Moab

This is the 2nd time in my life riding here in Moab, since I've lived in SLC (my whole life). It snowed very little down here the first night but it melted by 10am and I was able to ride outside no prob. It was a little chilly tho, I think 40 Degrees. I've been thinking a lot lately about moving down here for the few months..It snows very little but it gets cold. I can stand the cold, just not the trainer..Plus who wouldn't want to ride all the time with great views of red rocks and arches! It's beautiful.

Best ride.

I have to say that Emigration is the best ride. I have done that climb the last 2 days. It's the perfect pitch and never too steep. You can take it really easy and keep your heart rate low, or you can peg it hard and get the best workout ever. Great for motor pacing. When you get to the top, you can go down the other side and in 5 minutes you have another climb you can do that is also awesome. There's Lambs Canyon that is 1 mile up Parleys, and is also very fun. One of the smoothest roads I think. Super fast coming down, but keep in mind of cars. It's not a very busy road, there's only a few cars that go up it but coming around a corner sceamin and you'll meet the hood of a car if you're not carefull.

Latest and greatest isn't always sweeter..

I did a awesome ride with Mike Hanseen yesterday. Absolutely great weather. Wore shorts with jersey and arm warmers, on November 1st! This week looks to be insane weather so get out in it! mid 60's! I am on a sweet 1986 Schwinn Madison fixie that I got from Mike. I don't have a road bike so I ride this, even though I could ride the TT bike but I need to work on cadence. On our ride yesterday we were heading down some pretty steep hills and my cadence would hit 175 rpms, felt like my knees were going to explode. I thought I was going to get bucked off. The whole time I was just thinking don't try to coast or you will. We were making our way up this hill heading towards the mouth of Emigration to turn and go through the U and this guy came by and said sweet bike, I thought it was towards mike cause he's got the greatest and latest bike that is a BH with full Campy 11 with carbon wheels that weighs 14 lbs, but it was towards my bike! haha. Mike didn't like that much I don't think. I really like riding this bike, it's fun and you don't have to shift. I can put it on coast but I think fix will really help. Anyway, I'll stop blabbering.

Time Change.

It sure felt nice to have an extra hour of sleep last night. That's the only thing I really like about the time change. It's weird to look out the window at 5:30 pm and see nothing, cause it's dark. There is one other good thing about it, it gets light at 6:30 am. Good for early morning workouts, if you're brave enough to get out in the chill morning weather. The only guy I know that does that is Bart. Had a good time with my bro and sisters and my niece, who came down to go with us to go trick or treating. Well, it's time for me to go bench press an olympic size bar. A womping 45 lbs.. that's right, huge! I'm gonna be big.

Happy Halloween.

Happy Halloween! I hope everyone has a safe and fun halloween. And eats a lot of candy! I sure will.

Catchin' up

Well, I haven't posted for a few months so I thought I would write something and try to keep up on it,This time I promise. Got up early this a.m. to take my sisters and bros to school. It's something I do just about every morning, I don't mind it cause I am a morning person and get up early anyways. I am heading to my first yoga session after I drop them off. Kinda nervous cause I can barely touch my knees. Something I really need to keep up with the stretching, It's always something I have a hard time with cause after a hard ride or long ride, I'm always tired so I don't want to stretch, I just want to sit and not move. I've lost 12 lbs over my time off the bike and time on the bike. I'm planning on being stronger and lighter than ever next year. I'm lifting weight a few times a week, starting to look like Jay Cutler..Minus 200 lbs. Okay that's a lie about looking like him but it would be cool. That's it for now, got to go to touch your toes class!

TOU

One more day of riding and my recon. of the TOU is over. Here's how it goes;
Prologue- Screamin' Fast
Stage 1- Oh man these climbs are rad.
Stage 2- Awesome
Stage 3- TT!!
Stage 4- Epically Brutal!
Stage 5- I don't know really since I can't train it but, It will probably be fast.

There it is.

Elkhorn

Went to Elkhorn with Nate Page and Evan Hepner, it was a good time. It rained 2 of the 3 days we were there. And cold. The first day was dry for the first 30 miles, than a down pour hit and the roads were like a river. It was nice and dry for Saturdays TT and crit. The last day was shortened from 103 miles to 18 miles. It was 40 degrees and rain in the valley but snowing on the mounting tops. Oh yeah, the best part was I think we watched something like 12 hours of the Open Pro Championships Golf. Yeah, it was great.

Job, scans and racing.

