Great weekend for Team 212

Yep, I've got some big shoes to fill. The bar got set pretty high this weekend at the NUE race. MFCP rocketed his way to a 2nd overall in the Big boys race. Darrin won the 65 miler and Lisa pulled a 4th out in the women's 65. Michelle was right there in 7th and Mark and Scott did really well, too. (Sorry guy's, I'm surprised I remembered that much.) I'm sure that the drive home was filled with great stories as the racing conditions were far from ideal. Me, I sat on the in home torture device and ground out some intervals. In case you didn't know or forgot, Iola is next weekend. Many questions will be answered and I'm sure many more will be posed. Pretty sure that there will be some 212 jerseys on the podium, though.
On a side note, hopefully the S-Works shoe shine machine shows up soon. Gotta' keep these babies shined up and lookin' sweet.

And it's over

So we left Denver Saturday morning and drove to Council Bluffs to ride at the Lewis and Clark Monument trails. Yep, Iowa. It was pretty cool riding but very confusing. Lots of trails going to nowhere or shortcuts and we got pretty lost which was unfortunate as we were time crunched. We rode for about 45 minutes and high tailed it to Iowa City to meet Kyle and Robin Williams for a couple beers and to set up a plan for the morning. We got there about 9:45 pm and left the establishment about 11:30 or so. Little did we know there was a soccer tournament and other happenings in Iowa City that weekend so we drove around for an hour or so looking for hotels. We ended up at a, how do I put this, dumpy maybe, (?) Motel 6. After not so much sleep the Williams picked us up and we rode the Sugar Bottom trails. That was fun. It really helped having a guided tour of the place as we didn't have to stop at all to figure out where to go next. I would recommend riding here if you're ever close to Iowa City. The trails were fast and flowy even uphill and it was a great ending to our trip. We thanked to Robin and Kyle for showing us around and then headed for Madison to pick up the girls. Got home, picked up the dogs, unpacked, fired the boiler back up, mowed the lawn and called it a day.
Thanks to the Gramma's for watching the girls and dogs. Thanks to everyone on the trip for putting up with me and my gas problem. Looking forward to Breckenridge in July!

Kokepelli wrap up

Today was sweet! Spencer and I rode every trail at the place in the 2 times we were here this trip and today I think we hit up the best of them all. Warmed up on Rustlers Loop, then took Mary's loop to Steve's loop. Steve's had some spectacular views in the canyons we were in. Then we hit Lion's Loop to Troy Built and that was amazing. Awesome fast descents and some good climbs. Then it was a long, steep double track climb back up to Lions Loop to finish that loop up. That last section of Lion's was super cool. So many different types of rocks and dirt layers all the way down and the trail was a blast to ride. That wrapped it up for us. Got back to the car and loaded up to high tail it down the road to Beau Jo's for some delicious Mountain Pie. Hoping to ride some Front Range singletrack tomorrow.

Spencer Lost his @ss cherry!

Yep, it's true. His seat got to him before I could. Other than that it was another great day of riding bikes. The trails here are really technical and tight but mostly rideable which is nice. Some really fast flowy trail with countless drops and rock gardens yet again

This one was super cool as it was full of big boulders and tight lines but we made it through.

These kind of rocks are always fun.

Hmmm, another steep drop after yet another rock garden. I'm starting to sense some kind of trend and I like it.

We all crashed a little today. I fell of the edge of the trail and landed on my back. That was a little scary, I won't lie. Spencer almost did the same move but managed to stay upright and jump/run down the slope avoiding injury. Bryan took a trip over the bars in a pretty good spot to not crash in that was pretty close to launching of the edge of the world. I'm pretty sure if I could have seen his eyes they would've been bigger than the cowpies at Potter's Pasture. But we all made it back to the hotel ok. We rode most of the trails at this cluster today. Not sure yet what tomorrow brings but I'm confident that after a couple fine malt beverages we'll figure it out.

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Porcupine Rim

Was flippin' sweet! I remembered liking this trail last time but my skills must have gotten marginally better because this time we rode most everything and had a blast. After the initial climb it actually is mostly downhill the rest of the way with countless drops and fast rock garden sections like the one Bryan is coming down in the picture. Lisa was grinning ear to ear riding her S-Works Era race couch. It's official now as 2 days in a row she's mentioned how much she loves her new bike. Thank you, Michelle.

