Flooding

 Some of you may have heard about the flooding that we had here in So Utah, I was there to witness most of  it first hand.  The dike in the picture below was built in about 1919. It is an earthen dam with a rock facing.
I have lived here 12 years and I have only seen it fill up like this on 3 occasions and two of them where this year.  For some reason development has continued below the dam with no real thought to significant drainage.

When I first got to the scene the breach was about 5 ft wide and still running down the face.  The police and city employees were busy evacuating the businesses and homes below the dam.

They are reporting about $3.7m in damages to homes and businesses. Most of which do not have flood insurance. In that report they mention the number of dams in the state that they consider a hazard, this brings up a topic for another day about the crumbling infrastructure of America.

My bride and I, along with our two eldest daughters all spent time volunteering with the cleanup effort. You can see pictures of that here.  

This last picture is my own back yard.  The yard pump shorted out and I ended up with an unauthorized water feature.  To quote Ty Webb from Caddyshack, speaking to Carl,  " We have a pool...and a pond.  The pond would be good for you."

Finally, I have my own video footage for you.

If I may add a bit of advice. When looking for a new home, pay attention to what it up hill from you. Just because they say your not in the flood plain does not really make it so.

Stay dry America.

I got 99 problems....

and my back ain't one.

Waaaay back on Fathers Day, my bride hooked me up with one of these little goo-gaw's.  It's called a Rumble Roller, and this thing is the truth.  Mine is blue.

Mostly due to my advancing years I have found that after each and every ride I need to do about 15 minutes of stretching and about 7 minutes on the roller.  I used to have a daughter that was amenable to the task of walking on my back, she was just the right weight and after some instruction, did a pretty fantastic job of putting things in order. She has since become way to cool to do that for her old man so I needed an alternative method.  In my wildest dreams of avarice I have enough money to get a massage at least once a week. Here's to dreaming big.

I will also update you on what is happening since this occurred. Its been 7 weeks and I have filled out more paper work for the Juvinile Court but have not received a court date.  The wheels of justice move ponderously towards a conclusion.
The cuts and scrapes healed up pretty good, and time will tell if the ones on my face will continue to fade.  The bruise right on my hip bone, while not visible, is still painful to the touch.  That baby must have been deeeeeep. It actually hurts most when I try to lay down, weird.

Tour of Utah

My daughter Megan had a soccer tournament in SLC that coincided with the Tour of Utah.  I volunteered my parents abode to house the entire team, (15 girls) the coach, and two mom's.  Since I also stayed there I guess that makes me the "Soccer Dad."

In an incredible stroke of luck, her games on Thursday and Friday started at 7pm. Leaving me with plenty of time to ride and observe the ToU. 

I decided to start in Morgan and head up past East Canyon Reservoir to the KOM at Big Mountain. I was hoping to get there before the pros and watch them roll over the top. 

East Canyon Reservoir

Looking up the climb.  My avg speed 5.5mph. The pros avg speed 12.6

Evidence that I made it to the top.

At the summit I found out that the peleton was still an hour behind me. I didn't want to wait that long so I bombed back down to the Reservoir and saw them hustle by.
Sorry about my fat digit occupying the left side of the frame. All the important stuff is on the right, that's Vandeveld in the Yellow and just behind, to his left is the indomitable Jens Voigt in the red and white helmet.  Jens happens to be the only pro athlete that I would like to have dinner with, love that guy.

A full minute after the group went by I had a Mean Joe Green moment when a struggling Garmin/ Sharp rider threw this at me.  I guess Garmin has Camelbak bottles to spare.

The peleton left lots of other bottles along the way, none were of this high quality.  There were 4-5 degenerates on bikes, with back packs following the procession and picking up all the cast offs.  I asked them if they were finding anything good and the response was, "free bottles for life bro."  Thumbs up to you bike riding Jeff Spicolli.


Oh yeah, the girls won the gold medal in the U-14 age group.  That was more actually more exiting than the race.

