UltraRob's Adventures

The Leadville Chronicle has an article about Lance Armstrong doing the Leadville 100 next year. In my post a couple days ago, I said I didn't think Ken and Merilee would let him in just because he's a celebrity. Based on Ken's comments in the article, it sounds like I may have been wrong about that.

Labels: Lance Armstrong, Leadville 100, mountain biking

JensonUSA has always offered build kits (all the parts needed to build a complete bike for 1 price) but until now, it has always required a phone call to complete the transaction. Their new kit builder lets customers customize their kit and complete the transaction online.

Generally you get a price break by ordering a build kit but if you can't customize it you end up with parts you don't want. I'm an engineer and I like to really understand what my options are before I buy something. Buying a build kit isn't something I can just walk into a shop or make a phone call and figure out what I want and then buy it. For me it's a few day process of researching and thinking about it. JensonUSA lets you save your configuation and then go back and make changes to it before actually placing your order.

Labels: cycling, JensonUSA, mountain biking

After Lance Armstrong ran the New York Marathon, he made mentioned being interested in doing the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race. There was some speculation on the LT100Bike Yahoo group but I don't think very many thought he was serious. Bicycling has posted an article based on a question and answer session last week at the opening of his new Lance Armstrong 24 Hours Of Fitness in Austin, TX. It says that he has a bet with Chris Carmichael about doing it. There's also an article on the Carmichael Training Systems website.

Before he can do the the Leadville 100, he'll have to make the lottery. I doubt Ken and Merilee will just let him in for being a celebrity although they certainly give preferential treatment to volunteers and some others in the lottery. If he keeps talking about doing it, I'll guess a lot more people will enter the lottery which will mean a reduced chance of getting in. If he really wants a challenge he should try the Durango 100 or Montezuma's Revenge.

My first job out of college, I worked with a girl that thought Lance was the greatest. That was before he had cancer and I always told her how arrogant he was and I didn't care that he could ride fast. She was dating Carmichael and probably could have figured out a way for me to meet him. She was to one of his birthday parties. Now she and Carmichael are married.

The only time I was close enough to talk to him I nearly made a complete fool of myself. It was in 1999 and I was finishing warming up for the Tipperary Creek MTB race near Winter Park. There was this guy in full Postal kit riding slow near the start finish area and messing with his shoes. He was in my way and wasn't exactly riding a straight line. I just about said, "Why don't you poser stay out of the way while you adjust your shoes." Instead I just rode around him. Just after that I realized he was the real Lance.

There's a pretty good creek crossing that is barely rideable when the water isn't too high. That year the water was high. I think even if the creek bed had been smooth the current would have pushed anybody over that tried riding. My wife was standing there when Lance came through and he tried riding it. His bike got swept out from under him and he and the bike started going downstream. My wife had a camera but she wasn't fast enough to get a picture. I was very disappointed that she didn't. If I recall correctly, he finished 2nd in that race. I know he didn't win.

He was training for the Mercury Tour the following weekend near Steamboat Springs. I've ridden the trails where the race was held. They are single track and a bit rocky but not what I'd call really technical. He crashed a couple times and dropped out. I think Dave Weins could beat him unless he's mountain bike skills have improved and is really focused on training for it. A long mountain bike is really different than staying at a moderate intensity for most of a Tour stage and then going all out for the last 20 minutes for a mountain top finish. To do well in a mountain bike race you don't have to have quite as much top end but you need to be able to sustain a really hard pace to the entire time.

Update: Lance wimped out of racing the Leadville 100.
See all my posts on the Leadville 100.

Labels: Dave Wiens, Lance Armstrong, Leadville 100, mountain biking

Fred Boethling and John Hughes just signed a letter of intent to buy RAAM from Jim Pitre and Lon Haldeman. More details are on the Race Across America website.

The only time I've meet John Hughes is when I signed in at the timestation in Trinidad, CO for a sleep break this year in RAAM. I've had e-mail exchanges with him over the last couple years. I meet Fred Boethling at Texas Hellweek this year and rode the 300k brevet with him except the first couple miles. We were the first 2 finishers of that ride. Based on what I know, I think RAAM will continue to be in good hands.

Labels: cycling, RAAM, Race Across America, ultra cycling

Whether you do 24 hour mountain bike races or long brevets, having good lights is important. Back in 1997 I was on the Schwinn development team and they let me use a demo unit of their new dual beam halogen lights for the 24 Hours of Moab which was my first 24 hour race. They were so impressed that I did it solo they let me keep the lights plus 2 battery packs. They have been great lights and the batteries last the perfect amount of time for the loop at Moab. I don't have to worry about using the high beam too much and still have a little left at the end of the lap. The only problem is the batteries are made up of 10 D cell Ni-cads and they are heavy. I now have 5 batteries and I've never done over 5.5 night laps at Moab.

