Old Ride, Good Memories

This time of year evokes longing to ride on actual dirt wearing shorts and short sleeve jersey on some sweet singletrack. And it also evokes random memories, but still biking related. Today I am remembering riding in Tibet, so here are a few pics from 2005...

This one was taken after Cha Cha decided he owned the road going up the Karo La. When we got to the top, there was a Tibetan woman knitting and another collecting dung, yak dung to be specific - in a big basket that was slung behind her back and lashed to her body. Can you imagine saying to your wife in the morning just before you leave for a day of barley harvesting "Hey honey, would you mind going to the top of 15,600' pass and collect some ... dung?" I know my wife would come through and I'd have a big heaping pile of dung when I got home. Fo sho'. Hey, waddaya know - here she is now:

A few miles later we rode by a clan of hotties lounging on some rocks, who for some reason are into dogs, very unfriendly dogs, and cute little sheep, and beer... there was a pile of Lhasa Beer empties behind them, like say 300 empties. Come to think of it, that's a good afternoon - hanging with the peeps, mountainside, waiting for brightly colored foreginers to ride by on bikes while sipping a tall one. Yeah!

The last is from the Lamna La after leaving EBC. This was at about 16,000' and in an area of many stones, many many stones about the size of a head that rumble the living shite out of your arms, shoulders and head. I got stoned that day by some naked kids as we rode past a small bridge. Literally. Seems stoning foreigners is a quick thrill for the little ones. No wonder kids are stoners and the ladies drink bee-ya.

Anyone want more?

Weigh In 1 and 2 And ...Riding

Last week I walked into Health Services' scale room and mounted the platform.... 173.75 #. Hmmm, not bad but geez, I felt the weight melting off all week and somehow had 8-9# loss in mind. Coming in at 6.25# lost, I felt an odd sensation of "Hey! I worked harder than that. Were my brake pads rubbing of something?" - just like in a post-race review where everything went well but you end up slower than last year's race, or slower than the guy you beat last year. That just goes to show me it'll come off as fast as it does, but there is a redeeming explanation too: my weight has just been moving around! Ah, yes, surely the bench presses I added to my weight (pun irresitable) routine 4 weeks ago must be adding muscle mass in my upper body as I lose it around the middle! Eureka.

Today I stepped on and my weight was 171.75. What the?! I ate less calories and exercised more than the week before. Conclusion: my upper body must be bursting forth like Arnold or Rocky. Impressive. My mirror says otherwise so there must be a mysterious force at work. Logical huh? This morning's weigh-in also taught me something else, that MLW and my decision to discard our "other" scale at home was fraught with ego... we kept the one that was 5-6 pounds less than the discard some years ago. I stepped on it today before leaving home and it showed 166 pounds. OK, so my scale at home is 5-6 pounds light - which means race weight is really 160# and I had 20 to lose, not 25.

Somewhere on my body is a chamber labelled "super dense fat inside". It has a tiny little hole from which yellow ooze eminates and dissolves into my bloodstream when aerobically exercising.
Which brings me to riding.
Saturday morning I ventured out on my Canterbury loop 22 miles of solid riding on snowmobile trails, marshes, some road and plenty of hills. It was 16 when I left and 24 upon return... I stopped three times for a nice 2.5 hours ride on stuff that was solid and offered some long continuous pushes. The legs felt pretty beat later on but not enough to keep me from going out again on the same route on Sunday with a new riding buddy, Pete. 22 more miles. 5 hours in the dead of winter on that route. It puts a smile on my face like the one that grew across my face last night when New Orleans intercepted Manning's pass. That's all folks.

Back to Riding

I can't imagine anyone wants to hear about anything other than bikes, bikes BIKES! So here's more on bikes.

Any one of you reading this blog know that last July, Clayton and I rode some of the Western Slope in Colorado, namely Crested Butte but also some in Gunnison and the high ridgeline of Monarch Crest.

We shot video at MCrest and I pieced together a condensed version of ONLY 8 minutes. Since the ride is 30 some miles long and descends from 11+ thousand feet down to Salida at 7700, it's hard to cut out the boring stuff cuz none of it was boring. We lucked out with a perfect day, 'cept for the hailstorm on Rainbow Trail as we neared the end.

The speed and terrain were quick and rumbly once we were off of the first main ridgeline. I can see why people doing the Continental Divide consider this section among the finest.

So HERE is the video.

In other news... my new riding bud Pete put this edited VIDEO together of Ft Rock when we rode. Dig the nice musical edits...

Does anyone like this stuff? Does it make you nauseous, hate me like a drunken boasting idiot, or am I able to simply convey some enthusiasm and, at least for a moment, share some of the good bike vibe? Well?

Ethics....

In the sixties, my basic values were formed. I lived in Baltimore and participated in the first desegregation bussing program. I was bussed to a school in a "colored" neighborhood. On my first day at the new school - I was made to hold the hand of a local girl and the two us us led a staged group walk to the playground for newspaper photo ops. I was in 2nd grade, a tow-headed kid who was embarrassed, not by the integration, but because I had to hold the hand of a girl.

At home, my Republican parents expressed ideals about respect and inclusion, despite their parent's backgrounds and disdain regarding "coloreds." This even included a framed notice of sale for "Two Good Slaves" from an ancestral auction in the 1800's that hung on the kitchen wall of my paternal grandparents. I recall the word "nigger" being used by my father's father and my mother's mother. I do not recall my parents ever using the word, nor disparaging anyone of another ethnicity. But I could see fear on my mother's face as I left to go to school "across town." She could feel fear and a sense of "wrongness", but acted on her ideals.

