Ryan

Rubbin's Racin' The Night We Almost Killed Jordan

2011-10-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

I have a video to share but before you watch I have to introduce it with this background story.

A little while back Lane had a cracked wheel on his bigwheel so he pulled out a roll of duct tape and made a few wraps around the wheel to reinforce it so he could ride. That night Lane went from a mid pack rider to a podium finisher. The duct tape added just enough extra grip in the corners which allowed him to carry more speed. My bigwheel was faster in the straights and I remember getting out front then every corner Lane would come blowing by me on the inside as I struggled to keep from being flung to the outside and off the road. I would pass on every straight and then get passed at every corner, it was frustrating. I thought I was just having an off night and that Lane was just picking better lines and doing a better job at setting up the corner.

Lane's conscience got the best of him and the next week he spilled the beans on his new found speed secret. It takes a lot of skill and finesse to navigate the switchbacks of Squaw Peak at high speed on plastic wheels. When my brother told me they were all going to tape their wheels the purist in me was a little offended. I told them that they should just go straight to rubber wheels if they were going to do anything at all. The next week everyone but me in the core group had taped their wheels. I was still holding out. As an added bonus Randy and his race car buddies showed up that night. Nobody said a word about the tape to the race car guys. It had been a while since these guys showed up and the core group was looking forward to being able to dominate.

I got spit out the back almost immediately, there is just no way I was able to keep up, Jordan who has always been the fastest in the race car group was the only one not cheating that was able to keep up but barely. While everyone else was relying on the grip of the tape to keep them on the road Jordan was dropping his rear wheel off of the inside edge of the road and hooking the edge like a rail to keep from sliding to the outside. This method works great on right hand corners but it's not such a good idea for obvious reasons on lefts. Jordan's frustration level was growing, like my mind the week prior, his was playing tricks on him. It had been a while since he had ridden, was he really this far out of practice? How was it that everyone else was suddenly so much faster?

After getting beat the first two runs Jordan pulled out all the stops for run number three. Check it out.

I had no idea what happened until I got to the bottom when they told me that Jordan tagged a car. I asked if anyone stopped and the response was. "No... We were racin'".

1938 Schwinn Autocycle Blues

2011-02-16T20:04:00.000-08:00

My favorite show on TV lately has been American Pickers, Mike Wolfe and Frank Frits travel the country in search of antique treasures hidden away in barns, out-buildings or just sitting out rusting in plain sight. Mike is a bike guy that has the same taste in antique bikes as I do so when a few weeks back I ran across an episode where he said that he had found his Holy Grail of bicycles and had been looking for it for 30 years my ears perked up. The camera pans over to a 1938 Schwinn Autocycle in original paint. This just happened to be my Holy Grail as well; I have been looking for one for as long as he. Occasionally I see them on Ebay for like 4 Grand. I can’t pay that so I have been hoping to find one that the seller doesn’t appreciate and pick it up cheap. Mike paid $1000 for his which was a screaming deal. I would pay that in a second.

I have an obsession for checking KSL.com multiple times a day to see the new listings for “Schwinn”. Today just prior to leaving work I pulled up the search again and this is what I found.

I found this 1938 Schwinn Autocycle in my Great Grandfathers Garage while cleaning it out. I Did some research and found it to be a lost treasure. First introduced in 1936 the Autocycle seriously revolutionized the balloon tire field in styling and sophistication. So much going on here that Schwinn incorporated the word AUTO into the title of these bikes. No other bike of the period had as many deluxe features and accessories as the Autocycle. This jewel tanked bicycle is 100% original parts, no aftermarket stuff at all. From the full floating "pogo" saddle right down to the deluxe speedometer crossbar. It has dual Seiss headlights, locking truss fork with original Yale Junior Arnold Schwinn & Co. key, WW Goodyear G-3 Tires and a Schwinn Speedo head. It also features the early Fore Brake and super rare early brake handle with the original cable. NOS Liberty headbadge and a Liberty decal on the downtube. First year for the feather chrome chainguard.

I don't know what to ask for it in it's current condition before being restored but I want it to be a fair price for both of us so if you are interested and have an idea of how much it's worth please call me and lets talk.

Thank You,

I picked up the phone and called immediately because I knew there would be a fight for this bike. The seller said that he had another guy coming to look at it and offered $750. I told him I would do at least $800 and with that I raced off to try to be the first there with cash. Sadly about 2 miles from the sellers house my phone rang, “Sorry I sold it, but thanks for offering 8 I got another 50 bucks out of the guy who bought it.” He then asked me if I knew who Mike Wolfe was, and that he had just gotten a call from him wanting the bike just after he sold it. He was disappointed because he thought that he might have had a chance to be on TV if he had held out.

I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. I turned around and went home. And to add insult to injury I told my wife about it. Now I am in the dog house with her for not discussing the attempted purchase with her first. Seriously this one is going to haunt me for a long time. I doubt I will ever see another in this good of condition for that kind of money.

I am still in the market if anyone happens to know someone with an extra Autocycle lying around, be sure to send them my way.

Damn that thing would have made one hell of a commuter.

Frozen Hog 2011 Last Place Podium Finish

2011-01-30T21:04:00.000-08:00

After another December of overindulgence, I started training for the Frozen Hog. I look forward to this every year. It gives me a reason to get out of bed during the grey winter. Usually at 4:40 so that I can make it to the 5:15 spin class followed by a 2-4 mile run before work. Given the choice I would always rather ride outside instead of on a spin bike at the gym but the reality of it is that it's just a more efficient use of time. The running part of the training is entirely new to me, last year I neglected to train for the run and found myself hobbling for a week after the race after my atrophied running muscles got completely shredded. You never know what you are going to get, this race is entirely in the hands of Mother Nature and last year she decided that she wanted us to run. I suppose this may have scared a lot of people off because the numbers were a little sparse this year.

The trail conditions were absolutely fantastic. This was the drag race of winter mountain bike racing. I went into the Le Mans start feeling confident with all the running time I had put in during training, but I just sucked at it. I got passed a lot and got a poor start position going into the first single track section. The first real opportunity you have to make a clean pass is about half way through the lap at the start of the down hill. I did my best to make up time and started passing riders but just didn’t have the power I had hoped I would so the progress was slow. The laps flew by and before I knew it I was riding up the final road to the finish. My sputtering engine finally started firing on all cylinders and I gave it all I had. I wish I would have been able to do that earlier in the race. I ended up finishing 3rd out of 3, yep dead last in my class yet still a podium finish. I doubt that will ever happen again.

One thing I have noticed that can either make or break a race is the promoter. I think there are lots of race promoters that do a great job at all the behind the scenes stuff but when it comes down to the most visible stuff like having DJ skills to call the race and announce awards and raffles they fall on their face. And then there are the prizes, a race promoter needs to be aggressive and convincing to the sponsors that their donated merchandise and serviced will make good financial business sense. Every time I have been to the Frozen Hog they have given away at least one bike and usually two. This year Raleigh gave away a belt drive single speed and a 24” kid’s bike which were awesome. Josh did an excellent job at all aspects of promoting and I look forward to future races.

The beauty of this event is that it exists, I don’t know what the conditions will be like next year but I can tell you this much, I will train for the worst and hope for the best. To all those who didn’t show up because they didn’t like the conditions last year, it is time to put away the purse. Oh and Josh next year you might want to coordinate with Lynda Wallenfels.

Trek MOD ified Big Drift Bigwheel

2010-11-22T22:07:00.000-08:00

Back in September I reported the progress on the search for a new bigwheel supplier. The Big Drifts looked awesome but I knew the rear wheels were going to be a problem and so did the manufacturer below is their response after I reported the results of my test run that melted the wheels off.

Our legal adviser advised us to tell you that our Big Drifts as is shouldn't be used in such a high speed (30 or even 40 mph) as you said.
As you already know, our structure (particularly the rear wheel) is not made for such a high speed and abuse.

Attached please find our "Assembly Instructions", which includes "Warning", which specifies that the maximum speed is 20 km (12.5 mph).

If you go over our maximum speed, please retrofit or re-enforce it enough to endure that kind of high speed and abuse at your own risk.

We're telling you this for your own saftey.

Thank you for your understanding of our concern.

What is the point of living if you can't exceed the 12.5 MPH speed limit!

Randy had new axles made for the Big Drift that will fit the Trek MOD wheels and now (at my own risk) I am updating the maximum rated speed to brown-out minus .5 MPH. As long as you can control your sphincter feel free to go as fast as you like, you have my permission.

I have a limited quantity available in Red, Orange and Yellow they are $350 (Modified axle and Trek wheels included) and I will ship free to the lower 48. If you want one for the kids to tool around in the neighborhood $250 will get you one in the stock configuration (the wheels will only melt off if they go really really fast)

Be a Hero this Christmas

Give me a call if you want me to send one out

Ryan

801-787-3188

Rabbit Stories Part 3 Drive It Like You Stole It

2010-10-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

While Allyson and I were dating she called and wanted advice on buying a new car. She was at Chatwin Motors in Provo talking with a salesman. She told me that she was going to trade in her Rabbit on a Toyota Tercel. I told her that they would probably inflate the price of the car by $500 and then turn around and give her $500 for the trade. I told her that she would be better off just keeping it and selling it privately if she really wanted to get rid of it. She finished up the paperwork and drove home in her new car leaving the Rabbit at the dealership. Later that night she went back to the dealership after they closed and picked up the Rabbit.

A few years later I was cleaning out some old files and ran across the paperwork from when she bought the Tercel. Curious as to what kind of deal she got on the car I started looking through it. One line item really stood out to me. It was the one that said trade in and had a $500 credit for a 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit. I added up the figures just to make sure I was reading it right and sure enough the price of the car had been reduced by $500 for the trade in value of the Rabbit.

I called Allyson into the room for a little explanation. The conversation went a little like this.

Me “Looks like the dealership gave you $500 for the Rabbit”

Allyson “Yeah”

Me “But you still have the Rabbit?”

Allyson “Yeah”

Me “But they gave you $500 for it”

Allyson “Yeah”

Me “How does that work?”

Allyson “I don’t know”

Me “How did you get the Rabbit back?”

Allyson “I just went and picked it up after they closed”

Me “You stole the car?”

Allyson “No I had a key. I just went and got it”

Me “But you traded it in”

Allyson “Yeah?”

We went back and forth with this for a while and in the end we both stood our ground.

Me “You stole the car”

Her “No I did not”

To this day she denies stealing the car. I know that she didn't intentionally do it. It was just a little misunderstanding between her and the dealership. But that being said it’s a fun little story that I will hold over her head for the rest of her life.

Well it was pretty obvious that the dealership really didn’t want this car and I am pretty sure they never reported the theft to the police. Since then I have been pulled over a couple of times in it and never had any problems so I guess she got away with it.

Tonight the Rabbit went to a new home, not including Chatwin Motors this is its second owner. This is probably something that I should have disclosed prior to selling it but hey if you can’t live with it being stolen bring it back for a full refund.

