wow

BTW, Jennie,  I did HON 3 or so years ago. The CX bike with road tires would be good to use.

WooHooo

Snow, then melt, then cold etc.... etc....

Debating an early AM trip to Moab for some sunny warm dirt. Or bundle up and ride in the snow.

Either way this afternoon will be a 15 minute interval, yup, that'll be loads of fun.

Next week looks to put me in back in the, 'let's try not to get dropped in the first 5 miles' Road race mindset.

Hell of the North, with the 35+ group. Flat, straight, windy, well nothing like doing what you don't excel at to make yourself better. At least there is dirt/gravel and maybe mud. Who knows, the power may come out to play and stay.

Keep nose out of wind, yet be towards the front going into the dirt, hmmmmmmmmmmm

Got lots of extra hits due to CarboRockets launch, since I am an addict, and Fatties contest. Now if i could only turn that into some sort of revenue string hmmmmmmmmm.

Nope, I got nothing.

In other NEWS. MtbRacenews.com scooped ve(s)lonews and cyclingnews on the Cape Epic prologue results.

Must be the high tech office.

Well Ok

Today was Lyna's B-Day, we had lunch and boy were the servings huge, ridiculous what the American culture has created in regards to portion size.

Bleh :P

Today was to be an off day, but I thought I might do an easy recovery spin on the road. Then I stopped by the shop after work and Melissa handed me my new pedals. So, yeah, I came home cleaned the scalpel and put em on, talked to a neighbor who wanted to check the bike out and decided to hit the trail. Sorry K-day, didn't leave the house till 5 till 6 anywho, therefore I took the stalker photo of yer element.

Lyna was up there somewhere with Superfly's wife. I ran into Mark and Kris and the aforementioned Superfly. Then I finally ran into Lyna and Rhonda and decided to chase Drew and Lucy up Dry Creek as Lyna and Rhonda saw them. I never did, as they took a game trail down, but i did catch up to them at the roundabout above the football stadium.

Well the main reason I rode was to see how the new Q factor of a shorter spindle felt, uh, didn't feel a thing. So maybe my hips will be happier in the long run and maybe I'll clip less rocks on turns, who knows, at least the dang things do not yet emanate a nasty grinding sound like my 3 year old twin ti's did.

Lyna and I then went to Tsunami for some sushi, well, I had seared Ahi, cause I really do not like sushi anymore, don't know why, used to love it.
Dang, I have a 7am meeting tomorrow, what am I doing up?

nothing...

much to say.

I rode bikes over the weekend, Friday 3 x 5 minute intervals, hurt, yep hurt, Saturday a few hours of dirt with Jerry and Lyna. Sunday early to the gym to pump iron and then met Kathy, Fox and Ali for a recovery ride, not so much recovery pace, but lots of stops meeting an greeting to help out.

There were literally hundreds of cyclists out on Sunday, road and mtb, crazy.

spring? Mayhaps?

Anna Checking my work, Tuesday night

Well, good 3 days of riding after work, Monday the shoreline fromt he zoo to dry creek was drier than it was on Friday before the latest snow, Tuesday was early meeting day, logged off at noon and went out for 2.5 on the road, Cottonbottom to Porcupine across Wasatch and up a lot of emmigration, U0fU traverse then home, Today was a shoreline dry dirt explore. At the top of the Zoo climb, ran into Brad M and rode with him to his tuurn around point, Lyna rode up while we were conversing, then we ran into Superfly. Lyna and I then headed from teh mouth of dry creek through popperton park, west down 11th ave to City creek and climbed a few miles up the single track towards the radio towers, wow, dry as a bone, the switch backs back down to city creek were nice and tacky for the descent. mmm dirt.
Kathy, Saturday and Sunday are looking good, come on down, jealous???

Why I asked

The following a line and overlap wheel question.

First, yep people wreck on dirt, i have had and seen some good ones 2004'ish, Nova Desert Classic expensive shoulder dislocating otb. Ended up having a great season after that. 2005 Solitude, Cannondale low bottom bracket, trying to catch up with Sly on the DH, nose wheelie, lucky scrub oak landing, bent pedal axle, no major wounds.

But, unless you are T2 on the DH, you generally are not going 30mph, in a tight pack, where the slightest miscalculation can take you and many others out. Risk vs reward for me. I will say the RMR was excellent training, when i had the cahones to do it.

But i like dirt. Cause even if I am Off The Back, I can still have fun. Not so much when I have been dropped in a crit, which was often, cause I am dumb, impatient and scared.

