Running, flying, and Molly Dog

Here's a story James wrote correlating running and flying. He just ran the Chicago Marathon and finished with just over half of the other original registrants that made it to the finish line. He tells a great story about running a Marathon while mentally reminiscing about flying gliders with his dad. Through out the journey he draws many parallels between feet and flight, pain and altitude gain, and hitting the wall and recovering from a stall. Check it out Here.

On the topic of stories, running and flying, here's a picture of Molly Dog taking flight. It's not photoshopped at all other than slight levels and saturation adjustments. The shutter speed was slightly too long for the flash, 1/60 at F5.6, but I needed that to catch the sunset.





Her first jump was when she was about 10 months old, we were on a road trip through Northern Idaho and Montana. I decided it was time for her to learn to jump off a dock. After some scouting I found a good one on the crystal clear, frigid waters of Lake Coeur D' Alene. If there is water, Molly has to be in it and being with me in the water is even better. Teaching by example, I ran out the end of the dock and jumped in. My body locked up in shock from the cold, a feeling I sadistically enjoy. It's like the ultimate refreshment. Molly followed me to the edge, but was too scared to jump. She barked, cried, and whimpered, but wouldn't jump. I swam closer to the dock and started calling her name excitedly. She was a ball of rising energy that kept building with each call (think puppy on Red Bull), but she couldn't get past the fear. She would run full speed and chicken out at the last minute, skidding clumsily to a stop at the dock's edge. Finally, she was overcome by an explosion of puppy super power and did it! It wasn't a half ass lob either, it was a 150% effort. She was like a dog missile launching into the air! She soared over me in slow motion, tail spinning like a helicopter and disappeared into an eruption of white spray. My vision was blurred by the splash in my eyes, but when I shook the water out I couldn't see here anywhere. Then, when she finally popped up I thought she might never do it again because it was so violent and she was under water for a while. She did do it again and still does at every opportunity. It's the only way she can beat Nana's powerful swimming to the stick.





In Boulder all the docks have rails (stupid safety), but Molly isn't phased. She just squeezes under them. Although, she can't get good height or the distance, she makes it work even in the dark.

"HELP!!!!!"

Jo and I went for a late afternoon ride (in snow flurries) today up Chimney Gulch and down Enchanted Forest and Apex in Golden, CO. About half way up Chimney Gulch there is a pull off on Lookout Mountain Road where lots of tourists congregate and walk 100 yards up the trail to be in "nature". I stopped at the pull off to put on my arm warmers as the snow was getting a little cold against bare skin, meanwhile Jo kept going. Just up the trail from the pull off I encountered a pack of over-weight, mid-westerners. Where they were standing the trail washed out into a steeply angled, off camber rock garden split up into different lines by trees. I normally don't clear this section and started to get off my bike to give way to the hikers, but as I did that the crowd came alive with cheers of encouragement. "You can do it", "Go, go, go" they chanted at. (Now I felt bad for thinking they were over-weight)

Not wanting to deprive them of a show and possible carnage I accepted the challenge. The problem was that an already hard section of trail was made almost impossible by my portly new friends standing in all of the good lines. I picked a lower line first and then had to bunny hop up to a higher line to avoid one. Somehow it worked out, but then my rear tire stalled on a root. For a split second I thought I might tumble off the edge into the abyss, but I managed to power out of it and rode off. I waived a victory salute as my audience cheered and tried to catch Jo.

She had a good lead on me, but I caught her near the top of the climb. She let me go ahead as the trail descended over a boulder and climb a short section to the top. I was just settling back into climbing mode when I heard the unmistakable sound of rubber and metal sliding on rock followed by "Help, Help!!" I could see through the trees that Jo had took a spill on the boulder, but couldn't make out any detail. I got off my bike and spent a few seconds moving it off the trail as her screams got more deliberate. Forget the bike I thought and started running towards her. As I did the tree branches gave way to the gravity of the situation.

Jo was dangling off the top of a 15 foot rock wall clinging with both hands to some loose roots on top. Even worse, her bike was dangling below her the saddle hooked miraculously on her foot. My adrenaline kicked in and I ran full speed thinking I have to grab her hands before she falls. As dove to grab her hands she screamed for me to grab her bike. What?! "Get the bike! I'm fine, GET THE BIKE!!" she yelled. How she managed to catch her saddle with her foot and tediously balance the bike on it as she went over the edge, I don't know. It looked like something out of an action movie or a cartoon. I tried not to laugh as I struggled down the rock wall to grab the bike. I got it and hoisted it up to the trail and then pulled her up. Then we both collapsed in laughter.

She's got a true mountain biker's attitude - Forget about me, hows the bike??

