I almost thought I was done with this race, this ride, this obsession.

It is back. I have Tour Divide fever, the need burning inside me.

Did some number crunching the other night with a friend, damn this race is expensive. Between the bike, the gear, the time off, the dog sitting, the recovery time when I get done. It ends up being something like a a fifth of my yearly income. Damn. All for one race, what I hope will take two weeks or there about.

My friend thinks I should seek some crowd sourced help to make it happen. The thought makes me very uncomfortable.

The whole thing makes me wonder about the choices I make, the dreams I get so tightly wrapped up into. Life could be so much easier, if my dreams were not so big, if even my simple life was not so complicated.

Last time I raced the Divide I ended up living out of my truck for 3 months, I was that broke. Now I have two dogs, even being homeless is not so easy.   

Lots of choices still to make. Not only things like which GPS to take and such, but how to balance my drive with my reality. Sometimes it frustrates me to no end that my dreams have inevitable price tags and I have no money. Still I am reminded of a time in my life when I had no dreams, no drive, no desire and no money!

Thank the universe for my big difficult dreams, life is much better with them than without. Somehow I will find a way, somehow….

“Always better to regret something you have done, than something you haven’t done”

Well it isn’t always true, often it is.

Tonight after work, eating, walking the dogs, I started to load up the ole Woodrup for an evening ride. The coolness lingering in the shadows made me hesitate, second guess myself. Cursing my reality of living in Gunny, of taking too much time after work to get ready as the sun sank into the west. Quite honestly I am tired of stretching booties over my shoes, of bringing three pairs of gloves, extra hats, a puffy vest. I just want to go for a ride!

I got so far as to bring the bike back inside, change into shorts and set up the laptop in front of the trainer. One look at that road to nowhere and the cursing began again.

“No, No Damn It, I’m not riding that thing for 2 and a half hours…Go Ride!” I abashed myself for my cowardly impulse, reversing the process, getting layered and onto the bike.

The evening cooled along with the setting sun. I had to swap to my lobster mitts to keep my hands warm and wiggle my toes to keep them from tingling. Yet the evening was lovely.The river canyon did not roar with it’s normal headwind, instead the subtle flap of wings and the flow of free water. Traffic was mellow. The light over Blue Mesa was gorgeous, a rim of peach along the snow covered ridges reflected in the open river.

every sunset, every bike ride is special…

A lesson I seem to find hard to take to heart. Just GO, you can always turn and come home. It is always worth it, my spirit is always enlightened and lifted. I never regret going for a bike ride, that much is true, never….

lights, camera, action!

Spring. Like any season it is a bit different every year. Some years it is gorgeous, full of renewing color, birds chirping in the sunshine. Some years it is a slightly warmer version of winter. Full of wind, wet heavy snow, lots of long grey days. Despite the vagueness of what is to come, I always look forward to the coming of spring.

This year is no exception. I am on a mission. I have a big huge looming goal that fills my head with thoughts, ideas, paranoid questions and dreams of days and days spent riding my bike as much as I can. This mission has kept me riding all winter. Somedays I am lucky enough to ride outside on the fat bike, and I love riding my Pigsley. In fact I have come to appreciate winter much more since I got into the snow bike thing. Still most of my riding has been on the dreaded road to nowhere, my trainer. Which despite being a subject that wrings fear from my heart, I have gotten pretty good at turning off the mental resistance and just doing my job, riding, doing intervals, building my capacity.

the road to nowhere….

Yet there is nothing like a real wind in your face bike ride. Nothing. I am not a roadie, but riding any bike makes me smile. Feeling the sun on my skin, my legs spinning little circles, blood pumping happily from head to toe, it really does make me smile. Here in the Gunnison Valley, we are a good month away from any sort of mountain biking. I could get in a car and ride on dirt not too far away. I am not sure exactly why, but I prefer to make due with what is right here. For me part of the magic of bikes is prepping everything and simply riding from my door. No cars, no lost time, just ride.

riding in the real world…and with friends!!!

Today is March 17th. It is almost officially spring. It is still cool during the day and cold at night. There is snow on the ground and in the forecast. The wind blows hard almost everyday. Thus I am constantly tortured by pictures of folks on Facebook, riding, bikepacking, frolicking in the warm sun on real dirt. Oh it hurts me to be so stubbornly set in my ways. Simply not able to spare the time or money to travel, still I wish sometimes that I could go and race in the desert, or go do some bikepacking in warm Arizona. Augghh! But my goals are too big, too important, to entrenched in my heart for me to dare lose focus.

dreaming of what lies in these 7 maps…and the 2700 miles that lay ahead….

It all makes me wonder what will spring bring. Warm luscious sunshine, or cold wind and snow. How soon will the snow melt here so we can enjoy some dirt ourselves? Will the snow melt up in Montana, Wyoming and Canada by June? I go to sleep some nights wondering these questions, often I wake up still wondering….

