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| Atop the Avon Divide Road |
Breaking Stuff
I've been putting more miles on the hardtail than the road bike this year. That was until I broke another spoke on the drive side of the rear wheel - AGAIN! Right at what I was planning to be a 4 hour tempo ride across the valley, "PING" - that too familiar sound of a spoke breaking at the J-hook. Only a few miles from home, I had to do a soft pedal back to the casa. I pulled out a bullet proof set of DT Swiss dirt wheels and made up a set with some cross country dirt tires. These wheels have a straight pull-through spoke that is less susceptible to failure. Great racing stuff. About an hour later, I was out riding hills with dirt tires. A couple days later I setup a set of trainers for the road bike and made a quick once over check of everything on the old road bike. Truth is, that thing is getting old and worn out. I realized the tune up I gave it last year was.....not so good. I used the wrong cable guides for road shifting cables - leading to less than desirable results. I also had to replace the carbon-fiber seat post - AGAIN. This may be the last year for that bike, as tech has really changed in the past few years. Add to that my riding posture has also changed, I should probably make a change.
Skeet Shooting
The picture above is on the Avon Divide Road, about 1/4 mile from the top. Somewhere there is a picture of some of us skeet shooting at this very spot, 40 years ago, nearly to the day. This was at a very pivotal time in my own life, as I had spent the previous nearly two years in a downward, self destructive pattern of behavior. Neck deep in what I thought was the end of the world at that time, I was told some critical information about events that had occurred two years before, without my knowledge. The events that led up to the moment two years early is what set me off on my downward trend. It was only a few days before going skeet shooting at this particular place, that I was briefly made aware of a very critical detail. Some ships just have too much inertia to stop and turn - as was my case then. It got me to thinking of what I was doing and what choices I had yet to make. I wouldn't say I had an awakening, but I can tell you it was definitely a moment that changed everything going forward. I never did get the full story of what actually happened two years before. Sure, it still haunts me, as I tend to think of the worst scenarios - but somehow things only now are beginning to make better sense. Like I said, somewhere there is a picture. I'm just not sure the story will ever be fully told - as is life.
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| a calm morning at the point. |
Competing Schedules
This consulting thing has really taken off. In the process it has also began eating away at my time to train - or pretend to train. For the past four-weeks I've had to drive to a site in Southern California, do some work and immediately turn right back around to go home. Typically out and back in about 24 hours with little to no sleep. Not only does that cut into my time for training, it completely wrecks me for the next couple of days. Needless to say, everything has been at a minimum training-wise. A lot of intervals. A lot of hard and quick, short duration sessions of just about anything. I'm not sure how well it is doing, as I have no metric to compare against yet. With the Cache Century in just over a week, that may be my only real check point.
Leadville
A couple of my buddies did make it to Leadville this year. I was supposed to be with them, but that has already been discussed. The event added two new groups, with about 300 more rider than before. Needless to say, it sounds as though things went poorly. Both of them finished, but nowhere near their times from a couple years ago. Of course, Keegan won it again, but fell short of his record - still sub-six-hours. That's five in a row for the Heber Valley kid. Dave Wiens did six in a row before losing to Lance, the year Lance came out of retirement and went back on the tour. Wiens beat him the year before, but Lance crushed the course the next year, having just completed his seventh TDF victory. As Wiens said, "Last year Lance was riding off the couch. This year he was riding off the tour." We'll we know how that ended anyway. Wiens is still an animal, as he was doing it on a 26" bike, with crappy tech. That bike Keegan ran this year was closer to a Gravel Bike than a mountain bike - with the absolute techiest tech to be had. We'll see what the off season looks like before we talk about next year.
Not sure why this one seemed to be the pick....
Ride HARD!
