heraclitus

where water was born

a poem comes to mind

in glimpses

everything is green

hot and cold

the same, a common sense

of being with you and apart

both here and there

the river between us is one.

sighting Alcatraz

Thinking about later, I could understand the disconnect.  Here I was, a tanned, fairly fit looking bloke with a nice bike who even knew what arm warmers were; who wouldn’t think that a climby ride around and up Mt. Tamalpais wouldn’t be a walk in the park?  Watching Andy come into view around one of the bends ahead of me, five hundred feet above the surf, an apt metaphor popped into my head.  It was kind of like saying enchanter at a dinner party in Paris, a bit well-practiced and native-like, and then fending off the the passe composer for the next two hours as the other guests slowly change their initial assessment of your language skills.

So it is this morning.  I could have guessed as much.  The pollen is out big time; I’d just spent the better part of two days driving from Colorado to California; and we landed at my sister-in-law’s home in the midst of a party that lasted until past midnight.  Why wouldn’t I feel amazing on a early morning ride?

All that said, it is beautiful.  As the grade evens out to a less leg numbing five percent grade, I close the gap on Andy and we talk.  As I’ve aged, one issue that’s come to the fore is my need for a longer and longer warm-up before ramping up the effort.  This morning the air is damp and thick and the pretty yellow flowers on the sides of the road emit something that feels like sandpaper in my lungs.  For today’s warm-up, I coasted downhill for three minutes, greeted Andy and then started a twenty five minute climb.

‘We’ll need to slow it up for a bit, until I warm up.’  He looks surprised; who’d he think he was riding with, Eddy Merckx?  ‘My lungs will start to spasm if we don’t.’  He’s polite but probably disappointed.  I hate explaining all of the nagging shit that I work through to avoid an inhaler; it makes me feel old.  ‘Go ahead and I’ll catch you on the downhill.’

‘Nah, it’ll be a social ride.’ 

So we ride, me wheezing up the first climb like an tubercular patient in a wheelchair.  Andy explains that we need to keep an eye out for packs of motorcyclists.  They have a habit of using cyclists as the apex of their turns.  In a few minutes we hear the muffler tone of the first group of twenty or so riders, hitting the hairpins, coming up behind us fast.  Each slices by a foot or so from my shoulder, confident in fat smooth tires on a damp road.  Andy slides forward and I meet him again at the top, talking to one of the bikers.  The guy’s dusting himself off.  The fat tire let him down.  Literally.

We descend through the Muir Woods and I soon realize that Andy is far behind me.  At one hundred kilos, descending is one of my super powers on a bike.  I quickly hit fifty and start leaning into the hairpins, the coast a whole lane away off my left shoulder.  It’s exhilarating, like hang gliding on wheels.  Andy I reconnect on the rollers that come next.  Hard effort, descent, hard effort, descent. 

On the next descent I follow him and notice he’s getting thrown off his line by a too-upright position.

‘Did you ever ride a bike?’  We move between the two denotations: bicycle and motorcycle without much context.  He talks about buying two CBR’s fifteen years ago after his wife rode on the back of a Harley.  A month into their ownership, they decided it wasn’t for them and they got a race car instead.

‘You gotta counter steer in the turns in order to hold the right line.’  He tries it on the descent from Mt. Tamalpais and has a big smile on his face at the bottom.

brothers

I never know how things will go on the Acacia Park ride.  Today, a smallish group showed up, twenty riders or so, and we rolled up Boulder and onto Platte under sunny skies with a brisk south west wind coming from the backside of Cheyenne Mountain.  It was beautiful.  I don’t mind the wind; it keeps the little guys in check most of the time.  With no mass, they don’t last long pushing against a headwind at 30 miles an hour. 

Chatting with the other riders, lately more regular than myself, I catch up on who has a new bike, why they went with regular Dura Ace rather than Di2, what kind of deal so and so got at this shop.  A little guy sitting next to me, maybe fifteen years old and racing for a pro shop in town, is talking about the rigors of racing Cat 1 and Cat 2 men.  He works really hard in our group, but I wonder how the heck he gets to race Cat 1.

