good

one of those rides yesterday, the ones that stick in your mind as why we ride. great singletrack to way up high, just a few spots of snow on shaded north aspects. the trails were tacky fast, just a few mud bogs, nothing too bad. rolling over the smooth singletrack looking at the little pebbles that so nicely break up the perfect surface to make its own perfect surface puts me in a trance, my breathing on the climbs and the focus of looking at each and every little rock/pebble adds to the climb to make it more involved. not simply riding the bike up the hill, riding the bike u pthe hill to get to that place, not on a map but to the place where it all makes sense, the trance of the climb. quietly climbing up the hill with my breathing to break the silence, not hearing my friends around me, the trail my own private zen garden, i might as well visit han shan and his garden in my trance. the dirt accepting the tires subtle gentle roll over not leaving anything beyond a fleeting track that the next puff of wind will erase.

mudplate

great little mtb ride over the hill yesterday. the legs are even better on the full rigid. the rough descents over roots and rocks weren't that bad, maybe i'll wait on the fancy single another year. i like riding my bikes the way they are. maybe switch the forks to the geared bike with the bad rigid and slurge for a good ti fork for the single. exciting blogging huh? i want to ride the better stuff but it's still another few weeks out. other parts of the country are enjoying the best time of year to ride, we are still cyclocrossing thru snow mounds and turning around when it gets too muddy to ride. but oddly there are still tons of tiretracks through the mud. we saw doctor hotplate on the way back from morning coffee. amazing, what a train wreck. i had to stop and stare, we all did, shaubie beckham and myself, she was walking down the street and it was like watching an anorexic pygmy giraffe walk by. we had a bag of donuts in the car with us, we should have offered her some. maybe she would weigh more than 45 kilos.

lakesleep

a full lake loop last night and only a few rednecks that went into the shoulder after passing and gunned their piece of shit diesel trucks. i really can't stand that mentality. the legs felt really good, the view from swan mtn over the lake was perfect, clear and breezy descent off the top made it one of the best rides in the past week. i woke up this morning from such a deep sleep that it was nearly an hour before i could really function. i barely remember what i listened to on the commute. i think i got a donut, but i forget. the fog confused me coupled with the dawn daylight. i didn't feel too aware of what was going on. i think the extra 15 minutes of sleep changed the order of my sleep stages and the melatonin coursing thru me, i'm pretty sure i was in rem sleep when the alarm hit at 5. i woke super confused, unaware of what was going on, my dream was so clear that it took a few minutes to separate the two. sleep is such a commodity, i always want more than i have, is that greed? oh well, another deadly sin off the list. can you be blamed for wanting more than you have of something that's not gained by means?

oddly tired yesterday afternoon i bailed on the ride and tried to not hurt myself skating the pool, partial success there. i wish i understood why my body reacts the way it does. the seemingly arbitrary fatigue makes me want to rest more but i don't think it's more rest i need but more good rest. the diet is fine if not a bit thin for what i do. with a good ride at the firecracker as one of the few goals i have for the summer i know i need one 4 hour day a week, maybe when the trails dry a bit it'll come. i keep seeing this one fox near the bike path in the wetlands, he isn't spooked at all by bikes, doesn't seem to care if i roll within 20 feet of him. i wonder if this is a good thing or not. he is so socialized that he just wanders without worry that humans will harm him. the only real concern he seems to have is the dinner he's looking for. the bears aren't out in the hood yet, my garbage is safely tucked away. with all of that daylight on the trip to work right now i wonder when i'll the first one of the year. the forest is getting up, it's only a matter of time before they decide to walk out in search of more food, not much more appetizing than fresh garbage.