Warning not as innocent as she may appear

Love You Sweetheart

Rabbit Stories Part 2

2010-10-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

I worked for Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale California right out of school. They hauled both of our cars and all our belongings down there on their dime. It didn’t matter that the freight bill was more than the cars worth. It was amusing to see the faces of the movers when it came time to load the car.

After a year it became obvious to us that we would never be able to buy and pay for a house in the San Jose area so we made the move back to Utah. I filled a moving van and trailer with all our personal belongings and a 55 Cadillac Coupe DeVille. There was just no room for the Rabbit, we left it behind. I thought hard about getting rid of it at that time since I was fairly confident that it would not make the trip home under its own power. It had a blown head gasket and was overheating.

I was feeling lucky and had a fool-proof backup plan in the form of a 1988 Bianchi road bike strapped to the back (It has downtube shifters how can you go wrong with downtube shifters?). I figured between San Jose and Salt Lake there are no towns farther than around 100 miles from each other and knew if I needed to I could abandon-car, ride to the next town and buy a Greyhound ticket. The perfect plan…

I bought a one way plane ticket and headed out. From the airport I took the train to the station nearest our old house and walked the last few miles. We still had a couple of days on our rental contract so I slept on the floor and woke early to start preparing for the trip. I bought seven gallons of water and a roll of duct tape from the grocery store and a couple new coolant hoses and hose clamps from the parts store. My last stop in San Jose was Taco Bell. I always order a 7-Layer and a bean burrito. I try to stay away from the meat there.

One eye on the road and the other on the temperature gage I made my way East. Slow and steady. I left the cap on the coolant tank loose to bleed off the excess pressure that was blowing by the head gasket and filling the coolant with exhaust gasses and oil. I had to hit the sweet spot on the cap not to tight and not too loose kept the coolant in and let the pressure out. I played a mechanical balancing act with the car until the temp gage approached the red line at which point I would pull over and refill the radiator with the life giving water (approx every 40-50 miles) and resume. It was like we were working as one, I was intimately connected to the car I could feel its pain. I could feel where I could push, where I needed to ease of and when I needed to give it a rest. It was a mentally exhausting trip, instead of listening to the radio I listened to the motor. I refilled my gallon jugs of water at every town as we limped our way through the Sierra Nevada’s and across the Nevada desert. When I couldn’t take any more we stopped at a rest stop and I spent the night sleeping in the driver’s seat.

When the sun rose the little diesel miraculously sputtered to life. I was like Cramer driving on empty; never had man pushed the limits of a machine as far as I did that day. As we passed through Wendover then across the salt flats I got a little misty eyed as the Wasatch came in to view. This is my home and I had been away far too long. I felt whole again, everything was going to be ok.

Tonight prospective Buyer #2 came to test drive the Rabbit, I like this guy, like me he enjoys working on cars and knows and appreciates the beauty that is just a little more than skin deep on this car. While he was out on a test drive I got a call from a lady who found the car on KSL obviously by searching by the maximum amount she could afford. She had no clue what it was. She asked if it would be a reliable 50 mile a day commuter. My response, “Absolutely not, one thing that I can guarantee is that something will always break on this car.” And that was the honest truth. The good thing is that it is cheap and easy to fix when it does and all the hard stuff has already been done.

Buyer #2 returned with a smile on his face. He took it to a buddy of his who is a professional Volkswagen mechanic and told him what I already knew and that it was a JEM worth every penny of the asking price. He is going to come and take it tomorrow.

I think I am going to be ok.

Rabbit Stories

2010-10-11T21:05:00.000-07:00

While I was in college I saw a guy who ran his Diesel Mercedes on waste vegetable oil from restaurants. When it comes to cars dull normal is just not my style. I bought a book and spent a month gathering parts from eBay and the hardware store then assembled everything together to make a second fuel tank and heat exchanger system for my alternative fuel system.

At the time it was a $500 car if I broke it by running doughnut oil through it I would just haul it off to the junk yard and collect my 50 bucks. No big loss.

The problem is that it worked. How much simpler would my life had been if it had seized on the side of the road never to run again.

I started working early one afternoon putting all the parts together. Everything was going great I was in the zone. After working for a month on the project I was buzzing with excitement. I finished and looked at the clock, 2 AM, I couldn’t not try it out.

I pulled out of the neighborhood and headed down the road to heat up the heat-exchanger. After about five minutes I determined that old doughnut oil from the Provo Bakery was ready to run through the engine. As I flipped the switch I thought “Allyson is going to be pissed when I give her a wakeup call to come get me because I blew up her car doing something stupid and spent a bunch of money we didn’t have doing it”

I drove up the Alpine Highway, turned on to the Highland Highway and headed for the freeway back to American Fork. When I got to the 5th East exit I got of and headed back home. I flipped the switch back to Diesel, drove home and went to bed.

This is the first in a series of posts entitled Rabbit stories. I just posted my baby up for sale and this is my way of coping with the loss. I know it is a little off topic for my blog but hey it's my blog and I can do what ever I want here.

For Your Own Safety

2010-09-02T22:09:00.000-07:00

I have been working with a new supplier of Bigwheels and I must say that they are very promising. I ordered four of them in to see how they would work out. On the fourth run down Squaw Peak the rear wheels melted off of the axles and fell off.
I reported my findings back to the manufacture and got the following response back.

Hi, Ryan:

Our legal adviser advised us to tell you that our Big Drifts as is shouldn't be used in such a high speed (30 or even 40 mph) as you said.

As you already know, our structure (particularly the rear wheel) is not made for such a high speed and abuse.

Attached please find our "Assembly Instructions", which includes "Warning", which specifies that the maximum speed is 20 km (12.5 mph).

If you go over our maximum speed, please retrofit or reenforce it enough to endure that kind of high speed and abuse at your own risk.

We're telling you this for your own safty.

Thank you for your understanding of our concern.

James

The good news is that they if we can get through the language barrier they are pretty good to work with and are actually going to work on making rear wheels with bearings to solve the whole melting the wheels off of the axle thing. With bearings in the rear wheels these things are going to kick the Trek Mod's trash. I have a work around for the time being to retrofit the mod wheels on it.

Three left $250 any takers?

Leadville Trail 100 Race Report 2010 Part 1

2010-08-22T22:51:00.000-07:00

All About the Family

This year I talked the family into spending the summer vacation in the little town of Leadville Colorado. Early on there was a little grumbling and a reminder or two that we still have not made it to Disneyland so my main goal was to do my best to find things that the family would enjoy doing. I didn't want this to be the vacation they talk about in 20 years, "Remember when dad drug us out to that podunk town in Colorado for a bike race instead of Disneyland".
As it turns out I have an the best family on planet Earth. We spent the week in a 100 year old cabin with crooked floors, no TV, computer, swimming pool, or hot tub, and if you wanted to turn up the heat or cook you had better be prepared to start a fire.

It forced us to unplug and spend time together it was perfect. Prior to the race my work and training schedule were all consuming. We needed some time to decompress and smell the flowers.

Shortly after arriving Calvin and Maizy started exploring, Calvin found some nails and pulled a hammer out of my tool bag, he quickly whipped up a sail boat.

One sail boat lead to another and pretty soon they were in business Maizy set up a desk with a phone and started taking orders.

No respectable business man would ever let his product out the door without rigorous testing so we drove over to Turquoise lake to shake out the design.

The boats sailed fantastically the business took off like a rocket and the kids tried to keep up with orders but quickly had to start reporting to customers that it was going to take a couple of weeks to get to their order. Life was good.

We spent some time looking through the antique shops on main street and had a great time custom painting mugs so that we would have something to remember the trip by.

We went to the store and bought pre-made cookie dough, then went to the cabin and started a fire in the oven. It took about an hour and a half for the oven to preheat to 350 degrees. My cookies were either burnt or doughie but I still consider my first experience with a wood fired oven a success since we ate the cookies anyway. Sure made me appreciate my oven at home.

We went to the Pasta dinner before the race, Calvin and Maizy had fun posing for the camera.

I am so grateful that they all had fun, even Allyson said that she was looking forward to going back out next year. I don't know how my luck will be next year with the lottery, regardless of whether I get in or not we will be back to race or volunteer and to be honest I don't think I even care which. I have had great experiences with both.

Stay tuned for the actual race report.

The Spots Are In Place

2010-06-10T19:11:00.000-07:00

Every spring I watch my favorite sporting event which consists of a bunch of spots racing across my screen, it takes a month for them to get from the top of my monitor to the bottom. I watch rivited all month long.

Tomorrow morning the toughest mountain bike race in the world commences. 2700 miles from Banff Canada to Antelope Wells New Mexico, 200,000 feet of elevation gain and completely self supported. I love pulling the race up on my monitor and stalking the racers from a distance watching their spots travel insane distances across the map each and every day and listening to the daily racer call-in reports.

Good Luck to all the Divide racers you are going to need it.

Here's to loads of junk food and saddle sores.

White Rim 2010 Version 2.0

2010-05-10T22:33:00.000-07:00

My wife has the ability to get a life story out of complete strangers in a matter of minutes. It’s not uncommon for her to come home and make a batch of cookies for the checker at Target because she is going through a difficult divorce. So when she came home from the doctor and said, hey Dr Bell said that they are going down to ride White Rim this weekend and said that you could go down with them if you wanted to it was no surprise. Over the three years Dr Bell has been my doctor I have been in to see him twice, once for a scout camp physical and once for a broken ear drum. If it weren’t for my wife I would have never known he even rode a bike.

A couple of days later I got an email from Dr Bell telling me that he had arranged a ride down for me with his neighbor. Shortly after that said neighbor called to arrange the logistics of picking me up and driving me a total stranger down to Moab to ride the White Rim in one day sight unseen. What I would give to have been a fly on the wall in the doctors office that day and heard exactly what my wife said to convince Dr Bell that I would even be able to handle such a ride.

The first time I meet Steve was at a park-n-ride, I threw my bag in the bed of his truck, loaded my bike on the rack and we were off. Steve introduced me to his brother Mike and said we have two others to pick up. We drove to Kaysville to pick up Lane then to Salt Lake to pick up Jeff. These guys were willing to pack five in a truck in order to accommodate me, a total stranger.

From the conversations going on I could tell instantly that these guys were tight. After about an hour of listening to all four of them talking and telling stories I knew that there was a special bond between them , then I heard a sentence that helped put it all in perspective, it went something like, “Remember when Dad did …” Then it all made sense, Brothers, they were brothers. Never in my life have I meet four brothers who got along as well as these guys did and all four of them get were willing and capable of riding their bikes for a hundred miles through the desert. This is really cheesy but man that is special, I am not sure that they realize how unique their family is but I would really like to meet their parents and take notes cuz you know they have done a few things right.

We got to Moab late, pulled off the road and slept in the dirt. The next morning we got ready and headed up the road to meet up with the rest of the group. I made my best guess as to which one in the group was Dr Bell, (it had been nearly a year since I had last seen him for a broken ear drum, I was in and out within ten minutes and had only seen him one other time a year prior to that) I remember my wife telling me that he rode a Scott and thankfully there was only one guy on a Scott. I am pretty sure he didn’t recognize me either when I approached to thank him for inviting me down and finding me a ride. A couple minutes later we were off and riding.

