Drink Wine, Feel Fine.

Merry Christmas Y'all! We escaped the cold and snow of Colorado for this:

Some of this:

And a little bit of this:

Here's to you and yours having a most excellent 2009!!!

Vamanos al Seattle

Back on the horse again. I'm off to a sales meeting in Seattle for a small footwear brand. It feels weird but REALLY GOOD to be going to the Northwest to see another brand. I still have "some irons in the fire" as they say so this won't be the last or only stop on Tree's magical repping tour. I'll report more as it hapens...

If you haven't been outside lately, it's freakin' COLD!!! We had a high of 2 degrees here at the treehouse. Last night it got down to -13 degrees! I about froze to the Rhino last night while I was plowing. The good thing is that we'll be getting into some warm weather very soon...

I better get my Sea Legs on:

Start following this now!!

Hey y'all, I don't know if you've been following any of the blogs I have listed to the left <------- but you ought to start following The World Effect blog in the next few weeks. My brother Beau and his wife to be Meg are travelling the world for a year and documenting every step on the blog. Check out the killer video he made of the planned route. www.theworldeffect.com

Excuse me while my lungs burst into flames

I rode a quick Hall Ranch loop on my single speed yesterday. Man, am I out of shape. Apparently gorging yourself at Thanksgiving isn't good for your riding fitness. I had to stop twice to prevent my lungs from bursting into flames. The weather couldn't have been more perfect; 60 degrees and tacky dirt from the moisture earlier in the week. There were still a few muddy spots but nothing to prevent a good ride.

Sounds like another storm is moving in tonight. It might be a while before I get back on the bike again...

Plowing again

We got over a foot of snow over the last 24 hours. That's nothing for the Rhino:

It's actually kind of fun to get back on it and move the snow. Two years ago I spent a considerable amount of time on this thing. We'll see how this winter shapes up...

I love my commute

It's snowing and I didn't have to drive in it to get to work. Beautiful! The views out my office window aren't bad either:

Snowy Tuesday Ride

I got out on the ride tonight even though Marty Coniglio said it would be snowy. We rode the complete Coulson Gulch loop in the dark. I was really feeling being in Iowa for over a week gorging myself on the Turkey day goodness! It was snowy but it made the dirt extra tacky and good for the 10 riders that showed up. One not so good post ride pic:

Dare I say one of the best Tuesday NIGHT rides ever?!?!

Do you ever feel like...

you're in a time warp? Man, I can believe it's December already and the sun sets at 4:30. What a drag! Anyway, as you may have noticed, my blog entries have been massively lacking in the last couple months. I've had the not so fun life changing loss of my business due to some not so nice folks in the Northwest. I'll spare you the details.

So what have I been up to? I'd like to say that I've been riding my bike with reckless abandonment but I can't. I've been working on getting a new business going and I think the future looks bright. I'm working with small companies with real people that not only want to do business but want to have fun along the way. Can you say refreshing!?

With all of this change comes more change and we're expecting child #3. Who's working name is currently Rafael (Thanks Clay). Good times here in good ol' CO.

Well enough with the rambling. I promise to have a more exciting post up soon.

I bet you thought we left for good...

Nope. We're back and better than ever! 10 days in Japan with my beautiful wife and wonderful boys was spectacular. We were in tight quarters (hotel rooms with two double beds for four of us) and it was tough with the jet lag but we persevered and h a great time.

In lieu of giving you a day by day, hour by hour account of our trip; I'm going to give the highlights in no particular order:

Vending machines, vending machines. You can get anything out of a vending machine in Japan. Soda, Water, Tea, Candy, Noodles and most importantly Beer.

Shrines and more shrines. In Kyoto there are over 1600 different shrines. We visited 8 in a day.


Trains galore! This is the tram we took at a nature park just outside of Tokyo.

You are here. This is the bowl of spaghetti they call the Tokyo subway system. It looks difficult because it is! However, we successfully navigated our way around by just going for it. Nearly everyone in Japan is really polite and most people will help you even if they don't speak English.

I planned to add a lot more pics and dialog, but I got busy and, well, have over 400 pics to negotiate through. My friends can come by any time to take a look at the DVD I'm going to create someday...hopefully. In the meantime, check out Beau and Meggan's blog: The World Effect.

