It's Almost Here

Only a few more days and we get to do this:

I'm a little jealous of the locals who have been racing the GP's in Washington and Wisconsin. Congrats to Ali and the others on some solid results.

The training's been going well and I should be able to go hard. Maybe not fast, but hard. Chrispy's been helping me get ready and for the first time all year, I feel good.

I'm thinking of doing a few doubles early in the season. With the new schedule, I can race 45+ early then the 35+ A later. Sounds like some serious suffering but fun in a twisted way. Could pay off in the long run. I'll like give it a try this week and see how it goes. Is that completely crazy?

Might even be some rain with weekend. At least cooler temps will be nice.

September

I haven't exactly been a blogging machine lately. Just can't seem to channel my energy to the keyboard in the evening after working with one all day. Apparently, a few friends continue to check for updates, so I'll continue to put something up from time to time.

September is a great time of year. The weather is nice and hardly any racing for me so there's time for fun rides and hikes. It's also time for most of my thoughts to turn to this:

And this:

The "Pit of Despair" as Tanner likes to call the basement is up and running. After finally putting together a few weeks of solid riding without getting sick, threshold intervals are once again on the agenda. As much as I complain to Chrispy about the computrainer, it is the most efficient way to get some quality work in. However, I learned a trick from TeamRico to make the Pit a little less desperate. Do your warm up and cool down outside and only the intervals inside. With my mediocre engine, I have to put in some quality training time to keep the fast guys in sight. As usual, my goal each race this year will be to avoid getting lapped by Bart or Ali. With Tanner racing the A's this year, I'll have watch for him as well.

Speaking of fast guys, the Cross bar will continue to go up in the 801 (or 435) this year. The old guys will be growing in numbers and quality this season. Guys like Sam, John Iltis, Rich C, Kelly Glen, Ohran, Greg and especially the good Cross Doctor have stepped it up this summer and will be flying. McKone is also planning on a full cross schedule along with the rest of regular crew. Should be a good time getting beat up by all these guys each week.

Porcupine / Specialized will be back with a solid crew this cross season. We've already made reservations for Nationals in Bend and will likely have a couple of trailers to transport Utah bikes for paying customers. We've been waiting all year to break out the skinsuits we designed with cross in mind (OK, the guys have been using them in TT's all year so they won't be a surprise but they are still cool).

I watched a bunch of the Tour of Utah this year. I sat by the start house for the TT and watched all the riders roll out. All the local riders seemed to appreciate the word of encouragement from a familiar face. Captain America got the loudest cheer as he rolled out. I enjoyed watching him do some intervals in the final crit in preparation for his National Championship TT ride.

Tanner and Keegan won the Park City Point to Point relay yesterday. I got to support rather than ride (I'm still permanently scared from my solo E100 a few years ago). I enjoyed the day and watching lots of friends put in impressive rides. Maybe I'll get inspired next year to give it a go.

The race seem to go off well and was a big step up from the E100, even in the first year. The event was low-key, but well organized with lots of prizes and actual cash for the open divisions. The division winners each received this nice 3 season tent:

Tanner and Keegan were impressive as usual. Bod and I were lamenting that their combined age was not even close to his age and 14 years less than mine. They are both probably thought of as strange, skinny kids in High School when in reality they are better at their sport than anyone in their school. If they had the same talent in football, they'd be BMOC for sure.

Small guys who go really fast.

Off to hike in Big Cottonwood with my daughters tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. They are home from Utah State for the Holiday and it makes the family complete. As the kids get older, I treasure the times we're all together. It's the payoff for all the years of parenting.

Finally, the backcountry ski gear is complete. The skins came in this week. All I need now is to cut them to size, get my boots thermoformed and wait for the snow. Maybe a little cross racing in between.

Good luck to the family GCConnection crew at LotoJa this week. I've done it a couple of times but it never quite took hold of me. Family is the most important thing in my life so if it's important to them, it's important to me. I'll be thinking of you all day.

