Riding after work with Matt "The Bagel"

Since we are both working on the southeast side of town, Matt and I like to meet at Cheyenne Mountain State Park after work for the occasional mountain bike ride. Yesterday was a typical 90 degree summer day but I happened to have my GoPro Helmet-cam....

I took a lot of video footage on our ride but for some reason, this particular trail stood above the rest for capturing the essence of why we enjoy the park. Maybe it was the late-afternoon sun. Maybe it's because I kept it on two wheels at a pretty decent clip. You decide (crank the volume and think: 80's):


Boulder Run in Cheyenne Mountain State Park from Alan Keeffe on Vimeo.

Tour of the Lakes w/trail maintenance

Matt "The Bagel" and I are both coming off of four or five weeks of not riding very much so we decided to do the legendary "Tour of the Lakes".

Prepping for the ride...

We haven't been at 9000' on a bike for a while and we strangely had to stop early for some bonk prevention.

Early pig-out.

We arrived at the "Rock" trail and Matt decided, after watching me slam my rear wheel on a rock obstacle, to fill in the gap with some old deadfall.

The start of the trail labor...

At the bottom of the "Rock" section, we always had to hike-a-bike up a steep little hill. I saw a way to make it rideable with a little (a lot!) of work.

Matt, doing some hard labor in the middle of a hard ride.

After we both bonked while using the hand-saw, we finally cut the old dead tree. Matt had the honor of the first test-ride of our new section:

Bottom of the Rock from Alan Keeffe on Vimeo.

There's still plenty of trailwork to be done up there, but at least we got started...

Now I have to recover from roughly 1/4 of the Leadville 100 at the elevation of 9000' instead of 10000' to 12000'. Glad I wasn't entered in that one.

 

The Copper Triangle

This weekend, The Colorado Cyclist sponsored a ride called "The Copper Triangle". It is a fully supported bike ride starting at the Copper Mountain ski area, climbing up Fremont pass down to Leadville, towards Minturn over Tennesee Pass to Vail and back over Vail Pass to Copper.

   Many of the employees of The Colorado Cyclist were there to help make it a good time for all. There were four mechanics, myself, Scott, Dave and Brandon. Scott and I were assigned to the top of Fremont pass from 6am to 11 am. Last year, there were four mechanics and it was super busy so I was a little bit worried that with only two of us it would be crazy. Although it did get pretty hectic at times, we took care of as many bikers as we could and sent them on their way.

  I brought my new HD video cam and took a bit of video. Here are the clips (I had to compress the file so the resolution is not the greatest):

Regression...

Riding less and less lately. Who's to blame? Work? Monsoon season? Not sure.

I did get a chance to try out my new Kodak Playsport ZX3 video camera. It's the size of a cell-phone and can film 1-1/2 hours of 1080p HD video on an 8GB SD card. And it can film under water which is important at the moment. Ain't technology grand?

I did some filming in Palmer Park between rain showers and then got some stills from the video. Not the greatest clarity in the stills but the HD video is outstanding.

Dropping into "Little Moab"

Off of the big slab at the bottom of "Little Moab"

Fun descent above the dog park.

...then right back up.

The fitness is fading and the weight is creeping up. The next long ride is going to hurt!