Little Bear to Blanca Traverse

With Laura and Chicken home on the IRL, Ken and I decided to go ahead and drive up the Blanca road aka "the toughest 4WD road in Colorado" to do Little Bear, Blanca and Ellingwood, hopefully in one fell swoop. My Yoda did awesome, as usual, and got us really close to Jaws I, significantly shortening our heavy pack slog to Como Lake.

Ken the pack mule
Class 4 on the Northwest Face of Little Bear. Ken has never done anything harder than Class 2, but the exposure, loose rock and technical difficulties didn't seem to bother him much. He's just a natural!
Ken scaling the first part of the Little Bear/Blanca connecting ridge
This part of the ridge was rotten and loose. We really enjoyed that. It was a real thrill, plus the exposure was spectacular, as well.
Ken is one happy guy. That's Little Bear in the background. Way to go, Ken!

Kinesiotape - The Magic Tape

W checkin' out the volleyball chics, I mean the tattoo and tape 

I love the Olympics! I especially love all the kinesiotape the athletes are using - from beach volleyball, to water polo, to the chicken and the Major, oh yeah, but they aren't in the Olympics. The stuff really works. Check it out.

Cycle Sport Circuit Race Report

What an awesome weekend for C3-Sollay.com, first Diesel Diane wins in a solo break at Hammer Creek on Saturday, and then C3 came through again on Sunday with a sprint finish win in the Cycle Sport Circuit Race. None of these results were by chance, but rather the hard work done by each member of our rockin' team. Every attack was answered and we communicated well during the race (without radios of course), executing team tactics as if every move were dictated to us. We are really gellin' as a team and it shows. We have gotten a lot of positive feedback from other riders, spectators and volunteers on how much fun it was to watch us race this weekend; we really are having a lot of fun and I guess it shows!

Cycle Sport Circuit Race Report:

At the start, Beth and I lined up together at the front, and Lorraine and Christina were just behind us. The whistle blew and I found myself getting the 'wholeshot'. Did I ever mention that Speedplays rock? Anyway, I never know what I'm gonna do, but I decided to drill it from the start. There was a nice little hill just after the start and then a sharp turn soon thereafter, and I just love that stuff. About 2 miles later, Beth said maybe I should get off the front, so I figured she was right, and she proceeded to push the pace. Soon thereafter Lorraine attacked and went off the front. She was reeled in and then Christina countered. Then I  did the same - this went on for pretty much most of the race - whoever got there first or felt good at the moment went. I have to say, I have never seen the Chicken put it down like she did today, more on that in a minute. We had a blast!

Anyway, with about 3 to go, I decided to sit in a bit and look things over. Initially, I had wanted to help Beth out at the finish. The course suited her really well, but after her crash yesterday, and talking with her earlier today, I got the feeling she was fine with me going for it at the end. She had an outstanding race, doing a little bit of everything - attacking, countering, bridging. All that with a possible scapular fracture and festering, oozing wounds. Talk about a rock star!

Chicken, Beth and Lorraine remained active, chasing down Davina and a Sturdy girl after she was launched by a teammate on the last prime. Then with 1 lap to go, a rider went off the front and she looked strong. Oh no. She was gonna take the win away from the field sprint. I was totally rethinking everything. If I chase that down, I'll be cooked. Maybe I can chase it down and ride past her at the speed of light . . . in my dreams. What a quandary. . .  And then, out of the pack, came the Chicken.

The Chicken came out to play, putting it down, and reeling the rider in with a huge, monster effort. I knew she had it in her, it's just that she usually saves all her energy for the sole purpose of dishing it out to me during training rides. What a beast! Then, after she reeled the rider in, Lorraine took over, stringing out the field beautifully - just what we needed, especially with that pesky yellow-line rule. Thank you so very much! You guys rocked!

Then on the final turn I somehow found myself on the very front next to Davina, unfortunately with about 1 K to go for a downhill, headwind finish. Not where I wanted to be, although moving of the front meant I was going to get swarmed and possibly boxed in, I took my chances. Just as I was doing that, I saw Beth go by sitting in beautiful position saying, "Don't get boxed in," and before I knew it I was totally boxed in on the right. The worst possible situation because not only was I boxed in, but I was as far away from the yellow-line (which was getting ready to be on limits at 200m) as possible. I was utterly frustrated. What could I do, I thought about squeezing through or pushing my way through, but quickly nixed that - a recipe for disaster. I yelled at Beth to "GO!" because I knew I would produce nothing. We had to get a good result after all that work our team had done. Unfortunately, Beth was misguided by the other tents along the course, and thought the finish was sooner, she sat up thinking we had finished, when I saw Davina go. 

At that very moment, a small gap opened up to my left - we maybe had 100m or so to go. A glimmer of hope. I've never been able to do anything with such a short distance, but I was sure willing to give it a try; I had nothing to lose, right? I went full-tilt, out of the saddle, biggest gear, over the cranks kickin' it with all I had. My focus was only on that white finish line. I was right next to Davina when I threw the bike at the line. We both looked at each other and said "Who got it?" I said, "I don't know, that's a photo finish for sure!" Well, apparently there was no need to check. I had forgotten that Davina was 1 lap down after a small crash a few laps into the race.  A rider had taken a turn too hot and went down in front of her. What a bummer for her, but at least she wasn't injured. 

So we ended up with another win for C3-Sollay.com. Way to go everyone, we worked really hard with no efforts wasted. I am very proud to ride on this team!

Ranger the Diving Dog meets the White Menace

This post is for Chikin since she thinks I need to blog:

So we're taking care of the WM again - seems like just yesterday that we were watching her. I have decided that she really is a good dog, that is when she is off leash in a remote, isolated wooded place with no one around. I usually take her to such places to wear her out, plus it is so much fun to watch her go mad for the fetch!

We ran into this box turtle on the trail. He wasn't too thrilled with the dog and wouldn't come out for the photo.

After hiking a bit, we met Ranger at one of out favorite watering holes. Notice how he is putting his head underwater. His owner Victoria say that he doesn't like to fetch balls or sticks - he only likes to dive for rocks, the bigger the better. She says he blows bubbles and can hold his breath for over 10 seconds. I was so impressed I took pictures, but they don't do justice to his underwater abilities. 

More 'diving' for rocks. Wonder if he does mussels - or fish?

We left Ranger and decided to try swimming up the rapids. There are blackberries at the other end of this, but they were all 'picked' by something. Too bad. Also, I dropped my new Iphone in the water here. I pulled it out and dried it off and it seems to be working so far. We'll see. Me and the Chikin plan to hang with some of our C3-Sollay teammates this weekend for some casual racing in PA. We'll take the WM with us to add some excitement to the trip.