"the iron horse bicycle classic"...so as it happens there's a little bit of climbing involved.

my wheel is still in the shop, so not wanting to race 'the beast'...who i finally found a home for by the way, some overly talkative fellow who looked like levi leipheimer with freckles...i naturally borrowed a wheel from the spoke. i took it out on a training ride the last thursday to demo it before leaving to durango on friday, and whilst in red rocks a spoke unexpectedly snapped. the wheel was deemed un-ride-home-able, so i tried calling several people with little success and eventually came to scott's name in the contacts list. yay scott! so while i was riding in the car back to du with him i casually threw out a question pertaining to the course of the iron horse road race. any climbing scott?

this was taken verbatim from the iron horse website..."Climb a heck of a lot of vertical feet (5700ft) and scale two almost 11,000 foot mountain passes on this 48 mile ride through Colorado's San Juan Mountain range."

...sufficing to say i had a fantastic time.

i rode down with co-author of the oats book, ben, in his saab hatchback, which was "born from a jet" apparently...pretentious piece of shit kept mentioning it everytime ben would shift, "third gear, eh? well, may i just point out to you that i come from a rather prestigious lineage of jets." then it would make some ridiculously loud noise, which im guessing was its feeble attempt at an aircraft fly-by sound effect, kinda like "WHOOSH!" (the noise would travel from the passenger speakers to those next to the driver in order to simulate the doppler effect.) the fly-by sound effects were inconsequential in light of the bitching that occurred when ben filled up with 'regular' unleaded...anyways, being the responsible gents that we both arent we might have forgotten about a few things...
- a place to sleep...'look, see this...that's a car, two-hundred and seventy-five thou...might want to hang on to that one.'
- registration?
- start times?

the 'place to sleep' quandary was easily remedied after calling corey, only to find that he was sleepin' with my brother...i mean his parents...and he gave us the number of the host house that we stayed with when we were down in durango for the fort lewis race. the fellow's name is dustin, and he was more than happy to accomadate two weary travelers last minute. it was quite thrilling to do the whole college student/unplanned/show up at your door/mooch thing. dustin's a neat kid that used to race in the collegiate scene, as well as as a cat. 2...his weekend project involved a hard-smoothy business, using a blender that was hooked up to a stationary bike. he also rode the entirety of the iron horse - 48 miles - on a single speed with a coaster brake, wearing flip flops and a cape. neato.



the road race was on saturday and went well all things considered. orbea kid (also known as matt beck from the U. of NM) managed to crash into me within the first five, very calm, very level miles of the start. ass. his bars ended up wrapped around my seat post and one of his carbon bottle cages broke and entwined itself in one of my rear spokes? This was probably orbea kid's 12th crash this year, in which he hit the pavement, and most likely the least costly of the 12...carbon bottle cage? fifty dollars tops. far better that than a carbon wheelset, or frame for that matter. it became instantly apparent that orbea kid had sabotaged my rear derailleur in the crash, probably with a knife, when it refused to go down in to my smallest two cogs...the 12 and 13. not that i really had any chance of winning the race to begin with, but i would say that this veritable nail in the coffin ensured my fate. i wish i was uma thurman...and no, not so i could look at myself naked.

"dear orbea kid,
are you aware that you are gross? does it suck big time to have road rash every waking moment of cycling season...if you rode rollers in the winter replace 'cycling season' with 'your life'? you should be bisexual, it would increase your chances.
sincerely,
colin don"



...okay, but yeah, i caught back up to the slow moving cat. 4/5 peloton. at the first hill, approximately ten miles in, the 75 rider pack got split up. ben, eric, and i comprised three of the twelve man lead group. our group stuck together, dropping only two guys over the course of approximately 15 miles(?). i was content with hanging on to a wheel on the up hill; eric and ben were doing a good job of leading some of the climbs with a deviant pace. when we assembled into a paceline on the descents i was able to keep the cadence high and get into the rotation. i was popped off at the start of first, of two, big ascents...thanks eric moore. eric tried to break and the pace went up ten fold. i rode the ascents alone, excepting when a two of the cat. 3 riders grabbed my wheel on the way up molas pass. they wanted me to stick with them on the descent but without my 12 in the back i could not, which im sure they, having no clue that my derailleur was malfunctioning, percieved as mental weakness. i descended into silverton, mentally beaten, trying to present facade of strength by burying myself down the main strip into the finish.