Kenosha Part II (Pics)

Kenosha was so awesome we decided to do it again. Jo rocked it on her single speed which was an amazing feat. Here are pics from 2 trips, 5 days apart. I used most of my good trail pics below in the previous post. The thought that this trail might be closed next year makes me sick to my stomach.

Bikes Loaded Up

Ready to Ride

Top of the 1st Descent

Ramine Killing it

Jo and I Enjoying the View

Trip 2 Crew

Jo in the Trees

1st Bridge

No Problem

Tire Tracks in Fresh Snow

Doug up Top

Angela up Top

Last Climb back to the Car

Driving Home - just as Fun as the Ride!!

Colorado Trail - Keep is Open to Bikes

Last Thursday Ramine and I rode Kenosha Pass on the Colorado Trail - all pictures in this post are of the Colorado Trail from our ride. Look for another post soon with more pics (it was awesome), but this is important! The US Forest Service is considering closing some of the best mountain biking in Colorado on sections of the Colorado Trail including Kenosha Pass and the Monarch Crest. Here's an article from July 27 in The Rocky Mountain News:

Parts of Continental Divide Trail may be banned to bikers
By Brian Metzler, Special to the RockyJuly 27, 2007

Several popular mountain bike routes in Colorado and other Western states could become off- limits under a new management initiative for the Continental Divide Trail.Under a proposed directive, the U.S. Forest Service could ban bikes on sections of the trail in non wilderness areas where they currently are allowed. The Forest Service, which announced the potential changes June 12, extended the deadline Thursday for public input until Oct. 12.

The proposal could affect some of the most popular mountain biking routes on the Continental Divide Trail in Colorado, including sections of Monarch Crest Trail from Monarch Pass to Marshall Pass, Peaks Trail and Georgia Pass in Summit County and many portions of the Colorado Trail between Copper Mountain and Twin Lakes.

"Closing it to bikes could affect us economically," said Heide Andersen, open space and trails planner for Breckenridge. "People come there to ride those destination trails."

Congress commissioned the route as a National Scenic Trail in 1978, providing a 50-mile

corridor on either side of the Continental Divide to locate the path. About 70 percent of the 3,100-mile trail has been completed through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico, but a lack of funding has limited the development of new portions and maintenance of existing sections.

"This is a really big deal," said Drew Vankat, policy analyst for the Boulder-based International Mountain Bicycling Association. "We're talking about some trails that offer some pretty unique opportunities for backcountry mountain biking that you're not going to get in other areas." The aim of the proposed directive is to clarify the nature and purposes of the trail and align it with Forest Service land-management planning processes, said Greg Warren, Continental Divide Trail administrator for the U.S. Forest Service.

The trail was established to provide scenic and non motorized recreational experiences while conserving natural, historic and cultural resources along the Continental Divide. Warren said he biked part of the trail near Monarch Pass last weekend and encountered 90 mountain bikers, about 10 motorcyclists and four hikers in a three-hour period.

"That's why we need to wrestle with this," he said. "It was an epic ride and it was fun, but there's no way you'd want to have a pack string up there because of the intense mountain biking use. That wouldn't be safe. So we're trying to figure out how to set guidance for local management decisions to deal with those issues."

No changes are expected to be made until at least Jan. 1.

"We're not necessarily promoting mountain biking on the CDT, but we're not opposed to it, either," said Paula Ward, co-executive director of the Continental Divide Trail Alliance. "There is a lot of debate between wanting mountain biking and not wanting it. But we still need to meet with a lot of these groups to see what their concerns are."

Public input can be mailed to CDNST, P.O. Box 25127, Lakewood, CO 80225-0127 or e-mailed to mailto:cdnst@fs.fed.us.us.

Copyright 2007, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

As the article states above, mountain bikers are by far the most prolific users of the Colorado Trail. Mountain bikers have a tremendous responsibility to be good stewards of our sport to maintain our fragile relationship with other users of the trails. Courtesy and commons sense must prevail if we are to succeed. This time of year I would never consider riding Kenosha Pass or Monarch Crest on a weekend due to the high volume of hikers, but people do.

On a summer weekend in 2005 I witnessed a mountain biker / hiker collision near the Kenosha Pass trail head, where the highest volume of hikers are. It was a group of mid-20's aged weekend warriors from Denver. I worked my way through their group on the last climb back to the trail head and it reeked of ego. Each time I passed a guy he would try to attack me, then blow up and fall off my wheel after a few minutes. I stopped at the top to wait for my friend and they caught up. I was mildly annoyed by the toxic vibe of the group, but their ego was somewhat muted by respect for me out climbing them. My friend caught up I warned everyone that we should chill on the rest of the ride because of the hikers. They took off first while we enjoyed a GU. The pic below the climb mentioned above.

