JACKSON HOLE WYOMING

What a great long weekend with the boys! Since Dot was at a sorority reunion in PA and I had to take the time off to watch the boys, we decided to go "camping". We left Wednesday to camp with our "toyhauler" at Lava Hotsprings. The boys had a great time on the water slides. The next day we set off towards Jackson and found a great spot to pull over about 20 miles from the race site. Thanks to Google Earth we scouted open camping areas as near to Teton Village as I could find. The place we ended up was exactly how it appeared on the internet. It was perfect! We had a fish laden stream, open land with noone else around. It was as close as we were going to find even if we went to a "real" campground.

BOYS IN THE MUD ON THE FALL CREEK RIVER BANK.

Thursday we dropped the trailer and went up to pre-ride. Thanks to Shandy, Kendra's daughter I left the boys with her after their "pre-ride" and Kendra and I headed off to try the course. Unfortunately, Ed had just gotten there and the course wasn't marked. I got us lost about 2/3 of the course in. Oh well it was a good little ride to loosen the legs. We spent all day Friday fishing and camping. It was just Dad and the boys and I think it will be the most memorable day with them that I will have for a long time.

THE RACE

I wasn't feeling too bad pre-race but I new the fast guys in the group were going to show. And they didn't let me down. All the top guys showed except Darren C. They took off fast and I quickly was shunned to 4th where I stayed the rest of the race. It is a fun but challenging course with lots of single track and rocks to make it quite technical. There aren't any real sustained climbs so there is plenty of recovery time. I usually do better on the longer sustained climbs. I continued to plug along limited mainly by my lack of technical skills rather than my legs or lungs which has been my usual whining pattern. I did manage to get close to Fred Porter, but as at Solitude once he saw me sneaking up he took off and I didn't have it to catch him. I did spill on the last lap mainly because I was trying to push it on the downhills for more practice. The worst part was how dirty I got in the deep dusty powder on my sweaty body.

NOTE: This year my time was 5 minutes faster than last year's (this includes a time correction for a slight course change) when I got first. I guess I have to work harder towards the challenge.

ARANTIX TOTAL MILES 1121!

Lester, the Delta7sports rep showed up to support us (center no helmet) and Tim H and Joey

CRAZY WEEK RECAP

WOW! I've had an eventful bike related week (recap from most recent to last Sunday):



MONDAY JULY 21- RIDING WITH THE SEA TO SEA





I got to ride along with the Sea to Sea tour today. We set off from the Jordanelle SP at 7 am. The tour's destination was Duchesne of which I rode with them to the top of Duschesne ridge and then back to the Jordanelle. It was a great 75 mile 1/2 supported ride in cool overcast conditions. I rode with my uncle John who is quite a tough rider at 65.









SUNDAY JULY 20th - FEEDING THE SEA TO SEA



Between Rita (Dot's mom) and our family we supplied 15 watermelon, 300 pieces of chicken, 24 feet of subs, and 0ver 15 salads to feed over 150 Sea to Sea riders and support staff. It was a pleasure and great time! Brad and Tasha ( thanks so much!) supplied 2 cases of beer and I added 2 more thinking that a christian group like that would not have too many drinkers and that would be enough. WRONG! They acted like a bunch of crazed partiers looking for more. Even my Uncle John surprised me by having one. They just haven't had the chance to down a few cold ones during the hot trek through Idaho and Utah. I couldn't blame them and felt bad I shorted them. I did take the ARANTIX with me and despite their sore behinds there was quite a bit of interest in demo it.
What a great group and cause! They have raised over $ 1.8 million so far on the trip to fight poverty! What a great way to use a bike!




















SATURDAY JULY 19th- SNOWBIRD RACE




Snowbird had a much better turnout than last year when only 3 of us were in the 40 + Expert category. ALL the fast guys showed up including Chris Bingham who seems invincible. But I guess when you relate the group to me any guys showing up are the fast guys. I raced about the same time as last year when I took first. So what position was that this year? LAST! What the heck! Dot got first as did many of the MadDog riders that showed. Jonny placed the best so far in 4th place in the 9 and under category. I was especially proud of him since it was a REALLY tough course and he wanted to quit after the first lap. Joey did a pre-ride and it was just way too technical. He was willing to go for it, though, but I realized he would be pushing 90% of the course. Not a good way to keep your youngest interested in the sport.





