USGP New Belgium Cup day 2

Another good day at the New Belgium Cup. I didn't exactly focus on recovery after yesterday's race - lots of walking around the course and drinking beer into the night with our house guests. Consequently, I wasn't feeling too sharp this morning. I took a couple easy warmup laps, and tried pushing it hard on one of the climbs. My legs felt like garbage. Oh well, the course was really fun. The rain had stopped over night, and the mud was firming up. I really like riding in those conditions. Unlike snow where you can blow a line and immediately be on your ass, mud is more slow and forgiving.

I had another front row callup but my start was considerably slower today. I didn't take the hole shot and risked getting caught up in traffic. It took some good old fashioned elbowing and bumping, but I survived the opening lap mayhem and settled in somewhere in the top 10. I really wasn't paying too much attention to the people around me, I was just trying to ride a clean race. I took some chances on some lines. Some worked out, others didn't. I got passed by the eventual winner because I was trying to take an outside line through some dry grass in a corner. In my head I knew it was slower, but I wanted to try it anyway.

I was riding pretty close with another rider on the last lap. I had a pretty sloppy lap which allowed him to gap me. I pulled him back some on the climbs, but he was still on the gas. Nearing the final straight I had to slow down to get around a lapped rider and I never quite made up that time. I tried like hell though. I've probably never put so much into a finish, and I almost caught him at the line. I finished 3rd again, just like yesterday.

I really surprised myself this time. During the race, I was surprised how much better I felt than in warmup. And it felt like that despite a bad start, my fitness carried me back to the front of the race. It's an amazing feeling to know the time and hard work I put into training is now showing up on the race course.

USGP New Belgium Cup day 1

The USGP of Cyclocross made a stop in Fort Collins this weekend. It's an infrequent pleasure to be able to ride my bike to a race, but that was the pleasure I had this morning as I took the 10 minute spin to the course.

I started the race strong, taking the hole shot from the nice front row start my early registration netted me. I actually didn't want to be at the front setting the pace so early so I slowed down going into the first barriers and let someone come around. I stayed in 2nd position for the rest of that first lap.

On the second lap, a junior bridged up to us a pretty quickly passed us. He was riding smoother than us through the technical parts, and faster than us everywhere else. My goal from there was to maintain my position and not make any dumb mistakes.

I went from 3rd to 4th place on the third lap and stayed on the back of a group of 3 (2nd, 3rd, and 4th place) I wasn't riding well enough to pass the rider in front of me without being passed right back in a technical section, but I kept the pressure on. The 2nd place guy was pulling away from us and 3rd place crashed in front of me as he tried to take some more chances and catch up on the last lap. I went around him and made the most of it to try and secure a podium spot. I had noticed he wasn't climbing well, so I buried myself on every climb to distance myself from him and hopefully deal a mental blow. It worked and I got a good gap on him.

It was too late for me to catch 2nd place, but I held on 3rd! My first podium of the year. It's great to do it in a big race like this too.

Frisco Cyclocross

The Frisco cyclocross race has dealt me some bad luck in the past. Last time I raced there, I burped the air out of my tubeless tires. Before that, I dropped my chain (behind a chain keeper) and got passed by the entire race as struggled to get it back on. Friday I felt like the Frisco bad luck was starting early as I went on an easy ride to blow the cobwebs off some wheels I hadn't used yet this year. My "easy" workout got derailed when I shifted my chain into the spokes and got it jammed behind the cassette. I ended up walking to the bike shop, carrying my bike. Not exactly the prerace workout I was looking for. The fun continued at the hotel in Frisco. Someone checked into the room next to us at 3AM. Every one of their many trips back from the car, our puppy got up and barked. It was his first night in a hotel, and every little noise was something new and startling. You couldn't ask for better weather on race day. During warmups I had on some warmer clothes, but by race time I was comfortable in shorts. This was the first race in the Cross Cup series. All that really means for me is that the points I earned last week meant nothing and I'd still get no callup. I started in about the 5th row this time. The race starts with a long climb and right away my legs felt soft. I don't know if it was fatigue from training or lack of sleep, but I didn't fly up that thing like I had hoped to. I tried to be aggressive on the first lap and make some passing attempts, but it seemed like most of them got shut down and I ended up having to grab a lot of brake at the last minute. Slowly but surely I picked my way through the crowd, trying to make smart passes and flow through course. Altitude was tiring, and I nearly blew up every time we hit the long climb on the course. Bike handling gets even more difficult when you're that far into the red, but I kept it upright the whole race. For the last half lap I had someone in my sights that I wanted to chase down. He had passed me earlier and I could see he was running out of gas (but so was I). Going into the last corner, he slipped a bit and had to pull his foot out of the pedal. That allowed me to get a bit close and we sprinted for the line. I'm not used to sprinting at the end of a cyclocross race, and it was pretty fun. I managed to take him by maybe a bike length for 10th place. Another step in the right direction. Next up - The New Belgium Cup.

