Super Pro Move

The weekend found us with snow still on the ground, so no dirt jumping! =( Oh well, I got a couple of good road rides in, making sure to freeze my toes on both of them. I haven't been able to find my booties since I moved. Got a little tramp bike action in before I took Lisa to the airport to send her on her way to sunny So Cal for a week of awesome weather and awesome riding! (read with a jealous tone!)

So, ready for the super pro move? Heather stopped by my office for our unofficial office hours, and we decided to go get some dinner. I had my bike and Heather didn't so we decided to throw my bike on the front of the Hop bus and take that to my car. Well, we were gabbing, as usual, and we missed our first stop. We hopped off on the second one and were discussing where we were going to get some food, as Heather was about to die from starvation. About 10 seconds AFTER we got off the bus, I remembered that I had my bike on the front of the bus! Pretty pro! Of course the bus was already driving through the next intersection. Well, shit the chase was on. We ran about 150 yards to my car and started driving like crazy people trying to catch up with the bus. This task would have been much easier if it hadn't been 5:00. This is the only time it is difficult to drive in Boulder. I wasn't exactly sure where the bus route went, either! Don't forget, Heather is starving, too! Well, we pass a could of Hop buses that are the wrong ones, at least I hope they are, as my bike isn't on the front. We start driving down 30th street, when all of the sudden we see my bike on the front of a Hop bus, but it's going the other way! I flip a totally illegal U-turn and make my way through traffic trying to get ahead of the bus so we can finally get it to stop. The bus driver thought we were crazy when we started getting the bike off of the front of the bus at some random stop. I had to explain that I was an idiot and had left the bike on at a stop near campus! Good times, good times!

So, yesterday and today were two of the most beautiful days we have had in a long time! It was in the mid 50s and NO wind!! Ahhhhhh! I made up some excuse to leave work and went to the Fix to go dirt jumping! Yesterday I had a great day working on my no footers and starting to get one handers. Today, the no footers and one handers went fairly well, but I made some pretty good progress on the Kneecap line at the Fix. I consistently hit the first two jumps in the line and occasionally hit the 3rd. Today I hit the 3rd one quite a few times, and actually made an attempt at the 4th one. I cased the hell out of it, but at least I hit the first 3 well enough to want to go for the the 4th one! Yea, I love it when I make good progress at the dirt jumps! Thanks Jonathan for encouraging me to go for the 4th one!

I think I'm about ready for bed, but Tom and Bama have some crazy ideas about drinking and doing something fun tonight. They're at the liquor store right now. Isn't 10:20 on Wednesday night closer to bed time than beer:30? Oh well, I'm sure whatever we decide to do will involve some fun shenanigans and a lot of giggling! Hopefully jumping at Arbor in the morning with Fisher and Howse!

Crazy Weirdos Aren't Just in the Movies!

So, I really thought today was going to be a pretty boring day as far as the fun radar was concerned. We woke up to a couple of inches fluffy white stuff on the ground. I guess it is winter, so I shouldn't complain too much. I took the bus to work because I didn't want to mess with cleaning off my car. I haven't taken the bus since I moved to my new place, but getting to school is super easy. Getting home is a little bit more of a chore. Oh well.

I had the second day of the two classes that I am taking. I think they are both going to be really good classes. Hopefully the workload doesn't cut into my bike riding time too much!