I want to send a shout out to J, Maya, and their family in Japan for being the most gracious and excellent hosts ever! Thanks for putting up with us Gaigins for 10 days!

Now back to regular programing....

One for the weekend

More riding!

On Monday Boulder County finally opened the much anticipated Picture Rock trail linking Heil Ranch with Lyons. Due to my new work circumstances; I was able to go to the grand opening, ride it Tuesday afternoon and on Thursday.
It was hard to get a feel for the trail on the grand opening due to the huge turn out of mountain bikers. The trail was packed and was hard to get the flow of the trail. Tuesday night was better because we were able to ride faster. I was still feeling like I just needed to get on the trail by myself to fully experience what it had to offer.
Thursday was the ticket, Ab had a few errands to run with the kids and that gave me about 2.5 hours to get out. I started at the parking lot by the black bear hole on the st. vrain. I saw three other cars with bike racks. This will be the likely starting point for anyone that drives into Lyons to ride this trail. If you haven't heard, there is a massive and emotional controversy on where the trail head should be. They still haven't made a definitive decision on where the parking lot should be. Anyhoo, I started there and rode through Bohn park on a social trail to the Picture Rock Trail.
The trail starts relatively smooth and rolls in and out of small ravines and up through the scrub brush:

After a couple miles you start going into a more forested area with ponderosa pines and cedar bushes:
In the middle of the trail you come upon a silo and an old rock quarry. Supposedly most all of the sandstone used to make the University of Colorado campus came from this area:
This is where the trail changes from a semi smooth rolling trail to a more rocky semi-technical trail. You pass plenty of old sandstone structures. Many of them look like they were built yesterday.

There's even some old shot up cars along the way. Note the big flat sandstone surface.

Below is the "Great Wall of Heil". Apparently this is what took the most time to build this trail.
I rode the 5.5 miles up Picture Rock took a left o Wild Turkey and rode the Ponderosa around to the other end of Wild Turkey and back down Picture Rock (trail map and bma newsletter).
Looking toward Hall Ranch
The Route:

The Picture Rock trail is a great (Epic!) addition to the riding around Lyons. I do think that this trail is a bit more technical than people may have been expecting. The section between the silo and Wild Turkey intersection is rocky and you definitely need to watch your lines. I looked down at my gps for a second and next thing knew I was over my bars and on my ass in a pile of rocks. A bruised knee and skinned elbow is all I got. I'm looking forward to riding this trail a lot and eventually connecting it to more trails in Left Hand Canyon and beyond.

We were up early this morning...

watching Ab kick some ass at her triathlon! I about burned my retinas out with the sunrise on the drive over to Union reservoir.

Ab getting ready for the start of the race.
A sea of pink swim cap wearin' women:
The start of the 750 meter swim. It looks a bit rough in there!
Coming into the transition:
Ab sprinting out of the water. She was so focused she didn't even see us cheering her on.
Coming off the bike ride and feeling good:

Finishing strong!

Abby finished 21st out of 300+ women. Great job!! I think she's already looking forward to racing again...

Jah is Real

What a week. Yep, it's finally over. The plug has been pulled and now I'm no longer a rep for a soulless corporate machine. It's a good thing, but I'm still on an emotional roller coaster. I gotta keep looking forward and not worry about what happened in the past. It's not often you get to reinvent yourself in this lifetime!

I think Burning Spear went through kind of the same thing with major record labels. He's gone completely indy and now owns 98+% of his catalog. He sings about being repressed and just plain screwed by the record companies. I know how he must have felt! Speaking of the Spear, Adam called me a few weeks ago and let me know that he was playing a small show inside Twist and Shout Records in Denver. Check out how close we were! This guy is a reggae legend, along the same lines of Bob Marley (IMHO).

My favorite tune they played was "Jah is Real". The whole show was fabulous! Don't just take my word for it, check out Adam's blog too. After the show we got some food at a really trendy joint called Lola's. The food and company was great, the clientele on the other hand seemed very materialistic and stuck up. We were not able to stay out too late as Ab has a triathalon on Sunday (she's going to kick some ass!).

Today I hung out with my boys for half the day while Ab ran some errands. Going to the park is super fun, especially when you take your dogs swimming too. They only shook on a couple other park goers. When Ab got home I was able to get a ride in.