For RAAM qualifiers I just use the Cateye EL 500 light since all I need is enough light to be legal since I'm really using the headlights of my follow car. In the past I used the halogen version but it only got 3 hours of runtime versus over 20 hours with the LED one. For Montezuma's Revenge I've wanted smaller batteries for some sections where I wasn't without my crew for more than an hour. I keep talking of putting together some battery packs from some Ni-cad batteries that were being thrown away at work because a product was discountinued. I have some half C cells that would give me an hour of run time if I only used the high beams part of the time.

An adventure racer has posted instructions on how to build to build some really bright LED lights. He says they were as bright as the expensive light systems light the Nightrider HID. I haven't decided what races I'm doing next year but I'm thinking one of them will be a 24 hour mountain bike race. It's been a while since I've done Montezuma's Revenge and I've learned a lot about what nutrition works for me since the last time I did it. I've also gotten my asthma medications dialed in better. Maybe I should spend some time this winter building up some LED lights with newer battery technology and retire my outdated halogen ones.

Labels: cycling, mountain biking, night riding

Danny Chew has posted his post 2006 RAAM interviews with a few of the riders plus Chris Kostman. Until last year Chris Kostman was the youngest rider to finish RAAM and organizes the Furnace Creek 508, Badwater Ultramaration, and other events. I have a copy of of my interview on my website.

Labels: RAAM, Race Across America, ultra cycling

Planet Ultra has announced a new ultra cycling race called the Hoodoo 500. It is scheduled for September 15-17, 2007 and will start and finish in St. George, UT. It sounds like a great route with great scenery. It will 512 miles with about 30,000 feet of climbing.

Unfortunately the UMCA has denied their request to be a RAAM qualifier. I don't know why but I'd guess it may have something to do with it being the same weekend as the Adirondack 540. The two races are on nearly opposite sides of the country so I don't think there would be that much of a conflict. It would only be a 10 hour drive for me and would be closer than any of the other RAAM qualifiers.

Labels: Planet Ultra, RAAM, Race Across America, ultra cycling, Utah

USA Cycling was informed by United Airlines that they will be unable to continue their sponsorship support of USA Cycling in 2007. What does this mean for USA Cycling members? It means that USA Cycling members will no longer be entitled to receive two "Bikes Travel Free" vouchers for United Airlines with the purchase of their 2007 license. In the past few years, all my non-business air travel has somehow been related to cycling. In some cases it was for a race and others a chance to train in a warm place while on vacation with my family. By buying a USCF and NORBA license, I was able to fly round trip twice in a year without paying for my bike.

With it costing $160 to fly a bike round trip, it was a big incentive to fly United. Now I'll have no reason to fly with them. Of course it really bugs me that it costs that it costs that much to fly with a bike. I can maybe see it with a flimsy cardboard box but I have the Trico Ironcase with wheels and a handle. I actually climb on top of it when I pack it to make sure it seats on the other half instead of part of my bike. Most other sporting equipment just counts as a piece of luggage. For a while they had no weight limit on bikes, so I stuffed as much gear as possible into my bike case. Then they had a 70 pound limit and then they dropped it to 50 pounds just like all other luggage.

United said it decided to discontinue its relationships with all other National Governing Bodies and focus their sponsorship efforts on the U.S. Olympic Committee. United cited one of the primary reasons to discontinue the bike vouchers program was its increasing use of the smaller "regional" jets the past few years. The smaller jets provide little room in the baggage compartment for oversize luggage like bike bags.

Labels: cycling, United Airlines, USA Cycling

Bicycle Colorado is launching a Share the Road license plate campaign to reinforce that bicycles are welcome on roads. Proceeds from each plate will fund bicycle safety education programs across Colorado. Programs include:

• Educate motorists on how to safely share the road
• Educate bicyclists on the rules of the road and safe riding
• Educate event directors and bicyclists on best practices for event safety
• Provide guidance to bicyclists involved in crashes
• Outreach to law enforcement on the rights and responsibilities of motorists and bicyclists

Ten other states already have Share the Road plates, but Colorado does not – yet. When I was at Texas Hellweek last spring, I saw the Texas plate with Lance on it. With 1.5 million active bicyclists in Colorado (plus more than 699,000 bicycling tourists boosting our economy) the time for Colorado to share the road is now.