So, you're probably wondering where the crazy weirdos come in, not on the bus or in either of my classes which would have been good guesses! So TJ and I decided that a hot tub session at our private hot tub location was in order for the evening. We rallied the troops and set out. It was an awesome night for a hot tubbing session. There was a light snow falling and it was perfectly calm! We were in the hot tub for about 15 minutes when a guy walks by and asks if we mind if he joins us. We said of course not, come on in. That was our first mistake. So, at first the guy just seemed a little weird and super talkative. Okay, really weird a bit vulgar and definitely offensive to most people. We all took it with a grain of salt and gave him courtesy laughs at his bad jokes and poor impressions. I've been around a lot of super obnoxious people, and although sometimes they get on my nerves, I don't usually care too much. With this guy, though, I was dumb founded by his comments almost the whole time. TJ told me I looked frightened the whole time and Tom said I had an aghast look on my face the whole time. I'm not really surprised. I'm not very good at concealing what I am thinking from my expressions. I really thought this guy was going to stop at some point, but no!! At one point Brian found a key card on the bottom of the hot tub. Ron, our super fun hot tub friend, says oh that's mine and for some reason Brian either didn't believe him or thought he was kidding so he tossed the card towards the pool. Ron decided at this point to eff with Brian and act like he was really mad and say all sorts of weird things to him (maybe he was really mad, I don't know, but I really don't think so, he just enjoys being an ass, I think). At one point he advanced towards Brian and Brian quickly scrambled out of the hot tub! I thought it was a little weird that a guy would be even playfully aggressive towards another guy that he didn't even know, but whatever. At some point he says, oh well, I don't care about the card anyway. Well, he did. He brought it up about 4 more times. The last time he actually got Brian in a backwards bear hug and wouldn't let go of him. There was more, much much more, but I am trying to remove it from my memory. Brian really got the short end of the poor humor stick tonight! Unfortunately the guy will be here for a month, so we might have to abandon our sweet hot tub deal until he's gone. I'm not sure how long he's been here, though. That's the problem. Oh well, soon enough he'll be in another place freaking out different people, and we can have our peaceful, relaxing hot tub back to ourselves again!

Hopefully the snow melts quickly so we can ride our bikes again!

Let me define INSPIRATIONAL for you.

So today started early with spin class at 6:00, painful! Then it was on to some hot tubbing at our new personal hot tub location! Thanks Bama. I suggest getting your morning started with a good workout and a nice hot tubbing session at least every once in awhile!

After that, we were off to Denver for Lisa's follow up appt with her hand Doc. I was pretty nervous for Lisa, as she didn't really know what the Doc was going to say. I can't even imagine the butterflies that must have been going through her stomach! (The last two visits to the Doc had not gone well!) Well, the Doc said that her hand wasn't completely healed, but he said he knows she's been riding and that she could keep doing. She just needs to be careful of her hand. Well, that was the green light that she was looking for, and WATCH OUT, because LISA MYKLAK is back on the playing field folks, and the show's about to get exciting!!

So, after the appt, we got some yummy grub at Deli Zone and made a few phone calls to check on the wind status at Lake Arbor. The wind was picking up, but we decided to go anyway. We called Fisher and he was going to meet us down there. Okay, so let me remind you, if you haven't read my other posts, that Lisa broke her wrist, BADLY at the end of August and then suffered a broken hand as a result of the external fixator that was drilled into her bones to make her wrist heal. Okay, so, as a result, she hasn't been on a bike very much for the past 5 months. I'm just setting the stage, because the plot is about to thicken!

Okay, so here is the setup at Lake Arbor: pull up, look to the right and see big, beautiful dirt jumps! Awesome. So, I have only just started to hit the first jump in the smallest line there, Couch. As a result, I mosied on over to the kiddie dirt jumps to warm up. After about 2 seconds I looked over and thought, "I didn't think Fisher was wearing a black sweatshirt. Oh snap. he's not, that's Lisa rocking the jumps like crazy!!!" Well, about 10 seconds of warming up on the crap mounds of dirt pretending to be some sort of jumps was enough for me, plus I wanted a front row seat for the SHOW!

So, I get back over to the real jumps, and Lisa has the biggest smile on her face! Not only is she jumping, but she is jumping so smoothly! If I didn't know better, I would say she had been doing some stealthy night dirt jumping at some unknown location while her had was healing. (just a theory, though, no way to prove it!) Oh, and let me tell you, the story is just getting good! So, she is doing the first three jumps in Couch, and making it look easy. Well, it's not. I have been trying to just get the first one dialed, and that's not even going very well. It's a tricky line, and she had it dialed. On to bigger and better things. She moved on to the next bigger line after following Fisher in for a speed check. One look at it, and voila. Done. Smooth, buttery, making it look easy! After doing the first two jumps in that line, she declares, "I'm happy, I'm just going to work on manualing for a bit."

