Last few weeks

Well, the last three weeks have been crazy. After winning the tandem fun ride division of Lotoja I took two weeks off the bike to veg and build a shed. Veg I did and I'm now up 8 lbs. I ate anything and everything I wanted and now it is time to slim down again. The shed on the other hand went up fast and looks great thanks to Doug, Russ, Mindy, and Duwaine for all their hard work.

On the coaching front the team is undefeated and playing well, and I must admit I'm having fun. Baseball it is not (some odd rules I'm still trying to adjust to and understand), but from a coaching aspect it is still a blast. It is also nice to be the assistant coach (I love not having to deal with the parents. I just get to coach). I'm still adjusting to coaching girls, but for the most part it going good. The team only has a few emotional breakdown during the week. I always want to yell, "there's no crying in baseball", but the head coach always reminds me baseball it is not.

Bring on the Rain!

It has been raining all week! Bring it on. Unfortunately my rain bike is missing its rear wheel. Due to the rain we have a small change in the blog background.

Crash, boom

Went down in the first cyclocross race of the year. I was doing pretty well in the B group, battling for first with another guy. We had about a 20 yard lead with just over 2 laps to go. I went down when pretty hard, but got up quickly. The guy got a gap, but I couldn't catch him no matter how hard I tried. Slowly other people kept catching me. It was a nightmare. With one lap to go I finally looked down at my rim to see that it was wabbling about 3 inches and I was riding with the brake on.

I jumped the last barrier and went to get on my bike, but found out my rim would no longer turn. Sucked! The rim is done! Now I don't have a rim for my cross bike or my rain bike (I was using them for both). Some days you were not meant to do well.

Also, check out the picture on the fam blog for Ethan's stitches. That's my boy!

Lotoja 2010

It's difficult to think about Bub and Kim not riding Lotoja tomorrow (I'll miss the great pulls, laughs, and conversation), but there are a few new things that might make this year great. To counter Bub 5 withdrawals, I'll add 6 things that might possibly help us without Bub and Kim-

1- The tandem will be 14 lbs lighter than the one we road last year. I hope that will translate into increased climbing ability.

2- I was able to put in over 2,000 + mile in the last 2 1/2 months.

3- The "Hammer" (Perpetuem and Montana Huckleberry gel) products which will for the most part will eliminate me eating food during the last 120 miles and possibly pucking my guts out at the end.

4-It can't be worse that than 2005

5- WE ARE NOT DRIVING HOME AFTER THE RIDE!!!!!!!! (maybe that should be #1)

6- Michelle yelling out the window like a crazy lady (It always makes me crackup)

Lotoja withdrawls

So I am going through some Lotoja withdrawl! About this time for the past six years I would be sitting on a plane headed to Utah for the race. People at work were very surprised to hear I was going this year. There have been some good and bad to not riding it this year. My training for local races was a lot better. I wasn’t having to ride 100 milers all summer. I did a few 70 milers and that was about it. It was nice not to stress about all the miles. And I am not as stressed out about riding the race either. But there are many things that I am missing. I didn't get to do my list of things to prepare for so I am doing a top 5 list of things I will miss instead.

5. I am missing all the hype leading up to the ride this year. It is always fun to building up the race on the blog and with ya’ll.

4. Seeing everyone and getting one long ride in with everyone. Being away it is not always easy to get in on the family rides.

3. Bonnie leading the support crew! She gets more pumped up then anyone for this.

2. Making it up King of the Mtn. and knowing it is only down hill from there.

1. The DZ stache!


Good luck to everyone! Pull hard without me.

Death March 2010

Less than 24 hours til the 2010 death march called Lotoja begins. How time flies. I played in a golf tournament yesterday with my partner Danny. We played in a two man best ball and shot 9 under par and won the whole deal. Funny part was I didn't hurt all day, and won $400. Why is it again we ride bikes? Wish us well for a day of fun and excitment and may we ride safe. Doug

Riding with the big boys

I took 15 out of 30th with my first official race as a 3. The 1's and 2's are pretty darn fast! There was a pretty nasty headwind and we still averaged almost 27 mph. The whole race was non stop intense and fast. There was no relaxing in this one. I wish my HR monitor still worked so I could know my rate, but it broke. I felt good throughout race and was up in top 10 coming into the sprint. But then everyone turned it up a notch that I don't have. I was crazy how quick they blasted into the final stretch. It was pretty humbling to see. It will hopefully give me some motivation for training this winter.

Good luck in 7 days for the LOTOJA crew!

