where it all began

crappy weekend #970_003

so we had a pretty significant snowfall in the fort last wedesday - 18" in my front yard. i managed to get a little kick and glide in on thursday (can i call 3 hours in town a first day of skiing for the season?), then got a message from drh re: going up to the pass named after ferris buellers best friend on friday and would i like to join him in such an endeavor. sure, why not get things started.

it was good to be out stomping around, finding our ski legs in this again:



drh getting his trail break on:



ski bases only slightly gouged, we had a good time. a few first day misteps (one of which was forgetting to bring apres-ski refreshments, i'm not proud to admit) but all in all a great first day. and an early one at that.

so as i said i went skiing. saturday i cleaned the house, ran some errands, and made some black bean chili. and it was good:



sunday was the first of the fort collins winter rall-eye series: the border bash. around 30 like minded yahoos rode bicycles to the wyoming border (well pretty much the border) and back. it was windy, but sunny and warm. really nice day for a bike ride.

here is a picture i took on sunday of an old friction shifter being used as a brake lever, with v-brakes. me and about a dozen guys i know have a combined total of a bazillion years of bicycle wrenching experience and i bet none of us has ever seen this. i'll give it an A++ for ingenuity, but i think it results in a false sense of security. sort of like my health insurance plan:



we're on a road to somewhere:



all these new belgium employees and not a keg anywhere to be found:



somewhere around that hill and down the road a bit is the wyoming border.




i think it was close to a 70 or 75 mile day. then we drank beer and played horseshoes at bar ss in laporte. next months ride is on december 20th. could be a tough slog over pennock pass if there is much snow ... hard sayin' not knowin' though.

i dunno, seems like maybe he does deserve a trip to Walt Disney World

this might be a little public but yeah, you know, whatever

around about a week and a half ago it became pretty clear that i needed to power down, pull the blinds, lock the doors and escape. i didn't get a chance to take a real vacation this summer and things were beginning to pile up, get hectic, and i was feeling overloaded. i wasn't motivated to race 'cross like i was hoping and that was bugging me as well. to be honest i was having a hard time taking care of myself in all sorts of ways. as i tend to do i fell back on an old crutch of mine. this might be a real shocker to some who read this, but i'm gonna admit once and for all- i've struggled with a certain addiction for quite some time and sometimes it is just too much to overcome. i was compelled to indulge in an activity that not many people truly understand. i purposely sought out the sting, the weight in my lungs, the elusive sensation of floating slowly through space but at the same time my mind and body darting like a lightening bolt on a charged summer evening. i totally caved in to the old familiar mistress. i'm not proud to admit it (because soo many succumb to the temptation) but i did it: i once again went to fruita.

hilarious

summer so far

heading home to NE for frankie and jesse's wedding. somewhere around McCook.

a little film from gb dean.

i was not moving in this picture

evening fishing expedition

mdub and butch k. @ buffalo creek

sue hiking his first 14'er - san luis peak

la garita wilderness

a whole other planet

totally freaking awesome. awesome awesome awesome.

so years and years ago when i was a competitive cyclist i spent a winter down in austin tx, biding my time doing 30 hour weeks on the bicycle and basically living like a monk. i'd just made the jump to a cat. 2 and was determined to do it right. while down there i had the good fortune to land a job at Freewheeling Bicycles (no small thanks to Jay Thomas for getting my foot in the door there). aside from being an incredible shop to work at (nothing under $600 on the floor, health insurance, paid sick time, paid vacation, profit sharing ... all of this even for a part time seasonal employee like myself) it was chock full of good folks who were a pleasure to work with.

among them there was this uber-talented junior racer with a funny accent. sort of a brit-texan mash-up if you will. i think we let him build bikes and polish the ones that were already on the floor. on the bike he was almost always in the mix of the local pro/1/2 races and he was all of 17 years old. as well, he was always in the "final selection" of 10 guys or so on the fabled swedish hill bakery rides (sat/sun/wed. morning ... minimum 100 miles, paceline, etc. and so forth - arguably more difficult than some of the local races). anyway, the little guy graduated high school and moved back to britain (he had been maintaining duel citizenship) shortly after i knew him.

fast fw a few years and he's still been racing (myself however, not so much). as it is i've been following his career pretty closely and am always stoked when he pulls off a noteworthy "W" - and there have been a few. but maybe none bigger than his latest one, where he beat several pro-tour riders (cavendish, millar, wiggens to be exact).

ladies and gentlemen, may i introduce to you, the newly crowned British Professional Road Champion - Kristian House.



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