Innuendo

There is something about the new frame pump that just seems wrong...........

Serenity Now

NO!

YES!

I believe the algorithm connects 20 gears to 666 if you divide by Jesus, multiply by Allah, and use 5 Pi Buddah over Satan + 2 Elvis.

The Original Growler - 2009 Edition

So with me being on the injured reserve list, I took on the role of support and race watcher, something that Jeni has done for me quite well over the years.

It was actually fun in it's own way, but I'd have rather been out there myself if given the chance. Watching races just leaves you with with an empty feeling, thinking of where you would have stacked up.

But the main focus was getting the nearly 9-year old Kind.Cycles bike ready to race for Jeni. The Kind weighed in at 20.5-lbs, which is pretty good considering some of the heavier bits on the trim out. With the exception of the brakes, front wheel, pedals, and handlebars/grips, this thing is OJ (Original Jeni). The Z.1 X-Fly has NEVER been touched or serviced in the nearly 9 years of riding. It worked flawlessly, of course. Why Marzocchi does not make this fork anymore is beyond me......there IS a market for it. BTW, this is most likely the world's ONLY 46-er, SingleSpeed.

So Jeni met up with Kera Durland, who was doing the 64-mile version, basically double of Jeni's 32-mile Half-Growler. But the girls chose right and went with one gear each. This picture is amazing when you think about it (click on it to expand). Two little girls amongst all these tall men....and the girls are on Singlespeed bikes and pretty much everyone else is on gears, and/or full suspension. There should be a motivational poster on this........
The race started in downtown Gunny, and had a 2.5- mile neutral start to the trails at Hartman Rocks. The finish would be 2-part, with the timed finished at Hartman, but the actual finish line downtown, with a neutral-finish back to the town center. Hey it's Colorado, and we always figure out ways to support the downtown business centers........

Mitch and Tracey set up the timer-chips in their usual professional fashion, and made the race easy to track. Why some races still use people and paper as timers is beyond me. Mavic, Ergon, and the Gunnison Trails people set up the rest of the start/finish/pit area. The 32-milers would have the timed finish here, and the 64-milers would pass through once, and then finish here.

Since I volunteered to help work the race, my job was to support the 64-milers as they pitted.

While we waited, I made some new friends. Lisa likes cats and dogs, and wanted to know if I did too.
In your best Tom Hanks voice can you say "There's no pink in mountain biking...."

Well if you beat everyone else then you can wear whatever the hell it is that you want! Durango's Travis Brown (and one of two former USA Olympians at the event) took the win, as usual and represented very well.
Thane, Yuki, and a few others came flying through like torpedos shortly thereafter.
The race mastermind, is in the process of masterminding.
Sonya came through smiling and enjoying the mud. I believe Lisa was at her pit wondering is she likes cats and dogs.
So I'd take bikes and fill up bottles, and hand out Honey Stinger products like it was crack. Most were appreciative, some thought I should move faster. Mehhhh....I tried.
The trails were soggy with lotsa of rain through the day.
And then our hero finished.
And she enjoyed the mud! But she still had to roll back to town on the neutral finish.
"Mr. Roarke....the plane, the plane!"
The girls started to form up a mini-peloton on the way back.
Jeni made a new racing buddy, who coincidentally lives across the street in Keystone from Brad Grohusky, a racing buddy of mine and someone that I met on this very course, while at the 2007 24-hours of the Sage (Mitch's event). It's a small community of like minded people.......
Random (un-aimed) shots, cut Jeff's head off.
For $1.53, and a used bottle opener - can you spot the bronze medal winning, USA Olympian?
The Durlands represented the Springs and consumed the free adult beverages. Kera was the ONLY woman tough enough to sign up AND finish the 64-miler Growler on a singlespeed. Way to go!
Fun times at the party afterward, hanging out with friends and swapping stories. Next year I hope to be in the action, but the key is that I'll be back in Gunnison. This race is fun!

Paparazzi

So it's pretty easy to figure out how to shoot a camera.

After that, it's a bit more difficult to actually get the shot in focus.

But once you do.....

