10 Car Garage!

July 31st, 2007

Luxury House Near Elbert, CO

Every time I ride to Elbert, I notice a big house on top of one of the bluffs. It was built just a few years ago. It’s noticeable for both it’s size and design. It must have a great view of the mountains. It also must get some brutal winds especially in the winter.

When I did my century ride on Sunday, I saw that it was for sale. There was a box of flyers and I stopped because I was curious. Just the garage is almost as big as my house including the basement! It’s described as a 10+ car garage. The garage is 2132 square feet and the house is 6225 square feet. It will only set you back $4.9 million.

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July Century Ride

July 30th, 2007

Farm Land Near Elbert, CO

Since the month is nearly over and I hadn’t done a century ride yet this month for the UMCA Year Rounder, I headed out yesterday to get a long ride in. Since I was ready about the time the Acacia Ride comes by my house, I decided I’d try riding with them at least up to the Air Force Academy. I was still tying the our new dog up when I head the whirl of bikes. I rushed to grab my stuff and start riding. By then they were out of sight. I knew my only change of riding with the group was if the timing of light at Garden of the Gods Road was just right. Sure enough as I got close I could see the group waiting. The light turned green just before I got there and I was able to catch onto the back of the group.

I was debating about going into the Air Force Academy and riding up to the bomber at least with other OTB riders. When we cut through the neighborhood behind the retail on Academy, I was having trouble staying on the back of the pack. I decided my best option was to go ride by myself.

Haystack near Elbert, COI headed out across the south edge of the Black Forest. Even though it was before noon, there was an ugly thunderstorm to the south near Falcon. I headed north to Elbert and was a bit concerned about the weather. I enjoyed partly cloudy skies and hoped that I wouldn’t get caught in lightning later in the ride. Even after the hot weather the last couple weeks, it’s still green and looked like there’s been a lot of hay making.

I took a break at the convenience store in Elbert and then headed back south. Once I got back near the Palmer Divide, I could see there were still storms to the south. Once I got to the top of the hill, it looked good to the west and the thunderstorms appeared to be south of my planned route back on US 24. Although there were a few wet spots near Falcon, the sun was shinning.

Century Ride ProfileFrom my house out to Elbert and back is just over 80 miles. I generally add some extra miles out on the plains but I wanted to get back close to home since clouds were building again to the west. I rode through Manitou and did a loop around my neighborhood to bring my ride to 100.4 miles. I did 3570 feet of climbing. My ride time was 6:42 for an average speed of 15.0 mph.

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CycleCluster – Digg for Cyclists

July 30th, 2007

Today Fritz over at Cyclelicious posted about CycleCluster which looks pretty much like Digg but it’s just cycling related. It could become a cool way to get cycling news.

I added a CycleCluster submit link to the bottom of my posts. While I was at it I also added links to Digg, StumpleUpon and Del.icio.us.

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If You Build It, They Will Come

July 29th, 2007

Building Bear Creek Singletrack

Yesterday morning I went and worked on the new Bear Creek Park Singletrack A few people showed up after we started working so I’m not sure everybody was in the same place at once but I think there were 10 of us working. We were working on a section that didn’t have too many rocks or bushes. Everybody worked hard and I think we got a lot done.

We were working on what is marked as section B on the map. We got the trail done up to where it will cross the Bear Creek Main trail. We hadn’t walked very far back down the trail before a mountain biker came down. He had been riding the Bear Creek Main trail and noticed the new trail.

Trail building will continue next Saturday, August 4th. I’ll be out at the Air Force Academy helping with registration for the road race at the State Games of America instead.

Building Bear Creek Singletrack - Before of a Section

Section before the trail was cut in

Building Bear Creek Singletrack - After of a Section

Same section as above after the trail was cut in

Building Bear Creek Singletrack

Building Bear Creek Singletrack - Cheyenne Mountain

Building Bear Creek Singletrack

Building Bear Creek Singletrack

Building Bear Creek Singletrack

Building Bear Creek Singletrack

Building Bear Creek Singletrack

Building Bear Creek Singletrack

Building Bear Creek Singletrack

spider

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Breaking Out of My Rut

July 28th, 2007

Broadmoor from Gold Camp Road
I’ve been in a rut the last few weeks with my riding. Normally I like variety but doing the same thing seems to have allowed me to do more riding the last couple weeks. I still haven’t been riding as much as I have in the past.

At lunch time I’ve been riding from work to the Tucker’s Tie In trailhead for the Santa Fe Trail. Then I’ve been riding up the Santa Fe Trail to the drainage under I-25 near the Blue Cross building. Then I take some single track and double track that parallels I-25 until I get to Old Ranch Road. Then I take some quiet back streets and cut through the Pine Creek Golf Course to get back to work.

I actually go a little after lunch because the Santa Fe Trail is popular with runners during lunch time. The ride takes me just over an hour which is about as long as I have time for at lunch. Riding on the Santa Fe Trail is quiet and peaceful especially the section along the creek. There’s only a couple traffic lights close to work and the rest of the time there’s nothing to make me stop. Mentally it’s been what I’ve needed to get a bit of a break from work. Riding on the road just has been appealing.

Cyclists on Gold Camp RoadOn Wednesday my co-worker Matt, that I also used to work with at Agilent, said he was going over to Agilent to meet a couple people and ride the 26th Street climb. Actually only the lower part is 26th street and then it turns onto Gold Camp until it turns to dirt. Even at the old Fluke Networks location, we could go do it if we took a long lunch. Now it pretty much requires driving to go do it at lunch. I don’t like driving to ride unless it’s out of town but I’ll occasionally make an exception.

