R.S.S.N.R

Rigid Single Speed Night Riding in the gulch!

I was eager to try out my new Lights in Motion 200L head lamp for some mountain bike night riding; stupidly, I also decided to ride the rigid single speed.

The experience was a blend of emotions...

Remember as a kid, your first time in Disney World and riding Space Mountain? You start off in a dark chamber, lots of blinky lights, as you prepared yourself to be launched into a dark abyss of gravity defying thrills?

Remember, your first time parking the car with the high school girlfriend in a dark area. It was dark, not sure what your getting into...

Both of these emotions can be mixed into one sweet elixir" "Mountain bike night riding."

I started off unsure what to expect, I climbed Horse Gulch road focusing on a circle of light 15 feet in front of my 29inch wheel. Everything outside the light's diameter was dark. I contemplated on the light; would this be similar to the light I will see at the moment of death? I can hear voices saying "Don't follow the light", fortunately this time, this light will keep me safe!

I continued riding, the air was cool and it felt good. I approached the meadow and scanned the helmet light across the dark abyss. To my surprise, and off in an unknown distance, I saw eyes. A couple little eyes, but one set in particular caught my attention. They were much larger than the rest. Possibly a bear or mountain lion. From this point forward every 30 seconds I would grunt loudly to hopefully scare off anything considering me a tasty evening snack.

After awhile, I calmed down, and rode on silently. I let go of any concerns of being torn apart by a nasty saber tooth tiger and become one with the night. I heard the bugs, felt the cool breeze, saw the stars, and barely heard my wheels quietly rolling on the single track. I felt as if I was supposed to be there. I stopped at one point to turn off my head light and just listened. It was very calming....

Enough of the philosophical discussion! The bottom line, it as great fun and training for the 24 hour Moab race coming up in October!

Helmet light, Battery pack, and Camel Back. The light runs 10 hours at low setting and 5 hours at high setting.

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The Rigid Single Speed, Kona 2-9 Unit

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The happy mountain biker (me) after the ride and displaying the gear!

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Rigid Single Speed Night Riding in the gulch!

24 Moab Training

Tyler and I are entering the 24 Hour Moab with two other riders from Mercury. I am thinking we will be "Team Mercury". The basics of the race; your team completes as many 15 mile laps as possible within a 24 hour period. This means night riding!

Below is our schedule of training to handle the event.

Tuesday - Faster anaerobic pace for 15 miles on our geared racing bikes.
Wednesday - Slower strength single speed riding 15 miles.
Thursday - 15-20 miles easy ride on geared racing bikes.

The above is fairly static from week to week leading to the race. Saturdays however, slowly increment to increase our endurance (time in the saddle, and overall miles)

Saturday - Every Saturday we do 15 mile laps in our local trail system called Horse Gulch. This last Saturday we completed 3 laps of 15 miles for 4 hours and 45 minutes in the saddle and a total of 45 miles. Next Saturday we are doing 4 laps. I pyramid this until we do 5 laps, then drop back down to 2 laps for a recover and continue to build back up until the race day.

The Saturday route consists- Sonic TH, Horse Gulch rd, Meadow, Telegraph, Sidewinder, Cowboy, SouthRim, Carbon, River Trail, Sonic TH.

The highlight of the trip is climbing over telegraph (which is always a nice challenge to conquer on any ride) The first 1.6 miles is the steepest aspect of the route (1000 ft of elevation in the first 1.6 miles) and the last 100 yards is a ball breaking climb to a nice overlook.

This last Saturday I felt weak from the beginning; however, Tyler, was a hammer, he cleared Telegraph on laps 2 and 3! I was thrilled with his performance!

One day very soon, I will eating the dust from his rear tire.

Engineer Mountain - dos - Mercury hike!

Today some brave souls from Mercury Payment Systems decided to summit Engineer mountain.

The Mercury staff: Fred Hutt, Jim Mackay, Rebecca and and "one co-worker extraordinaire, Jerry Bevington who was about a mile behind waving furiously from below". The image below we begin the ascent. The hike from the parking lot to the base took 52 minutes.

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Jim showing Mercury agility as he powers up the mountain. Notice the clouds swirling!

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After another 54 minutes from the base, we arrive at the cloud surrounded summit. Even though the 360 degree view was not there it felt good to be on top of Engineer. Notice, our marketing guru, ready to climb another 3000 ft while styling a Mercury hat! In reality, Fred would be the only one able to continue another 3k.

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We decided to descend a bit and find a nice overlook on Engineer to eat lunch and yes, we fed some of the local begging mammals living on the mountain.

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Overall, a great trip. The trip was approximately 4 hours including our lunch on Engineer.
The clouds were looming with rain; however, only a few drops were felt and it was a very pleasant hike and climb. We did have a guest star pass by us on our descent to the cars. Matt Taylor was powering up the trail on his mountain bike! It was a true Mercury moment.

Thank you Fred for showing my wife some basic climbing up and down the crux! And Rebecca kicked arse climbing over some sketchy and exposed areas while the wind was harsh.


Go Mercury.

Lime Mesa - dos in 2009

Since Lime Mesa is a fun, easy, high-country hike we took the parents to the route on Sunday. Here we stand right before entering the Weminuche Wilderness. Be sure to click on any image for the larger pic.

