The doldrums of summer

Well, I'm not really getting any thinner (or, for that matter, any younger, any smarter, or any better looking either), maybe I've lost 3 pounds. But I am getting a little faster which, you know, provides a kind of consolation of its own, I suppose.

Here, in the doldrums of summer, while we wait for rain, there's at least been more time to ride,  for two reasons: 1) I'm between summer classes, one which concluded last week, and another which begins next. And 2) I've taken a little vacation time off work, which is something I've never really done before, chiefly because I never had it to take before.

I've been using an app called Strava since April to keep track of a lot of my rides. I've got it installed on my phone and it lets me use the phone's GPS function to not only map my rides, but also to easily compare my own personal performance each time I ride a particular route or segment, as well as compare my times to those of other riders.

My old friend Scott once cynically observed about group rides that, "No matter what they tell you, it's always a race."  Strava is proof of Scott's concept. It turns any ride into an individual time trial. And it's really a lot of fun.  For example:

Since April 27, I've ridden up Schultz Creek Trail eight times while using Strava.  Thanks to Strava, I can see that I've been able to shave just about 6 total minutes off my time, most recently finishing the segment in 25:00:05.  It's all a bit narcissistic, I'll admit, though it's also great motivation to ride a little stronger next time.  

There's more to Strava, a component of the application which I find to be quite humbling:

With Strava, I can also see where I fall in the mix of other riders who've ridden the same segment that I have. As you can see, despite my increasing fitness all summer, I'm still not even in the top 20 on Schultz yet.  But I'm close.  I just need four seconds. I'm thinking I'm gonna try to get it next time.

But I'm really chasing after my friends.  Specifically, #19 Nathan Cain, #12 Chris Grove, and #7 Kip M.  Earlier in the summer Kip held the record on Schultz, but since then his time has dropped to seventh place.  Nevertheless, at 21:39, it's still ridiculously fast.  And Chris, well Chris is always fast too, and, despite the fact that we ride together now and then, I've never been able to really keep up with him.    Ever.  His time of 23:06 is also stinking fast.  I'd like to beat both of them at some point.  Can I?  It's not going to be easy.  Lately, I've gained back between 20 and 30 seconds with each attempt.  That's all I need to catch Nate.  He's a racer-boy, too, just like Kip and Chris.  Nevertheless, I'm going after his time later this month.  But the two minutes I need to catch Chris, and three and a half it'll take to catch Kip, well, that's just going to take a bit longer.

Feels a long way off.  Gonna take a little more time. Same with the rains... But they'll come.

The Second Rule Of Mountain Biking

For the better part of a year now, as I've endured the long process of taking graduate classes to secure the professional credential my new job requires, I've celebrated the completion of each semester's coursework with a freedom-ride [May] [December] once everything's been turned in.  I did so again today.

The penstemons are out this week, which is nice, since it's dry as a bone out there and other than a columbine now and then in a shady pocket, and the occasional geranium, it's not been a good year for wildflowers.  Not at all.

The National Weather Service says we're just a few days away from breaking the all-time record for a period of no precipitation.  That's scary enough.  Watching what's been happening in Colorado this season, and knowing that it could happen to us at any moment, has made this dryspell all the more remarkable and frightening.  How we've dodged the firestorm-bullet this year, I have no idea.  Maybe people are getting smarter.  Wouldn't that be great?

Crashed pretty good while riding solo today; drifted off my line in a corner in the moondust. Wasn't going too fast, since I was on the Rock Lobster.  Nevertheless,  I got a little banged up in the process, and soooper dirty.  Then, after taking inventory of my scrapes, and dusting myself off, about 30 yards later, my front tire went flat.  So I stopped along the trail to replace it with the spare.

But my long-ignored spare, blowing its wispy little breaths against the hairs on my leg as I pumped it up, obviously had a hole it it.  And I didn't have a patch kit.

Over the years, I've rehearsed with my daughter, many times, The First Rule Of Mountain Biking.  What does a mountain biker do when things go wrong? A mountain biker deals with it.

Apparently I'm still practicing at The Second Rule Of Mountain Biking: always carry a patch kit.

Frankly, there's only one good solution to the problem in this scenario ('cause the walking-home solution sucks): ya gotta fix the flat.  But how, with no patch kit and no second spare?

Henceforth on permanent
display in my garage.

Tie a knot in the tube.  Pump it up. Pull on the knot until the sound of escaping air subsides. Reinstall tube, stretching it carefully around the rim.  Pump it up, slowly.  Hope for no exploding sounds.  If it holds, put the wheel back on the bike and then ride like the wind headed for home!

That's pretty much how it went down today.  I'll admit, I got lucky.  Twice, really.  No real harm in the crash.  And my knotted tube?

Got me home.  And it's still holding air, hours later.

Review: Incase Range Backpack

My review of the Range Backpack by Incase was posted to Commute-By-Bike today and, as happens every time I see my byline online, I find myself compelled to share the love with you, dear Reader.  You're invited to have a look at it if you're similarly inclined, as I am, to making a careful analysis of the features and components of cycling bags, packs, and such.

In keeping with recent trends, today's pack review likewise makes mention of zippers and zipper pulls.

Columbines are out this week

The top of my ride, the meadow on Upper Brookbank Trail, looked like this today, which is pretty spectacular, if you ask me.

About two minutes after I rose from this spot, I flatted.  Just like that.  No warning: pssssffffttt!  Everything's so dry, I musta missed a rock buried in the moondust and tombstoned it.  Went flat fast.  Put a little wobble in my front wheel, too.  Gotta whap it pretty hard to put a wobble in your wheel.  That's what I always say.

