Home again, Home agian!

But not after a fun trip home.  So Michelle and I rolled out of Press-skit on Friday morning after a good week of riding in the area.  Yup the snow melted and left us with some hard pack, fast, fun trails.  A little hard to piece them together so I made trail lists in the morning, here is our last day there:

It was nice that they used a number system, if not I would of needed more tape!  The grouping of trails pretty much finished the legs off and the ride almost ended up on the top of a picnic table. Tyler and I were descending the 305 and when we came out into a camping area I saw a table.  I rolled up to it and in one move rolled from my bike seat to laying on my back on top of the table.  Cooked!  The problem was, we had to get back over the hill to make it home, which meant over an hour of climbing and about 2 total hrs on the bike left!  So we set there for a bit and contemplated our options, yes one of them was to have Michelle pick us up!  We quickly ruled that one out though!

 So after some table setting we sucked it up and headed for home!  I really think the only thing that got me moving again was a double chocolate PRO bar, all I can say is Cocoa Pebbles!  Mmmm! 

Overall the day was not a waste, we made it to the top of Spruce Mountain, 7,600 and some odd feet in elevation.

Our other favorite trail in the area was the tire eater! Or as the locals called it the Black Canyon Trail.  Over the course of the 2 weeks we rode the entire 79 miles in both directions.  The last day Ryan was there we actually rode it from Meyer down to the Black Canyon Trailhead which turned out to be 6 hrs of saddle time!  Sweet.  The 6 hours were made better with the first hr of the ride all downhill, you have to love it when this is your Garmin profile, at least till you turn around:

With the day planned, Ryan thought he should do some calisthenics before getting going??  Its RK?:

In the end, this turned out to be our longest day, 6 hrs ride time.  6.5 hrs with the flats and chit chat breaks! 

So after everyone left us, it was down to Michelle and I to hit the roads for the trip cross country home.  We were loaded down with bikes and after some texts with Mikey I decided to call it the Peariso Non-Neutral Support Vehicle:

We narrowly missed a take over in New Mexico by an enemy that we could not see.  They had the biggest arrows ever though!

You can tell Michelle was driving at the time by the skew of the roadside barrel!  She is a speed demon in the new car!

After we avoided this attack, I thought we were safe for the trip home!  First Michelle's life was in danger after we left Albuquerque!  We did not find a latte from there all the way till we hit Wichita!!  Not good, then the only stop in Wichita that we found was Starbucks!  Really!!  No one in east New Mexico, the pan handle of Texas, or the pan handle of Oklahoma drinks espresso!! Must have something to do with bull riding and upholding an image?  Or there head has hit the ground so many times that it has knocked their sense of taste all of of whack and folgers tastes the same?  This could also explain chicken fried steak?? 

So things calmed after I found caffeine, that is until we heard that there were MTB trails in Lawrence Kansas and we decided to stop for the night and ride the next morning.  Ooops!  This was Saturday night, can you say final four!  Shows you how much I care.  Anyway, the first half did not go real well and Michelle and I did not want to stand around and witness what could happen if they lost:

Saw some pretty god sidewalk spills while walking the streets that made the stop worth while!  Anthoer thing that made the stop worth while:

So after a ride at the Clinton Lake Trails, we loaded up for the last time and made it back to the house late on Sunday night to complete the road trip!  Next up, Cohutta!

Press-skit

So the snow is gone and the trails are clear! Oh yeah, RK is gone too! Still blaming him for the snow that greeted us here, especially after his travel stories! One person should never have that much bad luck.


On Tuesday Michelle and I got out for a good amount of climbing around the area and started to scope the trails out. Some were good, some bad, but at the end of the day we rolled back into the house smiling and laughing even after the 6000ft of climbing, some hike a bike, and another 5hrs in the legs.

Then Tuesday night Tyler came up and joined us. So on Wednesday we went out and hit parts of the Whiskey 50 course, the good parts, and rallied around the west side of Press-skit. In the end we had another 6000ft of climbing, some killer downhill practice, and came up with the conclusion that the Whiskey 50 course is epic!

Today is the last day we have here and the course planning is in the works. There has been some discussion of doing the entire Whiskey 50 course, but that adds in some jeep trails, which at this point does not sound too bad. The legs are pretty tender from all the accelerations to get my butt over the hills and some steady tempo might be what I need.

Whatever we decide there is definitely some more "That does not suck" mountain biking in today's plans...........