The first 10 miles went by in a blur, I pulled a #2 out of the hat which meant I would be driving the support truck from mile 10 to 20 which happened to coincide with the Horsethief descent. Shortly after Horsethief I rolled up on our first mechanical, rattled loose and missing chain ring bolts. We were able to steal bolts from the middle ring to make a complete set for the big ring and removed the middle ring completely. I sure do like the new designs of cranks and bottom brackets, back in the day we would have needed a crank puller to get the bike up and running again but all the new design needs is a 5 mm allen, easy. The ten miles in the truck went as quickly as the first ten on the bike and I was off and peddling. I knew the mechanical had put us quite a way back from the main group so I went out hard to catch up. It was comforting to know that if needed, there would be a truck that I could jump in to at the end if I bonked. I figured I would see how long my legs would hold up if I pushed the pace and after a while I had closed the gap and caught the lead group. A few minutes later after taking his turn driving Jeff caught up and I rode with him for most of the day. He is a really strong rider and it was challenging to try to hold his wheel. It was really nice to have a pacer who pushed me harder than I probably would have pushed myself. There were a lot of strong riders in the group, I had a blast riding paceline style through the dirt with a fairly equally matched group of riders. I love the hollow sound the tires make on the dirt when you get a large tight group together at high speeds.

We made a few stops for lunch and breaks which was nice. I packed all my food and water and only cheated slightly by pulling a diet coke and water bottle from the truck during lunch. I just really wanted to build my confidence and experience in long self-supported rides. I was happy with the food and again my energy level only dropped slightly a couple times during the day but came back quickly when I stopped to eat. We finished strong, there was quite a bit of pain and suffering but it was tolerable and overall I would have to say that I had a really good time. I am really happy with where I am at, I owe my wife a huge thanks for bending over backwards for me this year so that I can get in as much riding as possible and even setting up a White Rim trip with relative strangers. Also thanks to the Caldwell’s and Dr Bell for rolling the dice with me and allowing me to join their group for the trip, hopefully this will be the first of many. It was really nice to find some good riders in Davis County, finally! Thanks guys.

RAWROD TT 2010 Trip Report

2010-04-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

It is hard for me to put words to paper that even come close to expressing what riding the White Rim is like. I will make an attempt but I am sure it will be inadequate.

At 8:00 everyone lined up on an imaginary start line and headed out. That was the last time I would see Kenny or any of the other fast riders. I was still standing by my car when they left and headed out less than a minute after the main group. I rode most of the day solo which turned out to be a good thing. Sometimes it's nice to just be alone.

The White Rim is an enormous place with absolutely breath-taking views. I felt extremely small against the towering cliffs and trail that disappears on the horizon in both directions. I don’t listen to music while I ride so I am left to live in the moment. There's the sound of tires on dirt and the occasional motorcycle or Jeep but for the most part silence. The trail has many smooth flat sections where you can just cruise and allow your mind to wander but there are also sections that go for miles and miles where the trail firmly holds your attention. Your world stretches to the horizon one minute to the 10-15 foot stretch of dirt and rock in front of your tire the next.

I passed a lot of riders going the other direction, but there is one that will be hard to forget. It probably has something to do with the banana hammock thong and pink halter top he was wearing. I just wonder in a situation like that do you just smear the shammy butter directly on to the saddle? I didn't stop to ask and sorry I didn't get a picture.
My bike ran flawlessly throughout the ride. The only mechanical I am aware of was on Elden’s step-son’s motorcycle. Just after coming by me at the 50 mile point he threw a chain. Luckily he had the tools needed to fix it, the 50 mile mark is the absolute worst spot to break down. Really it was just like an overgrown bicycle and we had the chain back on and running in no time. I'll have to be honest it really scared me at first and the pit in my stomach did not go away until he fired it up and took off. Since he had the proper tools it turned out to be a very minor issue.

Here is the view looking forward at the 75 mile point. The Shaffer Trail snakes up the cliffs to the top of the mesa.

It is true that for the most part the trail is flat, but there is still a substantial amount of climbing to be had.

At the top

The final 20 miles consist of smooth road, 10 miles of pavement slightly uphill followed by a buffed out 10 mile slightly downhill dirt road, a perfect way to finish when you're tired. The perfect ride, thanks to Kenny for pulling it together.

Lessons Learned

I like real food. I ate white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies and Pringles which was a perfect choice as far as my stomach was concerned. The only problem with this food is that every 15-20 miles I had to stop and get it out of my Camelbak. The time it takes to stop this often really adds up over the course of the day. It makes me wonder if I should start looking into and experimenting with gel or shotblocks which take up less volume and would be easier to access and eat while riding. Anybody have any tips on this?

I wish I had more time to explore and take pictures. Everywhere I looked was a picture, I had an almost overwhelming urge to stop and take pictures or just stop and take in the views. For the most part I resisted in favor of pushing through and trying to make a good time. I wish I would have been able to stick around for the slower paced group ride.

This was a good confidence builder, my first self-supported White Rim trip. I still have a long way to go but I think things are going in the right direction. It is going to be a fun season.

RAWROD Twentyten

2010-04-18T22:43:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I got an invite to Kenny’s RAWROD (Ride Around White Rim One Day) ride. I did this once with him back in 2001 and it kicked my trash, took me 11.5 hours to finish and I came in dead last. There were about 10 of us riding that year and it has grown exponentially since. I was planning on doing this ride last year until I found out that my son’s Pinewood Derby was scheduled on the same day. The decision was obvious, I stayed home, a decision I will never regret. We had the fasted car and won the "Best Design" award. Apparently they don't give awards based on finish time to avoid hurt feelings.

A few days after Kenny posted the details of the Twenty Ten RAWROD I got a knock on the door from my son’s den mother with a flyer and a Pinewood Derby Kit, and of course across the top of the flyer was the date, April 24, 2010. They did it again. I am out for the supported group ride on Saturday but there is another option. Here is a short expert from Kenny’s email.

With such a large group, the ride tends to spread out with greater and greater distances between the faster and the less-fast-but-still-awesome riders. Some people act like this incredible group ride isn't a group ride at all, but is instead a race.

THE FAST RIDE

To address this problem, I've added a non-supported, ride-at-your-own-pace-and-at-your-own-risk ride on Friday, April 23rd, for people who want to see how fast they can ride the loop. You must carry everything you need for the entire 100 miles, including everything to repair basic bike failures and all the food and water that you will need to finish the entire ride. The ride takes me between 6 to 7 hours. I carry two tubes, a patch kit, a pump, a chain tool, and a multi-tool. I need a 100 oz bladder and two water bottles and about 1200 calories of food. You should know your own needs and plan accordingly.

Pain and suffering will occur.

THE SUPPORTED RIDE

The supported ride will be on Saturday, the 24th of April. If you choose to come on the supported ride, you are accepting the fact that this ride goes slowly. We will stick together. We will only be as fast as our slowest rider. I do not want to discourage people who want to try to complete this ride. Many riders, myself included, have started a 100 mile ride not knowing if they would be able to complete it. That's one of the things I love about endurance riding - pushing yourself to discover what you are physical capable of doing.

Looks like I will be doing the Fast Ride on Friday. I have to admit that I am a little scared. If something goes wrong I could fairly easily find myself in a life threatening situation. White Rim is about as remote as you can get, no cell coverage, no water, no food and no shelter. Once you start the loop you are fairly committed to finishing it, there are no shortcuts or pull out points. I thought about doing this ride last year but did not trust my bike or my body enough to take the risk. This year I have a new bike and I feel much stronger. I think I will be able to pull it off without too much trouble.

The last time I rode the White Rim was a supported trip, I didn’t have to carry all of my food or water and I knew that if I had to I could just hop into the Jeep. Something about knowing that if you are ill prepared you could die has helped me be a little more motivated to prepare this year. I have been riding a lot and have a few high mile rides under my belt this year with good results.

On Friday I took a practice exam to see how I would do on the final. I loaded up the Camelbak with 100 ounces of sugary syrup, and dropped two additional bottles of water in my jersey pockets. I packed a large bag of peanut butter M&M’s, four granola bars and headed out the door. I rode out to Antelope Island and did the same loop I did last week, ran into four Buffalo that scared the crap out of me and another rider named Mike (I think, I am really bad with names) seemed like a pretty cool guy, I invited him to the group ride I am starting on Tuesday nights.

After the ride I was planning on doing it again but was too freaked out by the Buffalo so I rode up to the BST in Kaysville. The BST in Kaysville is only 3.5 miles from one parking lot to the next, it seems so much farther. I rode 21 miles on this trail and passed the same hiker six times it was a little maddening. I was running short on daylight so I cut the ride a little short and made my way home with a total of 90 miles for the day and a pretty good representation of the White Rim trail.

So how did I do? I wanted to focus on keeping my stomach happy and the energy level up so I was very cautious about how much and when I was eating. I had to force myself to eat and drink and for the most part I was successful. My stomach was happy until I finished and my legs stayed with me the entire time, no bonk. It was a fun day. I think I will be able to pull off the Fast Ride with out too many problems and still make it back to the Derby on Saturday if all goes to plan.

Wish me luck…

"Short Ride"

2010-04-12T20:45:00.000-07:00

I worked a half day on Saturday and wasn’t really planning on going for a long ride. Since the mountains to the East are still muddy from our snow storm last week and I didn’t have much time I decided to head out on the road toward Antelope Island. I had three hours and ten minutes, my plan was to turn around after 90 minutes giving myself a ten minute buffer.

Did I happen to mention that I was on my new bike and that it’s FAST? I rode for 90 minutes at which time I was exactly 25 miles from my house and exactly ½ way through the figure-8 single/double track loop on the island, the natural turn around spot.

My wife has been incredibly understanding about letting me get out and ride lately and I know that making her late for a dinner appointment with one of her girlfriends would not go over well. To make it home on time I would have to travel the same distance in the same time plus my ten minute buffer.

Everything was going smoothly until I hit the east side of White Rock Bay Loop where I had a bit of an incident a couple of weeks ago. Four Buffalo were grazing just off the side of the road. Normally I would have just blown by them but for some reason that just didn’t feel right so I took a little bushwhacking detour up the hill and just out of sight. As I crested the top of the bluff I ran right into the rest of the herd, so I split the difference and took the middle ground between the two. As soon as I felt I had gotten enough distance I made my way back to the road without incident. I picked up a slight tail wind and drained the tank on the causeway and farm roads leading back to my house.

Total ride time was 3 hours 16 minutes. I was 6 minutes late, but after many years of short rides turning into long ones 6 minutes was a very acceptable margin for my wife. Thanks Sweetheart. I felt like I was going to vomit a lung for the rest of the evening.

I think I found my new favorite "training" ride, a couple of laps and it comes out to a cool 100 from my front door, if only someone could do something about those pesky Buffalo.

When I was a kid I had a terrible fear of dogs. I got over that. I now know when faced with an angry dog there are three options, out run, punt or make friends. I have never lost employing this strategy. As an adult I have a well founded fear of Buffalo and I think I need a new strategy for dealing with it. Any ideas?