Having Fun

Life's been pretty good lately. I'm finally feeling good enough to get in some quality training. Here's actually hope for the cross season. I did Clark's a couple of times with Mark the other day and bettered my time from last year both times up. It's a great time of the year to ride a bike.

Made to the TOU opening TT yesterday. Those guys are fast. The local fast Cat 1's held their own, but it puts its in perspective how fast the pro really are. Got to see a Kelly guy take dismount at about 35 mph right in front of us. Did not look like fun. Today, Chase Pinkam was very impressive making it in with the second group. Should be lots of fun this weekend at the races.




I figured I put in a picture of JoAnn, the most tolerant wife in the world.

We made it up Logan Canyon for some Camping last Friday. A fire is always a good thing.

Tanner looking all Lumber-Jacky.

We got rained on all night. Fortunately, we were in the new super-cool Easton XI2 tent. The production version will be available at retail next spring. Chris has done a great job with these and our new trekking poles.

Saturday, Tanner will be riding the Snowbird Hill Climb. The boy could do some serious damage.

4.5

I made it out with the GC Connection crew yesterday for the first time in a while. It was a good time with Doug, Kim, Adam, Mindi, Russell, Tanner and Kim's friend Rick. We did Emigration and Big Mountain from Centerville. Just under 4.5 hours in total and 5,800 vertical on the Garmin. Here's the sad part, it was the longest ride of the year for me, by a wide margin. And I've been struggling to go fast in races, go figure.

The weather was October like. A vest and arm warmers were required on the way down off Big Mountain. I like it. If only if would stay this way for the next two months.

With no local racing, there were lots of racers in the canyons. We saw the Canyon Crew, a big group from the South end of the valley including Bryson, a bunch of Contender guys, Mike and the Porcupine Club Crew and also Fox motorpacing Norm. Lots of smiles and unusual friendliness, riders were almost MTB-like. Must have been the lack of oppressive heat.

Susan's Battle Over

I just read Fatty's wife Susan died tonight. Like many others, she fought a long, valiant battle with cancer. She and Elden were able to inspire many to help fight cancer by donating to cancer research. Elden's willingness to share their very personal battle caused many, including me, to be a little more grateful for the blessings in our lives. I've never officially met Fatty, but we have many friends in common and in the odd world of blogs, I feel like I know him. My heart goes out to him and his family tonight.

Like Fatty, so many people deal with extremely difficult challenges with resolve and dignity. It makes my constant whining about not riding a bike as fast as I would like sound pretty weak. I am truly lucky in my life and resolve to show more gratitude and kindness. Life's to short and uncertain to do otherwise.

Long over-due update

It's been a while since I've updated the blog. I just haven't been motivated to spend the time writing. From scanning other blogs, I'm not alone. Maybe the heat has sucked the motivation out of all of us.

Here's some pictures from some recent highlights.




The whole family went to Granby Colorado for MTB Nationals. We had a great time together hanging out at the races. JoAnn and I spent lots of time sitting in the sun.



This was the high point of my race, the start. I could feel the congestion and head-cold coming on for days and my race lasted one lap. The course was long and hard so if you weren't on your game, you were just in the way. I wish I'd have felt good because long, hard courses are usually good for me.



Here's Tanner going up the start hill on his last lap. It was like Little Stick, only steeper and shorter. Tanner had a very good race to finish 11th in the 17 - 18 Cat 1. He got as high as 7th but faded a bit the last two laps. The juniors are FAST and T was very competitive. He's looking forward to next year already and was happy with how things turned out.

The locals did well. Robbie Squire had a super ride to finish a close 2nd in the US 23, Alex Grant was a solid 15th in the Pro, Keegan Swenson was 3rd in the 15 - 16 Cat 1, Kevin was 7th in the 25 - 29 Cat 1, and the ageless Tom Noaker was 2nd in the 60 - 64 Cat 1. Tom almost pulled off the 3 National Titles in 3 decades. He won Nationals in the 40 - 44 and 50 -55 previously.