Your husband is a saint.

This ones for you ladies, I want you to see just how good you've got it.

I recently came across some advertising that shows just how far we have come as a nation in the last 50 years.

This brand has been around since 1878 and is still sold today. It seems that as late as the fifties it was OK to spank your wife if she didn't do what you told her. I'm guessing none of you have been spanked for not "store testing" your coffee.
Please take note of the socks this guy is wearing, argyle rules.



The Kenwood Chef was unveiled in the early seventies so this slice of Americana is quite recent and within most of out lifetimes. I'm guessing that this is what my mom had to deal with.



That's what wives are for! She is so happy to have a man that treats her so well.



This last one is my absolute favorite.

I don't even know where to begin with this, apparently ladies the harder you work around the house the hotter you get. Think of the weight loss that comes with the constant motion of dusting and vaccuming in high heels, and the rosy glow on your cheeks from all the excertion. And what was in that box of PEP from Kellog's I don't think it was vitamins.


OK so maybe your husband isn't a saint but he probably helps out a lot more around the house than his dad or grandpa ever did and that is evolution. Most of the men I know are pretty well trained with most things domestic and that's probably how it should be. Maybe we could do better but let's just leave that to the next generation.

Sabotaged

Saturday morning I was up before the sun to complete my Rapha Rising Challenge. A half hour in I was descending a suburban road in Ivins, 350 N 100 W to be exact. I was probably going about 22-25 mph when I feel what I originally think is a spider web on my face. I quickly realize that it is not breaking, in fact it is getting tighter and stronger and pushing me to my left. 

In a split second I am in full panic because I know this isn't going to end well. Apparently some delinquents had stretched some fly fishing line diagonally across the intersection from stop sign to stop sign. 

The line was stretched across my face, neck and shoulders, when the line reached the end of its give I was thrown to ground landing hard on my left side. My bike was pitched down the road sparking as the skewer bit into the road. 

I hit my head hard and slid far enough to leave large patches of my dermis on the roadway. As I sat up I was in an absolute fury, if the perpetrators had been on hand things could have got ugly. My left arm, shoulder and hip were causing serious agony so I spent a few minutes sitting in the middle of the road to  regain my composure. 

I then collected my bike and my phone which had fallen out of my pocket and proceeded to document the egregious event. 

Line on the roadway.

Close up at the stop sign, you can see they wrapped it quite a few times. 

In my adrenalin fueled stupor, I figured I could just continue on my merry way. I had some vertical miles to get done. I made it about 5 more miles before the pain of the wind on my road rash and my hip forced me home.
I limped in and had a daughter document the corporeal damage.

Notice the ripped bibs. 

This is my mad face. I am so angry in this picture I am kind of ashamed  of myself. 

I called the cops and filed a police report, they were shocked that something like this could happen in their sleepy little burg.  He took his own fotos and headed up to look at the accident location. 

I went in to the most jaw droppingly painful shower of my life. I scrubbed the wounds as clean as I could without passing out, put myself in bed and tried not to move. 

The two representatives from Ivin's finest called me two hours later. They had caught the 3 juveniles responsible for my afflictions. The boys in blue were very proud of themselves that they had tracked footprints left on site to a home 3 blocks away. It was probably the most fun they have had all year. I believe they also had a long talk with the boys and their parents. 

Right here I would like to be clear that I was once a young lad with barely functioning decision making capabilities. I have done plenty of really stupid things in my day, thankfully very few of them ended up in injury or the fuzz speaking with my parents. 

It's Sunday afternoon now and my wounds are lovingly swaddled in Tegaderm, thanks for the heads up on that product JLC. But literally every major muscle group on my body is in pain. 

I am shocked, I did not expect this, I have crashed, fallen, broken bones,  blown knees, received stitches and concussions, separated shoulders and dislocated my jaw,  I have actually been hit by a car and nothing, and I mean nothing has ever given me this all over body pain. 

Could it be that I am, dare I say it..... old?