Brian, the owner of Devinci bikes, gets a flat just past our turn onto Platte.  ‘You OK, Brian?’  ‘Sure go on without me.’ And we do.

I’m on the front or near the front as we go down Platte. There are two small hills, not much really, but enough to test folks in the group.  Who is breathing hard?  Who is pedaling squares or standing up a bit too early on the climb?  I feel great and coast up the hill to scrub some speed so I’m not sticking my nose into the wind.  Looks like a good riding day for Chris.

Things happen in our peripheral consciousness all of the time without us really noticing.  A psych prof once said that three million stimuli are registered by the brain every minute and we are only conscious of a small fraction.  Somewhere on the three mile stretch of Platte, part of me noticed that my rear tire was squishy, but the part running my conscious self didn’t get the message.  I wish it had. 

A sign for Peterson Air Force Base points right, off of Platte and we follow it.  There’s a light and the group comes to a stop.  In one half mile the hard riding begins when we turn right on Marksheffel road.  Position is important and I let myself drift to the outside and take the front.  I have a clear view of Marksheffel traffic coming from the north; I’m positioned to come through the corner at full speed on my own line and lead up the hill into the wind.  I plan to make everyone suffer for the next ten miles.

At the apex of the turn, my rear wheels slides about two feet.  At last my conscious brain realizes I have a flat and I remember the squishiness from a few miles back.  I’m on the outside of the turn, so I just raise the right hand and slow to a stop.  A one inch finishing nail is stuck through the tread of the tire.  This is a first.  I know Brian is coming up and look forward to talking with him as we roll into the wind.  Instead of just one, slightly portly, rider coming up the hill, there are three. All had nails in their tires.

We make a compact group of four and begin our hard pulls into the wind.

Saying rosaries

I’m cycling with friends, two guys I’ve spent a lot of time with on the road, pushing limits in races and just putting saddle time in during six hour rides.  These two, Mike and Byron, are pretty much the only guys I know here in the Springs who will say ‘Sure, why not?’ when I ask if they want to do a 120 mile loop up to Sedalia and over to the Platte River.  We’re riding from Woodland Park and down to Deckers.  They’re continuing on to Pine Grove which adds about 5000 feet of climbing to the ride.  I did a couple of months ago with Mike, and we both bonked, or met the ‘man with the hammer’ about ten miles out of Woodland Park.  I would love to do it as well today, but I’m still recovering from a cold and 60 miles and 3000 feet of climbing will have to do.

Riders give up about 1500 feet in elevation on the way to Deckers, but it doesn’t happen in a consistent way.  After ten miles of descending, we climb three miles to Trout Creek Road.  The healthy ponderosa forest has given way to the Hayman fire burn, a fire that burned so hot in 2002, that nothing has grown since; the ground was scorched.  Blackened logs still lie on the ground, charred stumps dot a tree line where there are no trees. 

It has been a week since I’ve had a good ride, one that made me sweat.  Today I feel like a teammate, indeed Mike is a teammate and we’re sporting matching jerseys, so I pull into the wind for twenty five miles.  I set the pace at a comfortable effort on the edge of my 60 minute threshold, my power meter numbers moving back and forth over 275 watts.  Mike and Byron line out behind me, taking the big draft and not really making an effort to pull.  And that’s fine, they’ll be doing another twenty miles then I, climbing out of Deckers on a six mile climb averaging 7 percent on a mind-numbingly straight road.  I’ll have a bar in Deckers and then toddle back to Manitou Springs at my own pace, so I can lay down an effort here and help them save themselves for later.  Teammates.

We run the downhill to Deckers.  Twelve miles of downhill, steeper at the beginning.  I’ll be doing the inverse in about an hour, so I enjoy the speed as the numbers run up to 55 miles an hour.  The first corner is a hairpin and the rubber on the rear wheel distorts and I feel the wheel moving to the outside of the turn, fucking clinchers.  I move my weight forward and tap the front brake to push weight forward and normality returns.  A straight through the burnt timber, and then two turns in sequence.  I don’t scrub any speed and counter steer a bit to lower myself into the turns.  It feels wonderful, like hang-gliding on wheels.  The sides of the road are a blur, but I’ll get to ponder them in slower detail soon.  I don’t hear any cassette noise behind me and glance back under the arm; Mike is about two hundred meters behind, catching up now and Byron is not to be seen.  Mike and I stop and I hope Byron is not laying against a rock with a handlebar in his gut.  He isn’t; he rolls up in a minute.

