The Mongolia Chronicles

Tacky Perfection

Mini-shred was really making me proud yesterday. Regardless of the tenor of his day, he gets on his bike and he just goes for it. Solidly. Focused. Abandon. His riding skills are accelerating so fast I am starting to worry if I will have to do secret workouts after he goes to bed, and maybe before he wakes up. The dude is just shralping. The Missus and I got out for a lovely morning ride in low 40's temps with just an incredible tacky trail surface. It is full on Hero trail, and the window here looks good for the next week or so. Get it while it's good. Going deep with 'The Other R' tomorrow. Historical boulder county connectors. Hopefully my trail brain is working well and I can find the shit. Either way...it will be a great morning in the woods.

Live and Learn and hopefully survive

Yesterday was spent being a bit nauseous, wondering of the house that has been in our family since about my birthday (as in first) was still in existence. Ends up - it made it. We don't know what kind of shape it's in, and our hearts go out to everyone who lost everything, or something. Rebuilding after this is going to be a long term deal.

Dances with Bears

Crazy golden light this morning. Rode Q up to the bus stop (not the one with pole dancing - the other one) and rolled on. Still quite a bit of snow up here. Likely thinning out this week and I gotta say I am psyched to have MORE TRAIL THIS YEAR. Lotsa bear tacks out there this morning in the woods. One rather large fellow/Fella walked all the way UP the TK. Right up the center of the trail. Pretty crazy. I kept expecting to see him as I descended. Never saw him. But I swear I could smell him. And in the military sense of the world - it appears someone figured out the cleanest way to take out a pesky cam. Onward I say. 

Who Wrote The Book Of.........

So, I have oft referred to myslef as someone who can 'write', but I do not consider myself a 'writer'. Huge gap here. Between the folks who write books and the folks who say "One day...I will write a book". the latter are usually ful of shit. The former, navigare the vagaries of the world and make their living actually writing words. So, I have wanted to take the blog posts (barf) of the last 15 years (yes, i started blogging on a typewrites) and combine them with some of the major shit I have slipped through in my life and write a for real book. The working title is: "The Art of The Comute". The hope being that somewhere in the midst of reezing and sweating and living and dying and marriage and divorce and marriage and death and life and death and death and adoption and life....that I may have something worthwhile today. If I don't - then it's my bad - as I have rolled htrough some flames and some solid 'life'. I wanted to publish said vanity title on my 25th year of living here - in this same house - to commemorate actually making it thus far. BUTT - in the 'mid-life crisis' sense of the word - I am about to turn 50 (hold breathe and grab the defibrulator). I would hope - that at 50 - I would have something reasonable to offer the world. Or not. May I be so judged with impunity and honesty. So, I commit - here - in this public venue - with all the books that surround me and inspire me - that in approximately 14 months - you will be able to dive seep - if you so choose - into this last 25 years of moving through life on a bike. I kind of want to crowd suck some of this..so if there is a particular post or detail or sentiment you feel would need to be in said 'book' - let me know. I feel like writing is like riding. I do it for excercise and in the hopes of getting a little better at it each time I do it. My POV is flawed and me-dimesnional. Bring on the truth. And know - certainly - what will be in your stocking on the 24th of December, 2013. Oh, faithful reader.

Pce

When in doubt: Push. 500,000+. For what it's worth.

Balls cold today. Said like 25, but with the wind and the snow whipping from the trees....felt pretty cold. We rocked the bike course in the am..it was slick and frustrating and challenging. Builds skills - I say. Headed out on The She Beast at about 1 and immediately ran into some young dude (Yo, Neil) from Wondervu. Anyone who is out alone, on a day like today - has a huge leap in the general direction of cred - in my book. We rode up FR and did a loop, much of it riding. Much of it pushing. It was lovely and fun and sublime. The key thing about The She Beast is that rather than the way I feel on a regular MTB in the snow (three monkeys fucking a football is a term I have heard) KInda like it's the wrong tool for the wrong job at the wrong time (like my wife said about the GORGEOUS singlespeed I built her a few years ago: The wrong gear ALL the time). There are some situations where the tool makes the day. If I ride Betasso (buttasshole) on a geared full suspension bike I feel like I am towing into 1 foot Cocoa Beach chop. It's just too much for that trail. Same trail on a 1x - rippage. In the same way - it's like when Fry and I did Starr Peak on singles - just dumb. I mean - it's like a 2,800 foot technical climb to 10,300 feet. It's just Gnar. Whip out the full sauce and the big tires. So, today - it felt great to be out on The She Beast. It felt like riding - or something even better. Without that bike I would not have made it up FR today. I may not have gotten out. Well, I would have as I am ill with the addiction - BUT - I would have felt out of place. Like dropping into Cloudbreak on a boogie board, while on bad Fijian coke. Just essentially wrong. The She Beast felt great out there. Cool to run into someone who is out just to be out and is willing to push and slog. At it's core - when we strip away all the elemtns of life - doesn't it boil down to pushing and sloggin. Other than the bliss and the miracles - that is.

Oh, and for what it's worth...which is nothing....broke through the 500k of climbing mark today. Maybe while pushing. Which is just and fair and exactly as it should be.

There's no way you could ride today.........I mean - why would you even want to?

