Helloooooo Neumann..............

Breckenridge snow sculptures part II

2012-01-29T10:59:00.001-08:00

Last year it was really warm when we went to the snow sculptures but not today. As we went over Hoosier Pass the temp was 16. It looked warm but the mercury didn't lie. It took FOREVER to find a place to park. Eventually I just parked at City Market and we walked the bike path up the show. My wife is such a good person. She was seriously worried about us getting in trouble and having the car towed. She's cute.

I thought this was the sharpest sculpture of the show. It featured a mother Grizzly and a cub fishing for Salmon. The details were amazing. You have to look closely but the cub had ice for teeth and claws.

This was another one of my favorites. It's a guy ice fishing outside of his shack. The scarf was really cool. That's a seal peaking up through the ice in the front.

This was Mother Grizz.

On the way back home we were treated to a killer sunset from the mirrors.

CTS V

2012-01-28T17:37:00.001-08:00

Heather and I went over to Breckenridge to check out the ice sculptures today. Cadillac had a booth near the sculptures. They only brought one car but they only needed to bring one car. This is the 2011 CTS-V Black Diamond Edition. It looked like the car was driven from the dealer because it was dirty which was a bummer. Even still, the paint is incredible look at. They use aluminum flakes in the paint and it really is stunning. It also comes with these 19" wheels with Brembo brakes hiding behind them. I couldn't get too many good pictures because of all the people looking at it. One guy was busy talking about how he'd love to have it if it wasn't a 6 speed manual transition. I wanted to bitch slap him.

The interior had Recaro seats that were two tone leather (black bolsters with tan inserts). They shoulda had the hood open to show off the 6.2 motor and that supercharger that makes about 550ish horsepower. At about $70,000, I will never have the pleasure of owning one of these.

Endurance Cross

2012-01-24T18:59:00.001-08:00

I read about this new race on the Dicks site and really thought it was neat. It's supposed to be an endurance cross race of 100 miles. It's in Jefferson City, Missouri. There is no entry fee but the promoter is asking for racers (80ish registered already) to bring items suitable to support a nearby no-kill shelter (things like food, bowls, etc.). Check it out.

The Gold Belt Tour

2012-01-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

Today I got out for about 3 hours of one of the nicest rides I've done in a while. It wasn't on singletrack but it was still really cool. I drove out to Gilett and parked near the KOA and started a really nice loop towards Cripple Creek and then through Victor. This area is rich in mining history and there's still a lot of gold being extracted from that area. My loop basically went around one of the largest mines in that area. In the slideshow you'll see one picture with tiered levels of gravel. They were massive. On the right of the picture you'll see two dump trucks. Those trucks use tires that are over 12 feet high. You can barely see them in the picture. There's also a picture of my bike next to one of those tires. They have a max load of 311 tons and they cost $24,500 a piece. I'm definitely going back to ride that loop again. I passed up several opportunities to ride up either trails or gravel roads to check out really old mine shafts and equipment.

What an amazing ride!!

2012-01-21T14:59:00.001-08:00

I got out for a 3 hour ride today out by the gold mines in Cripple Creek and Victor. There is some really amazingly cool old mining gear out there. I love checking that stuff out. I did get some really cool pictures and I think I'll put those into a slideshow later on tonight. But...whenever I ride, I am always looking on the side of the road for stuff. Sometimes I find cool sunglasses, bones, tools, antlers, etc. but today I saw this tackle box and then turned around to make sure I had really seen it. It was way down this embankment. I climbed down there and started going through it.

Spoons from Daredevil and Kastmaster are easily 5 dollars a piece. I bet I brought home 20 of them in addition to about 10 Rapala's. There was tons of Power bait and all kinds of other crap in there too. Not sure how the hell it got there. Then I looked around and saw all of these hanging from a nearby tree.

Then I found this.

And this.

These are wooden lures that were made back in about 1930 by a company called Paw Paw. The top one is a 9100 Runt lure and the bottom one is a Pike replica lure. I bet these are worth 15 bucks a piece. What a killer day. Hope you all did something cool.

2012-01-16T15:39:00.000-08:00

Not sure why I like riding in the Deckers area as much as I do but...I do. Probably because I get to ride right next to the river for most of the day but there's also a lot of good options out there too (plenty of ATV trails and there's that one Colorado Trail, not to mention all of the shady people growing marijuana out in the hills). Today I stuck to a bit of pavement and then a good chunk of moist fire roads.

This was the start of about an hour straight worth of climbing. I was a little worried but I was able to ride it all even though a chunk at the end was done so at an alarmingly slow pace (more on this in a bit).

After topping out on the climb, I was rewarded with this.

Cool old Ford truck. I'm sure it would fire right up.

This part of the climb put the hurts to me in a big way. It was 15%. Shortly after this I started having my first bit of trouble with the El Mariachi. The rear cog was looser than a thrift store turtleneck. Luckily, it was all downstream or flat back to the car so I was able to limp it on in. I needed another spacer to tighten things up. It was tight before I left so the only thing I can think of is that my brute strength shrunk the thickness of the spacers. I'm quite strong.

Side of the road treasures

2012-01-15T12:33:00.000-08:00

It's not unusual for me to see tools, bungee cords, random keys, used condoms, key chains, etc. while out riding. For some reason, when riding back in Missouri (mostly South County) you could see girly magazines in the ditch. Sometimes I stop to check some of these treasures out. Sometimes I actually throw them in my pack (never the girly mags or used condoms though..honestly). Today there was no time for debate. I passed these and made an immediate 180. You can only find glasses like these at finer truck stops along major interstates. Or....in Woodland Park.

Vans and things

2012-01-15T08:05:00.001-08:00

Friday night I stumbled upon a 2002 Eurovan with 90,000 miles on it that I knew could be mine for 5 grand. I mentioned it to Heather in passing (my way of planting the seed). Saturday morning she asked if I wanted to go get it. The one pictured is a Westy with the pop top. The one I was looking at was just a straight up 7 passenger model but it was blue with these wheels. The downer about this model is that the back seat isn't really one you can sleep on. I think I could find the back seat and table out of a Weekender model but I think the mounting points are different and would require some fabrication to make work. It belongs to my good friend Adam. Through the years we have swapped cars often because we both get tired of them every few years.

I love these vehicles. There's simply gobs of power from the VR6 motor. They had the cool climate control. All of the AC components have been replaced. The auto trans works fine. They are supposed to be super easy to work on. However, the biggest downside of them is that VW didn't make any extra parts for them. If that normal CV style axle (which many vehicles use) decides to grenade then you either have to find a replacement at a junkyard or get it rebuilt where they grind it all out and then go to bigger bearings. These vehicles are very hard to find in the yard which is why you generally see speciality yards where all they do is these and then they can charge whatever they want for parts and there's NEVER any negotiating. You can get the alternator for this either directly from Bosch or from a special yard place in San Francisco for $500. You can get it at NAPA as well but they're gonna order it from Bosch and it then runs $600 with a hundred dollar core charge.

When the AC stuff was redone it needed a relay. There was 1 in the country and it sold for $90. That cool climate control is not operated via vacuum lines or cables but all by a separate computer. I can't imagine there's many of those floating around. So...I decided to pass on it because, at some point, something is going to wrong with it and it's going to cost a fortune to fix.

I love my Subaru. As I'm getting older (it just so happens that I'll officially be another year older this week) I find that I want a vehicle that can do it all. The wagon hauls a boatload of crap. It's rock solid reliable. Super fun to drive with all of the suspension/brake upgrades it's gotten. It's killer in the snow and on fire roads where it's rally inspired genes shine through. I'm going to do the adult thing and just hang on to it until I get a bit older and buy a Buick or an Oldsmobile.

That about covers the Vans. The such would be that I got out for a great 2 hour ride on the SS yesterday. Then Heather and I went to PF Changs for a less than stellar dinner. The Egg Drop soup seemed extra slimy. I'm not that guy that bitches at restaurants but our server asked if I wanted to try the other soup and I said sure. I was not aware that it had Tofu in it though. I don't understand Tofu but I find the texture to be simply stomach turning. Ever try to casually spit Tofu into a napkin? The meal itself was good. The lady sitting at the table next to us had the biggest eyes I've ever seen and, frankly, they were creeping me out.

Oh well...It's Sunday morning. I'm going to sit here and continue to drink coffee while listening to the great Gillian Welch and David Rawlings while I try to figure out where to ride. Get out there and do something fun!

Eriksen Cycles

2012-01-06T17:40:00.000-08:00

After talking with the folks at Eriksen the other day about the shipping mishap on the seat post I mentioned that, in my excitement, I was worried that my seat post was a touch short. They asked what the measurements were and then agreed that I probably should have gone longer and said, "Want us to ship you another one to swap it out?" I said, "No...because I already installed it and it was my fault for not measuring more accurately." Today I came home to find yet another seat post that measured 360mm long along with a call tag for the other two posts. I'm speechless. I wish I got paid more so I could support them and ride one of their frames. If they are paying this much attention to a customer buying only a seat post, I can only imagine their involvement on a custom frame. Thanks again Eriksen.

Maiden Voyage

2012-01-05T19:02:00.001-08:00

Today I wanted to ride the Salsa for the first time. I looked at the Gazetteer over coffee and found a trail that I've ridden past several times but never knew it was there so I decided to go try to find it. It's in the Decker's area so I parked behind the fly shop and had a little bit of pavement to ride along the river before turning off and heading towards Sedalia. I was only on the fire road for 1.5 miles before I got to the trailhead. It didn't look pretty. There was lot's of snow but an ATV had been up it so I was able to walk in one track and push the bike in the other. Until the ATV decided to turn around.

At that point, I really didn't want to turn around because all I had been doing was walking in snow. So I decided to walk in deeper snow. Unfortunately, this went on for EVER. It wasn't that far to get back to the next fire road but it just never ended. My shoes and socks were soaked. I started thinking about whether I should start bushwacking and make a beeline for the fire road or stick to the trail. I stuck to the trail. For another hour. Then, fed up, I decided to head off trail. This proved to be a big mistake.

The topography was brutally steep, rocky, icy, and snowy. At one point, it took me 30 minutes to get 50 feet up a hill. I fell backwards a few times and even yelled out in frustration towards the end. I eventually found a creek and decided to try to parallel it all the way to the road which was now 2 miles away. After fumbling up a few more steep ravines, I finally gave up, with daylight fading and temps dropping, and decided to just walk in the creek. It was cold but it was better than dealing with the saplings of trees that never ended.

A bit further on and I saw something odd. It appeared to be sleeping bags. You never know what you're gonna run into out in the sticks and it's the 2 legged critters that normally concern me. I got closer and was hoping this wasn't going to be some creepy Chris McCandless deal that ended in finding a body in one of the bags. Both were empty but it's still weird. Fifteen steps more and I looked to my left and saw a bunch of trash. Ramen noodle wrappers, hot sauce, probably 100 empty cans of salsa, trash bags, buckets, propane tanks, pots, pans, clothes, etc. This was probably someone either hiding/running or some low budget grow camp. If I would have known I was going to be off trail, I would have been more prepared. I marked the coordinates on GPS and will get with the local folks but they already know there's a lot of that stuff in the area. I may backpack into the area again this weekend to pack out all that shit. I got out of there and eventually ran into the road and then had about a 30 minute ride back to the car.

These are the pics I took today. Normally I mix them up but I left these in the order they were shot. The abandoned camp shots are ugly but I wanted to share them. I was only supposed to ride for an hour and a half today but I think I actually pedaled for 2 and hiked for 4.

This is for Bogs

2012-01-04T19:23:00.000-08:00

My buddy Bogs mentioned how that Black Sheep I posted up looks like it's got some McClung in it. For a long time now, Don has built bikes the way he wants to build them. I'd love to have him build me something but I don't care to run cantilever brakes and, for a long time, that's what Don has done (in addition to only building singlespeed stuff with truss forks). I got these pictures a while ago from a reliable source and they are supposed to be built by Don. I can't confirm this but, if it's true, it's exciting and very different from what any McClung I've ever seen.

In this picture you can see the EBB shell, disc tabs and a sexy EBB to chain stay connection.

This is pretty exotic. I haven't been able to find out anything else about this build yet but I'm digging.

I included this picture because it made me think of Bogs. This is what I think of when I hear McClung. I think this one belongs to a guy on the east coast. He's currently running Avid V-brake style brakes but it used to have Campy Record OR brakes.

And since we're talking about McClung's we might as well as talk about this kooky guy. He's also a Salida local and one of the guys that I look up to the most. He's not on a McClung in this picture but he's probably still got his. This is Jason Shelman. I met Jason in 2008 when I first attempted the Colorado Trail Race. Jason showed up and pulled his bike out of the back of his friend's car, slung his messenger bag over his shoulder and was ready to go. He wore baggy shorts and a short sleeve button up shirt and rode on platform pedals and running shoes. He is a very strong rider and a true inspiration.

