Got Get It Back

I went for my lunch ride route that goes to the top of Crystal Park today. Great weather, and overall a pretty good ride, but these last few rides I've been on have been a little more of a struggle than they should be. It's no mystery - I haven't been training regularly, so when I get out for my once or twice per week lately, the legs are just sluggish. I need to get back on a regular schedule!

Anyhoo, we're heading out to Steamboat Springs tomorrow. I'm doing the Tour de Steamboat (just the 40-mile route) on Saturday, and we're gonna fill the rest of the wknd w/ fun family stuff. I'm bringing Karen's bike and the kids' trailers, too, so hopefully we'll get in some good family riding along the (Yampa) river after my tour's over.

Father’s Day (Observed)

Today was Father’s Day for me.  On the actual Father’s Day, we were on vacation in MN, and Karen and the kids were taking off that day to spend the week in Wisconsin with her family, while I spent the next week working out of one of my company’s Minneapolis offices.  Thus, no quality family time that day….  So we made up for it today, and spent a splendid afternoon up at North Catamount Reservoir up along the Pikes Peak Highway.

Karen and I had hiked up to South Catamount Reservoir once, several years ago (pre-children), but storms hit just as we got there, and the ranger forced everyone to leave due to lightning in the area.  Thus we only spent a few moments looking out at it before heading back down the mountain.  Neither of us had even seen North Catamount Reservoir before today.

These reservoirs are awesome.  The beauty up there is simply hard to surpass.  We simply hiked along the southeast shoreline, spent some time wading around in the water, etc. - nothing big – but it was a lot of fun and the girls really enjoyed it (and Pooch sure seemed to, too).  Karen and I are already trying to plan when we’re going to go up there next.  Next time we might bring our bikes and the kid trailers, so we can ride over the damn, and the few miles of gravel roads that are available around both reservoirs.  I think the kids would really enjoy that, and I, of course, am always up for a bike ride…

I stopped a mountain bike who was riding by, and asked him about trails in the area, where he’d come from, etc.  He came up from the trail system that starts over at the end of Ed Lowe Rd, west of Woodland Park.  I’m familiar with that trail system, but have never really done any hiking or biking on it.  He said that there’s a couple miles of gravel road to ride on either side of the reservoir, but that once you get over to the northwest side, and back down into that trail system, there’s some pretty sweet singletrack.  So I can’t wait to get back out that way sans family, too.

Here’s a photo dump for the day (sorry, all pics were taken on cell phone camera, as we forgot our real camera at home):

There’s Something About Mary

Tonight I got out on my first real ride on the new Haro Mary XC.  As you may recall from my last post about the new steed, my last ride was rather short due to some fit issues I had to take care of, so overall it wasn’t a great test.  Well, since then I’ve gotten the new seat post and saddle, and she was ready to go for another try.  So after work tonight I got out to Ute Valley Park with a few friends of mine.

In a word, AWESOME.  The positives I mentioned in the last post still hold, only amplified.  Now that I have the fit dialed in, and a comfortable saddle, this thing rode like a dream.  Right now I’d have to say it’s hands down the best mountain bike I’ve ever owned.  It’s had to quantify exactly all the little things that make it ride so well, but basically the skinny is that it just went wherever I needed it to be.  It almost felt like an extension of my own legs.  There was one situation where I rode a line slightly wrong on the front wheel, and I thought, “Shit, I need to be over there between those rocks,” and I tried to quick shift my rear end over there and almost entirely effortlessly it just slid right into place.  There were several situations just like that.  It seems like no big thing, but I don’t think I’ve had a mountain bike before that responded so perfectly to such minor input.  It’s outstanding.

