July | 2015 | Steve Tilford

I’ve kind of been running around like a chicken with my head cut off the last couple days, and have been on the move. I drove out to Denver on late Tuesday to start acclimating or something. I’m heading to Steamboat Springs for the weekend to ride the Tour de Steamboat.

VIncent took me out yesterday and sort of inadvertently hurt me. We did a MTB ride up to the top of White Ranch and then descended a trail that needs some serious attention. 12-20 inch drop offs on the descent, with the same on the short climbing sections. I had to walk up hill a fair amount.

I’ve also had a sore throat for the past couple days too. My brother was deathly ill when I came back to Topeka last week. I hope this doesn’t progress into anything like that.

Waking up in the morning in Arvada is always special. It is strange looking out to the mountains first thing in the morning. Arvada probably isn’t high enough to do much good for Leadville, so I need to get higher eventually.

Vincent and I installed a ceiling fan in his bedroom. It was an easy peasy project.

It is always nice waking up to the Tour. It has been a pretty exciting race, everyday, this year. I’m trying to avoid the doping allegations and such that everyone is throwing at Chris Froome. But when you are smearing all the best guys in the world, in a sport that is super polluted with doping, then it should be expected. Lance said it was his fault, Froome under so much scrutiny, but I think he is giving himself too much credit. One was just one guy out of 100’s, probably 1000’s.

Trudi has to fly out to California tomorrow to start another block of work for BMC. She needs to pack up the truck and head to Utah for the start of Tour of Utah. Then the Pro Challenge, Canada and the World Championships in RIchmond, Va. It is going to be a long time on the road.

Alright, below are some interesting pictures, at least to me, from the last couple days.

The view this morning.

I stopped by the World Horseshoe Championships before I left Topeka.

They had over 100 horseshoe pits set up, with 1400 competitors. I like horseshoes.

The weather on the Eastern plains of Colorado was pretty epic driving out.

There are all the summer travelers out on the road. This guy wasn’t travelling too light.

The ceiling fan we installed. Pretty nice. The hardest part was putting the remote receiver under the cover.

Gatorade has pulled the "sell less, for the same price" deal that lots of products have done recently. They took 4 oz or liquid out of the bottle. Same with orange juice. It isn't a half gallon anymore. It is 1.8 quarts.

Gatorade has pulled the “sell less, for the same price” deal that lots of products have done recently. They took 4 oz of liquid out of the bottle, now 28 instead of 32. Same with orange juice. It isn’t a half gallon anymore. It is 1.8 quarts.

Yesterday I spent a long time in my chamois. I did ride 4 hours, but I was in them a lot longer than that. I try to avoid that usually, at all costs.

Vincent and I rode off-road for a couple hours, then met Trudi in Golden for sandwiches. We rode back over North Table Mtn., then I decided that my Q factor on my MTB shoes was way too wide. I set the shoes up for cyclo-cross and if I move them closer in then the heels hit the chain stays on my cross bike. But I have a centimeter or so extra on MTB bike.

I brought a new pair of Shimano MTB shoes with me, so I mounted new cleats and moved them in as far as they go. It was amazing, at least it is so far. I’ve been having some trouble with my right knee and I went out for another hour-plus, to test of the shoes. My knee didn’t hurt at all. I’m not sure this is permanently going to fix my knee issue, but it gives me hope.

I did 6000 feet of climbing in 45 miles. And most of that was pretty steep, granny gear stuff. I’m sort of surprised I don’t feel worse riding here. The altitude hasn’t seemed to bother me that much. I think that is because it was so frickin’ hot back in Kansas that the heat was much more painful than the lack of air. Plus I’ve been staying below 7000 feet for the most part.

Heat and altitude are very similar when you are untrained for them. At least the symptoms of not being acclimated are. I tend to pant from my upper diaphragm and can’t produce much power. I don’t get used to altitude that easily. It takes me about a month to be able to race at my best at altitude. I finished 12th at the first Mountain Bike World Champhionships in Vail, but I’d been racing at altitude for nearly a month that time. This is where I come up with the number. I’m way better after a couple weeks, but the next two weeks is important too. I’d like to find a low altitude race to do sometime in the 2nd two weeks to attend. It is hard pushing the pedals hard when there is little air.

I’m heading up to Steamboat Springs later this morning for the Tour de Steamboat. I have to drop Trudi off, to head to the airport, first. It’s not too late to register for the drawing of the Kent Eriksen bicycle. I think they pick the lucky winner tomorrow after the ride. Here is a link to the drawing.

VIncent is trying to get a new cartridge for his Lefty shock fork. His is leaking oil. It is less than 2 months old. That seems wrong. You need a special tool to pull the cartridge out, so hopefully they have that tool at the shop in Golden that seem to have the replacement part.

Vincent, and my team mate Brian Jensen, are racing the Breck 100 tomorrow. There are 3 choices of distances. They are both doing the 68 mile distance. The winner’s time was over 6 hours last year. That is pretty slow. Must be a pretty hard course. I wonder who long it took to do the full 100?

I haven’t ridden my road bike since I got here on Tuesday. It is funny how you really need to record your training in hours and not look at the miles. Like yesterday, 45 miles, but over 4 hours. That would normally be over 80 miles. I have nearly 8000 miles for the year, but it took 460 hours. MTB riding really kills the distance. VIncent gave me a heart rate strap to use with my Garmin. I wore it yesterday. I plan to wear it tomorrow too. I got interesting in this by reading about the Chris Froome’s leaked data for the 2013 Tour, video below with his numbers. His max heart rate was 160 when he was attacking on the Ventoux. That is amazingly low. Especially considering the crazy wattage he was producing. If you ride with a powermeter, the numbers on the video below will really depress you and, for sure, astonish you.

Okay, the day is getting away.

This was a little depressing for me. I was climbing North Table Mesa yesterday, which is a singletrack climb and this guy followed me most of the way to the top on a cross bike.