Year of Awesome

Below is a quick update on what’s happening in YOA via pictures. Mindy and I are enjoying the summer in Driggs, ID, a small town about 30 minutes from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Mindy has taken some time off and is working from the “Driggs Office” of Brand Juice Consulting. We love the area and we’re having an awesome time!

Hunting for Greenback Cutthroats in Rocky Mountain National Park

MS150 Ride From Denver to Ft. Collins and Back

Driving to Driggs With Maggie in the Wind River Range

Golf With Ed in Victor, ID

Swan Valley Float With Ed (South Fork of the Snake RIver)

First Float in Grand Teton National Park (Snake River)

Cutthroat Trout I Caught In the Creek One Block From Our House

Grand Teton National Park Float With John & Ali

Hike in Jedediah Smith Wilderness

Brant Through Mindy’s Eyes

Big Head Todd and The Monsters at the Spud Drive-In (Driggs, ID)

Yellowstone Bear World! (YouTube Video Coming Soon!)

Yellowstone National Park!

Maggie Loves Driggs Too

Trout Hunting With Pdoo (Trout Whisperer)

Horseshoe Canyon Hiking and Mountain Biking

Cowboy Bar in Jackson, WY

Many thanks to Alison Cavanagh for the Yellowstone and Bear World photos. Also some great photos from Pdoo in there. We have one more week, then we are back in Denver for the end of YOA and the start of something completely different!

Here’s the boat with the name painted:

Here’s the namesake:

Good news: cup holder installation is in progress!

I raced the Wednesday CU Short Track yesterday. Short track is similar to cyclocross – racers circle a short dirt circuit for a certain amount of time. The first racer to finish the last lap wins. I didn’t get off to a good start and ended up behind a guy who crashed at the very beginning. I spent the rest of the race picking people off. Pretty fun stuff. I was at my cardio max for the entire race. I’ll post the results when they are posted.

Hey good lookin'.

Passing was tough.

The course had some cool banked turns and jumps.

Rest of the pics are here.
Results: I was 17th out of 25.

Great photos by Mindy.

We couldn’t finish in time for the boat festival in Jackson, but we managed to get her out on the North Platte this weekend in Casper, Wyoming. Thanks to my Dad for all of his hard work and thanks to Pdoo for coming up to help get it ready for action.

I’m thrilled with the boat, although the high sides were rough in the Wyoming wind. There’s still a good amount of work to be done, as we have not installed the anchor system yet and we still need to Spar the entire interior (just expoxy right now). The System Three book says to wait two week after the last epoxy coat to start spar varnish. I could not wait that long to get it in the water and test things out. We’ll probably change a few things based on what we learned.

The boat took on a little bit of water, which could be from the drain plugs not sealing well. Over a 5 hour drift, it wasn’t enough to be an issue. I bought the hull unfinished, so who knows if it has a leak elsewhere. Great fun on the Platte though. No fish were harmed/caught on our fishing trip. Apparently, even really cool looking boats don’t attract fish….

The name “Cat O’ Nine Tails” was the name of my Grandfather’s B-17 bomber in WWII. The plane was badly damaged on the “Black Thursday” bombing of ball bearing factories in Germany. Even after being very badly damaged by German flak and fighters, the Cat brought her crew back to England, where they bailed out when landing her was not an option. We had only pencil sketched the name on her before we left for our trip, so you can’t see it in the pics yet. Not sure if it’s good or bad luck to name a boat after a crashed plane, but if my Cat treats me as well as my grandfather’s, we’ll live to fish another day!

So, two weeks later, I can finally discuss Battle of The Bear. If you read my Lookout report, you know that I was not feeling great for the hill climb. “Not feeling great” turned into “feeling real shitty” over the course of the week between Lookout and Bear. The main problem was coughing at night due to sinus drainage. This was leading to little sleep and the drainage issue was leading to lungs filled with a fluorescent green substance that I can only assume was nuclear snot. During the week, I had several nights of persistent coughing, which led to very little sleep and angry half-asleep mumbles from Mindy, including “GOD, WHAT THE F_CK?”. (Editors Note: Mindy disputes this account of the events, as she claims to have been out of the country all week on business and that she arrived home on Friday night after I procured the medicine) On Wednesday, I procured a prescription for Tussionex, a 12-hour release combination of codeine and an antihistamine.