Aside from the specifics of Mary, I’m also just loving 29er life in general.  I will never go back to 26”.  Soaks up the bumps, holds momentum really well, and can climb technical, rocky terrain like nobody’s business.  I now think of my life in two eras – the pre-29er life and the post-29er life.  :-)

As for the ride this evening, it was great.  I was shown a really cool part of Ute Valley Park that I didn’t even know existed before, and I’ve been in there (mostly trail running) like 100 times.  Outstanding new territory, and I’ve got some nice “souvenirs” to prove it.  We were riding along this ravine, and the trail was riding right along the edge.  There was this one little alley-oop type drop and rise, and on the rise I hit a rock wrong and couldn’t quite hold it.  What followed was a painfully slow, and flat-out just painful fall.  I’m falling to the left, into the ravine, my foot flailing to find some ground.  I finally make contact, but the loose, sandy soil just breaks off under my foot, and I start sliding down.  Luckily I finally made contact with a rock to slow my progress, swing my bike around below me (as my right foot was still clipped in), and through a series of ungraceful bumps, slides and turns, finally come to a stop.  My handlebar stabbed my thigh and slid up the length, my saddle stabbed the back of my ass, my chain ring cut into my calf, and a rock cut into my shin.  It was the only fall of the ride, but it was a doozy.  My body tells an interesting ride story tonight….

Hopefully we get some more great weather like we had tonight, instead of all this rain we’ve been having, as I’m ready for lots more riding like this (well, minus the crash)!

My Other “I’ve-only-got-an-hour-to-kill” Road Ride from Home

A couple weeks ago I began working from home full-time. At first I wasn’t sure if I’d like it; if I’d be productive enough due to my family being around, if I’m miss the social interaction of the office too much, etc. After a couple weeks now, though, I can honestly say that I really like it. I’m just as productive, if not more so, as I have none of the usual office distractions (people walking by the cube, neighbors talking loudly on their phones, etc.), and Karen is really good about keeping the kids busy away from my office. Also, I do go into my old downtown office 2 or 3 times per week just for the afternoon, so I still get the benefits of the corporate office when I still need it.

The best part of working from home, though, can be illustrated by the photos in this post. I took this ride over my lunch hour today, right from my house. Approximately 2000 feet of elevation gain, about 11 miles, and just under an hour. How’s that for a lunch break?! The photo above was taken at one of the upper switchbacks in Crystal Park, the one w/ the old turnstile (I hope that’s the right word). Here’s the item I refer to:

You see, back in the day Crystal Park used to be a big tourist attraction. Only special touring cars drove up here, and the turns were so tight that the cars couldn’t make them on their own. Thus they installed these things, on which the driver would drive the car onto, and then get out and manually turn it around so the car could continue up or down the hill. Here’s the sign commemorating those old touring days:

From this switchback, here’s the view looking down from where I came…

… and the view up to where I’m going:

Here’s a pic looking down at Manitou Springs. The parking lot in the left-center of the picture is the parking lot for the Pikes Peak Cog Railway.

Here’s looking a little west of the above pic. The trail you see going off to the NW is the Ute Indian Trail:

Here’s Crystal Park “Lake”, at the top of the Park:

And a look west from the lake, to Cameron’s Cone:

Here’s a shot looking down toward downtown Colorado Springs (can see Red Rocky Canyon down there, too):

All in all, about one of the best damn lunch hours I’ve ever had. Life is a pretty sweet fruit.

Mary

Among the expansion (2 mtn bikes, 1 road bike) of my bike fleet last year was the Haro Mary XC pictured above. I bought it late in the Fall off of eBay, and didn't get a chance to ride it until just last weekend. A few changes have been made since this picture was taken - new seatpost and saddle, and upgraded brakes (now sporting Avid BB7s).

The first ride was last Sunday. It was to be my standard Intemann Trail/Red Rock Canyon loop that I do when I only have an hour or so to kill, but I ended up not even doing that whole ride. At the time of the ride, I hadn't gotten the new seatpost yet, and as I found out after a bit of climbing, the one that came with it was too short, even extended to the minimum insertion point. My knees were killing me due to not enough leg extension.

When I test rode this bike in the store last Summer, I was on the fence about which frame size was right for me, 18" or 20". I was building another mtn bike at the time anyway (a Frankenbike, using a new Motobecane Fantom 29er frame, an assorted mix of new parts, and drop bars, stem and Ultegra brifters from my old road bike), so decided to just forget about the Mary for a while anyway. But then this 18" gem appeared on eBay several months later, for an outstanding deal, so it ended up being the deciding factor on frame size for me. I'm definitely right on the line of going up to the next size; a 20" would suit me just fine. After getting a new seatpost though, I think this one will work out just fine.