I will try to assuage my pain with some new bibs and saddle courtesy of the perpetrators parents. I will also be taking the bike into the shop to be sure nothing else is damaged, carbon fiber can be temperamental.  I was also just thinking that what I really need to work out the soreness is a good bike ride. The sickness continues to run deep. 

Kolob

You know I love a good challenge, and you also know that I love the geekier side of cycling with all the gadgets and record keeping. Well, I found something that incorporates both. The Rapha Circle of Death Challenge. 

The challenge goes for 8 days but because I don't ride on Sunday I only have 6 days to complete the 22,575  vertical feet.

As a guy that has never been known for my climbing ability, (I was blessed with a body built for Greco-Roman wrestling) it has been an interesting change to go looking for long climbs and looking forward to every foot of vertical that I can find.

I had done about 100 miles and 7000' feet between Monday and Tuesday and I had Wednesday pegged as a day for some good climbing. I had heard stories that the road to Kolob Reservoir was a beast of a climb with some parts having a gradient north of 20%. 

I started at 5:15am from the Maverick, Adventures First Stop,  in LaVerkin. By the time the sun came up i was well up the climb, looking at the silhouette of Zion National Park.

My phone lens was a little foggy with precipitation. 

This is looking toward the steepest part of the climb, at one point I was standing up, grinding out 2 mph. 

Hop Valley in between the big climbs.

Every mile of this ride has incredible views and virtually no traffic. This was a little over half way and I had seen 4 vehicles.

You will notice that I am in 8th place, no great feat since there are only 8 participants for that climb.

After 30 miles, 3:30 hrs and 5160 ft of vertical I made it to Kolob Reservoir which sits right at 8000' elevation. It only took an hour and 30 minutes to get back to the car. 

It's Friday now, I just finished today's ride which leaves me with 2,400 feet to complete the challenge. So barring any catastrophic events I will finish tomorrow morning. This has actually been a very enjoyable week, I really like scheming and planning rides, I like the suffering in the middle of the ride, I like the feeling of finishing a ride.  

Now I am going to go and try to coerce the homies to go ride it again next Saturday. This time I would like to move up to 7th place. 

2.5 weeks in So Utah.

I found myself volunteering to drive my daughter and some of her friends to Moab for a Church youth event. They were going to raft a length of the Colorado just east of town. I thought I could bring my bike, get my gas and food payed for and enjoy a couple of rides while they were on the river. 

We camped out by Ken's lake so I thought I would ride over Flat Pass. I found a promising trail going up Mill Creek but after 2 miles it proved to sandy to continue, I did get to ford the creek twice and had an emergency get off due to the sand. The 100+ temps kept me from going to far up Flat Pass but the views where good. 

That night my daughter does not eat BBQ was complaining about what was provided. Maybe I should have made her tough it out...or, we could just hit the Moab Diner for some green chille goodness.  I took the "B" option. Maddie was thoroughly impressed with diner food.

Day two, I dropped everybody off at the guide office, from there they would take a bus to the put-in location.  I was on my own for 6+ hrs....perfect.  I had heard about the Bar M trail system but had never been out that way. Keep in mind I was on the rigid single speed, which is not the most ideal sled to bring to this type of terrain.

That is a look toward Arches NP. If you look really close, dead center you can see an South Window Arch.

The trails were great. Very similar to the type of riding we have in StG, up and down with good techy sections. Not enough vertical to blow you up and not enough down to wish I had a different bike. I rode every inch of the trail system which turned out to be just over 27 miles total. By that time it was HOT and my wrist was beginning to ache from the fall the day before.

I hit the Poison Spider for a shower, then over to McStiff's for a pizza, I ordered the Dosie Doe, because when I am alone I don't have to share with non bleu cheese eaters.

*Dosie Doe – Olive oil with a hint of red sauce, roasted garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, scallions, parsley, bleu, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses.*


The following weekend was the annual Rainbow Rim Ride. You have seen it here many times before and never fails to deliver. I love taking first timers on this ride and this year I had 2 Chris P and BK.

