Tour of The Gila Photos

The van all loaded up at Jack’s house in Silver City.

Taylor Shelden in the break on day 5.  What is with the tongue?  I guess I never have my tongue out unless I’m eating something. (And this is where the guys on the team say - “So then your tongue is always out, right?”

The van and the posse outside a massive copper mine near Silver City - possibly the biggest manmade hole on the planet.

Satin sheets, a couple computers, a couple unnamed cats and a large plot of land in Silver City make for some interesting host housing. (Joe Saperstein, Ryan Hamity, Corey Carlson)

Joe pinning his number the night before another day of racing.

New Team Photo

Lookout, Dan’s calves have been known to eat small children.

Thanks to Sugoi, Huang Design and PhotoFX for helping us look so good!

Vacation

Vacation can mean a lot of things. I guess the last 5 days weren’t ever called a “vacation” from the onset, but rather a “break.” Changing it up a bit this year, I only took about 12 days off between closing out last season and training for this coming season, so Neal thought it’d be a good idea to have a few days off before the next block of training started. Part of the break coming up involved getting myself pretty fried, both mentally and physically, before the break. Sounds like the perfect recipe for a top sporter.

Speaking of recipes…I just finished up my 5 day long Basic Cooking Techniques course at the Culinary School of The Rockies. This cooking class was the core of my “break” - 930am to 3pm daily. Speaking of breaks, my partner in remodel, senor Ryan Hamity, recently broke his radius in the DU Criterium at City Park last Sunday.

So this week, I’ve been in class from 930am-3pm every day and then heading over to the 6th street remodel to paint until 7 or 730 at night. Class has been great - learning to sautee, broil, roast and braise in addition to pan sauces, desserts, salads and soups. Very, very full days on my feet for a “break.” I can say that I’ve been almost as, or more, worn out than I was during 20+ hour training weeks leading up to this week. As tired as I am, it’s been great. I tried not having coffee today and actually had more energy all day, how great is that.

If I’m ever feeling really tired, I’ll just watch the movie I’m watching once again. The Pursuit of Happyness. I swear, half the scenes in this movie are of Will Smith running. Makes me tired just watching him. His tired is easily 10x my tired. And then there is one-handed painting, Ryan Hamity-tired. That’s a whole other story you can find on his website - Ryan Hamity.

Unfortunately, in the DU Crit, Ryan broke his arm and Corey Carlson took a mild spill. However, I had a great ride - putting myself in the right move with strongmen Pete Lapinto, Henk Vogels, Tyler Hamilton, Stefano Barberi, Justin England, Chris Baldwin, Dirk Friel and Jim Mohan. Of course I probably spelled half of those names wrong, but there’s no hate - all love. I think I finished up 7th and was pretty happy about it, seeing as I was one hour away from a relatively long break and completely toasted from the week leading up.

The best part, was that my parents came to see my race and I rode really well. Not a better feeling out there…

Crash Report

Well here is the report, short and sweet because one handed typing is way too much fun to want to go on for hours. 

Sunday i went down to race the DU criterium in Denver.  The pace started out fast and the course was technical.  Half the field was ready for the race and the other half made it a few laps before pulling out commenting that its only March.  I fell into the group of riders that were ready.  I missed the first break that had all the power of an NRC race.  I was moving up the now small and shattered field to make an attempt to jump across to the break when the rider in front of me clipped a pedal and went down.  I hit him and flew over my handle bars landing hard on my left hand.  I sat there for a few seconds before moving to the side.  I knew i was a bit shaken up but didnt think anything more.  I got back on my bike and started to ride to the pits to take a free lap and continue racing.  When i was riding i noticed my seat post was snapped and i wasnt going to be able to keep racing.  As i stood on the side watching the race i began to feel some more pain in my arm and it became more difficult to move.  I watched the rest of the race which was won by my Buddy Pete lopinto, followed by Tyler Hamilton and a crew of toyota united fast guys which included Chris Baldwin, Hank Vogels, Justin England and Jonathan Clark.  My teammate Allen stuck it out there and showed off with a great ride to finish 7th.  It was a very impressive ride by him considering he was fried and just minutes away from a week off. 

So when i got home i began to think something was probably broken in my arm.  I wasnt in too much pain so i took a shower to wash out the road rash that came with the crash and told my parents that i thought we should go to dinner(it was my moms birthday), and then maybe go get some x rays.  They decided x rays were priority so we went to the ER.  Sure enough i had fractured my Radius head but wasnt going to need surgery.  The next morning we went to south side walnut cafe(go there if your ever in town, so good) to make up for the missed birthday dinner and i went to see the bone specialist.  He decided t would not need a cast, just ace wrap.  I still need to stay off my arm for 4 weeks before i get another set of x rays and determine if i can put weight on the hand and ride a bike(it was 70 degrees the day he told me i couldn’t ride). 

So that is where i am at right now, trying to find jobs i can do with one arm, since construction isnt gonna work.  Trying to find ways to keep and hopefully even improve the fitness i have right now.  I will keep you posted on how things are going but for now my arm is about to fall off after all this hunting and pecking. 

Go long.

Yesterday, Vince, Ryan and myself departed on a proposed ride that sounded….well, it sounded like we weren’t actually going to finish it. 131 miles: riding the gateway group ride that leaves Saturday mornings at 10am over the top of Carter Lake, down the backside and heading north to Hwy 34 - Big Thompson Canyon. From there we would ride up to Estes Park (elev. 7,522) through Drake (elev. 7,700). Grab an espresso in Estes and a quick bite, then head down St. Vrain Canyon to the Peak to Peak Hwy south, which would take us through Raymond and on to the small town of Ward at 9,450 ft. Total climbing? Who knows, best bring some food though.