So, then Fisher starts hitting the leftmost line in the group, and they look like a ton of fun. The lips seem to "pop" you just right. Well, Lisa must have been observing from afar when she was claiming to be working on manuals, hahaha. Next thing I know, she's following Fisher into the very big line for a speed check. Damn, I think, she is on FIRE! With a few suggestions from Fisher, she follows him in and, I'll let you guess...Yup, hits it like she's been doing this every day for the last 6 months! Huge Rockstar points! Oh ya, since I don't have any photos, I'll have to tell you that the smile just kept getting bigger and bigger! You know, some might call it good at this point. She might have even said she was going to, but oh no!!! She's like, what the hell, that's probably the biggest jump I've ever hit, why not go for the second one? She was on a roll, for sure! First try, nails the second one, like it's nothing! The whole time, I am in AWE! While Lisa was stealing the show, Fisher was throwing down some nice style and beautiful jumping of his own! It is a lot of fun to watch him dirt jump, he makes it look very effortless!

Okay, back to the Title: Let me define INSPIRATIONAL for you. Lisa Myklak. Not only did she seriously jump for the first time since her injury today, but she went bigger than she ever has. I'm going to leave it at that and let you just ponder just how that works for a little bit! I still am!

So, one might think that would be enough fun and excitement for one day, but ohhhh no! After the wonderful Mike Howse retensioned my ridiculously loose rear wheel spokes, we were off on another fun adventure. This time the stylie TJ Sharp and manualing master Jon Stecko joined us for the fun. We headed up to the CU campus for a little street riding action! Lisa and I were seriously working on our manualing, bound and determined to one day be able to be as cool as the boys! We worked on flat turning on the Ferrand Field baseball diamond as well as bunny hopping, cutties, and tons of other shenanigans. I think we even had some gapers for a while! Fun, fun, fun!

I can't think of a better way to have spent the day: riding bikes with some of the best friends anyone could ever ask for. If only YOU could be so lucky!!!

Sleeping in and dirt jumping!

So, I started my day with getting to sleep in, no alarm clock style! My favorite!! Even though it was a bit windy, Lisa and I headed over to the Fix to do a little dirt jumping. Well, today I finally had a breakthrough. There is a fairly large jump there that we call the One Hit Wonder. It's a pretty good jump for learning to do some tricks on. Until just recently, I have been working on getting enough speed and pop off of the jump just to land it all the way to the transition. A little while back Lisa suggested that I try to do just a little turn bar on my next jump. Hmmm, I never would have thought to try it. I tried it, and although it wasn't a huge one, I did it, and it was a lot of fun. I was hooked on the idea of trying to learn some tricks. Thanks Lisa! (again!!) Well, for whatever reason, I decided that I wanted to learn no footers. I have been trying to do them for a while now, and they haven't been going, really. I would get my feet about 3 inches off of the pedals and then instantly want them back on the pedals. I really thought that I needed to start taking them off of the pedals at the apex of the jump, and that is what I had been trying to do. So, today, I decided that I wasn't just being a chicken, the timing wasn't really working. I decided to try to get them off of the pedals shortly after I left the lip...Voila! This was the trick. Although, I only really landed two of them and they weren't the biggest no footers, I finally got them! Yeaaaaa! The two that I made a big effort to get my feet a lot further off of the pedals on resulted in a couple of 1 footed landings, which wasn't the end of the world, so now I can't wait until it's not windy again!

Too bad nasty snowy weather is in the forecast for tomorrow!! Oh well, I had a great day today, and it was even a bit windy!

Blowing Wind, Flying Gravel, and Dirt Jumping

Well, this has been one of the windier winters I have ever experienced here in Boulder. It has also been the warmest winters that I remember. I guess this provides us with mixed blessings! I think that the balmy warm weather we have been having has been the culprit of a lot of the wind we have also been having. Hmmmm.... So, it pretty much goes like this: make plans to go dirt jumping tomorrow, go to be with crazy wind, wake up and hope it's not windy. If it's not, yea!!! It's a good day, and we'll go play. If it is, we complain a bit and then try to find something else to do to keep our ADHD selves entertained!