New bike

2012-01-04T17:58:00.000-08:00

After a long wait...the El Mariachi is finally done. The big hold up was the Eriksen seat post. I won't go into the entire story but the bottom line is that Katy was honest and got things straightened out for me today and that's all that counts. The short story of it is that there was a mix up along the way and it appears that it was the fault of UPS but, ironically, 2 of these posts showed up today. Katy...I'll shoot the extra one back to you tomorrow. I'm ecstatic with the way I was treated by Eriksen and if I ever decide to have a custom ti bike built, they are the first I will contact. I decided to get mango hardware to match the Chris King goodies and I'm glad I did.

Killer etching on the back of the post.

So the bars ended up being 5mm higher than the carbon bike with 20mm of suspension sag and it felt ok in the garage. I also left 20mm on top of the stem so I could play with things a bit. I'm a tad worried that I should have gotten a 360mm seat post instead of 300mm because I'm right on the bubble of the minimum insertion but I think I'll be ok.

I was hoping that this build would come in under 24lbs but I had my doubts. As it sits here with the beefy platform pedals on it weighs 23.4lbs. I actually might get inside 23 with SPD's. Probably not though.

Cool bikes

2012-01-03T10:29:00.000-08:00

This bike belongs to a guy named Don out of South Carolina. I love this thing. Hopefully he's ok with me stealing the image from his blog. Lately, I've been doing more admiring of vintage bicycles. This is the fork and handlebar I originally wanted to put on the Salsa but I was afraid of how it would handle on an off the shelf frame. I also didn't wanna go too bat shit crazy on my first dedicated singespeed rig. The seat tube angle on this bike is something like 68. So the entire bike has been designed around Don and the use of the funky bars and truss fork and he's still able to run a 110 stem.

Typically, I do not care for Black Sheep bikes because most of them have these crazy curving tubes all over and I tend to like things to be a bit more subtle. I love the seat stays and brake bridge on this. They are much more traditional in design. I can't stop looking at the double top tube with the single bend. This style is also repeated in the single bend in the fork. Don worked with James to make this a modern day bike based upon the looks of an early (1920's?) Elgin bicycle. It's hard to see in this picture but Don worked with Homebrewed Components to make a front chainring that would go on the Middleburns and look like the chainrings from long ago. Wheels from that Curiak guy roll him along. One of the more interesting things about this bike is the chain tensioning system. There's no EBB and the dropouts don't slide. The chain stays are telescoping and you just have to loosen a bolt on each side and then press down on the seat to take up the slack and then tighten those bolts back up. Don says he loves it.

Stop riding bikes.

2012-01-01T09:59:00.000-08:00

This is what I have been instructed to do. At least for a little bit. This past week I put my road bike on the trainer because it is the only bike I have that is complete right now. My neck locked right up the next day. Stubbornly, I rode it for another hour the next day and things got worse. So I haven't done anything bike related for 3 days now and my neck feels much better. The range of motion is still limited and it's painful when I push it too far but I am able to sleep through the night. I will probably be getting rid of the road bike here real soon and coming up with a way to ride one of the 29ers on the trainer when I need to. I've also been instructed to build the carbon bike up enough to at least ride it on a trainer for a bike fitting. Admittedly, my Doctor doesn't know much about bike fit but he thinks that is the problem. So he's sending me to a guy this week to have him look at it.

Letting go

2011-12-30T18:43:00.000-08:00

This is something that my wife has had to do a lot of recently with the loss of her Mother, her Father, and just last week...her Aunt (her Father's side). She went back home this week to attend the funeral and take care of some things with regard to her dad's personal effects. I spoke with her each night and the first night of being back in her dad's house was pretty hard on her. One of the things I told her that night was that, as hard as it is to let go, it can also be very celebratory when you start to look back at all of the memories shared with that individual. I am still angry over the loss of her Father but I think of him every day when I enter our home and look at the horse shoe by the front door or the antique milk container on the deck. Whenever I use one of his knives (I always have one on me) I wonder how many times he used it. This is something I will never do with my own Father or Mother. I am grateful to be able to have what little memories of him that I do.

Likewise, I am equally grateful to have those memories of my wife's Aunt. I did not know her all that well but she was always kind to me and welcomed me into her family even before it was official. Arlene suddenly passed away on the morning of December 19. She was feeding her horses when her time ran out. Most notably, she leaves her husband behind. She now joins her brother again in a better place.

May you rest in peace Arlene and may you forever tend to your horses in fields of gold.

2011-12-29T09:37:00.000-08:00

I've been getting Physical Therapy on my neck for about 3 weeks from Cameron over at Colorado Sports and Spine Centers. I really like him and trust him when he's got his hands around my neck. So far he's been doing some manipulation of the spine in the neck and then having me stretch the scalene muscles every day to try and get some of my pathetic range of motion back. I'm also paying a lot more attention to my overall posture. There does appear to be an issue with one of the vertebrae as well as the first rib that was probably harmed during the dreaded accident. The pain is still incredibly uncomfortable and it really has me worried. This is truly impacting my quality of life. I'm so excited about my new bike and the places it will take me this year and the things I'll see but, right now, on most days the pain is too much to even ride at all. I have a really great offer to take part in a trip right after school gets out through the desert of the southwest but it will require over a week of 16 hour days and a very long hike a bike section with a bike lashed to my pack. I've analyzed that route for years now. There's always that stupid Colorado Trail thing that haunts me that I intend on tackling this year either totally on my own or with the grand depart in August. Then there's that ride along the Divide that I wanted to do next year for my 40th birthday present to myself. It seems that now, more than ever, I seem to be less concerned with racing and more about seeing what's around me. Physical fitness is not what's ever stopped me from completing that one trail. I believe it's that I'm lacking in what Matt Lee calls the "ST" (Suffering Threshold) department. In order to do any riding at all right now, I am going to have to just deal with the increased pain that comes from doing one of the things I love the most.

Canine Christmas

2011-12-25T12:02:00.001-08:00

It seems that I enjoy Christmas more and more each year since meeting my wife and having both dogs makes it infinitely more fun. This is honestly how excited I get over good pens. All of the legal papers I have folks sign off on is always done in these pens with black ink. These pens will somehow pilgrimage from my work backpack over to Heather's purse or work bag over the course of a few weeks. Then, in an all out assault, I will storm the opposing bags and retrieve said pens and put them back in their original residence. The four pens you see here will being making their first pilgrimage in a matter of weeks.

We always spoil the pups with gifts. This year they got Sushi, their own pumpkin pies, Pupperoni's, milk bones, other treats, and the big gifts...stuffed animals. When we first got Bodhi, he had a pink pig that he loved to carry around and gently nibble on. Here he is with his new friend. Darth Vader.

Darth lost his tool belt and now has a small hole in his butt (on the dark side if you will) but he'll be around for a while.

When I first got Dharma I got her a little brown bear and she carried it around everywhere for about 2 months before finally realizing she could kill it. She quickly moved on to live baby rabbits which she would bring in lifeless and bleeding through the dog door in St. Louis and deliver to my feet. Now...her stuffed animals last about 5 minutes before there is stuffing everywhere. With Bodhi getting Darth, it was only right to get Yoda for Dharma. Here she is having her way with him.

Show the backside of his head the force she did.

Gifts for the dogs

2011-12-24T19:17:00.000-08:00

We gave the puppies one of their gifts tonight. Poochie Suchi from the Waggin' Wash.

It was a big hit. They also think Heather's new jammies are soft.

2011-12-24T17:30:00.000-08:00

My wife was nice enough to let me take the fork down in the garage tonight and start getting some ideas on how things were going to come together. After a lot of measuring and thinking, this is what I came up with for the fork/stem. There's 30mm of spacers underneath the stem and that puts the bars 5mm higher than they were on the black bike with the suspension fork and about an inch of sag when sitting on it (I was shocked it had that much sag in it with how much air I run in it). I decided to stick with the 120mm, -10 stem because I've been riding it that way for 4 years and with a -6 stem on the black bike it immediately felt awkward and I really didn't wanna change things up too much.

The fork is a second generation Fargo from Salsa. I looked at carbon forks from White Brothers and Niner but kept coming back to this one because of the ability to run Salsa's Anything Cages, what I kept hearing about the ride characteristics, and for the good price. Big thanks to my friend Tim for giving me the homey hook up. Always appreciated buddy!

The seatpost is on the way. The fine folks at Eriksen were making it yesterday so I should have it sometime this coming week. Then I've got to do a bunch of shuffling of parts like seat, and brake levers off some other bikes but it should be done soon. I haven't ridden a steel frame in years so I hope it's not a wet noodle. I think it's going to be really comfortable and that ti post should make a difference. I'm bat shit crazy about the colors.

Hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday. More later.

Bike fit

2011-12-23T09:50:00.001-08:00

I have spent many sleepless nights obsessing over the El Mariachi build. Originally I intended to run a layback seatpost, a Blacksheep truss fork, and possibly Blacksheep mustache bars. This is drastically different than the setup on my Alma and it worried me. I can ride that bike all day long and changing the fit so much is risky. After countless trips to the garage to take measurements, I ended up bagging the layback post and finally ordered what will go on the frame yesterday. It will be a straight post and it will put me in the same spot in relation to the bottom bracket as I am on the Alma. I decided to bag the truss fork and the fork I'm going to run is sitting under the tree right now and will go on Sunday sometime. A handlebar change would require changing stems. I actually want to change that though. I run a 120mm stem with -10 degrees right now and would like to sit up a bit higher. Flipping it to +10 is a big swing though so I intended on swapping to a 120mm with -/+ 6 degrees this year. That might help with numbs hands. The handlebar I ordered last week just showed up.

I don't really like it. The Salsa Pro Moto that I run right now has 11 degrees of sweep and it's 27" wide. The Fleegle bar is supposed to be 28" wide but it has 15 degrees of sweep. IT ends up being a tad narrower than what I like. You always immediately know when a bar is too narrow.

So slowly...this bike is beginning to fit precisely how the Alma does. Maybe it's trying to tell me something? So these will be going back to the folks at On One.

El Maricahi

2011-12-18T08:27:00.001-08:00

Very rarely do I see someone else's build that I like. This is one of them. I stole this off mtbr.com. If I were to do CTR again, I'd have to run gears and probably a fork but I might go 1x9. About 30 minutes after Christmas morning begins, I will be in the garage installing the fork, wheels and calipers.

Deckers to BC

2011-12-17T18:48:00.000-08:00

Normally I do not ride for 4 hours in the winter but I kinda lost track of time and was just enjoying the ride. I parked in Deckers behind the fly shop and rode 97 all the way up to Buffalo Creek and then came back. Nice day to be out but incredibly cold when the sun dipped behind the mountains in some shorter sections that were north facing. Hope you all got out and did something fun outdoors today.

A shout out

2011-12-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

If you are in need of body/paint work on your vehicle then get yourself down to Perkins Collision and Paint in Colorado Springs where you can't spell Paint without spelling out pain. They'll set you up with half ass work that results in the best damn 30 foot paint job this side of Earl Sheib.

Normally...you'd pay extra for this kind of custom work.

I've seen 13 year old gang bangers with ADHD lay down a better coat on the side of a building with a can of Krylon and blend better with a single piece of 220 grit.

WTF was Subaru thinking by applying decals to the outside of the car?? Clearly it looks better sitting next to a landing net that wreaks of trout slime and a week old bagel sandwich left over from a recent fishing expedition.

You can also spell out colon with certain letters from Collision. Irony? No. I'm really trying to keep from going down today to have a face to face chat as I really do need to go to work on Monday.

Really??

2011-12-16T16:21:00.000-08:00

I hate when anyone touches my car. Really. Leaving it at the body shop was nauseating. Today I went to pick it up. My car isn't new. It's got it's share of dents. I enjoy bombing down the fire roads in the burn area where you can see anyone else coming for miles and hearing the rocks bounce off the metal. I keep saying I'd like to Rally it so I'm obviously ok with it getting abused at the expense of me having fun. I think there's just something about people trying to get over on me that I simply can't stand. Mostly though...it's people touching my car. Needless to say I am disappointed with the work that was done. No wonder it's friggin' done early.

If you recall, I was told that nobody would be looking over the car with me upon drop off. Well...a dent that was NOT there before this accident was not fixed. It's a weird dent I'll admit but those that know me know that no one spends more time on their car than me. I know what dents and imperfections are on it. The guy says to me, "Oh that dent is coming out but they fixed the big one." I say, "Who am I, Stevie Wonder over here? I can ___ see the big dent is fixed. You wanna explain to me how the ___ this dent came from inside the vehicle? Never mind the fact that it looks like a ___in 5th grader blended the paint." Then I see it. Or...I don't see it. The 12" X 8" sticker that's supposed to be on the door that says Outback Sport. Oh.............that's right. It's supposed to go in the ___in trunk. I'm obviously not a certified professional.

This is the first time I've ever had an accident and been in this situation. Heather wants to go down in the morning to talk to them. However...I don't think that would be a good idea for me and...I don't want them anywhere near my car again. I'm very frustrated.

Neck issues

2011-12-15T17:37:00.000-08:00

They continue to plague me. I have pain every day since going to the Neck Cracker but now when it decides to lock up it's incredibly painful. This week has been really painful so yesterday I went to what could be my new Doctor and got a referral to a Physical Therapist. I have my first appointment tomorrow morning. I haven't been able to sit on my back for a week now and, before that, I've had to run a different stem on my road bike and my 29er and it's still painful. I can't even ride the 26er at all. So glad I'm building up a new bike right now. Nothing like building a cool bike knowing you can only look at it.