But my point is, that shit happens in Crits, yeah Fox will say we attract it to us, or some shit like that, but shit happens. I know pack etiquette is to follow a line, point shit out and don't overlap the wheel of the person in front of you, but, to me, in a dynamic, high mph Crit, those things seem a bit more fluid, but i could be wrong, that is why i asked for veteran opinion.

I still don't understand how the RMR can be someone's focus, have large numbers and some of the weekend road races don't. But that is another discussion, well worn out one at that.

But, the Solitude Tuesday night series is back this year, with an even larger payout than last year, good raffle swag and hell i got 3rd in the series and won a couple hundred bucks.

Rico, Turbo come on out, get yer climb on, and listen to Alex carry on a conversation, behind you while you are dizzy from Hypoxia

Figures

I always was more drawn to Mary Ann

More Dirt

Home from work, log in, did sum more work, log out, gear up and go ride some more shoreline, getting drier.

Before I had to drop off one of these to Drewcifer. I tried to figure out how to do so, then i remembered, uh, yeah, it is a back pack, amazing problem solving skills i have.

Question for veteran roadies or why I don't do Crits;

Define Holding a line and all of its parameters.
Define Overlapping a wheel and all of its parameters.

Heal up all those who tasted tarmac.

Race DIRT

Nice Weekend

Friday was home from work early and an hours ride before i met up with Mark, Kris and Ed for an emigration assault. I did 3 5 minute intervals and felt pretty good.

Saturday I went to the gym and pumped iron and never got on the bike, as i was worried about rain, which never came. Also, i did not want to be tempted to ride out to RMR and get some good pavement burn.

Today i went out for 4 hours on the MTB, up and over Little mountain, by the way, the gate to Big mountain has snow right after it, it'll be a while. Then met Lyna at the zoo trail head (After i sampled some trail first) and we rode to the base of Dry Creek and back, trail is in good shape with only a few mud patches, The high road up above Red Butte is a mess, and best avoided.

Lyna and I split off at 13th south and I headed out for another 45-60 minutes. Nice ride and warm. Spring is a coming.

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Low Expectations

(photo borrowed from ZAZOOSH)

Friday after the day from hell, i picked up Ty and Jim Wedge and we headed down to SG for the 2008 season kick off. We had good conversation on the way down, ran into the Pilling family in Filmore. We dropped Jim off at the Hemmingway-Hales compound and headed over to the Condo the Swatch provided for us.

Went to bed, woke up and headed to albertsons for pancake fixins, ate, brought jerseys to race site for new team members and came back to condo, changed, ate some more and headed to warm up.  I got in a decent warm up, but as always the socializing-catching up, kind of delayed it, but still, a good 50 minutes were had. 

We had a decent sized group in my new 40+ cat, the start was pretty tight, as Alex L. said, like a cat five road race, but once we hit the 'single track' it began to break up. 6 of us got off the front, Hileman from Vegas, One Speed Kenny and Fred P went off and Darren, Mad Dog Karl and I were together with a huge gap growing behind us.  Karl was in front on the last DH of the first lap, Darren right on my wheel, right in the alst dip before the double track to the start finish, Karl got caught up in a shrub and wet down in the middle of the trail, Darren got around on the left, but i had to dismount and run on the right, I got back onto Darren after getting my feed from Toni P and drafted till right before the 10 foot hill, I then put some space between us, but he caught back on by the end of the first climb, we played cat and mouse for a while, passing lots of 30-39 and 19-29 riders and I just could not bring him back, still a record time for me on that course @ 1:38:30. 

The 2008 Team Replica Scalpel is the fastest bike on the planet.

So stress at work, did not destroy me, hmmm.

Cafe Rio with Sherwins, BZ, Shannifer, Ty and Kely E.  Then lter to Nielsens for custard and Danny and Kim C's for annual post race festivities, sorry Kathy, no jello shots.

Sunday the gang met up for Breakfast at Fairway and decided to bag Goulds/Jem/Hurricane in favor of less wind (HA).

Newby and Shannifer joined BZ, Kelly, Ty, Sherwins, Erika, Dusty and I for a Bear Paw-Stucki-Barrel Roll- Race course- Bear Paw ride. Good times all around. 

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Newby and I had a blast on Bear paw descent, heavy tailwind on the descent and tacky soil helped me make it down in record time, with some sweet air and railed corners. 

Drove home, bleh:P

PS, I gotta give props to BK for giving me a sample Carbo Rocket can, i did a race day no-no and put it in my first bottle, and was happy with the results, I put it in all 3 bottles for the Sunday ride, I'll be ordering more.