Sunday Night

Well the cold and snow keep hitting Denver, sure makes getting in bike rides almost impossible. This weekend has been bitter cold, lows in the below zero range. The cool thing about the snow is winter activities are highly accessible, not that I usually do anything in the snow. I did go snowmobiling on Wednesday this week. The group of people I work with had a management team building session at Winter Park. It was pretty cool to be out on the snowmobiles cruising around in four feet of snow at 50+ miles per hour. A lot of the trails we rode were the same ones as the mountain bike races in Winter Park during the summer. It was pretty strange to be climbing up D2 at 25 mph, instead of struggling up it on the bike at 7 mph.

The Famed D2 Climb:

For the first time ever I actually had a chance to stop and enjoy the view on the trails around Winter Park. When you’re racing you don’t really have a chance to see all the beauty around you in a place like Winter Park. Since we were on a guided tour we stopped frequently and had a chance to look around and enjoy. I may have to go up to Winter Park this summer just to train/ride so I can have time to enjoy the views.

I was reading in Velo News this week about a new chain lube that Pedro’s has out; it is vegetable based (as opposed to petroleum) and therefore is environmentally friendly. I’m going to try and track some down or order some and see how it works. The concept is pretty cool and if it keeps the chain lubed in tough conditions I’ll switch.

A note on one of my new freaky habits to reduce global warming, recycling/reusing plastic grocery bags and how wasteful they are. First off is the pure volume of them every week at the grocery store, nine plus bags a week easy. Plus a couple more here and there every week for the mid-week grocery runs. There is no possible way to reuse that many no matter what you do. Over the years I’ve used them to carry lunches and as trash bags but still I always have more than I need. Then this week I read about how much energy it takes to produce the dreaded grocery bag. According to Laurie David (author of, and facts from, The Solution is You, and producer of An Inconvenient Truth) Americans throw away 100 billion (100,000,000,000) plastic bags a year. The petroleum needed to make 14 plastic bags is the same as the amount needed to drive a car 1 mile. Not sure about you, but from a convenience factor I’d rather recycle 14 plastic bags and drive a mile than the other way around. So anyway for the past few months I’ve been reusing the plastic grocery store bags a lot. I’ve used the same bag to carry my lunch for four weeks (versus in the past one a day) and have been bringing bags on all my shopping trips. Now I’m not completely off the plastic bags yet or only going to use the same ones forever, they rip break etc. but for every two weeks I use the same bags I figure I can drive one more mile, or just save the energy some. The added benefit and one Ade really likes, is that now we don’t have a cabinet full of plastic bags.

Warmest Year Ever = Global Warming

I hope I'm not stealing this, but I do work for Reuters so feel somewhat justified:

SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - The year 2006 was the warmest in the contiguous United States since record keeping began 112 years ago, due in large part to an unusually warm December, U.S. government weather forecasters said on Tuesday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) preliminary forecast released in mid-December forecast 2006 as the third warmest year on record.
NOAA said in a written statement that no state was colder than average last month and five states had their warmest December on record -- Minnesota, New York, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire.
The average temperature in the United States in 2006 was about 55 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2.2 degrees (1.2 degrees Celsius) above the average temperature recorded from 1901 to the end of 2000.
The warm start to the winter was tied partly to the "rarity" of Arctic outbreaks across the country because of El Nino, NOAA said.
El Nino, which is Spanish for "the little boy," is an abnormal warming of water in the Pacific Ocean every three or so years that can wreak havoc with global weather patterns. It usually brings warmer weather to much of the United States.
Weather forecasters said another factor in the record warmth was a long term warming trend some have linked to increases in greenhouse gases.
"This has made warmer-than-average conditions more common in the U.S. and other parts of the world," NOAA said. "It is unclear how much of the recent anomalous warmth was due to greenhouse-gas-induced warming and how much was due to the El Nino-related circulation pattern."
NOAA began keeping records in 1895.
© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved

The week in review

Well it has been a tough four day week back at work after nearly two weeks off. Between getting back in the flow of work, announcing my global warming/cycling goal for 2007 and yet another snow storm in Denver I’m a little surprised I’ve had time to think.

I’ve been inundated with reading suggestions on environmental topics and thus far have just started to read some of the titles I’ve been sent. The first book I’ve started is Natural Capitalism (http://www.natcap.org/), which has as a hypothesis that the business world is changing from an industrial revolution to a more environmental focus. Basically it says business can be successful, profitable and use fewer resources if it is arranged correctly. I’ll follow up with more on this as I dig in deeper, but thus far the logic and theories seem sound. I also read an article sent to me by my friend Bob (who was one of a few to recommend Natural Capitalism) written by Thomas Freidman in the NY Times (12-31-06) that says green energy sources can become as cost efficient/cheap as current sources with scale. He discusses a few new Wal-Marts that have been built green and feels the more green Wal-Marts the more scale green energy solutions will have. Since my job is consulting with companies on how economies of scale effect their pricing the logic in the article sounds like a report I’d write on mutual fund pricing, so get out there and buy some energy efficient light bulbs.

