Crash #2

I haven’t updated the blog in a while due to a lot of riding and then some déjà vu. In anticipation of the next Sundance Super D race I’ve been riding at Sundance a lot, usually doing one or two runs at race pace. A couple of Saturdays ago I was riding along at a little slower pace but was on a trail that I have now ridden several dozen times. I let my mind wander a big and then SLAM right into the ground. As far as I can remember I realized I was carrying a bit too much speed and probably hit the front brake just as my tire hit a rock thus throwing me right over the bars and slamming my left shoulder (again) right into some well planted rocks. The bright side of this is that my injuries are not nearly as bad as last time. I wasn’t going nearly as fast and landed where there were only a few rocks. I had some minor scrapes to go along with my VERY sore shoulder. It’s been about two weeks and I can now touch my head without searing pain. Sadly the Super D is this weekend and I don’t think I’ll be in any shape to race. A few good jars to my shoulder and I’d be out so I’ll save the entry fee and take it easy on the trails in a week or so.

1st Place at the Super D - Sundance

Yesterday I competed in my first athletic competition outside of church basketball. I raced the Super D mountain bike race at Sundance. If you're not familiar with the Super D race it's as if they thought up a race that Ryan would like and put it together. Yesterday's course was 90% downhill with about 10% climbing. The entire course took me 11:55 to complete so it was a good fast race without much climbing. Although there wasn't much climbing I did still have to pedal pretty hard to keep the speed going through most of the course. The best part of the race is that I took 1st place in the Sport 30-39 category. I should mention I was the only person in that category but Jen assures me that a 1st place is a 1st place. There were only 9 people total in the race and I came in mid pack among them. There will be another race on August 16th so hopefully there will be a lot more people there.

Sundance Has Been Redeemed

To celebrate my independence I went mountain biking at Sundance and was very happy to find it had been liberated from the caterpillars. My downhill skills have improved quite a bit over last year, Jen has even stopped making jokes about me calling her from the ER. I'm going faster than ever and with much more control, especially through the turns. Some of this is probably due to the fact that I've been mountain biking in Provo Canyone several times a week. The Bonneville Shorline Trail (BST) is a beast to ride uphill but you're rewarded greatly on the downhill. A lot of great corners with just enough back tire sliding to keep things interesting. Mucho Funno! I'm going to hit Sundance a couple of times this week to prepare for the Super D race that's coming up. Sundance just needs to figure out if they're having it on the 12th or the 19th, if at all. I may just end up racing at Deer Valley, we'll see.

Later in the evening we celebrated the 4th by doing what Americans do best, we ate a big hamburger dinner(actually it was a bison burger, mmmm) then set a bunch of fireworks on fire on the street. There's nothing that Americans like better than getting fat and blowing stuff up. Here's to beating down the old enemy.

Me vs. Tent Caterpillars

It was a beautiful day today so instead of getting important things done I went mountain biking at Sundance. As much as I enjoy riding the various trails around here there is something nice about having a chair lift take you to the top of the mountain and though there are a few uphill climbs, they are very short and I never had to drop to my small ring up front.

So there I was at the summit point of the lift and I drop down to where the trails diverge and I decide to try a different trail than I have in the past and it turns out to be a winner. A little way down I hit a patch of spider webs and realize there were a bunch of caterpillars caught in them. After I clean the spider webs off of every surface of me and my bike I get going again. I soon realize after getting pummeled again and again by hanging caterpillars that these little guys are spinning their own webs and apparently have adapted to getting moved about by latching onto mountain bikers, very coy little caterpillars, very coy.

After about 15 min. I started getting really annoyed at the large number of webs and caterpillars that kept getting lodged all over me, including my beard. It's somewhat odd to feel a caterpillar crawling through my goatee. At one point I was headed through a little canopy of trees and came to a skidding halt when I saw the mother load of silk webs and caterpillars. It looked like something out of Indiana Jones, there was a wall of silk and probably 10,000 caterpillars all over in, on and hanging from the trees. I couldn't find another way through so I just had to duck and avoid as many of them as I could. There was an older guy that came through right after me so we knocked caterpillars off of each other for a minute while he told me about swimming in the pond next to us when he was a kid. We probably looked like monkeys standing there picking bugs off of each other.

Lucky for me the caterpillars were only on the aspens so once I made it to the pines I was able to ride properly again. It's awfully hard to hold a line, dodge rocks and roots and corner at speed while getting hit in the face by big juicy caterpillars. I decided to take other trails after that and didn't have nearly the trouble since most of those trails were in the pines.

