.
Queens of the haystack
Evening bull riding contest before bed. Chesney won this night.

Heck of a game Sunday night to cap it all off.