two

after nearly two weeks of not getting up at 445 for work i got on the bike today and couldn't believe how much daylight i had. tomorrow i'll do a full ride before work, not bad getting up 30 minutes early to do a spot of work before the day hits. the sky was just dawn colored today. not the cool colors i'm accustomed to at the commute hour. for me to see the octopus' work i'll need to get out before 5, maybe some singletrack when the trails try near the solstice. after that it's a steady downhill until december whe nwe start up again. pretty depressing that the days get shorter starting in june. i miss seeing the colors of the sky right now. two weeks without the indigo makes me wish for less daylight, i thought i was late today, there was that much light. i wonder if the octopus knows how much i appreciate the color, does he know how much i like what he does? the inky glow keeps me warm, some mornings the thought of the purple-black sky is all that gets me out of bed. the stars breaking thru as i roll under the canopy to show me what daylight isn't. daylight sleeps to hide, afraid of what happens just before, scared of the dark and all that comes with it. the different animals and the different nocturnal projects that daylight doesn't know. the octopus keeps it all straight, coloring the sky to give us all the chance to see what it's like under his canopy. it's there if you want it, go see what you maybe didn't know was there.

music

i bailed on the group mess tonight. i think i'm done with it for a while. i just lack the motivation to crash on busy roads because a newbie isn't sure which way to pull thru. i rode home solo listening to the new doughty and the new beck. both are really good but i won't bore anybody with my music reviews. doughty is a pretty cool guy. he's playing in denver tomorrow and then in aspen friday, i wish i could make it.

dead cats

now i'm not a huge fan of cats but i can't fathom this one. i love the explanation she gives. sick sick people are all too common in this world. (click on "dead cats" above)

too soon

i'm afraid. b is only 2 and i'm already worried about the schools in our area. we were told that there are gangs in the schools here, the middle schools! it scares the crap out of me. i don't want my son to get hurt or wrapped up in stuff that i was lucky enough to avoid at that age. but he's only two! why am i getting so crazy when it's 8 years away or 9! i know one at a time but holy shit! gangs we live in the rural mountains, why are they hitting kids at that age when they are so impressionable? oh, i just answered my own question. do'h! my neurosis creep up on me in the evening when i'm tired and worried about the kid growing up without something he needs. support for whatever he wants to do, i would have liked that. "hey you want to try something different, you might get hurt but it's something you love, have at it! what can i do?" i want to be that dad. being a good parent isn't that hard, be there and be strong, show them the things that need to happen for them to get to do the things they want to happen. that's my piece on parenting for today, my $.02

race

we got out of breck for the weekend, visited a little town called aspen, ah, california. great sushi saturday night, good accommodations and a crit thru town. i have been riding a fair bit, i thought the form was coming along but i wasn't sure where it would take me in a real race. being my third race of the year i was skeptical. with a paired down field and a mixture of the threes and p12 fields it was going to be a bit sketchy. i got out front early and avoided the mess that i was sure was going on behind. a mini break happened with me in it! and then a break off of it that i don't really remember how but i missed it and then i was chasing for 45 minutes with a small group but only two of us really did any work. with 4 to go we were caught with the break gone 6th place was on the line, pretty dissapointed with myself i went for it in the sprint but could only get second. good legs overall, the race gave me some confidence to have a go at it this weekend in golden.

warm

we seem to have skipped spring and gone right into summer. short sleeves and shorts today. then i flatted, again, second one this week. i'm done with cheap tires. sick of them. why ride cra pwhen you ca nride good rubber, the savings isn't worth it. dave barry came to my philosophical rescue yesterday, his quote rearranges my thought process everytime i need to change my place.

51905

i don't complain a lot about my job because i know i should be happy that where we live and when we live the challenge is for the head and not to put food on the table. my job isn't a challenge, it's my job. i want more of a thought provoking job but not right now. circumstances are that i need to stay a while and shut up. it's good, the vacation time is great and i don't try to mess up too bad. i get to ride my bike and the commute makes me feel good. a famous journalist once said "don't get your career confused with your life." ride your bike it's spring.

