Ahh Southern Utah

Headed to Saint George this past weekend for 3 days of riding. Chose it over Moab, looks like that was a pretty decent choice.

Friday i rode a couple of easy laps of the race course. It was in good shape and it was fun to ride the technical sections. Lots of that trail that used to be single track are growing into double track, I'm quite sure it is related to OHV's. Before the ride, ran into Gregy and his wife, they were down for a few days. After the ride I did a bit of rock gathering for the xeriscaped yard. Good cross training as well.

I headed up to Springdale for Dinner with JV and his cronies (aka Peter Pan and the Lost Boys) They were a bit juiced.

Saturday I headed out with the Guthries/Specialized misfits. We drove to Littlefield, AZ. And did a 50 mile out and back. Check out the route here. Zoom out a bit. Good roads, little traffic.

Sunday met with a few friends and did the Stucki Springs to the Barrel trail to the Bearclaw Poppy. Lots of gigly fun out there.

Good times, good friends, good weather, I really need to get me a condo down there.

I love Utah, no, really, I do.

This may offend, upset or humor the masses, you have been warned.

So yesterday there was a press release about the 2006 Tour of Utah. This is a race i had planned on terain gup in Cat 4, yeah baby, I would of sandbaggged it, never do enough races to move to cat 3, but I can not do it since it conflicts with the Intermountaincup finals and Double points.

Well it is being sponsored by the LHM. It is great that the race was able to get that much support, however, a few people in Utah and in the rest of the world are unhappy with how Larry Miller reacted to finding out what Brokeback Mountain was about. I saw the movie, it was wonderful. I work in Larry's office tower, but not for him. I see him every day, I saw him slip on Ice 3 years ago and bust open his head and saw one of my co-workers, who lives an alternative lifestyle, come to his rescue. Maybe that bump on the head scrambled his sensibilities.

Well the Utah Cycling Associations list serv has lit up a bit about this. Worry aboiut bad press, threatened boycotts and some old fashioned bible thumpin homo-phobia. Here is a nice quote...

".....Further more
I agree with what he did due to the fact that the movie he took out was a
movie that although accepted by some was a movie that should not have been
made. People can choose there own lifestyles but why must the rest of us be
exposed to it? That movie is just as bad as the annual gay march in Salt
lake city! God made Adam and eve not and Adam and Steve! I rest my case"

Well damn, can't argue with that, Newt, I mean Alito, I mean Rove, I mean, oops too political?

But really, I mean the same theatre is showing the blood and guts of Tarentino's latest, It showed 40 year old virgin, it showed team america it is showing every other teen sex and drug and bad behavior movie, but not this one.

It is his choice, but I say he is a close-minded coward. I would not boycott the race, but i will not patronize any of his business'. And the Adam and Steve guy better not leave his blinders at home, he may be surprised.

If he refused to show Malcom X, you think he would get away with it? If he refused to show Ghandi? if he refused to show Harry Potter, for god's sake what if he refused to show King Kong, now that would be a travesty.

Consider the Tour of California's title sponsor, there has been an unending amount of bad press in the cycling world about this. I defend them.

I apologize, but I get a bit worked up. It is a struggle for promoters to get dollar support for events and we need to thank them for the work they do, we just run into a slippery slope when we have sponsors that could do harm to the image of cycling.

Again I will say that it is his right to not show the movie, I just think he is an idiot.

This is the state that, for reasons I can not figure out, whose NBC affiliate does not show Saturday Night Live. Now that show is not what it used to be, but it does make me laugh. Well atleast I can see it on Salt Lakes WB affiliate. How does this make sense?

I ran in the snow

So, Saturday morning Lyna and I woke up real early, headed up to Park City for th eIce Bike race. It was to be my first ever ride on a single speed, in particular, the single speed Scalpel. It was cold, but we were prepared for that. The format was a time trial on a mile loop with a bit of climbing. Well pre-riding the first part made it seem rideable then BP came by and said the back side was not rideable at all. Great, Ty and I head off to the road for some warm up. The race starts and by that time even the first part was not rideable. So it was a 2 lap run with the bike, interspersed with about 50 yards of riding. I have no idea how I did, Lyna won Sport women, being the only one. She got a gift certificate, we also won a set of Bike tire chains for snow/ice riding and a big huge tub of accelerade. All in all it was fun, and exciting and an excuse to get outside and laugh at our selves. Adam was there, not sure how he did either.

Team Revolution is shaping up quite well. Should be a good year. Got some new sponsors and swag. The box full of Sigma swag showed up the other day. Now I have like 6 cyclo-computers that I don't use. Plus a pile that I need to distribute. Liz dropped off the Uniform design, similar to last year, but different. The Arm warmers are going to be sweet. Drew is killing it with the organization of the uniforms, delegation is sweet, last year I did almost everything, this year I got lots of help.

1.5 months till Saint George race, that will be fun. Today, it is 2 hours in the sunny cold valley of Salt Lake.

out

The Gym weirdos

So, I wanted to avoid this topic, but I need to get these things off my chest. The first person I have notied lately is the guy who comes in in his pimp sweatsuit and spends 75% of the 1.5 hours I am there staring at himself in the mirror, not once do I see him working out. I would call him a stalker, but h seems to be stalking himself. I don't kow if there is a law against that.

Next is the guy I have seen twice. Now he kind of weirds me out. Now something is telling this guy (who happens to be skinnier than me, a 145 pound climbing cyclist) that;
1. I need to wear this to the gym
2. It is normal to wear this to a gym
3. I look good in this
4. Everyone here thinks I look good in this.
I know there was a time that I would wear baggies over my lycra shorts, cause I was shy, well when in rome you know how the saying goes, but come on, this is a bit much. I have never seen anyone wear this outside of a wrestling match, or a ballet. And I know what Male balet dancers look like, and this guy is not one (My sister danced ballet for years and I dated the devil years ago and she danced ballet as well)

Th picture is not the guy, just what he was wearing. Google is awesome.