Trek Top Fuel 9.8

2010-03-25T22:07:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Randy at Mad Dog Cycles, I am getting my first new bike since 2002 possibly tomorrow. It is a 2010 Trek Top Fuel 9.8 and it shipped out on Tuesday. I mentioned that I was getting a carbon bike to some of the Composites Engineers that I work with and they all wanted to know if I was nervous riding a carbon mountain bike. I am not. This will be the second carbon Trek for me and the last one held up to lots of abuse with no problems what so ever.
I remember the Trek reps would brag that most of their engineers came from the aerospace industry. It was an excellent selling tool; after all it doesn't get any better than aerospace, right? Fast forward a decade I find myself working for one of the leading aerospace composites companies as a Quality Engineer and I am fully convinced that Trek has the best Composites Engineers on the planet.

The funny thing about aerospace is that the price for failure is often in the billions of dollar range and in many cases results in loss of human life. In this type of environment failure is simply not an option. Designs are overbuilt, conservative and rarely cutting edge. The mantra is build it exactly like we did the last time because the last time... it worked. Pushing the envelope of a design in aerospace is taboo. Don't get me wrong the accomplishments that have been made in the aerospace industry are quite simply amazing, especially considering the complexity of the systems when compared to a bicycle. But there is a big difference when designing a product where failure is not only an option, but in some cases can be desirable. My guess is that many of Trek's designs are built to fail under the most aggressive or abusive riders. Riders that are able to induce the type of stresses that would cause a failure are few and far between. The vast majority of riders will never put the frame through enough cycles to cause a fatigue failure and don't have the cahones to push the bike hard enough to induce catastrophic failure. The benefit for the rest of us is an extremely strong light weigh bike that performs flawlessly for 98% of us, for the other 2% Trek has an excellent warrantee. The best way to find a flaw in a design is to see someone break it, a luxury we do not have in the aerospace industry.

*note I have no science or data to back up my numbers this is just a WAG.

A little less travel and a lot less weight than my current bike, this thing should scream. I can't wait to get it dirty.

When Buffalo Attack

2010-03-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning I decided to go for a longer ride than usual so I left from my house and rode out across the causeway to Antelope Island.

I have talked about this road before, look at the size of that shoulder, perfectly flat and very few cars. Put your head down and go.

Once you hit the Island there is plenty of wide open space to get your tires dirty.

The Island has a good balance of hills, flats and technical double and singletrack

The soil on the Island is porous and drains extremely fast, great ride in the early spring when everything else is soggy.

View of the Great Salt Lake, you get a feel for its size once you are out there.

Working on my photography skills

As you work your way up from near the shoreline on a techy switchback singletrack trail the natural terrain funnels into a little flat spot between cliffs. A perfect spot to build a rock corral to round up the highly prized wild island horses. This rock corral was built in the mid 1800's. Brigham Young gathered some of the best blood lines around and released brood stock on the island, with the combination of excellent blood lines, rocky terrain and a harsh environment, wild island horses were highly sought after. The problem with the horses was that they were fond of their island home and would risk the swim back to return if given a chance. A local Sherriff's horse escaped and returned to the Island three times, once making the swim with its saddle intact. Sadly after the Island was sold to a private company in the early 1900's the horses were considered a nuisance and were eradicated.

Spectacular views in all directions

The starting point, you can see my house from here, approximately equal distance from the shoreline and the snow capped mountains.

Here is where the ride gets interesting. As I am riding toward this herd of buffalo a wide-eyed runner passes me going the opposite direction. He stopped me and said "If I were you I would turn around and go the other way. The buffalo are agitated by something; they ran me up a rock and tried to kill me." I have ridden within a few feet of buffalo lots of times. They usually respond the same way cattle do, in that either they just stand there and look at you or they run off, no big deal, but in the back of my mind I was a little scared. There was another way out but this was the quickest and funnest way and I really did not want to miss a fun super fast downhill so I rolled the dice with the buffalo.

Two things of note in this picture buffalo and rocks

Turns out when someone tells you that they just got chased up on to the top of a big rock by a herd of buffalo you should listen to them. He is a picture I took from the top of the rocks after I ditched my bike and ran from the charging herd. I pulled my camera out only after they had backed off a little and had quit pawing at the dirt and snorting at me from the base of the rocks. The two in the picture were the most aggressive; they looked to be adolescents to me but still weighed well over 1000 lbs. I could feel the base from their grunts and snorts bouncing around in my chest cavity and the musky smell of their breath was equally as intimidating. I was pretty sure that if they really wanted to they could have scaled the rock I was standing on. Luckily they didn't and after a minute they started to back off.

The rock of my salvation.

I waited for a while and when they had backed off the trail a little ways I climbed down, grabbed my bike and walked ten feet when the herd charged for the second time. Back up on the rocks, fast. Three buffalo charged to the base of the rock and again started pawing at the ground grunting and snorting. I stood there and tried to look BIG. This time I gave them a good solid 20 minutes before climbing down from my perch and when I did come down I circled down off the other side of the hill just out of sight to make my pass. I was terrified as I was bush whacking the long way around the herd that they would come charging over the hill and this time there would be nowhere to hide. Luckily they didn't and when I got a safe distance past the herd I circled back around and picked up the trail. I had been riding for three hours by this time but with the adrenalin pumping I stood up on the pedals and got the hell out of there. As I picked back up on the pavement I was tempted to swing by the restaurant on the Island and order a big fat juicy Buffalo Burger, instead I just put my head down and rode the Adrenalin Highway home.

I am in awe of the adventures that can be found from my front door, anyone up for another Antelope Island adventure? I am probably going back out Saturday

Here is a link to another story of a guy who was not as lucky as I was.

Leadville Training Plan

2010-03-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

On August 14th I am going to race my bike off -road for 100 miles in the high altitude town of Leadville Colorado. A fairly ambitious undertaking to say the least, I will need a training plan and probably should have some goals to go with it. So here is my plan.
I am going to ride my bike where and when I feel it. I plan on logging a lot of miles but I am not going to focus on the miles, the focus will be on my body, the flow of the bicycle and having fun. I am not going to wear a watch, computer or heart-rate monitor. I am going to completely wing it, listening to my body and letting it tell me how fast or slow I should be going. I will not let the preconceived notion that riding your bike long distances is hard or should be tiring. From now on long rides just mean that I get to play in the dirt longer than I normally would. I will not allow my training plan to become regimented or feel like it is a chore that must be done. I am not saying that it won’t be hard and that I will not suffer, I will, but from now on I will enjoy the suffering. As the season progresses the suffering to fun ratio is shifting and is already heavily stacked on the fun side. I fully anticipate this trend to continue as my fitness level continues to increase.

My Expectations

I will ride as quickly and smoothly as my body and mind will allow. I want a belt-buckle. And in my opinion as far as belt-buckles go bigger is always better. I don’t know if I will come in under nine hours but regardless of my finish time I will work the crowd at the finish line with the most spectacular wheelie Leadville has ever seen. And there you have it, a goal is not a goal unless it is written, right?

Bike Peddler Spring St George Trip

2010-03-15T22:37:00.000-07:00

Feeling less than confident in my mechanical skills I opted out of driving 300 miles on an engine that I had just finished rebuilding. I made a call to Josh McCarrel, feeling like kind of a looser I asked if he knew if anyone who would be willing to let me tag along to St George with them for the annual Bike Peddler spring trip. Turns out he was riding down with Nick, a buddy of his from the shop, and they had room for me in the truck. This was a good move, I am sure I would be dead on the side of the road near Scipio if I would have attempted to drive the Rabbit.
It was really good to get to know Josh and Nick, we know a lot of the same people and had a great time trading stories back and forth. The riding in St George was phenomenal. Friday we rode Barrel Roll and another trail right next to it that I forget the name of. Both trails were fun mostly smooth single track that would be great for novice riders. Saturday morning we rode the Slickrock Swamp trail, had a great time playing around on the rock. Around lunch time a storm blew in so we stopped by Dairy Queen loaded up on some grease and headed to the hot tub to wait it out. After the storm blew past we headed out to ride Prospector followed up by worship services at the Zen trail on Sunday morning. All in all it was one of the best road trips I have ever been on. Great riding, caught up with some old friends and made lots of new friends. It doesn't get much better than that.

Yep it Rocked

Frozen Hog Race Report 2010

2010-02-12T21:55:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I drove down to Alpine for the Frozen Hog Race. My calves got completely shredded. A full week after the event and I am still sore. I keep having to explain to the guys at work why I am walking with a limp.
It started out with Josh explaining the LeMans style start, he even mentioned that if you didn't want to run you could just go to the staging area and wait for a signal to go after most of the field had passed. In hind sight that is really funny, after the LeMans start we grabbed our bikes and started running, and running and running.

This was the highlight of the race, fifty feet in Chris Fox tempting us with a hand full of ones, (is it worth a dollar to loose a position?) I should have grabbed a buck.

You can see me behind Chris running.... and look Stuart Goodwin can run too

The course was a 4 mile loop, to the right of the stars is the singletrack where you gain all of the elevation. NONE OF IT WAS RIDEABLE. 40 degree temperatures turned the snow into slush, there was absolutely no chance of riding this section. 1/3 of a mile into the race I told myself I was going to do one lap and drop out. After two miles of suffering we hit the top of the course and mounted our bikes for the downhill. It was squirly but ridable and my riding legs were fresh so I jumped and tried to make the most of the section of the course that you could actually ride.

As I finished the first loop I saw a familiar face standing on the side of the road spectating, Stuart Talley. By this time I was back to running with my bike and could tell that he didn't recognize me. I ran off course directly at him and gave him a sucker punch to the gut. I don't know why it just felt right. Anyone that knows Stuart I am sure will understand. Stuart and I have a bit of a history.

The first time I met Stuart was in Moab through mutual friends. We were going out to ride Flat Pass and on the way to the trail head Stuart informed us of exactly how fast he was, to paraphrase it went something like this, "You may beat me up the hills but I got this here new full suspension bike and I will kill you on the down hills." He was right about the uphill part, and all I have to say is that right before I knocked my front teeth out on a rock I was in front of him on the downhill as well. Seeing Stuart sealed the deal, there was absolutely no way I could drop with him standing there. I kept running.

Don't get me wrong I really like Stuart he is what I like to call a very likeable Ass Hole. Many a good time have been had with Stuart around and since he introduced me to my wife I guess he can't be all that bad. His son Noah had a stellar race and finished first in his class.

I finished 4th out of 5 against a group of really fast guys. I am happy with the finish.

Expert Men 30-39

1 501 0:57:55 Greg “Chucky” Gibson

2 529 1:00:06 Steve Wasmund

3 520 1:03:47 Cameron Smart

4 566 1:04:19 Ryan Thompson

5 574 1:32:58 Aaron Moulton

I have to say Josh McCarrel did a great job of organizing and promoting the race everything ran very smoothly. Mother Nature just had other plans for us on that day.