I finally got a flat today about 10 minutes after Lisa got her 2nd of the trip. I had to ride the last section of the trail from a few minutes before the place you cross the creek bed that's unrideable back into town on a low tire as we went through all the tubes we had. It was still awesome. We headed back to Grand Junction and we're going to try out some more riding here the next couple of days. Plenty of riding to do in these parts.

Slickrock

Not to be confused with Slick Shoes from the movie The Goonies. At Slickrock there is plenty of friction. There were mulitple close calls today from all of us but we all came away with most of our skin. Although a pitch like this looks pretty easy to climb in a picture, the cost of not making the ascent is mucho skino.

It took us a while to get the hang of riding here. The grip is phenomenal and once I started trusting the tires would not slip 99% of the time it got even more enjoyable.

Pictures don't really do the rock formations justice but I thought this was pretty neat. It looks like something from the Lord of the Rings. Off to Porcupine Rim tomorrow.

18 Road Trails

So we rode the 18 Road Trails in Fruita today. It was super windy later in the morning and it made some of the trails pretty interesting. They (whoever "they" are) were forecasting 40+ mph wind gusts and it sure felt like it. Up on trails like Joe's Ridge the wind actually blew Niki off the trail! She was noticeably less enthusastic about riding after that. As you can see below we were quite vulnerable to wind and where she got tipped over it was a pretty steep slope. She needs a little more junk in her trunk I guess. Bryan is in the middle of this picture tearing it up. We rode all the trails here today at least once. One time we were attacked by tumbleweeds going 20 mph. There were 100's of them rolling along by us for a while. They looked like animals running in the distance.

This canyon was much like a lot of the other canyons we rode in and it was pretty sweet.

Here, Lisa show us proper technique for pushing a bike up the trail.

And this is her smiling because her new bike is so flippin' sweet. She did get the first flat of the trip today but that's how it goes.

So now we're in Moab ready to try some of the hot riding action here. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Faroota

So we rode the Kokopelli trails today. Warmed up on the Rustlers Loop trail, then rode Mary's loop to the Horsethief trail

back onto Mary's to Moore Fun. Same loops we did 5 years ago when we were here last. Surprisingly I have gained some fitness since then and it was fun to be back. Moore Fun stilled totally kicked my @ss though. The guys on their 6"+ travel bikes were riding it like it was flat. I was not...



Lisa got her first crash out of the way, Bryan crushed the boys and Spencer got his upper thighs tanned. That was a little disturbing. I bet he uses moisturizer. Freak

Here are some pictures from the Potters Pasture trails in Nebraska. We climbed a little. The erosion is spectacular as the cows have the run of the place and they do so much damage. It's amazing what the big money industries can get away with. Mountain Bike trails get shut down at the slightest hint of erosion and the bovines destroy acres of land and it's all ok.



That's me dominating the 6 guy climb. Well, I guess now it's the 8 Guy Climb, really. I was hoping it would be "and a gal" but it wasn't meant to be.


First full day in Colorado is in the books. We fooded up and had some beers to ready us for tomorrow. A little more Fruita and then to Moab is the plan.

Riding Nebraska

Yep, that Nebraska. And I liked it. We stopped in at this place to check it out and by chance met up with Chad and Kyle, 2 of the 3 guys that run the place. The riding was pretty fun and it was a nice break from driving. We had done our research before getting there and new the story behind the Six Guy Climb trail so when we found them we had them show us where the trail was. We descended it first then turned around and went for glory. So I gave it a go and then it became 7 guy climb followed up by Spencer and it became 8 guy climb. I went back down and did it again to make sure the first time wasn't a fluke and made it again. Damn I'm smooth. We rode with those guys a little longer and then packed back up said our goodbye's and bee-lined it to Idaho Springs to get some delicious beer and pizza at Beau Jo's. After gorging myself we finished up the drive to Grand Junction and finally got some sleep. Pictures soon. Looking forward to riding somewhere in the Fruita area today.