UltraRob's Adventures

The 3rd Trans Iowa Race is this weekend. It starts 4 AM Saturday morning. I can't say it's a race that I'm currently interested in but it's already a lottery for the 100 starting spots. It's one of the growing number of long distance mountain bike races that must be done self supported. The big daddy of this type of race is the Great Divide Race.

Shorter mountain bike races used to be really strict about outside support. In the early 90s one of my friends won a race after having a flat tire. The problem was he didn't have a tube and somebody had handed him one. He changed it himself but an official saw him get the tube and he ended up getting DQ'd.

This year's Trans Iowa is 322.3 miles of dirt roads. The racers will get the cue sheets for the first 127.7 miles in tonight's racer meeting. They will get the cue sheets for the rest of the race once they complete the first section. I guess that helps keep them from arranging outside plus they have to stay on course.

Chris, Dave and Mike from the Denver area are there. Chris's wife may be able to post some updates if she hears from Chris during the race. Chris also posted a few other options for getting updates during the race.

Labels: mountain biking, Trans Iowa

Update: Info on 2008 Ride of Silence

The Ride of Silence to honor cyclists who have been killed or injured while cycling on public roadways will take place this year on May 16th at 7 PM. I'd really encourage you to attend one if you can. There's plenty of dangers for cyclists out on the road. Currently there are over 200 confirmed ride locations.

I rode last year's local Ride of Silence from Old Town Bike Shop which was lead by Charlotte Miller. According to the Ride of Silence website, Charlotte will be again leading a ride from Old Town Bike Shop and Ann Brown will be leading another one from the Shops at Briargate. Actually that's not the right name for the 2nd Colorado Springs location. Apparently Shops at Briargate wasn't a sophisticated enough name so they've been renamed The Promenade Shops at Briargate.

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Labels: cycling, Ride of Silence, share the road

Vance's Bicycle World has posted a photo gallery of last Sunday's mountain bike race at Pueblo Reservoir. The pictures are courtesy of the Pueblo Chieftain and are copyrighted.

Labels: mountain biking, Pueblo Reservoir

Update: he didn't race in 2007 but Lance Armstrong has entered for 2008.

In November Lance Armstrong said he was going to race the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race this year. Then in mid December Floyd Landis said he was also doing the Leadville 100. The end of December Lance claimed to have a scheduling conflict and wasn't going to be able to race the Leadville 100.

When the entrant list for this year's Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race was released in February, neither Floyd nor Lance were on the list. Floyd has the Leadville 100 logo on his blog. The April 16th VeloNews has an article about Floyd and it says he is still doing the Leadville 100.

Friday I went in to my doctor because my back was hurting from the SI join in my hip being locked up. He has a place in Leadville and goes up there quite a bit. The last time he was up there he was talking to his friend that lives there and is racing the Leadville 100 this year. His friend said that Lance is planning to race the Leadville 100 this year. Trek has some new bike that they want him to ride. My doctor didn't know what bike it is and whether it's one that's already available.

I still think it would be really cool if both Floyd and Lance would race this year. There's the issue of Floyd's doping case and I haven't been able to find anything anywhere else to confirm that Lance is planning to race. Also having two big names there could certainly impact the great atmosphere of the race.

Update: Lance didn't race but Floyd Landis finished 2nd

Related Links: 2007 Leadville 100 Mountain Bike pictures | 2006 Leadville 100 Mountain Bike pictures | Views from the Top of Columbine Climb

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Labels: cycling, Floyd Landis, Lance Armstrong, Leadville 100, mountain biking

For the pictures I took of the Colorado College Criterium, I used a different software tool to create the gallery. This makes three different ways I have pictures on my website.

For a while I was using a JavaScript slide show and I'd also create a separate page so all the pictures could be scanned quickly. Some of the pictures I did this way were my 2006 Eiseman Hut Ski Trip and 2006 Texas Hell Week.

After that I went to using the Copermine Photo Gallery. Pictures that I published that way included the 2006 Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race and the 2006 Pikes Peak Velo SuperCross cyclocross race.

Which of these three ways do you like best for looking at pictures? I have my opinions both from the way to look at the pictures and how easy it is to add the pictures and caption them. I'm not going to share my opinions now because I don't want to influence what you think. Please post a comment or send me an e-mail and let me know your thoughts. You can also give me your opinion on the layout of my web pages and blog template. I think my blog template is really ugly. I plan to change it but I never seem to find the time to work on it.

Labels: cycling, mountain biking, pictures, skiing

The last few times I've done the Manitou Incline, I've taken Danielle along. She just turned 4 a couple weeks ago. Sometimes she hikes quite a long ways and other times she doesn't make it very far. The best she's done going up is to the Barr Trail cut-off which is about 2/3 of the way. I think that's quite impressive since that's a ways up the steep section. She might have made it a little farther but she cut her leg on a stake trying to pull herself up one of the really big steps. She has hiked all the way down Barr Trail from the top of the Incline but that time she had slept most of the way up.

