Stony Race Report

It was hot. I sucked. 'nuff said

Afraid of Heights!!

The last day of the Vegas trip was going right at one of my biggest fears - heights. The agenda was to go to Zion Canyon to hike Angel's Landing and then go ride somewhere.

For the uninformed, Angel's Landing is a formation that is 1050 feet above the floor of Zion Canyon. It is accessed for the first 80% of the way by a walk/hike up a path that is pretty comfortable to walk. From there on up, it gets interesting. There are 'steps' cut into the rock in places, chains anchored along the way, and just plain scrambling with death being the reward for screwing up.

I'm not carrying it, you carry it:



View from the top:



Vegas Drake relaxing on top:



One of several chipmunks begging at the top - tough way to make a living:



From there we stopped for lunch just outside Zion Canyon and headed for the JEM trail. Billed to be nice riding, not as tough as Gooseberry. It became a little bet more challenging for me in the parking lot. As I rode over to the trailhead sign, I noticed some shifting difficulties. As I was starting to diagnose the problem, I noticed the derailleur at a slight angle - went to give it a nudge back into place and the hanger snapped. After a few minutes of wrenching - I was riding a single speed for the afternoon. The trail was a hoot - not too technical, lots of rollers and then we got to the Virgin River rim. We rode right along it, sometimes as close as a foot from the drop off (probably 100 feet down). It was very cool!! Here are some random photos from the day:





If you look carefully at the second to last photo - that is a van at the bottom of the canyon. I think someone forgot to set the parking brake.

The lesson for the day: I can overcome my fear of heights if I keep my concentration in the 5-10 foot range. Any more than that and my heart starts to come out of my throat.

Gooseberry Mesa

This is a must ride place!! We had no real idea of what to expect, just people telling us that it was a great place to ride. Unfortuantely, I failed to take any photos on the trail and my helmet cam neglected to function once the boundary of the parking lot was passed.

Big Joe suiting up for the ride:


They said it would be a 3 hour ride, it was just short of that. There was some blood spilled in the group, but not excessive amounts. No broken bones, but a helmet needed to be replaced.

Here is a Google Earth view of the mesa:


It actually appears inverted in this photo due to the layers of Earth. I believe calcium carbonate and iron oxide are the white and red layers respectively. Very cool!! The dropoffs were in the 800 foot range. Riding within a couple of feet of the drops was intimidating but manageable. The most worrisome factor me was actually the wind - it was howling up the face in spots. I can't imagine if it was really windy that I would feel the least bit comfortable.

The day ended with a great dinner at the Painted Pony in St. George. Truly wonderful food with only average service.

Off to St. George, UT

I went to the show for a couple of hours to meet with Kent. Purpose was to talk about the modifications to the seatpost design for carbon railed seats. Ended up wandering around to show each other what we thought was cool at the show - an absolute hoot!!

Had coffee with a friend that I went to college with and then time to leave Sin City.

A two hour drive from Sin City is the southern Utah city of St. George. A fast growing community of mostly retirees and Mormons (think Warren Jeffs) among some beautiful mountains near Zion Canyon. We knew it was going to be good when we spotted this sign across from our hotel:



We decided to pick up the bikes before the shop closed Friday evening. Once there, we decided to go on a short ride on a local trail to shake our legs out. We headed for Bear Claw Poppy trail just outside of town. Once again, GPS and map issues delayed our arrival at the trail, but not too bad. Here are the opening bike adventure photos:



Beginning of the trail system:


The sunset as I was getting back to the car:


The day ended with dinner at Two Fat Guys Pizza. Not great, but pretty darned good. It was a very good day!

Day Two in Vegas

Okay, I know everyone is expecting lots of photos of the show - ain't happening here. Here is my one photo from day two:



I have no idea why I took it, but there it is.

The show was it's usual overwhelming self. Lots to see and do. My only real accomplishment was meeting with Schwalbe about their sponsorship of me for the coming year. Fun and exhausting day. Highlights: Krieg Cycling, Schwalbe, Rol Wheels, Select Cycling, Ergon, Deda, FSA, and others I can no longer remember.

4pm was the pool party. More like beer by the pool. Wasn't nearly as eventful as last year. Not a very sunny day, or hot enough. fun nonetheless. We headed to a great restaurant called Pieros at 6 for a 7 o'clock reservation. Purpose was to have a cocktail in the Monkey bar (so named for it's decor). Beginning of the end for one member of our party: "I'll have what he's having". Response: "One is not enough, and two is too many". The affected party did not make it to #2, but also does not remember ordering dinner. We had wine during dinner and capped it off with some grappa.

It was off to the crit race. We struggled again finding parking at the race. Mandaly Bay is HUGE! We finally got it done and headed for the race. Two of us made it near the start/finish area and had a good spot by the rail. We ran into Steve and Ron and had a great time. The previously affected party did not make it that far and stopped at the first spot they could find. The race had just started as we got there. It was very fast, of course my perspective is skewed - it wasn't like a cx race or a hundie. Comment from the inebriated member of the group as he watched with his head on the rail - "they're going too fast". There were many crashes and primes on nearly every lap. It was again a loud and rowdy crowd, although no racers picking up currency and beers from the crowd.

Jumbo-tron near the start finish line:


Hard to get a picture of the race, soooo fast:



We made it safely back to the Mirage and crashed hard.

Day One in Vegas

It started like any other trip out of town. Everything was going smoothly until we got on the plane. The pilot came on and informed us that there was a maintenance problem that would be taken care of in a half an hour. Two hours later, we were informed that a tire had been changed along with the brakes on one of the wheels. I never even felt the plane getting jacked up - pretty amazing that they changed the tire on a 200,000lb machine with 200 people on board and I couldn't even feel it happening. Once the pilot was satisfied, we were off. The problem with this delay was that we were now late to the show. Instead of 5 hours the first day, we were reduced to 2.5 hours.

We got to the show and headed in to check out the show. We separated due to different interests and people to see. At the end of the day was Cross Vegas. The plan was to pick up the Eriksen's and head out to the race around 7ish. Even with a GPS unit in the car, we struggled to find there hotel. We finally found them at 7:30 and headed out. We completely missed the women's race (a trend). We found the beer garden and found a good spot at the top of a hill with a 180 degree turn. The race started and boy was it cool!! A front group of 11 formed and they lit it up!! Not that anyone else was particularly slow, but they couldn't bridge up. As the race developed, those further back began to pick up dollar bills and beers from the crowd. It was a loud and rowdy crowd!! Here is a picture of Molly Cameron with bills tucked in his lid and carrying a beer:



After the race, we headed for sushi. The Osaka Bistro is probably my favorite sushi place ever. We had nine of us and sat at a tatami table. We had a great waiter and basically we told him to just keep bringing whatever the chef was up for, we would let him know when we were done. Great conversation and food ended the evening around 2am.

What a great day!!!!