On a practical note with the energy efficient light bulbs, here are some practical numbers for you. I bought a four pack of spotlight energy efficient bulbs this weekend for $13.00; normal bulbs would have been a little less than half. But the good news is the energy efficient bulbs are suppose to last three to four times as long, creating a cost savings already, and are suppose to save me over $100 on my energy bill during their life span. This is a practical and cost efficient way all of us can go green. As your light bulbs burn out switch over to low wattage/energy conserving bulbs and get the two fold benefit; help reduce your energy use and (maybe) more importantly save money. On other green notes this week I’ll give you a rundown on easy and free (or better yet money saving) choices I made this week that help reduce waste. Commuting home on the bike two days this week for a reduction of at least 16 miles of car driving. Why do I say at least? Well Ade and I carpool in on the morning commute (so she can leave early and pick Seamus up after school) so in practice if I didn’t ride home and drove instead my driving reduction would be 32 miles. A key thing to remember with the commute this time of the year (and my low total) is that most roads are still ice-packed so riding isn’t easy, but sure is fun. Check out the commuting bike in all the glory: lights, fenders, wide knobby tires, this bike rocks in the snow.

Second easy and money saving green tip of the week, a reusable coffee mug. Cups of coffee, too many to remember (yes I have a strong coffee addiction) but at least eight or nine. For each cup I save between $0.10 and $0.25 depending on the coffee shop. Now I’m going to buy the coffee no matter what so saving the money is a nice benefit. The coffee shop I frequent most sold the cups (travelers) for $2.50 originally, that’s been paid back many times and no wasteful disposable cup every day.

The snow didn’t keep my riding down very much either. I put in 11 hours of training this week, including 4 hours of the weekend on cold and snow-packed roads. I wanted to ride about 13-14 hours but couldn’t bring myself to ride the trainer in the basement. If the conditions stay the same I guess I’ll have to soon, but for now a few less hours in the snow will have to do.

Strange Days

Well first I must say I'm surprised with the amount of positive feedback I've gotten after sending an email to family and friends telling them of my plans for 2007. It's always good to know those around you buy into what you are working on. It's also interesting that one of the (bike) blogs I frequent had two posts centered on global warming recently. Check it out at http://whittingham.blogspot.com/. Maybe bike racers are just a bunch of liberal freaks.

I've also had a lot of questions about how, why and what I'm really going to be doing to increase awareness on the environment and global warming. First off, as many of you know, I'm not an expert on the matter, nor do I have any scientific background. I've just been reading and realized there seems to be a real issue and maybe I can do a little to help. So how am I going to help? Well the blog is one step. Through this I can begin to create a discussion on global warming and provide links to help people further their knowledge and form their own opinions. For those of you unfamiliar with blogs check them out. There are blogs on every topic of interest and give you insight into peoples lives. Hopefully from checking this one out (and others) you can find some useful information. The best part about blogs for me is spelling is optional, call it poetic license.

Second, I'm making changes in my lifestyle (kind of) to reduce my waste. Things like recycling grocery bags, using energy efficient light bulbs, buying products that are in recyclable materials are some of the examples of things I'm doing. Also commuting by bike, which has a two-fold benefit the first, is allowing me more time to train for racing and second a significant reduction in co2 emissions.

So overall the plan for getting started is to provide people with some ideas on how they can reduce their waste, provide practical input on what I've tried, provide people with some resources to investigate global warming on their own and finally to try to help fund groups that help protect our environment. Oh yea, I'll be racing bikes too and hopefully giving a glimpse into what it takes to try to race a bike with some degree of success while being married (Ade), raising a kid (Seamus) and working.

Related to the riding I rode home from work today, the first time since our two big snows. The first few miles heading out of downtown weren't very bad but as soon as I hit the neighborhood it was rough going. The last two miles took as long as the first five. None of the streets had been plowed and it was an icy pothole filled route to the house. The good news is the fenders I bought today worked great and I was totally dry when I got home. Hopefully the roads clear up more, especially by the weekend so I can get in some long rides.

2007 Race Season Plans

I’ve been racing mountain bikes in and around Colorado since 1996, and during the late 80’s as a junior I raced on the road. In all that time I’ve been racing for myself with no compelling reason to race other than the personal enjoyment, commitment and challenge of racing. For the past couple of years I’ve been racing for COMotion Sports in Colorado. The team is the four time Mountain States Cup team champs in cross-country. Racing on COMotion provides a greater reason for racing than racing as an individual, as there is no way the team could win the season series without every racer on the team being committed to the goal of winning the team title. But the fact is that cycling, even on a team, provides way more personal benefits than it does a greater good purpose.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older or more concerned with issues beyond my own little world that I’ve decided to have my 2007 race season have a greater cause than just racing. I know part of it is the result of a friend of mine, Bob, who raced an IronMan triathlon in September. He dedicated his race to a local homeless shelter and helped raise funds to support the shelter. Bob’s good will and effort to make his race more than a personal benefit got me thinking. It has taken me a while to determine what to dedicate my race season to and how best to benefit a cause.

My first thought was to dedicate my season to children’s health care, working to raise funds for a local children’s health organization. I figured I could steal another page from Bob and have a key event to sell people on, and then tie a fundraiser to the event, probably a silent auction. However, my biggest concern with this was really being at the mercy of others to donate money to the charity I picked. While I know people would be willing to help it just wasn’t what I was looking for. I wanted to pick a cause that was meaningful to a lot of people, but also a cause that I could help without forcing people to donate money. I may know a lot of people, but most of them don’t have a lot of extra money to donate to a charity.