No pedals needed

So week one of AZ camp is in the books and I have gotten used to the new bike.  I must say though, despite the 29er Kool Aid that has been passed out through out the cycling community I must say I do not notice a huge difference.  I think on a plus note the bike rides really well over technical accents which I really like!  On a negative though, I really notice the weight difference.  Hopefully this changes once I get my normal Roval Carbon Race wheels, race tires, and scrub rotors onto the bike.  This is probably good for at least a pound off the bike and should get it near the 21 pound range and only a pound heavier than its 26er "red" headed step sister.  Anyway, I feel good on the bike and really excited for the start of the season.  I know it is still a few weeks off, but my number say I am ready!  Lets hope?? 

So speaking of numbers, here is last week:

28.5 hrs
267 MTB Miles
14854 kjs

I am not real confident on the Mtb KJs though.  It seems really hard trying to get the numbers, especially when riding more technical courses.  Hard to overcome the zeros that get averaged in, but it is also hard to get any fatigue count on all the acceleration you make too.  Either way it is training and I am getting pretty comfortable on the MTB which was the plan. 

So the rides.  It seems like the Black Canyon Trail has become our go to.  Nice route and lets everyone ride their own pace with the out and back format.  It also eats tires though which we found out and has required the use of some duct tape to get home a couple times.  Sedona has also been a destination and I think we all enjoyed it.  Mark worked really hard to make all the hills seem smaller by crushing them with his fingers:

Not sure that really worked that well.  We also had Timster join us all week as he showed us his hidden skills!  Not sure how he made all the climbs he did with platform pedals!!  We even let RK guide us around Sedona!!

In the end it worked out though cause we did find the car. 

So now with everyone back home in Wisco, Michelle was stuck riding with me today. I had lots of fun, but I always get over zealous on my route planning.  Today was fun though as we explored the trails around Prescott now that the snow has melted.  We ended up with another 5 hrs of ride time and 6000ft of climbing.  The climbing was topped off though with a nice rip home of the 396 trail.  Sweet!!

Now we have a couple more days of riding then it is time to start working our way home! Bummer! 

AZ Team Camp

So we arrived in AZ on Sunday and it was snowing like Armageddon was approaching.  Starting to think there is something to the poles flip flopping with it snowing in AZ and 80 in Wisco.  Pretty crazy.  Either way, we came to MTB and that is what we will do.  Just means a little bit more driving which we are used to anyway living in Wisco and having to drive to most of the trail heads.  On Monday we rode McDowell park.  It was just as fun as I remembered for the NORBA days!  Fast, flowing, and the back side had a tail wind which made it faster than normal.  Also it was the first day on the 29er.  Not sure if I am allowed to talk about that anymore though, I am so far behind where all the companies marketing departments want me to be.  The next revolution is 650B since the World Cup win this past weekend!  Be ready to sell all your stuff and buy new again, just what the bike companies want us to do!  My opinion, if it matters, is that bikes are just fun to ride and I really do not care what the wheel size is! 

Yesterday we rode the Black Canyon Trails.  Those are a lot of fun and I learned that I went the wrong direction by starting on the south end and riding north towards Black Canyon.  Ended up with 5000 ft of climbing and 4 hrs of full on singletrack!! 

Today we are going to meet up with Tyler and ride from Black Canyon to the south trail head then back up again.  Should be about 5 hrs of ride time and 60 miles of singletrack, smiles, and sunshine!  Yesterday Mark won the tan line award with his helmet strap burned into the side of his head!  Here are some pics from the last couple days.   

So outdated!

So for the outdated news on Cali, here are the totals:

36 hrs and 24 min on the bike with a total of 498 miles.  Lattes, hmm, too many to count. Pastries much of the same. 

Now onto some of the more recent happenings.  All bikes are here, minus one which should be within the next couple weeks.  For the medium bikes we ended up needing to order an XT-cRap bike so the first thing to do with that is to scrap the stuff we do not need:

So if you know of anyone looking for parts, we have 3 XTR component groups to get rid of and they will go cheap.  Make me and offer and the easier you make it on me the cheaper the price. 

Also on the bike front we were hooked up with a sweet addition to the MTB this year and just in time for AZ camp. 

Quarqs!  Way excited to have this.  I plan to race with it, especially at the NUE races so look forward to some pathetic numbers at the 7 hr mark:)  So above is Michelle's bike in the build process, right down to some new decals.