I have tremendous respect for my parents' ability to intellectually embrace the greater concept of "us", and choose to pursue a self-less view, despite their fears and pre-dispositions due to their parents' coaching and many friends' statements. At that time, "whites" lived in separate neighborhoods and there were mostly two parallel societies with one believing themselves to be "superior" to the other.

What I now recognize is that my parents set an example of acting on their ideals, despite the temptation to be self protective and to act selfishly to protect their own position and preserve their sense of "superiority" or otherwise exclusive and controlling status. They recognized we are together in our community, nation, and planet. This was when my values were being formed... ages 4-8.. a time when the fundamentals with which a person views their world are imprinted.

The sense of pursuing ideals as a virtue and the only truly worthy pursuit- go beyond the self and enter the realm of selfless action. In practice, I have found I revert to self when I look at my actions: taking care of me and my family first, then a small part for others. I still struggle with this and have not sacrificed self to the same degree that I satisfy self. But I have made choices: the type of business I am willing to support, the charities I donate to, and the political stance I express and actively support.

Around 1980, our political leadership began expousing the merit of "I, me", first. Much of the media touted the supposed ideal that accumulated riches was our right and we shifted to a "have it now" society. Borrow today, scramble over others to get what's yours and pay for it later. "Greed is Good" marked the front cover of Time magazine and our leadership openly encouraged it.

Here we are 30 years later. For me, the consequences look like shite. Our values are confused, our national identity is that the US is only a segment of the global market and our national ethic to serve on another, muted. To accomodate our selfishness, we have narrowed our view, our inclusion, to us/me versus them(others). We are doing this to one another.

Ideals and ethics are interwoven. Manifesting them comes in the form of acts. As a crude example for let's say, Christians, ask yourself, "What would Jesus do in this situation?" Then do whatever the answer is. For the agnostic narcissists, ask "How would this look on the front page of the newpaper?" Then act in a manner fits. For those who feel genuine love for another, ask yourself " Would I do this to my Grandmother?"

On the playing field of MTB racing, we compete in a safe and mostly inconsequential arena. In life, I invite you to follow the Golden Rule. If you have forgotten "The Golden Rule is an ethical code that states one has a right to just treatment, and a responsibility to ensure justice for others. It is also called the ethic of reciprocity. It is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights, though it has its critics.[2] A key element of the golden rule is that a person attempting to live by this rule treats all people, not just members of his or her in-group, with consideration."

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Weights and Losing Some

The competitor in me is beginning to get restless and reared his ugly head last week, activated by the prospect of winning a weight loss contest - at work. Most people tell me I'm skinny, slim or otherwise unhealthily built. "Eat!" is what I'd hear from my Italian mother and Grandmother, if I was Italian.

At today's weigh-in, the number came in at a "healthy" 180 lbs of lean mean bikin' machine. If I stand in front of a mirror, I like to think it only shows in the love handle region, but I've managed to put on a nice uniform layer over my entire body of sweet sweet adipose tissue, a.k.a. blubber. I've noticed that my pants are a bit tight and that I look like a goober with high water cuffing since my hips, butt and physique makes all clothing sit a bit higher as its tries to wrap around an ever-growing girth. "Gee, these pant legs used to drape over my shoes but now I'm ready for to wade for trout."
I can hear your thoughts now: "No Al , tell us it isn't true. You can't possibly by 29 pounds heavier than you were at the starting line of the nats in '08!" Ok I'm not. Since we weighed in while dresssed in work attire, minus shoes, pocket stuff, and the congenital twin living in my abdomen, I am probably ONLY 177#, a mere 26 pounds heavier.
The contest involves two categories: % of body weight lost in 12 weeks AND % body weight lost in any one week. There are 31 competitors. I am in the "WTF is he doing here" category. Oddsmakers in Vegas are saying I stand a 1:31 chance of net overall and I say a 1:10 chance of a weekly loss title. Can you hear the NBA theme song pumping up the crowd? I can.
My goal is to weigh in on April 25 at 160. So let's see here, according to my calculation (Time x Avogadro's number x the circumference of the earth divided by pi x Schroedinger's equation net of atomic attrition and corrected by the dark matter gravitational distortion x coefficient of friction of the red pigment used on the heads of Nubian hunting tribes near the African Sahel known as Nuer), the result is something significant but probably not relevant to anything we've discussed so far. Let's just say everyone will be cheering as I approach the final weigh in. Everyone.

Snomobike Video and Cutting Ice

Last week I made my way out to Mast Yard for a relaxathon. Yes, and now you too can watch this or take two Ambien(TM) to get a good night's sleep. Sometimes the purr of corduroy snomobile tracks makes everything seem at peace.

I did a stint as NH farmer today- cutting ice on Kezar Lake in Sutton. It's now resting in a 19th century ice house, awaiting August's Farm Days celebration. Wet, cold, ice, a lake, Model T's on skis racing out and back, sun, and some delicious venison stew kept the genuine nature going.

Riding the Bridges at Ft Rock

Rode over at Fort Rock last weekend. Conditions for January... fantastic. The real coup was hitting the trails with some new buds that know the place. Here's the Hero Wide version:
Bridges in the Snow About 2/3 of the way through, Shadrack drops a nice lip and at the end, I'm forced to do a brief trackstand at the mid point on the swamp crossing bridge - that'll bring things into focus real fast, no matter if the consequences are water or ice. I've always thought that bridge would make a sweet race feature but alas, the Ft Rock Revenge is no longer. A race at Willowdale has replaced it. No doubt it''ll rock.

Pete made this one from the same ride with a VHoldr.
Pete's Awesome VHoldr Ft Rock smoothie
I'm in blue since you're all wondering, well maybe not... I like his resolution more... and come to think of it, maybe I'm encoding the movie wrong...maybe I need a lesson...or maybe I should just Shut Up and Ride. Tomorrow: snomobile trails in the Mink Hills. Varoom...