About half way down to the trailhead we came upon the group standing around a bruised hiker. One of the weekend warriors was just going too fast and couldn't stop before he hit the hiker. They were all just standing around like the idiots they were! After patching up the hiker with my first aid kit, I let the group have it. I made the guy who hit him offer his information to pay any medical bills and then I went on a tirade about how irresponsible they were to go fast near the trail head. And about how the biker should have sacrificed himself by going off the trail into the trees to avoid the hiker if he couldn't stop. There is a time and a place for speed and a mile from a crowded trail head is not it! Demeaned and embarrassed the group slipped off down the trail as I screamed "It's people like you who are going to get this trail closed!"

At the time I didn't realize the prophetic nature of my words. Objectively speaking, my story illustrates why the trails should be closed to bikers, but as the majority of trail users that is not a democratic solution. I would propose some type of compromise that would grant limited mountain biking access. This has succeeded in the past, some of the best trails in Utah are only open on even days and Betasso, the closest trail to Boulder is closed to bikes Wed and Sat. Or to alleviate congestion like that mentioned in the article (90 mountain bikers in 3 hours) a permit system similar to those issued to rafters on the Grand Canyon. Money from the permits could be used for trail maintenance. Solutions like these would keep traffic volume down on heavy use days and allow equestrians and hikers a reprieve from constantly watching for fast moving bikers around each corner.

If you want to get involved you can do so by emailing the US Forest Service in Lakewood, CO at cdnst@fs.fed.us

Or through the Colorado Divide Trail Alliance Here, click the Send Comments link in the middle of the page.

Or through IMBA's online formal comment form Here.

3 Wheels, 3 Umbrellas

This rode in front of me on Baseline and Broadway in Boulder the other day. All 3 umbrellas rotated with the pedals. Yet another reason why I love Boulder - would you see this in your town???

Road de' La Sals

Last weekend Jo, Lisa, Doug, and I headed to Moab to honor my friend Dre's life and death with a memorial ride on the Porcupine Rim trail. It was his birthday weekend and a much needed chance for all of us to get away. We had an awesome time and there was much love and support to go around. The ride was a perfect mix of celebration and grieving, Kirstin couldn't have planned it better. At the end I rode a section of trail that I had only cleared once, but crashed hard on slickrock Sunday when my front tire failed (i.e. previous post).

The weather was perfect Saturday day followed by monsoonal rain during the night and then clearing up again on Sunday. The desert is transformed by the rain and I'm sure Dre wasn't going to let use get by without having a bit of an epic. I desperately wanted to take pictures of all the washes and waterfalls that have carved out the slickrock over the millenia, but it was dark and could not be seen. Instead, Jo and I laid in the tent and listened. As each cell moved over us the supreme quiet of the desert gave way to a symphony of rain pelting against the tent, wind gusting through the trees, and thunder echoing off canyon the walls. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep, at one point it was raining so hard I though the Colorado River was going to flood us out.

I wasn't in top photographic form on this trip so I don't have much to post, but I did get some shots on this ranch road leading up to the La Sals.

Road de' La Sals

Jo de' La Sals

Ouch I stubbed my Toe de' La Sals

Molly Dog de' La Sals

Dirty Shirt and Duck Tape de' La Sals

Chickas de' La Sals

Surfing de' La Sals

Crew de' La Sals

Triple Antibiotic Ointment

Some Spike Jonze Music Videos

When I lived with "MaryJames" (my favorite nickname for them), James used to pass down good Netflix movies to me. When I was recovering from my knee surgery last winter he gave me a DVD of director Spike Jonze's work including some music videos. It was awesome. Shawn reminded me of one last week, so I decided to post some of my favorites via YouTube.


Fatboy Slim, "Weapon of Choice" featuring Christopher Walken, one of the best music videos of all time. A little known fact - Christopher Walken was trained as a dancer before he became an actor, most of the moves in the video are his own.





Beastie Boys, "Sabotage", another all time favorite. There are a lot of cop show themes in the video, but Steve Mcqueen in Bullet stands out the most to me. Also, if you've seen my movie, a great soundtrack to crash hang gliders to!





FatLip, "What's up Fat Lip?" This is hilarious!! Not for kids though due to strong language.





Fatboy Slim, "Praise You". This is another hilarious music video that stands out because it is so different from the norm. The main character is Spike Jonze pretending to be the leader of the Torrance Dance group. I could see myself doing this! The looks on people's faces waiting in line to go into the movie are hysterical.

Dried Sweat and Butteryflies

I ran into this little guy on the Monarch Crest Trail back in July. He stopped by to have a taste of some dried sweat on my pack.