‘Chris, when’s your next race?’  ‘I don’t know, I have to figure out my heart.’  I then explain my tachycardia ‘event’ at the Haystack TTT; I’m not sure what feels worse, the racing heartrate at 250bpm and days of fatigue that followed, or letting my three teammates down.  Instead of finishing first, they came in last, minus one large ttt rider with plenty of draft. 

Deckers comes up and we slow into the parking lot.  Bikers, motorized, line the parking area, watching us as they sip beers and lattes in the shade of the patio.  I really want to continue on with these blokes.  ‘Have a good ride, guys.’  And off they go.

My legs feel the strain of the first twenty five miles; the road moves up first as a faux plat.  I can feel nerve ending burning in the quads and hips.  The pedals turn on their own now and my mind works in the Colorado sun.

‘Road cycling is boring.’  Often I have conversations with myself or others as a I ride.  Probably too much of the aforementioned sun, or maybe this is initial onset psychosis, but I often talk to folks for periods of time, not out loud, or write things that never end up on the page.  I’m thinking of what a friend said the other day on a nighttime walk in Vancouver.  Outside of the stunning scenery around me, this would be the boring part of the ride.  Clomping along at ten miles an hour up a twelve mile climb, why do I not find it so? 

I think of religious metaphors, for the benefit of my friend?, and compare where I am to a church, granite spire, evergreen windows and a baptismal font on my left called the South Platte River.  If there is a God and he does have an interest in hanging out with us, this place would be a fine one to do so.  Prayer.  What is it but an inner conversation between the self and Self, atman and Atman, person and God.  I move higher.  My body is rhythmic, each turn of the crank another bead on the rosary.  What is the purpose?  What is the purpose of prayer but to move closer to the Source of what and who we are.  My mind is emptying.  Thought is consumed by the effort of climbing.  Passion is funneled into the muscles of the legs and shoulders, body swaying, hands gripping; love is burned in the firing synapses, the effort of muscle and thought.  At the top, I’m empty, pure, a vessel waiting to be filled.

A downhill run and I’m climbing again.

Going coastal

After a week of riding circles in Stanley Park, the road went straight, up and over the Lionsgate bridge and north to Horseshoe Bay.

After a week of someone else's food, a few too many latte's and sitting listening to the particulars of AAIEP versus UCIEP membership and the vaguaries of the new SEVIS process, I just wanted to hurt myself on some hills.  Reductio ad absurdum.  My vision is reduced to a patch of road in front of me and the strain of my body against gravity.  There are hundreds of cyclists on the roads, but I'm polite and nod and move one.  I want to think and then I want to stop thinking and just exist in a suspended moment.

A fellow on a tri bike, shirtless and reeking of bravado, storms past me as I munch a muffin.  Fine, he can join my effort.  I swallow, shift and move into his slipstream, shift again and ease past up the climb.  I do the racer's head fuck and slow my breathing and smile and say a cheerful "hello!"  I shouldn't have, but I did, and he rolls another fifty feet off my right shoulder and then is completly demoralized.  Maybe it will help him learn not to pound his chest with cyclists he doesn't know.  Probably not.

I roll on to Horseshoe Bay and talk to an older woman and her husband on the climb to the Sea and Sky Highway.  I have no problem easing up and having another muffin.  Thirty miles in.  At the turn back towards Vancouver, an older fellow comes up from behind.  I slide into the draft and then we talk a bit.  He invites me up Cyprus Mountain and we suffer the 12km to the top in a huffing silence.  I feel weak now.  Sweat stings my eyes.  The bars feel hard in my grip and a slow rolling motion comes into my shoulders as I rocke back and forth on the climb.  Snow shows up on the roadside and I realize we're part of a long procession of cyclists making a pilgrimage to the top. 