No matter what I will keep riding into that fierce spring wind. The shoe covers will go on over the multiple socks, the several layers of jerseys will be piled up to keep my core warm and pumping. Admittedly I love warm sunshine and dry trails, but any riding will do. It all makes one wonder, what will be more merciful; wretchedness that inspires greater strength or comfortable conditions to be enjoyed. Careful what you wish for.

open road….cars and headwinds, but also sunshine, gorgeous canyons, big horn sheep, friends…so good, so good

Dichotomy: “the division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different.”

Yes I am a dichotomy.

Sometimes I like to think that I am entirely human, normal even most of the time. Still I feel like an outsider, not normal in drive, desire and result. So very normal, or not at all……

My drive is to go beyond, to reach, to strive to simply expand the perimeters of what it is to be human.

Reality is that I am filled with lust, desire unfulfilled, envy and jealousy. I fall victim to drunken nights, too long showers and self pity. Yes there I am, stark naked and vulnerable, so much for living the dream..

I want so much to transcend the reality of everyday. To reach beyond the lowly human needs for love, companionship, and push hard to achieve my goals.

The goals of going beyond, pushing the limits, making waves into the world of what was thought as possible.

Still I fall victim to the desire for love, attention, fulfillment?

Much of the time I find none of the above and instead find myself getting drunk…..

Why bother, why try, why not just live….good questions I ask all too often…….to maybe attain some sort of attention, appreciation for who I am, what I am. To prove to the world that I am worthy, to prove to someone that I am worthy…..worthy of what I want most…to be loved…..

I am a dichotomy, it sadness me, but I can not escape it, as much as I wish or may try…..sometimes I hate being human….

Today I got out, outside, walked around, felt the sun radiate upon my skin, felt my body work hard enough to sweat. It was a simple snow shoe outing, stomping out some trail for fat bike race tomorrow. I believe all experiences are life changing, yet today it felt like so much more, more significant, it was so needed, it was so refreshing.

I spent the last four plus days leveled by some illness, crushed completely. I spent most of those 100 hours in bed, sleeping, groaning, feeling terrible and assuming the worst as far as what had gotten hold of me and brought me crashing down. I was feeling lucky when I got to read, or get out of bed, surf the internet or make food. I even squeaked out a couple very short pathetic walks with the dogs. But always I fell back into bed, toast, drained. I slept for hours all day, I slept all night. Tired, bored and sort of miserable.

It is amazing to me how important exercise is, to my life, to my sanity. I get stir crazy if I don’t get out to do something. Pretty much everyday I need to feel the wind against my face, my blood pumping, my life then put back into order. It has been a long while since I have really taken any sort of break from this daily routine. I take days off and all that, but not really. I have two crazy dogs that need walks, at least two a day. I ride my bike to work, to get coffee, to the store. Even on the days off I move about in the wind, snow and sun.

Now with the elevated level of training going on, it has become a daily and sometimes multiple times a day thing. I think I have gotten so wrapped up in doing this and that all the damn time, while dreaming of love, working two jobs, dealing with dogs,that I lost a bit of perspective. I went to Arizona last weekend and was tired, perhaps feeling the oncoming illness creeping up and I didn’t really ride that much in the hot sunny desert. It felt weird to not charge out there and crank in a bunch of miles. Almost felt guilty. I thought about that a lot as I laid in bed all day, completely exhausted, for day after day. What is wrong with me, am I burnt out?

Today showed me the truth. The deep rooted desire that burns inside my guts, inside my heart. I may lose sight of why at times. The need is there. The stoke is there. I am still ever so super charged on my dreams, I will chase them as far as I can. Being outside, surrounded by the sun, the wind, the air, snow drifts, the almost hidden sage brush, made me feel so alive. Ready for the challenges that lie ahead, taking them one at a time, not all at once. The past four days really kicked my ass, made me wonder why, why keep trying? Cause working hard to even get a chance to live your dreams, is worth every effort, every damn one. Thank you Universe, thank you.  

Last weekend I made a trip down to one of my favorite states, Arizona. For once I was not traveling to race, but to support some of my friends at the 24 Hours Of Old Pueblo. I was looking forward to some warm sunshine, a bit of time off of work and to help Team GO kick some arse. It was a bit weird to be traveling so far and not be towing the line, burying myself to collect a another lap. The pressure was off which was kind of nice and I really didn’t feel all that great, the hot sun seemed to drive nails into my head.

It is always interesting to me to travel from the High Country of Colorado, our little bubble of recreational paradise, to within 100 miles of the US/Mexican border. On the way one travels through some rather bleak terrain. Burned out rolling hills of dry sun baked grass and wind blown dust. Distant crumpling mesas, barren rocky crags. I have made the trip to AZ several times, every time I am disturbed by the world between our little bubble and the warm sunny desert. People seemed down right broken. Living amongst broken lands, broken trucks, broken glass. To say it is sad is an understatement, yet frankly who am I to judge what is a good and reasonable existence?