It’s important to note here that I have extensive experience with Tussionex, since I get this same cough every year around this time. When I was about 12, my mom misread the bottle label and gave me a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon. As it turns out, this was a bit too much. I spent most of the night wandering around the house, which I was convinced was Smurf Village. Since I’ve had this cough and the medicine every year since age 12, I’m well qualified to dose myself above what package label recommends. As such, I decided to take a bit more than a teaspoon the night before the race, so that I could ensure good sleep. The nice thing about Tussionex is that even if you are still coughing, you can’t feel it, so you don’t care. At least one person is happy.

Unfortunately, I neglected to remember the “12-Hour Extended Release” part of the Tussionex label. I took the medicine at midnight before the race and woke up stoned. I probably shouldn’t have been driving to the race, let alone racing at 9:00 AM. It didn’t turn out well.

At the race start, I came out of the gate strong and stuck to the wheel of YOA teamate Hillard. All was well, although when we hit the initial fast downhill, I kept thinking how strange it was to be riding a bike floating five feet above myself riding a bike. I was feeling good and passing tons of people, still on Hillard’s wheel. Approaching the first climb, I was still well behind where I needed to be. Strangely, the climb ended up being a rest, since the people in front of me were really slow. Hillard was able to pass a couple of people while climbing on the singletrack, but I was afraid to try. At the summit, I tried to go around two riders in front of me, but got bogged down in the high grass and ended up having to stop. This was my undoing. I had to wait for five or six riders to pass before I could get back on the trail. By this time, Hillard had made significant ground on me and I was feeling a lot of pressure to catch up.

On the back side of the first climb, I decided to go full-throttle to try to catch Hillard and pass all of the people that I had already passed once before. Full throttle was not a good idea, since I wasn’t exactly feeling “connected” to the bike. Apparently, the warnings about operating heavy machinery on the Tussionex label should be extended to operating really light, really expensive carbon fiber mountain bikes. I crashed. Fortunately, I only took myself out and slid far enough off of the trail to be mostly out of people’s way. I got up and waited for a train of about 20 riders to pass before I could get back on the trail. At this point, I was feeling pretty demoralized. Most of the people that I used a ton of energy passing had passed me while I was down. I considered bagging the ride altogether, but I figured I’d just try to pick some people off and maybe get a decent finish.

All went well for the rest of the first lap. I passed a bunch of people on the flats and climbs and I tried to take it easy on the downhills. I was working my way back to a faster group and starting to feel a little better. On the second (and final) lap, I was passing a group of riders on double-track road when another rider decided to come out of the left track to pass and bumped into me while I was passing him and the rider in front of him. Fortunately, there were only two things on the left side of that part of the trail, a river and a huge bush with a shit-load of little prickly thorns. Doing some quick mental risk-reward calculations (drowning vs. pulling little prickly thorns out of my arm for two days) I chose the bush. As before, about 20 people passed me while I was pulling my bike and my body out of the bush.

At this point, I was really close to the parking lot and I thought, “it would be really nice to be not riding right now”. But, I pushed on. I did the same as before, picking people off one by one. This time though, I was bleeding from my knee and my forearm. Wiping the blood from my forearm turned out to be a bad idea though because it just pushed the little pricklies even farther into my skin. Eventually, I was in no man’s land – ahead of the slower riders but with no hope of catching the leading packs. I finished the race alone and demoralized. I was 20th place out of over 31 riders and I finished 2:20 back of Hillard (12th), 5:00 back of DeVoe (9th) and 10:00 back of Matty (2nd). I was really bummed after the race, but I’m pretty much over it now. Results here (BTB Sport Men 30-39).
Here are some pics:

Official Race Photographer, Pdoo. Ladies: he's single!

Left to Right: Somebody who passed me when I crashed, me after crash, somebody who was too slow to pass me when I crashed but is probably frustrated by how slow I'm downhilling.

On the way to the finish, note that no one else is around.

Me post race. Pretty pissed. DeVoe is on the right, ignoring me. He crashed too.

….among junior women aged 15-16. I also beat all of the boys aged 8-9 and all of the women 55 years and older. In addition, I beat my own best time by 40 seconds, consistent with my trend of beating myself while Mindy is out of town. In the Category 4 mens division, I was 59th place out of 65 riders with a time of 26:47. Results are here. Clearly, if I want to feel good about myself, I need to spend more time riding with my mom and my friends’ kids. Speaking of feeling good, I’d say the race was the most painful 27 minutes of my life. I nearly passed out several times and It didn’t help that I’m battling allergies and I was coughing up fluorescent green goo. For some reason my 194 lb (yes, 194) frame isn’t ideal for hill climbing. One of the really competitive guys in my category is 6′1”, 140lbs. I’ve got a ways to go to get there….

