One Last Ride

On the eve of my upcoming knee surgery, Wednesday, I finally got a chance to go for one last bike ride today. It was a short loop around the Creek Path in Boulder, much of which is still covered in snow. For a hour today all my troubles faded away and I was able to enjoy the vacation from life that is cycling. I was at peace with the world if only for one hour.

I'm sure I'll be able to ride again at some point. I'm just going in for a simple orthoscopic exploration and a small incision in my posterior medial area (the inside of the back of my knee). They have to go in through the rectum, which I'm not sure I'm okay with. Just kidding! You should have seen the look on the nurse's face when I told her the doc said that was the normal entry point. "For knee surgery??!!", she responded. We had a good laugh!

With 38 consecutive days of snow cover in Boulder, riding has been a challenge lately. Temperatures have been well below average this winter, the lowest 16 days ago, a temperature of -3 degrees Fahrenheit.



Riding in these conditions is an exercise in misery, with cold extremities, bloody noses from breathing frigid air, and a wet butt from brown salty snow-slush puddles on the roads. When I'm training I ride in these conditions to maintain my misery tolerance. This season my motivation has been lacking as a result of being humbled and beat down on a daily basis for the past 18 months with knee pain. There are no problems in life, only challenges and I've tried to maintain a positive attitude throughout my injury. Right now my attitude is this:

If I can't race anymore I'm grateful I had the chance to. Peaking in the 2005 season was one of the most fun satisfying, rewarding, and years of my life. I'll cherish the memories of the people and the races. I gained a wealth of knowledge that has accented other areas of my life.

If I can race again I'll have a dedication and ability to suffer unmatched from previous seasons, fueled by every single day I've been unable to train or even ride in the past 18 months. The well I can dig into to suffer will be much deeper. I'll train and race smarter with a huge emphasis on injury prevention and maintenance. I'll choose races that won't set me up for more overuse injuries or re-injuries, i.e. no more 30 hour adventure races or solo 24 hour mountain bike races.



So either way I win and worse case scenario I give up Mountain Bike Racing to become a Rally Car Driver! Wish me luck on Wednesday!!

Jet Bike Video and more...

My friend Adam sent me these youtube videos about Jet-Bikes.

The Jet Bicycle I in my previous post looks pretty lame in comparison and I have serious doubts about the 80mph top speed. It does look like fun though.





Here is a real Jet Bicycle.





And here is a Jet racing a Bike, and a car. I had heard about this once, but never seen it till Adam sent it to me.

Bicycle Jet-Pack

I saw this on the OZ Report a couple days ago. I can best express my feelings with a quote from the movie Napoleon Dynamite. "I waunt that!"



I allows the rider to attain speeds of 80 miles per hour and gets 150 miles per gallon. You control it by flexing your index finger so your don't have to take your hands off the handle bar. You can find out more Here.

Sunrise

Just cracking the surface!

Advice of the Day

Don't ever referee a cat and dog fight while naked!

Sorry no pics or story, just those words of wisdom. Luckily my high level of agility allowed me to leave the fight unscathed!

Live Animals

They were so into their food they didn't even notice!

Icicles

Sticking with the winter theme here are a few Icicle shots from the past couple weeks.






It's been so cold they have been forming from the ground up.



This one looked like the hand of Old Man Winter himself!

Winter

Boulder, CO has the best winters in the country. It usually snows a half dozen times, but when it's not snowing it's 50 degrees and sunny so you can partake in both summer and winter activities. I've never gone more than a week without training on my bike outside during the winter until now. My layman's explanation is a Low pressure cycle that has set up with new Lows coming about every 7 to 10 days. The Low pressure systems bring with them moisture, wind, and cold temps. The Rocky Mountains usually squeeze most of the moisture out before the Lows get to the Front Range (i.e. Boulder) giving us our mild winters. The Front Range does get large amounts of snow when Lows coming from the West meet moisture flowing up from the Gulf of Mexico creating an upslope pattern. This has been happening on a weekly basis for the past 6 weeks. You can see the next Low (the one over the Idaho/Wyoming border) headed our direction below.