Last Ogden Crit of the year!

Who is the grey haired old guy riding with the kids? Tonight was the last of the Ogden Crit Series. Adam was at school and unable to make it. I decided to give it as hard a effort as I could. It was the normal fast crazy ride. I think because it was the last, everyone was working hard the whole race. I was feeling surpisingly well and it helped that my daughter Alissa and granddaughter Emilie came to cheer me on. I could hear Emilie yelling, go grandpa every lap, pretty cool. My victory salute that I got around a four rider crash without going down. Crazy crits! Just about got a top 10 so I did improve over the season.

Cyclocross anyone? Ride safe. Doug

5 feet less!

My adventure wasn't as long as the GC ride on Saturday, but I got in 70 miles. I rode about 20 miles of flat rode with a head wind. That makes for a long ride. It was fun on the way back though.

Got in another break away on the Tuesday crit. 4 of us got away from the group and really worked hard into the wind to hold our lead. We got about 2/3 of a lap on them by the end. By luck of the draw I ended up in the lead with less than 1/2 a lap to go. I did a stutter then tried to pull away from the group, but one guy held onto me. He hadn't been pulling his weight in the break away, so he was a little more fresh than the other two guys. I pulled into the worst head wind section and coming around into the final stretch I thought I had him. He started creeping up beside me and with 5 feet to go he barely passed me for the win. Was a little disappointed, but that is racing.

I am trying to decide if I should upgrade. I have enough points now, but don't know if I want to race against the 1 and 2's. Any ideas?

This is a photo of me with the cool, lighted glasses that Liam thinks I should ride with. They blink!

Ogden/ Tour of Utah

Some teams have quite the support system. I love the look of Bissell's Pinarello Dogma.I finally found Levi in the lead group off the Snow Basin descent. The attempted break on the Snow Basin Climb.

There were neutral til Pineview Dam and then the attacks started.

Burke Swindlehurst giving his team some local course advice.

Former winner and local star Jeff Louder.

One of the stars of the field, BIG George Hincapie.

Local racer Dave Harward.

The big star of the future Taylor Phinney. He is big, look out Tom Boonen, look out one day classics.

Defending champ Mancebo in a Canyon Kit, strange.

It was a blast looking at all the bikes up close and checking out the riders. It is hard to watch a road race but pretty impressive. I was by a highway patrol car waiting for the racers to KOM at Snow Basin and I heard someone say they had 1 K to go and they passed going 17 miles/hr. That is one steep section, these guys are good. Ride safe. Doug

I some how lost these pictures and obviously added them again. I don't know how to delete them so enjoy again.

GC Ultimate Challange

Last night we had the great idea to give Dave a call to see if he wanted to ride. So we headed down to Dave's house at about 7pm to ride his favorite loop sat morning. We got up early and climbed Suncrest, then up American Fork canyon, looped down into Provo, Orem, and finally back over Suncrest. Little did we know the Tour of Utah Ultimate Challenge was also going on but in the opposite direction. However, we caught the tail end of the group going back up Suncrest (the tandem was even passing people). It took us 5 hours and 30 min on the tandem (80 hard miles with around 6000 feet of climbing). Next week we start at our house and we'll ride for a couple of hours.

Pfeifferhorn

This is the mighty "Horn" and boulder knife edge ridge that you have to work through. This is the view from the ridge looking down at Red Pine Lake, where we camped.

Daren, Tanner and some friends were also hiking the Horn the same time we did. We were going to hike up from the lake with them, but getting 18 people ready in the morning to go up with them just didn't work out. We were able to pass them coming down the assent as we went up. It is this steep!

This was our camp area at Red Pine Lake. It is quite a hike with full packs.

I took some young men up the Pfeifferhorn hike. We had 18 in our group and it was a great hike. It was a nice change from the bike and the workout was great. It was nice to be able to lead the young guys up the mountain. Betty and I are off to Oregon tues for Robbie's graduation and then help them move to our place til they can get setup in Albuquerque. See you all in a week. Ride Safe Doug

On the road again...

Liam had to go pretty bad.


Quick update on the crit racing. While Doug was here in Eugene we did a couple of crits. The legs were dead! Doug also crashed in one (see post below). The guy that crashed into him hit me first and about took me down. After the race I realized he knocked my rear tire out of alignment and I was riding the last 10 km with the brake on. This week I felt much better and actually finished 2nd in a field sprint. I think I could have caught the winner if I had a few more yards. He got a quick jump on me.