Then it's up to you whether or not anyone even cares what it is that you shot!

That's what separates the P-R-O-S from the F-R-E-D-s. (Besides, of course, the spelling...)

Ok, that and $500

But if you are Paparazzi, it's also about clicking the camera relentlessly, and only afterward do you see if you actually have any photos worth a darn.

Most times you end up with boring shit like this.......
But if you were stalking a Hemperley, then this is golden.



But what if the freak decides to show his butt?
Sell it to the National Enquirer.

I Shall Return

As this wheel goes 'round and I search to find my way
Struggle just to hold on through an ordinary day
I do believe I'm slipping away

But I shall return though I'm losing myself
I shall return
I shall return from the depths of my own hell
I shall return

*************************

If Warren Haynes don't move you...then nothing will.

20-miles today on the geared Roadie. Seems like an ADA accessible bike, but it works.

I've just got spend 30 Days in the Hole.

Accident Investigation

So it took me a while to piece together just how I got injured. I am fine with the crash, I know what happened there, I was too hot going into a jump and self arrested a bit before the launch - I did so because as I approached the jump, it dawned on me just how slow the rider in front was going - if I launched I may hit her....so I flubbed the jump and it was a recipe for an endo.

I landed perfectly on my head - that is what shattered the helmet. If you could only see the helmet....there are at least a dozen visible cracks - it worked perfectly, and well the impact was spot on, with even the East German judges giving a 10. I mean it was an impact at 25-mph, and my head and the dirt met with the finest compressed polystyrene foam in between. My neck did not roll, or tilt and therefore I sustained absolutely NO injury from this impact.

Really, considering how I played lawn dart with the Cortez soil, you'd think my neck would be broken, or even some sort of shoulder injury, with perhaps the usual broken collarbone, that seems to be the cyclist's right of passage.

But nope, head into dirt, straight as an arrow....and then, the next step is where the injury actually occurred.

Sometime in the middle of the race, my CAT 1 seatbag - my trusty seat bag from Performance, and mind you the only one in the house not from Jandd - broke. In this seat bag, there was nothing but steel - a small wrench, multi tool, 2 CO2 cannisters, some chain, links, etc. So when the bag broke, I cleared space in my center jersey pocket and there it stayed for the rest of the race....waiting to be the main contributory cause to this accident.

So after the first impact, with the helmet softening the blow, and the hard pack soil not allowing my head to penetrate into, I still had momentum, and that carried my feet, and then my body over to the hard pack soil. And you can imagine - what was sticking out in my back pocket - the saddle bag! Bag hits dirt, and this now got shoved up in my spine, causing the breaks shown in red above.

Amazing irony here. The first impact should have wrecked me (wrecked him? damn near killed him!), and the second impact was fatal only because of the seat bag! So if this was Vegas I guess my luck broke even, one good break, one bad break.

What makes the injury so difficult is that there is no treatment for this - let it heal on it's own - and with the lumbar nerves protruding near the fracture areas, this is quite sensitive. In fact a thing called a hematoma has formed, which is apparently nothing more than a pool of blood, and this inflames the nerves, sending spurious signals all over my lower body in flashing of pain.

So that's it folks. Amazing. Given the potential for damage on the first impact, I am DAMN fortunate to walkaway from this with my injuries. Wow, I don't ever want to play human lawn dart again.

Somebody's gotta go back and get a shitload of dimes!

There are times when you just want to crawl up in a hole and not do anything. Build the barriers, baton down the hatches, and pull the covers over your head.

But that accomplishes nothing. So when life throws up a tollbooth in the desert all you can do is make sure you have a shitload of dimes.

The marching orders have been issued, and the dates and duties have been set. I'll live, I'll survive, and I'll tame the spine just like I did the the colon years ago. 1 week is down, and it's on the books, 5 more to go really isn't all that long. Hell, I may even be pedaling by next weekend.

Just make sure I got a shitload of dimes.

