Cole & Frank do Boulder Part 1

Ok... so part one isn't really excited. We flew out of Roanoke at 9:50am Saturday, made a quick stop in Chicago... then landed in Denver at about 1:30. We were optimistic in thinking that we could get to Boulder early enough to rent a sweet Colnago C-50 and get a couple hours in before sunset. Enter Advantage Rental cars... after waiting 20 minutes for the shuttle to pick us up, then another hour waiting in line for the car, and then 10 more minutes standing waiting for our car (until somebody finally told us our car was practically right in front of us the whole time!)... we finally arrived in Boulder shortly after 4:00, promptly finding our hotel and checking in. With no time for a ride we set out to explore town.

The Downtown Mall is pretty cool, and there are some sweet shops in t he vicinity. One in paticular (name escapes me at the moment) sells only high end stuff and was pretty cool... more on that to come. Anyways, people are waiting for the computer, so I must oblige. We ate an awesome dinner at BJ's (a microbrew/restaurant), Cole had Cajun Pasta and I had a small deep dish pizza with Chicken and Garlic... undeniably delicious. Afterwards we continued wandering, window shopped at University Bikes, then hit up Target, Barnes and Noble, and Whole Foods for supplies (i.e. Virgil's Rootbeer). Cole was unsuccessful in finding a 6 pack of beer. Afterwards, we essentially called it a night. Today begins a long 10 hour first session of Serotta Fit School. Gotta roll!

Target's watchin'

Double take?

Here's a rare (these days anyways) photo of me mountain bikin'! I'm riding a SWEET Trek Fuel EX 9.5 in this pic. Holy cow, that bike can move FAST. I'd never ridden a bike with 5" of travel, couple that with 2007 XTR, and a OCLV 110 frame this thing was meant for rolling fast over rough places. iL Gato is cruising behind me. That was the most fun I've had mountain biking in a loooooong time. Asheville has some sweet riding. Dave was riding a Fisher Supercaliber 29er... therefore he was riding fast, but lookin' slow.

33 degrees and raining

I should be be out on the bike right now! Sitting at work instead.

Trailer Park Boys

One of the things I discovered in Asheville is the Canadian TV series Trailer Park Boys. If you like Reno 911 (which I have yet to get into)... you'll love TPB. CB brought a DVD set down... Canadian humor at it's finest.

Asheville is a very cool town... a little on the hippy side for yours truly... but the riding is AMAZING. We stayed at the Bent Creek trail head near the NC Arboretum; the Blue Ridge Parkway was less than a mile away. Sunday morning, Cole, Ben and I conquered Mt. Pisgah before mountain biking for a couple of hours. The Parkway was "closed"... meaning we had free reign of the pavement; the only obstacles being some ice in the tunnels (just about pitch black!) and some leaves/rocks/limbs. It's a shame we don't have mountains like that in Virginia. Granted I won't trade Virginia for anything else... but we did a solid 18 miles on continuous climbing! I was hoping to get past 6000'; but the next climb was too far away for the time we had. Nevertheless... it was a lot of fun.

3 a.m.

3 a.m. and can't sleep... not cool.

Headin' to Asheville

I'm headn' to Asheville for a couple days. I FINALLY crawled back on the bike today for the first time since Sunday... even if it was only the rollers... it's better than nothing. My little bug must've been the full blown flu, as I was knocked out for the week! Hopefully I haven't lost too much on the bike... as soon as my lungs fully clear, I'll find out. Anyways... gotta roll!

for the Dogg:

For the Dogg... Too bad it's only a Demo wheel...

it did indeed snow.

Here's a pic of Target and Katie from this morning. The pic of Walker looking prissy is from last week.

feeling better?

Am I feeling better? Yes and no. I only say no because as the day is coming to a close... I'm beginning to deteriorate a bit. Last night the fever finally set in, pushing into triple digits. It was almost normal this morning. I tossed and turned for much of the night before settling on Adult Swim and The Cosby Show between 2:30 and 5:30 this morning. Oh well... enough complaining... I'm hoping to awaken completely revived in the morning.

The JRVS/Casey Auto Group Training Camp looks to be losing it's training wheels and becoming a real thing! Originally we talked about a 3 day weekend... but a 2 day Saturday/Sunday shindig is much more doable right now. Day 1 may be the infamous Montebello Loop. What will Day 2 bring? Perhaps an out 'n back on Skyline Drive? Or will we conquer Vesuvius? Will Todd come out to play? Will I find my climbing legs? Regardless I'm stoked... I hope to be riding well.

It's currently snowing out... will the meteorologists redeem themselves by accurately predicting this one?

Here yesterday... gone today.

il Gato and I had a killer ride yesterday (sorry if I almost killed you Dave). I felt great! Kept it steady with the killer headwind and brutal windchill for the ride out to (almost) Blacksburg and back yesterday. Once out past Elliston it began blow quite a bit of snow from time to time. From US-460/US-11 we turned onto Seneca Hollows/Friendship Rd. Wow. After a nice steady 3-4% grade for a couple miles, the road went up... almost straight up! After crossing I-81 we encountered and even steeper hill covered with gravel (read steady pressure to the pedals while climbing out of the saddle) coupled with a killer kicker after a false flat gave use a false sense of being done with the climb. From there it was almost all downhill back to 460. Once back on 460, and with a steady tailwind/helpful cross wind, it was time to test the hammer.

So what about here yesterday and gone today? I felt GREAT yesterday, really motivated, and the hip flexor was a non-issure (thanks to the Body Glide WarmFX). I got back to find Katie with a fever... throughout the evening I began to feel worse; a lot of drainage and a cough. Felt pretty trashed when I awoke this morning... got to t he Y only to cut the workout short. Ugh...

So once again the "Superbowl Bug" struck again; I've missed 7 of the last 8 or so Super Bowls from a bad cold or flu (usually sleeping through it)... I at least watched a good part of the game... although the Super Bowl isn't much my thing.

Still cold...

It's definitely cold outside! The forecast for next week calls for highs in the upper 20's! Ouch! We'll see what happens; as the 100% chance of snow Thursday never developed at all! Funny how "climatologist" can predict global catastrophe 10 years from now, but can't get tomorrow's weather right! Oh well...

Not too much going on, I've been nursing an irritated right hip felxor; as I overdid my range of motion on the leg press last Monday... so that's been hampering the training a bit.

What else? Got up real early to sign of for Jeff Cup t his morning; no cat 3 field means I've gotta do the 1,2,3 race... I'm sure the officials will enjoy picking the Cat 3 RR champion out of a field of 100+.

I'll be travelling a bit the next few weeks. Next weekend I'll be in Asheville for a staff retreat... weather.com is calling for it to be nice! (but... please refer to earlier complaint in post). The 24th I'm headin' to Boulder, CO for Serotta Fit School. That's right, I'll be fully trained and equipped to provide the best fits in cycling. Awesome.