Tanner in the feed zone.

The DH guys are super skilled and very brave. The course had multiple 20+ foot gaps and three in a row that were 30, 35 and 40 footers. Check out this video.

The girls were looking as Diva as ever in Colorado.

Before we left, Erin continued her long tradition of creative cakes for Tanner's birthday. It is an S-Works carbon hardtail.

Doug and I hiked Phiefferhorn on Saturday. It was a good diversion from the bike and some good brotherly bonding. I still can't imagine how Jared skied this chute. A picture doesn't do it justice.

I'm on the top of the world.

We dropped off Phief to Maybird lake. It was a little more exciting than we bargained for but we made it out alive.

I couldn't help but imagine ski lines. The pile of backcountry ski gear at my house is growing. I've been studying "Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain" by Bruce Tremper and it's sobering. There's so much to learn and the consequences of a major mistake are huge. I thought I knew a little about reading avalanche terrain, but I know nothing.

I managed to get my motorcycle hung up on a semi-cliff in American Fork a few weeks ago. It was a long ordeal complete with cell phone batteries dying, Glen, JoAnn and Tanner searching in the dark, the moto nearly sliding into the abyss multiple time and a happy ending. Probably a blog post for another day.

I've taken a full week off the bike and hope my heath will let me start training for cross. We'll see. So far this year, the race season has been pretty much a bust for me. It's good I can race vicariously through Tanner.

I'll try to post more frequently than every 3 weeks but I won't promise.

Crash'n

After his recent crashes, I've been teasing Tanner a bit because I just don't crash on my MTB bike. In fact, I've only taken one hard crash in the last 15 years and that was around 10 years ago in the semi's of a NORBA National 35+ dual slalom (my first and last dual slalom adventure).

Well that all changed today. I took a nice high-speed dismount in American Fork. Glen, Chris Bingham, Tanner and I were having a great time dodging moto's on AF's beautiful trails. (Side note. Not sure when or why the AF single track was opened to motorcycles. Nearly all the trails are now fair game to motorcycles but fortunately not 4-wheelers. The moto guy in me likes the prospect of riding single track on the WRR. However, I'm just not sure AF is the place for this. The trails are already rutted in places and rougher.) Glen and I chased three KTM's off 157 down to South Fork and stayed on their tail the whole way. They were kind of surprised to see us right with them at the bottom.

Unfortunately on that descent, Chris caught a pedal and went down fairly hard. He somehow avoided injury but his frame was cracked. We made our way back to 157 and were getting ready to drop down to our cars at Dutch Hollow. One of the KTM's dropped in before us and Glen said, "come on Daren, let's catch him". A few minutes later, I came around a steep corner very fast, caught a pedal on a big rock and was quickly on my face sliding into some rocks and trees. The trees kept me from launching into a ravine with lots of sharp rocks.

After the initial shock of hitting the ground wore off, I was able to figure out all my limbs were attached and no bones were broken. Glen was quickly back up the trail to see if I was alive. He said it sounded really bad. In the end, I was able to ride away with some scrapes on my face, a scraped, bruised knee and a bruised rib. Considering the speed and the terrain, I'll smile and take it.

The worst part of the deal is Tanner is now giving me crap about crashing instead of the other way around. Hopefully, I won't have another one for a long time.

More MTB

I'm on a pretty good roll with the mountain bike. Tanner and I got out in the dirt this morning in Draper. Up toward Shoreline then up Clarks to Jacobs Ladder, down Jacobs and Ghost Falls, back up North Ghost Falls and the new trail then back down Clarks. 15 miles of good fun.

Tomorrow it's on to American Fork for a long one with Glen. I haven't been in AF this year, so I'm looking forward to it. The holiday crowd will be much smaller on the AF trails.

With all the good dirt riding lately, I think I've ridden my road bike no more than twice in the few weeks. I'm strangely missing it a bit. However, it will have to wait. Too much fun to had on the MTB.

