Long Day In The Saddle

After a great night out on the town with Barret, Paul, Ryan, and Tyler, there was talk about doing a ride that Barret likes to call the Triple Lindy. Now there are a lot of mountains around SLO, not the Rocky Mtn's, but climbs of 1500 feet or so with some steep 7% grades, so challenging of you put some of the rides together. 

So we met up at Tyler and Ryan's and took off for the more of the hottest part of the ride, Shooters, since it was supposed to get into the 80's today. This part of the ride takes the longest since it has the most distance out the ride. After a couple hours that part of the ride was over. Then it was back into town to refill the water bottles and then head off to the next climb up San Luis Mtn. or also known as "Madonna". We traversed the climb and got to the summit and relaxed for a bit before heading down to the next climb at Irish Hills. This is where the crappy part of the day came. Barret was on the inside of me going down Madonna and was in the really loose rocky stuff and slid his front tire out. Down he goes and slides about 25 feet or so, bikes ok, but he's scuffed up pretty good. So he calls it quit to head home to clean himself up.

Now it's down to Tyler, Ryan, and I. We Head over to Irish Hills and make what's probably the steepest part of the whole ride. To add to it, I'm about done at this point. We already had 3 plus hours in the saddle and I was ready to shower and just chill. To make it short, we made the climb and then high tailed it home. In all close to 5 hours on a mtn bike was awesome and the burrito afterwards was the best reward for it!

Race? Well...Sure...Why Not

So my friend Tyler stops by to say "hi" yesterday and told me there was a road race today that's about an hour away. I wasn't sure that I wanted to do it, being that I really haven't recovered from the long drive back from the midwest. 

But with a race that is so close to home I couldn't pass it up. I woke up at 5:30 to get over to Tyler and Ryan's to caravan up with Tracie, Barrett, while Paul rode with me. After a quick drive, we arrived in the picturesque city known as San Ardo. Now those of you that actually know about San Ardo get the joke.

So I register and get the new SLO Nexus kit on, and start to warm up. I began thinking about the first race I tried, Copperopolis, which totally sucked. Everyone just pinned it from the start. Well I was sure what to expect so I expected the worst. 

The time came and I hit the line, with all the other Cat 5's, ready to do battle. The whistle blew and off we went. To my surprise we went off slowly, it was a total turn around from the first one. 

Basically I was at the back for the first quarter of the lap, then I got a bit anxious and on a downhill turn I gave a quick burst and found myself in the top 10. That's pretty much where I stayed until the last uphill climb to the finish, when I popped and rolled to the lne in the back. I didn't care, I had a great time, with a smile on my face the entire time. Oh and I have say thanks to all the guys that offered me a bottle after I lost mine when I hit a huge pot hole. I was totally amazed at that. Glad to see sportsmanship isn't dead. 

Driving Is Fun

I think this picture was taking just outside of Grand Junction, Co on the second leg of the drive back to California. So I left Madison on Wednesday at 6:30 am to get to Boulder at a decent time, no stopping in Omaha this time, after being on the road for a month I just wanted to make good time and get home.

The drive went well, no problems with the Touareg or the trailer and before I knew it I was in Boulder by 9:30 pm, not a bad days driving. The sunset in Colorado was stunning, it was the first time I could see the silhouette of the Rockies from the sun setting behind them from about 100 miles away, with the redish-orange sky it was awesome. I got to Tony's place and talked with him and his twin Tom while watching the olympics and then went to bed, crashed hard. I thought about staying for the weekend, but the need to get home was too great and started the second leg of the drive at 6 am. 

I was fortunate that there wasn't much traffic at all getting out of Boulder and even on I 70 it was wide open so I was making great time. Before I knew it I was in Utah and then the short stint in AZ before getting into Nevada. That's when the wind kicked up and with the trailer acting as a huge air dam the gas mileage was getting slaughtered, along with the trailer. The right front corner is coming off, again. I had it replaced awhile ago, guess they didn't do a good job. It held on though, with me trying to fix it during gas ups. I hit Vegas and thought I was screwed, rush hour, but thankfully, it went smooth and I was out of there in a half and hour.

I then cruised into California and kept pushing feeling refreshed to be back in my new home state, I eventually made it into SLO at about 12:30am, long drive, but worth it. I got a good night sleep, woke up got my things situated and then went for a ride by the ocean. Not bad.

What Day Is It?

So Trek World has been a blur this year. Got down to southern Wisco, almost two weeks ago, and started building up the new bikes for the coming year, this is a major feat, ad there were 50 road bikes to be built, and about 20 mountian bikes to be built from frames. This means we have to cut steer tubes on forks and press in cups, blah, blah. All this takes a lot of time, so long days were in order, 12 hour days to be exact. 

After a week of doing that, it was time to move on to the actual show, which for us demo people is in Waterloo and Madison. Set up all the trailers and get all the bikes out and split up to there specific areas, and then head down for meetings and presentations. There's two days left for the actual show and then we have have to split up the bikes, get them on the trailer and then head out. For me it's a good four day drive back to California, but I'm going to stop in Boulder again to see a few friends and then be on my way. I'll be taking some time off after this, even though I already had a vacation, we're all just wasted from this event. 

Labor Day weekend can't come soon enough!

Pines

So I was finally able to get the pic uploaded and added one for good measure. This is some of the trails that I have been riding this last week. I have two more days left before I have to head to southern Wisconsin for work. I have to say that I miss the riding here, today I basically have to force my self to do a road ride, there's some things I'd like to check out anyways, and can only do it on the road bike. 

The only real bummer of the trip so far has been that my iPod has crapped out on me, it works if it's plugged in, but not if you want to take it with you, say like on a ride. I have been addicted to riding with it, it seems to make the rides a little more interesting, but without it, I seem to get into my own head too much. But things could be worse I guess. I could be like Sue Haywood and have a broken leg and not be able to do anything. Ok well I'm off.