The State requires at least 3,000 Colorado citizens sign the petition to move the Share the Road legislation forward. The more who sign the petition, the better the chances. But the 2007 legislative session begins in January and the window to collect signatures will soon close. If you live in Colorado and are at least 18, you should sign the petition.

Our Share the Road license plate will remind motorists to watch for bicyclists, pass with care, and respect our place on public roads. Plus the bicycle safety education programs it funds will make bicycling safer for you. If the law gets passed, I'm certainly interested in getting them for my vehicles.

Labels: Colorado, cycling, license plate, share the road

Yesterday the high temperature was 78 degrees which was a new record for the day. Tuesday it had gotten up to 73 degrees. Even the weekend and Monday had been in the upper 50's. A cold front is supposed to come in tonight so the high is supposed to be in the 40's tomorrow.

Monday I got in a nice ride at the Air Force Adademy. It is so nice to be able to ride there again on the roads with little traffic and pretty scenery. One day I forgot my drivers license and they wouldn't let me on even though I was with a co-worker who had his. Remembering to carry a drivers license is a small price to pay for access to great road riding.

Tuesday I did an easy spin on the mountain bike at lunch. Yesterday I took Danielle to pre-school in the Burley because my car is in the shop. That gave me an hour on the bike. I used a tip from Lou, another solo RAAM rider last year. He had posted about using a hot pac from a Pyrex Portables container to keep his kids warm when commuting. I don't know if it was necessary since it was warming up quickly and I was over dressed by the time I got to Danielle's school. By the time I got home, it was i the 60's. Last night she wanted me to take her to Awana Club in the Burley too. It's amazing how hard a small hill can be with 2 kids in the trailer.

Labels: Colorado Springs, cycling, weather

Last May at the local Ride of Silence, I talked to Bob Breedlove's daughter and she had said the family didn't believe the official Colorado State report of how he was killed during RAAM in 2005. I didn't write much about it out of respect for the family. She had told me they had hired a private investigator and that things didn't make sense. The November issue of Outside magazine has an article about the accident. I don't get Outside magazine and couldn't find the article on their website when I heard about it several weeks ago. I had thought of buying one just to read the article but one of the guys at work gave his copy to me without me saying anything about it. Outside has now posted the article online.

I doubt we'll ever find out the truth of what happened but there are certainly some things about the accident that are disturbing. The judge that sentenced the 15 year old that was driving without a license was never even told that the accident involved a fatality. This year in RAAM, I rode that section of highway just after daybreak. I was surprised at how much traffic there was so early in the morning. I certainly feel for the Breedlove family and my prayers are with them.

Labels: Bob Breedlove, cycling, RAAM, Race Across America, ultra cycling

Last week's snow storm was called the Blizzard of 2006 by the media. The north and east part of the city got quite a bit of snow and there were high winds but where I live it wasn't bad. Friday morning when I got to work, only a tiny part of the parking lot was plowed but the sun was out. Before the day as over it was 50 degrees. Saturday it got into the 60's and most of the remaining snow disappeared.

Sunday was my last chance to get a century in for the Larry Schwartz Year-Rounder Century Challenge. I don't keep very close track of my mileage but I'm pretty certain I hadn't ridden 100 miles the rest of the month. I figured I was going to pay for doing a century as out of shape as I am but I've been doing endurance riding long enough to be able to get through a century with very little fitness.

Sunday was another beautiful day and before I even got out of town my vest and arm warmers were off. My left knee can get cranky if I don't keep it warm enough so I left my knee warmers on. I just headed out US 24 to the east because it is well drained and even if there's melting snow along the road, the road itself stays dry. The farther east I went, the more snow there was although there were a lot of bare spots because there's nothing to stop the wind out there. In places there were still 5 foot drifts. In spite of the snow along the road, the were only a couple wet spots on the road. I think I saw the most pronghorns I've seen on a ride.

I rode a little east of Simla and then turned around and came back into town. I felt much better than I expected to and still felt good at the end of the ride. I rode 102 miles with 2343 feet of climbing and averaged 16.4 mph.

When I got back, I switched to my mountain bike and hitched up the Burley because Danielle had wanted to go with me on my ride. I took her to the BMX track just north of the skate park on Mark Dabling along the bike path. I'm not sure that the Burley is designed for going over tabletop jumps but Danielle loves going over them. They are a bit tricky with the trailer but doable with enough speed. She also likes doing the berms but I'm always worried about tipping the trailer but so far it's stayed upright.