i drank a 'tab energy drink' after the race, which was exceedingly gross. luna-bar tea cakes on the other hand...

i ended up in ninth place and won a swell looking sweatshirt/hoodie. ben placed fourth, and i think eric took sixth. congratulations all. i beat orbea kid (ass), and in the game of life this is all that truly matters.

on sunday morning ben, dustin, corey, corey's parents and i went to the local diner, since our races werent until the afternoon. i had blueberry pancakes and an egg.

the criterium on sunday..."It takes experience to know that sometimes you have to go so hard that your left testicle comes out your right ear, and only then will it start to get easier"...was hard. the course is drawn out in the photo posted below. i had a really good start and got up front quickly, which limited experience has taught me is probably how you should do it. i held on to the lead pack for a long while, a few breaks went away and then would be quickly reeled in. i dont know how long we were into the 50 min. crit, but a break containing eric moore went away and stayed away...to my surprise. corey was on the steamworks brewery corner with his dad and mom, whose cries of positive affirmation were easily discernable amongst the spectators, and was providing helpful commentary. so after a few laps at the back of the chase group i decided to use what energy i had left to catch the break. we got close, and i think if someone had kept the pace up after i dropped off the front we could have done it. a few laps later i got popped off the chase group and rode the rest of the crit alone. i didnt get lapped by the break, but i could hear the moto behind me on their final lap. out of a thirty-five man field, only twelve ended up finishing. i ended up in tenth, and won twenty-five dollars for getting fourth in the omnium (road race + crit = onmium). eric finished third and got 1st in the omnium. ben was crashed within the last five laps, for the second weekend in a row, and did not finish. we stuck around to watch steve forbes in the three's race and corey in the pro-1,2 race. i drove us home, and didnt even fall asleep behind the wheel...like last time. we said bon voyage to durango at around 7:30 and pulled in to denver at about 2:15. fun weekend. i cant wait to do it again.



vanity at its best...the only thing that would make any of these photos better is zach 'milkshake' valdez, in the background with the pain face on. (the photos are small because the photographers website has a no copy/paste spell placed on all of the expanded photos, probably as some sort of ill-conceived scheme to actually sell copies.)







...i was a little bored.

i wish i could clearcut the state of colorado so that it would stop raining.

i obviously would not be able to do this myself, so i was considering going into the city tomorrow to find the creepy vagabond that told me several months ago that she would wield her dark magic against me if i refused to give her my chinese leftovers; i was coming back from a rather delightful meal at the white lotus palace. my initial thought was that she could use her dark magic to do the clearcutting, but after thinking about it i decided that such a feat would be overly vexing, especially for a malnourished person. my new plan is to have her raise paul bunyan and his ox back from the dead. she would also program them to do my bidding, and my bidding alone. first order of business boys...deforest the state of colorado.

i ended up yielding the leftovers and consequently im not entirely sure she is a dark sorceress, but she smelled strongly of mushrooms, which are a pretty standard ingredient in potions, so im pretty confident.

try to imagine a combination of these last two photos.

'the crystal cat'

the other trifecta...the one not involving the simultaneous enjoyment of sex, salted-cured meats, and television.

whilst the du cyclists were in lawrence 'the emerald city', kansas this weekend i was not, due to the unfortunate coincidence of a rather large biology exam. the thursday morning send-off soiree was very elegant though, cream cheese, dan wahl (ass) and decent coffee were all present...plus a few members of the team.

the exam went well i suppose. i totally nailed the question concerning sea otter testicular defeminization in the northern pacific.

side note: i heard that vitamin warehouses in alaskan inuit villages sell sea otter milk as a high protein supplement, which is often used by narwhal wrestlers during the peak season. at twenty grams of protein per ounce its one of the greatest recovery beverages in existence. sea otters, however, are a tricky species, and harboring enough of them in captivity to obtain marketable quantities of milk would be both difficult and semi-illegal, according to the law of the inuit. thus, their milk is harvested in small quantities by freelance fisherman/summer time beet farmers. Also, it's entirely organic (which these days is huge), and quite expensive, so you would need to be more wealthy than i to begin a regular regiment. sea otter milk is number sixty-nine on the UCI list of banned substances, although current tests are still unable to test its presence in the body. don't fret floyd landis, id like to reiterate the relative obscurity of this e-publication. (the photo at the top of the page is not a sea otter).