On Sunday, it was a windy (I mean REALLY windy) day so we had to find something else to do. TJ called up and wanted to do a road ride up to NCAR. Well, I have never been a huge fan of riding up hills, but I know that I need to get my butt in shape, so I agreed. TJ showed up at my house with the best road riding style I have ever seen! He had his Yeti DJer decked out with slick tires with the seat raised higher than I thought was possible. Although I think he was secretly wearing spandex under his baggy shorts, no one would be able to tell! The setup was topped off with his burly DH shoes. NICE! I put on my "I pretend to be a roadie every once in awhile" outfit, grabbed the road bike, and we were off. The ride up to NCAR is less than two miles from my house, but it is all uphill. It isn't very steep mind you, but I am very out of shape, and it hurt! TJ easily kicked my butt up the hill as we battled the horrendous headwind coming out of the mountains. The descent with a tail wind was a lot of fun, though! That didn't take us very long, so we decided to go on a Boulder Creek Path adventure. Normally, I don't spend too much time riding on the path, as I think it is one of the more dangerous rides in Boulder County! I figured not too many people (roller bladers, dog walkers, lollygaggers of every other sort) would be out since it was so windy, though. The path provides a little bit of shelter from the wind for at least some of the time. We ran into super Pro Trek rider, Nick Martin, who was, I'm sure, completely surprised to see the DH kids out training in the wind! All in all, it made for a fun little adventure even though we got pelted with pea sized gravel on the way home!

Saturday was also windy, but I didn't care too much. I decided to head up to the indoor BMX race at the Ranch in Loveland, CO. I have never done a BMX race before, so I was psyched to get in some good gate starts and racing. I had to wake up my fast twitch muscles! They've been taking a cat nap since mid October, I think! The course was nice and smooth with a huge 40 foot berm after the first straight. It looked like it would be a lot of fun to race on! I was pretty pleased with my gate starts, and I even stepped it up and jumped the first double on the course. I spent a bit of time planning my passing strategies in the first berm, but when it came to racing time, I didn't need to worry about it! Getting a good gate start and being able to jump even the small double gave me all of the advantage that I needed to get ahead of the rest of the women's cruiser field. I was please that no matter which of the three different gates I had at the start, I was always able to charge into the first berm well in the lead! It was a lot of fun winning a race again! I think I would need to race the Pro/Am field to not be off the front, and in that field, I'd pretty much be off the back in the first 2 seconds of the race!!! There is one more race up there next month, so we'll see if I head up for that or not.

Like the out of order recap of the past couple of days? Yesterday wasn't too windy, so Lisa and I headed over to the CU Research Park where some folks have been building some nice jumps and good cornering lines! We warmed up a bit and then planned to hit one of the doubles that didn't look too daunting. Lisa hit it perfectly the first time (may I remind you that her hand is still officially broken until she goes to the Dr. to get cleared to ride next week!!), and I did my typical clear the jump but case it with the rear wheel because I am still learning the finer points (ok, the basics!) of dirt jumping. We did this jump for a little while until Lisa decided I really needed a lesson in how to get my front end back down to finish up the jump. We moved over to a different area of this fun dirt playground and she gave me a lesson in bunny hopping to a transition and working on flat corners. At the bottom of our bunny hop transition was a double that was bigger than anything else I had ever hit before. After a couple of tiring laps, I looked up and Lisa had hit the jump as if it was nothing! Smooth like butter! I am so psyched for her that she has been riding so smoothly with such consistent skills! She has been off of the bike for a LONG time, but hasn't forgotten anything she already knew about riding her bike! After looking at the jump for a little bit and with some encouragement from Lisa, I decided to give it a go. I followed Lisa into the jump to know how much speed to have, and even though it wasn't pretty, I cleared it without casing the top of it. It was such an awesome feeling!! I LOVE dirt jumping. I did the jump a couple more times, really trying to focus on getting my front end back down and developing the flowing rhythm that makes dirt jumping so beautiful! It's coming together more and more each time I jump. I am very excited! Mostly I am excited that Lisa is back out riding!! We have so much fun riding together! The instruction and the encouragement she has given me over the past couple of months has been an invaluable asset to my riding!