I wear baggie cotton old navy shorts to the gym with a t-shirt. The salt lake tribune had a nice article on gym etiquette a few weeks ago. My favorite line is " Wear appropriate apparel. Don't wear street clothes to the gym, and don't wear anything too skimpy. " Um, this guy must not of read that article, or maybe he did and he left his thong at home. Ewwwwwe.


The last gym weirdo, is not so much a weirdo, but an interesting occurence. There is always some female who has a questionable understanding of the above mentioned skimpy clause, she is usually on some aparatus that does not play well with short shorts and she is usually distracting my workout with things I don't need to see.

Well it was cold....

Good week at work, if good equals cleaning up after the messes of prima dona's. Enought bout that.

Friday night Lyna and I headed up to Brighton for some Knuckle draggin. I was worried about it being cold and icy, well it was warm and sweet groomers. Nice for sweet carved turns. Fiday night, full moon and snowboarding, how rough is that?

Ty and I headed out for a 2.5 hour roadie adventure in and around Draper/Sandy/Dimple Dell. It was like 60 degrees out there. I have a picture of what I call the helmet scar. 2 hours or more after a ride I still have 2 'scars' on my every enlarging forehead. I is from the helmet and one is from the head sweat. I get similar 'scars' on my ankles from sock. That is just weird. If I find my cameras usb connection I'll post the evidence.

Next week is an Ice-Bike race up in Park City, I migth try it out, on a single speed Cannondale Scalple one of the guys at the shop has. Just for giggles.

out.

It Got Cold Again and more on USACYCLING

Well the balmy weather coudln't last. Oh well, I am prepared for arctic riding. Went skate skiing on Saturday at the Solitude Nordic Center. I went better, lucky for me, my coach was up there working out and gave Lyna and I some pointers.

I sent an e-mail to several higher-ups at USA Cycling voicing my concerns about Mountain Bike racing, I got a phone call from the COO and a e-mail from the western coordinator. There seems to be a movement within the organization that is pushing for change, hmmm, we will see how it goes.

In the e-mail I got the 'We recorded 200 more participants at the 2005 Mammoth Nationals than the at previous years nationals' and the 'Under the new staff, membership has climbed back to 15,000+ in a very short time.' crap that I knew i would get. This does no tmean anything, those 200 were from California, those 15,000 don't come to national series races.

So I did some research, cause I'm a geek like that. The National Mountain Bike Championships in 2005 had a reported 1582 racers for - Downhhill, Super-D, Mtn Cross, Short Track, XC and trials. 10% made it out, wow. How many of those 15,000 didn't even know about it?

Lets look at the National Cyclocross race numbers. My calculations puts it at around 1300 racers. 1 discipline, a 'FRINGE' sport and huge numbers turn out. This sport is not even fully supported by USA Cycling as it is not an Olympic sport. How in the world are they able to get that many riders out? Something smells funny. Hmmm, smells like, uhhh, wait for it, yep smells like the promoters.

Well I am not saying the USA is self-centric, well maybe I am, but 1 world cup MTB XC race on US soil in like 4 years, No World Cup Cross races, No Pro Tour races on the road, but we got a great base of licensed riders. What is that all about?

I think the cronies at USA Cycling need a wake up call. I will continue with my suggestions, criticisms and general rantings on this subject for a little while. Probably till they do something I like.

Does USA Cycling even care about Mountain Biking?

So once again they have changed the schedule, the date and venue of the first race has been changed and they added another west coast race at a horrible venue. So that is 5 races west of Denver and 2 on the east coast, this does not even include the National Championships in Mammoth, Hmmm, last I checked the east coast has more people and the series east of the mississippi have more racers. This is the worst run organization I know of, It is ridiculous, I for one believe there needs to be a complete overhaul of the national series. I truely belive a National Race calendar type structure is an idea that many have. It is kind of a combination of the AMBC and the NCS. Pick the best run, highest attended races in say 8 different places, make them National Mountain Bike Race Calendar races and the Pro's will come. The local promoters have an easier time gathering support and grass roots racers, they also have a tendency to have race purses, which means there can be more UCI points available for the racers.

The NCS is a failure, there are more amateur racers at a local, non usa sanctioned mountain bike race than there are at NCS races, USACylcling needs to step outside of the Mountain west and embrace the rest of the country. 2006 6 of 8 races are in 3 states, California (3), Utah(2) and Colorado (1). This is ridiculous.

I am happy that 2 races are close by to me and the the championships are a days drive, but what about the midwesterners, the south easterners and the east coasters? I think it is time to start a grass roots initiative to take back the series and build it up again, it is in danger of disapearing.

Rain and Snow

New Years eve consiste of less stops than intended, Saw Alex as I thought I would. New years day Lyna and I headed up to Mountain Dell for the demo day. We took a short refresher lesson and Skated for about 2 hours, ouch is all I can say, that hurts, but we will be back next week.

Today we headed up to Solitude for an afternoon of Snowboarding. It was pouring rain in the valley, half way up the canyon it was hammering snow, the last mile to the parking lot took a bit extra time as I was trying to keep the Element out of the snow bank. Well we got 2 sweet runs in, freshies all over, soft turns and heavy snow, Lyna needed to try some other boots, while we were waiting for that, poof the power went out, lots of stuck skiers and boarders on all lifts, they got them started on Diesel, but only half speed and only every 5th chair, so we headed home. Oh well, we will probably start going to Brighton for 2 for 1 Friday nights from now on.

Hit the trainer for an hour tonight, ooh let me tell you, boy howdy is that some fun, uh huh.