Fat

2011-12-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

I don't have too much more to go for the El Mariachi to be done but I'm afraid I already have another bike being built up in my head. Winters are long up here and fat bikes just look so much fun. The options are starting to grow but I doubt we will ever see them be anything more than niche builders. I definitely don't think the folks up in Bedford, PA will ever jump in the game.

This appears to be a new 9 zero 7 frame out of Anchorage. It's owned by factory racer Noah Holcomb. Looks like he had someone re-route the cables internally and then give it a respray with new stickers. Me thinks he was just having some fun with this picture too what with the cranks and all. There might even be a bit of photoshop happening in that area (if you notice the chain/big ring). Still a beautiful bike. The name of the bike on the top tube says "supersnow".

Honey do's

2011-12-10T16:18:00.001-08:00

That's what a good chunk of the day consisted of but they were fun. The first thing we did was head out into Pike National Forest in search of the perfect Christmas tree. We drove around some back roads and would park every once in a while and hike. After several hours we hadn't seen anything worth cutting down yet. I ride back on these roads all the time and thought I knew where we might find some good trees so we headed in the direction. After another hour we came to the spot that, apparently, a lot of other people knew about too. Cars were parked every where. So we got out and headed into the woods and finally stumbled across this guy. We both liked him a lot and thought he would look perfect in our home. As dumb as it sounds, I actually took a minute to touch it's branches and honor it before taking the saw out of my pack.

A few minutes later and it was all over.

We saw another couple earlier in the day and the guy was walking down the road while the gal lugged this huge tree. After I cut it down I told Heather to get after it.

Of course I was only joking.

We got it all strapped down and headed home.

The tree is 8 feet tall. I've never had a real tree but this is something we will do from now on. It was a fun experience and a gorgeous day to be out in the woods. This process helps thin the forest and we'll honor the tree by sharing the holiday with it and then either use the tree to make mulch out of or burn it to help keep us warm next year.

I also fixed the starter on our grill and then hung some more accent lighting on the deck and porch so Heather doesn't have to get surprised by any more bears or other critters in the front yard when taking the dogs out late at night.

Body Shops

2011-12-10T07:19:00.001-08:00

Most people probably think of automotive body shops or paint shops when they hear that term. I, on the other hand, always think of some really cheesy strip club out in the sticks. Kinda like you'd find somewhere in Illinois. In fact, one such club used to exist years ago when I lived over there near Collinsville. It was called Dotties Body Shop. It was a really run down building with one of those metal above ground pools off to the side. There was a fence around the pool but some nights on my way home from working at my first bike shop gig, I could see the lights on. I never went in to check out the place. I was always a bit scared to do so. Probably for the best that I never did go in. Apparently, just driving by it all the time was enough to leave a lifelong impression.

You might be asking yourself why did I think of Dotties last night? That's a fine question. The answer would be that I took the Subaru down to the shop that's supposed to do the work last night. I got there about 3:45 and started gathering my belongings out of it. The place seemed nice. Good looking building. Huge parking lot in the back full of cars. Massive fence topped with razor wire to keep out undesirables. A 4 Runner was parked nearby and a gal came to pick it up while I was putting stuff in Heather's vehicle while she waited. This customer was not happy with the repair that had been done. I couldn't hear the details and I honestly just figured that it was either something small or she was just being unreasonable. I'm sure these people are professionals. (Keep in mind that I do not like relinquishing my vehicle to ANYONE so this is very nerve wracking for me.)

I walked in to sign the necessary paper work. The last paper was a big checklist to go through together with whoever was checking the vehicle in. ABS light on? Horn functional? There was about 40 things. After asking, I'm told that we're not going to check in the vehicle today but they'll do that on Monday. I'm thinking...what happens if I come back after the repair is done and the seat is torn? She tells me I can come down Monday to do the check in process if I'd like. Now...nobody has been waiting more for Friday than this kid right here but it's 4! Why not do it now? Then I think...relax man...maybe I'm being a bit like the 4 Runner gal? So I initial the page. Then I say that most of the damage is pretty visible based upon the description from the insurance company but I'd like to go over it with them so they know that the small dent at the front of the door was also caused by the accident as well as the paint rubbed off the door moulding. She tells me not to worry and that if it's in the general area of the description, she's sure he'll figure it out. I don't even know who the hell HE is so that's not re-assuring.

"Is you're name Dottie?" I ask.

"No." She says. "Why?"

"I just thought I had talked to someone on the phone the other day by that name but I'm sure it was something else like Darbie or Dave."

About halfway up the mountain I tell Heather that I am extremely nervous. I woke up at 3 this morning and was up for 2 hours. Worrying. Some half whit is down there with a pack of Big League Chew and a putty knife to fill in the dents. Then he'll find some nail polish that's a close match and slather that on. I fear this is not going to turn out good for me.

Blinglespeed

2011-12-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

Big thanks to Chris down at Old Town Bike Shop in Colorado Springs for helping me out this morning. I decided to have him install my bottom bracket and headset for me. It's slowly starting to come together. The fork and brakes showed up yesterday. I was able to take a look at the fork last night but I was not permitted to take any pictures.

I'm pretty much at a standstill until Christmas and then I'll be able to get the fork installed along with the wheels and calipers. Then I'll order the seatpost and the handlebar that I hope to use and start trying to figure out what stem to order.

El Mariachi parts

2011-12-01T19:16:00.001-08:00

They're starting to come in now. Unfortunately, the build has changed a tad now but I'm happy with the stuff that got here today. Because I wanted to run the XTR cranks, this will be a singlespeed so I ordered a 32 tooth Blackspire ring. I robbed these chainring bolts off the cranks on my Orbea but I had to file down the height of the female bolt about 2mm. It was a bit tedious but I could not find mango bolts anywhere and, as you'll see below, this bike is going to have a bit of color.

This was super hard to find. King still does the mango color but now they only offer it in the new Sotto Voce finish (where the lettering on the headset is also mango) and I just liked the classic look for some reason. I actually ordered it expecting to get the new style one but this is what showed up.

I also got a mango Chris King bottom bracket. I'm hoping to get the bottom bracket and headtube chased and faced this weekend so I can at least install the bottom bracket and cranks.

The fork and brakes are on the way and might be here tomorrow but probably Monday. Unfortunately, I'm being told that I can't install those until Christmas morning so that's fine. Originally I kept going back and forth between a Blacksheep titanium truss fork and a Blacksheep titanium unicrown fork but I couldn't get Blacksheep to return my calls or emails. So...I went a different route but I think it's gonna be cool still. I also wanted to run an Eriksen titanium, layback seatpost but their 27.2 post has 20mm of layback and that would really mess with the fit too much so that's out now too. In the end this bike should be a killer bikepacking bike.

Not a good day

2011-11-27T16:01:00.001-08:00

Normally it's pretty kick ass being me. I've got a killer wife. Two bitchin' dogs. I've got a job and stuff. Despite all this tremendous karma, today was just not my day. I forgot my coffee before I walked out the door. I just wasn't feeling it but I couldn't figure out exactly why. Then my car got hit by a runaway truck. Seriously.

I made it to the river hoping to get something going but I was met with tons of ice, increased water flows (thanks a lot Denver Water Board), and the accompanying chunks of grass, and murky water that goes with these.

It was like fishing in a giant Slushy.

The damage.

BC

2011-11-25T15:52:00.000-08:00

I made my way back over to Buffalo Creek today for some riding. There's a lot of trails back there and they were fun. I didn't ride every trail because it started getting cold once the sun went down behind the mountains. I don't know if these trails were here before the fire but I bet it was beautiful if they did.

Because it's Black Friday I decided to bust out this bike. I haven't ridden it since August 1st. Getting back on it was like getting back on an old friend. Wait. That sounded really seshual. Regardless, I love this bike and the way it carves.

Wolves

2011-11-24T16:32:00.000-08:00

Heather and I went up to the Wolf Sanctuary in Divide this morning for the Turkey Toss. Actually, because of the unseasonably warmer weather we've been having and because there's been so much roadkill lately (a lot of it gets donated) the wolves weren't as hungry so it was a chicken toss. If you're ever in the Colorado Springs area and want a really cool way to waste a few hours check it out. For 20 bucks you can get a tour of the facilities and see all of the animals. Or you can do a VIP tour and go in a pen with some of them. They even have special events like tours during the full moon when they really howl.

There are only 2 true Arctic Wolves at the place but this is a hybrid Arctic/Timber. This guy was huge with massive paws that were about 6 inches across and included webbing that acts a lot like a snowshoe does in deeper snow.

This is Na'vi. He is a really young Timber Wolf (not even 2 years old yet) but he was big. I couldn't get a decent picture of him because he kept stalking up and down the fence line. He had the most amazing yellow eyes.

They would pick up these big frozen chickens whole like they were nothing and devour them entirely in 5 minutes.

Another beautiful Timber Wolf.

They have a small cabin near the center of the facility that has 5 freezers in it. Each freezer is capable of holding 1,000 lbs. of meat. This place runs entirely on donations and tour fees. They do get a lot of the elk and mule deer road kill in the area and right now, a lot of hunters bring up their scrap meat after they're done quartering their kills. The place is absolutely immaculate. I know we'll be going back again soon.

Rough

2011-11-22T18:56:00.000-08:00

I got a bit of a late start today but I decided to head to the river after a late lunch and see what was up. The crowds sure weren't. There was like 2 cars there when I pulled in. After about 30 minutes of walking and glassing the water I found a decent Rainbow. She wasn't the fish I was looking for but I decided to stop. She took a legitimate Black Beauty on about the 5th cast but quickly came off. Stubbornly, she went right back to the same spot. I knew she wouldn't be having that fly again so I re-rigged but she was hip to the game so I moved on. It's post-spawn now by a week or so and a lot of the bigger lake run fish have slid back down the river but I still saw plenty of decent fish and I was hoping there would be some bigger browns still coming out to play at night.

It was cold. It wasn't as bad as it was a few weeks ago when the sun went down but I still had to break the ice off the guides every few casts.

Dinner.

I switched from midges to a streamer just as the sun went down. As soon as the streamer hit the water on the first cast, it was demolished by a bigger Rainbow that came out of the water. I don't know that I've ever had a trout throw a streamer before but this one did and the line all came back to hit me in the face. I stared at the river for a second and then moved on. A short while later, I saw a big brown come all the way out of the water about 25 yards upstream from me. I had line coiled up in my hand and immediately dropped it and false casted 2 times and laid it just upstream from where I had seen it. Nothing. I couldn't believe it. I was breathing heavy. I thought, for sure, that thing was gonna get hammered. I worked that spot for 30 minutes and got nothing. I even rested it while I ate dinner. I never got any action.

Beautiful night to be out on the river though. I may do it again tomorrow night.

2011-11-21T18:59:00.000-08:00

This is the Black Beauty. It was originally invented in 1991 and fished not too far from my house in the fly speck of a town called Trumbull. This fly is really pretty simple in terms of what it consists of but tying it in size 22 proved to be a bit frustrating. I got several done though.

The Ramback

2011-11-21T11:48:00.000-08:00

Last night I tied up this fly. For some strange reason...I thought of a friend of mine while I tied the final knot. This fly is called the "Ramback" (his name is not actually spelled like that but I think it's better for the fly). This is basically a Pat Dorsey Mercury Midge. Pat is probably the best guide in Colorado. Pat ties his with gray thread and then segments the body with copper wire. I used white thread and green wire. This fly represents the nymph stage and the bead is the key to the whole thing. Some midges will suspend themselves right below the surface of the water before hatching. These things then swim down about 6 inches and then come back up to the surface. They repeat this cycle before emerging. Each time they hit the surface, a little bit of air gets trapped in the shuck. I don't know why they do this. Perhaps the air helps them break free of their exoskeleton's? Whatever the reason is...the air bubble on their upper back looks just like a little drop of Mercury in a thermometer. My good friend is a science teacher. I think he'll get it.

2011-11-21T11:21:00.000-08:00

I just got back from a 2ish hour ride this morning. It started out nice. It was cold but it was nice. I did a little loop that Marshal showed me a while back.

This was on the way back down. I thought I saw a trail so I checked it out. At times it was mostly game trail.

Then I saw this. Call me paranoid but I'm always a little cautious when I see stuff like this. Not long ago, a guy I know was out doing something similar and stumbled upon a much more organized camp over in Buffalo Creek. It was just off the Colorado Trail. He went in for a closer look and it was an abandoned growers camp. They left all the irrigation supplies, fertilizer, their food, and even a gun with the serial numbers scratched off. There's no shortage of that kind of stuff up in the mountains. This setup was pretty harmless other than looking like crap. A lot of the kids in town have places up here that they go to party. This is probably one of them.

I love the simplicity of the singlespeed but the fit is horrible and I hate 26" wheels. So...today I am ordering up some stuff to start building the blue bike. I'm not giving up too many details right now but will post pics when parts start coming in.

Stealing

2011-11-21T07:32:00.000-08:00

I normally don't steal things but I robbed this right off Curiak's blog. Sorry Mike. It really IS funny.

