Here are some updates from LowCO2 as he previews his impending torture on La Ruta De Los Conquistadores in Costa Rica this November.

So, I’m driving just over Independence Pass (12,090′), down heading toward Twin Lakes, just south of Leadville and I get this text message from Wolfy demanding that I post something here about Leadville. Right now I’m in our motel in Leadville, literally 5 short blocks from the starting line for Saturday’s race and using my wife’s tiny netbook to type out something. Something profound. For profound, read TS Eliot “Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

Well, profound may escape me, but I can offer a pretty good helmet cam shot wherein I was wearing the camera (ON!) when I crashed pretty had. Hard enough to crack the helmet, like gone. Bought a new one that day. I sent the link to Bell Helmets (it was a bell) to a generic email address for “customer service.” A few days later I got a generic email back about how glad they are that I’m ok and etc., but then then there was this PS: “The Video was crazy. I have to say I hear about crashes all day and I have received pictures of after the crash, but your video was a first. Safe riding!”
Watch for yourself:

That, dear friends was in Colorado during my July La Ruta Team Climbing camp.
More fun videos on my channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/lowco2reno

More later. I’ll let you know what I find tomorrow.

TBS was out in force at the 8 & 24 hours of Cool. Only Nooner and Huck Tater actually stepped up for the 24 hour event, the rest of us wimps went for the 8 hour. WTF? Ok, so I shot very little video on account of the fact that I rode some too. Here’s what I got:

Overall, fun day. Lots of mud, but nothing like last year. I do recall thinking that the taste of the mud made me think that they must run cattle there sometimes. Mmmmm.

Ok, everyone jump in!

The Incline

I’m not sure how many of you have ever heard of The Incline in Manitou Springs (right next to Colorado Springs, CO). Here’s  a link to a good NYT article on it. I’ve heard of it for a while and Saturday afternoon (4/18/2010), I got my chance to hike it. Well, “hike” is a matter of definition, much of the time it’s more like climbing a set of stairs or even a ladder in some places. 68% is one damn steep slope. A worthy workout if ever there was one. So, the last day of my La Ruta training camp we started with about 3 hours of mountain biking.  Then we changed into running shoes and did this. The GPS data from my trip up The Incline is here. Actually that’s the incline and then the run down the trail to where we left our bikes and then a ride back to CTS. I should have re-set the GPS in between, but oh, well.

My time up the one mile was just at 35 min. I didn’t know the official start or stop points, so the segment I timed went about 35:40, but that was more than the official points, so I estimated. We started up as a group of four of us, that group had been riding together for most of the day. For probalby the first half of the climb we stayed pretty close and then two of us pulled ahead. I was drafting off the guy who was in front. Ok, “drafting” is really not right, but it was an advantage to have someone pacing me. Where the angle tapers off in probably the last 0.1 miles, I pulled ahead and made an pretty strong effort for the top, finishing ahead. No, I’m really not competitive, right?  Damn happy with that performance. Especially so since I had done the long ride beforehand. Link to the ride data is here. That ride was about 3800′ of climbing and we were moving right along the entire time. A good portion of that ride was on some sweet single track and some really technical sections. Techical enough to require me to do a rapid exit over the bars after missing a drop. No real damage done to the bike or to me. Would have been good if the guy behind me had been wearing a helmet cam, but no such luck. The first big climb on the ride was on fire roads, but the second climb was on some challenging single track and so was a lot of the rest. For a good part of that first long climb, I had Chris Carmichael pacing off my rear wheel. He’s a really cool guy, very intersting to talk to and it definitely is going to be fun riding and racing with him. The rest of the camp was interesting and fun. Did a lot of testing, and some skill training. I did pretty well on all of it. Short stats: My VO2Max is 57.1 ml/kg/min and I’m 9.4% body fat. At least I was last week. Target is to up one and drop the other. I just can’t remember which one goes which direction….

The Leadville folks have put up the applications on their website:
www.leadvilletrail100.com
You have to apply before Jan 31, 2010 and they’ll tell you by Feb 8. This one’s going to get a lot of apps after that movie, but I’d still like to go do a few more. Gotta get that 1000 mile buckle.

Got back Monday. Trend did epic battle with an epic trail and wound up dazzled by the awesome singletrack, cramping and puking a little. It was pretty hot. Pyrofloptic burned out three of the four climbs and called it a day.