What is it we believe in?

Refraction

Light rain was falling.  Tiny drops somwhere between mist and actual rain hung in the air.  If Whorf was right and Inuit did have thirty or fifty or seventy words for snow, then Vancouverians must have an equal number of words for rain.  This was a sneaky rain, with drops to small to feel different than the humidity in the early, early morning air, and then congealing at the top of the stairs once home into general wetness.

Light refracts between the neon signs on Granville and me across the street.  Red and green, yellow and blue split into a thousand shards of color, splitting once, twice, three times, a hundred times.  People wander on sidewalks, entering and exiting doors, laughing, shouting and disappearing into clubs.  I'm somewhere next to them, near them, refracted myself into shining, broken beams.

'Excuse me, sir.' 

I'm crossing Thurlow, following my familiar path down Robson.  I'm in the middle of the street, stopped, turning, recognizing the incongruity. 

'First of all, let me thank you for stopping when I said 'excuse me'.' 

A gray-brown face is looking back at me.  Dreadlocks fall past gaunt cheeks.  His eyes are too large, luminous in the broken light of the street.  He's sick.  But the voice doesn't fit.  British, an attempt at received pronunciation, something out of Major Barbara or Pygmillian.  I turn around and he guides me over to the curb.

'I wouldn't ask this but, you see, I'm...'  His voice is drowned by a car passing.  I excuse myself, pointing to my ear. 

'Right, I'm dying...'  Again, the white noise of tires in the rain.  This must be the most common sound in Vancouver.  I apologize, feeling terrible that I still can't hear what he's saying, but very interested in whatever it is he wants to say, not because of what he's saying, I guess, but because of how he's saying it.

He shouts, 'I'm dying of AIDS.'  I get it then and understand.  'And thank you ever so much for not recoiling when I said that.' 

I'm in a universe where David Copperfield and the Mad Hatter have merged with a bum.  I'm still standing there.  Why not? 

'I could use a five or ten, sir, if you please, to buy some food.'  Right, I knew this was coming, but it was worth it.  This was the cost of the entertainment of the real.  I reached for my wallet and his mania peeked through.  'or a twenty of 1.5 million for a new brassiere!'  I laughed and handed over the bill I was going to pay for beers with.  It could buy him food, or meth, or a couple of tokes.  His choice.

I turned and walked, considering my day.  A friend spoke of fate earlier.  I wasn't so sure about that, but I was filled with a certainty that walking down this street was exactly the right thing to do.

Descending without brakes

In the great hall, past the suspended acrobats pouring drinks, inverted on lines, a fisherman impossibly perched with rod and reel twenty-five feet above the floor, past the stage where twenty glee club singers, smiles stretched, arms akimbo in unison, singing all of our Motown favorites, a man sits alone at a table.  Rheumy eyes are set in a large face furrowed with eighty years of life, thin white hair pulled over a white scalp, hands folded expectantly.  An old friend, a new friend and I sit across from him, balancing plates of 'heavy hordoerves,' a beer, an umbrella, and several books.  The open chairs are a relief.  The man welcomes us and we shake hands.

He looked alone, but he introduces his wife as she comes back to the table.  A lovely South Carolinian drawl, dwelling on vowels with lilts in unexpected places.  I strain to latch on to phrases eddying in the torrents of awful music and crowd noise.  "School of business... Korea... Charette..."  I nod understandingly and admire my friend's listening skills, but then suspect she's doing the same thing I am. 

How much of a sentence do we need to hear to understand an idea?  It must be thirty percent.  The old man carried us on a conversation about the Vendee counter-revolution in post revolution France, to the intricasies of negotiating contracts with Chinese schools, to the civil war and back to his family's history in South Carolina.  He spoke of his great grandfather's desertion before Appotomax, keeping his rifle from Lee's army.  He laughed and listened and his eyes drank us in. 

We are seldom what we seem.  Our bodies change and grow old around us; our lives become a confabulation of dates, times and duties, our minds create a web of connections, inferences and calculations, worries and fears, loves and hopes.  Our one saving grace is the ability to let ourselves become connected to someone else.  A brilliant, brief, accidental connection with an old man at a table in a crowded hall left me wondering for the walk home through the Vancouver rain.