I decided I needed a cause that I could personally work on to provide benefit, a cause that is meaningful to everyone, and, if I am lucky, a cause that I can raise a few bucks for throughout the 2007 race season. On one of my flights to India I saw the movie Al Gore put together, An Inconvenient Truth, and learned considerably more about our environmental impact on the world, global warming. The more I thought about this cause, the more it made sense to me to dedicate my season to educating people on how they can help reduce emissions that cause green house effects. The bike, a great alternative transportation source to reduce CO2 emissions, made sense. I also found out there are significant actions everyone can take at home to help reduce their environmental footprint, whether it be recycling grocery bags, turning lights off or driving a little less. I also found a significant number of non-profit organizations that are working to reduce educate people about the environment, educate people on global warming, and legislate to reduce our impact on the environment. I decided educating and making people aware of our impact on the environment was a cause I could fully support, hopefully help bring a little attention to the issue and potentially raise funds for an organization focused on reducing our environmental footprint.

To truly focus on racing and dedicating my season to educating people on environmental issues, I’ve decided to not race on a team in 2007. My thought is, the less competing efforts I have to make, the more I can focus on the parts of bike racing that I’ve decided are important to me this season. I’ve decided to race the Firecracker 50 mountain bike race in Breckenridge on July 4th for a goal event. The purpose of the goal event will be to give me and anyone who cares to follow my efforts something to measure the success of this project. Near the time of my goal event I will attempt some fundraising effort with all donations going to the Environmental Defense organization. I plan to continue racing a full mountain bike schedule through the summer, but will use this race to focus attention for those not use to the world of mountain bike racing.

My goals for the 2007 related to educating people on our environmental impact are:

Begin to provide people information and resources on the effects of global warming
Raise $1,000 for the Environmental Defense to help research and educate on issues related to humans environmental impact
Educate people on the ease and benefits of using the bike as a means of transportation

I invite each of you to follow me on my journey throughout the year where I will provide information on ways everyone can easily reduce their environmental footprint and keep you apprised on my preparations for the Firecracker 50 at http://devinrides.blogspot.com/ and, if you like, to donate at http://www.firstgiving.com/devinmccune.

Thanks,

Devin

About two months

Well, it's been two months since I last hit up the blog. Keep meaning to write something but time is at a premium these days. Since I got back from India I've been working damn near every day on the software development project I went to India for. Unfortunately for me the project hasn't been going to well lately and we are now past our delivery date and fighting to get stuff done before the end of the year. Oh well soon that will end.

I have managed to fit in a minimal amount of riding and even raced a cross race last weekend in Boulder. The race was part of the USGP of Cyclo-cross and it was crazy. I raced in the 4's and finished 82nd out of 140+ starters. The speed was crazy and it was a tight and twisty course. The race was a hell of a lot of fun and now that I've got a cross bike am going to fit in a few more races.

On a note I don't normally hit on in this blog, hell yea November 7. I waited in line 1.5 hours to vote. Not sure how crazy voting was in other places but in Denver it was freaking insane. Only two more years of Bush then the real work of correcting his time in office can begin. In a strange connection I'll have big news on my racing for next year that is very related to politics. I know that seems pretty confusion, but stay tuned and find out. I'm just beginning to put things together. I hope to have basic details ready in about a week.

And on a final note, I'm usually highly skeptical of racers who claim to be clean after missing tests, or being found positive; however, two recent cases have me very confused. I don't know http://jasonsager.com/blog/ personally, nor do I know Bart very well at allhttp://bartmangbikestowork.blogspot.com/ but these cats are getting a bum rap. Bart has been racing in Utah with Eric for years, I've seen the guy at races, hotels and parties over the year and I don't even think he drinks much less takes the juice. His family is some of the most solid people I've met racing and a suspension for him is f**ked up. Get someone like Vino out who missed at test in Spain and went on to win the race, not a guy like Bart who was an alternate and showed up after finding out he needed to be tested. Neither Bart or Sager are making a living or getting rich off this sport and to be honest they are middle of the packers. No doping going on.

Stay tuned...Sometime the winter is more fun than the racing season.

About two months

Well, it's been two months since I last hit up the blog. Keep meaning to write something but time is at a premium these days. Since I got back from India I've been working damn near every day on the software development project I went to India for. Unfortunately for me the project hasn't been going to well lately and we are now past our delivery date and fighting to get stuff done before the end of the year. Oh well soon that will end.

I have managed to fit in a minimal amount of riding and even raced a cross race last weekend in Boulder. The race was part of the USGP of Cyclo-cross and it was crazy. I raced in the 4's and finished 82nd out of 140+ starters. The speed was crazy and it was a tight and twisty course. The race was a hell of a lot of fun and now that I've got a cross bike am going to fit in a few more races.

On a note I don't normally hit on in this blog, hell yea November 7. I waited in line 1.5 hours to vote. Not sure how crazy voting was in other places but in Denver it was freaking insane. Only two more years of Bush then the real work of correcting his time in office can begin. In a strange connection I'll have big news on my racing for next year that is very related to politics. I know that seems pretty confusion, but stay tuned and find out. I'm just beginning to put things together. I hope to have basic details ready in about a week.