i tried sending out an email, which was an exact replica of one of walter hoge's infamous "weekend ride options" emails, but as it happens i neglected to press send. so saturday at 9:37 am i commenced a lonely one hundred and five mile ride of utter bliss.

the route: bike path to chatfield state park, up deer creek to the high grade turn off, up high grade to highway 73, highway 73 to n. turkey creek road to parmalee road to grapevine to the backside of lookout mtn. to the bike path that leads to cherry creek reservoir to home to the fridge to a spoon and finally to a jar of peanut butter.

yep. so it was kind of funny being able to experience all five climbs on a single saturday, you get to see all the separate groups of people who endure each individual climb, for instance there was this picnic site at the climax of the high grade climb that an overwhelming amount of people were stopped at. alas, i forgot the required bottle of sarsaparilla and just didn't feel right about sitting down without it. not very much youth on the road, a lot of older folks. it finally got to the point where i had said hi to so many people that i had to speed up everytime i was to pass by someone to avoid being 'rude'...paradox? perhaps. that seems like kind of an asshole thing to do, but i was coughing a lot so i needed to save the throat for dry heaves.

i brought food and money for first time ever and i didnt loose my mind...like on that ride with forbes, eric, and grant prior to spring break, during which i did loose my mind.

in a foolish attempt to go for the 'century' i headed out to the cherry creek reservoir, despite the ominously dark clouds. it started to rain while i was on the bike path and it started to pour just prior to entering the reservoir. so i got a little wet and may have futilely cursed that 'bitch' mother nature a few times, but on my way back to campus the rain let up.

on sunday i actually sent out an email for a lookout mtn. recovery ride, unfortunately amy, the only one who replied, slept late. she's a little depressed these days, after the breakup with the 'milkshake', so i kind of understood. its hard to do a recovery ride when there's no one with you to talk to, all you really want to do is get the ride over with because firstly your legs are cashed and secondly you probably shouldn't have chosen lookout mtn. as a recovery destination. i brought a small bag of drinking chocolate (http://www.mariebelle.com/product.cfm?id=4) to eat at the top of lookout. huge mistake. i was fatigued and had an obscene amount of difficulty getting it into my mouth. also, its semi-powdery consistency caused me to choke and consequently loose a great deal of its chocolatey goodness to the pavement. the legs started feeling decent half-way up the mountain though.

okay, i guess that's all for now. have a lovely evening everyone.

ps. when you see corey carlson be sure to congratulate him on his superb gila result and the thick new non-lady 'friend' (overly dramatic air quotes).

pss. if you hadn't noticed i dont use capital letters, but i do use ellipses...a lot.

motivation.

"lunch has been cancelled due to lack of hustle. deal with it."

this is a finalist for my "new image" contest...thoughts?

no evan, i did not not take it to mt. crumpit to dump it. happy birthday.

on sunday eric, scott, haley b. (jubilant spectator), and myself headed to boulder for the rocky mounts criterium. following one of the most stellar warm ups of the entire season, during which nobody offered me a cookie that would have resulting in me falling off my rollers, breaking a toe clip, and ruining my day/race/very limited credibility as a cat 4 cyclist, i actually got warm and was ready to '...kick ass so bad" as they say. thank god for these 4-5 criteriums...sort-of, there isnt a sprint off the line to commence the race, that results in me woking so hard that my left testicle comes out of my right ear (thanks balding csu coach). the sort-of qualifier is the result of an overwhelming amount of sucky bike handling skills that end up in the pack, that ultimately resulted in my race lasting less than twenty minutes.