Projects

2011-11-20T14:24:00.000-08:00

I did not go fishing today because it was super windy again. I figured I'd get some little projects taken care of around the house so I can get out tomorrow. The first thing I did was re-arrange the garage a bit so I could get a tying area set up. Heather wants to convert the second bedroom into a bit more of an office and wanted me to tie in there but I worry about dropping hooks on the floor and not being able to find them. Being in the garage is just better. It might be a bit cold in the dead of winter but I can be messier down there.

While I was down there and done with this project, I decided to pull the Subaru in and change out the foglight bulbs. This should have been a simple deal but those are usually the most difficult jobs. I got it all back together and adjusted them a bit better. I'll go find a flat spot and a building to really dial them in tonight. The headlights on the Subaru only have an adjustment for up and down. I really need the drivers light to go left. I think maybe the accident it was in a few year's ago might have something to do with it.

For the last year, there's been an annoying rattle somewhere in the center console. I decided to get to the bottom of that next. Once I got the console out I found the culprit. A penny was lodged right against the shift rod. Only contact was made in third gear.

While I was out for a test drive, a guy in a new STI got right up on my bumper and stayed there. I could see his smile but I didn't know him. Then he pulled along side of me and I put it all together. Rally mudflaps, suspension, exhaust, a fly fishing sticker, and a fly rod inside. It was almost like looking in a mirror except his car was really nice. He probably tie flies inside the house too.

Tying

2011-11-19T08:18:00.000-08:00

Tying flies is something that I really enjoy doing and I've been trying to do more of it here lately. I'm probably not that great at it but it's still fun. I spent most of last night doing some typical patterns and also doing some variations of typical recipes. All of these are in size 18 and today (because it's so friggin' windy) I'll do a batch of 20's (the flies get smaller and harder to tie as the number increases). Sometimes it's actually harder to get a decent picture with a cheaper point and shoot camera than it is to actually tie the pattern. These are the best pictures that I was able to get.

I started out by putting on a Tungsten bead. I wanted a black bead for this fly but the Tungsten is heavier and will allow me to not have to use as much weight in the rig and this is nice because big trout are big for a reason. They're smart. Many of them will simply slide out of the way when they see a weight so if you can use less you're sometimes ahead of the game. Sometimes not.

Then I just built up a decent thread base. I used black, 8 aught thread for this.

Then I tie in a piece of small copper wire and then a piece of extra small, pearl tinsel. By far, the most difficult part of this fly is getting the tinsel tied in nicely so that it lays flat and on the back of the hook shank. Then it gets folded over towards the head where it gets tied in right behind the bead. Then I wrap the copper wire forward to make it look like segmented sections of the body and, again, tie it in behind the bead. Then it's just a matter of building up a nice thread base to cover all that up and make a thorax for the bug and then finish it all off. Here's the final variation of a Black Beauty.

The ones with the clear bead are Mercury Black Beauties, the ones in the middle with no bead are Black Beauties (I used dubbing for the thorax on those and I'm least happy with them as dubbing is not a strength for me). Not sure what to call the Tungsten beaded ones. Blacker Beauties? The possibilities are endless with this fly but, basically, it represents the biggest source of food for the trout that we have in the South Platte Valley which is a midge (a two winged bug) and, specifically, it's meant to mimic the pupae stage of the lifespan.

I've been told that I need to find a better spot to tie than the kitchen table. It's quite messy and I don't like having the hooks around where, if they got dropped the dogs could get to them). So today I am going to have to set something up in the garage which means I've got to find a good light source (which I needed anyways) and a stool that's the right height (or else I've gotta modify the bench). So there you have it. Get out and do something fun today!

2011-11-15T18:02:00.000-08:00

This is probably the worst time since I've been teaching to be employed as an educator. It's silly. It's not appropriate to go into specifics here but I did give serious consideration (while looking at myself in the bathroom mirror) to what else I could do to pay the bills today and that's a real shame cuz I like teaching. I can't be a model. I actually injured myself by having a guitar string poke me enough to bleed last week while practicing. I can't be a Swahili translator. I don't know that my quantity of beer consumption is enough to justify a funky micro-brewery hiring me as their exclusive taster. A fishing guides life is HARD and, while I've always wanted to pursue it, I often worry about what impact pimping out the river will have on me. I don't really know anything else. It's frightening. Of all the jobs I've ever had, I never felt that I was supposed to do something like when I teach.

Cheesman Canyon

2011-11-13T16:37:00.000-08:00

I haven't fished this section of the South Platte in quite a while. Scott was partyin' up in Golden last night and he ended the night drinking Busch beer. How that happened is beyond me but who am I to question? We made plans to meet up down in the canyon. I got there at a respectable hour and he brought up the rear several hours later. He did redeem himself though by lugging in 2 really nice Belgian beers. Here he is trying to showcase his form.

I got into this bow about 30 minutes after the hike in.

I ended the day with this one.

This is the Wig Wam Club. It's probably a mile or so of very private water. Some political types have been choppered in. I'd love to fish it but I'm not important enough and I certainly don't have deep enough pockets. Once in a Blue Moon, some of the larger Kamloops species of Rainbows there will roam up or downstream and be caught by some bum like myself but...not today.

This is a Scud. It's a crustacean. These are pretty simple life forms in that they don't really go through a complex process like most insects that trout eat. These are born small Scuds. They grow into big fat Scuds. Then they die. This one is dead.

Catch Magazine

2011-11-12T08:34:00.000-08:00

Catch Magazine is an online magazine that my good buddy Rob turned me on to a few years ago. If you like fly fishing you'll really want to check it out. You'll also want to check it out if you just appreciate excellent photography. The new issue just came out and they get better and better. They include both saltwater and mountain stuff but I'm happy that they tend to lean slightly more towards the mountains as saltwater just never intrigues me as much. Each issue has some incredible videos (one of the new ones focuses on big Bull Trout up in British Columbia). Right now it's a free magazine but I've heard of plans to start charging a real minimal fee in very early 2012 but I'll support them. Check it out.

2011-11-12T08:12:00.000-08:00

I am NOT a morning person at all but this was the light show I got yesterday while having coffee. With the time change and a busy work schedule, I haven't been able to get out to the river during the week so I decided to go last night. I was thinking about it all week long and yesterday seemed to drag on forever. Finally, the busses came and I was able to head out. My plan was to throw streamers way past sunset for some bigger browns. Before the sun went down behind the Divide, the temp was 33 so I knew it was going to be tough. Within an hour the temp had dropped to 29 and things totally changed.

When you're fishing with a nymph rig (totally sub-surface) you're making short casts and you're not really stripping line in through the rod guides. With streamers, there's a lot of line coiled up by your feet and your casting it (sometimes as much as 70 feet) and then you're stripping it in and rinsing/repeating or taking a few steps or picking it all up and moving to the next spot. When it's that cold the issue becomes the water on the fly line freezing after stripping it in or during the back cast. As you strip the line in, the water collects on the rod guides and they ice up (sometimes so much that ice builds up and completely blocks the guides). When that happens there's only a few things you can do. Sometimes you can hold the rod down in the water where it's a few degrees warmer and you can go back to work. Sometimes, you can use Pam or something similar to keep the ice from building up. Sometimes you have to bite or suck on the ice or just keep breaking it off with your fingers. Last night was cold enough that I was able to make one cast but everything would freeze while stripping line in and I'd have to de-ice before making another cast. Very frustrating. I did this for several hours before finally giving up and calling it a night.

It was good to get out for Happy Hour even though I didn't get into any trout. I did see some big fish tearing up bait fish or probably crawfish. It's maddening when you can't make a quick cast because you're too busy having a river popsicle (as tasty as they all were).

Neck

2011-11-06T10:07:00.001-08:00

For the last few years I have lived with neck pain and limited range of motion every day. When it locks up on me the pain is just unbearable and I'm couch bound. Usually when this happens I'm doing nothing but alternating between ice and heat for a week before it loosens up. I tried a Chiropractor but just wasn't real happy with the results and trips to see him 3 times each week for a month was not something I could afford. My friend Dan wanted me to see his guy up in Boulder but he doesn't take my insurance and I suspect this is not an issue that's going to be fixed in one visit and I'm not sure I can drive to Boulder as much as it will probably take. I should call Eric over in PbVille to see if he thinks his needles can help it out but I'm also very nervous about it because I did see the x rays and the vertebrae in my neck looked odd but I'm also not an x ray tech. Not sure what to do.

Buffalo Creek

2011-11-06T07:22:00.000-08:00

The flows along the South Platte are dismal right now. Instead of heading out to fish yesterday I decided to go for a ride. We have such a vast network of trails out here. As surprising as this will probably sound, I had never ridden any of trails in the Buffalo Creek area before. The Colorado Trail passes through the area and I've always seen trails shooting off it but never explored them. So that's where I headed yesterday. For those back home, BC is equivalent to driving to Castlewood or the Chubb Trail from the South City so it's not all that far to go but it's sometimes hard to justify actually driving to any trail when I still continue to find new trails right out the front door.

I rode a bit of the trails in BC but they were kinda sloppy from the melting snow so I didn't stay long. This is the North Fork of the South Platte just a mile or so east of BC. Two very big bull moose were spotted standing side by side in the middle of this river in town (if you can even call it that as BC is super tiny) about 3 weeks ago. I was hoping to see them but didn't.

It was a weird day with weather moving in an snow flying for 30 minutes and then the sun popping back out again. I ended up riding a road along the river for 10 or 15 miles before venturing down a double track heading towards Strontia Springs Reservoir. I wasn't able to get too far in as it's all shut down because they're still dredging it. Then I headed back to the car and came home. I guess I was out for 3 hours on the singlespeed. I don't have any good photos of today because the camera was acting up again. I think I've dropped it too many times.

2011-11-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

Last night I found myself missing my Vanagon. We've talked about looking for a new vehicle for me for a while now but just haven't done anything real serious. I'm told that I will have to keep this vehicle for longer than a year or two so I wanna get it right. I've considered many models from Subaru but then I fear that I will want to mod them and drive them stupidly. I'm looking for something that I could be pretty content with right out of the box. Lately I keep going back to the Nissan XTerra. It's bigger. It can hold lot's of gear and I could sleep in it if I had to. Unfortunately, it is not a van or a wagon and those are my G spots. I can't do a Vanagon even if it's got a Subaru motor swap because conversions never go right and there's always something that needs attention. So from time to time, I keep coming back to the Eurovan. It's got tremendous power with the VR6 motor. My buddy Adam pulls his trailer and drag car all day long while doing 85mph. They're big and boxy and kinda resemble a brick. YOu can get the pop top but I would be thrilled with another Weekender package. They are expensive though. Heather gives me the proper stink eye when we crunch the numbers and find out that it would be a $300ish payment on a van with 100,000 miles on it. The Achilles heel of the Eurovan is the transmission. They tend to go out and are serious money to have rebuilt. I'm pretty sure she knows about this little fact too. I know where I can find a blue 2001 right now but it would require the Homey hookup. But...it's not a Weekender.

Here's a fine specimen with a lot of custom work done to it (wheels, suspension, paint).

Congratulations Colorado!!

2011-11-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

Colorado voted against the education tax at the state level and I think almost every Mill Levy was also voted down including ours. We loves us some education in Colorado. Why people in my town continue to be fine with un-educated people walking around is beyond me. I'm hoping I have a job next year but I'm not going to hold my breath. We've already cut 3 million in 2 years and there simply is not anymore fat to trim. It could very well be time for me to find a new career.

Good work Colorado.

Big bucks

2011-10-30T19:04:00.001-07:00

I saw some incredibly big Mule Deer today. First I saw one when I was out on a ride. He was alone and eating in someone's front yard. I was in a pretty remote area and really wanted to get closer but you never know out here. Some people get pretty worked up over strangers. It was the biggest buck I've ever seen. He was standing next to a Mitsubishi car and honestly dwarfed it. I stayed there for about 20 minutes in awe but he never moved and just kept staring at me. We were running errands and took a scenic route home to try to see some wildlife and came across these guys. There were 5 bucks. This one was with 3 others. He still had some velvet on his rack but one of them had been fighting a lot and looked rough.

This guy was alone and he was impressive looking. The picture didn't turn out so well but I counted 16 points and his neck was huge. The one I saw while out riding would have put this guy to shame though. Really wish the picture had turned out better than it did.

Maybe I should

2011-10-30T09:49:00.001-07:00

A while ago I was going to send this thing off to St. Louis for my friend Tim to unload for me but shipping was ridiculous and I never sent it to him. I can't even remember how much I was hoping to get for it but it's never much with a used bike which is another reason why it never left. Anyone have something they wanna trade for it? I'm looking for something funky (Pugsley, Long Haul Trucker, Cross bike, etc. but I might consider another mountain bike depending on what it is. This is built up with full Dura Ace (Ultegra shifters), Mavic wheels (Cosmos I think). I need to keep the saddle (these are getting harder to find) but I might let the DA pedals go with it depending.

Todays ride

2011-10-29T21:07:00.000-07:00

I'm really starting to enjoy the singlespeed but I do hate 26" wheels so I can't wait to get the Salsa built up. Today I headed out of town for a few miles on the highway before turning off on a side road that leads towards Pikes Peak and some really nice trails. This is probably a thousand feet higher than town so there was no shortage of snow.