Leadville

2010-02-09T21:57:00.000-08:00

Dear Leadville Trail 100 Family,

CONGRATULATIONS! Your entry into the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race has been accepted. Get ready to "Dig Deep" and challenge yourself to the highest and biggest mountain bike race around. Gear up to race with the world's BEST cyclists at the nation's highest quality athletic experience with the utmost degree of safety, medical care and racer support.

We would also encourage you to consider entering the awesome 50 mile "Silver Rush" on July 17. It's a tough, demanding and incredibly beautiful ride in Leadville's historic east side mining district. Also new this year is 24 Hours of Leadville on Sept. 4 & 5 - for when 100 miles isn't enough! Try it solo or grab some of your friends and sign up as a team. More information about this event and the entry process will be on our web site soon.

Last, but certainly not least, we always need and welcome volunteers to assist the mountain bike and running events. Whether you will be traveling with your own crew or plan on arriving early or staying later, it is very rewarding to help other racers achieve their goals. In addition, preference in the 2011 entry process is also given to those who fulfill the volunteer requirements for any of our 2010 races.

We are working hard to make this "Race Across the Sky," the best ever. Our good wishes to you for safe and satisfying training. See you at the start line on August 14, 2010!

Dig Deep,

Ken Chlouber Merilee Maupin
President, Leadville Trail 100 Race Director

Frozen Hog Practice

2010-01-31T22:16:00.000-08:00

Did a little bike practice on Saturday for the Frozen Hog Race. I decided to play around with the video function on my point and shoot and ended up with this jem. A short little clip I call perspective, given the choice I'll take two wheels.

Snow Biking on Bonneville Shore Line Trail in Kaysville from Rocket Ryan on Vimeo.

Big Wheel Video 2

2010-01-22T17:07:00.000-08:00

Here is a little video that we shot last fall in Boulder City Nevada followed by a couple of runs down Brian Head Canyon. In my opinion not as good as our first video on Squaw Peak but still worth watching.

Diamond Fork Hot Pots

2010-01-06T21:28:00.000-08:00

Every year Kenny organizes a New Years ride to get out have a little fun and raise a bit of money for his Livestrong page. This year’s destination was the Diamond Fork Hot Pots. If you have never been there you need to go. Due to the heavy foot traffic it is more or less ride-able year round.

In the winter the Hot Pots are incredibly inviting, they are located approx six miles from where the road is closed up Diamond Fork Canyon. Trail conditions were fair for Kenny’s ride recent snow and cold weather made for semi-consolidated snow conditions on the well traveled road and trail. It was all ride-able just with considerable concentration and effort. The reward for this effort was Mother Nature’s hot tub complete with temperature control unit (old dirty pair of underwear that you could either plug or unplug a hole allowing cold water to mix in). It really was the perfect destination location for a winter time ride.

From the pictures the trail looks totally un-ride-able which is the best part of riding in the snow, I just love cleaning sections of trail that at first blush look impossible.

And my favorite picture of the day... me walking in the background with my gut hanging out. You can also see this picture where thousands of others have seen it at fatcyclist.com Thanks Elden.

Photo credit: Naked Dude

Magic and the Three Step Process

2010-01-03T21:11:00.000-08:00

I feel like I have been getting away with something that I shouldn’t lately. I have been riding my bike off-road in the middle of the winter on mountain trails, both snow covered and in balmy mid 70˚ temperatures.

There’s an easy explanation for the fair weather riding and that is due to the fact that I just happened to find some spare time during a business trip to the LA area. Instead of booking a flight out in the morning, I booked one of the evening flights and rented a bike for the day. I was only able to find one shop in the area that rented bikes and it turned out to be a ’93 Diamondback with a second generation Manitou fork on it (if you thought the elastomer bumpers were bad when they came out try aging them a couple of decades). I did my best to subdue my bike snobbishness. The bike actually climbed great and we will just leave it at that. The riding was good and I will never complain about that.

The snow covered trail riding is a little more difficult and the only explanation I have is Magic. Magic keeps the tires above the crust. Magic propels you forward at a speed similar to that of summer time riding. Magic makes it possible to ride in places nobody else will venture out to (at least on two wheels). The Bonneville Shore Line Trail above Layton and Kaysville gets a fair amount of foot traffic and has had great riding conditions lately. I’ve ridden that section of trail four times in the last couple of weeks. I love getting the looks from hikers, runners, snow-shoers, and skiers as I pass them.

I generally try to be polite when making a pass, here is my routine.

Step one, Follow quietly for 30 seconds assuming they heard me come up from behind and are just looking for a spot to pull over.

If step one fails I move on to step two, “Excuse me mind if I get by here” this almost always works.

Step three although the most fun of all trail passing techniques is reserved strictly for Ipod listening oblivious to the world trail blockers. The rule for deploying step three involves completely exhausting all techniques in step one and two. Just for good measure I repeat step two three times prior to deploying step three. Here's how it goes, I start looking for an opening just wide enough that I can manage to make a pass without actually making physical contact. One extra inch is all I need. As soon as the opportunity presents itself I pounce, with gusto and flare. The end result is always the same, I succeed in making the pass and trail blocker dude usually ends up jumping into the bushes.

I love step three.

21 Years and Still Going Strong

2009-12-29T14:37:00.000-08:00

When I was fourteen I asked for and received a Mtn Bike for Christmas. It was an '88 Diamondback Fleet Streek, check out the sweet handlebars and laid back geometry. I’d forgotten how big those bars were and to think when they bent I actually replaced them with a BMX handlebar. I also added a safety feature by removing the front brake. Didn’t want that thing causing any problems.

My first real ride was early in the spring of 1988, I rode from my house in American Fork to the highest peak on the Point of the Mountain just west of where Suncrest is now. I knew better than giving details of where I was going, my mom surely would have put a stop to that. I simply said, “Going for a bike ride”. Since I had never attempted a ride like that I had no Idea how long it would take. I was having fun and I kept thinking the top was just around the next bend. After multiple false summits I finally reached the large triangular survey marker that sits on the peak. The views were amazing, I could see the Salt Lake and Utah County valleys. It was the first time I experienced the rumble of the city from a mountain peak. I didn’t get home until after dark and my mom was a little freaked out ready to call in a missing persons report.

The bike wasn’t a car but it was close. It provided some of the same freedoms that a car does and allowed me to experience those freedoms a couple of years before any of my friends. Later when I got a car it just meant that I could now drive to the trailheads and spend more time in the good stuff, Hog Hollow, Sliding Rock, Ridge Trail, Moab...!

I could have played Highschool sports like football, basketball, or baseball, oh how about wresteling that sounds fun. All those sports have a season, a very small window of opportunity comes and goes, when it goes you get a job, get old and get fat. You spend the rest of your life like Uncle Rico dreaming of your highschool days when you were the hero. Well, I am still a hero. On a bike for the most part you simply get better with time. Twenty one years later I am still advancing in the sport. I feel strong, another 21+ years should be no problem.

Busted Car

2009-12-22T21:37:00.000-08:00

Last night I rode my bike to the auto parts store to pick up a wheel bearing and have a rotor turned. The parts store is close about two miles from my house but it is cold and snowy. As I was leaving the store, I loaded the heavy rotor into my back pack and grabbed a hefty bearing press kit and headed out to my bike to find the front tire had gone flat as I was in the store. The ride home was dicey on the flat carrying approx 30lbs of payload.

There are special hydraulic presses made to push in and out wheel bearings so the small bearing press kit I rented was just wishful thinking. And of course it didn't work. Last night at about 12:00 I decided to give up and get some professional help. So with only a few days till Christmas I decided to take the day off of work to get it done.

Everyone I work with knows I only have one car which my wife drives during the day. I ride to work snow rain or shine. It's only a mile. I can just imagine the conversations of the guys sitting out side smoking after I lock my bike up and go inside. "Maybe he can't afford a car. I'll bet he has too many DUI's and has lost his license. I'll bet he is just retarded"

The truth of the matter is I really enjoy riding my bike and for the 1 mile commute I just can't justify the expense of another car. And if it really bothered me I would finish my 81 rabbit. It's about 5 hours away from being functional again after a major engine rebuild (assuming I put everything together right).

I called in to work to let them know that I would not be coming in so that I could fix our car. A couple of minutes later I got a call from one of the engineers that I work with offering me the use of his cars over the holiday since they were going out of town and wouldn't be using them. I thought it was really nice of him to offer but I am sure that I will have our car up and running before it comes down to that.

I rode my bike across town this morning to a shop with a hydraulic press and now I'm just waiting for them to call so I can go back and pick it up. It is snowing pretty hard.

It is not a big deal is it. Should I feel more compelled to have another car as a backup? Is there something wrong with me? I have to admit I did get a little frustrated last night with the hassle of keeping a higher mileage car running with no backup but it was brief. I think I’m over it now and everything will be great again later tonight when I get it put back together.

I have a good wife who puts up with me and doesn’t complain too terribly much if she doesn’t have a car on occasion.

The snow just covered the internet transmitter/receiver on the roof so I will have to save and post this later.

It could be worse right?

Update
I finished the car and took it around the block for a test drive. The guy at Checker machined my brake rotor completely skiwompus. I hit the brake and the car shook uncontrollably. Seriously I have never seen such a jacked up rotor. I should have known better, when I asked the guy at Checker if they machined rotors he said, “I don’t know. I’ll have to see”. Then after an hour of machining on my rotor the guy comes out and says “Wow that rotor was really warped”. It wasn’t, it only had about 10,000 miles on it and ran perfectly smooth before I took it in. The only reason I was having it turned was because the play in the bad bearing allowed the rotor to flex to the side and slightly rub against the brake caliper housing. In hind sight I should have just left it alone and let the brake pad clean it up.

I explained the problem and they told me I would need to take the rotor off the car and bring it in, (on my bike through the snow) once they verified that the rotor was in fact jacked up they would either re-machine it taking a few thousand miles of wear off or they would refund the $15 bucks I paid them to machine it and sell me a new one.

I left and bought a new rotor at Auto Zone my favorite parts store for 30 bucks, took it home and threw it on, the car now runs smooth as butter.

Fall Moab Fiscal Year 2010 in Fruita Colorado

2009-11-09T21:06:00.000-08:00

Photo credit Fatty

The only other time I have ever ridden in Fruita was for the beginning of the Kokopelli Trail about 15 years ago. As it turns out Fruita has some of the best trails I have ever ridden. Combine that with the company of the Utah County and Suncrest boys as well as your own personal local tour guide, Rocky, and you have a combination for the perfect weekend.

I meet a bunch of really cool guys and got to hang with some great old friends. Lots of scrapes, bumps, bruises and sore muscles but no trips to the hospital. Elden had his helmet cam on for most of the rides so when he gets a chance to edit and post the footage you will be able to see what the trails in Fruita are like, stay tuned.
The weekend was a huge success. Thanks to all who had a hand in planning it. It really was the perfect weekend. And no this rock was not as crazy as it looks.

Photo credit southcountyciclista

Hard Plastic Wheels with Precision Bearings

2009-10-19T20:40:00.000-07:00

Got an email today from Randy today

"The long awaited rear wheels for the Trek MOD are finally available. Trek did a special batch of only 500 units. We have 100 en route and will re-order if needed. I have a feeling that this will be the last batch of replacement wheels from Trek, forever."