Fun times on the tramp bike and dirt jumps!

Yesterday was an awesome day for those of us lucky enough to live on the Front Range in Colorado. It wasn't windy, it was sunny and pretty warm, and a bunch of cool kids showed up to ride the dirt jumps and train on the tramp bike. Nate and Emily made the trip down from the Fort, and the DH Bandit herself even showed up and kicked a$$ at the dirt jumps, even though she's not cleared to ride from a broken hand yet!

After a great dirt jump session, good food and WAY overpriced margaritas from Wahoos, a bunch of us made our way out to our newest place to train...the tramp and tramp bike. At first, the tramp bike is awkward and discombobulating, but after you get the hang of it, it is an amazing workout and fun at the same time!

Lisa Myklak getting the tailwhips dialed in.

Emily Johnson bringing the bar spin around.

Me with the off balance tail whip.

Last Saturday Lisa and I both felt like we were going to puke a couple of times after a few sessions on the tramp, and not from eating before jumping on the tramp, from pushing ourselves so hard we wanted to puke. When you are having fun it's a lot easier to push yourself. Interval training on the tramp bike is a million times better than hill repeats or anything else of that nature! We're making big plans for transferring the skills to the dirt jumps, too! Watch out boys, you're not going to be the only ones with mad skillz at the dirt jumps for too much longer!

New Year's and the Aftermath

Well, I returned yesterday from a wonderful weekend in a tiny little place in Colorado called La Veta. Well, we were actually about 6 or 7 miles out in the middle of nowhere at my friend's parents place. It was so relaxing and serene, minus the million mile and hour wind. There was a lot of fun to be had in La Veta, though, don't get me wrong. The festivities included A LOT of fireworks, Jim, Jose, and a few others made it along for the trip as well. We got started at about 12:15 on Sunday and had a great day of poker, fireworks, brush fires, and general shenanigans! We had such a good day that we were all in bed by 9:30, over our hangovers by 4:00 a.m., and fully ready to go again by 9:30 the next morning! Monday brought more fun adventures as we did some hiking, "free style walking" (Matt's favorite), and bouldering in the mountains surrounding their beautiful house! Then some opted for naps as others challenged each other to a feisty game of Risk. Unfortunately, I had to return to the "real world" of work today, so some of us had to leave early and returned last night.

Today, I was excited to take advantage of our unseasonably warm weather, at least 55º, but in a sad attempt to continue learning new stuff at the Fix, my favorite local dirt jump spot, I got blown around so much, I had to leave. The wind started blowing about 20 mph with gusts up to 35 mph. Wind and dirt jumping do not make for a good, safe combo. I am trying to learn no footers on one of the jumps at the Fix, but just landing the jump without getting blown off of the bike was a challenge in and of itself today, so..maybee tomorrow.

On a better note, my super fast pro DH friend, Lisa, has been nursing a broken (shattered) wrist and then subsequent broken hand since August. Ultimately, this means that she hasn't gotten to do the thing she loves more than anything, RIDE HER BIKE, for a really long time. Well, she has been slowly coming out to the Fix and riding with us, mostly just methodically pumping the pump track, but on Saturday, we were treated to a site we haven't seen in far too long! Lisa managed to carefully, yetaggressivelyy, ride the mountain cross line with super style on Saturday. She was pumping the backside of the tables and beautifully manualing the rollers as if she hadn't been off of her bike AT ALL! It was awesome to watch, and hopefully inspiring to her, as her body continues to heal! We all can't wait until she is 100% again and ripping it up on the bike again!

Hopefully tomorrow won't be as windy. Wind sucks, pretty much. I've thought for a long time about when I might possibly think that it doesn't suck. I mean I have a pretty cool kite that I like to fly now and then, but if I never got to fly it again because there was never enough wind to do it, I wouldn't be too disappointed!