Leadville recon

Quick input and some questions from what I saw.

Drove up the St. Kevins climb, the road was in bad shape. It will definately be a climb, but the thing that will make this one hard is the constant work it's going to take navigating lines up this one, didn't look like a climb where you can settle into a rythym, rather, looked like it will leave you feeling like you just climbed a lot more than you did. Just as Sam had told us, very limited good lines to jockey for with the other 1,000 folks making the climb - should be interesting. The road was actually a lot worse that I'd pictured in my brain. Not positive, but have an assumption of where the cop car drops out and the race starts, but didn't look to be a lot of road to try and get into a position toward the front 3rd or better of the pack between then and the base of the climb. Is there a mild sprint from the field to try to get position before this climb?

Typical view of the descent down from Columbine. Runoff was running right down the road, with riders coming up on their right taking that side of the road away as an option, going down will be like riding down a drainage ditch in sections.

Another typical view of the approach to Columbine. Hit snow before I hit the top, but think the turnaround is off in the distance near the left corner of the frame?

Curious to see what the emotion is at this 90 degree left turn corner come race day. First veteran to identify it wins a contest for which the prize is nothing. But do share your experience here - have you "arrived" at this point? Earlier, later?

Little panorama shot from up near Columbine. Actually thought most of the climb to this point looked more pleasant than I'd pictured, pretty forest climb on well maintained road - minus the 40+ miles on the legs at that point so reserve the right to change the description from pleasant to something less favorable, or even to sucks at a later date. You get a little wake up call about half mile down the road from where I'm standing, road turns steep and rocky, but is just a warm up to what's left between here and the top, it will be a big test.

Looking like another, more thorough recon trip is shaping up for the last weekend in July (31st). A few of us will be leaving Thursday evening and coming back Sunday evening. The more the merrier, drop me a line if interested in joining us.

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.

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.

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.

In over my head

I've got some friends who are also conmen, and have caused me to cave to the peer pressure of throwing my name in the hat for the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike race in August. What are the implications you might ask? There are a few big ones. Namely:

• I won't enjoy riding my bike as much this year. Sure, at the end of the year I'll look back and say it was the best year ever, but I'm going to have to abandon being content with comfortable on rides and spend some time suffering a little or a lot if I hope to be conditioned for this thing. Those who have ridden with me know how ridiculous this will sound - but I'm putting it out there - if I'm driving clear to Leadville to ride my Bike up and down that big mountain for 100 miles (most I've ever ridden in a day is 25-30) - if I'm really going to subject myself to that, then my intention is to do it in less than the 9 hour mark.
• I'm going to need the support of my wife and the conmen. Annie's already on board, and we've had preliminary discussions on how I can fit the training work it's going to require (a lot) into our schedules - she's been totally supportive of what's shaping up to be a pretty selfish calendar towards me this year - thanks babe! As for the conmen - will probably just need them to keep calling me the same names they've been calling me to trick me into doing this in the first place.
• If I'm so unfortunate as to land a spot in the race, ruining my poser strategy of sending a check and hoping my name isn't drawn - it's a lottery - then the endurance cycling trifecta may be back in play for me this year - unlikely, but maybe if bullets 1 and 2 go dramatically better than expected we'll give it a shot.
• My race budget for the year is growing. We're turning a few of the races into mini vacations for the whole family - the kids are total outdoors junkies and some of this years race locations lend themselves nicely to quality family getaways. I've already set aside the funds as there's a good chance income will be a little less this year than years past.
• Serious, consistent conditioning starts tomorrow. Here goes Hell!