The Bigwheel races have been a little slow recently, mainly because everyone has burned through their stockpile of wheels. The famine hit some harder than others. Those who were not prepared missed out on some great riding but truth be told I have really missed the race car drivers at the weekly Bigwheel races, they bring a level of insanity to the ride and it just wasn't the same without them. Hopefully the wheels will show up before the snow files and they close the road. The next bigwheel rally will not be one to miss. And yes the offer still stands if you want to ride let me know, a few dollars to my livestrong page is all it takes.

I haven't posted for a while, been pretty busy. We went down to Las Vegas to Interbike to scope out an Asian supplier for our own Bigwheel. We found a vendor that makes a steel frame Bigwheel similar to the MOD and showed him our Youtube video on Randy's IPhone so he could get a feel for what we were looking for. He didn't speak any English so we had to communicate through an interpreter. Here we are trying to explain to him that this plastic wheel we have sitting here on the table is the same one we used in the video He just couldn't comprehend it.

The Mad Dog site has been getting a lot of people asking to buy Bigwheels but since Trek doesn't make them anymore and even if they had them they couldn't sell to non-local people because the Dealer agreement restricts selling over the phone and shipping product out in boxes, we are pursuing avenues to spec and import our own model that we will be able to sell to anyone regardless of their geographical location. Very exciting! This is going to be huge.

Interbike was fun, but you know what was more fun? The parking garage of the Venetian. The security guard was too busy watching videos on his phone to pay any attention to us. I almost got taken out by a Corvette.

After Interbike we went out to Boulder City to ride in some of their drainage ditches, followed up by a quick detour to Brianhead on the way home to make a couple of runs down the canyon. We took Dwayne from Media Works along for the ride so there should be a new video coming out as soon as he finishes editing.

One of the best parts of the trip was the drive down and back. Experienced race car driver + Subaru STI + Radar Detector= very little strain on the bladder between St George and Vegas.

Make a Donation, Ride the Bigwheel

2009-08-26T12:57:00.000-07:00

If you haven't noticed I am only half way to my $1000 fundraising goal for the Livestrong Foundation. I think it's time I bumped my fundraising efforts up a notch. The Squaw Peak Bigwheel Rally occurs every Wednesday night at 8:00 PM until further notice. A donation of your choosing to my Livestrong page will get you the ride of your life on my personal pink bigwheel. Trust me you will not want to miss out on this.

The details. Meet at the base of the Squaw Peak Road between the times of 8-11:00 PM, bring what ever body armor you feel necessary (minimum helmet and light if you have one). It usually takes us 20 minutes or so top to bottom so if nobody is there just hang out, we'll show up.

The Rules

1. Really there are not rules, just loose guidelines

2. Pushing from behind is a completely acceptable practice, just make sure if you push aim for the seat of the person in front of you, DON'T HIT THE BACK WHEELS YOU WILL FLIP OVER BACKWARD AND GO SLIDING DOWN THE PAVEMENT ON YOUR BACK click this link and go to 2:20 to see what I am talking about

3. Stay in your own lane, if at all possible, this is not a closed course and you are not a professional driver

4. Throw down some cash for the shuttle service($5)

5. If you get hurt don't blame me. These are kids toys that were never meant to do what we are doing on them, RIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK

So join with me in having an outrageously good time and raising a little money for an excellent cause, I can't think of a better combination.

This offer good every Wednesday night as long as we are planning on going, send me an email ryanthom@gmail.com so I can get a count of how many people to expect, four or five is probably the limit per night since that is usually the number of runs we do and I only have one bigwheel to loan out right now.

Leadville Trail 100 Report

2009-08-18T20:45:00.000-07:00

Our first stop in town was to pick up supplies that we were transporting to the top of Columbine for the race. After loading the supplies I asked one of the other volunteers who was obviously a local if there was any good camping around. With out any hesitation she looked over at her husband and said Lee do you mind if they camp on our property? With that Calvin and I followed them to their house. Lee gave us a tour around the yard and suggested a couple of spots where we could set up camp, then showed us into his garage where there was a bathroom next to his metal shop, "The door is always open, just come on in if you need to".
I have heard others say that Leadville is really about the people. I couldn't agree more, Lee turned out to be a super cool guy who makes his living as a metal artist. He makes some of the most beautiful copper fountains that I have ever seen. Check them out here. Lee is also a long distance cyclist who rode in the Colorado Trail Race as well as Leadville a few times.
Thanks for the hospitality Lee and Joan
This is one of the best pictures I have ever taken, Lance preparing for a pre-race ritual.
Don't forget to lube boys and girls.

With that taken care of here he is ready to go, riding up to the start of the race.

Moments before the start

After we watched the start we headed out to meet the riders at the top of Columbine, I got choked up a little when I saw this sign. Elden has a lot of good friends and people he has never even meet rooting for him. I don't know who put this up but thanks. The saddest thing about this poster is that he crashed out early in the race and never got to see it. Crushing blow

Old cabin at the top of Columbine

Calvin took this picture of Lance as he flew past us at the top of Columbine. No competition in sight.

I brought my stand figuring it may come in handy for some of the racers. I am still a little foggy on the rules of providing mechanical support for the racers. I am not going to admit to anything, and I am certainly not going to review the rule book, my conscience will feel better that way. I will say that there were a few riders that were happy that there was someone with some mechanical skill at the top. I think chain lube was the most popular request at the top of Columbine. My 2oz bottle of Dumonde lube was gone in no time so we raided the support vehicles for a quart of Pennzoil. I lubed dozens of chains with this stuff.

"Does anybody have any chain lube?"

"I've got Pennzoil."

"Great!"

I think most people were just surprised that we had anything. I got nothing but praises for the Pennzoil and to tell the truth for those kind of conditions I think it was the perfect choice in lube. I heard a few stories of people trying some pretty desperate things to get their chains to behave.

One poor soul rolled in with no rear brake and wanted to know if we had any mineral oil to top of the reservoir in his shimano brakes. The best solution we could come up with was antifreeze. We handed him the bottle, I told him it was pretty inert and likely would not hurt a thing. I recommended that he flush it out when he gets home. It was just the thing, topped off with antifreeze he was no longer sucking air into the master cylinder and he was up and running. There is always more than one way to skin a cat.

Here is a shot of the volunteer work force. I kind of felt bad for some of the racers, they were 5o miles in at 12,400 feet and being swarmed by people asking them what they wanted, as if they were going to drop dead if they didn't get something to eat right that second. I do think the racers appreciated it though. Some of the racers seemed unfazed by the climb while others were on the bring of collapsing. I remember looking at some thinking I was really glad that I wasn't in their shoes.

Calvin was a great sport even when the sleet started coming down sideways. I think he actually had a good time up there.

After the race I meet up with Dug, Elden, Ricky, Kenny, Rick and Gary, we got some take out pizza and headed over to their hotel with the infamous stairs, what they failed to mention is the incredibly creepy nine foot tall Santa at the base of the stairs. It was really nice to see some old friends and catch up a little. It meant a lot to me to be able to hang out for a little while. If you have a minute check out Dug's story about a family waiting for their husband and father at the finish line. He does a great job of capturing what Leadville is really about, Friends, Family and the average Joe competing along side the worlds best cyclists.

Here is the race promoter counting down the minutes to the 12 hour cut off. If you cross the finish after the muzzle loader goes off, No Belt Buckle!

Summer in Leadville, we woke up to frost the day after the race.

It was a great weekend until we went to fill up on the way out of town. A fellow parked his shinny yellow Harley Davidson at the end of the gas pump island while he went into the service station to use the facilities. Of course I didn't see it and while trying to negotiate the crowded parking lot backed right into it and knocked it down. I waited outside for him to come beat me up. He didn't but as you can guess he was angry. The first thing he said was "You couldn't pick it up!" I just didn't think my buck fifty frame had it in me to heft it. I gave him my insurance info apologized profusely and assured him I would make it right. It didn't do much damage but I am sure it will be expensive. I do know now from experience that Harley's leak more oil sitting on their sides than they do upright. I wanted to take a close up picture of the bike to document the damage but chickened out, I couldn't resist snapping a picture as he rode away just for proof that the bike was at least rideable post collision.

Moab is a 30 mile spur from I 7o so I couldn't resist stopping by on our way home. Calvin had never been there and I wanted to open up a new world for him. We went up to Slick Rock and rode out about a mile. He did a lot better than I thought he would but I did not want to push him the trail is above his technical ability and I didn't want him to get hurt. The below picture gives new meaning to Scary Bathroom. This guy was hanging out in the shade in front of the outhouse door in the Slick Rock parking lot. Rattle Snake sighting #2 for the season.

Calvin's first ride on Slick Rock

The End to a great weekend, can't wait till next year, I think I might have a chance at getting in.

Columbine Mine Aid Station

2009-08-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

Leadville has been illusive for me. When I was 19 I filled out the application all the way down to the point where it said that you must be 21 to enter. I put it on the back burner for a few years then sent off another packet at age 22-DENIED, again at 24-DENIED. Gave up until this year and again at 35-DENIED. They don't want my money. This years rejection letter came with a note that said if you are a race volunteer you will have a better chance of getting into the race in 2010. In February I blocked the race weekend out as Vacation on my calendar. Up until this week I have been undecided as to whether I would actually go or not. On Monday with very little thought I responded to the volunteer request on the web page thinking surely this late in the game they probably won't even respond.

The response took one hour to come back. They wanted to know if I have a 4-Wheel Drive with good ground clearance. I don't but my wife does. I was shocked when she said sure you can take my car. I am not sure she has any idea of what I am going to do to her car. I have been assigned to the Columbine Mine Aid Station. Since I have never made it into the race I have never been there but I do know this it is at the 50 mile point which is the highest and furthest point on the 100 mile out and back race and sits at an elevation of 12,440 ft. I'm sure it is not as bad as it looks.

I am going to take Calvin, he's really excited to spend some time camping with dad. I just hope he doesn't get to bored hanging out at a bike race all day. He likes bikes now I hope I don't ruin it for him.

I am sure Lance has his own people providing support but it sure would be cool to be able to give him a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as he flies by. I think this might be his year.

In leiu of flowers

2009-08-05T20:39:00.000-07:00

In Lieu of flowers I have made a donation to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Won't you do the same?

http://www.fatcyclist.com/2009/08/05/dont-say-she-lost/

My condolences to the Nelson Family

San Jose Livestrong Challenge 2009 Ride Report Win Susan!

2009-07-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

$64,286.90 is the amount of money raised by Team Fat Cyclist for the Livestrong Challenge in San Jose this year which was more than any other team participating in the event. One of the perks of being the top fundraising team is being able to line up at the front of the "ride" directly behind the Police escort. There were some pre-ride instructions and for a brief moment they opened the mic to our Team Captain Matt Chapek and gave him a minute to explain who Team Fat Cyclist Fighting for Susan was. He did a great job as Captain, thanks for all the time and effort in getting us organized, well done. After Matt was done there were more instructions "This is not a Race", we were told not to pass the Police escort and off we went.