Thanks to Mark for always setting the team up!  Now onto the team.  This year we have really made a point to ride as a group at least once a month.  At least as much of the group as we can since everyone is pretty busy.  This past weekend we actually split and the girls went to Milwaukee why the guys plus Brian came up to Amherst.  Made for a good weekend of riding an we managed to see how well Myles can suffer.  He is just coming of basketball season and his first long rides of the year are with us Ya-hoos.  Both days we did around 4 hrs and I think he blew at about the 2 hr mark both days but suffered like I have not seen someone suffer to make the entire distance.  I am pretty sure I would of found a coffee house and made everyone come back and pick me up in the truck! 

After Saturdays ride, we grilled out, drank beer, and made fun of Ryan and Myles building their bikes.  At one time we had 10 Sworks downstairs and 2 in the garage!  Spoiled!

So why those guys worked on the bikes, I just chilled and made my only strenuous effort a trip to the beer cooler!



I rested cause my bike is done, minus the carbon wheels:

Those wheels are freak'n huge!  Guess I will see how they work in AZ and I am hoping to not have to scramble for smaller wheels!

So now to Sunday, 75 miles for Myles, 2 sections of mud/gravel, some pretty good attacking each other up the hills, and a pacing session!  Oh yeah, and another Myles meltdown as stated before.  This one turned into a big suffer fest for all of us so I cannot imagine what was going through Myles head! 

We then finished off the weekend with some pizza! Good team weekend for sure!

Now onto the week.  Busy to say the least.  Yesterday my ride was cut short by a thunderstorm, yup in March.  I hid out at home, had lunch, then finished my ride back into work for 3 hrs of the 4 hrs planned.  Today is more of the same with 4 hrs on the schedule, but no thunderstorms, just mid 60's and the return of the road bike!  So for the year thus far I am sitting at 2406 of studded tire humming miles.  Ok and some warm Cali riding thrown in there as well.  For the week we are also trying to balance getting the new car, getting it ready to leave for AZ on Friday, and since I was getting board, I am leaving for Florida on Thursday to do some programming on an Audio/video system I put in last year.  I will fly out of Florida on Sunday to meet up with everyone else in Prescott to ride the new MTBs and kill some things with Timster! Can't wait! 

I'm Le Tired.......

That is what I got from bossman as we said our good byes yesterday.  It was a good week that had us riding our bikes all over the place and finishing with a climb up Mt Diablo.  Unfortunately I am bad luck to his bike cause he breaks it every time he rides up it with me.  This time it was spokes.  The weirdest thing is we removed the one that broke and while we were standing there another let loose!  We then decided that a 50 mph descent was not in the cards with a failing wheel and the fact it was rubbing the frame so we called for a ride.  Suck.  After the work to get up there we would not get the gratification of flying down the mountain.  Next time!  So with bossman tired:

And cold

I traded him in for a new training model!  Better looking too! 

So yesterday Michelle and I rolled out of the Mill Valley Inn, through the E Wok village where we ran into a young MTB friend then up Panoramic.  That is where Michelle put the hammer down on the new Tarmac SL4:  Here she is working on the catch:

So that is Phil ahead.  A really nice guy we met yesterday that has a place in San Fran and Stinson and rides between the 2 on the weekend.  An ex Irish rugby player and a pleasure to wag the jaw with as they say! 

So after the descent into Stinson we wrapped around to Muir Woods, then up and over to Mill Valley again.  Another good day on the bike!  We then finished off the day with a feast at Bungalow 44!  All I have to say is yum! 

So today she wants to hit the Mt Tam hill climb course to see how much better she is going than last year.  After 28 hrs last week, I am not sure I am as excited about that as she is, but as Sarah says, "suck it up buttercup"! 

The "A" Day

Today was awesome! Not only did the weather warm up into the 70s again, we rode our bikes ALL day again, we stopped again for pastries, but I had that no chain type of day as well. 

So the entire day started out with a bit of excitement though!  Still not sure what exactly was going on, but every morning I walk from the house down to Fairfax for coffee.  Takes about 45 minutes round trip but it gives bossman the time to wake up some before dealing with me doing mach 2 in the morning.  Anyway, on my way back this morning the San Jose SWAT team was raiding a house not a block down the road.  I must admit I was a bit nervous to walk by armed only with 2 lattes while everyone else was packing heat and wearing a bullet proof vest!  I need to surf the news some to see if I can figure out what was happening!