We're down to two weeks until MTB Nationals. I have zero expectations due to my lack of race fitness (a TT effort up Clarks today confirmed my lack of speed) but it will be fun watching Tanner battle in the 17-18 Cat 1. The whole family is going so it should be a good time.

Pretty quiet around the house this weekend. The girls stayed up north to go to Jackson with some friends. We'll probably take in some fireworks but that's about it. My big project is to change the tires on the moto. I pick up some more aggressive knobbies and 16 inch tire levers. I'm sure it will be a couple of hours of frustration but I want to give it a try.

The Tour kicks off tomorrow. Not sure if I'm excited or not. I'll probably warm up to it as it gets going. I'm hoping for a Contador / Armstrong battle. That would be fun. Hopefully, DZ will have a shot at winning the opening TT. However, Contador will likely win the TT. It seems more than odd to me that a guy who was a pure climber a few years ago can now beat the strong men on flat TT's.

Have a great Holiday weekend.

Hey, a blog update

Summer's finally here and lots of good stuff going on. I have these great ideas for blog posts, but don't seem to make the time to write them. Maybe someday I'll get more dedicated. However, here's some highlights from the last week.


Tanner and I made it up the upper Millcreek with the road closed and had the place to ourselves. Pretty cool.

I made it out to Draper to help build the initial section of Jamie's trail. My abs are still sore but it was rewarding to see a trail take shape. I'll be back for more work. You should join me. This section of trail will likely be the best descent in the Corner.

Got to hang out with Brad. That's always good. The hat made it through the trail work OK.

Some of the team have been able to spend the last three days acting as tour guides for Specialized's 2010 product line global press launch. The big S brought in about 75 journalists to hear about the bikes and play on them. Here's our small group of 60 + unloading on Guardsman Pass.

The altitude made Puke Hill live up to its name.

Here's trail boss Glen giving last minute instructions to our group of 41 today. We got in about 34 miles with 2,000 up and 7,000 feet down. Good stats.

The rental box van had some pricey cargo. On Saturday, we had another level stacked on top. No bikes were hurt in the making of this picture.

Here's the MTB compound at Snowbird. There's another one just like it in the upper parking lot for road bikes. Dealers come in the next couple of weeks to do more of the same. They will be there during the Snowbird ICUP race. We make get a few out of town fast guys giving the race a go.

It was a pretty unique opportunity to ride with guys from around the world and some celebrities. I got to send some quality ride and discussion time with Ned. Also, I tried to follow Hunter and Berrecloth down Mill D and Millcreek, life threatening but fun. I realized today I was riding in between a world champion gold and bronze medalist for a time. I doubt I'll get to do that again. I also got to catch up with a couple of good guys from my time at Specialized I haven't seen for a time.

It's interesting how we just take for granted the quality of trails and scenery we have here. To a person, everyone was incredibly impressed. These are people who have ridden all over the world and could not get over the quality and quantity of our trail system. I was directing traffic near the bottom of the Desolation to Mill D trail and got to hear "This is awesome" in about 8 languages. The smiles were very large. A number of the guys said it was if not the best, one of the best trails they've ever ridden. A group of German journalists went back up today for more pictures for a feature in their magazine.

Even with all the visitors, the quote of the weekend came from a local. On our way down the closed road in upper Millcreek down to Pipeline, a guy riding up yelled at us because we were spread too far across the road and came close to him. Later, as we were gathered in the parking lot at Rattlesnake Gulch the same guy pulled his minivan over to apologize for swearing and to lecture us about how to ride. His final words were "I hate to pull rank on you, but I've been riding bikes for 16 years and have ridden all over the country so I know what I'm talking about". Too bad he didn't realize he was talking to a world champion and riders from 10 countries. We said thanks and managed to hold the laughter until he left.