Riding behind the Police escort was great, they kept us at an easy pace for the first 15-20 miles. It was nice to ride as a team for the first while and be able to talk a bit. After a while I noticed a lot of green jerseys forming at the front, little did I know at the time but these guys and gal would serve as my personal domestiques through the majority of the ride. I later found out that these guys were from team Beat the Clock.

A small gap began to open between the green jerseys and the rest of us. This is just a "Ride", yea right. I made a break for it and was able to bridge the gap, my plan was to hang on the wheels of the lead group as long as possible until I cracked then I would sit up and take a more leisurely pace and enjoy the ride.

Around mile 40 the group had thinned to 10. We pulled into an aid station to refill bottles an fuel up. We talked briefly and were off again. Usually I start to hit the wall at about mile 50 but today I felt strong, I even made a couple of token pulls on the lead group. It felt good to be at the front but I was obviously the weakest rider of the group and quickly found myself sucking wheels again.

At Mile 60 we went through some rolling hills and I started to fall back, I looked up and one of the guys from team Beat the Clock was coming back for me, I got on his wheel and he reeled me back in to the group. I wish I had a picture of this guys legs. It was all I could do to hang on his wheel and I am pretty sure he wasn't even breathing hard. I have never met these guys in my life yet they were treating me as if I were one of their team members.

Metcalf Road was around the 70 mile mark, I got dropped hard. I actually did the walk of shame three times before I got to the top. That thing is steep. "If I only had one more gear..." At the top of Metcalf was an aid station where I could see team Beat the Clock gathered, I figured that I would continue and soon enough they would pass me and I would get dropped again.

After the summit of Metcalf was a screaming down hill, I was glad to be able to ride it alone big groups make me nervous, it was supper fun. As I suspected my break didn't last long and the lead group came screaming by me, one of the riders yelled out grab a wheel as they went by so I did and was able to ride on their coat tails to the finish line. The lead group of ten all crossed the finish line together with a time of 4 hours and 48 minutes which is by far the fastest century I have ever done and really the only one that I felt relatively strong all the way to the end. It's amazing what riding at 7-9000 feet will do for your fitness at sea level. I had one of the best rides of my life today, it was amazing.

I just want to say thanks to Elden and his supper power. You know when he asks you to do something you have to do it. This year our family summer vacation had a purpose. At the appreciation banquet for the top fund raisers Matt Chapek shared this from Elden's Blog, a post about what he would say to cancer.

"I've got a lot of friends, and we're working together to help fight it. Sure, it's just a little drop in the bucket, but there are a lot of us. And we're all going to put or drops in the bucket. And someday that bucket will be full, and we will have beaten you, cancer. And that's a good reason to do this.
Because I can't bear the thought of my kids having to someday face cancer themselves."

Here are some links to other team member ride reports.

Others coming soon as I find them.

Road Riding on Antelope Island

2009-07-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

Next Sunday is the Livestrong Challenge ride in San Jose so I figured I should start putting some miles on the old road bike. I set out from my house and made my way across the causeway out to Antelope Island. Despite living here for two years now I have never ridden across the causeway on my road bike. Last year I rode off road on the Island twice and got puncture weed flats both times, haven't been back since.

The ride out

After paying my three bucks at the toll booth I shifted into the big ring and hammered down. This is probably the flattest road in Utah and had a slight tail wind so I just kind of zoned out as the miles flew by. The lake is kind of stinky, kind of like the hot pots up Diamond Fork Canyon, you get used to it after a while.

The Island

Once you get on the Island there is wildlife almost everywhere you look.

The road goes from flat to rolling hills which is a nice change of pace. The two tiny dots in the center of the picture on the beach are Coyote's (I promise).

The lake stinks and sometimes there are a lot of bugs but to make up for that there are some spectacular views.
Buffalo

After cranking through a few miles of rolling hills I ran across these guys.

They seem pretty harmless, kind of like big cows that make scary snorting and grunting noises when you go by.
This guy was all by himself out humping a rock. I thought it was kind of funny. Ok maybe he was scratching his stomach.
Tail Wind

On the way back a monster storm rolled in. It looked like I was going to get soaked so I pedaled as hard as I could. The wind was picking up in front of the black wall off to the West and I could tell that if I could get in front of it before it hit the causeway I would have a direct tail wind. When I hit the causeway the road turned exactly parallel to the gale force winds. It was like surfing an imaginary wave on a bicycle. This was one of the strangest things I have ever experienced, I was completely spun out. I could see the violent wind bending the grasses straight to the ground along the sides of the road but since I was traveling at the same velocity as the wind the air directly around me was eerily still and quiet. I am guessing that I was cruising at 45-50 mph as I blew across the causeway and the farm roads leading to my house at a pace closer to freeway driving than bicycle riding.

As near as I can tell this is about a 45 mile round trip ride from my house (note to self, replace computer batteries), no major canyon ascent and descent but still a very nice ride. I did it three times last week. I think that this is just the thing to get me in shape for San Jose.

Accidental Peak Bagging

2009-06-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

I have lived in Davis County for two years now and have yet to find a trail that I would rank higher than a 5 out of 10. While working at the Bike Peddler in Orem the manager of the store, Aaron Luck, left and took a job in an Ogden shop called Ken’s Shooters Supply, apparently they sold bikes on the side. Aaron used to always tell us about the great riding up here, thankfully I never took him up on the invitation.
I remember Aaron talking about the Skyline trail up to Ben Lomond Peak, http://www.utahmountainbiking.com/ Here is what Utah Mountain Biking has to say about the trail “Monster narrow-singletrack climb of 3000 vertical feet over 6.1 miles. May be done as out-and-back, or as a shuttled ride by adding the Northern Skyline (12.6 miles), or as a loop ride by adding another 7 mile of paved road. For strong skilled riders only. Season July through mid-October.”
This sounded fun. I can honestly say I enjoy a good technical climb as much as the descent. I printed the info sheet and headed out. When they wrote the description they failed to mention that the 6.1 mile climb has zero down hill rest zones, ZERO. Since my front derailleur broke last month and I took it off I have been manually shifting with my index finger, which means that I have to stop to shift. I rode the first 5.8 miles in my middle ring because it was too much bother to stop and shift. Trust me if I were able to shift with a click of the finger I would have. I guess this is kind of what it is like to ride a single speed which I just don’t get. I like gears.

This trail peaks out at a saddle 1.5 miles below Ben Lomond Peak, my original plan was to descend the back side (Northern Skyline) then climb back up over the saddle and back down to my car. The Ben Lomond trail climbs the South facing side of the mountain and toward the top I ran into a fair amount of snow. The Northern Skyline trail descends you guessed it, the Northern facing slope. Due to snow this was not an option. At the saddle there is a sign that says that Ben Lomond peak was 1.5 miles off of a side trail. I headed for the peak.
By this time I was feeling a little gassy from the Taco Bell that I had on the way to the trail head. I had an intense focus on the trail within a 10 foot radius when I cut one loose. It was something to be proud of. Just at that moment a pretty girl who happened to be standing just outside of my circle of awareness startled me by jokingly saying “Hey wanna give me a ride to the bottom?” The only think I could think of to say was “Sure hop on.” as I drug the trail of stench right past her. She had to have been impressed. Someday I will have to tell a couple of other stories but let’s just say I have an extraordinary gift for flatulating in front of hot girls. At about 9000’ I got passed by a father and son riding motocross bikes, shortly after that the trail got too steep for the bikes I ditched my mountain bike about 100 yards up the trail from where the motocross bikes stopped and I could see the father and son postholing up a snowfield on the mountain above me. I was thankful to them for kicking out some steps for me. At the top of the snow field I ran into this guy, I hear they are mean so I was glad he wasn't close.

I summited shortly after the father and son at an elevation 9712'. For proof I took their picture and they took mine. Nice helmet hair.

After this long climb I was looking forward to the downhill which was fair at best. Very narrow trail lots of overgrowth with long sections of baseball sized gravel that made my fingers hurt. I guess the best thing about this trail is the views, it was beautiful up there. I will give this trail a 5.

I guess I am just spoiled by the Utah County trail systems. I think I'll take the day off work on Wednesday and visit my old friend the Ridge Trail, it's been a couple of years since we played together. I'll be sure to pack my bigwheel for the weekly ritual afterwards. Should be a perfect day.

Weekly Ritual

2009-06-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

Just finished tuning the Big Wheel, in preparation for tomorrow night. It will probably be a little smaller group since Randy is unable to attend. I am planning on going along with my brother who just bought a Mod a couple weeks ago and my friend Clint. I wouldn't be surprised to see a few of the race car drivers there as well.
I know there are a few guys that have been wanting to give this a try so tomorrow night if you show up at the base of Squaw Peak between 8-11pm I will let you borrow my Mod for a run. Just be sure to bring a light, helmet and any other body armor you feel necessary. Just kidding it is not as bad as it looks. Just think of the stories you can tell your coworkers when you roll into work Thursday. See you there.

Sorry Canceled due to rain

Update
Like I learned long ago when we used to routinely leave for Moab in a blizzard to find beautiful weather down south, if you are going south never cancel your plans based on the weather up north. Shame on me looks like we missed out. http://bikepeddlerweekly.blogspot.com/2009/06/guest-leaderblog-poster-jake.html

200 Yellow Bracelets

2009-06-05T21:34:00.000-07:00

This week the Livestrong folks sent me a package of 200 yellow Livestrong bracelets. It's one of the perks of signing up for the Livestrong Challenge in San Jose. Now I just need to find something to do with them. One though was to give them away to those who have donated to my Livestrong page and use it as an incentive for additional donations. So if you have already donated I will be getting them out to you, one for each member of your family.

I have to say it feels good to give and help rally the troops for a worthy cause. I am going to go out on a limb here and say anyone who reads my blog is also aware of FatCyclist.com which is written by one of my favorite customers from the bike shop. Elden is one of those guys that you just can't not like. Elden was probably in his early thirties when he first came in to buy a bike and really struggled with it at first. It just didn't come very easily to him, but he kept at it and what he lacked in natural ability he more than made up with sheer determination. He rides a lot and has no mechanical ability so he needs his bike fixed a lot which was good for me because this is how I got to know him. After a while I started riding with him and a group of his friends mostly on night rides. Everyone would put their families to bed and we would meet up American Fork canyon to ride on the system of trails near the summit of the Alpine Loop until 1:00 am most Wednesdays.

I started school, got really busy and then moved out of state for a little while and kind of lost touch with the group for a while, then one day I was goofing off on the Internet and ran across a link to Elden's site. I spent probably three hours that day reading through his archives. Elden is a magnificent writer. While reading I learned that his wife Susan has been suffering with Breast Cancer and that he through his blog he has turned into somewhat of a celebrity and has been able to start an impressive movement in the fight against Cancer.

With the formation of Team Fat Cyclist Fighting for Susan the ball was set in motion for a respectable drive at raising funds for the Livestrong Foundation. Team Fat Cyclist is the top fundraising team in all four host cities for the Livestrong Challenge and has as of this date raised $272,098 in the fight against Cancer. The great thing about this team is that it spreads far and wide most of the funds have been raised by small donations from individuals affected by Elden's story and those small donations have added up to over a quarter of a million dollars.