SATURDAY NIGHT AT BRYAN'S WAREHOUSE



OH'M GOSH! We were invited to Heather Gilbert's graduation from fellowship and divorce proceedings and it was being held at "Bryan's Warehouse" which I thought was maybe some underground club the way she made it sound on the invite. Well this place was way underground! It was Brian's "house" which was really a warehouse! It was every biking college guys dream pad! It had everything from a game room and dance floor to at least 12 different bikes. It even had two side by side stationary bikes on rollers set up to the computer so that you could race each other! Unfortunately, it was too dark in there for pictures since words are really too limited to describe this place. Perhaps it is good there were no pictures possible since there were many "collected" items in his warehouse.






















WEDNESDAY JULY 16TH- BLACKHAWK MUD FEST



Carson and I headed up Payson Canyon to try the Blackhawk loop Wednesday evening after work. Well I think the only place in the whole state that it rained was up there. (Did anyone else experience any rain this month?) We hit the overgrown, horse plowed, cow manure laced trail with great anticipation since it was a premier ride last year. Well once the rain hit it, it made the above characterizations 10 times worse! We got done and I have never seen the type of slime our two ARANTIX bikes were covered with. It was fragrant slimy and green! And the inadvertent taste on the water bottle spout was out of this world!

BRAD'S 40th- SUNDAY JULY 13TH
And finally last but not least we were invited to Brad's 40th Birthday. MY IDOL! He proved that 40 is not the end (at least for him) by clinching OVERALL first place in the PC Perfect 10 hour race! Congrats Brad and keep going! I aspire to reach your level by 43. We can all dream can't we?

Sea to Sea

I just wanted to let those that might be interested know of a neat bike group coming through Salt Lake this weekend. Sea to Sea is a church organized group of 200 bikers riding across the country from Washington to Jersey City raising money and awareness of the cycle of poverty. Dot's Uncle, John Vandersteen, is riding in it. They will be coming from Willard on Saturday the 19th and up immigration canyon to the Jordanelle to take the day off on Sunday. Dot and I are helping with the dinner for them on Sunday 20th at Jordanelle Reservoir Park 4-7 pm. It is neat to see various religious organizations work towards many of the the same needs in this world. It would be great if the cycling community and the SLC community in general could give them welcome, support and encouragement as they pass through on their journey. Please pass this on to friends and family that might be interested and able to contribute in some way.
Thanks

Wolverine Ridge pre-rides

Surreal!

This is a pic from the Wolverine Ridge course at the top through the burned out area. What a contrast the bright blooming flowers are with the skeletons of the burned trees.

We were at our cabin which happens to be 2 miles from the course so I got to pre-ride the course twice this weekend. Despite the fact that it is about as clean of rocks as I've seen it sure beats you up. Also, interesting is the fact that my ride after working all night without sleep and driving to the place for 2 hours was better and faster than the second one two days later. Go figure. I'll have to schedule my shifts the nights before the races. Although, I tried that 2 years ago for the Snowbird race. I threw up.

Kendra and her family were up with us and did the ride as well. They both survived.

While Dot and Kendra were off biking I had the kids, so we went to Deadman Mountain (real name). I got to be the ghost of deadman. They took off and I got to track them for over an hour. It was pretty impressive how they kept their cool and made decisions together when they hadn't seen me for 1/2 hour. Once I scared them over a mile away from the ATV they still were oriented to it's direction. I was impressed. (Below: Mandy, Jonny, Joey)

Solitude July 5th

SUMMARY: Worst pre-ride Thursday, Worst race Saturday. Why did I even show up?

Wednesday evening I started to get chills and muscle aches and by Thursday morning when I had the morning scheduled off to pre-ride Solitude I was feeling awful. I new I had a viral infection but thought maybe I could "ride it off". I could barely finish one lap at a snails pace!
But I was preregistered and the whole family was racing so I figured I'd still show up Saturday. The muscle aches actually were better by Friday night. So I showed up and thought I was going to race. Well it really was all I could do to finish the 3 1/2 laps. I just had NO power in my legs. Even my lungs weren't cooperating. Many times I thought I'd not finish the race but figured the least I could do was keep going. I was last by a mile and I believe the last one off the course.
I am officially frustrated with this season. By the way I got a good sized puncture on the last lap but the Stan's held after about 1/2 mile of spitting and spewing. I actually finished without having to add air.

950 miles on the Arantix to date. (I hear the lock out for the fork is in. It'll be nice to try it at snowbird)