One final note. While the out of towners struggled with the altitude, they had some serious skills. The Euros can descend with speed and style. I got out of my XC racing conservative DH mode and let it rip following these guys. What a blast. The 2010 S-Works Stumpy I rode today wasn't bad either.

Cold, Wet Fun

Yesterday was the Glen Adams Epic Father's Day ride. Tanner's been calling it the GLEPIC all week and was pretty excited about going. He's heard my GLEPIC stories, but has never actually been on one. It turned out to be epic, just not as long as planned.



This was the view from the Car as we started. We decided the weather would get better. It didn't.

Here I am contemplating the line I didn't ride. Leif the downhiller took this line at speed on an Enduro. It was impressive.

Here's Glen on the line I did ride.

Rather than riding the Crest (by the way, it's in good shape with only a few snow patches left) to Millcreek and dropping into Park City, we decided to drop to Desolation Lake to get off the mountain. At this point, it was about 35 and raining hard. Everyone is smiling but me. I'm the skinny old guy shivering uncontrollably. The Las Vegas Jim's were loving it, even with the adverse weather. One flew in just for the day to do the ride.

The ride down to Mill D was in running water and slick conditions. By the bottom, my fingers no longer worked. You'd think we would have been complaining and regretting doing the ride. It was just the opposite. Everyone had these big grins (the white teeth showed up great against the muddy faces) and crazed looks in their eyes.

Fortunately, Rosie (not sure if that's a real name or nickname) from Specialized had the SBCU 15 passenger van with 15 bike racks to get us warm and take us back to Guardsman.

While the ride was only an hour and a half, the conditions made it feel as epic as a 4 hour big climbing day. Good times with good guys.

Eric was coming up Millcreek to meet us on the Crest. Apparently, a kitty made him change his mind.

I couldn't help but wonder about the High Unitas road race. If the same weather system was on Baldy, it must have been ugly. Hopefully, everyone made it OK.

I seem to have turned a bit of a corner with my health. I've been able to put in some efforts this week without putting myself down for a week afterward. I was able to do a respectable time up Temple Quarry Wednesday. My fitness still has a long way to go, but there's hope.

Today has been a great Father's Day. I've had pleasant memories of my Dad and all my children around me. Life is certainly good.

Selective Memory

Depending on your point of view, bike racers are blessed or cursed with extreme selective memory. Take Saturday for example. My congestion and general fatigue was finally on the rebound so I was looking forward to racing at one of my favorite venues in nearly ideal conditions.



I started conservatively (at least as conservatively as possible on the Little Stick climb) at the back of the group with a plan to work my way up to mid-pack. Unfortunately, my body didn't sign up for this plan and I spent the entire race at the back suffering in a big way.


The last lap was not "I'm hurting but racing guys" kind of suffering. No, it was "I'm all alone, going to die before I make it back to the car" kind of suffering. I was sure my entire body was going to cramp a couple of times and I was going just fast enough to keep from tipping over on the climbs. It was the last two hours of the E100 kind of suffering. Without encouragement from my wife and the good Doctor, I would have bailed after two laps.


After a good start and a building a solid lead, Tanner and a similar last lap experience.



Near the end of the 2nd lap, he moved off the trail into the grass to pass a lapper and hit an unseen rock resulting in a hard face-plant. He moved his lower front teeth, chipped his upper front teeth, cut his lip and bruised some ribs. He gamely carried on but due to the crash effects and his lack of eating and drinking during the race, he bonked hard on the last climb. He was passed by the guy in 2nd and lost 3 minutes in a short distance but hung on to 2nd.


Needless to say, we weren't a pretty sight after the race. Me wondering around cross-eyed and incoherent and Tanner with an ice bag on his bloody lip. The entire last lap I kept thinking things like "why do I race and do this to myself?"; "this is stupid, I'm never racing again"; "I'm way too old for this kind of self-inflicted pain"; and "I actually paid money to do this".

