I’m not doing it. I’m still in Steamboat Springs and there is a three day road stage race happening and I’m not going to do it. I did the race a couple years ago and the road course is great. The problem is that there is a 17km tt and it is such a short event. I don’t really mind riding the time trial, but I would be smeared. Smeared because I don’t have a tt bike and smeared because I suck at time trialing. So, I decided I’d rather just ride my MTB bike up in the mountains with Kent and Katie. I really do need to race some, but today wasn’t the day. I can still drive to St. Louis and do the last two days of the Gateway Cup. Monday’s race is a super hard circuit.

This morning we’re going to head out of these guys house and ride single track somewhere. I did a very short, but intense ride yesterday out of their driveway. It was pretty much straight up and straight down. The last 3 miles going up, there were a ton of downed trees at the most inappropriate places, usually in in the middle or top of a very technical section. Descending was super rough. My arms and lower back are toast and I hardly rode for much over an hour.

I spent most of the day down in town yesterday mounting new tires on my MTB bike, hanging and talking some with Brad Bingham. Kent and Brad are making some pretty incredible bike frames here. Their new dual suspension MTB bike, which Brad designed is a work of art. It is so cool so many ways that it is impossible to list them all. Both of these guys are pretty much perfectionists, which is not a bad thing in custom bike construction. It was a pleasure to watch them at work.

I’m trying to decide what exactly I need to do in the next few weeks. Next weekend is the Source Endurance Cyclo-X Clinic in Kansas City. You can sign up here. Then I’m racing Chequamegon two weeks from today. I feel pretty unprepared, but I never know what form I have until we hit Rosie’s field. The weekend after that Chequamegon, I’ve been invited to do a Gran Fondo in Chico California. More about that later. After that, it’s up in the air. Cyclocross starts, obviously, but the season is so long. I think I need to go back to physical therapy for my shoulder some. It is still pretty valueless for most things. It slows me down a bunch riding off-road, so I assume it is going to be bad for cross. It is crazy how long this is taking to feel and function better.

Okay, I hear stirring around here. And Bromont has been looking out the window, into the woods since it got light, so I should let him go romp around. It should be a great day to explore here in Steamboat.

Brad Bingham assembling one of his dual suspension bikes.

This piece is so complicated I don’t even know how complicated it is.

This is Upper Bear trail and it is very hard to climb, even without all the downed trees.

This is the view towards the Hot Springs from the Lower Bear trail. The structure to the left is a huge house built a few years ago next to Kent’s land. It has a glass roof. To the right is the Hot Springs.

Katie is cooking gourmet meals. Between these meals here in Steamboat and the gourmet dinners that the San Diego crew were cooking for me in Park City, I’m not short of calories this trip.