Cyclocross at Xilinx

I haven't pinned on a race number since sometime last spring, but my racing hiatus came to an end in Longmont today. It was my first race of the cyclocross season and my first race in a new category. Having just come off a long vacation, I wasn't expecting much from the legs. I just wanted to get out there and remind my body what it's like to race. I didn't have any points this season, so I was stuck starting in the 5th or 6th row. It could have been worse, though. We probably had close to 100 racers, so I was starting somewhere the middle of the pack. The normal 1st lap chaos ensued, but I was a little surprised at what gave people trouble. The group got really bunched up as we had to come off the pavement over a curb. I ended up getting off my bike and running because it was just faster. After that, things settled down quite a bit. I mostly just rode within my limits and tried not to go into the red too much. The course was loose in spots, but overall not too technical. It was good practice for me, and I felt like I rode a lot of stuff faster than I would have in the past. I started to fade at the end of the race, which is about what I expected after having a bunch of time off the bike. I found myself on the back of a group of 5 going into the last set of barriers. It was a short distance from there to the uphill finish, and I felt confident that I could out sprint some of those guys. Unfortunately the guy in front of me decided he was done racing, sat up, took a bizarre line into the barriers, and gapped me from that group. Damn. Bummer of a way to end that race, but overall it went pretty well. I finished 19th.

Italy 2011

Italy has been on our list of places to visit for a long time, and a 5 year anniversary seemed like an excellent excuse. There's a ton of stuff we wanted to see there, but we had to force ourselves to trim down the list so we didn't spend our time running around from city to city. Hopefully we'll get back sometime and fill in the gaps. Over the 17 days we were gone we stayed in 5 cities, so that seems like a good way to break up this blog post. I can spend a lot of time writing about the places we went, but I'm going to try my hardest to be brief and just give some highlights with some pictures.

Naples and the Amalfi Coast
We landed in Rome in the morning and made our way to Naples for the afternoon to sample some of the best pizza in the world. I love Neopolitan style pizza, and we stepped out of the train station armed with a few places to try. Our first stop (Da Michelle) was super busy with a line out the door and we were hungry. We went to another nearby pizzeria, Trianon. Bliss. Delicious pies, our first food overindulgence of the trip. The crust was great, the toppings were great, the wood-fired oven chars it up just right.
Pizza at Trianon With our bellies full and our jet lag dragging us down, we skipped out planned trip to the museum and other pizzerias and caught the train to our hotel in Sorrento. The following morning we went to Pompei and Herculaneum. Both are really amazing. It's crazy to see what the ancient Romans were able to build and see how well preserved it was. For me Herculaneum was the better of the two because it sees far less traffic, and you can really get up close an personal to more of the stuff. I wish we could have spent more time there, but it had already been a long day of walking around in the heat and humidity.
Pompei Forum

Statue at Herculaneum With our historical sight seeing taken care of, next we wanted to hit the Amalfi Coast. The bus ride from Sorrento to Amalfi had been described to us as "white-knuckle". It's a twisty cliffy road, but the bus driver seems like he was in pretty good control of the situation. Had I driven similar roads in Corsica, I may have been more impressed with the whole thing. The Amalfi Coast is, of course, beautiful. We spent a couple days there and did a little hiking combined with beach lounging. When I say "hiking" I really mean "stair climbing". Holy crap there are a lot of steps. The beaches aren't the soft sandy beaches that you'll get elsewhere, but the water is great and the surroundings greater.
Did someone stay stairs?