About 300 yards after jumping on the trail I came across these really big tracks. I'm 99.9% sure these are from a big kitty. They were probably from late last night as they were a bit hard to read. Mountain Lion tracks can be hard to distinguish between dog tracks and smaller domestic cats. You will not see the toe nails in a cat track and the singular pad on a big cat will actually have 3 lobes on the back of it. That's also hard to tell here. The bigger giveaway is the overall size of the track and the fact that bigger cats have what's known as a leading toe. You can see how the second pad from the left leads the rest. This is a right front track. I kept my eyes peeled but didn't see anything. I would love to see one of these cats. These tracks followed the trail for a good quarter to half mile all the way down to the service road probably looking for elk or mule deer or just curious about whoever had already snowshoed in.

This is how the trail was.

This is bike is very quickly becoming my favorite to ride (even with platform pedals).

Pikes Peak got a healthy serving of snow earlier this week.

After my ride, I went down to the Apple store in Colorado Springs. I've been waiting for the new iPhone 4s for 3 weeks or so. I got the last one from today's delivery. It's way smarter than me. Technology is amazing. I just asked it to play me Shine on You Crazy Diamond and it did. Friggin' amazing.

Here it comes

2011-10-25T17:39:00.000-07:00

We've all been watching the weather updates all day at work and taking wagers on whether or not we'll have the first snow day of the year tomorrow. The weather moved in just a few hours ago and the temps are dropping. Things are supposed to get interesting in a few more hours and go through the next 36 hours. Above 7000' is supposed to get hammered (we're right at 8500'). Right now they're calling for 4 to 20 inches. I gotta get a Pugsley. I'm also gonna have to get an inner tube for some sledding.

Lovin' it

2011-10-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

I've been riding the Marin quite a bit lately. It's been years since I've ridden a 26" rigid bike and the singlespeed is fairly new. Riding platform pedals with tennies is completely new. I kinda thought that maybe the SS was faster so I wanted to really ride it tonight. I went up to Rampart Reservoir to do the 13 mile loop. On the carbon bike I can do that loop in an hour 20 pretty relaxed but I've done an hour 10 but I can't remember how much I hurt. I couldn't have gone much harder tonight and I turned an our 9 flat. I'm really gonna give the SS a shot for 12 months and see what happens to my fitness. I'm still completely up in the air about what's going to happen this year in terms of riding. I was honestly ready to hang all the bikes up for a while 2 months ago. I still love riding my bike and I still like going fast. I just have so much doubt when it comes to riding nowadays and I think a good part of that is from doing just one thing for the last 4 years and then forgetting what it's like to be in a race.

Another new trail

2011-10-23T18:40:00.001-07:00

This one musta been cut pretty recently up by North Catamount Reservoir. Right in the shadow of Pikes Peak.

Untitled from Chris Neumann on Vimeo.

Music

2011-10-22T10:31:00.001-07:00

Last night we went down to the Ancient Mariner in Manitou Springs to check out a show. It was kind of a free for all featuring The Broken Spoke (a local band and I actually work with one of the members), Tom Vandenavond, Mike Clark, and Willy Tea Taylor.

Here's a picture of Willy. I really like this guy but Heather said he was too much of a redneck. Why the hate?

The Broken Spoke (I am such a sucker for the harmonica and the steel guitar).

I had been looking forward to this show for 2 weeks. About an hour before we were going to leave, I realized that I had eaten a sandwich made of 4 week old ham during my ride. I figured I'd go to the show and try not to think about what impending doom I may be soon going through. Plus...if I were to die, at least I'd see a cool show right before and have some cold beers. It worked. Instead I woke up at 4 this morning with horrible stomach pains. I think I'm gonna be ok though. They do it in Europe all the time right? Wonder if I could eat road kill and come through alright?

Fish, miles, and smiles

2011-10-21T18:10:00.000-07:00

Today I got out for a road ride of sorts. It kind of reminded of the road rides that Eric Cutlip does except he's faster and is out for a lot longer and he probably drinks whiskey with his lunch. I used a 26 inch, rigid SS for this ride because, without giving up any real details, it's a lot like how I may set up the Salsa eventually. The Forest Service was in the middle of a prescribed burn and the smoke got a little closer than I wanted. I brought along my fly rod and managed to fool a few small rainbows in 11 Mile Canyon. It was a glorious day to be out doing two things that dig. Enjoy the pics.

Willy "Tea"

2011-10-19T19:44:00.000-07:00

It's been an ugly week. Heather has been outta town for work and I've had conferences. I have Friday off work and am planning on doing something super fun during the day. I'm gonna try to combine the fly rod and a bike (maybe the SS). Friday night should be fun. We're gonna check out Willy Taylor down at a small place in Manitou Springs. He's in town from California.

Not much going on in these parts. I did get out for a small SS ride tonight in jeans and old skool vans. Saw some mule deer, a bear and a killer sunset on the divide before raising a glass and then pedaling to the grocery store for banana split ingredients for some of my students tomorrow. Tonight I've just been hanging out and listening to music and enjoying time with the pups. Hope you're all well.

Check out this video of Willy. THis was shot at his place in California. They just set up a real simple mic in front of him. Sounds amazing.

Passing the time

2011-10-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

It's 5:30 p.m. I'm sitting here in my classroom alternating between water and coffee. Tonight is the first night of parent teacher conferences. As of today I have 18 students that I am responsible for. I know of 2 more that are on the way. I talk with my parents so much that they generally don't come to see me during conferences other than to say hi. So I end up figuring out ways to pass the time. I just finished watching all three of MC's Iditatour videos again. Over a thousand miles and darn near a month of pedaling a fat bike in temps ranging from a balmy zero degrees (his words not mine) to a cold minus 40. If you haven't seen the videos, do yourself a favor and check them out. They are truly inspiring. You may not wanna go out and pedal through the Tundra after watching them but you just might appreciate whatever it is that you do next a bit more. Here's the link in case you don't know where to find them.

!!!!!!

2011-10-16T20:55:00.001-07:00

This is NOT what you use to catch trout on Gold Medal water. I'm really hoping this was rigged with bait and used in the reservoir below and that the fish had moved up into the river recently.

BOOMMMMMM!!!!!!

2011-10-16T16:52:00.000-07:00

I've been asking my boss to go out with me (fishing that is) for a year now but he always dodges me. Until today. He picked me up this morning and we headed to the river. He fishes a decent amount but I don't know that he ever really targets big fish exclusively but he did today. Right away I spotted 2 really nice Rainbows that were holding in a deeper pool and told him to punch in but he insisted I go first. He didn't have to ask me twice. Within 10 minutes I had hooked the big buck and the real work began. After about 5 minutes I got him in the net. We took a few photos and then I revived him and he was straight back to the hole he came out of.

My boss is capable of putting a fly into a pool but his accuracy needed a bit of work and he was getting frustrated with not being able to put a fly right in front of a specific trout's face and the wind wasn't helping. After about 45 minutes of me shouting out behind a bush when to set the hook and whether or not to adjust the cast at all, he finally got into a Bow that was pushing 20 inches. Unfortunately, she was really hot and got away but he was thrilled and it was cool to see.

Next I found a sweetheart of a Bow laid right up on the bank. I had seen this fish as soon as we got to this spot an hour before. She had something in her upper lip. It looked like a big streamer but it was hard to tell. I told my boss I wanted to catch her and see if I could help out. After a few casts, she took my fly and I got her in the net. As soon as I saw her I was furious. In her upper lip was a snagging hook that some jack ass had used because he/she didn't possess the necessary skills to fish ethically. Wish I would have seen the individual. I would have done some snagging of my own. I got it out and she revived ok. Hopefully she'll make it. She was really stressed during the process and left all these in my net. Now normally, it is considered very unethical to fish to trout that are spawning. I am still not sure what is/was going on with this particular fish. In some parts of the US, Rainbow trout will spawn from spring to very early fall but here in Colorado, they spawn in the spring. I need to ask a few guide friends what the hell was going on here. I felt bad once she dumped a load of eggs but it was worth it to get the snagging hook out of her.

This is the big ole girl that I did some surgery on. You can see her dorsal fin has seen better days. When a trout spawns it will make what's known as a redd. This is basically a bowl shaped indentation on the river bed where the eggs will eventually be laid before the buck comes in and makes his contribution. The hen will dig the area out by using her whole body. Sometimes the sides of the fish will be all torn up.

Here she is again.

This is the first Bow I got. Another really nice fish.

This is a rod that my boss just got from his Grandfather. He brought it along to show me. It was made a long time ago in Denver. He didn't fish with it and I don't even know that I would. It would look killer on a wall though with an older reel.

Thanks for checking in.

2011-10-15T13:22:00.000-07:00

Apparently, today was amateur hour. I got to the river at 11 and realized I didn't have any tippet. Tippet is the very fine line that you tie to your flies. All I had was a leader that eventually got pretty fine but not nearly fine enough. I ended up using the end section off another leader to connect an additional fly to so I could still run a 2 fly rig. I figured it would work but I knew it wasn't gonna fool the older/bigger fish. Then while walking, I managed to snag my lead fly on the back of my shirt. This was a big problem b/c I couldn't just break the line and re-rig since i didn't have any tippet. I also couldn't get my backpack off with the fly snagged. It was quite the predicament. I eventually got it figured out and got moving again but I feared it was a bad sign.

The flows on this stretch of the South Platte have been almost 250 for about 10 days straight now. Yesterday they shut her down and brought things down to 70. It's amazing how even a difference of 100 cubic feet a second can completely transform the river.

This is a Snake River Cutthroat. I love these fish. This one took an egg pattern.

This was the second Rainbow of the day. This one took another egg pattern (you san see it in the corner of her mouth). The first one completely demolished a fly that I just tied a few weeks ago. There is nothing quite like seeing a trout go bat shit crazy on one of your own flies.

This was another Snake River Cutt that took a small worm pattern. Not a worm like a night crawler. There are some worms that are present during the spawn. They actually eat the eggs along the bottom of the river. This particular one was a #20 that had been tied with brass wire and also had a clear bead head on it.

I only got to fish for 2 hours today before I got an ugly wind knot. I was kneeling down in the grass solving the puzzle and had it but when I went to stand up I guess I was hooked on a twig cuz it broke off the lead fly and that was game over. I was very happy though. It was a gorgeous day on the river except for the knucklehead that was trying to muscle into the hole I was fishing. We had a short talk about ethics and he moved on. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Tonight

2011-10-12T19:22:00.000-07:00

After a craptastic day at work I decided to go fishing to relieve some stress. There's not much better way to wind down then throwing big streamers to brown trout. I got to the river at about 4 and clocked in. I wasn't expecting things to be all that great as there was still a lot of sun in the sky and it wasn't ideal streamer conditions. I was actually beginning to think that I was gonna get skunked tonight. Then...BAMMMM!!! I actually heard and saw the hit before I ever felt it. This was a skinnier hen but she was still about 16 inches and gorgeous. She was pissed off to say the least.

This river is so special to me. Not too far up from this spot is where I asked my wife to marry me about this time of year.

Normally I like the self-portrait but this is special. I think it screams, "I'm too sexy for these waders". Heather said it looks like I'm either pooping my waders or that I'm special ed. I'm not too proud to keep it from you though. Say what you will. My skin is thick.

The sky never looks as good as it does in person.

Trout on the brain

2011-10-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

I've been watching a lot of trout movies here lately (Trout Bum Diaries, Drift, etc....thanks Rob). I'm starting to tie flies again. I'm making the trip out to the river during the week. Things are getting serious again. Heather has always liked it more when I fly fish versus when I ride. She says I'm never happier than after I've been on the river and she's right. The fall is a special time. I'd rather fish at night than during the day. Big shadows start to appear from the edges. I know it's serious when I come home from work and grab something to eat and then head to the river to cast in the dark. There are angry monsters hiding in those undercuts and they only come out at night when its safe. There's a reason why they're so big.

Casualties

2011-10-10T17:10:00.001-07:00

There were many this weekend. The list looks like this:

1. My Eddie Bauer down sweater practically went up in flames like some sort of cartoon when embers from the fire got on it. I woke up in the morning with about 10 holes in it and feathers were coming out of each one. That jacket is stupid lightweight compared to my North Face Nuptse one (which I've had for over 10 years now and sat around multiple fires in) but it is definitely NOT fire resistant.

2. Similar to the above. I bought a new pair of REI convertible pants for this trip and they are riddled with holes as well. Again...I've got 2 pairs of North Face pants that have sat around loads of fires, hiked multiple 14ers, ridden hundreds of miles in, and generally been abused and there are no holes in them. Dharma even once found a left over piece of hard candy in the pocket of one pair and chewed on them while trying to get to the treat. She mangled that area of the pant but no hole. Now that's a testimony.

3. One of my favorite pieces of gear is a pair of fleece mittens from Simms. I've had these for 8 years and they've seen tons of action while fishing and riding. I loved them because I could really quickly flip open the mitten portion to reveal half finger gloves on the fingers and the thumbs. I went to grab a log from the fire and relocate it. Said log was hotter than I thought and it burned through the right mitten portion. I let the explitives fly. Simms still makes a version of this glove but mine used velcro to keep the mitten half of them out of the way and now they use a flap. Looks like I'll be buying some new ones and cutting the flaps off and then sewing on some velcro. Also looks like I have some nice Simms half finger gloves now.