Stanley Park

I uncover you in mist
emerald ribbons
hyacinth buttons and fern lace
I follow points in a circle
jetty and wave
rock seagulls cry
picket white fence says 'members only'
we are a union
our love is a meditation
souls ephemeral
of time and place
a breath of sound
three years is a long time
in a moment a smile crosses my face
what is it?
we rise and descend a fine line
a twisted rain forest of
moist bark, growing and decay
the mist is our breath.

Lifetimes

Last night I was an imposter; a vegetarian eating small strips of beef, wrapping them in lettuce and garlic and pretending they were good.  There was context for the deception, twelve of us sitting on cushions around a low table, three Korean woks sizzling in the center, suit coats hung in the corner.  Small plates with slightly pickled cabbage, sliced garlic, a hot pepper paste, sesame oil, bowls of lettuce and sprouts, and a large plate of sliced beef with a chunk of beef fat for greasing and regreasing the skillet.

On the outer edge of the table, I hid my small bites in large leaves of green.  The vice president didn’t notice, I’m sure.  He was more concerned with keeping the small shot glasses of Soju filled for his guests.  He spoke maybe four or five words of English and one of them was ‘Cheers!’  We smiled, drank, spoke and laughed. 

Later, the director of the village sits next to me in a small chicken restaurant.  A dish of duck meat steams on the table, surrounded by small dishes of kimchi, potatoes, sprouts and finger food for drinking.  He’s younger than I am by about ten years, but he’s responsible for a English school that sees more than 22,000 students a year.  And the project pays my salary as well.  He looks at me, serious and then puts a hand on my shoulder. 

‘In my country, we have a word for good friends.  It means something like ‘friends for many lifetimes in the past;’ you are my innae.’ 

Today I’m riding my bike in Korea for exactly the second time.  Rustin, a teacher at the English village, is my guide, fellow teacher and friend and we’re gliding past the long greenhouses filling the valley next to the village.  On our way to the Yuksinsa shrine, about 10 miles from the school.  The road is flat and smooth.  Rustin points out reindeer penned on the right, raised for meat we’re assuming.

The wind is blowing and the air is moist, the sky slightly overcast.  Cars and trucks are polite, waiting and moving over to pass.  After experiencing traffic from a cab’s point of view my last two visits, traffic was my biggest fear, but on the small highway 177, it is not a problem and we tell anecdotes of past rides, talk of family and love and don’t talk much about school.

Despite the wind, the shrine arrives fast enough.  This place

has been designated Treasure #554.  The shrine marks the burial site of six officers who, along with their families, were killed for supporting King Danjong in 1455.  One family member survived and his descendants live in a small village next to the shrine.

We walk up the stone stairs to the marble marker, six turtle heads sticking out at the base.  The symbolism is lost on me, but it’s beautiful and unique.  How many lifetimes have passed since theirs ended? 

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Chrysalis

The best way to get over jet lag and the second best thing to the jimjilbang in Korea?  My bike.

Wide awake and bushy-tailed at 3:30am at the Daegu Gyeongbuk English Village, just off of Hwy 4.  There is a jet plane parked outside of my window and, no, it’s not a delusion brought on by the wierd Hindu meals I ate on the United flight yesterday.  It’s a DC-3 brought over from the US and reassembled on the Village’s grounds as a thematic classroom.  It’s outside my sliding glass door window, lit up by both the full moon and floodlights. With no window coverings, my room is lit up in megawatt incandescence.

I sleep for five hours.  This is a good thing.  My plan for tomorrow/today is to get physically tired enough to sleep six hours tonight.  Part of the plan involves what’s in the bag.

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Numbers

Three weeks ago I kicked butt on the Acacia Ride.  Two weeks ago I was dropped.  Last week I didn’t too bad, hanging with the big boys into the last sprint. 