And on a final note, I'm usually highly skeptical of racers who claim to be clean after missing tests, or being found positive; however, two recent cases have me very confused. I don't know http://jasonsager.com/blog/ personally, nor do I know Bart very well at allhttp://bartmangbikestowork.blogspot.com/ but these cats are getting a bum rap. Bart has been racing in Utah with Eric for years, I've seen the guy at races, hotels and parties over the year and I don't even think he drinks much less takes the juice. His family is some of the most solid people I've met racing and a suspension for him is f**ked up. Get someone like Vino out who missed at test in Spain and went on to win the race, not a guy like Bart who was an alternate and showed up after finding out he needed to be tested. Neither Bart or Sager are making a living or getting rich off this sport and to be honest they are middle of the packers. No doping going on.

Stay tuned...Sometime the winter is more fun than the racing season.

Pondicherry and a must read offering

We went down to Pondicherry today, a seaside town about 70 miles south of my hotel. Pondicherry was a French outpost and many buildings have a French influence. The town is a popular vacation spot, maybe because it has low tax rates on beer and wine. We walked around and saw the main temple in town, many statues and the lighthouse. Seemingly a mellow trip.

On the way back to town we saw a group of people coming on to the road in some sort of festival/offering to a god. We pulled over and luckily I had my camera in hand. As the first people walked by everything seemed normal, then we noticed that a person was being taken care of (the center of attention) by others. We then noticed that he had what appeared to be two large fish hooks attached to the skin in his back. The hooks had a common rope (Y shaped) that led back to a truck. This guy was literally pulling the truck with the skin on his back. There were three of four young men all doing this, each with their own vehicle. Balaji and my driver had never seen anything like this before (although they had heard of it). It was very strange and clearly the most unique thing I've seen here and maybe ever. More pictures of today at http://www.flickr.com/photos/76469514@N00/sets/72157594277408087/

Touring India

So today is Saturday, no real post for yesterday. I've spent most of Thursday and Friday actually working my ass off. Kind of makes sense, given that is why I'm here, but I'm not going to travel half way around the world and not take in the sights. I may not be sleeping, working a lot and getting fat from eating but oh well. Today will be a little more of a photo dump than anything so enjoy.

We went down to Mamallapuram which is a little south of Chennai. On the way down we stopped at a crocidile refuge that helps save crocs all across the world and houses over a thousand. I told Shay I was going to fight one, so I kicked the ass of the one in the first picture. The town is known for carvings in large rock formations. This next picture shows some of the carvings in the rock, along with me and Balaji who I've been working with and has kindly been a great tour guide. Here is a carving of a two monkeys cleaning each other, given that Ade and her mom are together today this is especially funny to me. Here is a link to a heap of photos I've taken http://www.flickr.com/photos/76469514@N00/sets/

Indian Traffic and no Sleep

Well I got my luggage this morning which was nice. Finally feel cleaned up and ready to go. On the drive over to the office I learned a little about the area my hotel is in, primarily that the area was affected by the tsunami in 2005. There is still an area near the hotel where “temporary” housing is being utilized while long term fixes are being made. It is strange to see an area that was affected, given that the hotel is probably 30 vertical feet from the ocean and 500 yards away. If anyone hears about an earthquake in the Pacific while I’m here call me so I can evacuate.

I went for a run this morning on the beach. It was just as the sun was coming out. I saw a snake in the sand, a crab and numerous local fishermen.

Some people were just throwing nets out to sea as waves came in hoping to catch fish. Not sure if they had any luck at all. There were also a good number of people out in small boats. The boats more resemble a canoe from my perspective. I don’t know how people could go out, fish and control their boats with the waves crashing in on them. Given the number of people out fishing it must not be to dangerous.

Driving in this town is crazy, well I can’t really say driving since I’m only a passenger, but the rides I’ve been on are pure chaos. First, the cars/driving is on the reverse side, like in England. Second the roads all seem to be narrow, approximately one lane; however, traffic goes in both directions. Third the various size and types of vehicles are varied: trucks, buses, cars, rickshaws, cattle, bikes, motorcycles and pedestrians all travel on the same road at the same time. Fourth, there are apparently no traffic signals in India, I’ve as yet seen a stoplight, stop sign, yield sign at all. At seemingly random points on the road there are barricades placed about 50 feet apart from each other, creating a “S” shaped obstacle for traffic to navigate through. What the purpose of these barricades is for I haven’t figured out. They all have signs that tell the driver they are entering an “accident prone zone” but the only reason I can figure for these being accident prone zones is because of the barricades. When traffic wants to pass one vehicle (or person, or whatever is slowest) pulls to the left while the faster vehicle passes on the right, if traffic is coming it pulls over to its left, unless it is a bigger vehicle or a crazier driver. I’ve yet to see any accidents, but honestly don’t know how given how crazy the traffic is.

It's now 5:30 am on Friday and I've been up since 2:30, after getting to sleep about 11:00. Today is going to suck. I guess there is something to jet lag. Hopefully I can leave work early today and get an afternoon nap in and try to get on some type of schedule here.

India - Day 1 pictures

I finally have some pictures loaded onto the site. Chennai is the 4th largest city in India with nearly 10 million people in the area, yet along streets it is common to see cattle walking, or even pulling wagons. This is right along side the cars, bus, trucks etc. on the street.

The hotel I'm staying at is located where a Dutch fort was in the 1700's. There are still little remants of the fort on the hotel property.