I had been thinking about a ride at Hall for a while. What about doing the whole thing? I mean a full circuit from town --> Start from town, ride up Bitterbrush and do a loop of Nelson--> ride down Antelope, back up and ride another loop of Nelson --> Down over the hogback and down Bitterbrush to town. It didn't seem like it would be too long but here's the reality:Yeah, that's 23.5 miles with around 3000 feet of climbing. I'm tired, real tired but it cleared my head and I feel good.

I'll have a report on Ab's triathlon tomorrow...

Just out for a Sunday Ride

I almost stayed in and watched football. Then I thought better... Got out into the forest.... 2800 ft of climbing over 11.5 miles.

Saw this on PBS last night...

The Who at Kilburn 1977. The band had not been together for over a year and this was Keith Moon's last show. I gotta say, this show ROCKED! Apparently, this show is going to be released for the first time, totally remastered and in HD (Blueray) in November. It might push me over the edge to get a Blueray player. Check it!

Hall on a dreary Friday

Beau and I got out on Hall Ranch via Antelope trail this afternoon. It was good to be out on Hall again with the Blue Beast, grinding up the 1200 ft climb and flowing through the banked single track. We had a great time. Too bad we had to cut it short (1 loop) due to a cut in the sidewall of my front tire and the tube bulging out like a pencil eraser. Luckily we made it down without flatting out. We had a beer and nachos at Oskar's afterwards to finish the ride off right!


I'm having a good time with my new Garmin Edge 705:

This will brighten your dreary Friday...

Labor Day Weekend

Wow. A Labor Day Weekend without having to work a ski sale. It was weird, but I managed to have a good time anyway! The family, Beau and I all went up to the Vail valley for the weekend. I had been itching to ride Two Elk trail for most of the summer and was finally able to ride it with my bro on Saturday:



Beau starting up Bowman's Shortcut on his brand new Tuner 5-Spot. Bowman's Shortcut is a brutal climb but knowing you'll be going down hill all the way to Minturn later makes up for it.


At the end of Bowman's Shortcut is "The Top of the World". Fantastic 360 views. Does that green shirt make me look fat??

More views....

Looking at I-70 climbing to Vail pass.

Single track leading off the top of the world and into Vail's back bowls:
The trail below the back bowls was smooth, fast and beautiful. There were plenty of flowers still in bloom. Unfortunately this is where the battery went dead in my camera. It's sucks too because there was a lot of cool technical single track in the gully leading to Minturn. Beau took a few big falls and has a grapefruit bump on his shin and a bum thumb to show off. Here are the stats for the ride:
Of course we didn't just ride on this trip to the mountains. Ab got a good road ride and swim in on Sunday while I hung out with the boys. That afternoon the skies opened up and it rained cats and dogs. Perfect for an afternoon concert at Copper Mountain. Beau got us back stage passes to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band show. And it was good thing too because we had covered seating:
The show rocked and the kids had a good time. After the show Jimmy the drummer invited us back to have some food with the band. Well now I can cross a couple things off my list:
go back stage during a concert..... check
hang out with the band and eat good food.... check

On Monday Beau and I were able to get out again. This time we went back to Minturn and hit Meadow Mountain. The first 4.5 miles are a grueling 2200 foot climb. This bit was the worst of it:

After cresting this hill we got to the top of the climb and took a break at this homestead:
This cabin is in great condition and still has the beds and stove inside. The single track started to the right of the cabin. That's where the fun started:
Past a pond and down into a forest of pine and aspen trees.

The trail was nice, narrow, winding single track.

Beau rocking through Aspens even with a bum hand and leg!
I think I took about 100 photos of this trail! It was beautiful all the way down.

Through an open meadow and down into Eagle Vail:

The trail actually ends on the golf course. There were some angry golfers that were not happy to see us cross the course. So we back tracked and found a way to the road between a couple houses.

I liked this ride better than Two-Elk and would sure like to ride it again before the snow flies. Here are the stats on this ride.

But it gets better! On Tuesday I made the Redstone ride. It was a lights mandatory ride and 5 of us rode for a couple hours in the forest before heading down to Oskars for some beers. Three rides in 4 days! What's not to like about that!!