Crazy Circles: Denver’s Meridian Group ride

Group rides. They are the best of times. You get to hang out with your friends and catch up on life. They pass the time in the saddle and make cycling a social or team sport instead of an individual endeavor.

Race pace group rides are a different animal. While a normal group ride may vary in pace, a race pace group ride pegs the meter from start to finish and can simulate a true racing experience – sans the license, entry fee, and stress of a real race. Colorado has many legendary group rides. Fort Collins says it’s is the toughest. Boulder’s Gateway and Bus Stop rides are stacked with pros. Denver’s FDR ride is quickly developing into a fantastic race pace experience with top riders, but for the time being the Meridian group ride is, in my opinion, the finest race pace group ride to blow the carbon out of your engine.

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Rodeo Team Ride 2014/02/23: 110k Cold, Unbelievably Warm, Colder

Well, I had an early fail as the ride leader today. I’ve never led a group ride before (always suck wheel on that job) I should have known that my son might come down with Streptococcal pharyngitis and need a trip to urgent care for a tonsil swab (poor guy) and antibiotic prescription. I should have also known that waltzing into the mobile phone store to buy a new phone an hour before needing to be on the bike to meet the team was a bad idea. Who knew that took so long? And, I hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch yet. Fortunately, these guys are forgiving gentlemen. However, cycling with teammates is like date night with your wife or fishing with your brother or best friend – you simply cannot show up late.

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Rodeo Denver. The first ride.

Forecasts called for temperatures in the 50s for the first ever Rodeo Denver team ride. As we get started we are a small and humble crew, and we’re okay with that. We haven’t done any races together, we haven’t proven anything, we are simply passing the miles. Such is the nature of fresh starts.

Fresh starts are exciting for that reason as well. How we start out sets the tone for what is to come. We met at the Confluence REI, snapped a pic, and headed for the hills.

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Denver-Sedalia Dirty Century

21 January 2014

Having this week off work in January meant base miles, and as many as possible in a few short days, since the flanking weekends would be spent skiing with the family. The weather in Colorado had been very temperate the past few days, and the forecast for this day was a high of 60-65 F (15-18 C). Knowing I would not have another opportunity like this for a long while, I decided to go big on this day of days. I had gone on a long ride the previous day with Stephen and Larsen up Golden Gate Canyon and Robinson Hill, but given the temperature and time available, a ride of 100 mi (160k), or more, was in clear view. After a 68 mi (110 km) ride with 6000 ft (1850 m) the day before, a flat loop seemed wisest, but I like to climb, so I convinced myself that a little climbing would be acceptable. Climbing a little (or a lot) would open up much more interesting route options, for the flat routes around Denver on the plains are rather tedious.

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Cyclomountaineering

Once in a while you do a ride that leaves you tingling for days afterwards, and not because your fingers and toes are still recovering from frostbite and numbness. Colorado has experienced a remarkable cold snap in the last weeks with lows in the range of -15F and highs in the single digits F. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it myself, and for the first four or five days of the snap I didn’t seriously consider going outside.

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Cyclocross Mount Falcon

My training is falling off a cliff these days due to diminishing sunlight and increasing workload in the office. Thus swings the pendulum of life. Trying to stay in shape for CX is getting tricky and takes some creativity. On top of the time challenges, the fatigue challenge complicates the picture. How do you stay motivated on the bike when the local roads are getting long in the tooth and the interesting roads are too far away to get to?

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Salida RR – State Road Championships

This is a repost from the 2013 season. We are selecting a few member’s blog posts to show here in order to fill out the Rodeo vibe while we get 2014 up and running.

“&^*#$^!!!! NEVER WORK ON YOUR BIKE ON RACE DAY!”

These are the words I muttered to myself on my back patio at 11:07 this last Sunday morning. I had just threaded a new rear shifter cable into it’s housing only to find out that it was about six inches too short to do the job. Turns out it was a front shifter cable! More $@%@! No matter, I had a complete bike in the basement that I could rob another cable from. I promptly removed and installed that cable only to find that it was about 1/4″ too short as well.

“WHAT AM I DOING HERE RIGHT NOW, I’M SUPPOSED TO BE ON MY WAY TO SALIDA”

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Pro Challenge Road Trip 2/2

The road trip is over. The Black Pearl is back in the garage. All is well. 1200 miles covered. 35mpg averaged. The Mrs. and I had a blast and are exhausted. The racing was incredible to watch. The vistas were unforgettable. The towns were wonderful to discover. Colorado is an amazing state to drive through and play in!

We were joined mid-trip by my friend Peder and his wife Holly in their ’73 BMW 2002. Our vintage caravan was a blast to be a part of and people seemed genuinely delighted to see some fairly old cars out on the road in good working order. The bike rack was a big hit. Pedro did an amazing job.

Enough words! Here are some pictures.

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