As hard as it is, I'd rather carry her up in the Kelty pack than going down the trail. Between her and the pack, it's about 45 pounds and my knees get hammered on the way down. Last week she slept for a while on the way down. She was bouncing all over even though I was trying to walk carefully which strained my knees more than normal. See my post from a month ago to see her fast asleep in the pack.

Labels: Barr Trail, hiking, Manitou Incline

2008 Pueblo Reservoir Mountain Bike Race Info

I must be really out of touch with the mountain biking scene. I just found out today from the out there blog that there's a mountain bike race at Pueblo Reservoir this Sunday April 22nd. It's being put on in part by Vance's Bicycle World. Vance used to sponsor Pikes Peak Velo back when we used to have several members in Pueblo. Actually we were called Rainbow Racing but this being Colorado Springs some members had a problem with rainbow being in our name.

Vance is a really cool guy and rides out at Pueblo Reservoir all the time so he knows all the cool trails. We used to put on a race there and it had some really cool sections. I expect this course won't disappoint. You can check out some great pictures of the area and Vance to see what it's like down there.

The entry form says that there won't be any race day registration. I talked to the guys at Vance's Bicycle World and they said they are going to go ahead and let people register on Sunday. They said just to arrive extra early and print out the entry form and bring it with you. You may want to confirm this information with them at 719-566-6925.

Labels: mountain biking, Pueblo Reservoir

On Saturday I went and watched some of the Colorado College Criterium. I watched the Men's Cat 3/4 race and part of the Women's and Men's Pro 1/2 race. We had one Pikes Peak Velo member in each of those races. I heard there were more in the Men's Cat 4/5 race. The fields were small in the races I watched but I expected that with the Boulder Roubaix being rescheduled to the same day because of bad weather on the original date.

I hung out most of the time on the climb on the south side of the Fine Arts Center. The climb is less than a block long but it has a pretty good grade to it. I raced the same course when I was in college and that hill certainly hurt after 30 minutes of racing. I took several pictures with my auto everything point and click camera. It takes pretyy good scenery pictures but action shots are tricky. I haven't found the USCF results anywhere but I found the collegiate results posted. They are below the AFA Road Race results.

Labels: Colorado Springs, cycling, pictures

After the snow the last couple days, it's supposed to be a beautiful weekend. The forecast is for 50's today and 60's tomorrow. The main part of the snow storm was to the south of us with Colorado City getting 14 inches of snow.

The local races this weekend shouldn't have any problems with the weather. I'm going to try to ride down to Colorado College later today and see a little of the criterium. It's less than a mile from my house.

The picture above is basically the view I get from my living room window although I did walk part way down the block to set the picture up better. The Manitou Incline is the line that runs down the mountain behind the street light.

Labels: Colorado Springs, cycling, weather

Melissa from Pikes Peak Velo just sent an e-mail saying the Cheyenne Canon Time Trial tomorrow morning has been canceled. It snowed most of yesterday and off and on today. The snow has stopped now and the clouds have lifted some. The streets in town are just wet but there are a few inches of snow on bushes and grass in places. I'm sure there could be some icy areas up in the canyon early in the morning.

The word Melissa heard from Steve McCauley at USA Cycling is that the other 2 races are still on. The Colorado College criterium tomorrow is at low enough elevation that ice shouldn't be a problem. The Air Force Academy road race on Sunday is at a little higher but by then the weather shouldn't be a problem.

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Labels: Colorado Springs, cycling, weather

Last week the editor of the Colorado Springs Business Journal, Mike Boyd, wrote an anti-cycling article. I found out about the article from the Medicine Wheel list. His rant was in response to the Colorado Department of Transportation's public service tips on sharing the road with cyclists. I remember hearing CDOT ads last year. I'm guessing it was about this time of year since more people will be getting out on bikes once the weather gets nicer. It's been snowing most of the day so I doubt there were many cyclists out today to annoy Mr. Boyd. You can let him know your opinion at Mike.Boyd@csbj.com or 719-329-5202.

He complains about having to slow down for cyclists. The 10 seconds that a motorist has to wait for a cyclist shouldn't ruin their day. As a matter of fact in Colorado, we basically do have as much of right to the road as the gas guzzling SUVs. Cyclists are required to stay as far to the right as is safe. Unfortunately motorists think they're the ones that get to decide that it's safe for us to ride through the pot holes along the curb.

