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Sutt, I wish I could come and ride it would be pretty fun. My Saturday's have been pretty busy with ym. It is amazing the things I took for granted back home. We did a temple trip two Saturday's ago and it is an all day event. It isn't the quick ride to the temple, it's just over 2 hours one way to Portland. Last Saturday we went to the mountains (I call them hills) to go for our tubing activity. Unfortunately, this has left my outside riding on Saturday's to a minimal. My schedule starts to slow down now, maybe I will get some better Saturday rides in.

D.C. sorry to hear you are still sick. Sounds like a fun trip! I am jealous that you guys got to get out and ride in warm weather. The weather here hasn't been raining, but it has been cold. This morning my waterbottle was frozen almost solid. Hope it warms up soon. I did have a great realization in my training - when leaving the other day I noticed that the sun was out for about half my ride home (the sun does come out here once in a while). It only gets better from here. I got my bike all put together and can't wait to start riding it.

If you get an email or try to log in and you have to get a Google account it is because they are updating and won't let us do it the old way. Just go to Google and open an account with them. But I don't know if they will make you do that?

Bubba

GC Connection

GC Connection
Are we planning on the St. George century (Feb.24)?
We also need to plan our long rides for the rest of the year soon.
Adam

St. George Day 2

Another beautiful day down south. It is amazing the difference a short 4 hour drive makes. I had a hard time getting excited about coming back to the mess in the SLC valley. Doug's sickness got worse last night and he was unable to ride today. I felt really bad for him because he would have loved today. As it was, Doug, Betty and JoAnn patiently waited for me to get my ride in before we headed north.

Eric, Steve, Mike and I hooked up with the Canyon crew today. They had a big group of 20+ and it was fun to get out with them. I road with them to the top of Utah hill then turned back with Steve and Mike to keep the ride to 4 hours. The plan was to ride up the climb as a group at an easy pace. Of course that meant that the group exploded a couple minutes up the climb and I was just below AT most of the way. Eric and Norm B. were out of sight quickly but I managed to hang around the next couple small groups to the top. I'm pretty happy how I felt this weekend considering I'm really early in my training build up. Eric is lean, mean and flying. I'm excited to see how he will do in the early Cat II races.

I'm now home and trying to hold my breath all week until the inversion is gone. Wish me luck.

Daren

St. George Day 1

Well we escaped the unbeathable air for a couple of days by going to St. George. JoAnn and Betty have joined Doug and me for some fun in the sun. Today it was almost 60 and bight blue skies. Pretty tough to take. The only bad thing is that Doug is really sick. He stuck it out for over 2 hours today but his throat, head and lungs are not cooperating. We'll see how he feels tomorrow, but it doesn't look good.

The MTB ride today was great. We ended up meeting Steve Wilcox and Meldrum and then later TeamRico. We road a couple of laps on the race course and then pretended to be teenagers getting huge (OK, maybe not huge) air on the Stucci trail and Green Valley loop. Four hours of fun.

Tomorrow is a group rode ride. Life is good.

Cold & Rednecks

We are all tired of the cold and thick air. Tanner and I have been spending some quality time in the basement pain cave. Actually, it's a pretty nice setup and not too bad most of the time. I just borrowed the '07 Vuelta and Tour DVD's from AJ, so we'll have something to watch this week. Watching bike races is the only way to make the time go sort of fast.

I'm finally feeling better and had a good training week. I managed 3 days lifting and lots of riding. The air is so bad, I didn't make it outside during the week. However, most of us on the team couldn't take it anymore and decided to ride in Park City Saturday. The air was nice and clean, but very cold. We did 2 and 1/2 hours and the max temp was about 15. I think that's the coldest ride I've ever done.

I must admit that I'm suffering a bad case of bike-envy. I know this is hard to believe from a guy with many highend bikes. However, we had most of our team out Saturday and I'm the ONLY one on the team without a Tarmac SL. I told Erin before she left that I'm making a huge sacrifice to pay for her mission, no new bike for me this year. I am getting my road bike back together and Glen gave me his old S-Works carbon crank to try, so all is not lost.


I sent 3 days this week working in the Easton booth at the Western Hunting and Conservation Expo at the Salt Palace. It was an interesting time. It's always entertaining to talk with our customers, the rednecks. They are good people and keep us in business. In this picture is Phil Phillips. He's on a TV hunting show and a celebrety in the hunting world. We're one of his sponsors so he spent time in our booth signing autographs. It was fun to hear his hunting stories. It's a pretty good gig to make good money hunting around the world.

The purpose of the show was to raise money for hunting conservation groups. Even if you don't like hunting, you should appreciate what the rednecks do for wildlife and open space preservation. Over $10 million dollars was raised this weekend that will be used to puchase open space, restore habitat, and re-introduce animals. A good example is Bighorn Sheep in Utah. 30 years ago there were no Bighorns in Utah. Working with the division of wildlife resources, sportsman have funded the re-introduction of Bighorns in Utah and there are now close to 5,000 animals. There are only 70 hunting tags issued each year and the herds are now very healthy.

At the aution last night, hunting tags went for as much as $170,000 for a sheep hunt in Canada. The Utah Governer's Mule Deer tag (you can hunt any unit in Utah) went for $137,500. Karl Malone bought a sheep tag and a mule deer tag that totaled $125,000. It would be nice to have that kind of cash.

Have a good week,

Daren

Hello to all: Nice looking ride Tanner-man. How would have been to start racing at 15 years old. I can't remember back 15 years let alone when I was 15. Brady just use so PVC pipe for your aero bars your engine will handle it.
Just in case your looking for a bulldog, we have two left. they have become pooping machines. Daren I'm sure Ashley would love on.
Happy riding to all, it would be nice to have some air to breathe and a temperature that would allow it. Love and Kisses Doug

Aerobars?

I have been thinking about doing some time trial races, but don't have aerobars. I was looking in to the two different types: attach to my handle bars or the whole new bars. I don't know how hard they are to take on and off (because I only have the one bike) or is it better to get the attached kind? Any suggestions?

Bubba

Bye Bye Erin

Here she is at the MTC this morning. All things considered, it was a really good experience at the MTC. There were very few tears and lots of excitement. Erin is so ready to be a missionary. She couldn't stop smiling and pretty much skipped out the door when the missionaries left. I'm sure the reality of her departure will sink in soon, but for now it is all good.

Here's her address at the MTC. Sister Erin Nicole Cottle; MTC Mailbox #174; URU-MON 0312; 2005 N. 900 E.; Provo, Utah 84604-1793.

This is Tanner's new ride for the coming race seaon. It's pretty sweet for an entry level race bike. He's a happy boy and actually doing some winter training on the spinner. Here's to warmer weather!

My sinus infection is still with me in full force. However, I did go out for a ride this afternoon with the warmer weather. We'll see if it helped me or put me further under. I'm 10 days into the sickness and I've had enough.

Happy New Year

Glad to see Doug has figured out how to use the blog. I look forward to more updates.

I just got back from skiing and it was OK. Kind of windy and no powder, but still fun with Tanner. We need a lot more snow.

I have my annual winter cold. It has put the training plan on hold. I was supposed to start in earnest this week, but my body said otherwise. I've been in the gym lifting for a couple of weeks now and my legs have no go on the bike. It's kind of a strange situation. For the next 2 months, I'll work to increase my strength for racing with a weight program. However, while I'm on the program I will get really SLOW on the bike. It's the old "you have to get slow to go fast".

I'm feeling like a slacker because I'm sick and not riding today. Dave Harward is doing 6 hours today with an expected high temp below 30. The guy is dedicated, I'll give him that.

Here's a couple additional pictures.