There have been numerous breakthroughs during my 30+ year love affair with cycling. I rode almost 4,000 miles in 1984 on a Jamis 'Dakota'. Toe-straps, hiking boots and a lotta cotton. Later on.....index shifting...suspension...clipless pedals....full suspension...etc...... I must say - though - this latest development - this ass - kicking all terrain dumpster of a bike - called a snowbike - this may be the coolest. I have wanted one of these for a few years but couldn't really justify the "7th" bike argument. Well kids, for where we live and what we do and how we live and how we get around.....this piggy of a hummer of a ride might just be the best investment I've made in years. I laughed more on the ride this am than I have on a long time. I felt like I was ripping west ridge, when the area wasn't even open. It really felt like powder turns. It was 17 when I left the house. Crystalized snow and ice. Maybe 5 inches on the ground. This thing levitates. It's the oddest feeling I have ever had on abike. It's like riding a bike with 20" of front and rear suspension...while the whole time...hearing clown music in your head. This morning's ride was a gift. If you don't have one of the these, and you don't really care about the cold....get one. Get one now. It's so fricking fun.

It's Here

Really wanted to 'ride the stomr in' as it were - last nite. However, discretion being the better part of valor, and having ridden nearly 25 hours in the last 6 days - I caved. I took the ride home. Cracked a G'Night and sat in the bath with Quinn. Started a fire. Read a book. Watched it get dark. And cold. The rain changed to grapple(sp) and then snow. Kinda dreading the snow - but kinda stoked as well. It was amazing out this morning. The chickens refused to come out of the chicken house. Did not want to put their little lizard feet in the snow. I am jonesing to ride. It's odd. I should be burned out and all wanting to settle in to winter. Not just yet. There is some life left. Some connections to be made. 

322 feet from unheralded glory

Different vibe this morning. VERY dark. Was VERY pleased to have stopped @ the 2nd Lagunitas 'lil sumpin last nite - as - when I rolled up the driveway with Quinn at 0-dark thirty The Man of Russell was right there, grinning on his ride. Perfect. I was sorely lacking motivation to go out and 'get' my final 2,016 feet of vertical to get me (technically) to my half a million feet of climbing. I was trying to motivate into the lower 48 - which is certainly NOT a very direct way to get to Boulder (eventually) but I have been wanting to share this with Russell for about a year - so into it we did roll - and it was fine and lovely and whippy and a ton of very fun singlewide. I only 'achieved' 1,694 feet of climbing (and about 4k of descent) so I CAME UP SHORT of hitting the effective 500,000 feet of upward, human powered mobility this year. I 'need' 322 feet - which means - that at some point near dusk tonite - I will roll up Big Springs (it kind of has to happen there) and I will CHIME the hal a mil vertical mark.

And it will not matter. And no one will care and there will be no rewards or trumpets or anything. Just the vacuous silence that surrounds us all everyday. It feels like an 'accomplishment' - but WTF. I ride - because I ride - because I ride. Have for the last 30 years. Hope I have 30 more.

Maybe I can hit a mil by Christimas??????????

When there's a tailwind.......hammer

My friend - Bill Keith - CamelHead aka/Bus stop - who back in the day in Florida could just wail in the heat...used to say - if there is a tailwind - best to hammer - as you never know when it is going to go away. So it is....I was moving slow this morning. A fair portion of The Krippler from Mountain Sun in my pee when I awoke. My 'sort of' rule has been three days on and then one off. However, I can usually find multipple excuses to circumvent said rule. Like this week - for example. I have meetings ALL day Thursday and a dinner Thursday nite. the weather is going to turn to poo with a high of something like 22 on Saturday(I'm actually kinda psyched about the weather). Then - a Sunday flight - which is NEVER a good thing - then two days of cabs and cities and meetings and presentations and sitting on planes. So....on a morning like this fin morning, no choice but to roll, and roll long and roll deep.

Really trying to limit the number of pics - but it's really tough to edit down the 75 or so I took - to a few special ones. ONE MORE DAY is the refrain. The storm is supposed to come in tomorrow afternoon. I could almost feel the edge of the humidity this morning. Went west out of the gate for a while - to go visit some stuff...looped back around and played all the way through to a trail I think I have ridden only two other times this year. It's a great trail. I just forget about it sometimes. My mental rolodex of trail knowledge os getting over stuffed and things are falling out. All that is left - is to decide where to ride....tomorrow.......

Late Season Bliss Binge

So, not a big stat guy. Got a Garmin about 18 months ago to help - um - navigate some of the darker sections ofthe woods and the world. I mostly use it for elevation profiling and I do like to nerd out on vertical. So, I have been trying to use the thing most of the time. I would say I get it on the bike for about 75% of the rides I do. Much to my surprise - the shit starts to add up. Stats above - but approaching half a million miles of vertical ascent for the year. Pretty wild. Since much of my riding is 'commuting' and said commute starts at 8,000 feet and ends at 5,000 feet - many of my rides are much more downhill  than uphill. So, let's just say that the ratio there is 1:1.5 - I think it's more (like this morning I climbed a massive 400 feet and descended some 4,000 blissful feet. That means I am descending something like 750,000 feet a year - or more. Which really helps me understand why I can go through brakes in a few weeks or a tire in 2 weeks. It's sheer volume. Sheer blissful volume. This am was incredibly special. Just amazing temps, dark and lovely and then a great sunrise and despite a few crashes - I felt great. I think I am getting a rebound 'bump' out of Thursday's ride...may it last for the entire week until the snow comes later in the week. Could be the shut down storm. Have no idea. Hope not. But could be. Might as well be ruined when it comes......