The other excitement of the morning was trying to finish bossman's bike up.  Earlier in the week he broke a shift lever return spring and bought a new set while his old set was being warrantied.  I will admit that I do not have a lot of experience with Campy, but this one took us for a ride.  We could not get the shift cable to route through the lever, it is supposed to feed straight up but it hit the lever body every time we tried. After a couple hours of cussing at it in Italian and using the "Poke and Hope" method we finally got lucky!  Good thing cause with the weather I was not interested in heading back to the bike shop to waste the morning. 

So now onto the ride!  Today we did the tried and true Marshall Loop, which is the same loop that Phillips, Bossman, and I beat the hell out of each other on last year till I finally called uncle.  This year no Phillips so bossman was in for some pacing.  The conditions were perfect for that with a nice tailwind, which meant the Bovine Bakery stop would come sooner!  Yum!  Here is a shot before the 50 mph plunge into Marshall.  Was working on my Tarmac ad:

So after a refill at the bakery, chocolate croissant to be exact, we were off again! We rolled south on 1 with the tailwind still puching us along.  We hit Bo-Fax road and decided to continue into Stinson Beach so that we could come down the Sisters and into Farifax.  This means we can skip the town riding which I am not a huge fan of.  We maybe shoul dof turned cause that stretch had bossman get stung by a bee and then some DB in an AT&T service truck try running us over?  It is always the smart ones, who has the idea of trying ot hit people in their company branded vehicle.  We caught him in Stinson and decided not to ruin the ride by arguing with someone with an IQ of less than the fence post in the above photo!

We rolled up Mt Tam again at a nice tempo pace and met up at the Rock Springs parking at the top, here is a view of the city on the way up:

We then rolled down the sisters were we met up with Wile E Coyote:

By the end of the day we were both pretty tanked and just rolled into the Fairfix for our Espresso Milk Shake fix.  All in all was 5 hrs in the saddle, 75 miles, 3200KJ, and 7000ft of climbing.  Here is a shot of our route: 



Just keep spinning

So today was a bit of an off day.  Which was OK since yesterday we hit it pretty good, at least for 38 minutes of the 5 hr ride.  That is what it took to get up Tam from the bottom near Stinson Beach. Nothing too crazy but a good bout with SST(Super Shitty Training).   The rest of the day was more of an easy spin around.  Was kind of cool though cause the fog was rolling in over the hill and flooding out San Fran.  We rode in the sun almost the entire day though.  Here is what it looked like on Paradise Loop. 

Toady's weather was even better with no fog in the morning so it allowed the temps to creep up and maybe even into the 70s for the day.  Here is the same view without the fog:

So today turned into another 4 hrs on the bike at an easy pace with stops at bike shops, lunch and pastries.  Kind of hard to keep entertained on the bike for that long though when you are not suffering.  The only thing that seemed to work was laying down the best skids!  Sweet. 

I also saw my best riding partner today.  He never complains, always rides my pace, and rides the same sweet Specialized Sworks Tarmac I do!  Thanks for the ride! Yep those are bare legs in the pic!

Tempotantrum

No time for pics yesterday!  Bossman got a couple but his view did not change much for most of the day.  He was having a bit of a down day and I had a good day so I drug him the reverse way around the Marshall loop.  At least reverse of what we usually do it.  It worked out well though cause we rocketed into our usual Bovine Bakery stop in 1.5 hrs.  So fast, that I broke all rules and did not get anything at a bakery!  Shame on me!  So the entire day was done at basically a tempo with some SST up the hills.  All in all 6500 ft of climbing and 4.5 hrs on the bike.  We did finish the day right though, once with a Fairfix espresso milk shake and then a Picasso pizza, appropriately named the Specialized.  It was so good that it was definitely the Sworks version!  Also I washed it down with a Lagunitas Maximus IPA. Yum, Phillips would be proud. 

Today is going to be fun!  We are going to roll out through the ewok village and up to 4 corners.  Then down through Muir woods, follow Hwy 1 to Stinson Beach, then Stinson Beach to the top of Tam.  Form there it will be decided on how cooked the legs are after 4 days of riding. 

On another note, changed flights today!  Michelle is going to come out and try her new bike for a few days! Yippie!

Day 2 in pic

Alien Race

Yesterday I made it into Marin and was able to get the bike put together and bossman and I made it around the dam loop.  Was a good way to to shake the legs and catch up with bossman.  I felt out of place on the road bike for a while though.  Handles so much quicker the the studded tire, bar mitted, cross bike.  Luckily I did not wrap it around a guardrail on our first 40mph descent down to Mill Valley.  Here is our route, it looks like we didn't make it home but it is cause we did the norm and stopped for an espresso milk shake at the Fairfix!