An image pops into my head of an graying alchemist perched on a stool in a dusty room, piles of books stacked randomly on the floor, an oil lamp casting a weak shadow of a beard, over-perched by a long nose and the hat of an academic.  In his lap he is looking at a laptop computer running WKO+.  Charts populate the screen: mean wattage, watts per kilogram, CTL/ATL, TSS scores and IF numbers.

It is an alchemy of sorts, piecing through the numbers that quantify the efforts that fill in the qualitative assessments, ‘I kicked ass today’ or ‘I was dropped like a hot piece of dog crap.’  I don’t obsess about my numbers too much.  I know a small piece of viral protein can ruin a ride or a week of rides.  But it’s heartening to see a number jump out at you once in a while, perhaps an omen or a talisman of good things to come.

A Sunday ride a week and a half ago with my team up in Denver took the six of us south to Castle Pines.  It was a hilly route and I was the largest fellow in the group, so I was ready to be in pain.  We assaulted Jackass Hill (which is really fun to write; no one in the group knew why it was called that.  There’s a park by the same name as well, ‘Honey, I’m taking the kids over to Jackass this morning.’) and I focused on spinning and felt good when I didn’t fall off the back.

They were taking it easy on me, though.  We hit a series of climbs and soon I was off the back, ahead of one fellow, but behind four others, bouncing away up the climb.  Denver has had a lot of snow and it was all melting and pooling in the road with the cinder used for cars.  At twenty five miles, the turn around, we all looked like cyclocross riders out in the mud.

We pushed back and descended a hill.  On the flipside climb, my rear derailleur made a snapping sound and shifted into the smallest cog.  The cable had broken and I was now demoted from a sleek 20 speed carbon racing machine to a two speed instrument of muscular torture.  I was fine descending and on the flats with my 50x11 and 34x11 gears, but any climb was an agony of low cadence, Jan Ulrich-inspired diesel pedaling.  Ten miles in, and my legs were hurting. 

Short, non-dramatic story; I made it, even if the guys did have to soft pedal a couple of times (sorry guys).  Back in the dusty room ten days later, doffing my medieval cap and moving the lead out of the way on the desk, I notice the number, 600w for 1 minute average.  That was a good 140w higher than any 1 minute average in the previous year. 

What doesn’t kill you…

The last dingleberry

Two bright red Planet Bike jerseys move through the paceline, Katie Compton and her husband Mark, smooth into a twenty mph wind out of the south, southwest.  Marksheffel road moves back and forth, first putting the wind on our noses, and then it pushes on our right shoulder.  The group is riding into its own red, guys not yet ready for the pace of the silver medalist in the Cyclocross World Champs; it’s February!  The riders push a bit too hard.

I’m in the echelon, shaded from the wind by the left thigh of a young rider.  He’s clueless and suddenly moves left and hits my bars with his leg.  He thinks its my fault and I make a note not to ride near him again.  It’s important to trust the person you’re riding behind; they control your fate, whether you will be pushed backwards as they blow up, or worse, hit the tarmac as they do something unpredictable.  My bars wobble and I hear my friend Cody snort; he’s in my draft, the sweet spot behind the biggest guy in the pack.

Planet Bikes move forward into a rotating paceline a few miles south.  I’m coming off some kind of viral thing, power wasn’t back all week, and I choose not to rotate, but sag back behind ten wheels or so.  I’m feeling myself out today.  The sprint up Link Hill will tell me where I’m at, but the legs actually feel strong.  I take a pull before the left turn and get myself towards the front as the pack turns onto Link Road. 

I don’t see it.  The truck that was standing still when I pass, moves forward into the apogee of the turn for the second part of the pack.  Brakes squeal and bikes slide on the loose cinder in the turn.  Mark rides directly into the ditch and then back out of it.  I’m ahead, no longer taking turns, feeling the road rising and the twelve or so wheels in front of me accelerating.  I just want to hang.  Glen and Marissa are on a pink tandem, coming slowly backwards through the group.  They offer a nice draft and I slide in, complacent with just keeping a good pace up the climb.  We’re over and a gap of about 100 meters to the riders in front.

The gap is closed by a train crossing, barriers down.  A break for the legs. 