It was good to see everyone in Utah. I have a top five highlight list from my trip.

5. Utah is HOT! I forget how it is in a desert. I would be outside at 11:30 at night and it was 90 something degrees. Way hot!

4. Altitude. It is really a big factor when you don't train at altitude. My lungs were working hard to get air and my thighs were going to explode very quickly.

3. Your crits are full of kids, good racing, and well supported. There were tons of people out there racing with kids all over the place. My family of 4 is the weird exception in Eugene. The three groups was also nice as well. Everyone in the group was very competitive. I was suprised when someone got away they would hold up and wait for the group though. I kept thinking that they were going to pull away, but they would stop and wait after a couple of laps. I do have to say that the corners sucked. Not that they were too sharp (the last one is pretty sharp though) but that you don't have a lot of room to go out wide with those cones in the way. All and all the crits out there were a lot of fun. Glad to get out there. Just wish Sutt could have been behind me for the lead out.

2. The mountains. There is some great mtn biking out here, you just have to drive a long way to get there. This has put a stop to my mtn biking in Eugene. It was great fun going up with Daren and Doug to the top of Mt. Lewis. I had a blast. If you look at my knee you can see my results from my embarrassing crash (I coudln't get out of the peddle on a steep and difficult switch back). I could definitely get back into the mtn bike again.

1. Riding with family. It was good to see everyone and ride with the connection. Can't beat that!

Ogden Crit

Tonight's crit was fun and a special thanks goes out to Simply Mac. Without them those of us who can't get to SLC can still ride crits. Although the season is short, the numbers and ability levels are improving (at least for the B flight). Tonight's B flight had some strong guys and the riding within the group was good. The cornering tonight within the group was a lot better than the last two weeks. It took the edge off to know the guy in font of you would hold his line.

Any way, the thing I learned tonight is the guy who doesn't fit in (old bike and a t-shirt) is now a marked man for the sprints. He took both prims and finished second. I guess it's not always about the bike, you need the engine go with it.

Mt Lewis/Arrow shooters

I went up and watched world class archery at WSU. It was very impressive. My only problem was I couldn't see the arrows fly and the targets are so far away I couldn't see where they hit. I needed some magnification The whole world is here. This is a French shooter. What a back drop with big Ben Lomond in the back ground.

After a 3800 ft climb we are on the top of Mt. Lewis in Ogden. Good brother, son time.

It was great having Brady and his family here for a few days. We did get some good rides in.

The happy trio after our climb. The smiles are in anticipation of 3800 ft down.

This has been a very busy summer and time is flying by. Adam, Russ and I did a climbing 52 miler yesterday. It was a great morning. Russ came from working all night, I don't know how he does it. August 21 is our last lotoja trianing ride,(might be our first all together). We will be leaving early and going 100-120 miles. Good luck to the injured and recovering. Hopefully Bonnie will be up and riding soon. Ride Safe. Doug

Fast Circles/ Bedroom project

Finished bedroom. Starting the bedroom edition.

Minus a pound of flesh.

Hello to all! After a month away from home, National Scout Camp Philmont, then straight to Oregan. Brady and I were able to complete the bedroom edition. The room turned out great. It was alot of work, with some stress in doing sheetrock tapping and spray tecturing. Link to Bubs family blog for some more pictures.

Brady and I rode the Eugene crit each week I was there. I got taken out by a crash right in front of me, with know place to go I went down hard and left some butt tissue in Eugene. Brady won the week before and was a marked man from then on. We were working so many hours that neither of us was at our strongest.

We were looking forward to riding the Ogden Crit with Sutt along, but due to alledged higher priorities the Sutt's are in Kate's country. Brady and I went down and rode in the Ogden Crit. The B race had alot of good riders and was up and down fast. The corners are really tight as they only have one lane coned off. In the last preem with a few laps to go, the person in front of me hit the last cone and it flipped into my front wheel and up in my face then down on my left pedal. I pretty much came to a stop so game over for me. Brady attacked with half a lap to go but probably went alittle early as some thunder thigh guys passed him in the end. Brady took 4 or 5th I couldn't tell for sure. It would have been a great lead out Sutt. Simply Mac really have upgraded the race, announcer, booths, and well organized, good job. Ride safe. Doug

Noah's b-day

Pop taking a ride in the water behind the boat.

Mindy and the kids playing in the water

Noah up on the ski's

Got up early and road the tandem with Mindy and then off to Pineveiw. It was a funny fun day thanks to Big Larry getting in water.