And yes, it is a resort hotel. Here is the view from my room (looking east). The building in the foreground is the poolside bar at the hotel pool and in the background you can see the ocean. And a special picture for Ade, the auto rickshaw, three wheels, no doors and crazy drivers (well actually all drivers here are crazy but that's another story).

India Day 1

Well I made it to India, but I’m still waiting on my luggage. I just made my connection in Frankfurt to Chennai due to a 2 ½ delay leaving Washington DC. My flight from DC landed about 10 minutes before the one flight per day (from Frankfurt) was about to leave. Thankfully the airline literally held the plane for three of us coming from DC. We got taken off the first plane and bused to the other plane so we wouldn’t have to deal with the crowds in the airport. At that point I pretty much had no hope of getting my luggage to Chennai with me, but at least I didn’t have to hang out in the Frankfurt airport for a day.

I landed in Chennai at about midnight Tuesday/Wednesday and got to my hotel at about 1:30. Of course I couldn’t go to sleep; one cause it seemed like the middle of the afternoon to me and two because I had to wash the only clothes I had available. I finally fell asleep around 2:30 and was awake by 6:30.

I’ve not really had a chance to look around much yet, but it is clearly a different world here. Cattle walk on the main highway, trash is everywhere and I can clearly see the class distinction between those who work and others. I had heard there were two classes in India; the educated and the service class. There seems to be one missing, the poverty stricken. I was taken to a small temple this morning to view it and there were about ten women and young children begging for change. To an extent they were unrelenting, but clearly they had/have nothing and even a little change would have helped them. Not having any local currency yet I couldn’t help.

My luggage is suppose to arrive tonight and be delivered first thing in the morning. I hope so cause right now I’m starting to stink and don’t have the energy to try and wash jeans by hand tonight. Hopefully I can get an internet connection to post this at some point. Well the internet is working, but I can't get pictures to download, hopefully tomorrow.

Pictures

For some strange reason I have some pictures this week. The first couple are from my office, not normally a great place to take pictures but on Monday or Tuesday of this week (I can't remember the day) we had a huge thunderstorm roll across town. I work on the 22nd floor and our office takes the entire floor so you can see the storm as it moves across town. After the rain a cool rainbow came out that you could see from my desk.
Here are some pictures of Shay from last weekend when we had a b-day party at Snowmass with Ade's family...damn that kid likes sweets. Well it looks like these pictures won't load, I'll try another post.


I also tried to take some pictures this morning when I went for a ride. I left the house at about 5:20; well before sunrise so none really turned out...but here is a close-up of me. Even though I'm taking a few days off work the riding is still early in the morning. Ade still is going to work and someone needs to be around to watch Shay. I registered for the last Winter Park race today. It is on Saturday and will be my last race of the season. It is a great course and should be fun. Then it will be trying to stay motivated to train for a couple of weeks knowing there is no race around the corner. If I can ride through Labor Day and leaving to India I'll be set, after that I can start the off-season and not feel like it is starting too early. I'll probably be wanting to start training again in mid-October since I'll be done so early, but who knows maybe I'll really try to run the Denver Marathon (or 1/2 marathon) and won't have time to think about riding. I guess that will depend on if I actually start running prior to (0r even while in) India.

Harassment

So I'm at work this morning and getting harassed because my blog never talks about work, big deal right? At least that's the way I look at it, but I'm told since the name of the blog is "working racing and family" shouldn't I mention work, at least once in awhile. But really who cares about my job, I sit around and make sure people get projects done on time, talk with clients, and currently am working to ensure some software we are developing gets done on-time and correctly. That's about it, Readers Digest version.

Cruised up to Snowmass for the NCS finals over the weekend. Good racing and hanging out. Ade's family was all there so we had a birthday celebration for Seamus. He was pretty amped for presents and cake. On Saturday Eric raced and threw down a solid race in the pro finals. Finished the day 9th and the series in 18th (I think), not to bad on the series given he missed the east coast races.

I raced on Sunday and had another ass-kicking in Expert. The course was brutal after an all night rain much of the course was nearly unrideable. Lap times were 15-20 minutes slower than in the MSC race a few weeks ago on the same course. At one point there was a single-track climb that became about a 2km run. It sucked but I held on and finished 14th out of 19. I lost a lot of time on the upper technical section of the course, especially on the 1st lap. On the second lap I was getting chased by some people and managed to hold them off in the last 2-3km which was mostly downhill. I was pretty happy to maintain my position given how bad my dh skills suck at times.

Today is Seamus' last day of day-care. I'm taking the rest of the week off with him, then he starts kindergarten on Monday (also his real b-day). Should be a big adventure for him. It will be interesting to see how he handles the transition.

What do I have to do Yesterday?

That seems to be how things are going for me at work now, I'm constantly trying to get things done just as they are due, or a little later. I guess I can only blame myself as I accepted a couple of last minute, quick turn-around projects from clients. While I'm not directly working on the projects my staff is in more of a panic mode than normal and asking a lot of questions and needing additional help. This would all be fine, except for the fact that I've got stuff I need to get done too. Which begs the question, "why am I writing a blog update at work?" And of course the logic to answer that question is, because I want too.

The past week has been stressful outside of work as well. My grandma died last week, and while expected still sad. Add to that another round of trying to get pregant (Ade not me) that didn't work and it surely hasn't been easy street. Hell, I barely even rode last week because of everything going on.