I'm quite happy to report that not only did I come home without injury I also managed to stay on my bike the whole 3 hours I spend riding; something I hadn't managed to do on previous visits to Sundance.

Memorial Day Weekend Motorcycle Trip

My brother Kirk and I set out on Saturday morning for a 3 day trip through southern Utah and a smidgen of Arizona. We did our best to avoid freeways so as to maximize the motorcycle riding enjoyment.

Day 1, Destination: Boulder Utah. We started out on I-15, I know I said avoid freeways but we had to do this section, got off in Nephi and took Hwy 28 down to Hwy 89 and Dixie Nat'l Forest. At one point 89 disappeared, it literally disintegrated into a dirt road and disappeared and we had to get on I-70 to find 89 again, we took I-70 a little further into Fish lake Nat'l Forest than we anticipated. We made a U-turn and got off in Sevier and back on 89. We cruised through some nice mountainous country and saw Big Rock Candy Mountain. An odd yellow section of the mountain devoid of trees. It did sort of look like candy. We continued on to Marysvale where we got some lunch at the only place in town, The Prospector Cafe, at least I think that's the name of the place. The outside of the building advertised that they had the best burgers on Hwy. 89 so I figured that would be a good lunch. If those are the best burgers on 89 then I have pity for the poor folks along that 150 mile stretch of road. Lunch = terrible. Kirk and I were also pretty chilly at this point and found the cafe to be even colder than it was outside. We bundled up and rode on to Panguich where we decided that the dark clouds over Dixie Nat'l Forest looked like a bit much to deal with when we were already pretty cold, so we turned toward Bryce Canyon Nat'l Forest. Kirk had never been here before and we didn't have a lot of time to check out everything so we went to Inspiration Point and snapped some pictures, well Kirk did anyway, the batteries in my camera had died, good work on the pre-ride check on things Ryan. After we had a good look around at Bryce Canyon, which has some excellent motorcycle roads, we headed to Boulder for dinner and hotel. The Burr Trail lodge provided some tasty steaks which really hit the spot after a long day of riding and a less than adequate lunch. We stayed the night at Pole's Place Motel. Decent room though we only got 4 channels on the TV. So we had our choice between some Hallmark Channel type movie, a flickering NBA playoff game(the flickering made me nauseas), a soccer game, or some boring talk show.

Day 2, Destination: Kayenta Arizona. We started the day with some tasty breakfast and a waitress that had her eye on Kirk. We suited up in our rain gear when we saw the dark clouds over Boulder Mountain. Good thing too as we hit rain pretty quick and eventually got some snow, though it was pretty minimal. Despite the wet and cold conditions Boulder Mountain lived up to my memory of being one of the best stretches of motorcycle roads in Utah, maybe the country. We stopped in Torrey at the bottom of the mountain to warm up and had some company with a lot of other motorcyclists. While standing around I heard air suddenly escape from somewhere and was rather dismayed to look at my rear tire and see it go flat in a matter of seconds. For the non-motorcyclists you should understand that I can't carry a spare tire with me so this was a rather big deal, especially since my tires have tubes and it's a little more complicated than putting a plug in the tire or fixing the tube on a bicycle tire. We checked the tire for nails and didn't see anything so we rolled it over to the air hose and filled it up. It held air so we sat and had a snack to make sure it was going to keep holding air. After about 20 min. it looked good so we set off hoping for the best. We rode for a couple of hours to Hanksville where we had some lunch. This time lunch = great. We got back out to the bikes and my tire was still full of air so we gassed up and went on to what would be the best stretch of road on the trip, Glen Canyon and White Canyon, the former a little more than the latter. We got about 50 miles from Mexican Hat, the next real town we would hit and nature called so we stopped by the side of the road to take care of business. When I walked back to the bike and checked the tire it was clear that it was losing air quickly and within a minute it was totally flat. This was a little more distressing than the first time it happened because this time we were literally 50 miles from any sort of town and on a little traveled road. We flagged down about a dozen cars until we found one that had an air compressor. Again the tire held air so we high-tailed it to Blanding instead of Mexican Hat, figuring that we'd have a better chance of buying an air compressor and possible getting my tire fixed. We found the only store in town that was open over the weekend and bought their last air compressor along with some electrical connectors to rig it up to work from my battery since I don't have a power source. While standing in line I saw an older guy that looked like he may ride a motorcycle or atv. I asked him if there was a motorcycle shop in town and he laughed and said the closest one was in Moab about an hour and a half away. Then he told me he had a little auto shop at his house and he'd be happy to see if he could fix it. I was a little skeptical at first until we pulled up to his garage and I saw that he had made a Bonneville salt flats streamliner by hand. We got to work figuring out how to remove the rear wheel and after about 2 hours we had the tube patched and found the tiny nail that caused the problem. He declined any sort of payment so I wished him some good karma and headed down the road for some dinner. After a Subway sandwich Kirk and I headed out of town trying to take advantage of the last bit of sunlight as we hurried to Kayenta. We rode through Monument Valley and the Navajo reservation in the dark. This was a little dangerous because the reservation is all open range so the possibility of running into a cow is a real possibility. I like my steak tender, I just don't want to personally tenderize it with my head. We got to our hotel in Kayenta at about 10 o'clock. Rested quite well and got up early so we could have plenty of time to make it home on our third day.