4. Perhaps most devastating of all is something that I just discovered I left up there next to my bivy spot. Dr. Slick is a company that makes fly fishing tools. Having a good pair of Forceps (or clamps) for fly fishing is critical. The flies are tiny and these allow you to quickly unhook the fish so you can get it back in the water and revived. Most guys have stainless forceps. Not me. Several years ago I found these tie dyed ones from the good Doctor. I got compliments on them all the time. They were the shit. They were buried under the snow. The irony with this one is that on my hike in, I knew I was catching up to Scott and the others. The tracks kept looking fresher and then I was finally seeing watery boot prints on rocks. Then...I found a set of forceps. Nothing fancy...just stainless ones. I knew no other jackasses would be heading up that high to fish during an early storm so I grabbed them. They were Scott's and I gave him a healthy rash of shit for dropping them. Now that I've put this out there...I expect him to chime in at any time.

Rocky Mountain National Park

2011-10-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

Every year some friends of mine get together for a manpacking trip into the mountains. The requirements usually include a remote spot, plenty of fishing, a good hike, good times, usually some alcohol and always some laughs. We go somewhere different every year and usually it's inside RMNP. I was supposed to head up Thursday night but I ended up driving up on Friday and hiking in solo that afternoon. Some years we have incredible weather but last year it rained and was cold and this year we weren't sure what to expect. My camera was having issues due to the cold. I'm pretty sure it dipped into the 20's at night. Enjoy.

2011-10-01T19:03:00.000-07:00

This is the Blue River as it runs through the town of Breckenridge. It's pretty skinny water right now. It's more technical with all of the trees along the bank. To make matters more interesting, I decided to throw a streamer today because things were so overcast. A streamer is a larger fly that is fished sub-surface. They can imitate all kinds of stuff but today I was imitating small baitfish. I love fishing with streamers but I don't do it all that often. This river consists of much more pocket water. These are small holes, maybe the size of a car but not more than a foot or two deep.

I started at the north end of town and worked my up.

I could have fished this river with a nymph (which is what we typically use out here) but I wanted to get into something bigger. Within half an hour, I had this really nice buck that demolished the fly as soon as it hit the water. When the male brown trout get older their jaw starts to take on this hooked shape and you can start to see that happening with this one. The other way to tell he was a male is by what was on his fin and all over my leg. He was happy to see me. Looks like a big ole stick of butter with spots on it. I know I say this all the time but these are one of my favorite fish. This is the best picture of him as it was raining pretty hard at the time.

This is a cool statue that was made in honor of the 10th Mountain Division camp that was nearby and all the mountain training the troops did in this area.

Hope your Saturday was fun. Thanks for checking in.

2011-10-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

Heather and I made a commitment that, with her new job, we were going to really try to take advantage of our surroundings and do more fun stuff on the weekends. Too many times, we just end up staying in and say, "We'll do that next weekend" and that never happens. We were going to go over to Crested Butte today but I knew I wouldn't be able to drive past the Taylor River below the dam and not stop. So we headed over to Breckenridge.

How's your Aspen? The ones on the way up Wilkerson Pass were in full, golden effect.

As we made our way out of Alma and up Hoosier Pass, this nasty storm was brewin'.

This is actually just outside of Fairplay.

Heather said I could stop and fish a few spots if I wanted to so I brought along the 5 weight.

We grabbed some food and a few beers downstairs at Eric's and then did some shopping. I stopped by to see the boys at Breckenridge Outfitters. The flows on the Blue River as it flows right through town were probably in the mid-30's but the water was perfectly gin clear.

At the end of the Rainbow

2011-09-26T16:40:00.001-07:00

This is probably my favorite time of the year. The Aspens change. The air starts to get cooler. The Elk rut and bugle. The Brown trout spawn. We've had snow in the surrounding hills for weeks now and it looks amazing. I'm not doing much riding right now at all. I'm not sure what's going on with that whole area.

I have been back on the water a lot again and that feels good. Things are coming back really quickly. Yesterday I fished back up at Spinney Ranch. That's one of the more technical spots in Colorado. There are no gifts and many people get skunked there. Yesterday I caught all Rainbows. I worked this one for a solid 20 minutes with a 2 fly nymph rig. I changed the bottom fly 4 times and then this one decided, for whatever reason, to smash the lead fly which it had already seen a hundred times and probably been hit in the head with a dozen times. Trout always amaze me. If you look closely, you can see a tiny little midge fly on the upper left side of the mouth. I noticed it right after this pic and decided to remove the piercing.

I probably caught 10 of these guys today. Eager little beavers they are. It's always nice to catch any trout but these boogers would rush in and take the fly right before it got to the bigger fish that I was actually targeting, and thus, ruining the hole.

This fish was hungry. It inhaled a Black Beauty on the first drift.

Most of the bigger fish I landed today were 14 with one flirting with 16. I did see several fish in the 18-20 range and one was laid right up on the bank. As soon as I saw it I dropped to my knees behind the tall grass and watched for 5 minutes to make sure it was feeding. It was. Then I decided to take a crack at it. I had to raise the rod up a bit to unhook the flies and I got busted. Truly amazing.

As much as I love catching big fish, I need to start to getting some flies lined up for a little trip I'm taking here real soon. The fish will be smaller but they are stunning. Almost like holding a wet painting in your hand.

Cars

2011-09-24T07:38:00.001-07:00

Heather has just finished up her first three days of training at her new job. Things sound like they are going to be really cool for her. I'm almost a bit jealous. We initially thought she was going to be getting a Toyota Prius but yesterday her boss told her they were trying to get her a Jeep Liberty so travel on the Pass would be less dangerous. We're not sure what we will do with her Jeep now. This has opened the door to some preliminary discussions centering on vehicles for the kid. I love the green Subaru but we don't ever want to have 2 vehicle payments and this may be the time we get one newer vehicle.

I've always had car ADHD. There's lots of cars that I look at and think are cool but very few that I would actually ever want to own. The Subaru is sporty, roomy for gear, super on gas, it's a hoot to drive in the snow, and I have a thing for wagons. The one vehicle that I would like to get is a Toyota Tacoma but I know I can't afford one. The resale on those things is ridiculous. I cringe at the thought of a truck that has 100,000 miles on it and sells for $16 grand.

I also would love to have a VW Eurovan but, again, the resale on those is high. The other issue with that one is the inevitable transmission repair which could be 3 grand and it's only a matter of time with that.

A Jeep Wrangler would be fun but they don't seem very practical.

I'm more of a foreign car enthusiast but I sure do likes me a big fat Dodge Magnum. The HEMI would rock but I wouldn't want to fill it up at the pump. The SXT is the 250 horse motor and they make that one in AWD but I worry about that system for no other reason than I have no experience with it.

This brings me back to the Subarus and...my green one. It's different with all of the WRX and STI goodies we threw on it. It's fun to romp on it on the forest roads and I don't really care if it gets dinged. I also kinda want to see how many miles I can get the odometer to show.

It's hard being me.

My job....

2011-09-23T18:44:00.001-07:00

is nuthin' but work so far this year!! I decided to reward myself with a trip to the river tonight. I'm so glad I went. It was stunningly beautiful. It's hard to tell in this picture but you can see where the water flows together more towards the right bank. This is a deeper pool that was really nice. The rest of that water is 6-8". Things are starting to pick up and some bigger fish are moving up from the reservoir below and gearing up for the fall spawn.

Those that have ever fished with me out here know that I DO NOT stay in one place long. I cover lot's of ground and I move quickly. I am constantly scanning and looking for fish that are feeding. If I see something and it's not feeding, I don't waste time casting. A lot of guys will fish holes that simply look "fishy" but I normally don't do that. Tonight I came across a nice spot and decided to give it a go. I pulled this beauty out on the second drift through. This is a cross between a Cutthroat and a Rainbow Trout. It's a Cutt Bow. They still have the red and purple colors that a Rainbow has but the background is real dark versus the silver and green you see on Bows. The tell tale sign of the Cutt is just below the jaw. You can see a noticeable orange slash on both sides. Looks exactly like someone slit it's throat.

I was a little worried about his one. She took a solid 5 minutes to revive and then I watched her for another 10 minutes to make sure she was gonna make it.

Horrible crowds.

2011-09-18T18:45:00.001-07:00

Untitled from Chris Neumann on Vimeo.

Vehicles

2011-09-17T14:39:00.000-07:00

I've had Cherokees longer than any other vehicle. It seems that every car manufacturer always has some repair specific to it. Every vehicle eventually needs brakes. I'm talking about odd ball kinda stuff. Eventually, every Cherokee has to have a new section of wiring spliced into the harness where it passes through the A Pillar because the door speakers and power windows stop working. They made the wires a tad short from the factory and the wire breaks at some point. Today I found out one of the repairs that is specific to the Subaru Impreza. God awful noisy swaybar bushings and end links. When loose, or dry or worn, they make a clunk sound that is EXACTLY like you'd hear on a VW, Audi, or Subie that had a bad upper strut bearing or top hat. The suspension on this car was bought brand new so I knew it wasn't that or a blown strut. So this morning I went to pull the entire sway bar off and go for a drive. As soon as I pulled out of the driveway I knew I found the culprit. The end links and bushing inside them looked fine. I pulled off the swaybar bushing themselves and they looked fine too. I lubed them liberally and threw em back on and torqued everything to spec. Done. Clunk gone. I hadn't realized how loud and often it did it until now. Supa quiet again. Worst part of the job was dropping the sub-frame but it was still a fun job.

The bears are HUNGRY right now!

2011-09-11T14:23:00.000-07:00

It's a mad dash to put on some pounds before a long nap. We're seeing a lot of bears in town right now. On my way out this morning, I passed one of the Mexican restaurants by the house (not Casa Grande...the only time I've been there was when I promptly left after finding a hair in my beer). It's the other one. The name slips me right now. It doesn't look like much from the outside but they can burn it up in the kitchen. Anyways...one of their dumpsters has a wooden fence around it (more decorative really) but it was destroyed. It took me a second to realize that the dumpster was actually on it's side too so they weren't messing around last night. There's another restaurant in town that's got wonderful food. It's a bit pricey but it's a real treat to go there once in a while. It's the Swiss Chalet. I happen to know the owners and I ran into her the other day. She serves on the Chamber of Commerce and I wanted to ask her who I could contact to talk about trash containers and bears in our fair city. She happened to have a video camera with her and showed me footage from the day before of a big boar that was in the process of getting into their dumpster. I asked why the dumpster wasn't bear proof. She smiled and said, "It is". It's pretty impressive to see the damage even the small bears can cause. She said they've built the fence around their dumpster several times now and they just keep ripping it down. The metal rods that run across the top of the lids just don't hold up either. I watched the video as he bent that rod and flipped up the lid and slid on in as the lid closed behind him. I'd hate to open up that thing while taking the trash out after my shift and find him sitting in there.

A Tranquil Recon

2011-09-11T14:00:00.000-07:00

I wanted to do a ride today and see some new stuff so I busted out the Gazeteer and Topofusion and threw something together. I headed out and started to make my way towards Divide via the back roads. Then I decided to ride into the Tranquil Acres area. Things pretty much dead end back that way. Not sure why but when we were looking at houses we were told to avoid looking in that general area. I figured I'd go back there on a bicycle and see what the fuss was all about. It's still pretty warm up here and this guy was on the move. I helped him expedite the process a bit.

I am horribly out of shape right now. It was a fun ride but there was no shortage of suffering and heavy breathing.

I saw this sign not long after making the turn into Tranquil Acres. Luckily, I fear no reprisal.

Way back where the road ends, there looked to be a trail connecting it to another subdivision further up in Divide. Some almost forgotten double track is what I found and that did the job.

Much of the early riding was this kind of stuff.

Eventually I popped out in Florissant. My plan was to grab lunch and a cold beer at this place called the Thunderbird Inn (hey...the sign says "Welcome bikers"). It's all I had been thinking about for the 10 miles prior. I get there and get off my bike only to see the sign on the door that reads, "Cash and local checks only...no credit cards". Who carries cash now days?? So I sat out front and ate some Gummi Bears, smoked almonds, and a Honey Stinger Waffle while I listened to folks inside hoot and holler and stared at a neon beer sign. Then I took off and started to make my way home.

On one particularly painful climb, I looked up and saw a big dog standing in the road 50 yards up and thought, "Really?" About a half second later he started barking and running straight at me. With no water bottles to spray him down with, I considered throwing some Sunkist fruit chews at him really hard but then I decided to talk like a jackass. It always seems to make Dharma and Bodhi happy. It worked and before long he was on his back letting me rub his belly. He paced me up the rest of the climb before I told him to go home. I ended up being out for a bit under 4 hours and covered 50 miles.

The build begins

2011-09-09T15:20:00.001-07:00

Fed Ex just dropped off this.

