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 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.

I really don’t consider myself someone that wastes that much time.  Sometimes I’m doing things that others don’t consider important, but each person has their own thoughts on what they consider quality use of their own time.

We all “own time”.  We’re allotted a certain amount of it when we are born.  At some point in our lives, we get to decide how and what we’re going to do with the time we’ve been allocated. I look at time like money.   It is very important and wasting it, is just that, wasting it.

I don’t watch very much TV.  Pretty much none, other than sporting events, the weather sometimes and a movie every once in a while.  I’ve watched two movies on Apple TV since I’ve been out in Colorado.  Both have turned out to be a total waste of my time.

Last night I was ready to go to sleep at 10:45.   I was washing my cycling clothing and there was 19 minutes to go on the wash cycle.  I made the mistake of turning on the TV in the room I’m staying in Vincent’s basement.  Next thing I know I’m watching a movie.  The movie had no redeeming qualities.  I’m not sure why I think a good movie is a less waste of time than a bad one, but I do.  Anyway, I watched it to nearly 2 am.  This is one reason I’d never have a television in my bedroom.

Now, this morning, I’m all tired from lack of sleep.  I rode over 4 hours yesterday on my MTB bikes and could have used that extra 2 hours.  Plus I missed all the action in the Tour’s stage today.  By the time I got up, everyone was split up, Contador had already fallen down and was chasing, so there was nothing left except everyone to ride across the line.  I have a hard time thinking about trading that shitty movie for a good Tour mountain stage.

I rode twice yesterday, both off-road.  The 2nd ride I ran into a guy on a tri-bike that was all wearing a total Specialized kit.  He saw me and rode up to me and told me he followed my website and used to race “with me” back when I rode for Specialized.  He told me he had been a loyal Specialized customer every since (I guess sponsorship works sometimes).  Then the guy starts asking me a ton of, what I consider a bunch of stupid questions, wants me to help him with his seat height and more stuff that seemed somewhat odd.

Of course I did most of what he wanted – Selfie with him, looked at his seat position, (like I know what seat position is good for a guy I meant 10 minutes earlier), and such.  Normally, the guys I meet out on the road are great.  One of the reasons this sport is so cool.   This wasn’t great. Not even close.  So not close I’d consider it  a waste of time.  Lisa had told me that dinner was going to be early and I was on a time restraint, so maybe that came into play, but whatever the reasons were, I wish I had that time back.

Anyway, like I said above, time is valuable.  And it is finite.  And one of the big problems with time is we don’t know how much of it each of us has.  So, we need to treat time with respect.  If you think you are doing something that has a high potential for falling into the waste category, then, in my opinion, you should stop doing it and do something that would be a better use.  No one likes to look back and consider what they’ve done to be a waste.