Day 3, Destination: Home. We altered our day 3 plan a bit. We originally planned to go to 4 corners an head home from there. Since we rode through Monument Valley in the dark we decided to come back the way we came and check out the cool rock formations in the valley. We stopped a few times for pictures but the wind was pretty cold so we didn't hang around too long. We had to head back toward Hanksville but decided to take a different road that was marked as scenic on the map. The road headed right for a giant mesa and I figured there must be a road around or through a canyon. We soon found ourselves on a dirt road riding switchbacks on the edge of the mesa. At one point I stopped and had a look over the edge and we were a good thousand feet up. We ended up on top of the mesa and road through some nice juniper forest as we headed down to the valley floor on the other side, this time on a paved road. We went back through White Canyon and Glen Canyon for some awesome riding then had lunch in Hanksville again. From Hanksville we had to take some fairly strait highways and a little freeway to get to Price so I loaded up my iPod with some Led Zeppelin and set out down the road. We had a nice tailwind so we ate up a lot of miles pretty quickly an without much effort. We stopped in to Price, gassed up and had a snack while we got the feeling back in our backsides. By the time we got back on our bikes it had started to rain so we geared up and headed for the canyon and our last leg of the ride. The rain started coming down pretty hard so we took it easy. As we went up in altitude the temperature dropped and the rain started turning into small snow flakes. No big deal, I thought. Then it really started to snow and I was having a hard time keeping my helmet's face shield clear of snow. Just when I was really getting worried I spotted an OLD gas station, I tried to get Kirk's attention but his loud exhaust pipes drowned out my horn. I turned off because I didn't want to speed up to chase him down and I figured he'd see I wasn't behind him and turn around. I was pulling some gear out of my bag when he came back up the road, I still need to ask him how he managed to make a u-turn in that mess. The old guy in the gas station seemed happy to have some company. I doubt he sees more than one or two people a week during the winter. While we waited out the storm he told us all about the area. The building we were in was built in 1880 and was the last remaining building of the town of Colton UT. Apparently there had been a hotel, houses and some stores at one point. I'm not sure what happened to the other buildings, perhaps the highway that now went in front of the gas station took them all out. He showed us pictures of his grandpa with the Sundance Kid, they had a ranch in Circleville UT. He also had a picture of another grandpa with Jack Dempsey the heavyweight boxer. We watched the storm outside go from bad to worse and just as I was contemplating calling Jen to come and get us the storm started to mellow. After about an hour the storm passed and we headed out so we at least make it to a lower elevation so we didn't hit snow again. We got back to Orem where I found Jen happy to have me back and Bryn and Keira quite mad at me for being gone. It took some persuading to get a hug and a kiss out of them, but they came around. All in all we had a great time and it was a lot of fun going on this adventure with Kirk, our first real adventure together since we were kids.

I have pictures of all of this that I'll post later. I suspect Kirk and I will go on some more motorcycle adventures, we'll probably just do it in July when we don't have to worry about freezing to death in a snowstorm again.

Bummer and a Surprise

I was stoked all last week to do some downhill mountain biking at Sundance. They were scheduled to run the lifts on Saturday. When I got there I found the bike shop closed and the lift standing still. Major Bummer!

Since I didn't want to go back home I drove down the canyon to one of the parks and unloaded my bike. I found the Bonneville Shorline Trailhead for Provo canyon and started up. Since I was planning on doing some downhill riding I just had my platform pedals and no my clipless. It really made the rock uphill riding pretty hard. I was able to make it up most of the hills but between my wheel spinning out and my feet slipping off the pedals I had to hike-a-bike a few times up the hills.

The surprise came on the way back down. It was a lot of up and down, but mostly down, fun corners, kinda loosey goosey type stuff.