Brokeback Mountain

I am alive and I will live to see another day. For those of you that don't know, I crashed really bad at this years 12 hours of Mesa Verde on the last lap. The responding Fire Department and subsequent ER visit was all handled top notch and I am very grateful for the professionalism shown by these people. The fellow racers who stopped to help really put me at ease - thanks Mark for staying with me! Steve Barnes, the race promoter even skipped the awards ceremony to be out there with, and I truly appreciated that. Steve - thanks a ton, that meant a lot!

As it stands, I have fractured the L-2, L-3 and L-4 vertebrae in multiple places. The spine is in tact, and note that these are just fractures - not breaks. We got home at 1AM and I'm fighting two types of pain today - the response to serious trauma which one can expect, and the other one is the concerning thing - a pinched nerve that pops up with terrible, terrible shocking jolt on some types of movement. I'll see the orthopedic surgeon this week and hopefully I can get some encouraging news about the nerve. The fractures alone are not that major - cracked bone but nothing broken on through. The pinched nerve is what I don't want to have turn into a prolonged issue.

As it stands I'll be off the bike for a while. I should be on the trainer soon enough and .....ugh....it will be my first time on a geared bike either road, cross, or mountain bike all year. But how can I complain - I dodged a very nasty bullet yesterday.

The helmet is toast, but it worked perfectly. I can't imagine ever wanting another helmet other than one that Specialized makes. I could be a vegetable right now if that helmet had failed.

Round the hood

Got in a great road ride up to Coal Bank yesterday as the trails were still a bit soggy. Would have loved to have gone on to Molas but it was snowing a bit up top, so I came back. I took off with the Showers Pass jacket and it was perfect for climbing to 10,650-ft....and descending from it. 44x16 works perfect for this, and if the Death Ride comes up that very well might be the gear choice. I'd like to proof it out to Ouray, but that kind of weekend just wont be in the cards - with the busiest month of the year beginning last week.

So this AM was the dirt spin out in the neighborhood for the weekly Biggest Loser Ride. Tried the new home made Nuun replacement - that is 1 scoop of Hammer Enduralyte Power and some Orange flavoring and it's a definite thumbs up. Will try Crystal Light and the Enduralytes as ordering the Nuun now without the sponsorship has proven to be ridiculously expensive and a pain in the rear. I like Nuun, but the pro-deal pricing we had with them was still pricy for a calorie less drink that is 99.7% tap water! Gotta have something for these fat burners...and something that is easy enough to mix up, so with help from Hammer and some off-the-shelf flavorings things should be much more manageable.Weighed in 156, 155.5, 156 the last three days which puts me about 8 lbs less than when I raced Temecula in January. Traditionally this is my best race weight - at least when climbing season starts, but there is still some dialing in to had for the lower elevation singletrack loopers. As celebration of the weigh-in though, I rolled out the ride424.com jersey. Now in it's 3rd season, it usually is worn in the summer when the weight goes down and today it was even a bit loose...but then so is the skin from the weight loss......
Moots is almost dialed in too. Have some changes to make later this week, but it should be proof tested by Saturday.

Showers Pass

Ok, so a few years back I saw one of Big Jonny's links for Showers Pass. Honestly, I thought it was a porn link. Last year, our friend Sue moved up to Beerland and now she works in the porn industry - but strangely enough she only deals in cycling rain gear. Make that top notch rain gear, and a BWR sponsor at that!

So with a rainy weekend in the forecast, and by coincidence my first Showers Pass porn kit arriving this very day, I decided to get all wet on the road. Strike up the 70's porn music please...
The jacket was like what the heat shield is to the Space Shuttle. Ride out to the bridges was nice and dry, hower the ~20 miles back was wet, wet, wet, while I was dry, dry, dry...like I was some fire fighter standing next to a Daytona Beach wet T-Shirt contest.

This hat is amazing! Even if you don't live in a wet climate please purchase this thing for your cold weather rides. There is no better animal for blocking wetness and cold while riding a road bike. And it's cool enough to wear naked.
The Bianchi was on vacation in far off deserted, desert lands, so I felt up the green Felt bike and she felt good! Stole Jeni's not so elegant fenders and things worked so well I decided the pass to the shower was good enough for me. Whomp..badumppa, whaomp.....

I hope I get some royalties off of this performance.