Next week is Battle The Bear at Bear Creek State Park. Most of the YOA.com team will be competing.

Lake Pueblo turned out to be the perfect first race of the year. The temperature was in the 60’s and the trails were dry, despite lots of rain lately. The course featured a mass start on paved road. The group rode about a mile on pavement before moving to single track. Jockeying for position on the road was really fun and spread the group out so that the single track wasn’t crowded. Once we hit dirt, there were a couple of short steep sections that further separated people. Eventually, there were four of us together from the Sport Category for most of the ride.

The trail was actually really cool. Very twisty and “flowy”, with a few short climbs. In several places, the trail gets very close to cliffs above the lake, providing for a good view and a little adrenalin. I wish I had pics, but the official YOA.com race photographer, Mindy, was somewhere over the Pacific on her way back from business in Hong Kong.

I placed 12th out of 50 riders in my class. I rode with the two guys above me for most of the race but they dropped me on the last climb and I was unable to catch them on the downhill into the finish. Amazing how insurmountable 20 seconds can be in a race like this. My goal was mid-pack, so I think this race was a success.

The treat of the day was witnessing the finish of the women’s Expert Category, which featured a sprint between Kelli Emmett and Katie Compton.  Kelli is a former singlespeed mountain biking world champion and Katie is the reigning U.S. National Cyclocross champion.  Kelli had the inside line and won in a near photo finish.  Pretty awesome to see two world-class cyclists battle it out in a tiny little race in Southern Colorado.

Next week is the dreaded Lookout Hill Climb. My goal is to have a time between 26 and 27 minutes. My current personal best is 27:30, so the goal is a stretch, but doable on a good day. If I were in the low 26 minute range last year, I would have finished around 79th out of 86 riders in Category 4 (the lowest Category). This is a big boy race.

The next three weekends feature three races, two on the dirt and one on the road. My primary goal is, obviously, not to embarrass myself. Secondary goal is to finish “mid-pack” in the mountain races and to “not finish last” in the hill climb. Here are the details:

Sunday, April 25th
Lake Pueblo Arkansas Point Challenge (dirt)
Pueblo, CO
Sport Category 10:00 AM

Saturday, May 1
Lookout Mountain Hill Climb (road bike)
Golden, CO
Senior Men Category 4 10:15 AM
Cowbells encouraged

Saturday, May 8
Battle The Bear – Denver Fat Tire Festival
Bear Creek State Park – Morrison
undecided on category (Sport or Beginner)
Time TBD

Most of YOA cycling will be doing Lookout and Battle the Bear. Come out and support us. More cowbell.

The YOA team hit Fruita and Moab Thursday-Sunday.  It was a fantastic trip.  Even if you don’t mountain bike, the Moab/Arches/Canyonlands area is spectacular.  It should be on everyone’s list of places to see, especially in the spring and fall when the temperature is mild.  Here are some pics and some links to the ride GPS data (check out the satellite images on the GPS links):

Fruita (18 Road/Bookcliffs)

Back Road to Moab

Slickrock Trail

Sovereign Trail

Post Sovereign Brewski self portrait.

Porcupine Rim (from lower parking lot to upper lower then down)

Amasa Back Trail

P.S. I know I look like I just finished a tough game of racquetball but the headband really works and I think it looks rad.

The great thing about being unemployed/Year of Awesome is that all of your friends call you when they have a day off during the week. I’m the “go to” guy for mid-week companionship. Most of these people wouldn’t talk to me on the weekends, when WAY cooler people aren’t working. I’m happy with the situation though, as it has led to several weekday ski outings and yesterday a nice relaxing ride with Colleen.

Colleen requested a “Day of Awesome” because she is between jobs this week and had some time on her hands. She wanted a bike ride. I’m not sure she wanted a 40 mile bike ride, but that’s what she got. Colleen was an exceedingly good sport about the ride (she’s just starting cycling). At various times she was probably wondering why she was spending a gorgous 70 degree day:
1. With Brant
2. Riding uphill and into a strong headwind
3. Riding right next to C-470

Here are some pics and I’ll post the GPS data shortly. I added another 20 for my ride, which brought me to a healthy 60.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/30068244

Colleen enjoying the 70 degree wonderfullness.

Colleen wondering why I'm torturing her.

Went out to preview the Bear Creek Course that we’ll be racing in a month. 40mph wind gusts sent me home.