Big bucks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?