Riding at 10k

Damn it's Cold!

I awoke to a temperature of -16 degrees on Saturday morning. My thoughts were if it warmed up above 15 degrees or more I was going for a snow packed cyclocross ride. When I left the house it actually was up to 29 degrees (that's a short window of temp highs around here) and when I returned an hour and a half later it was well under 20 degrees. I went south on highway 145 as Lizard Head to the North was sure to be a bit colder and descending in the shadow of the mountains back into Rico makes it even that much more frigid. I pedaled 24.5 miles and the 42x18 gear ratio was good for the slow snowy packed roads. My new Swix gloves and new Specialized Defroster winter cycling shoes were the ticket in these conditions. If Sunday is the same weather I'm going back out again. I need to get a snowshoe or run squeezed in as well. I'm slowly embracing the snow sports but I have only done one snowshoe run and one night xc skiing. I have a long winter to work into. Maybe some skinning on the tele's will be good as well.

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!

Happy New Year

It's now 2011 and new goals and new adventures await. I'm not one to sit down and recap every moment of the previous years adventures. If I did recap every adventure I would end up with a book or writings and I'm just not a big writer. I had a great year of riding and enjoyed most every moment while on the bike. Doing a quick review of my cycling miles I tallied over 6000 miles on the bikes. The majority of those miles were on my single speed mountain bike. This year I suspect to have much more as I plan on doing some bigger adventures which will include multi day biking events. My goal for January will be 600 miles of base miles, core body workouts, lots of xc skiing, snowshoeing and running. I ended 2010 with 502 miles in December alone which included turning the cranks on the trainer and outside riding. The first race of 2011 will be the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo in February; one of favorites. March will bring two endurance events and a couple of 12 hour races after. In May I plan on tackling the Grand Loop Race. It will be my first multi day race (3 days approximately) which will require me to carry more gear than I have previously ever carried. I havent bike packed at all and I am super interested in getting into these type of events.

Let the fun begin in 2011.

Holiday Weekend

It was a great holiday weekend of riding. Got in a 52 mile road ride on the single speed cross bike in Montrose Friday with TR and a nice grunt up to Lizard Head/Trout Lake on Xmas Day. Sunday I went down to Cortez and rode the triangle on the Dean road bike with 43 miles tallied. Santa Claus was good to me and brought me a pair of Specialized Defroster winter cycling shoes. These work great!

Snow Running

Wow; what a busy last few days. Lots of time on the rollers inside due to the weather and lots of time spent shoveling snow and plowing snow amongst my other worldly duties like house work.

I was motivated enough to get out and do a 5am snowshoe run this morning for an hour before work. Snowshoe running is a great work out and safer than running on a snow packed highway with plows cruising by you and the potential for a driver to slide into you. Drivers seem startled to see a bright light pointing toward them when it's on their side of the road for some reason. LOL!! Another 6-8" of snow fell overnight so the depth of the snow was perfect on the snow packed roads of Rico.

I spent an hour plowing my driveway, cul-de-sac area and Mike Guskeas driveway area last night and will be repeating that process tonight it looks like. We have received about 12-16" of snow in Rico since yesterday morning. That is the one thing that took awhile to adjust to living in the high country; lots of wasted time spent shoveling and plowing snow. It is what it is. Only 4-5 months of it to go!!

The Weekend Vehicle

The weekend traveler vehicle is really taking shape as of late. Now during the winter is a good time to really dial it in before our cycling events start back up; which will be soon as the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo is soon approaching. I have recently built a bed in the back of the van that fits Laura and I nicely at a size of 4' x 6'3" and now just received on Friday an awning system manufactured by Rhino-Racks out of Australia. We have been looking around for an awning system that mounts directly to the Yakima roof rack system and Rhino-Racks has it dialed in. Only took about 15 minutes to get it all together and mount right on the crossbars of the rack system. No drilling, screwing, bolting or mangling of the van itself. This awning is 8' x 6'5" and I also ordered the extension that makes it even larger or acts as a wall. Now if the snow stops I can go over to Moab soon and try it out.

It's Winter!!

This is what I went out to on Saturday morning. Fun times plowing and shoveling. Winter has finally arrived in full force in Rico. Usually I would have the Subaru in the garage but I have been working on the van that is parked in the garage. That is the Jeep on the left and the Subie buried in many inches of snow.