Amalfi

My beautiful traveling companion
Our next big stop was Venice, but on the way we stopped in Naples again. This time we hit 2 more pizzerias. The first was Gino Sorbillo. Even better than Trianon. Again, the crust was sublime, and the toppings were top notch. We killed some time walking around Naples (and walking off our pizza) while we waited for a couple friends to get into town. We spent some time sitting on the steps of Duomo di Napoli which turned out to be fun people watching. We enjoyed watching a football game break out with several of the neighborhood kids and seeing unsuspecting bystanders and cars get buzzed by the ball. We met our friends later at Da Michelle for more pizza. We ate a bit of it there and took the rest to go with us on the night train to Venice. This place is world famous, but Christine and I both agree that they weren't our favorite pies in Naples. They've got stiff competition though. Our nod goes to Gino Sorbillo.
More delicious pizza

Venice
The night train got use there shortly before 6AM. Yeah, that's an early start to the day, but so worth it. The city is dead quiet at that hour and we got to see the place slowly wake up as we made our way to the hotel to drop off our bags. The usually packed Piazza San Marco was sparsely populated and the tourist souvenir booth operators hadn't even arrived yet. What a great way to see this city. I didn't expect much from Venice. It never sounded very appealing to me, but it was one of those places you feel like you should see someday. I ended up liking it, and I don't think I would have liked it as much if we had been shuffled in with the tourist masses. But for as nice as it was, I was glad we only spent a day there and I don't really feel like I need to get back any time soon.
Venice in the morning
Bolzano
From the waters of Venice to the base of the Dolomites. It was nice to gain a little altitude and enjoy some cooler temperatures. Bolzano is home to Ötzi the Iceman, a 5000 (as in FIVE THOUSAND) year old man that was found frozen in a nearby glacier. It's mind-blowing that stuff that they found with his well preserved body. He was carrying a bow, pocket knife, food, and medicine. It's like he's an ancient hiker. He even had some shoes that were stuffed with straw insulation to keep his feet warm. That's a must-see sight if you're in the area. We were running out of clean clothes, and Bolzano seemed like a good place to do some laundry. Yay laundry! Right?
Yay laundry As luck would have it, there was a wine bar next door to the laundromat. We went in there with the intention of enjoying a glass of wine while our clothes tumbled clean. It turned out to be a great place. We had and awesome platter of cheese, cured meats, a bruschetta. We could get enough of the bruschetta. Damn, I'm salivating just thinking about it. We struck up a conversation with the owners and they gave us some great tips on their favorite wines from the area.
Excellent platter at Trasi waine bar The next day we rented bikes and rode up to the wine making area near by. The bike trails around Bolzano are amazing. We could get all the way out of the valley and up to some vineyards without ever getting on an actual road. We went to a couple wine makers, stopped at the local "working man's" lunch stop along the train, and rode down into another valley for a swim in a mountain lake. I pretty good (if tiring) day.
A farm along the bike path The next day we went to Alpe di Siusi, the largest high alpine meadow in Europe. We took a gondola from Siusi up to the village of Compatsch and were a little surprised at how developed and maintained the meadow was. Many of the "trails" were paved paths, and even the singletrack looked really gentle. There are various lifts in the meadow that can take you up (or down), and numerous refuges where you can stay overnight. Many even have a restaurant. It seems like a great place to get away without all the usual overhead of camping. We hiked for around for a few hours, had a picnic, and enjoyed the mountain air.