Every time I make the trip I look out into that landscape and wonder. I gaze at the people, walking the highway, selling us gas and cold drinks, driving new cars from their plots of shattered glass, tumble weeds and dust. I wonder what hope and dreams exist in this huge expanse of our country. I see the dogs passed out in the hot sun, chain running from collar to stake, dust and wind the only thing that moves. Everything else simply passes by at 75 miles an hour on the rolling, bumpy road, eager to get to the next place. Billboards alternate between selling “Indian” souvenirs and begging drivers not to drink.

I absorb all this, I feel sadness in my heart. I wonder what elements make existence suffer able, worth while. At what point are we simply just existing? Instead of growing, reaching, striving, trying. I hope there is love out there, surely not for us white folk with our fancy bikes passing through without thought. Is there love of life? In the eyes of the people I see mostly anger, hate, bitterness. This thought, this quandary sticks with me for the weekend, always in the back of my head challenging my own ideals, my own thoughts of positive existence.

The race goes well. My team does amazing, especially considering we came from full on winter to full on desert. I am proud of my friends for the efforts they laid down out in the hot sun. It was quite fun to sit in camp on solo row and watch the whole race unfurl. It was even more satisfying to assist them in achieving their early season goals. Good People doing what they love and challenging themselves to do it better, it is great to be a witness to such dedication.

Sitting in 24 Hour Town it is unsettling to think of the two disparaging worlds clashing in my head. To think that here entrenched in the world of bike racing, where grams and seconds are counted, drivetrains and wheel sizes are debated, sometimes with great ferocity. Where a $6000 dollar bike is not that unusual. Yet not far away, spread out in all directions it is a much different existence in a slice of of our world that is frankly being forgotten and left behind. Altogether it makes for a strange world indeed.

Here in the Gunnison Valley, we have been getting a good bit of snow over the past 10 days. Almost every day, every night some sort of white frozen precip falls, stacking up higher, deeper. It is a very good thing. Before this series of storms the snow pack, especially down low was baking off in the warm afternoon sun. It was beginning to look like March, not mid winter. Well the past week and a half has changed that in a big way.

This is all fine and dandy, as without snow here in Colorado the whole west is screwed, but what about ME!  I haven’t been able to ride my snow bike, the wonderful and glorious Pigsley all that much. I tried to embrace the change, I went skiing, and I do like skiing, but honestly it hurt my knee. I snow shoed, but that was really to pack down the trails…..really so I could ride. Maybe I’m a bit obsessed, ok I will admit it. I just want to ride. I freaking love riding on the snow, roads, trails, any where I can get those tires to roll.

I spent a few more hours snowshoeing some trails over and over, packing the heavy wet snow as firm as one man can. It was so warm today. Even now, hours after sunset, it is 36*. For some one that has spent many years getting my ass kicked by the often brutal Gunnison Winter, this seems really quite strange.

night riding is rad

The stomping paid off. Tonight I got to ride. It was not smooth and fast. Deviate from the thin line and into the snow you go. Step a foot off the trail and deeply you will sink. Many a bomb hole was left by me this evening. I was not smooth. I kept creeping to a crawl and then falling over into the deepening mass of snow.

Pigsley and Jefe Print

The lack of forgiveness was tough, but when it came together the riding was so damn worth it. Tonight was all about threading the needle, tough love, tough love…..

the only other folks out tonight…

Cycling came back into my life in 2001. Without any warning it more or less took over my life. Within one summer I was hooked, addicted, maybe even obsessed. I just couldn’t get enough, even with a pretty long riding season here in the Gunnison valley I was seeking the ways and means to ride more. I thought about migrating to warmer climes and ride year round, I love riding in Arizona! Yet something inside me wanted to experience all four seasons, besides I would most likely ride myself into the ground.

At about the same time I heard about the Iditabike and I thought well if they can do it in Alaska why not here? At the time I was told that the bikes wouldn’t work with Colorado’s dry snow…..but the thought kept banging around inside my head.

Meanwhile I did a lot of skiing, both lift served and cross country touring. I even got hooked on doing the Elk Mountain Grand Traverse for quite a few years. I like skiing, especially those long tours out into the woods, just a buddy and the dogs….it reminded me of mountain biking!  Still, I never let go of the whole snow bike idea, they kept doing it in AK and else where, seriously why not here? Then I got to see a Pug in person. I think it was Chris Plesko’s purple one, think I seriously stared at it with my mouth open wide. The image of that bike just stuck in my head and I knew at some point I would have to own and ride one.

It has been almost two years since I first pieced together my Pigsley. It wasn’t love on the first ride. I more or less got my ass kicked so bad that I really had to take a step back and scratch my head. Wondering really? Is it really this hard? How the hell do they ride these beasts for 1,100 miles? 

Now after almost two winters on it, I am in love. I still get my ass kicked. I still feel that level of frustration that makes you question everything.No matter, it is love. I no longer want winter to end too soon. I dream of snow packed trails criss crossing everywhere. I want to create more access, more trails, more riding and more racing! It is tough, but there is not doubt that it is love!

smiles for miles and miles