In this picture I am standing on a 16" stump, BK is of abnormal size.

This is the only picture of Chris P that I have authorization to use, he enjoys the anonymity.

The Tuesday after the RRR I had to be in Ticaboo/ Bullfrog for a meeting with the National Park Service and some engineering types, and then a Board meeting with the TEID.

In between the two meetings I had a little down time. So I rode the ferry and took a little drive.

The confluence of the Dirty Devil and the Colorado rivers. This is where Lake Powell begins.

After a couple of weeks of driving and riding around this state I was reminded yet again how I am constantly and consistently amazed at the geography.  I love living here.

Brains

You know I have an infinity for de-animating the undead. Luckily for me, preparing for the zombie apocalypse coincides with my faiths preoccupation with food storage and emergency preparedness.

Some zombie humor from Jonathon Coulter.

KOM

I have to post this because it will not last and I want to save it for posterity.  Also because Lynda Wallenfels is actually behind me in the standings.

Tales of woe

They say that bad things come in 3's. I really hope that is true, I have had 30 days of the worst cycling luck of my young and eventful career.

First I broke a spoke on the front tyre of my road machine. 10 miles from home I sat dejected on the side of the road until my bride could find me.  It's still not fixed, Easton Wheels are hard to deal with. The company and not the product.

Then last week I got a flat on my mountain bike. I have tubeless tyres but I had not kept up on the maintenance and they were dry, totally my fault. I whipped out a tube to throw it in thinking that it had been over a year since I had caught flat. I used my CO2 to pump it up and prepared to move on but the tyre was not holding air.  The tube had been in my seatbag for so long that it had worn a hole in the side from the friction. Out of CO2 and tubes I ended up walking 6 looong miles back to the truck.

The coup de grace was yesterday. I was ex filtrating out of the Rim Runner trail system huffing my way up a particularly steep pitch, when with a loud snapping noise I was thrown unceremoniously to the ground. Stunned, I looked for the reason of my graceless dismount.

I found this.

I had stripped the bolts on my chain ring, breaking it and folding it like a giro sandwich. I could have felt just a smidgen of pride thinking that I was laying down enough power to break this.

The first thing I did? I calmly sent these pictures via email to the manufacturer. This ring had 3 rides on it. I did not expect much but I got an email back straight away saying that though they denied the problem was theirs they would replace it. Winning!

Secondly, I determined that it was 10+ miles back to the truck. Or... 3 miles mostly downhill to Santa Clara where my lovely, patient, helpful, vivacious, smart, resourceful, and understanding wife could again pick me up, yet again.

Lets all say a little prayer that these ignoble events are behind me and the rest of the summer will be clear sailing.

It's a rental

I am going to be walking the fine edge of sacrilege for some of my readers in this post. So if the words "carbon  fiber"  offend you, you may want to log off now. (I am talking to you JRuss and Steve G.)

I was bumping around the newest bike shop in town, Bike Fix over in Washington. Ian, the owner is also a SS guy and his personal sled is a Niner Air 9 Carbon. As I was admiring the bike, I jokingly asked if I could borrow it for a day. To my surprise he said yes, I must have a trustworthy visage.

This bike is Carbon Fiber everything, stem, bars, wheelset, frame, seat post, fork, everything, and it weighs a mind blowing 18lbs.
I took it out to Navajo for a run up Rattlesnake and down Stucki.

I wanted to, and was prepared to hate this bike.  I could not.  Uphill this ma'sheen is an absolute rocket and comfy to boot. Niner's geometry is spot on and it soaked up the bumps like a champ while remaining stiff under power.
I had done 42 road miles the day before and was a little toasted but that did not stop me from laying down my fastest time form the TH to the top of Rattlesnake and I didn't feel like I was pushing it.

While the climbing was a dream the descent was a horse of a different color. The ride quality suffered when I went north of 15 mph, and through the chop it was like riding a jack hammer. The bike is so light that it was difficult to hold a line, I was tossed around and felt like I had to fight the bugger through all the chunk. If I had more time with the bike I think you could get used to it's trail manners but my hands were achy by the bottom. With a squishy fork this bike could be the cats pajamas. 

But will I be spending my hard earned cash on the A9C.......no.  Did I have fun and wanted to keep it another day.......yes. 

Burrito at the bottom of the world

The title may be a little misleading but you can trust me, for those in the know it is hilarious.
A friend of mine from High School has taken the path less traveled. I love to hear or read about his latest accomplishments. I am linking a short write up, Todd is one of the guides in this story.

He recently started his own guide service, In The Company of Guides, and I wish him all the best.

Good on ya' Passey.

Good things from Arizona

Its February and those that know me well, know that February brings two things; My birthday and Old Pueblo.  Guess which one I look forward to more? 

This years team consisted of Duane, Curt, Myself and a new addition, Scott. 

24 Hour town seen from the air, we are located in the top right corner.

The course, I have become a fan of the bypass section marked in green. It could be my favorite part of the ride.

Bikes lined up at the start, this is only small portion of the bikes.

Sunrise after a long night of racing. It is always amazing to me that I can be completely partied out but when the sun shows up, I am good to go.

Home sweet home in Duane's lushly appointed, yet not overly ostentatious, tent trailer. I think he bought it just to do this race every year. Due to some slight miscommunication we placed eighth again for the third year in a row, at least we are consistent. If we had our ducks in a row we would have finished sixth, but that matters only to me.

Also in Arizona is the famed Coconino County, located within that county you can find Coconino Cycles and it's proprietor Steve Garro. I have been riding one of Steve's frames since 2009 and have been completely happy. Last year I had a malfunction with the Paragon Sliding dropouts, Steve repaired it but because he is a perfectionist, and consummate professional he was not satisfied with how it turned out. So upon returning home from the 24 HOIP I found my Coconino 2.0 with new Coco-Moto horizontal dropouts to tension the chain.

Behold

Almost twins. Outgoing bike is on the right, note the simpler design of the new dropouts.

New frame all built up with old parts, the new dropouts are awesome. They require about 35 seconds extra to set up but the bolt on hub and lack of moving parts is waaaaay better.

Big props by the way to local superstar Delena for a third place finish in the Women's SS Solo category. You can read all about that here as well as a pretty good food review for the Haji Baba's.

Ripped from that blog

Silver Reef

By now you know that I am a sucker for new trails and cool stuff, I had heard from a friend that they had added some new property and subsequent trails to the Red Cliffs Desert Preserve. The trail head is called White Reef, and starts across the highway from Harrisburg. 

The Silver Reef area was a booming mining area during the late 1800's. It's still the only place in the world where you can find silver veins embedded in sandstone.  The Smithsonian deemed an early sample of the ore, "an interesting fake." Not believing that silver could be found in sandstone. 

During it's heyday Silver Reef boasted a Main street over a mile long, it's own China Town and according to one historian, was the murder capitol of Utah for quite a few years. Despite the number of Mormon settlements in the area the town never had a Mormon Church. 

Due to a drop in silver prices the town began its decline in 1880 but in 1951 Uranium was mined there for a time. 

The old mines are still very visible along the Reef

Behind the bars, looking into a shaft. 

Dead center you see another mine as well as numerous tailing piles from other workings.

Just outside of the populated area I ran across this shaft. It's a terrible picture, I was scared to death that I would drop my phone.  That chasm is about 25 ft across and I am sure goes straight to the center of the earth.

The old Wells Fargo Building is now the museum.

I plan on going back to do some more exploring, as well as reading up on more history. The ride is okay, mostly double track and lots of horse destruction. I am not sure which I despise more, horses or 4-wheelers. 

The Garmin pooped out for about 6 miles of stream crossings and the hike-a-bike sections.