Cinque Terre
Back to sea level, heat, and steps. We stayed in a recently renovated room in Manarola with an excellent view of the sea and a big patio. Perfect for lounging at sunset with some wine, cheese, and meat we brought from Bolzano. One of the things on the to-do list for the Cinque Terre is hiking between the towns and our time here was mostly a mix between hiking, eating, and sitting on beaches. The humidity is killer, but that makes the ocean feel all the better. We also totally stuffed ourselves on an awesome seafood and pasta dinner our last night in Manarola. We ordered the seafood appetizer and the chef just kept bringing our plate after plate of small seafood bites. It was awesome. Then, dinner was fresh pasta served in/with a whole crab.
Manarola by day

Manarola by night

Sunset from our patio

Our hotel location Rome
The last stop on our tour was Rome. I don't know if it was good or bad to end with a big city. Either way, we were both exhausted from a couple weeks of walking, and we'd be doing more in Rome. There's so much to see in Rome, but in our short time there we tried to pick an manageable number of things. The people at our B&B were awesome, and gave us a lot of good info before we went to check things out. They even made some museum reservations for us. If you're ever in Rome, I'd highly recommend the Daphne. The ancient sights are pretty cool. Just like Pompei, I'm amazed at the level of skill they had to create these large (even by today's standards) structures. The Colosseum was pretty cool, but I think I was most impressed by the Pantheon. Unlike the domes we see in churches that are heavily adorned, part of the beauty of the Pantheon is in the lack of bells and whistles inside the dome. It's quite a sight to just sit and appreciate. We're not big museum-goers, but we did decide to go to a couple in Rome. The first was the Borghese Gallery. In a word, amazing. Even after all these years, the sculptures look like they're going to reach out and touch you. To make something as solid and hard as marble look so delicate and soft is an amazing thing. The other museum we visited was the Vatican Museum. Everyone I'd talked to told us how great it was and to be sure we went. So we did. And I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I didn't like how you were essentially in a slow moving crowd wandering your way along the pre-set path through the art. I just couldn't get into it. Then we got to the Sistine Chapel, and I was like "That's it?". I guess I expect it to be grander or something. Artistically, it's a great piece of work both for its size and the techniques used, but hanging out in a stuffy room staring up at the ceiling with a couple hundred other people was not my idea of a great time. On to St. Peters Basilica. Another huge, flashy church. What else can I say that hasn't already been said?
Colosseum


Pantheon dome

St. Peter's basilica dome

Trevi Fountain
So that's the briefest rundown of the trip I can do. More pictures are on Flickr. Maybe more details and pictures later.

Browns Lake (2011-07-15)

(Actually, this is Timberline Lake, not Browns Lake)

Earlier this spring, Christine and I sat down a picked a few weekends for backpacking.  Getting a new puppy meant we had to modify our plans, but we still went out for a long weekend up to Browns Lake in the Comanche Peaks Wilderness.

We had out first vet appointment for the new puppy on Thursday and he told us it was okay to take him hiking as long as we let him decided when he needed to stop and rest. That help us decided to do the the hike to Browns Lake - it's one we've done several times so we knew it well.

At first, Banksy did a lot of running back and forth and we did our best to keep his energy moving forward.  After a little while he got the hang of things and just wandered up the trail, usually following Kuzca's lead.  It's been great to have him learn from watching her.  He's already learned so much, like how to get the morning paper.



We hiked at a pretty slow pace and took some breaks along the way. When we got close to the lake, we could see that our favorite camp site was taken.  Bummer.  We ended up going to a site we hadn't camped at before a little further away. On the way there we had to cross a small stream.  Instead of taking the log bridge, the puppy decided to try and walk through it.  His first (unintentional) swim. He made it to the other side and we dragged him out, no worse for the wear.




Banksy - damp and resting



At our campsite, we quickly learned that it was prime-time mosquito season. With the big snow year we had, things were still damp at altitude and it was a perfect breeding ground for mosquitos. At this point, they were only moderately annoying, but it'd get worse.

The next morning we started to head out for some fishing and hanging out by the lake, but we ran into the people that were camped at the site we wanted. They were headed to another lake, so we decided to move our camp. We normally wouldn't go through the effort, but our camp site wasn't that great and we really like the other one.

After relocating, I put together my fly rod and tried to catch some food. The only bites I had were from fish that were too small to even take the fly. I've always had good luck fishing at this lake, but I got totally skunked this time. Maybe there was such and abundance of food (bugs) that they weren't really interested in my fake flies.