I did go up to Winter Park to race on Saturday. Got my ass beat again pretty good. I was riding in a group of 4th-12th for most of the first climb then just ran out of gas. Wouldn't have been that bad, except for the fact that we had two laps. I ended up in 12th but lost a lot of time to the people who finished 4-11. That group was all within about a minute of each other, a few minutes down on 1-3. I finished about 10 minutes down on the group of 4-11. Unfortunatly it is a little late in the season to really improve repeatability at LT but I know that is what I need to build up on for next season.

It seems weird to be thinking of "next season" already, but the reality is I'll race three more times max this season, then take two weeks off the bike completly when I go to India in the beginning of September. Even though there are a few races after I get back I know the fitness level will be so low it won't even be worth trying to race so I'm shutting the season down after the last Winter Park race. If anybody needs a back of the pack Expert on their team for next season let me know.

How to Spend a Friday Afternoon

I took off from work today, I want to get in some big miles this weekend to get as much conditioning as I can for the next three weekends of racing. I rode for 3.5 hours today at Mt Falcon, liar of the bear, Mt Falcon. The second time up the Mt Falcon climb was miserable. It was hot, I'd been riding for 2+ hours already and there is hardly any shade on the climb. Tomorrow and Sunday I'm planning big rides with lots of climbing again. Probably one mountain bike ride and one road ride. Two weeks from now is the NORBA National in Snowmass, lots of climbing and lots of fast experts to work me over. The week before and after that are races at Winter Park.

The final race at Winter Park, will be my last of the season. An early end to the year, but with a trip to India scheduled there is no way to make the Keystone race, so Tipperary Creek will be the end. It is a great course as I remember it, although it has been a long time since I race there. The last time I raced that course was in 99 and Lance showed up after winning his first tour. I think he got second to Jimi Killen, not bad for a roadie.

I raced in Winter Park last weekend too. Didn't do to great (19 out of 22) but felt more in the game than at Deer Valley. I was riding well until I flatted, after that it was tough to make up much ground. I'm already at my limit racing expert and mechanicals don't even give me a chance. The status on this season 6 flats in 6 mountain bike races, I guess the only good news is two of the races have been multiple (3 and 2) flats. Thank god for the "heavy bottle" that people have been passing me with co2 and tubes. Given that luck it is amazing I've only had one DNF. I'm hoping the karma changes soon, at least it can't get any worse.

A few pictures

Got up early this morning to ride the mountain bike. I headed up to Apex and rode for about an 1:15 before work. The sun was just starting to peak up in the east when I was taking off. It surprised me though, as a lot of people were out on the trail hiking this morning.
The moon was still out too, makes for a strange way to start a ride.

It ended up being a slow ride, my legs never felt like they had any punch in them. I rode the climb super easy and tried to just pick good lines on the downhill. Spent some time re-riding the more technical sections since no high end aerobic work was getting done.

Here is Shay and his cousin Morgan playing around at Grandma L's house. If you look on the couch you can see "Creepy Doll". This is a doll Shay has had since he was born. Creepy doll disappears at various times and then reappears. Seamus doesn't really like Creepy Doll, but Ade and are our continually entertained by making Creepy Doll reappear.

UTAH

So I’ve got to get the blog update out after a full week of vacation. We went to SLC to visit Ade’s family and through in a bike race at Deer Valley. It was nice to have a week off work, but it certainly was a busy week. Left Denver on Monday afternoon and rolled into SLC around 8:00 Monday night. Tuesday was a full day for the 4th with brunch and hanging out at Snowbird on tap. Shay and I swam for awhile at Snowbird, then when we were about to embark on other adventures the rains came. We ended up hanging out in our room for a couple of hours.

Shay quickly found a new friend, Ade’s cousin Evan. It was pretty funny to watch them together, two redheads with abundant energy. Evan is about 14 and was awesome with Shay the entire time. It seemed Shay found out what he/who he wants to be like when he gets older. Evan even rode down the mountain with us, sitting next to Shay and listening to his gibberish. Those two interacting was the best entertainment throughout the trip.

Later we started lighting fireworks at Evan’s house. Shay has never seen fireworks so he was pretty intrigued in the whole thing. We ended up buying a bunch more and taking them back to grandma L’s to light. Shay wouldn’t let us light all of them because the cops stopped by and said some were illegal. Not sure how Shay decided which of ours was illegal, but somehow he did.

On Thursday we went to an amusement park. Ade had a blast, Shay spent most of his time scared and I went on a roller-coaster once. Shay started crying on a log ride (water ride) because he got wet. Sometimes he is over dramatic.

On Saturday I threw down in the NORBA National Series race at Deer Valley. After pre-riding the course on Wednesday I decided to upgrade to Expert for the race. Nothing like jumping into the deep end for a first race as an Expert. The speed was way faster than a Sport race, especially on the climbs. I quickly realized if I was going to have a chance to finish I needed to ride at my own pace i.e. at the back. I fairly well got my ass kicked in the race. It has been awhile since I’ve ridden at the back end of a race so it was a little tough, but I’m excited for the move up and the work it’s going to take to be competitive in Expert. We’ll see how it goes but clearly more speed is needed.

Racing Dope Free and it Shows

This is my new race bike, it rocks!!!