I looked at a 20" locally about a week ago and was stunned at how long it was. I thought I may have missed the boat on this frame. The new colors are out and I don't care for them at all. Salsa was all out of Bomb Pop Blue 18" frames so I started scouring the internets. I found this one through Speedgoat. The top tube is the same as my carbon bike which is really nice as I didn't wanna deviate too much from that. Head tube is the same once I factor in the 30mm stack height of a Chris King headset. This bike is going to have a rigid fork (not sure what yet) so even with the sag difference vs. suspension the bars should be right where I need them.

I really like these alternator dropouts. Neat idea. I absolutely love the color. Back when I worked for Riteway (which was a distributor for GT Bicycles) I used to have a baby blue Zaskar. Well I only had it for about a week or so and then I got the bubble gum pink GT Psyclone (that frame was fillet brazed) that I should have never let go of. Still upset about that to this day. Anyway...this color reminds me of that Zaskar.

This is going to be built up as a single and I am going to ride it that way for 12 full months. My goal is to keep the carbon bike totally together (although I may rob the wheels from it). This bike is all but built in my head but that's where the details are staying. I'll post pics as parts slowly trickle in but this will be kind of a winter build up for me.

Bears and irresponsible people

2011-09-07T20:06:00.000-07:00

Normally our trash gets picked up on Tuesdays but, with the holiday, we got pushed back a day. Yesterday when I was pulling up the street after work and saw my neighbor's trash cans still out, I told myself that bears would be on the street later on. Sure enough...Heather went to let the dogs out before bed and she came running back in telling me it sounded like an animal was in the front yard. I grabbed my light and headed out the front door. Immediately I saw 3 sets of eyes staring back at me. They were about 50 yards away and tossing the neighbor's trash cans. This frustrates me to no end. I walked down the driveway and into the street and then could clearly see that it was a sow and 2 cubs doing the damage. I yelled for them to get and the sow huffed and then she actually false charged a bit. That's the first time I've had that happen to me. I picked up a big rock and hucked it at her and yelled again and made a fuss and the cubs scattered up a tree and mom ran a few yards away. They re-grouped and I did it again before they took off. It's that time of year when bears are trying to fatten up of for the winter and they're looking for an easy meal. But too many bears were killed this year for behaviors that were likely learned and that saddens me as it's not their fault.

2011-09-05T16:45:00.000-07:00

It was another beautiful day today. We hiked a trail that's just up the street from our house. Just one guy while we were out and he was carrying his dog in a bag. Bodhi can hike all day long but I'm afraid Dharma is getting up there in age and it's beginning to show. She will simply just lay down from time to time and protest.

This was early in the hike and Dharma still had some pep in her step.

Happy Labor Day everyone.

Saturday ride

2011-09-05T16:33:00.001-07:00

Got out yesterday for a nice 3 hour ride. I had a route planned but it quickly got the kibosh after I saw and heard all of the people shooting in the vicinity I was wanting to go off in. So I rode down Rampart for a while before I got tired of choking on dust from all the vehicles passing by and looked for an alternative route to my alternative route.

This is some of the singletrack I was on for a while.

The temperatures were awesome yesterday. I think the high only hit the low 60's.

The flowers are starting to disappear. The air feels like fall. The days are getting a tad shorter.

It was so nice to get out for a ride. I've missed riding my bike and seeing cool things.

New frame

2011-09-04T14:20:00.001-07:00

My wife gets a new job and then tells me that I can build a new bike. I didn't ask any questions. I kinda had a frame in mind for a while now and was going to just go that route but then she asks if I want something special. She's the greatest. As much I would love to have a Todd build something for me right now, I'm going to hold off a bit longer. The reason? I've wanted a true dedicated SS frame for a while now but I want to make sure that's what I want before going custom. I'm going to ride SS for a full year and then make a decision. At that point, I can have him do a SS frame or keep the swinger dropouts on their and throw on a hanger too and then have some options. I've just really liked the idea of SS for a few years now but I've never ridden one long enough.

So what did I buy? I almost switched things up last week and bought a ti Salsa El Mariachi but, again, I really wanted to run SS without a Singulator. So I ordered an El Mariachi steel frame. It's going to get built up over the winter and it's gonna be a slow process. In my head I know exactly how it's gonna turn out except for the fork and, for that, I need to talk to some people and go look at some stuff to make up my mind. This bike is going to be different though and it should look insane. I'll post pics of things as they come together.

Congratulations!

2011-09-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

After much deliberation, many pro's and con's lists, sleepless nights, minor nausea, and some crying...my wife has decided to take a new job. She applied for this job way back in April and there were many hoops to jump through. At one point during the summer, she had actually formally withdrawn her application because she was tired of the process but then that's when the phone started lighting up with calls from HR and even calls from the Director himself all but begging her to do a phone interview. She declined and after half a dozen more calls she gave in. She did good during the phone interview then she had to take another test and then, finally, a face to face. They made an offer 3 weeks ago and she countered. It took a week and half for them to get back to her. In the end, they were able to meet up and seal the deal.

She will now be working for the state and she'll be visiting with Social Services offices in Teller County (ours), Douglas, Canyon City, Pueblo, and La Junta and making sure that everything is being done the way it should be. She will also be in a position to be more of an impetus for change at the state level. She's very excited and a bit nervous. I'm extremely proud of her. She's always made more money than me but now I'm slightly embarrassed to say that I only provide for slightly less than 37% of the furnishings in this house. It's a good thing I'm so damn good looking.

2011-09-01T19:16:00.000-07:00

Tonight's project involved a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee that was literally puking coolant from somewhere. After a real quick look I figured it was either coming from the water pump, a split hose or maybe a freeze plug. After opening the hood, I realized that, even though the Grand Cherokee has the same motor as the Cherokee, the configuration of almost everything else is really different. I wanted to remove the fan shroud, fan, serpentine belt, power steering pump, and air compressor just so I could get a better look at things near the water pump. After a lot of questioning and some cursing, I realized that in order to pull the stinkin' fan shroud, the entire front end has to come off including the radiator. The fan shroud is held on with 4 bolts and the bottom 2 are literally right up on the unibody. Not sure what Chrysler was thinking other than not having consumers work on their own vehicles.

Eventually I gave up on the shroud and was able to wiggle the belt off and then remove the power steering pump and then I saw the forward most freeze plug was about halfway out. It was a freeze plug block heater and the bolt was hand tight. Once I pulled it out this is how the inside looked:

Weird. The left tightening arm is completely gone and the right one is cracked so it literally was ready to fall out which explains why it was leaking as bad as it was. I am ecstatic to not have to do the water pump on this dumb vehicle.

Soapbox

2011-08-26T19:41:00.000-07:00

I don't climb up here often but I'm feeling sassy. The Department of Wildlife recently tracked and put down a bear over near Aspen. This bear had bitten 2 people on 2 separate occasions (a Friday and then a Saturday). They found him at 0700 Sunday morning and killed him. The camper from Saturday's incident did admit that they had food in the tent. And now a bear has been destroyed. Very little makes me more upset than hearing about things like this. A bear that learned a behavior because of irresponsible people is now dead.

This has inspired me to look into something.

All done

2011-08-21T07:49:00.001-07:00

I picked these up yesterday morning. I love them. Most of the minor scratches that were bothering me are all but gone. Rob charged me a whopping 10 dollars to polish them up. If you have anything that needs polishing...go see him at Front Range Polishing. I poked around quite a bit to see some of the stuff he was working on. There was no shortage of skulls that were to be used for choppers or shift knobs but I was more impressed by the trim off an older Chevy pickup, parts and pieces off a pot belly stove and, of course, two sets of Ford flatheads.

Really?

2011-08-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

If you know me you know that I'm not really a people person. Sometimes I think people are the worst. I am not the type of person that engages in conversation with strangers all that often. The other day I'm in a waiting room avoiding eye contact with others and acting extremely interested in an article in Time magazine. Really I was just looking at pictures. There's a guy who's wearing a beret. There's nothing wrong with that...I'm just trying to set the scene for you visual folks. He's talking with a few other guys about whatever. All of a sudden he asks if they wanna hear a story. They say yes. Who's gonna say no in that position? He scoots over closer to them and starts in about his father. Then I overhear that his father is no longer with us. Then I feel bad because that's unfortunate for anyone. He goes on (in a bit of a whisper) about how his father lost an eye. I forget how but that's so not important. Well this guy talks about how after his father passed on he wanted to do something special. Next thing I know this guy pulls out a necklace and the pendant....you guessed it. It's his father's fake eye. Then he says that his father is always keeping an eye on him.

Recently when my father in-law passed on, Heather and I were going through his belongings. It felt very inappropriate at first for me and I left the room and went to watch t.v. and thought about it. The next morning after talking with my friend Adam, I realized that if he were still living, he would want to show me all of the really neat stuff he had accumulated through the years. As we looked through his jewelry, I found a Saint Christopher necklace and pendant that he wore a lot. Before I drove back to Colorado I asked Heather if I could have it and she said yes. I was baptized Catholic but I've been at odds with God for years. I hope it's not disrespectful to wear it. It's not a fake eye but who am I to judge how other's remember loved ones?

2011-08-18T20:21:00.000-07:00

I have been struggling with Heather's Jeep for about 6 months now. About a month ago I was done with the thing. I actually talked to her about burning it or crashing it while flying back from PA last week. In the past 2 months it's gotten new tires, 2 tire balances, 3 alignments, new tracbar, new draglink and all tierods, new steering stabilizer, new AC compressor. After all this, it had some weird shimmy at 49-51mph. Normally this is indicative of a tire balance issue but I had it done twice in 2 weeks with no change. I also swapped a set of tires from a known good vehicle onto it and there was no change. I had a buddy that built me a custom steering setup for it look at it and he couldn't find anything other than a slightly loose tracbar bolt. Then I dropped it off with another buddy while we were in PA and let him deal with it. He also found a few issues but couldn't solve the shimmy problem. I had no clue what else to do with it. I found a Dana 30 axle in Denver that I was considering installing (but dreading) just to see if that would work. Before I did that, I decided to get it aligned once more with a different guy that had a laser rack. I took it to him today and walked up the street to get the worst sandwich I've ever had and a beer. After I got back Clark said the alignment was a tad off and...the front tires were about 1/4 ounce off. That's significant. He threw me the keys and said he didn't feel the shimmy any more. Yeah right. I took it out and was stunned. We have spent about 2 grand on that thing in the last 2 months and the issue was the result of lazy mechanics. We're thrilled to not have to drive it off a cliff. If you're local and in need of a good/trustworthy mechanic...let me know and I'll get you in touch with Clark.

2011-08-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

Here they are:

There are still some very fine scratches in them. It's hard for me to tell if they're going to be noticeable when they're on the bike and not in isolation. The new bike will be more colorful than my Orbea so that will help.

I'm not sure I can get much better just working with my hands. I think what I'm going to do is find a metal or hot rod shop down in Colorado Springs and take them in and ask if they think they can do better.

Bling!!!

2011-08-17T20:52:00.000-07:00

Just for grins I decided to hit this arm with some polishing compound before stopping for the day. Real happy with this. Now I'll start in on the other one.

More crank work

2011-08-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

It's no surprise that when I went back down to the garage today, I wasn't happy with the work that I had done yesterday. I noticed a few spots that needed more sanding with 150 grit. So yesterday's efforts were in vane as I roughed things up again. Here's after I was really done with the 150.

This is after 220 and some 400 wet sanding. At this point I had one arm in a bench vise and noticed 2 nice gouges in it after repositioning it. Back to 150 again and no more vice.

I also decided that, while I was re-doing things with 150, that I'd go back and touch up some gouges that I had lazily left on the back of the crank arms and then I decided to take off the factory stamping as well.

This is how I just left this arm. This is after a ton of 600 wet sanding, and then I jumped straight to 1500 wet. Then I used a buffer that I mounted in the vice and used rubbing compound. This is pretty good but not at all what I was hoping for. I still have a long way to go but they're gonna look good.

Cranky

2011-08-16T15:24:00.001-07:00

These XTR 960 cranks arrived today. These were purchased for a bike build that I've had dancing around my head for several months now. I bought them strictly to run singlespeed. The previous owner had done a decent job of polishing them but then I got hold of a hacksaw.

I lopped off what I didn't want.

Then I spent the rest of the day with a file and sandpaper. There were a few deeper gouges that I wanted to get rid of. Because of their location, these were quite tricky.

I was pretty happy with the top 2 arms here. The lowers were a real good time (especially the inside where they meet up with the crank arm). I spent a good hour with some 150 grit sandpaper getting out all of the deeper imperfections and I'm almost there now but decided to take a break. I've always thought these were the sharpest set of cranks. Ever. They will look stunning with a Blackspire ring. I'm hoping I can unload my Cannondale road bike and come up with the frame/fork that I want to run but we'll see if it's meant to be. I'll post more pics of the cranks as I work.

2011-08-16T08:14:00.000-07:00

We just got back from my friend Leo's wedding up in Erie, Pennsylvania. I had never been up that way and it was gorgeous. Very green. I was in the wedding party so that's the reason for the tuxedo. If I was not going to live in the mountains, I would absolutely have to be by water and the Great Lakes are like being on the ocean. The weather was fantastic until after the wedding was over and then there was all day thunderstorms. It's been years since I've woken up to rain and thunder and seen nothing but gray skies all day long.