That map, in the picture above, was one of the best trail maps I've ever used except for one small problem. It Stunk! Bad!! It stunk so bad that I can still smell the funk in that pocket 3 months later. It was like the Seinfeld episode where the B.O. smell wouldn't leave Jerry's car. When we first looked at the map on top of a picnic table I thought that someone had urinated all over the table so we moved to another table, but it the smell didn't go away. As we left on our ride I felt like the smell was following me, almost as if it had come alive and jumped onto my back (where the map was stored). It took me about an hour of frantic paranoid sniffing to pin point the funk to the map. For the rest of the ride whenever we came to an intersection I would want to guess which way to go just so I didn't have to smell the map funk. This, like car doors and refrigerators, is one instance where having an extremely large nose just doesn't pay off.

Burn in Hell Crank Brothers Power Pump!

Several years ago Crank Brothers came out with a hand held bike pump that spit in the face of conventional designs. It was everything you want a portable bike pump to be, here is the description off ARGEAR.com:

"Only 93 Grams!
5.5" in Length
High Volume Mode
High Pressure Mode
Dual Head

Description: Crank Bros Power Pump dual piston technology makes it one of the world's smallest and lighest pumps, while pumping out as much air per stroke as many pumps over twice its size and weight. Only 5.5 inches and 3.3 ounces!
High volume mode fills large tires quickly. High pressure mode allows you to easily reach 100 psi! Switch between modes by simply turning a dial at the end of the handle.
Twin locking head easily and securely fits both Presta and Schader valves.
The Power Pump is light in your pack but is quick to get you back in the race."

I praise Crank Brothers for their ingenuity and leadership in improving the technology in the cycling industry. Carrying a pump that only weighs 3.3 ounces and easily fit's in my jersey pocket could make a difference in a race, especially a 24 hour race. Form must not compromise function though and this pump simply does not work. I, like many, others was enticed into buying this pump by the promises of it's minimalist design. I almost couldn't wait to get a flat to put it to use. Luckily or unluckily, I flat often so my chance would come soon. When it happened, I broke out my new weapon. I set it to high volume first, then high pressure, but after 200 plus pump strokes the only thing limper than my half inflated tire was my arm. There was barely enough air in the tire to keep the wheel rim off the rubber, which didn't matter anyway because my arm was so sore I didn't want to ride anymore. The $20 bucks I spent on the pump was the only thing that saved it from the trash can, it ended up in the gear bin as a spare.

The Power Pump's Dual Action

The story should end here, but it lives on in the many others that bought this pump, including Jo, Doug, and Ramine - the 3 people I ride with most often. This next story is one of the many times it failed me.

Jo and I went for a short ride on Marshal Mesa from the house last week. On the way to the trail head I noticed my cassette needed tightening so I told her to ride ahead while I headed back to the house to tighten it. She had our pump. I fixed my cassette and rode hard to catch her. About 30 min later as I crested a ridge I could see her climbing up the next ridge into the sunset. Perfect! I pushed hard on the downhill and kept in my middle ring on the climb to close the gap. I was within a 1/4 mile when I felt a looseness in the bike's rear end that could only mean one thing. As I slowed down the hissing sound coming from under my seat confirmed my worst fears. The sound of hissing faded to crumbling rock under deflating rubber as my heart beat slowed.

The sun was low over the Rockies and Jo couldn't hear my screams for help as she slowly disappeared over the ridge. Never to worry, surely the couple of people I passed on the way would catch up and lend a pump. The first guy took only 5 minutes and surely enough he sported my nemesis the power pump. I thanked him, but didn't even bother. The next guy said he didn't have a pump, but I think he was mad at me for passing him! The sun was now gone and I was getting cold, I would use what ever pump the next guy had. He happened to be out riding with his son and said he would be happy to lend a pump, but not for long because they were late for dinner. The suspense was agonizing as he fiddled through his pack searching for the pump. I had my fingers crossed behind my back, "Please don't be a power pump, please..." I thought. When he pulled out his power pump I strained a muscle in my face trying to maintain the fake smile I had on. It was dark, I was cold, and I had a time limit to inflate my tire. After 20 minutes the tire still looked as flat as a Denny's pancake and my good samaritan was late for dinner. Time up! I was considered walking out to the road and hitchhiking back to the house when one last rider came into view. He had a pump and it was awesome! It looked like something you'd blow up an inflatable couch with, but it worked great. I rode hard and found Jo lovingly waiting for me two gates away. I decided this would be the last time the Power Pump would fail me, it deserved a worse fate than being in a gear bin as a spare.

Sweet flames of justice!

Kick me once it's your fault, kick me twice it's my fault. I now run tubeless tires!