On the way to the look out is a very clear glacier lake. Tyler caught me on camera.

Dave, trekking up the route. If there were mountain lions nearby he may have been our bait.

But thankfully, there was a herd of free range sheep moving through the high-country. I am sure the mountain lions were focused on those meals.


Two more glacier lakes, Ruby and Emerald from the look out. I really want to camp out at Emerald (the lake to the right)

And of course the short video of the event. The wind was amazing. You will notice us talking but all you hear is whooosh. I am really considering buying a HD video camera.





Next weekend, Tyler and I need to get back into a serious routine preparing for a mountain bike endurance race. The 2009 24 hours at Moab. We have roughly 2 months before the race. Stand by for pics and our training schedule.

Engineer Mountain

Mom and Dad came out to Durango for a visit this summer. Today we visited Engineer mountain, a prominent mountain well known for it's unique characteristic profile! Engineer is a 12,968 foot peak surrounded by beautiful valleys and mountains. Green red, blue, and white colors filled our views! We parked at Coal Bank pass and took a route to the base of Engineer Mountain.

Here, Dad and Mom working their way to the base of the mountain.


I took a snap shot of the family appreciating the view.


Dad moving across the field in front of a great vista.


Dad, felt like contemplating "self", while Mom, Rebecca, Tyler, Brianna and I continued higher!


After a fun climb to the top Tyler and Brianna stand proud! Rebecca stayed lower with Mom to watch us climb the rest of the way.


Self portrait of the three of us on top.


Video of the event!

Handies Mountain hike

Today, we escaped Society and planned to summit our first 14er, Handies Peak. It's peak is at 14,053 ft. We drove north to Silverton to an offroad route over Cinnamon pass then to the American Basin trail head. This trail leads to the summit of Handies.

Here we are at the start of the hike.


Brianna and Rebecca moving along.


Posing for some self-photos.


Sloan lake, a glacier lake in the middle. There was a guy fly fishing there! We were just below the summit.


Up on the peak! A very commanding 360 degree view! It was a bit windy and felt like 35 degrees, not a cloud in the sky!


On the way down, we stopped off at Sloan Lake to rest.


High country flowers with the family..


Below is a short video of the entire trip!!



What to do next weekend...???

Lime Mesa hike

Rebecca and I went on a hike; trying to squeeze in every minute of outdoor activity before heading back to another work week.

We went to Lime Mesa, 25 miles of jeep traveling to the trail head, 3 of which require a 4WD vehicle. Then a 8 mile round trip hike to heaven and back. We took Cede who had fun chasing chipmunks.

The hike started off actually with a light snow; this is August 2, but we are in the high country, anything is possible! There were looming dark clouds about, but they seemed harmless...

After it snowed, Rebecca had to reapply her lipstick.

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Of course we did not pick this flower it was already laying on the ground, but I placed it in Rebecca's hat!

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We had 10 seconds to pull this photo off. Notice the looming clouds in the background. But still it was a beautiful view. We were approximately at 12,600 ft and the temperature was in the high 50s.

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Video of Rebecca arriving at the "Summit" She does not respond to my initial questions because she was so touched by the view. She was almost in tears due to the breathtaking view. We had lunch and enjoyed the vista but moved out fairly quickly due to the approaching weather.

Indian Peaks - Xterra

The family all traveled to Denver Thursday. Tyler and I have been preparing for an Xterra (off road Triathlon) near Boulder, CO on Saturday Aug. 1, 2009. We left Durango on Thursday afternoon.

This was Tyler's second Xterra but this time was a full distance Xterra. 1000m swim, 18km bike, 10 km run Once again, he did outstanding. This sport is a mature sport, there are very few participants under the age of 19.(click for larger image)


The swim route was a one lap rectangle course. These I appreciate due to the longer legs and less turning. Below are pictures of Tyler and I exiting the swim and had a small dash to Transition 1 where we prepared for the biking.

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Below, Tyler just got done swimming and looking tough. He is getting ready to dash to Transition 1 for the bike. The cold impacted him a bit, he felt frigid and had trouble lacing his shoes.

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Below, Tyler already out of his wetsuit and ready to begin the mountain bike portion of the race. Take note of his new mountain bike, it is a Titus Racer X TI. Not to brag or gloat, but this bike is more expensive than any car he will own while living with us! ;) His prior mountain bike was 33 lbs and meant for other uses of mountain biking. It was way too heavy for racing and cross country riding. His new bike is 26 lbs!

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The bike route was fairly muddy and fraught with small boulders and wet tree roots. For an Xterra I don't mind the challenge, but for the use as fun Mountain bike trail, I would not ride it again. Below, I completed the Bike and transitioning to the run.

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Video below of Tyler crossing the finish line! Overall, another great Xterra trip.

Rebecca and Brianna watching the transitions!

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Results: I am fairly happy with my performance overall I beat over 55% of the field. I finished 18th of my age group. If I finished 15th I get points towards the national events. My goal next year is to be competitive enough to consistently finish in the top 15th.

Tyler did outstanding, for only 5 weeks of training he is performing like a champ, we have not started training for speed or strength only volume (Frequency * Duration)

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