So long

2011-08-09T17:25:00.001-07:00

My friend Tim might have someone interested in buying my road bike so it's heading that direction. I hardly used it at all this year and it deserves to be ridden. For some reason, I am unable to do longer than a 2 hour ride on it without having a horrible pain in my upper left arm. This thinning of the herd will allow me to build up another bike. I have something in mind but I'm not letting the cat out of the bag just yet.

I have something on the way from ebay. The transaction didn't go very smoothly so I'm hoping I didn't just toss 100 out the window but we'll see.

The highlight of the day was seeing the cub cruise through the front lawn. My neighbor yelled at some people walking and the race was on as he booked it across the creek in front of the house and then through the field. Him and mom have been hanging out over here for about a month now but I had yet to see either of them. Never gets old.

Update of sorts

2011-08-09T17:08:00.001-07:00

So I had to take Bodhi in to the vet for his annual shots. While I was there I thought I'd check in on Hooter the Long Eared Owl. Turns out that the surgery to his left wing didn't fix it because the joint was broken. This meant that they were going to put him down but, at the Golden Hour, they found an educational agency that would take his sassy ass. So he's going to a local woman that does educational presentations in the area here (at Mueller State Park, the Wolf Sanctuary, etc.). So I'll get to see him again once I find out when he'll be making appearances.

I also got a call from my fabulous doctor yesterday. This is odd. When does your doctor ever call you out of the blue? This is the same doctor that did not want me to be on a CPAP machine even after the test results showed huge improvements in my oxygen intake and sleep patterns when on it. Instead, she wanted me to take drugs that would make me wired all day and, hopefully, sleep better at night but never get to the actual root of the problem. This is also the same doctor that wanted me to get a saddle sore cut out. Anyways...I visited her a bit over a week before this year's CTR with a sore throat. They said that since I was already on 1 antibiotic for the saddle sore (Cephalexin) that there wasn't any reason to do another for the throat. They also said the results were negative for Strep. So yesterday she asks if I'm still feeling bad and does my throat still hurt. Well.....yes. It does actually. That's because the results (the real ones I guess) really indicated that I did (do) have Strep. So now I'm on Amoxicillin which is probably what I should have been on the first place. I am now looking for a new doctor.

More cool bikes

2011-08-06T10:53:00.001-07:00

I stole this picture of Eric's bike from his blog. It takes a lot for me to get a little jealous of someone else's ride. I love what he's done here. The Wolfhound is not a bike that I've ever liked. I'm just not all that into crazy bends in tubes (unless it's more traditional like a McClung, Pereira, or Retrotec kinda thing). I do find fillet brazed bikes to be really attractive though. The rest of the build is an Eriksen post, Blacksheep fork and mustache bars, and Industry Nine wheels. I will admit that, for a few seconds, I did consider tripping him at the start of the CTR, spraying Tri-Flow in his eyes and then punking him for his wheels but I kept it classy. It's probably a good thing I didn't do it too because I recently found out that he has a clinic over in Pbville that practices Traditional Chinese Medecine and I'm going to see if he can help me out with my neck.

Absolutely lovely build Eric. It's inspired me and, although I love my Orbea and they will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands, I am considering building up something over the winter. Details forthcoming.

Here we go

2011-07-29T18:02:00.000-07:00

I don't have a whole lot to say about the effort this year. I'm excited to go but we'll see where my head's at once I get riding. It's been a rough summer. 3 weeks ago I felt like I was on another level. In the last 2 weeks I pulled something in my neck again, I had a sore throat that has now turned into a wonderful sinus infection, and to top things off, I had a lovely little saddle sore. I took 4 days off the bike totally and was drugged up and slept most of the day while we had out of town guests here (I'm a wonderful host). I used heat and ice on my neck when I wasn't sleeping and it's a bit looser now but still has a tight spot. My cold is on the way out but I still have that tingly head thing going on. And...I can now say that an irritated saddle sore doesn't hurt nearly as much as getting a shot directly in the middle of one does.

I'm still riding off road so my bike won't get the final cleaning/tune until early Sunday morning. I have the capacity to carry 8 bottles of water this year (in ounces...not literally 8 bottles). With 6 full bottle ounces and enough food to last me for 24 hours, I am at 40 pounds. That's at least 8 pounds lighter than in 2009 and I thought that was pretty well sorted.

I'm a little surprised at the number of starters on the list. There are some big names that are missing so they may still show up. The first 6 miles of singletrack are really overgrown and tight so that might be interesting. I have a solid game plan for this year and I'm confident that I can stick to it mentally and ride my own race. My heart rate was sky high on today's ride but that's likely from the illness/recent stress and the excitement of the looming start. If my legs and head are good then I hope to play a few big hands this year. We'll all know soon enough.

Thanks for checking in. Thanks for the support. Talk to ya later.

75!!!

2011-07-28T17:58:00.001-07:00

That's the number of southbound racers as of tonight.

Colors

2011-07-20T19:22:00.001-07:00

One of the things I miss about living in the midwest is seeing the storms move in from a long ways off and seeing them come to life. I used to love teaching weather. When I was doing a lot of stuff with my 35mm camera I'd be up on parking garages shooting film of them moving in. Out here, we sometimes get these really vivid colors either before a storm or immediately after it breaks. They don't last long. Maybe a minute. When it happens it's magical. It light's up the field in front of our house and the pines on the surrounding peaks. This doesn't do any justice but this is with zero editing. Right after I took this the lightning bolts started popping off in the orange.

Other new stuff

2011-07-20T18:31:00.001-07:00

I waited a bit long this year on new shoes. That wasn't the plan but it's the hand I was dealt. I ended up buying the X Alp Elite shoes from Pearl Izumi. It's a bit different from the X Alp shoe I've used the last 3 years but I really like it. I will say that I have never had a more difficult time getting my cleats dialed in before. In the last 2 weeks, I have made multiple adjustments on every ride. The shoe might be cut a bit differently than the old pair but I also got a size bigger this time. I think I might have gotten it sorted today. This was the first ride that felt comfortable on my feet while pedaling. These shoes are incredible while hiking.

My other recent purchase was a new pack from Osprey. I have no clue why I didn't buy this pack sooner. It's that comfortable. With my old pack, I had to constantly throw it around on my back as it shifted on both trails and roads. This pack just doesn't move. It's also loaded with features. I have first aid stuff, tools, pump, tube, baby wipes, water filter stuff, and rain jacket hidden and I haven't put a thing in the main compartment yet.

I weighed my bike last night. I still haven't put on my new tires. They should be a bit lighter but not much. Bike, rear Carousel seat bag with bivy and bag, Revelate Designs gastank bag with enough food for 6 hours of riding, front Carousel roll bag with arm/knee warmers, rain knickers, wool socks, long sleeve base layer, fleece hat, down vest, and fleece mittens, GPS, and heart rate monitor all come in at 31.25lbs. I'm pretty sure I'm calling an audible right now in the area of my sleeping system and bringing a down bag instead of leaving it at home (although I'll make the final call at the last minute). If I did that, I could be sub 30 but I do think I'd be in trouble if I got hurt and had to hunker down for a long night in dropping temps. I always think back to '09 when I bivied at Camp Hale and totally froze through the night. I woke up with everything covered in thick frost. Tomorrow I'll load up the pack and see what it weighs and have a good idear of where I'll be. I remember complaining about how heavy 32lbs felt a month ago. Now I don't even notice it. I'm glad I rode fully loaded most of the summer.

Thanks for checking in. Hope you're all well.

Cycles of Life

2011-07-20T18:01:00.000-07:00

The grassroots deal with Honey Stinger is fantastic and I'm proud to be a part of it but I was actually looking for more than just good deals on products. We've gone back and forth with each other since March and just were not able to hook up on any cycling clothing. They had jerseys in stock back then but no bib shorts. I was told several times that bibs were on the way but held off on ordering any clothing at all until everything was in. The website still shows no bibs but, after talking to them the other day, they've been in for a while now but won't be on the site. So I went to order them and now they are out of jerseys. I'm disappointed because I really wanted to represent them but I had to figure out something else because I needed clothing.

About a week ago, my friend Marshal said something about not really having anything to say about unfortunate events in life other than the typical things that folks say with good intentions. The night I happened to be reading his comments was a rough one for me but one thing caught my attention. Cycles of Life. I called Brian over at Cycles of Life up in Leadville a few days later and asked if he could set me up with some clothing and he told me to come on up. If you're in Pbville, stop in and check out the shop.

I am slowly getting out of the funk I've been in since the funeral. I don't know how things will go for me but we'll soon be finding out.

????

2011-07-11T19:54:00.000-07:00

The drive back to Missouri was interesting. We found out about Dad's passing at lunch time on Thursday and the rest of that day and all of Friday would be a complete whirlwind. We tied up loose ends here, and hit the road at 0530 Friday. As we made our way through Kansas, something didn't feel right but I kept it to myself. The temps heated up and, at one point, Heather reached over to turn up the AC. That's when I knew something was wrong. She's never hot. The AC wasn't running as cold as it should be. I pulled over and found smoke coming from the back of the AC pulley. Things seemed better with the compressor off so I figured we would just have to run without the AC. Even though I knew that he had already passed, I felt a huge sense of urgency to get us to St. Louis as fast as possible.

About 100 miles later, I got off at Salina to get fuel and could hear the pulley singing. I knew we were not going to make it all the way and we'd be lucky to get to a gas station. Once at a truck stop I began to think about options. I finally limped 3 miles to an Auto Zone and went inside to ask about an AC fan clutch assembly. I was hoping to be able to replace just the pulley and retain the freon and the AC. Nobody in Salina had the clutch but Auto Zone had the entire compressor. So I started working in the parking lot and the 103 degree temps. My idea was to try to pull the clutch off the vehicle and swap it with the clutch on the new compressor. I wasted about an hour trying to make that work before I realized that the cover plate on the clutch had moved independently from the internals and this made it impossible to use a puller to remove the pulley from the compressor. So then I decided to just swap compressors. The compressor is held on by 4 bolts and then you have to remove 2 lines from it. I felt terrible releasing the freon into the environment but I felt like I needed to get my wife home faster than Tuesday (it was a holiday weekend and nobody was able to bleed the system and recharge it for me). And just so you know...I did try my best to come up with a way to bypass the AC entirely but Jeep uses one serpentine belt so when the AC goes, you don't go anywhere.

Soon we were on our way again and we finally made it to the house at about midnight. Normally the drive doesn't take nearly that long but I was stressed to the max, hot as hell, worried about my wife, concerned about the dogs in the heat, and I was not thinking clearly so it took a while to come up with a list of options and then go through them piece by piece.

The viewing was on Wednesday night and it was a tough pill to swallow. My father in law wanted a very traditional Catholic burial and, while I respect his wishes, I just didn't think he looked like himself and it was very hard for Heather and I to see him like that. I'll never forget watching that casket close. The trip to the cemetery wasn't any easier.

I'm back in Colorado now but Heather is still trying to handle some things back home. One thing Heather said pretty quickly after hearing the news was that this couldn't impact the CTR. I shrugged it off but she had that look in her eye and made it pretty clear. I didn't do much riding at all in St. Louis as the heat was simply unbearable. Today I pretty much napped all day and thought about things. Obviously, I have a lot of emotions right now. I'm sad. I'm very angry. I'm confused. I'm tired. I'm angry. But I'm not going to disrespect him and miss the race. I'm not going to use his passing as an excuse. I know I'm going to have to keep a leash on my emotions and not let them dictate things any different than I can let anyone else dictate things.

I've done a lot of thinking about faith. I truly believe that he will be with me. Watching down on me.

I miss him. I wish I had called him one more time.

Rolla Hade...

2011-06-30T10:23:00.000-07:00

was my Father in-law. He was a cowboy and spent much of his younger days traveling the rodeo scene as a talented roper. I always thought being on a farm and having all kinds of animals would be a neat way to live life even though I'm sure it takes more hard work than I am aware of but I liked the idea of driving a pickup through the property or putting in a hard days work and then watching the sun go down while sitting back on the porch. In 2008 he was battling colon cancer. He managed to rope that steer too and was soon given a clean slate. After all that, he dropped about 80 pounds and had a new lease on life. Most of the time when Heather and I called him he would be out doing stuff again. Swimming, going back to rodeos, or spending the night out with the boys shooting pool, smoking cigars and maybe even having a cold brew. He even talked about coming back out here to visit us again to see if he could tolerate the altitude now that he was feeling so much better (he wasn't able to stay for our wedding because of altitude related issues).

For the last month or so, Rolla started feeling poorly again. He complained of stomach aches and pains and loss of appetite. He had a test earlier this week that showed an area of concern on his liver and another on a lung. He was scheduled for some further testing tomorrow to see if the cancer had come back again. We suspected it had. We spoke to him last night and he sounded genuinely worried.

Rolla passed away in his sleep last night.

I remember talking with him shortly after marrying his lovely daughter. I asked him if I could call him "dad". Those that know me understand that I haven't used that word in a long time but I've wanted to for quite a while. I was so thrilled when I would call him and say, "Hey Dad".

This puts something as trivial as annoying brakes into perspective rather quickly. I'm so glad he didn't suffer.

I will miss you more than you know. May you rest in peace...Dad.