The Airplane...

True Story:

Captain Sidney Harrison: 1912-1952

"Captain Sidney Harrison was one of the country's finest soldiers. He had been through the invasions of France and Germany and lived to tell the tale. His last flight was from Wichita to Buckley Air Force Base In Denver. His plane went down in a blinding snowstorm."

While Captain Harrison's remains were removed from the site of his Air Force plane's crash, the plane's wreckage remains to this day...

57 years have passed since that day and every time I visit this place, it's tragedy and its tranquility stir me the same...

This ride is out there. Way out there. Not to diminish the tragedy of what went on on that snowy day in 1952, but as far as mountain bike rides go, this ride is effin' epic and it always has been.

This is some of the Front Range's most obscure, most decent singletrack and it shows. To me, it is mythical. It is legendary....

This ride defines epic. We left home at 9am and didn't return for nearly 7 hours. We saw nary a person once we left pavement. 70+ miles and over 6 thousand feet of climbing. You don't have fresh legs and a snack pack and you're in trouble. The plot thickens and you're at least 10 miles from anywhere...

There's nothing "Buckhorn" about this ride. It's backwoods - the kind of terrain where you wouldn't be suprised to see Jalmer and his shine'n still. You wouldn't be suprised to see the Chupacabra. The kind of place where Jack and Diane drove their '68 Ford Bronco one Saturday afternoon and never returned...

And the coolest part is that we didn't start a single car engine to get there. Granted, we dodged lightening much of the slog home, but that's neither here nor there...

Recon...

Memorial Day. Backyard BBQ's, rain, and 45 degrees. The Colorado high country at its finest...

Seems we weren't the only ones hungry....

After spending the better part of five months atop six feet of snow, you get inbetween one of these guys and its roughage-filled dinner, and you're in for it. Yup, it's situation normal up at Remote Mountain Command. Snow is melting, trails are.......muddy, and things are greening up as if they're on a deadline...

Until you get up high, that is...

I did a little course recon for the upcoming Winter Park Series opener and at about 10,200ft, it soon became "situation February..."

It never ceases to amaze me that with the snow depths of winter it's even possible to have a summer up here. Days like these, though, it's easy to take the weight of the world and make it hollow...

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats...

We eagerly inch our way to higher elevations; pressing the limits of where the shores of spring meet the tenaciousness of winter...

For every five out of seven days I wish it were just this simple. But there are times in life when it's easy to lose sight of what's real...

It's no secret that I work for The Man. And today, The Man asked me how I manage to keep such an even keel at work - how I always seem to have ice running through my veins. "Don't you ever get stressed out?" The Man asked.

And I answered, with the slightest smile, "I know I was born, and I know that I'll die; but the inbetween is mine..."

Le Beetche'...

While the high country's snow turns to mud, Spring on the Front Range is a fantastic place to be, and so I got to thinkin'...

Trail lingo. It's a funny thing. You know you've lived and trained in a place long enough where simply the words "Jones Park" mean the precise distance, terrain type, and level of difficulty of the ride.

There's no need for "how long are we gonne be out?" or "is it haaaaaard?"

For example, the Stunt Double knows exactly what I mean when I say "Almagre." See, to him, it means, "6+ hours, no lightening in the forecast, bring the snack pack." It's an underground mountain bikers' language complete with verb conjugations and pronoun posession.

Want to go long? All you gotta say is:

"Dude: 9am from home; GOG, Red Rock, Intemann, GC, Columbine, Buck, Jacks, Sesame, Palmer, Section 16, Inteman, Red Rock, Starbucks."

To me that means the following: 4-5 hours, depending on photo stops; 5k feet of vertical, 4 gel shots and an energy bar. 2 large water bottles with a stiff mix of powdered drink mix.

Want steeps? One word: Barr. My way; expect 4+ hours with a killer climb and lots of hikers on the front end, wild flowers galore, 5500 ft of climbing, 4 gel shots and a PB n' J at the Camp. This means nothing to most of you. But to those in the know, it's a dialogue. A training diary. It's a plan...

And some trails you've got what I call "the wrapper." To the newbie, the word "Superloop" might mean nothing more than a huge piece of red licorice. To me and a handful of my guys, it means (without spilling the beans) one-of-the-hardest-rides-you'll-do-all-summer, and, better bring extra beef jerky. No joke.

Even the Mrs. is on board with this mantra. I'll leave here a note with my route on the kitchen counter: "dude: N. Baptist, The Roooooock, Cinco Muertes, " and she knows exactly when to notify the authorities that I've been out too long.

She'll even leave a similar note for me:

"Yo chicken: Rampart, Williams, the 'Fonda: join us after - no spandex allowed."

Yep - I like to say I'm bi-lingual... I'm thinking about approaching Rosetta Stone about this language.. Could be my ticket outta here...

The Usual Suspects...

If you're flawless, you have nothing left to work on.................. And as flawless as my chiseled calves are....

....my late-race endurace has plenty of room for improvement this early in the season.

I found myself in unfamiliar territory for the first 7 of 10 laps around Sunday's Sand Creek Series kickoff in front of the home crowd: leading from the gun...

The thing that's fun about a local race is that you're competing against the guys you train with. And Sunday's chilly and rainy race looked, and felt, a lot like a team training ride, to me...

But I knew the company that I was in front of, and I knew the weakness would come in the final 30 minutes - when things unraveled like a cheap sweater; and when I faded to 4th place. But to be this strong this early in the season is a good thing...

In the end, ProCycling took 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place; with 5th place a distant half-lap behind us. The mind goes through a thousand emotions during any race - be it 3+ hours or a 60 minute effort. Kudo's to JJ, who finally quit focking with me after an hour and took control; and to the other half-dozen on the team who took top spots in their categories.

One thing's for certain: the sweet relief of the finish line is enough to keep you coming back...

Like Jumpin' Trains To Stay Alive...

I recently got a comment from someone; we'll just call him the Stunt Double, who seemed to be questioning his whole purpose for racing mountain bikes.

In fact, I get that very question posed to me a lot: what exactly are you training for? What are you working towards - you're a "Pro" now, so what does that mean?

I told the Stunt Double I pose that same question to myself during the first, the second, and occasionally third hour of virtually every race I'm in. What the hell am I doing to myself?

Racing hurts like hell. And the training can be a huge scheduling inconvenience, and in 18 years of it I've attained what you might call a "working-class-Pro" status and have never drawn a salary - so what's the point?

The point is simple: To me, it's not an event, it's a lifestyle. Each and every race is like the biggest presentation you've ever done in your career. It's like your senior thesis; like your sales pitch to the CEO. Racing is like getting the nerve up to ask the hottest girl in school to prom and then getting the nod...

And as long as that emotional rollercoaster is in my gut; as long as my mouth continues to dry out as I go through my warm up phase before each race, then I'll keep going. It's never been about the paycheck...

It's about the experience. And if you get a handful of podiums each year, well then, all the more gravy on that chicken fried steak...

Coming up, the Sand Creek Series kicks off. And later, TwoWheeledWorld's origins: before the blog...

Chicken Fried Steak....Seriously.....Chicken Fried Steak...

The last time I woke up at 9am on a Saturday morning, read the entire paper, and ate a plateful of sugar was probably......mmmmmmmmmm....6 months ago. And the last time I did the same on the following Sunday.........call it a year.

And a funny thing happens when you're full of coffee and sugar and you stare outside at the rain all weekend. You start to ponder things. I mean one of the things I was wrestling with all weekend was how much deeper the oceans would be if sponges didn't live there...

It's a damn good thing the sun is back out...