Spring Motorcycling

Despite being rather windy, today was a nice day to do a little riding on my motorcycle. I left work and headed up Provo canyon to see about getting my cornering skills back up to speed. I got a little past Sundance and then turned around because of the road construction. It's a little disconcerting cruising around blind corners not knowing if there will be gravel or construction debris in the road.

Memorial Day weekend will soon be upon us and that means one thing: Motorcycle Trip! I usually go with a co-worker or two from work but they're tied up with other obligations this year. My brother Kirk got himself a nice Harley springer softail last year so he'll be joining me on this years trip. It will be a 3 day trip through southern Utah and a little of Arizona. I believe we'll be heading down to Cedar City, up through Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park. Then up over Boulder Mountain, one of my favorite motorcycle roads. We'll wind through Capital Reef then take the ferry at Bullfrog across Glen Canyon. We'll finish off the 2nd day riding through Monument Valley. I think anyone that owns a motorcycle needs to ride through Monument Valley at least once, this will be my first visit. The 3rd day of riding will be a long one as we head over to 4 corners, then up through Blanding and north to Orem. I am really looking forward to hitting the open road, my head needs a little break.

Spring is finally here

...or at least I think spring is finally here. I think last week was the first week we did not get snow. Since the trails have had a couple of days to dry out I figured I'd hit them today. I rode along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail between Orem and Pleasant Grove, but not nearly as far as I hoped I would get. It seems that my time off the bike has left me without any of the base fitness level that I had built up. It didn't help that 50 yards into the trail I had a pretty big climb that ultimately had me doing a hike-a-bike. I didn't do too badly after that, especially once I got warmed up. It's been a while since I have ridden my bike and it was nice to get back on it. I am still getting used to the clipless pedals on the trail, I've only used them on the road until today. it makes the faster downhills a little more interesting knowing that I may get stuck in the pedals if I take a bad corner.

Sundance is opening for mountain biking on Saturday. I think I'll treat myself to a summer lift pass and head up there a few times a week. I just need to make myself slow down and re-learn everything. I've found that I keep crashing while trying to keep up with the memory of how well I used to ride.

Tomorrow is motorcycle training. It's been almost a year since I have done much riding on my motorcycle and it seems as though some of my skills have waned a bit. I'll be heading up Provo Canyon tomorrow afternoon to get used to carving up the corners properly.

Too much snow

I had been looking forward to getting outside on Saturday and doing a little trail riding. When I got to the trail head there was a little more snow than last week but it looked doable. I started up the steep climb(I hate that steep climb right at the beginning before I'm warmed up) I was able to ride most of it but had to walk a little of it because my tire was slipping on the ice and snow. Then I got to a section that had to be hiked but I figured it would be fine once I got to the top section that flatens out a bit. Once I got to the top though I saw that the snow was a lot deeper and decided to slide my way back down to the bottom and go home. It may be better anyway as my legs are still a little sore today. Maybe next Saturday will prove to be a little better.

A little ten pin anyone?

This has nothing to do with bikes of any kind. I just wanted to post about my desire to build a house with a bowling lane. I actually expect this to happen, it's one of my priorities. I don't bowl a lot but if it weren't so expensive and neccesary to get a baby sitter I would bowl all the time. It's just so gratifying to throw a heavy ball and knock stuff down, the get scored on how well you knocked that stuff down. This will be an intergral part of our game room. Jen wants skeeball, also a great game.

On a side note the weather looks to be sunny tomorrow so I should be able to get out on the trail tomorrow for a little mountain biking.

It's mine, all mine

I went home for lunch today to find the title to my motorcycle was hung on the fridge. That means that after 2 1/2 years the bike is paid for and all mine. Very timely too as I've been thinking about my next motorcycle trip I want to take. A couple of guys from work and I started an anual tradition of doing a motorcycle trip each Memorial Day weekend. I went on the first one 3 years ago and had the skip the last 2 years due to my sweet daughters being born. So I talked with Eldon at work today about where to do our next trip and we're thinking a tour of southern Utah, with a little northern Arizona thrown in; we have to include Monument Valley. We just need to plot out the roads and make sure we don't bite off more mileage than we can do. I need to get my fender light working so that I can show that off on the trip. Those long days in the saddle can be pretty tiring but there is nothing that can tear away the stress of everyday life like a few days on a motorcycle.