sequence

paul thinks that the sky isn't colored by the octopus. i disagree. i try not to be a skeptic, i prefer more of a firm realism. i know that the logic isn't perfect but if it all stays sequential the point is made. when things can be arranged in nice even lines it all makes sense, could you jump into physics on the day the third law of thermodynamics was put out? maybe. probably not. i remember the first time i saw a flow chart in elementary school, whatever the topic was it all made sense after that. the octopus doesn't need logic, he doesn't need me talking about his work, he doesn't need anything. i'm just pointing out the obvious. i think paul's attitude is flawed because he can't see the sky with the regularity i see. if anyone could see the sky before dawn every day it would be hard to deny the artist's work. smooth morning food makes the sky slide past without any friction. good coffee sharpens the sky's color, hard to do at 5 a.m. that usually cames after the sky turns into the brighter morning light. all part of the order.

tuesday

i had a friend who once ate bacon at 5 meals in a row. i can't fathom that. tonight is normally the group mess, er, group ride. I got out of the house a bit late and made it to the meeting place a few minutes after the bunch left frisco. no big deal i did a tt from breck to frisco and then chased the bunch to silverthorne before i flatted just as i was to catch on and rode home alone. better work anyway than dodging squirrels in the pack.

birds

a lot of road time this past weekend. it felt like summer out there, shorts and no gloves or arm wamers saturday and sunday. i saw a lot of dead birds on the road shoulder. different colored birds that didn't look like they had been hit by cars, just dead laying there. two good days of sunshine and you start noticing how green the front range can be with good rains. i heard that dead birds means west nile, maybe it's back already and the dead birds are the result of the mosquitos growing faster from the rain. regardless the roads near horsetooth were perfect, warm enough but the descents cooled you off after the climbs, cool winds right now not the hot winds of summer. i saw "off-road to athens" saturday night. what a cool production, they did a great job on the race footage without the normal crosscountry repetitive-ness that movies usually show. what a mess the federation is, they showed just how stupid the whole thing was, how bad the policy/criteria for olympic qualification was. it was cool to go out in boulder and see how much support the movie got from the local community. good show.

insomnia

b and i didn't really sleep well last night, we both were up a lot, me wishing for more sleep and him wishing for more juice and pretzels. getting up for good at about 4 is pleasant sometimes. today was close to that, i'm not doing the stage race this weekend so that made the day a bit less stressful. the octopus light was reflecting off last night's snow with an eerie glow that begged for long trip in to work to appreciate it. all eight arms painted the sky and the trees and the mountains his favorite shade of indigo for this week. the wet roads only gave the sky a better shade of early morning blue. good stuff in the ears to block out the wind, the ride was stellar. i wonder if the octopus looks to the stars and the constellations for inspiration? does he see orion's belt and go for a different shade of blue or seeing ursa major motivates a darker indigo. does dinner affect the outcome, what does he eat? i would imagine the octopus enjoying a nice seaweed salad with an asian sesame dressing and perhaps a touch of squid, oh wait, that's what i would want. i hear they really don't get along, the octopi and the squid, inferiority complex on the part of the squid. the kicker is they are both pretty similar, except for that weird plastic-like pseudo backbone the squid have. i've never dissected an octopus...too much respect. i'll leave that to the sushi chef. he did a great job on the sky, i hope i wasn't the only one to see it and enjoy what fine work it was.

rough

rough one yesterday, had to bring the car in for service and then the trip home from the garage got really bad. it was almost snowing in frisco, by the time i was half way home it was blowing pretty hard, then i just started getting wet, shoes were filling up and then the hands were numb, climbing up to town got harder as i absorbed more water, i bailed 3/4 of the way home, shaubie picked me up just before i was to be really wet and colder. no guilt getting in the car.

again

winter doesn't want to leave, supposed to snow again tonight. thankfully i'm not getting ready for anything other than more riding and skating. i rode swan tonight without brakes after a pretty good climb, first time i've ever done that. going thru the last turn at 60k was pretty cool.

think

i wonder what it means when someone asks "what do you think?" do they really want to know what you think, all the weird thoughts running around your head at that instant. what is playing on the 1000 screens in my brain. what it is that i think, not that it's any deep thought, anything earth-shattering or important idea, just a bunch random thoughts. what do you think?