Last week we got hit with the worst windstorm I've ever been in. Reports of gusts up to 118 mph, which are equivalent to a Category 3 Hurricane, were rumored at Jefferson County Airport. I was driving home from Jo's in the peak of it, roads closest to the mountains (and my neighborhood) were closed so my normal 15 minute drive took and hour and half. There were a couple times I thought my truck was going to get blown over - unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me. The wind shattered my landlords picture window sending glass, snow, and 70mph winds into their kitchen. Not a pleasant way to wake up! You can see the windstorm highlighted in this weekly wind speed plot below. It's taken from a weather station in my neighborhood. Red lines are sustained speed, blue lines are gusts, and each horizontal line is 10 miles per hour. The peak gust, highlighted, is 78mph.



Here are some pics from the past couple weeks:

The Flat Irons



Molly Dog in Heaven



The Airport

Russian SL-4 Rocket

It happened as I was driving home from Jo's house in the pre-dawn hours Thursday morning. I was planning on taking the morning to nurse my newly acquired cold. My morning drowsiness didn't stop me from noticing how pretty the huge full moon was as it set behind the snow covered Flat Irons. Molly seemed to notice too and was resting her head on the seatback. Just as I turned out of Jo's neighborhood I noticed a firework off to the right. Logically it couldn't be a firework, who would be shooting fireworks at this hour? It was moving too slow to be a shooting star, I could only guess it was some type of meteorite in the lower atmosphere. It took almost 30 seconds to move across my view of the front range and stood out brightly against the backdrop of a full moon and snow lit mountains. I could easily see it breaking up into smaller and smaller pieces. It reminded me of footage of the space shuttle Columbia as it broke apart on re-entry in 2003. As I got home my cold overcame the excitement of the moment and I was asleep within 10 minutes. When I woke up I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that it wasn't a meteorite, it was moving too slowly. In the news clip below a Fox News meteorologist reports it was a meteorite, but it later was reported as a Russian SL-4 Rocket body re-entering the atmosphere.



The Russian rocket had carried a French astronomy satellite into space on December 27, 2006. NORAD also picked up the debris and scrambled fighters. A large piece of the rocket was found near Highway 28 in Riverton, WY. The piece that I saw continued as far south as Kirtland, NM. For the news story click Here.

Jet-man

I saw this first on the OZ Report and then Daryl forwarded me a link to the Jet-man's website. Yves Rossy, a Swiss aviation rockstar, is the Jet-man. He has experience in hang gliders, paragliders, skydiving, aerobatics, Swiss military fighter aircraft, and is a 747 captain for Swiss Air.



To become the Jet-man Yves straps a small wing to his back that has 4 small jet engines designed to power remote control airplanes. The wing gives the Jet-man an endurance of 5 minutes, climb rate of 1000 feet per minute, and cruising speed of 100 knots. A second generation wing is the works that will allow take-offs, aerobatics, and longer endurance.



Here's a video of one of the Jet-man's flights I found on You-Tube.



To learn more about the Jet-man click Here

Crack Jump (Photo 29)

I thought I'd end 29 Hours - 29 Photos on a non-hang gliding shot. To get to the cliff launch you have to walk about 1/4 mile out to the end of a 1000 foot tall rock peninsula. There are a few massive cracks that need to be crossed on the way. They are about 300 feet deep and range in width from 12 feet to just 3 feet. The crack in the picture is about 150 feet deep and about 7 feet wide at the rim. It narrows to 3 feet wide closer to the cliff edge which is the desired crossing point. Jeff, Adam, Shela, and Jo all crossed there and had a good view of me and the crack. When I was judging the distance Jeff's words for me were "Come on man, don't do it." From my perspective it didn't look that bad, I've jumped that far before, but seeing the shot later from their angle gave me chills. There wasn't room for a running start so I jumped from a standstill and you can see from the trajectory of my front foot I landed about 10 inches from the rim.