Overall the bike handled awesome. I don't know if it's just the tires or the frame geometry, or what, but I swear it gripped the trail like there was glue on the tires. The steel frame really seemed to absorb the bumps a bit better than my other aluminum frame, too. I can't wait to get back out on it now that I have the seat height issue resolved. Of course, it has to stop raining one of these days first!!! (it's rained every day for like a week-and-a-half here - it's getting ridiculous)

Cameron's Cone - 2nd Attempt and Still Trying...

Today (Saturday) I had planned on going for a mountain bike ride if the weather wasn't crappy when I woke up, as it was predicted to be. Luckily, I woke up to sunny, blue skies. It was a bit coolish, but pretty damn nice overall. A cool, sunny day didn't make me think bike ride, though; it made me think HIKE! So after breakfast (well, brunch) I threw on the hiking pants and boots, got Pooch hooked up with his hiking harness (we never actually use the leash - he just gets all excited and actually wants the harness on - part of the routine), and we drove up to the top of Crystal Park for a crack at Cameron's Cone.

As you may or may not recall, I posted a couple of years ago (July 2007) about a summit attempt at Cameron's Cone with Pooch and Rocky. On that trip, however, we ended up turning back about 300 yards away from the summit, as Rocky's old legs were just plum tired out, and he couldn't climb anymore. Bad weather was moving in anyway, so we just retreated back down to the car, leaving the summit for another day (not realizing it would be nearly two years later and Rocky would no longer be with us).

Ironically, this time I wasn't even sure whether to even take Pooch or not, as his old bones are in worse shape these days then Rocky's were back then. We have good days, like a couple days ago when we cruised up our usual loop up "Mount Fonkert", but also more and more frequent bad days, like yesterday, where I can hardly even coax him the equivalent of two blocks or so up our road. Given how hesitant and tired he seemed last night, I didn't think trying to take him up Cameron's Cone was a good idea.

Pooch sought hard to assuage me of my fears though, as soon as he saw me don my hiking pants and fill a water bottle, he knew I was going for a special hike somewhere, not just our usual hike up the mountain behind our house. And he wasn't about to miss out on a special trip! Plus, I really can't imagine these hikes without him (hikes just suck w/o my dog!), so I was readily convinced. I figured if we started up and he looked weak (as some of the steepest terrain is right at the beginning), I'd just bring back down to the Jeep and I'd do the hike by myself.

Man, did he show me! He was a f--in' champion today! He was killing me! He definitely dug deep and found the juice, as nothing was slowing him down today. However, we still didn't make the summit, due to navigational errors. Once we left the lower clearing for the heavily forested part, we took the wrong trail. Instead of the "official" trail built for humans, we took some deer trail. That would end somewhere inconvenient, then we'd grab another one, or we'd just bushwhack up a ways, hoping to find the real trail, but then accidentally taking a well-traveled deer trail again, etc. We climbed and bushwhacked our asses off, killing a lot of time.

Eventually we came to another clearing, and I sat down to take a break. Looking at the time, I realized we'd blown too much time and couldn't really think about making the summit (which was still a long ways off) today, as I was working with a limited time window, as I told Karen we'd be back by 2:30pm so we could go some things as a family. Plus, Pooch was performing extremely well, but I didn't want to push things. I knew already that he'd be tired and sore for the next day or two, so I didn't want to add to that by bushwhacking straight up the entire mountain. Back down it would have to be.

(Here's Pooch, "taking a break")


As we came down into this clearing we had stopped briefly at before (to take pictures), I looked down at the "Gog and Ma Gog" rock formation on another little peak to the north, and realized that we could easily hike the ridge over to it. I've always wanted to go see that up close, and we had enough time to kill since we weren't doing the summit (and it was an easy hike over to it, from what I could see). Plus, I knew that one of the other FS trails that split from where I parked the Jeep went right over to G & MG, so we could just hike that back to the Jeep afterwards.

So that we did. The hike over to Gog and Ma Gog was indeed fairly painless, but fun and beautiful. We hung out there briefly, and then took the trail I mentioned (an illegal 4x4 road that has now been closed to motorized traffic) back to the Jeep. On the hike back up to the Jeep, Pooch did start to slow down a little. He had been taking the lead all day, and now he was following behind me a bit. So when we came up on the Jeep, it was perfect time. He was ready to finally relax.

