June | 2010 | Steve Tilford

Another day of altitude headaches and fun. Sunday we went over to Montezuma and climbed for a long while. We had less than 5 miles after an hour of climbing. That is pretty slow. But, my lungs thought it seemed pretty fast. I don’t know how high we rode, maybe 12500 ft. There was tons of snow there. We stopped for 5 minutes to take in the view and during that time the wind came. I don’t know how windy, but I’d guess somewhere between 60-70 mph. It was nuts. I picked up my bike off the ground and it blew completely sideways like a flag. It was a pretty great descent down to Breckenridge. Lots of steep sections and snow melt streams to cross. My legs don’t get tired here because I can’t produce any power because of lack of oxygen. I’m even breathing hard coasting downhill. We rode the bike path back to Frisco and then singletrack back to Silverthorne. It wasn’t exactly epic, but it could of been if just a few things went a bit different. It was the first day out of 3 that I didn’t draw any new blood. I mounted the HD Video camera on a helmet and have recorded all the rides. It is going to work out great for recording races.

Today we’re riding over to Vail and back. It only 70 miles and it’s not so hard climbing Vail Pass from either side. I haven’t been to Vail for a few years, so it should be good. It’s going to be hard leaving here.

Check it out, I'm only holding my bike by a couple fingers on each hand. Crazy winds.

The trail was buried, so we just went straight down the snow. It was sketchy.

We rode up over this ridge and descended down into Breckenridge.

We went for a hike yesterday evening. Aspen trees always look wonderful.

I've been riding this Specialized saddle on my MTB bike since 1997. I have such an attachment to it that it is going to be very difficult to replace it. That is the way a rider should feel about their saddles.

Here's the results from the blood test I took on the way out here. Maybe all you guys that wanted to see them can do something more with them than I can. (Click twice on the photo to enlarge.)

Today Vincent, Bill & I rode over to Vail today from Silverthorne. It was about 40 miles each way. Nothing flat. Up Vail Pass from Frisco and the back up Vail Pass from Vail. Just a couple thousand foot climb each way. We had a little under 80 miles total and nearly an 18 mph average for the ride. That is with the majority of the ride over 9500 ft. Not bad for lowlanders. I felt pretty good today finally. I can’t really surge, but steady state it was going pretty good. It is so weird coming back from a 4+ hour hot ride and not having my legs torched. I’m not sure I can do anything at this point to toast my legs. I’m too busy breathing to really wear out my legs much. I don’t think that I can come close to acclimating in just a week. I feel better than 4 days ago, but I’ve had enough experience at altitude to know that it is impossible to produce enough red cells to have that as the reason for the good riding day.

It is amazing how many people you see riding out here. In Denver. Up here in Summit County. One thing I’ve noticed is that most the guys on higher end, race bikes have a totally jacked up position. I didn’t even know that they made stems that had a 45 degree angle up. People are riding so high on their road bikes they might as well be riding straight bars. I noticed this trend starting a few years back and it seems to be the norm now. I don’t know who is fitting all these guys at the shops, but the aren’t doing their customers a service.

We’re back in Denver for the next couple days and then back to Kansas for the Tour of Kansas City Friday thru Sunday. It is going to be really hot and really humid this weekend. I haven’t been riding that well for the past month. Especially in the heat. I was hoping that leaving Kansas for this past week would get me out of the funk I’ve been in. Hopefully that is the case, but if not, I’ve really been having a great time changing up the training and doing some stuff I don’t do that often anymore.