While I was fishing, Christine was hanging out, reading, and trying to keep bugs off the dogs. The bugs had gotten really bad. As soon as you stopped moving, the bugs would swarm you. Christine was actually able to get the dogs to lay down and let her cover them with jackets. That worked pretty well, and the dogs took a nice nap in peace.



If you know Kuzca, you know she must have been pretty tired for her to allow stuff to be put on her.

The mosquitoes got *really* bad in the evening. If we didn't have a puppy with us, we probably would have just packed up and hiked out. Any time you'd sit still, you'd get swarmed by bugs. We actually walked around as we ate our dinner so we wouldn't get eaten alive. And when I wasn't eating, I was swatting bugs off of the dogs. It's enough to drive you crazy. We couldn't wait to get in the tent for the evening.

The next morning the bugs were lighter, but still a nuisance.  We had some leftover biscuit mix from an earlier dinner, so I tried my hand at baking. It worked pretty well and we had a nice morning biscuit with our breakfast. Without wasting any time for the bugs to feast on us, we packed up and headed out.

The hike is around 3.5 miles, and that turned out to be a bit too far for Banksy after all the playing he did all weekend. We noticed he would sit or lay down any time we stopped, so we decided to take a break for a while and snack. The worked for a bit, but he soon got tired again and we had to go to plan B - carry him. He's a bit of a snuggler and doesn't mind being picked up, but no matter how you look at it, carrying a 30 pound dog is tiring.

At first we took turns carrying him in our arms.  Then we put him in a small backpack that I had with me and I carried him in front of me.




After doing that for a while we took another break and the dogs totally passed out. The is another moment where if you know Kuzca, you understand how unusual and cute this photo is:




We were close-ish to the car at this point, so I hiked out, unloaded my pack, and hiked back to meet the family.  For most of the rest of the way, I carried Banksy in my pack.





Soon he'll be too big for me to do that, so I hope he doesn't want to make a habit of it. We're all looking forward to our next trip, which will hopefully be less bug filled.


More photos on Flickr

Our new Puppy

If you haven't been following my updates elsewhere, you may have missed that we got a new puppy. (Let's face it, if you're not following me elsewhere I have no idea how you end up here, but that's besides the point...)

We knew for a while that we wanted to get a puppy this year, and we had planned on waiting until the fall after we get back from Italy. But sometimes the right dog comes along and you just have to change plans. Our friend, Julie, knew that we were thinking about finding a labrador / newfoundland mix and she sent us text messages last week to let us know that the Boulder Humane Society had just gotten some puppies that fit the description. Christine was out of town, but she immediately fell in love with one. I put him on hold the next morning and went down in the afternoon to "test drive" him.  He was a cute and fun puppy, but I also played with another lab-newfie that I really liked. He was more newfie than lab with his fuzzy head and big paws. I put him on hold too.


He was really trying to win me over, but I wasn't willing to take home a puppy until Christine got to play with him too.


Sunday afternoon we went down to Boulder to play with puppies.  They were both so cute so it was a tough decision, and we took long enough that the shelter was starting to close. Christine wanted to put the fuzzy one on hold for another day so she could sleep on it, but we couldn't do that. When Christine felt like she couldn't take the risk of this dog going home with someone else, she knew we had to take him home. So we did. :)


He came with the name Melvin, but we're changing that.  We don't know just yet what it's going to be, but hopefully we'll figure it out soon so we can stop calling him "puppy". Kuzca is used to being an only child, so it's taking some time to adjust. Mostly the puppy tries to play with her, and she just looks annoyed.  Last night, though, they had a great time playing in the yard.  It was so fun to watch them play together.








Unlike Kuzca, the puppy appears to like water.  While Kuzca tries to avoid sprinklers as much as possible on our walks, the puppy is intrigued and walks through them. It makes for an interesting juggling act of leash ballet. Kuzca mostly lets the puppy push her around because she knows she'll get in trouble if she knocks him around too much.  Before too long, she wont have a choice.  At 3 months, he's already 27 pounds, so he should get to be pretty large. For right now, he's still good at being a lap snuggle dog.

Some of our puppy pics and videos are up on Flickr: New Puppy set.