So now onto the alien race!  We rented this house in Fairfax and it came with a live in furry criter!  All is good with that, we have one ourselves.  Makes noise when it walks, noise when it moves, noise when its hungry, noise when its thirsty, blah, blah, blah.  This one is different though! We are in the middle of Cali and I cannot believe we have zero cell coverage.  I actually love that though cause it is really quiet!  For the cell coverage though I think this furry critter was put here from a lost planet and is transmitting everything back to the mother ship.  Little do they know they do not want to ever know what I am thinking!!  Look at this thing, I fear him! Those ears are antenna for sure and its head spins around to give me dirty looks! 

Either way the riding is great and I am hoping that today brings a bakery stop!! 

Puddle Jumper

So the last week has been fun.  It started out with a nice training block that almost had me requiring a walker to get on the airplane!  The one week was worth about 80 lattes, mmmmmm.  Not sure if anyone could handle me if I downed that much!  Then I boarded an airplane for Jersey to do an install at my sisters house.  I am so glad that Jasen went with me cause we worked 15 hr days and still barely finished the project up.  We got everything done, but no time for really shaking things down so lets hope we didn't miss anything.  We did board the plane looking at each other and thinking, what just happened?  We ran a little over 3000ft of wire through the wall, cut in 6 speakers zones, hung a 64" TV, programmed 6 keypads, and a URC remote all in 3 days.  Not bad.  I was so sore from climbing stairs and ladders that I really wish I had a day off upon my return, but it was right back to the bike grind on Monday. 

Besides the bike, we also lost a hot tub pump this week and converted the pool to a salt water pool.  Also what are people doing with our locker keys and towels, eating them?  I keep looking around the club to see if someone is playing a joke and they are hidden.  One time I will open a cabinet and find thousands of keys stuffed away!

On Tuesday, Scott was off and my legs were sore so we went out together to keep me honest.  It was definitely needed, cause I was ready to turn around and find the nearest couch!  The weather didn't help either, freezing rain topped with about an inch of snow.  We rode north of town and hit roads that I am still not sure were roads??  Either way we got 4 hrs of 2 wheels drifts, laughs, where the hell are we, and a nice meal at Bistro 212 once finished!  Oh yeah, and a latte. 

Then yesterday I had another long day as I started to pack for Cali and did a 5 hr ride on top of it.  Oh wait, I am gonna be riding my neglected road bike I have not touched since October, better re cable it and put some new tires on it too before boxing it up.  I finally finished up last night at a about midnight but I am set to go.  I also packed all my rain gear and it looks like it worked cause the forecast is for sun and 70 next week out there!  Might get a chance to start working on the pro lines??  That would be sweet! 

So back to the ride yesterday, it was nice here for February and I decided to continue the weekly trend and find some new roads.  It worked out pretty good with only a couple of stops to check the Garmin.  The funny thing about it is I did a 5 hr ride with only 1000ft elevation change?  That is about to change!  Mt Tam here I come!  Yesterdays route:

No rehab required

Or maybe I have not hit step one and cannot admit I have an issue.  I have heard this cycling thing explained many ways over the years; Living the dream, its my 2nd job, etc but Pete puts it best when I talk to him as he tells me I have an addiction!  Oh boy, I think he is right!!  I just keep riding and I love almost every minute of it.  This year has been much easier than in past winters though with the weather.  Seems that all my nasty grams to mother nature are paying off??  Doubt it but here is to wishful thinking! 

Even if the weather is temporary, I have definitely been taking advantage of it and have been putting some mile on the bike.  The scenery has even been changing with a nice trip to Chicago this past weekend where we hung out with Mikey and the two of us got out on a nice ride in the area.  I was actually surprised at how good the ride was.  Guess I had expectations of just riding the Lake Shore bike path so when we actually where out on some good roads I was more than happy.  We also re hydrated that night doing what we now best, drinking beer and having fun!!  Maybe too much fun! 

Then on Sunday, the Braun's hosted everyone for a group ride before the little one arrives!  We are all crossing our fingers hoping that not too many of Big D's traits get passed on!!  Just kidding:)  So ten of us cruised around the Waukesha area on Sunday for a few hours before eating all the food that Nikki, Lynn, and Laura had preparred for us!  What a great weekend!  Nest up is a trip to the east coast then followed right up with a trip to the west coast. 

For those interested in the routes:

Saturday:

Sunday: