Boulder Res Cyclocross

Thanks to Brian C. for sending these on to me. Thanks to whoever it was that shot them too.

Whipped

Man, work kicked my ass today. I've been asking for it though. Long story that I'm not going to explain. I'll probably have to go in this weekend. Oh well it's the off season. I just don't know how I'm going to fit in riding (to keep from getting fat), working on my bike, racing, drinking beer, watching the Broncos, etc.

Oh well, I can get to work on the drinking beer thing right now. I've got a bottle of Ska Brewing's Steel Toe Stout warming up right now. They call it "a working class milk stout." I don't know many of the working class that pay around $7 a 6 pack, but it is a milk stout. Whatever you want to call it, it's good shiznit.

Mud Pie

So as I mentioned in my previous post, I woke up to a little snow on Saturday morning. I thought it would make for a little mud in the race at Arapahoe Ridge HS in Boulder. Boy was I wrong. Try a lot of mud. Here are some pics.



My bike after the race. Yes, that's my pedal. Yes they are Crank Brothers Eggbeaters. Yes, I could clip in until the end of the race.





A shot of my feet:



Part of the course:



The first and last pictures were hijacked from www.pelotonphoto.com.

I didn't have a good race. That's a big surprise considering I only rode once the week before. I went straight into survival mode after the 1st lap. My goal was too finish, and that I did.

After the race, I headed up to Lyons to pick up a growler of Gordon from Oskar Blues. Pretty good stuff. Not your typical Double IPA. I guess Double IPAs aren't that typical to begin with. If your ever up that way, I definitely suggest stopping in. Good food and beer. The Old Chub is top notch.

Sunday I sampled some more local beers at the Bull and Bush Pub and Brewery. Somehow I always forget about that place and it's right in my back yard. I got a little carried away with the beer sampling for a Sunday night. They had a seasonal I tried that was sort of like a spiced Saison. Then a Double IPA, Imperial Stout, and another plain IPA. I guess that isn't the best tasting order, but they were all pretty dang good. The Double IPA tasted more like a Barleywine, but was dang good. Looked like motor oil.

PS Well apparently those two pelotonphoto.com pics aren't going to load. Clic on the white boxes and it will take you to them.

First Snow

First snow of the season was on Tuesday night. It's always fun to be out somewhere and watch the flakes come down for the first time. It warmed up enough the next day that I was able to get out to the park and do some barrier practice without having to ride in the snow.



It snowed again last night, and there is a cross race today. Woohoo! The snow will probably be gone again because it is supposed to get into the 60s today. There should be some fun mud though.

It shouldn't be like this year's edition of the 24 Hours of Moab.



http://googleearthlings.blogspot.com/

I Love Football

Fall

I love Fall. Great time of year. Great weather for tasting various tasty beers. Good times with cyclocross. In fact, I did another cross race today. Went much better than the last one. In fact, I managed to finish in front of a few guys and not finish DFL. Not bad after eating a big NY Strip and washing it down with four strong beers from the Golden City Brewery the night before.

The race was in Frisco, and it was a great course. Some technical aspects, some grass areas, some twisty turny sections, a fast barrier section, a long run up, and overall nice flow. Fun race. The running sections didn't totally blow my legs up this time. I guess that is progress.

Beers tasted this weekend:
Golden City Clear Creek Pale Ale - decent. I wouldn't necessarily recommend. Probably more of a summer beer.

Golden City Legendary Red Ale - not a big flavor beer, but pretty good. Easy to drink.

Golden City IPA - MMMMMMMMM. Good, drinkable IPA. I want more.

Stone Brewing Arrogant Bastard Ale - good. Pretty alcoholy. A sipper.

Backcountry Brewery Saison - A little to clear for a Saison. Light Belgium yeast flavor. Ok, but not as good as New Belgium's Saison.

Great Divide Brewing's Old Ruffian Barley Wine - pretty durn good. Definitely a sipper. If you like Barley Wines, it's a must try.


Sorry, no pictures this weekend. I'm going to try to update more.

Road Trip

Well, I was going to post some of these individually, but I played around with Picasas's Web Albums last night. It doesn't seem is as good as something like Flickr. I don't like the fact that you can't enlarge the picture in a full screen, but it's still in Beta. I'm also feeling too lazy to mess with posting pictures with Blogger.

These pictures are from a trip to Durango with some friends. It was actually a trip outside the Denver Metro area that didn't involve biking or skiing. A very rare occurrence. In fact, most of this trip was centered around tasting a lot of the local beers. I can tell that most of them were pretty good. The highlight was an English Pale Ale called Compound W. It was a joint effort between Ska Brewing, Steamworks Brewing, Carver Brewing, and Three Rivers Brewery (Farmington, NM).

Most of the pictures are from Mesa Verde. They are out of sequence, but it doesn't really matter. Two of the pictures are of the Animas River. It's a little high as you will see. It rained almost the whole time we were there and apparently that was par for the course for that week.

Durango Trip