Normal, sane people would remember these painful experiences and move on to something else. However, after a couple of hours and some food, Tanner and I were talking like this: "You know, that really wasn't so bad." "If I'd have eaten more, I could have won even with my crash." "I really suffered, but I think this is a turning point and I'll get competitive after a few solid weeks of riding." "Man, the single track descent was really fun." "Snowbird should be a good race for me."


I had decided that I'm not racing any crits until I feel better. Instead, I plan to do more bike commuting to get some base fitness back. So today, I rode to work but spent all day debating with myself if I should race RMR on the way home. I even threw my crit plate in my commuter bag. Why? It's a sickness. How can the painful memories go away so fast? I settled on taking the long way home, but it was close.


Tomorrow, I'll be lining up at Round Valley and will probably be suffering at the back again. However, I remember the good results from last year's series and I'm sure I have it in me somewhere. Why not, I'm a bike racer and that's all I'm capable of remembering.

Resting

I'm now on my 4th day off the bike in an attempt to get healthy. So far, I'm not sure of the result. I plan to take at least one more day off before I give riding a try. I guess we'll see at that point. I've also started using a Neti pot to cleanse my sinuses (a very weird feeling to say the least) and eating local honey. Seems everyone has a home remedy and I'm giving a few of them a try.

I did make it out Saturday for a ride on the moto. I went up Mineral Fork in Big Cottonwood. I was really nice. The trail is technically challenging and the scenery spectacular. I manage to keep it upright and do no damage to the bike or me. This is the kind of ride I had in mind when I purchased the dual sport bike. The ride was lots of fun and just an hour and 15 minutes door to door.



Lots of rocks and some water thrown in to keep things interesting.

Things are very green.

It will be a few more weeks before the trail's clear to the top. But I did make it to the old mine.

The view down the canyon.

I spent the rest of the day cleaning out the garage and making a trip to the DI and landfill. By not riding the last two Saturdays, I've gotten a normal years worth of projects done. Once I do get better, I've built up some goodwill on the honey-do list.

The other benefit of not riding is I've avoided the rash of crashes among family and buddies. I'm not sure crits sound like a good idea anymore.

Non-racer

I'm now a couple of days into my second round of antibiotics for sinus infection. I still feel about 75% of normal, so very little riding and no racing since the Draper ICUP. If seems my spring / summer racing season just isn't meant to be this year. I have an appointment with an Adult ENT Doc in a few weeks to see if I can get things figured out. In the meantime, riding and racing is a day to day thing. Today, no riding. Tomorrow, maybe. Once I do get back to racing, I'll have no fitness, so I'll be roaming the back of the pack. Worse things will happen.

Things like yard work. Since I'm totally incapable of just resting, I spent all day Saturday working in the yard. I felt much worse than if I'd raced. Tanner told me a while ago that I'm "annoyingly productive all the time". He's right. It's a sickness. I have long mental lists of things to get done and I just can't sit around. I begin to feel guilty that I'm wasting time. Since most of my free time is spent riding or racing, my current mental to do list is very long. Therefore, no rest. And I wonder why I never seem to get over being sick.

Here's some evidence that my sore back is legitimate.



All of this...

Came from trimming all the bushes..

cleaning out the overgrown flower bed...

thinning out the Honeysuckle...

and weeding the garden.

Our washer and dryer of 20+ years finally died so we went 10 days waiting for the new ones to arrive. T and I go through a lot of cycling clothes, even when I'm not riding much.

I've also been shopping end of winter closeouts hard and have accumulated this. I guess you'd say I'm now committed to backcountry skiing next winter. I was please to discover Voile is a customer of ours at Easton and located here in the valley. It's nice to pick up your skis from the factory. Backcontry.com has become a black hole that sucks all my money. I've discovered the retail storefront where you can try stuff on for size. It's also less than 15 minutes from my office. Not good.

I might be at the mid-week MTB race this week or I might not. We'll see how I feel Wednesday. Thankfully, no race this weekend. I'm not sure if I could have stayed away another Saturday, regardless of how I feel.