I hung with Scott from uBRDO Cycle and Mountain in Kirkland WA most of the day. We did some wrenching, some BSing and some beer drinking. Good guy. Sounds like his shop is pretty much what TBS Bike and Sport would be like if such a thing existed…

There were a lot of fairly beat down people sunday. I suppose that was the point. I even got in on some of that action Saturday taking a hard slammer into the lower section of the Alpine Trail (?) which we rode with Nat and his crew from Seattle on Saturday. I think I broke (or bruised REALLY bad) a rib.

Oregon is amazing. The forests are SOOOO THICK!!! Ferns, evergreens, flowers, green plants EVERYWHERE!! And poison oak. Fortunately the had Techu for us in the showers. That stuff works pretty well. Doesn’t do shit for cramps though.

We met a dude named Kris from Seattle area who is an engineer for e13 components. He and trent helped pace each other in the first few laps. then Kris punked him with a can of Ensure. (We’ll get our revenge punk!!!) maybe pretty soon, Kris said he’s coming down for a Tahoe Epic, stay tuned…

I’m really stoked to get back up there and do more riding. Super bummed that TheRestlessApe and I got squeezed out of it due to being old and broken.

But what can you do. It’s the bitching and moaning that makes the difference between a baconstripper and a Creampuff… Good work TRENT!!

-M

-M

More to follow…

-M

While Nooner and the McDeez R rocking Downieville and The Yuba, Barrett and I are planning on riding Geiger, Spooner and Mt. Rose on the road. Sound’s fucking miserable if you ask me. But it also sounds like it might be helpful if I plan to not suckdonkeyballs @ the Cascade Cream Puff in June. You never know…

I know Gris had mentioned wanting to do this ride. So if you think you can ride slow enough, please join us!

-M

All this talk about chuck norris blah blah blah, Let me tell you this: Chuck can come or go, but you DON’T want the Grisly Bike Geek dropping a bomb in your shitter @ 5 in the morning. That’s why I was ready and waiting in the driveway when he pulled up yesterday.

It was a simple plan and a plan that would end in disaster. Well, not really. Gris, Nooner, Huck Tater, JohnS and I started riding from the Confluence around 8 or so. 30 min later we hit the connector trail. Badda Bing Badda Boom, we ride and ride and climb and climb. Nooner and Gris are way off the front. John and Lee are riding my ass like a $5 whore. WTF! I’m gonna quit MY job, throw in a 2000 flushes blue, quit drinking coffee and ride and ski until the water turns clear again!

Nothing eventful on the first lap, but the sighting of this strange sticker on the Foresthill Divide trail. Weather was perfect, dirt was perfect (as if dirt could be anything but perfect) and the GBG seemed to be riding spry despite his advanced age.

Popping out from the Tunnel Trail I hear the sweet sweet call of my lovely-but-taken, look-but-can’t-touch (or so you believe..) Bustigator! He brought with him the DogIsNuts, Icandy, and Matty themack daddy, smokedthefatty from cincinatti Larson of The stable Quiver. Almost EVERYONE on singlespeeds! (including Nate on the Maverick with the Paul Melvin!)

We all started back up the connector trail. GBG, Nooner, Huck and John blasting it the fuck off with Matty riding them like they were $20 whores. Icandy had some issues with, of all things, getting his tires to seal. Pretty bike dude. Maybe some dirt on those tires would help thicken the sidewalls. Anyway, he and Bustigator and Schuster and I rallied pretty good around the course.

GBG said he pushed it hard as he could and didn’t cramp or bonk. I did the same, though a third lap would have pushed it too far.

Nate’s says: ”
23.2 mile lap. 2970′ of climbing per lap. 6.7 miles each way on the connector trail, + or -. The down hill to the confluence is .3 mi longer than the climb. So that puts the final leg at about 13.7 miles with ~1300′ of climbing. A-squad total of 60.1 miles you crazy bastards.”

We had a frame fatality, and a near rider fatality when John hit a kicker and went off the trail @ the end of the Tunnel Trail down by the American River. GBG can chime in with the description. Here’s the aftermath.

Then we hit Maria’s in Auburn for some Carnitas. Matty’s not a huge fan of Mexican, but he suckeditthefuck up for the good of the team. Thanks Bro!!

Good riding with all you fuckfaces! And on a WEDNESDAY!?!???!?!!!!!

-M