Columbines are out this week, in case you care.  Lupines are trying hard to get started, too.  Tough going for wildflowers in these conditions, I think.

Rode home down Weenies Walk with the wobble after fixing the flat (snake-bit, natch) and, after washing the stinging sunscreen off my face, set the wheel in the stand to get it true again.

Put some music on, to set the mood; wheel truing's got kinda a focused rhythm to it, so music helps.

It may come as no surprise to learn that my iPod's playlist is pretty predictable: Radiohead, Travis, Wilco, Calexico, Neil Young, Killers, Thievery Corp, Interpol, Zero 7... you get the picture.  But there are a few rather girlie gems buried in there, too, just because I like them... Not ashamed to admit that my regular playlist includes some Rosie Thomas, a little Sophie Madeline, and
The Bird and the Bee, as well.

This song, Y Yo Sigo Aqui, came on first as I set about working on my wheel.  It's such a great, fun song! Can't deny it.  It's the only Paulina Rubio song I've got.  But every time it comes up in the shuffle I enjoy it. Makes me smile and (try to) sing along. My daughter totally loves it.  She's seven.  Wants to hear it again and again and again.

Hope you like it, too.

Authoritatively, the bristlecone pine

Bristlecone pine on Hart Prairie

Authoritatively, the bristlecone pine grows at or above 9500 feet in elevation in Arizona, and only on the San Francisco Peaks and White Mountains, well isolated from it's cousins in the Rockies and Sierra Nevadas.

Today, on my ride with Ken, we rode up the segment of the Arizona Trail which runs parallel to the Snowbowl Road up to Hart Prairie, to around 9000 feet.  We turned around to head back down in the middle of the beautiful meadow which overlooks Alfa Fia tank and the broad expanse of smaller mountains to the west.  It's an incredible view.

Authoritatively, the bristlecone pine should not be found at this elevation.  But they are here.  Interspersed, at random, between the ponderosas and firs there are a few, all much taller and fuller than their kindred which grow at higher elevations and live for thousands of years, with which I'm more familiar.  In fact, Ken and I were both so dubious of the tree's identity, that I took the picture which accompanies this post in order to use my very-favorite field guide when I got home to more accurately and confidently identify it.

Short, furry needles.  Foxtail-like boughs. You can even see the bristles from which it derives its name, on the younger, smaller cone in the center of the photo.  Definitely a bristlecone.

And then the dream was done

I had a dream the other night in which our old dog, Shadow, visited me.  We were lying in tall green grass on a sunny hillside in the mountains, the three of us, my wife, my daughter, and I, and Shadow nosed-up quietly from somewhere behind me, as she was prone to do, and gently stuck her snout in my hand, as she was similarly prone to do.  I saw her vibrant blue-black coat and the so-familiar gleam in her deep-brown eyes, and I knew, in my dream, that she was an apparition, the spirit of our dog, come in this dream to greet me.  I stroked her ears, still as soft as velvet, and the broad furry patch of her scalp between them, and she grunted quietly. Content, as always.

And then the dream was done.

When I awoke, I told my wife about my dream.  "I had almost the same dream," she said.  "About Shadow.  That she'd come to visit us.  She was happy."

I've never been one to put much stock in dreams, except to give credit to the joy that comes, at times, from good, lucid dreaming.   But this?  What is this?  It is a strange thing, indeed, and it has caused us to wonder.  And to be glad.  Glad that we have been visited by a happy, healthy vision of our good old dog, both of us, in our own dreams, but on the very same night.

Peaks pavé

My recently-unbroken fancy-bike and I went on a fine long solo-ride today to celebrate the ending of my most recent grad-class. The ride wasn't fast. Nor was I especially skillful along the way.  But it was nice to be out, freed from the constraints of what has become the standard-fare of my weekend: spending my Saturdays buried under a mound of homework.  

Peaks pavé

I had a little extra-time on my hands today.

My homework was mostly-done, and the day ahead was generally otherwise uncluttered.  So I planned to head out on a somewhat longer ride than I've been on in a while this morning after breakfast.  Two hours.  That's what I wanted.  Just two solid hours on the bike.  Two hours of riding never used to seem particularly long.  But these days, what with work and life and the classes I'm taking, I cannot recall the last time I got out for a ride so lengthy.

The hint of a tail-breeze going up Schultz had me feeling pretty great on the way out. And post-ride, seeing a new season-PR on the stretch from the parking lot to the Lincoln logs, confirms the sense of well-being I had heading up to my climbing-goal: Weatherford.

I typically only ride Weatherford Trail a few times in any season.  It doesn't really connect to much of anywhere.  And it never seems easy.  But it felt especially-not-easy today.  Having recently served duty as a major fire-line, the first half of Weatherford has been trashed and reassembled since the Schultz Fire a few years ago.  But to say the trailwork that got done was an improvement would be to overstate the facts; it's still pretty sucky.  But it's lovely compared to the upper half, which is still just as bony and loosely-cobbled with Peaks pavé as it always has been, for as long as I've known it.  Makes for slow-going and calls for the occasional dab, too.

8880'

Nevertheless, the trail tops out at the wilderness boundary at 8880 feet, the climbing-limit for bicycles on the south-facing slopes of the Peaks, in the middle of a beautiful high-alpine meadow with broad views of the landscape above and below, which tends to make the whole suffer-fest of getting there feel almost worth it.

Got home with a total riding time of 2:02.