Sorry race fans the only substance I use is red wine and beer, kind of like a top fuel dragster racing on alcohol. I could have used more today I guess since I dropped hard with two laps to go in the short track at Eldora. I was in a group of 2-4 and when it came time to decide the podium, my body decided no podium. I was pretty pleased with the race since it was my first short-track, but getting on the box is always good. Tomorrow we through down in the XC. The course at Eldora is pretty sweet. A lot of double track climbing and the downhills are a good mix of singletrack and service road for passing.

I did a lap on the XC course before the STXC, used it as my warm-up and remind myself what the course is like. I'm looking forward to the race tomorrow and if all goes well (I don't embarrass myself) I'm going to upgrade for Deer Valley. It will be a big step up, but getting my ass kicked should be fun.

I went to SF a couple of weeks ago for work. That town is great. I got some cool pictures and had a good time walking around. Drank a few beers at the bar by City Lights bookstore and had good Italian for dinner. As far as business trips go this one was fun.

The partially doper less tour will be won by Dave Z or Levi, I'll predictt the winner after the Alpe.

Nathrop - CRAP

Went racing again on Saturday and may as well have stayed home. The course in Nathrop is not one of Colorado's big mountain courses but it can be fun. It is held on a ranch at the base of Mt. Princeton. Racing is mostly on cow paths around the ranch. The course has one short steep climb, a long mellow grinder, a long mellow descent and a quick technical descent. That's it. Takes about 35 minutes per lap.

I got down to the site early Saturday so I could ride a lap for warm-up was feeling pretty good when just at the bottom of the on real downhill my front tire goes flat. Not overly worried I put a tube in and finish the lap, go back to the car and inspect the tire. Things look good so I grab another tube and CO2 for the race. Also make a not of all the thorns and cactus along the course. I line up in the front row for the race and right from the gun settle into 2nd place. Sitting right behind Steve who won the first race down in Angel Fire. About 1/2 through the first lap another guy surges ahead and I jump on his wheel, feeling pretty strong and liking the 2nd place position. One other guy is right behind me then a pretty big gap to 4th. On the long grind of a climb on lap 2 my rear wheel starts to go flat. I can feel it squishing along. Knowing that we had a big gap I decide to stop, give it a shot of air and hope the sealant works for the rest of the race. I drop from 2nd to 3rd and am on my bike right when the 4th place rider is coming through. Probably lost about 40 seconds, but feel confident I can catch up to the leaders. Now this is where things go bad. On the downhill I hit a rock and my front tire (now with a tube instead of my normal tubeless) goes flat and I fly over the bars. I get up thinking I'll still be ok but with the front tire flat, a cut arm and the rear wheel already losing pressure from my attempt fix earlier the race is done.

I was pretty pissed off, as I was riding strong and know another podium was in the cards. I never really felt like I was in the red zone during the race and was just waiting until the last lap to make a move. Who knows what would have happened.

Saturday Riding

Well as the race season is now at hand I'm trying to ensure I round out my fitness and get a lot of time on the mountain bike. This morning I got up early to ride at White Ranch. The early riding is good for multiple reasons; cool weather, little trail usage, and home early. I like riding White Ranch as it has a great climb that can be done multiple times and multiple options for the downhills. Considering all the climbing I did early this week I was feeling pretty good. When I rode on Thursday and Friday I was feeling dead, so was not expecting a lot on the climbs today. At the beginning of the ride I was having a hard time finding my rhythm, but about 1/2 way up the climb I started to get going and elevate the heart rate. The descent back to the base was quick (after about 35 minutes of climbing) making the second climb hard with little recovery. I stayed fairly strong but couldn't ride as much of the climb in the middle ring. Oh well the ride was good and I felt good on both the climb and the DH.

Here is a view from the top of the climb looking out over the northern suburbs. You can see North Table Mountain in the right of the picture.

Here is the Yeti with its training wheels on. I have a set of race wheels this year that drop the race weight by almost two pounds. Hopefully the training on the heavy wheels will help make me fast on race days.

I'm not sure if all the climbing training I've been doing is going to help that much in the next race. Nathrop is a pretty flat course more suited to time trials than climbing. I figure power is power though and the rest of the season is about big mountain courses so the climbing will pay off at those. Nathrop is next weekend and is the first double of the season. The cross country is Saturday and Sunday is short track, both of which count towards the season standings in the MSC. I'm hoping to do good there, finished 3rd in 2004 and 2nd in 2005; hopefully this year I can finish off the podium.

We spent Memorial Day weekend in SLC visiting Ade's family. Her sister Lisa and brother-in-law Scott just had a baby the Saturday before (May 20). We hung out with the young Calvin throughout the weekend. Shay was nervous and would never hold his cousin because he was scared. He did like him though, especially all his hair.

Here is Shay, Lisa and Calvin.

And a picture of me and the little man.

I did get in a lot of riding over the weekend too. Saturday (when we got into town) was rainy and snow in the hills so I didn't ride. On Sunday the weather finally cleared in the afternoon so I spent time on the road. From Linda's new house all you can do is climb so I did three efforts of about 15-20 minutes in the afternoon. Monday was a big ride. I went out with Eric for almost three hours and got worked over. We climb a ton, to the top of Big Mountain east of SLC. It was damn cold at the top and we couldn't make a loop of the ride because of snow. We ended up back tracking to avoid snow but it still was a solid ride. Here I am freezing my ass off at about 8500 feet. Park City is to my right (left in picture) with the valley to my right.