yep. scott was sick, which resulted in a short race for him. eric moore and i however felt good/healthy, and were riding well. less than ten laps into the crit, and on the corner before the short descent eric moore gets a flat. i think by that time scott had already elected to drop out, and this was two out of three du racers out of the race. on the same lap, turning right to go into the hill i was following the line of the rider right in front of me, and all of a sudden some hideous snapping occurs and my rear wheel locks up. son of a bitch. i did not go down, but some ass in the pack felt it necessary to shout out "your race is ova!" when it happened. ill bet it was the campus cycles employee that was keeping the 125 cadence on the downhill. oh, ps remind me to devote a post to my personal vendetta with "campus cycles"...the worst bike shop/sponsor ever. if you reading this and are thinking to yourself, " hey, i like campus cycles, they're staff is friendly and the sell premium bike parts at an affordable price", stop reading my web log please. you're not worthy (party on wayne). who am i kidding, five maybe six people read this, but still, if you have been to campus in the last three months to do something other than protest, i need to have only four to five readers. OKAY, back on topic. so i looked down to see five broken spokes and an extremely mis-tensioned hub, which was at an angle. i turned around and some idiot is laying in the grass, likely a result of shoving his front wheel and pedal in to me. i asked him what had happened and he said that someone must have pushed him into me. yes, thats what happened. i then asked him if he was alright, subconsciously hoping that his answer would be no. he was.

after wallking back to the start with my dead bicycle laying over my shoulder, some guy who i guess dropped out? informed me that he witnessed mr. incompetent in the corners drift across the entire thing and run into me. well he owes me give or take three hundred and fifty dollars to replace my hoop and spokes.

rocky mounts crit in boulder.

...so the estimated cost for the rebuild of my campy neutron wheel is $350 usd. im not too happy right now. im not sure that all the steven seagal photos in the world could make me feel any better, but they're a start. more to come.

if you need vicodin call or email me.

milkshake's stats from the 2nd stage of the gila.

64th
3:41:08
0:18:24
468 Milkshake Valdez Zachary
Fort Lewis Cycling
Durango CO 220719

oh, hells yah.

dont diet on the bike, says tyler hamilton

i need to start remembering to bring food on rides. i went to lookout mtn. alone this afternoon with two bottles, one topped off with a scoop of heed, and a half-eaten package of sport beans, lemon lime flavor. so yep, i rode out and felt decent going up lookout, but on the way home, around r.e.i. i started to loose it. i ran out of water and just wanted to eat some pretzels or something. moral of the story, listen to tyler hamilton, he knows whats up.

this will not be the last post concerning you know who.

this is him on a bike, not wearing a shirt. his name is milkshake. his real name is zach valdez.

the du cycling team has two honorary members, evan sandstrom and zach 'milkshake' valdez. evan is quite aware that the du cyclists hold him in high regard, like the boy and the mice in that movie the 'the rescuers down under'. ps. does anyone remember that lizard in the movie that was really creepy and ate all the eggs. i hated that disney character. a lot. anyways, milkshake is not aware that the du cyclists discuss his existence pretty much on a daily basis, and even have created a facebook page as a shrine to his greatness or utter lack there of. if you have a facebook page dont be shy, just search "tha milkshake" and press the 'add to friends button', amy, corey, and i will make sure that you dont regret it.

in other news, eric, harry, and myself left on a ride today, with the intention to ride approximately eighty miles up deer creek, high grade, grapevine, and the backside of lookout. as we took the bike path to chatfield, the sky above the mountains was mildly omnious, but we pressed on giving no thought to it. eric moore took a killer pull up deer creek and partly up high grade, asserting his place on the nationals team. however, as we neared the end of the high grade climb, the infrequent drops of rain that had been placing themselves on the shades became increasingly frequent. the rain stated to fall, the road started to get wet, my hands started to get cold, and my castor oiled legs were covered in liquid grime. we were all dressed for yesterday, eighty degrees and sunny. as it became increasingly miserable and cold, i fell behind in a descent, acquiescing to the weather. my feet were drowing in rainwater, and i said to eric and harry that i thought we should probably find a place to wait out the storm. we ended up in evergreen, in a small restaurant specializing in prepared lunches and catering. after deciding that we wouldnt be able to make it back without sacrificially killing someone in order to craft two waterproof ponchos out of their skin, we called a few people. amy secor, milkshake photographer extraordinaire, was nice enough to make the long drive to pick us up. thanks again amy.