Fresh, we jump on our pedals and the stragglers that have caught up, are off again.  It’s amazing what a two minute break will do for the energy levels, I push hard and move into the paceline.  It’s much easier to do this than to ride alone into the wind.  A new guy, young and on a tt bike, is in the rotation.  As he moves into the crosswind, he leans down and goes into the tt bars.  Katie glances over and shakes her head.  The second time, she yells at him.  I give up a spot and yell over to him that he shouldn’t ride ‘on the bars’ in a group, in a crosswind.  He looks bashful and says ‘sorry’.  I smile back; this is the way we learn.

Where the road splits at Old Pueblo, there is a rise over a bridge and then it’s a mile to the sprint line, our turn-around.  Another new guy sticks his nose into the wind and pushes hard, ending our rotation with me in third wheel.  Mr. Planet Bike is in front of me, pushing hard and there is a gap.  I push and close it and holding on is like holding my breath.  I keep it there just a bit longer than comfortable and then wiggle my left elbow, ‘come on by; I’m done.’

No one does.  We’re going 30+ into a heavy wind and everyone else is thinking that it’s much too comfortable to sit behind me.  Finally, a few riders come through, and I see Katie has been sitting in my draft.  Mark has also come through and we all ease up and roll a bit before turning back north.

Threshold

‘Cody, what’s that in your pocket.’

‘A corn dog.’

‘Why the hell are you taking a corn dog on the ride?’

‘You know, I like real food.’

Later, we are rolling down Platte Avenue, 40 or so riders two by two, sometimes three wide, chatting in the warmth of a 60 degree day. 

The wind is blowing hard enough out of the north to fully extend the gigantic American Flag just before the last small climb heading east.  Everyone knows that the pace will be high on Mark Sheffel Road and I think about the small 50x11 gear I have.  Traffic coming south on Sheffel and a car waiting in the lane force the pack to come to a stop at the turn; I hear Mike swear and then we’re off, standing on the pedals and accelerating up the hill that marks the start of the race-pace portion of the ride.  The hill is a small rise about 400 meters long, but from a standstill it hurts to reach 30mph by the top; the line strings out and I ride towards the front.

I’m always strong on the this leg of the ride.  The road is flat to slightly downhill and I can power to the front fairly easily.  Today I’m planning on adding a thirty mile extension to the ride by turning left on Squirrel Creek Road and riding a loop out to Hannover.  It’s early in the season and, while I enjoy some speedwork with the combination of my low gear and tail wind, I really don’t want to do any sprinting today.

I rotate through the front and freewheel back into the line about seven wheels back.  Byron and another rider move off the front and quickly gap the front of the group.  I’m coasting a bit, dragged along in the draft and slowly move towards the front again.  I’m not working to hard and, when I’m on the point, decide to bring Byron and co. back to the fold.  I’m spun out at about 150rpm, just a bit too fast to not move around on the seat.  Byron slowly comes back and I’m in no hurry and grab his rear wheel after a few minutes of effort.  I brought the group and immediately a rider in a green Scattante outfit slides past and pushes the pace.  I’m a little miffed that he never came past to chase, but this isn’t a race; it’s January.

Squirrel Creek Road comes just before the sprint to the top of Link Hill.  This works for me, short-circuiting a too hard effort up the hill and adding some much needed time in the saddle at endurance pace rather than the crazy race pace that will go on for another seven miles.  Byron looks over and we slide down the pack and then turn left.  We wait for Mike or Erik or Cody to appear, but they don’t so we head off into the treeless distance, the road rising five miles ahead in a long ribbon of asphalt amidst a brown landscape.  The wind blows and the only thing stopping it are the cholla, blooming yellow in the winter spring.

‘Hey Byron, the cholla are having sex all around us.’  We laugh and settle into the task.

Quickie

GeoTagged, [N39.28873, E106.06411]

The post, not the ski. Fun trip up Breckenridge with friends and family. A morning ski up the aptly named Siberian trail with Mark and Glen and then an afternoon jaunt through Troll Forest with the boys. Amazing how much fun one can have with a little snow, some sun and very little oxygen; and no batteries required!