His comment about the tip for cyclists to remember to smile as you bicycle past the rows of cars waiting at the intersection — it’s just polite is "doesn’t this seem to contradict the whole play by the same rules as motorists thing?". I haven't looked at the driver's manual lately but last I knew it's legal for cyclists to ride up the right side of stopped traffic at a traffic light to the back of the first car in the line. About the tip for motorists to be patient and wait to pass until it is safe he asks, "for whom, the cyclist or the motorist?". Unfortunately that's the attitude of lots of motorists.

He does have a point about some cyclists running stop signs, red lights, and not riding single file but plenty of motorist break rules too. I try to always obey traffic rules because of motorists' opinions and it's the right thing to do. I had a friend run a stop sign because he got dropped from the group we were riding with. He did get pulled over by a cop. I went and talked to the cop since we had been intentionally buzzed by a motorist a couple miles before. The van mirror had to have been less than 6 inches from my elbow. We were on a 4 lane street and in the bike lane. We had a description and license plate but the cop said there was nothing he could do about it. Talking to the cop right after he caught my friend running a stop sign was bad timing but still cops are rarely willing to protect cyclists.

Labels: Colorado Springs, cycling, share the road

Another month has rolled around and that means time to weigh in for the B7 Challenge and also to do the 3 mile time trial again. Actually we were supposed to do the time trial last week but with my crazy week, I didn't get it done.

Now a good question would be "So what about your March update?" I was busy and had other more interesting things to write when I had a chance. Of course my update would have been more interesting if I hadn't been slower than in February. That's right. My time trial time in February was 16 minutes and 47 seconds. In March I was 4 seconds slower. My excuse was that I was still recovering from my Eiseman Hut ski trip. My weight had dropped to 198 pounds. I was at 200 the beginning of January but peaked out at 204 pounds.

On April 1st I weighed in at 194 pounds so my weight was headed in the right direction. Unfortunately I've gained a little back in the last week. I haven't been tracking my food with Diet Power and I haven't gotten much exercise. I don't even really think about it but when I'm keeping track of my food I tend to make better food choices.

After the cold, snowy weekend, we had great weather on Monday. The temperature made it all the way into the lower 60s. It was a perfect day to go see if my speed had improved any. I hadn't been on my bike in almost a week so I was well rested. I felt good and got in a good warm up before starting the time trial. I felt much better during the time trial than I did during the first two. My time was 14 minutes 39 seconds which was encouraging.

I was able to keep my heart rate higher this time. In March my average heart rate was only 171. This time it was 180 with a maximum of 190 at the end. When I'm fit I can actually hold a slightly higher average heart rate. I still just barely feel like I have some base fitness and am still a long ways from having race fitness.

Labels: B7 Challenge, cycling, weight loss

2008 Colorado College and Air Force Academy Race Info

Next weekend their will be 3 local collegiate road races that will also have USA Cycling races. Saturday morning Colorado College is holding a time trial up Cheyenne Canyon. That will be sure to get everybody's legs burning even if it's only 3.5 miles. Later on Saturday there will be a criterium at Colorado College.

On Sunday there will be a Circuit Race at the Air Force Academy with some good mileages. I'm not sure exactly what course they'll be using but it would be hard to come up with a bad course. The courses they've used in the past haven't gone as far south as my B7 time trial course. I've done both collegiate and USCF races there in the past and the hills tend to really break the packs up.

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Labels: Colorado Springs, cycling

I hope you all had a happy Easter. Today I spent some time with family which was good. I also spent time setting up a different laptop for work after something got corrupted earlier this week. I couldn't get it figured out and the IT guy spent a while on it too. The good news is I can still access all my data but Windows won't work right. I'm stressed enough about work and really didn't need computer problems.

Even besides the laptop, I had a crazy week. Julie, my wife, was out of town for the first 4 days for her cousin's funeral. She took Cassidy, our 2 1/2 year old, but I had Danielle, our 4 year old. The day Julie came back, I came down with a cold. I'm feeling mostly over it now.

We've had freezing drizzle and snow since Friday. Friday I had to chip thick ice off my windshield when I left work. Yesterday a couple guys came over and helped frame part of our new garage. It wasn't very nice to be outside working. Today it snowed off and on. It's still cloudy and cold but the snow has stopped. Tomorrow it's supposed to be nearly 60 degrees so hopefully I'll get a lunch time ride in.

Labels: Colorado Springs, weather, work

I was checking that I had linked correctly from my previous post to the 2007 Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race Entrant list. One of the Google Ads on the page was for finding a psychiatrist. Somebody must think Leadville 100 racers are a bunch of crazies.

Labels: Leadville 100, mountain biking

Word from the local Bicycle Village is that Floyd Landis will be having a Town Hall Q&A sometime in May. The date is still being worked out. My guess is it'll be similar to the one they did at their Westminster store.

By the way, the Leadville 100 logo is on Floyd's blog even though he isn't on the entrant list.

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Labels: cycling, Floyd Landis, Leadville 100, Tour de France