The morning started off pretty standard issue. The group ride gobbled up small packs of riders as we rolled down Hwy 36. AND I think it wasn’t until we were heading into Lyons that we were honked at - amazing. Taylor Kneuven and I rolled up to the front after passing through Lyons onto Hwy 66 heading East. Enjoying a nice chat about how Brad is strong headed (he better win multiple events down in NM at the collegiate opener for the Rocky Mountain conference by the way). We caught the Horizon Dairy (formerly known as Wild Oats) team ride and they assimilated into the all-consuming blob known as the Gateway ride. This created a blob of epic proportions - I’d say 90 riders in total. As we kept tempo on the front in a mild crosswind, the group started to stretch into the traffic lane on 66, which made the day for passing vehicles testing the stamina of their horns. It only got worse as we got closer to Carter Lake…

The organization and discipline of the ride usually goes to hell when we turn left off of 66 away from Hygiene. While attempting to coordinate a left turn of 90 riders across a hwy, the blob consumed the entire road for a half minute. More of the same as we headed towards Carter Lake. Except today Tyler said I had a nice pedal stroke - how great is that. Back to the ride…

Over the top of Carter we picked up Fred from VeloNews and Mike from Jelly Belly and headed north to 34, then East up to Estes. The ride through Drake was one of the most peaceful I’ve had in a while. Nice conversation, very little wind, almost no traffic, plenty of laughs and a nice pace. Fred has tons of energy and keeps us laughing while Mike is swerving around banging into whoever he’s riding next to at the time. He says he’s doing it on purpose, but we all know he has rum mixed with the coke in his bottles.

We get over the pass into Estes with a solid headwind. I dropped my Clif Bar wrapper and it was blown back down the climb 200 meters, “Hold on guys, I’ll get it.” (Note to self: picking up a blowing wrapper going downhill with one foot clipped in is really difficult. Don’t drop wrappers)

It was balmy in Estes at about 4.5 hours into our ride when we stopped at Kind Coffee. Burrito, small americano, and 2 gatorades should do the trick. Fred bails on the route from Estes to Ward and heads down 36 while Mike stops in the middle of a turn lane on main street, phone in hand, calling Fred to see where he is as a car honks at him. Mike is actually a good rider, I’m just giving him crap - hey it was funny.

Hamity takes us up some random residential street that’s like a 14% grade to nowhere. Thanks. I can already tell I’m entering the valley of the shadow of death after stopping and destroying a veggie burrito, which is still digesting. Mike turns around to go catch Fred when he sees it’s 30 miles to Ward from Estes of mostly climbing at 7-8,000 ft elevation, citing his training plan doesn’t call for that much riding. Probably a good decision. Soon after, I went to the dark side. Like Froto (sp?) putting the ring on his finger - everything turning dark and on fire. Hamity and Vince are riding about 30 meters up the road in front of me and I’m convinced the bearing in my currently non-functioning powertap has gone bad - resulting in significant friction, the true reason I’m going slow up this climb. But no, I was just going slow. I even had Hamity try riding my bike around when we stopped to pee - “Ya man, no problems here.” Oh ok.

I finally pulled off the ring about 15 minutes into the climb from the junction of Peak to Peak and St. Vrain canyon towards Ward. I told myself 5 times that I needed to turn around because my body just couldn’t do it. I physically could - not - ride - to - Ward. As the euro’s say in a bad accent, “It is not possible.” Instead of turning around and going down to Lyons, I just started pounding my too-sweet gatorade from the coffee shop. Amazing. Soon I was feeling good and setting pace for the three of us on peak to peak - where did this come from? Not sure, but I like it. Vince was in the hurt locker on the last 15-20 minutes to Ward. Mild headwind with the sun cresting the mountains to the west added a sense of urgency to our pace. And yes, we made it to Ward. I even went for a city limit sprint and decided to stop pedaling about 50m from the sign when my legs were going to fall off.

We stopped at the pipe in Ward to fill up bottles and descend to the backside of Lee Hill. Half way up, I was blown away to see an old lady climbing that hill. It has to be 16% in places and she was just motoring along - white hair, helmet mirror and all. After I passed her, I wanted to say that I was really impressed she was going over that hill, but then debated if that would make her feel old. So I just said, “Ah that’s a tough little bugger.” Too bad I don’t have a sweet Aussie accent to make that comment worthwhile…

We made it into Boulder and got home with around 6h 50min on the clock and 126 miles. I think it may have been the longest ride on the bike (not racing) that I’ve done. Ever. I’m feeling it this morning, that’s for sure. And hey, there is 3-6″ of snow on the ground now and it was 75 yesterday. Very motivating to get on the rollers after a 4500 calorie ride yesterday. Speaking of which, my home brewed french press coffee is starting to wear off, so I should probably get it on. I think I’ve got some romantic movie from Netflix to watch by myself on the rollers today. A Good Year, not really sure what it’s about, but hopefully it keeps me entertained for the next two hours. And if you read this far, thanks. It’s been a long one and I couldn’t have done it without you.

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Now playing: Nelly Furtado - All Good Things (Come To An End) (Kaskade Remix)
via FoxyTunes