The riding was solid on Monday and I felt it. On Tuesday I went out for 1.5 early in the morning on the mountain bike. Started climbing from Lynda's again but hit the dirt this time and cruised towards the capital. It was a good ride, but after the two previous days I was tired as hell from climbing. We spent the rest of the day at the mall hanging out and letting Shay play in the fountain.

Actually Riding the Dirt

So Angel Fire got me going. I raced well but know I need more time on the mountain bike if I want to take the top step on the podium. I'm going to make sure I'm getting in more trail rides, even if my total ride time each week takes a little hit.

I got up and out of the house by 5:00 am today and rode at Apex. It was pretty nice and I saw a ton of deer. Rode for about 1.5 hours before heading in to work. It was a good way to start the day.

Here is Shay with some funky hair right after a bath.

Here is Cimarron Canyon on the way to Angel Fire (note the cracked windshield, got to get that fixed).

And some pictures from Apex this morning.

We are off to SLC this weekend to visit Ade's family. Her sister had a baby "Vinny" on Saturday so it will be fun to see the little guy. I'm going to try to bring my mountain bike to hit the trails a lot, but first I need to track down a box. Not sure when I'll have time to do that.

Angel Fire Race

So the racing season in Colorado got started this weekend with the first race in the Mountain States Cup (www.racemsc.com) in Angel Fire, New Mexico. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to race the XC race until Tuesday of race week so last minute arrangements were mad with teammates for a place to stay, taking a day off work, and most importantly clearing with my wife. With a four year old taking two days away can be difficult because of parenting, but lucky for me my wife understands how important racing is to me and I was off.

Drove down from Denver on Friday morning and got in to Angel Fire around 2:30. Found some of the team getting ready to set-up our pit area so I helped with that before pre-riding. Angel Fire is one of the toughest courses I’ve ever ridden and remembering back to 2004 when I last raced there I was not overly looking forward to the race. There is a lot of climbing, which I don’t mind; however, the downhill is tight technical singletrack which is not my strong suit. I also didn’t have high expectations as I’ve been fighting a cold for about three weeks and had reduced training significantly, along with finishing a course of antibiotics Friday before I left. I figured I’d race to get a little race fitness and pick up an “extra” race for the MSC series. Even after the pre-ride Friday I didn’t have high expectations but did feel ok, especially with my climbing.

Saturday started with my normal lateness and a limited warm-up of about 25 minutes. Given the long climb at the start I would have liked more. The start was on an open ski hill that was in terrible shape. It seems as if Angel Fire has been doing work on the hill and the start area was rough because of the earth movers. About 500 meters after the start the race turned into a singletrack climb. With the sport men 30-34 starting with my group (35-39) this start caused a mess of about 50 or so riders trying to funnel into the singletrack. I was sitting about 30th at this point, but knew to keep my cool as the trail soon opened and I’d have a chance to pass. I just kept riding steady and was passing people when the trail allowed and by the top of the short first lap (4.5 miles) I was in 4th from both age groups. On the downhill I was promptly dropped and passed by a good number of people; however, I didn’t notice too many with the “16” on their leg, signifying my group. My lack of off-road riding was showing though as I didn’t feel comfortable at speed on the downhill. In the past two months I’ve hit the dirt about 5 times total and the lack of technical skills was showing.

The good news for me was the second lap was the long lap and I knew I’d pass a lot of people on the climb. I was riding well and starting the climb thought I was in 5th or 6th in 35+. By the top of the climb I had ridden well and thought I was sitting in 3rd. I knew if I rode well a top 5 may be in the cards so I tried to follow a teammate from a different category that was in front of me to help on the downhill. I won’t say I was riding fast on the DH but clearly better than the first lap. I was passed by a couple of younger Sports but towards the bottom nobody in my category had passed me. I bobbled a corner about 1km from the line and a guy in my group passed me, so I was thinking I was in 4th (at the best as a few people didn’t have their legs marked), giving my general lack of DH skills, the course, and recovering from illness I was wanting a top 10. I made it to the line without getting passed again and was feeling pretty good about the race, but not to worried about my result.

I went back to the condo to clean up and pack since I had to leave back to Denver by Noon. After getting cleaned up I went back to the course and teammates started to congratulate me. It was then I found out I had finished 3rd on the day. Somehow I had miss counted the people in front of me. I was only a hand full of seconds out of 2nd and 2 + minutes down on 1st. Not to bad considering my expectations at the start. Now I just need to start training on the dirt and maybe I can win one of these races.

Also the drive down was awsome. Cimmaron Canyon in NM is great and very senic. A nice way to chill out when driving that far.

It was bound to happen

It was bound to happen, I'm getting the cold that Ade and Shay had. At least it held off until after I was in NYC. It sucks to fly when you have a cold, although I think the recycled air didn't help any with fighting off the illness.

I did get to cruise around NYC and get some cool pictures. The place is a mad-house. Way more people and bigger than you can do just to in photos. Part of that is Reuters is right in Times Square, as is the Hilton. That area is just a cross road of people and culture. I wish I could spend more time and really get to see the city, instead of the hyper-tourist I feel like when on business travel.