We have five weeks left before the Livestrong Challenge ride in July, it would be nice to see a strong finish to the fund raising by Team Fat Cyclist. Please join with me in helping raise our goal of 1 million dollars in the fight against Cancer, you'll get a stylish yellow bracelet, I hear they are going to be the next big thing, but more importantly you will get the satisfaction in knowing that you are participating in something that will make a difference to those who are fighting this disease.

Ants on the Spacecraft

2009-06-05T16:57:00.000-07:00

Right out of school I got a job working for Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Sunnyvale California. I was a Quality Engineer working on the DMPS (a military weather satellite) program. As a Quality Engineer it was my job to document any anomalies in the product, usually things like a miss-drilled hole, or a damaged space blanket, but one day we got a call from our counterparts at Vandenberg where they were prepping the Spacecraft for launch. The call went something like this.

“Um we have a little bit of a problem. Today one of our technicians noticed ants on the spacecraft.”

Prior to landing a job at Lockheed I was a bicycle mechanic for 10 years, I was still trying to get use to the term “Spacecraft” being used causally in sentences by my coworkers who were talking about the Spacecraft that we were building, and now we had to figure out how to get the ants off of it.

You Tube Star

2009-05-27T16:28:00.000-07:00

Last week I got an email from my friend Randy saying that he got someone with a HD camera to come up and shoot video of us riding down Squaw Peak. I jumped at the opportunity. Many of you know that I have been a little obsessed with this lately and I have to admit that I feel a little sheepish when someone asks what are you doing tonight and I answer "I'm riding bigwheels". then there is this long explanation and a confused look. Obviously they don't understand. Well now I can just send them to this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkEdcR0D1E4&feature=channel_page

Got to run meet the gang for another night of mayhem

2009-05-26T17:56:00.000-07:00

Sundance Canyon

Last November I went for a night ride with my friends down Sundance Canyon, I thought that the story was worth telling so I wrote it down. Now that I have a Blog I figured that I would share.

Watch that next corner

Ok Last night was Crazy. Typically we go up the Squaw Peak road which is very steep and windy. Since this road has so many corners your speed ranges from say 20-35 mph and you spend a lot of your time in a semi controlled sideways slide through the corners. Very fun and since you are not going terribly fast it is usually not a big deal if you slide off of the road. Last night was a little different… We went up the Sundance side of the Alpine Loop since they have closed the gate at the bottom of Squaw Peak for the season. We started at Aspen Grove and proceeded down past Sundance to the Provo canyon turnoff. After the first ½ mile it became obvious that we were in for something very different than what we were used to. Comparatively speaking the turns were more sweeping and straight, not the tight switchbacks like you see on Squaw Peak. This road lets you build up more speed than you really thought that you wanted right before it throws a 180 degree switch back that will eat your lunch if you are not ready for it. My first run through this switchback caught me a little off guard. I immediately slid sideways to the outside of the curve and was able to stay a couple of feet from the concrete barrier. In my peripheral vision I could see the spinning lights of three others that were not so lucky narrowly missing me as they bounced off the wall. When the smoke cleared I exited the corner unscathed and in the lead.

Scary Fast

Next comes a couple more switch backs then a section of road about 4 miles long that is gently curving and steep. The speedometer on the chase truck clocked us at a max speed of 45 mph. On plastic wheels I think that was faster than any of us wanted to go but no one was going to be the first to lift and loose a shot at the lead position. Once you lift and loose the draft there is no chance of catching back up to the pack. This section is somewhat Nascar-ish as we diced for position drafting and slingshoting by each other as we built speed. Loosing control and sliding off the road here would not be pretty. As we reached the bottom it was impossible to wipe the smiles of our faces we tossed the bigwheels in the trailer and headed up for another run. In total we made five runs down the mountain.

Run #4

By now we are getting more comfortable with the road and the speeds. We had just started our run and were traveling at about 35 mph, I hardly even noticed the car passing on the opposite side of the road until the cherries started flashing. Yep we got pulled over by the Utah Highway Patrol on our BIGWEELS. Apparently the folks that live around Sundance thought that we were having a little too much fun. The attitude of the Patrol Officer quickly went from annoyance to amusement when he started looking at our bigweels, “You can’t be ridding those on a state highway! We thought that they had a motor, Did you build those yourselves? Do they have brakes?” Our argument was that they were no different than a bicycle and that we were really not doing anything wrong. He stood there for a minute with a confused look on his face, then walked back to his car “Don’t go anywhere this might take a minute”. A couple of minutes later he came back and said “Well I can’t find anything that you guys are doing wrong… You know the speed limit here is 35, I don’t know how fast these things go but just be careful and keep the speed down. You guys are free to go”. We hopped back on our bigwheels as a second Patrol Car comes blazing up. It took a minute for the first officer to calm down the second and explain to him that we were doing nothing wrong and that he was letting us go. That was seriously the highlight of the evening.

When was the last time you got pulled over on your bigwheel and received a warning for speeding?

And in case you were wondering, yes this is a contact sport.Sorry Jeff, I hope that washes out.
Meet me tomorrow night at the base of Squaw Peak, 8:00 sharp.
No... not to make out.

Calvin's First Mtn Bike Ride

2009-05-25T20:40:00.000-07:00

I had some down time today and like I usually do when I have down time I decided to go for a bike ride. As I was getting ready Calvin asked if he could go. He has a little mountain bike that he rides around the neighborhood and I have been hesitant to take him to the hills because I have not wanted to traumatize him by pushing him too hard too early.

On the way up we had the talk about how there is no crying in mountain biking unless you are really hurt. He agreed.

In the parking lot of the Shore Line trail in Layton, I explained to him that this is really hard and it is ok if you can't make it up a hill or if you are scared to go down a hill. I shifted his bike into granny gear and told him to pull his right brake more than his left one when he goes down the hills and off we went.

I let him go in front of me and really didn't expect him to make it up the first hill but he did and then just kept going. He had to get off a few times and pushed then got back on as soon as he could. We came down a steep hill with a stream crossing at the bottom of it, I told him to just go for it and he looked at me confused so I showed him how to do it. I left my bike on the other side of the stream and came back to help him across, then just to show off I crossed the stream again, and climbed the hill that we descended to get to the stream when I noticed a snake crossing the trail in front of me. I see snakes quite often and don't usually get too excited about it since they are usually the harmless non-venomous varieties. I didn't see the snake until I was almost on top of it so I just moved to the opposite side of the trail and kept going, as my left foot rounded the bottom of the pedal stroke I looked down and saw the rattles, it was at that point that I put together the ticking noise I was hearing was the rattle as the snake was scurrying to get out of my way. I jumped a little then got off my bike and ran back just in time to see the distinct tail disappear in the grass on the side of the trail. Then I realized from the direction he was going he had to have been right next to the trail on the uphill slope as Calvin and I just passed by. Needless to say it kind of freaked me out. I turned around and crossed the stream again and caught up to Calvin. Calvin wasn't even phased by the snake when I told him about it he just wanted to keep going. Cool

We kept going and passed Adams Canyon, we were climbing a hill as the trail narrowed and dropped off steeply to one side. Calvin stalled out on the slope and high sided off of his bike down the steep slope next to the trail. I felt hopeless as I watched him slide about 30 feet down stopping just shy of plopping into the drink. All I could say is let go of your bike! I think he was worried that he was going to loose it in the river. It took me a couple of minutes to get him and his bike back up to the trail. He had some pretty good scratches on his back from his chain ring but he wanted to keep going. So we did.

We stopped at the top of a cliff and threw some rocks then went home. I will have to say the kid is a natural, he asked when we could go again on the way home. This is going to get expensive.

100 Miles of Nowhere

2009-05-22T20:37:00.000-07:00

Ok it is official I have jumped on the Blog bandwagon, hope you enjoy it.

Tomorrow I will be riding my bike past my neighbors houses 125 times throughout the day. That's right I paid 75 dollars to ride my bike around the block for 100 miles. Why???

I'll let Elden, the Fat Cyclist explain http://www.fatcyclist.com/

"The basic idea of the 100 Miles of Nowhere is that no matter where you are, on May 23 you’re going to either ride your rollers, trainer, or a very small outside course for 100 miles. Or if that sounds like too much, you can do 50 miles.
Or 25.
But, ideally, 100.
And since you will be the only one racing in your age group, gender, category, and region, you are clearly going to win your age/gender/region/category group.
Yeah, that’s right. I’m guaranteeing you are going to win. How often do you get that kind of assurance in a race?
Oh sure, as you ride, you will certainly have qualms, and may find yourself saying things like, “I can’t believe I’m riding my trainer for 100 miles,” or “I can’t believe I’m paying to ride my trainer for 100 miles,” but then you’ll remind yourself, “But I’m doing this for a really, really good cause.”
And that cause, of course, is helping Team Fatty raise money to fight cancer. Out of the $75 registration you pay, $50 will go straight to the Lance Armstrong Foundation (the other $25 pays for boxing and shipping and stuff like that — trust me, nobody’s making a profit here)."

Since I don't want to ride my trainer that long I was wondering if I could ride outside, Elden looked into the official rule book and came up with this.

"The outdoor rule is, you have to create a very small course (one that goes as close to nowhere as possible), measure it, and then do it enough times to make 100 miles.
Your friends will be so jealous."

Yeah I know my friends are jealous.

So here is my route, looks fun right?.

Calvin and Maizy are going to be my support crew, they are super excited to set up their fundraising Gatorade stand and Allyson has agreed to keep track of my laps. I have a feeling that she will be lovingly heckling and making fun of me more than counting though. Thanks for the support guys.

So obviously I feel passionate about fighting Cancer. I have joined team Fat Cyclist and together we have raised $224,712 in the fight against Cancer. This team has a lot of momentum and is really making a difference, we are currently the top fund raising team in all four host cities. Please join me in the fight against Cancer by clicking the link and making a donation to my Livestrong Page https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=294743&lis=1&kntae294743=5598577D714A4A28941838D4DCD38836&supId=241384867

Race report

Calvin surprised me and rode 27 miles, notice he is in the lead. Way to go buddy!
Here is Allyson doing an amazing job of counting laps and cheering us on, she made it the whole 100 miles and never gave up on us. Thanks

At lap 5o the neighborhood kids brought out water balloons, super soakers and buckets of water, I had fun practicing my evasive maneuvers during the uphill section of the course. It really helped me keep my mind off of the pain and I think that I was having more fun dodging the projectiles than they were throwing them. They got tired and gave up after lap 70. I guess that means I win.
One of the benefits of a century that is so close to home is the cool mist spray every .8 miles, Thanks Maizy.

Wow that was fun! The neighborhood thinks that I am officially crazy. In all seriousness though I really had fun, and I was able to raise some money on my Livestrong page. The best part was that my family was able to be there with me the whole time or at least for 125 short times and it just seemed fitting to pull out my MOD (pink man sized bigwheel) for the final victory lap. Yea I totally won this race, by a long way.

WIN SUSAN