Finally, a warm day

The weather forcast said last Friday and Saturday would be sunny and warm, they were right. I had finished putting my new wheels together and got them on my bike on Thursday so I could take advantage of the weather and get out to ride on Saturday. When I headed out for work Friday morning I looked over to admire the new wheels on my bike only to discover that my back tire was flat...crap. So Friday I got the tube patched and was all ready for Saturday. I checked with the other locals on www.utahmountainbiking.com to find out a good trail that wouldn't be totally covered in snow. The concensus seemed to be a dirt service road above the Orem cemetary. They were right, it was a great ride. Certainly not as fun as some good singletrack but I'll take what I can get this time of year. I don't have a bike computer on my K2 so I don't know how many miles I went but I rode out for about an hour then decided to head back home. I did slip a couple of times but it was almost fun to land into the soft snow banks on the side of the road. The weather was almost too good, by the time I got half way back to the car there were a lot of muddy spots on the road that had been frozen. All in all it was a great ride. We're supposed to get some more snow this week so I'm hoping it will snow enough to cover those bare spots on the road so I can get out again next Saturday. It sure beats riding the trainer in the basement.

Make It Stop

I know I live in northern Utah so it should not be a big surprise that it's snowing every day but seriously this is too much. I think it has been a month since we went more than a day without it snowing. I can't even find icemelt so I just keep the 18" wide strip down my drive way shoveled so it doesn't ice up like the rest. Needless to say, I haven't ridden a bike outside in a couple of months and with all this snow it's going to take a lot of time for it to melt away so springtime riding is delayed except for paved trail and road riding. I'd even be willing to ride on snow covered trails but it snows every Friday and I'm not about to try pusing my bike 6"-12" of new snow. I'd be panting and covered in soon to be frozen sweat before getting 100 yards down the trail. Doesn't sound like much fun.

My motorcycle may be covered in dust by my ideas for great motorcycle trips are as fresh as the snow outside. I've been thinking about doing a Death Valley ride or maybe the Oregon coast. It's apparent that I have cabin fever.

I try to pass the time by putting newly acquired parts on my bikes and working out on the trainer. I have recently purchased a new handlebar and bar ends for my hardtail GT and some new wheels for the full suspension K2. The GT will be my bike for doing XC(cross country) races and the K2 will be for the Super D races that need some decent supension for the more technical stuff. I have a few races lined up which helps with the cabin fever. It looks like I'll be doing 2 or 3 super d races at Sundance, one at Brian Head, another at Bald Mountain and perhaps one more at Deer Valley depending on the date. I'm also going to try to do about 6 of the Wed. night races in midway this summer. They have races every Wed. night, the cost is just $10. They sound like a lot of fun without things being too serious. All this racing, especially the XC races, will help to keep me in shape by providing a little motivation to not come in last place. Although they are 8 months away I'm also really looking forward to trying cyclocross racing. Crazy mad fun in the mud on a skinny tire road bike.

Getting Back Into Shape

I've been getting on the trainer again this. That means two things: getting back into shape and crotch soreness. The former being a heck of a lot better than the latter. I use a mountain bike training DVD when I'm on the trainer most of the time. The DVD is really good and can be had on www.utahmountainbiking.com for reasonable price, well worth the money. Since I can't do the heavy DVD workout every night I have found it works well to watch movies or other things on my portable DVD player. Jen bought me a video of Cream's original farewell concert, they've since gotten back together for a one night show. Anyway, it was just the ticket to keep me interested while I slaved away on the trainer dealing with soreness.

I finally got the dough together to buy my new mountain bike wheels. I broke the front wheel last fall riding at Sundance. So I really stoked to get my full suspension K2 back on the trails. I'm hoping to do some snow riding before things get to soft and mushy. It'll be good cyclocross training and help get me back into shape while having fun. I'm really looking forward to getting back on the trails and road for some actual bike riding instead of the glorified hamster wheel that I ride on most of the time. Jen and I have decided we'll have to work out some sort of compromise. I think she's sick of trainers and stationary bikes in the gym.

2008 Resolutions for revolutions

I have two main resolutions for 2008. Eat only oatmeal for breakfast Mon. - Fri., no crap. Ride my bike to work at least 4 days a week. I want to get to a place where I ride every day, but I need a bike with some studded tires and fenders first. Right now all I've got is my trusty GT hardtail mountain bike, it works well but only has slicks on it and since the first part of my commute is down a dark hill I really don't want to take the risk without hedging my bets with some studded snow tires. Jen has been nice enough to save some money up for a cyclocross bike for me, this will enable me to invest in the studded tires I need and have a more commuting bike, not to mention a bike to race with come next year's cyclocross season. I will probably get the kids bike trailer hooked up to it so that we can go for family rides as well. Though, this will probably have to wait until it warms up a bit.