I haven't posted for a while...well it's because not much has been going on. I did start a new job (couple months ago) at Salt Lake City Bicycles. It's a pretty cool job. I pretty much stay in the basement and wrench on bikes, Can't complain cause than I don't have to deal with customers, I get to listen to whatever music and however loud I want, Pretty freakin' cool if you ask me. What else...Oh yeah, Like fox said- it's all in the head. I got the MRI done last week and nothing is wrong. All that work and money to be told "you're fine". But the High BP is what I have and something I can't get rid of I guess. Oh well what can ya do. What else, what else.......Bear Lake should be a ton of fun! 3 days of sweet racing! and great weather. My family has a cabin up there, so it makes it a little more fun. I will try to post more, now that racing is under way and I'll have something to talk about.- Peace

To be or not to be a Hillclimber or Time Trialist?

A lot has been going on in my brain about trying to be a climber or a TTist or both. It is hard to be both. To be a great climber you need to light and thin, to be a TTist you can't be climber light and do super good in the time trials or can you? I have always struggled with my weight, I am a whopping 150 lbs. No matter how hard I try to get down the scale doesn't drop. I am afraid to try to drop weight now when my training is pretty tense and losing muscle or something. I have decided to focus on time trials and not completely on hill climbing. I have never really been that good on the climbs anyways...I have never won a hill climb, TTs I have. I am not going to cut out climbing, I am just not going to make it my main deal.

VOS

I can't believe it's already here. Yup, you guessed it Valley of the Sun! 2 weeks from now and I'll be getting ready for the TT! Hopefully I can finish top half in the TT and finish better then last in the RR and keep rubber side down in the crit. The weather has been looking amazing down there so far, 75-80 degrees everyday.=) I am hoping I can keep myself well and not come down with any sickness before...

Start to finish and everything in between part 2

Got my weights done early so I would have a good day of riding. At least that's what I thought. So as you read in my previous post I had bad luck on my ride yesterday and had to call for a ride home. I got my fixie ready to ride this morning since I couldn't ride the tt bike with the rear wheel broken. I decided to go to Park City to ride with the air much better up there, so I put the bike on the fixie side since I would be riding the back roads into Kamas and wouldn't have to worry about stop signs or traffic. I parked at Deer Valley and started to get ready. It was very nice up there and much warmer. I started my ride heading down into park city and I get to the round about at the bottom of the hill and it is kinda busy with cars and people, I go to do something that I don't remember what I was going to do. But I went to stop pedalling and I get bucked off my bike like a bull and my bike goes flying into traffic as I hit the ground hard. I had a hard time standing up. People were going around me and my bike which is the middle of the road and didn't stop. Than a couple nice people stopped and got my bike for me and made sure I was OK. I rode back to the car very slow as I was in pain. My whole left side is sore and swollen, my bad knee is sore and my chest bones and ribs and back are sore. I am sure I will be feeling it tomorrow... at least I got to ride for 5 minutes.

Start to finsh and everything in between

Woke up at 7am to have breakfast for my 5 hour day, I was excited about the day because I was going to ride my TT bike and I was going to ride to Park City and ride for a bit up there and ride back down to Salt Lake. I want to try to stay out of the haze to save my lungs...The ride started good, headed up Emigration down to parleys and so forth. The air was a bit chilly in the pc but crystal clear and full of sunshine. Did a good loop up there, went around on the north side to the road that takes you into Kamas than came back on the south road into pc. Me and my riding buddy went over to see if Bad Ass coffee was still there, 'cause we were a little on the cold side and needed some coffee to warm up, but it wasn't there so we decided to go to Starbucks. The roads in park city are super packed with people because of Sundance crap. Some guy yelled at me and called me Lance cause I was on my tt bike, it's the same as the Astana bikes but better. What a weird driver, Drivers can get crazy sometimes. anyways, as we finished our coffees and headed back to parleys to cruz down with a tail wind, I was going 50 mph in the aero position when all the sudden I hit something and I have flat. Scarred me pretty bad, I had to check myself. Whatever I hit cut my tire in half and took a chunk of my sidewall on my rim. CRAP!! so I had to get picked up at Lambs Canyon. When I got back to the house I put a different tire on the rear wheel and finished on the trainer, I didn't want to go in the scmucky air. Lame way to finish a day. It's pretty crazy what a good start to the day can bring at the end.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year y'all. Me myself made it to 8:30 last night before falling asleep. I tell myself every year I am going to stay up but when the clock hits 8:30 I am asleep... I think I have a clock in me or something 'cause every night I go to bed at 8:30 and wake up at 6:00. I didn't make any new year resolutions, I can't ever stick to the ones I make so I didn't do one and so I can't break it. It's 6:15 and I am waiting for the gym to open at 8. Man I am lame...