It was one of our favorite rides when we worked closer. We also almost always rode it hard. It’s not steep since Gold Camp Road is an old railroad grade but it’s a good steady grade.

I wore my heart rate monitor for about the 5th time this year. In the past I’ve used it to track my riding and always wore it but this year I haven’t been keeping track. The good news I was able to hold my heart rate near 180 pretty much all the way up the climb and push it up to 190 at the top. Earlier this year I wasn’t fit enough to hold a high heart rate. The bad news was even though I was able to keep my heart high, I didn’t go very fast.

I was just happy doing a ride that I really like. You’re right at the edge of the city but it feels like you’re in the mountains. There’s very little traffic and the views are great.

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I Couldn’t Take It Any More

July 26th, 2007

I just couldn’t take my blog template any more. I haven’t liked it for a long time and the last few days it has been really bugging me. A while ago I had started doing a complete redesign including layout. It was just taking too long to get the layout right in IE and in Firefox. I also was thinking I was moving to the new Blogger Layouts but discovered they aren’t supported when you do your own hosting.

At least with changing the colors it looks more like the rest of my website and I like the look better. You may disagree and that’s fine. You are welcome to tell me how you’d like and I may consider doing it.

It’s simple without any 3D graphics to give cool borders, etc. In some cases I do like them and may add a few but I do like simple in web design. Maybe that’s why some corporate branding person has to help get our apps to look they way they want them.

Let me know if you see something that looks funny or doesn’t display correctly. I’ve done a quick glance on several pages but I’m falling asleep so I’m calling it a night.

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Bear Creek Singletrack Building Continues

July 25th, 2007

Medicine Wheel will be working on the new Bear Creek Park Singletrack the next 2 Saturday mornings, July 28 and August 4, from 8:30 am to whenever you want to quit. I plan to head over there this Saturday. The following Saturday I’ll be at the State Games of America instead.

There’s more info on the Bear Creek Park Singletrack page or I wrote a post about the new trail a little over a month ago.

There’s also some great news on money for the trail building. REI has awarded both Medicine Wheel and the El Paso County $5,000 grants for a total of $10,000. It is expected that about $25,000 will be needed to complete the construction.

The following have also given generous donations to the project:

Criterium Bike Shop
Pro Cycling Bike Shop
Trails and Open Space Coalition
Dan and Sherry Rundgren
Kris and Jessie Korteum
The Wachovia Foundation

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Michael Rasmussen Kicked Out by Rabobank

July 25th, 2007

Michael Rasmussen has been sacked by Rabobank and kicked out of the Tour. Rabobank sacked him when they found out that he was in Italy during June when he claimed he was in Mexico training. His wife is from Mexico.

I can understand not letting the UCI know every day where you’re going to be. It does seem it would be a pain but lying about where you are that’s just wrong. I could look past him not keeping his whereabouts up to date and I think it’s not uncommon. It doesn’t look good but doesn’t mean it’s intentional. Lying where he was says to me he was up to no good.

Looks like the current Top 5 in the Tour is:

  1. Alberto Contador (Spa) Discovery 76 hours 18 mins 25 secs
  2. Cadel Evans (Aus) Predictor-Lotto @ 1 min 57 secs
  3. Levi Leipheimer (US) Discovery @ 2 mins 49 secs
  4. Carlos Sastre (Spa) Team CSC @ 6 mins 2 secs
  5. Haimar Zubeldia (Spa) Euskaltel @ 6 mins 29 secs

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State Games of America

July 25th, 2007

The State Games of America is August 2nd – 5th here in Colorado Springs. There will be a road race and time trial and mountain bike race. Pikes Peak Velo is helping out with the cycling events and I’ll be helping with registration for the road race on Saturday the 4th.

Normally you have to qualify to do participate in the State Games of America but Colorado residents don’t have to qualify.

Here’s the eligibility details. In order to qualify for the State Games of America, participants must have won a gold, silver or bronze medal in a SGA sport in their local State Games in a qualifying year (2005 or 2006 Summer, 2006 or 2007 Winter), won a medal in the 2005 State Games of America or be residents of Colorado for at least 30 days prior to competition. College students, U.S. military personnel and their families who are stationed in Colorado, are also eligible to participate.

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Yet Another Doping Incident at the Tour de France

July 24th, 2007

VeloNews Photo

I’ve liked Alexandre Vinokourov riding style for a few years. He’s does a lot of attacking. Some of his attacks didn’t make sense when he was riding for Ulrich on T-Mobile but at least it made for interesting racing.

He was the favorite to win the Tour de France this year. A crash during Stage 5 left him banged up and he needed a lot of stitches. He limped through the Alps but came back to win the time trial on Saturday. Then yesterday on a brutal stage in the Pyrenees he won another stage.

It’s just been announced that he tested positive for homologous blood doping after his time trial win on Saturday. Of course he can ask to have his B sample tested. So what is homologous blood doping? It’s using someone else’s blood. Riders don’t like using their own blood for doping because they can’t train as hard for a few weeks after blood is drawn. What was he thinking? At least when Tyler Hamilton got caught he didn’t know a test had been developed to detect homologous blood doping and was the first to be caught. The report is that the whole Astana team has withdrawn from the Tour de France.

In other doping news, Pat McQuaid, UCI president has said he doesn’t want Michael Rasmussen to win the Tour. Rasmussen has failed a drug test but has missed 2 random out of competition tests. It doesn’t look good but it takes 3 missed tests to be considered a positive test.

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