Before we took off, I talked to a fellow resident of Crystal Park who came by from hiking on one of the other trails, and she told me about all kinds of trails at the top that are just unbelievably awesome. Sounds like I have a LOT more to explore up there, and I can't wait to get to it.

Here's a slide show of the pics I took on the trip:

AFA

Today I got out for a "quick" 20 miles after work. I headed into the Air Force Academy, riding up to the scenic overlook, then back out towards work. The Academy is always a great place to ride - low traffic, great roads and great views. It'd been a while since I'd been in there, so really enjoyed it. Hopefully next time I'll have more time and can do the whole perimeter loop. I hope to get back to the Falcon Trail on my mountain bike soon, too

The legs are starting to come back, which is a good feeling. Just takes some getting out to ride regularly! On my ride on Monday I kicked it up a few notches on the way back home up Crystal Park Rd, and got my heart rate to within a beat or two of my max. I was able to hold it for a while, and actually recovered fairly quickly, so it's a promising sign. On today's ride (well, technically yesterday by the time I'm writing this) I did a mix of hard efforts vs. really easy efforts. It wasn't really intervals, per se, as I didn't put any structure to it, but just hit it hard on the hills and coasted easy the rest of the time. Felt pretty good...

My back is still adjusting to my finally riding in the correct position again, so I am battling that, but overall starting to feel pretty good. The weather's supposed to be nice the rest of the week, and I've actually got time to ride both tomorrow and Saturday, so it's shaping up to be a pretty good cycling week so far

(excuse the quality of pictures lately - taken on my crappy cell phone camera)

My "I've-only-got-an-hour-to-kill" road ride from home

Taken a couple days ago on a quick ride from home. Within minutes of home, I'm doing a lap around the Garden of the Gods. Colorado rocks...

Not Competitive

It's time I face reality. I've been getting a small handful of rides in here and there, but by no stretch of the imagination have I approached anything even resembling training lately. The idea of entering, spending money on, traveling to, and starting any Spring races right now is ludicrous. It'd be pretty much throwing money into the toilet. So I'm going to take the weekend races I had scheduled for this month off the calendar, and just focus on getting some decent MTB training rides in instead. I'm tentatively planning a trip down to Cortez or Moab for later this month yet, but still working out details on that.

I still need to get some racing in over the next couple of months though, as racing is actually part of training. I just don't want to spend $$ and travel time on a bunch of races I know I don't have a shot at, as I'm not properly conditioned yet. Enter the Sand Creek Series, a series of XC mountain bike races being held here in the Springs over the next couple of months, 4 of them being on Wednesday nights, so I can just hit them after work and not kill a weekend for a race. If I blow those races, big deal - I'll be home in 20 minutes and can ponder the race over a beer as I stare out at the mountains. That's racin'! ;-)

Letting Injury Change You

Yesterday I went out for a road ride, the first ride since I removed that ballbreaker of a saddle that came with the bike. Much better with my standard saddle!

After a while though, I noticed that I was sitting too far ahead on the seat - a position I often find myself in - even though I had the saddle positioned forward plenty. Then it occurred to me that I've had this same problem on my other road bike for quite some time. Even though I keep moving my saddle forward, thinking it must have been too far back, I find myself in the same position on the saddle (too far forward, off the sit bones), which eventually leads to discomfort.

Then it hit me... I forced myself further back on the saddle and opened up my hip angle. Voila! More power and speed, almost instantaneously. What I realized is that ever since my big crash a few years ago, in which I tilted my pelvic bone something fierce, I've been favoring it and sitting in a wrong position. So now it's going to take some conscious effort to get back in the habit of riding in the right position. It's going to be painful ride back to normalcy though. After 5 minutes or so of riding in the correct position, my lower back muscles on the left side started aching something fierce. I was getting more power and my upper body was absolutely still though, so I knew I was in the right position. The problem is that over the last few years my body has gotten so used to riding in the wrong position that now it hurts to ride in the right one. It'll come around; it's just going to take a lot of riding and a lot of gym time to get completely back to normal.

The joys of injury...