burley

i know i'm pretty far from form, yesterday b and i took the burley most of the way to copper, then the trip back to breck after climbing towards copper was a whole other game, headwinds and burley trailers are a great combo. the legs and the wind fought the whole way. good work. the animal i saw the other morning i think is a sled dog that escaped from the outfitter about 10k from here 3 months ago. 3 months! this dog has been living off the trash and food of the area. i saw him yesterday in the daylight, he has a mouthful of porcupine quills. poor guy, doesn't want to get near anybody but he wants to be helped too. the animal control officers get close but can't seem to catch him. i feel a bit stupid thinking he was a wolf but he sure does have that gate. the way he walks isn't like a regular dog.

wknd

a good weekend of riding, nice roads yesterday and crap saturday. i was so cold riding on saturday that i couldn't steer very well from the shivering, that's cold. normally that only happens mid winter in a storm. sunday was great, a nice two hour ride with shaubie up around horsetooth, good long climbs and little traffic. then we got to go to church, er, whole foods, a new record for us when we got the total, amazing food, 6 really solid meals and fresh fish that we couldn't believe. the weekend ended well, a clear trip up the hill, none of the forecasted snow.

i don't know

at 5.15 am in summit county there is enough daylight to see, not everything but most things. the animal i saw today scared the shit out of me, it wasn't a dog, or maybe it was. i couldn't really make it out, it walked leisurely away from me down the road, not fearing me as much as curious. it looked to be the size of a dog, a big dog. i had to double back and detour around it, quickly. i didn't want to be it's breakfast. it could have been a mountain lion but i don't think so, it was the right color, size, hmmmm. whatever it was we were both surprised to see each other.

i've been up for 90 minutes and at work for about an hour and i'm still wiping sleep from my eyes. the crash and tuesday's work are catching up with me. good sleep last night, enough light to ride in without the cateye. the early dawn light is still the most appealing light of the the day. the bearclaw today didn't even help to wake me.

blue

blue water at almost 11 am. life sometimes has its way of evening things out. i like that. now i can see that maybe the equation isn't skewed to one side. good coffee brought me out of my funk, all is good now.

long time coming

i think the last time i crashed on my road bike while training was in january of 1995. on monday the odds caught up with me. i wasn't even being stupid, i'd ridden through a bunch of snow piles but this one had my name on it, a wooden bridge on the bike path with a bit of snow covering the last 2 meters, my front wheel never had a chance. out from under me and a hard slam to the deck on my right side. the ride home was tough, i still had an hour or so left. tuesday worlds and none of the idiots showed up, it was less of a worlds and more of a like-minded group ride, as soon as the newbies were in line to pull through properly and not ruin the rhythm into a block headwind for 20k we had it going well. today i got up a bit early and did some time before work, a little climbing and a little cruise to get the legs rolled out of the funk from the crash and yesterday. it's snowing right now.

what an asshole

i watched the tour de georgia coverage on oln yesterday. earlier in the week i had read the sports illustrated article on it, where armstrong had called floyd landis a "pain in the ass." i guess you need to stay by the "big man's" side forever if you ride for him and help HIM win. when they summited brasstown bald with armstrong attacking landis just before the finish to come third on the day and armstrong pointing at the clock taunting him with the fact that he lost his lead to danielson i realized how big of a prick he is, it seemed he was as happy for his teammate gaining the lead as much as he was thrilled an ex-teammate lost the lead. the guy is just a bully. f-lance.

trying

the best bike for the last few days was singlespeed cross. it was perfect to get in a little bit of time in the snow while dreaming of a trip to fruita or palm springs or mexico, it's hard right now to train, when you need to nail the weather window before it starts puking again is rough. the bike rocks, no chain slippage yet, even on singletrack in the mud (oops!) or highspeed dirt road stuff. the discos are great with the convert, great system.