Toyota A-BAT concept truck

I would buy one of these in a second (even if the production model was as ugly as the concept). Ever since the Prius came out I have been lusting after a hybrid pickup to replace our gas guzzling Tacoma. I would love replace the Tacoma with a more economical small SUV such as an Element or a Rav4 but the problem is that I'm a do-it-yourselfer and I'm always in need of a pickup to haul building materials or landscaping supplies. The A-BAT, with a 4 cyl gas/electric hybrid powertrain would probably get an acceptable 30-35 MPG, could haul anything I would need it to, wouldn't kill us on gas as a daily driver and with the 4wd would also be the ultimate car camping MTB/ski trip vehicle. Man I hope this goes into production.

New toy

I put my new toy through it's paces on the pipeline trail last night. The skinny tires rode surprisingly well on the trail although I didn't want to push my luck so I walked the Church Fork downhill. Now I just need to find a convenient park with some trails to practice my mounts and dismounts and I also need to do some high intensity training to get ready for the crazy speed of cx racing. Season starts in 6 weeks!

Chatty Cathy

Is there anything more annoying at 8AM then the Chatty Cathy? You know the person. You're tired, your AM coffee has yet to kick in and the first person you run into at work is always the Chatty Cathy. They want to tell you what they had for dinner last night and what color their kids first crap was this morning. Really, do they actually think I care? Perhaps the worst Chatty Cathy's are customers or patients, depending on your line of work. My scheduler is an angel and she tries her hardest to not give me a patient at 8am but sometimes it's unavoidable. This 8 AM patient is almost always a Chatty Cathy. Chatty co-workers can be carefully avoided but you're stuck with chatty patients. What makes chatty patients even worse is that you have to be polite and respond to them no matter how ridiculous the things are they want to chat about. I think my favorite was the old lady who's son was Gordon B's body guard for 15 years. After an hour of her telling me how awesome her son was she proceeded to criticize at me for not helping her sit up the proper way. "My son was President Hinkley's body guard for 15 years and he showed me the proper way to help a person sit up. That wasn't it!"

ICUP Finale

Evanston was rough. The pace started out pretty mellow and I hung behind the lead group for the first few miles without really working that hard. The group was broken up by the first downhill and the categories behind started catching me on the next climb but I was feeling OK and just kept going my pace. Greg Myers and the sport 35-39 chase group caught me on the road and I latched on. This was the group I was waiting for and I was hoping to use as a pace group for the rest of the race. I refueled on the road and drank as much as possible before the Big Nasty powder climb. I was halfway up the climb and had passed a bunch of people who were walking when disaster struck. I started hearing a loud clicking from my rear brake. I pumped the lever a few times and it just got worse. I pulled over to the side and saw one of my pads was sitting at funny angle with the metal corner dragging on the rotor. I took my rear wheel off and spent some quality time trying to figure out how to put my brakes back together. The clip was pretty jacked up but I bent it back into some semblance of working order. I have no idea how much time I lost but it wasn't a quick fix. I started off again and hit the long downhill. Things were flowing real well till the first rocky section where my pedal/cleat problem reared its ugly head from tuesdays Solitude race. My left foot blew out of the pedal and I nutted myself on the top tube. After Solitude I had thought it was a pedal issue so I swapped pedals with my other bike but I later learned that unlike normal SPD's, Crank Bros cleats are disposable and need to be replaced somewhat frequently. Even taking it easy on the rest of the downhills I blew out of my pedals a few more times. I thought about DNF'ing but my bike was still basically rideable so I tried to work the climbs and chill on the downhill. Finished near the back but not in the back.

Rhonda plugged through her longest XC race ever for her third straight 6th place finish. The long preride from the night before was probably a mistake but since we've never ridden the course before not pre-riding the course would probably also have been a mistake.

The awards party was long, cold and wet but the beer was good and the pizza plentiful. Congrats to UMB for winning the team trophy. They showed up in big numbers to every race and as I've learned from the Solitude Tuesday night series showing up is more than half the battle. Revolution was able to retain the most important title of the series though. Erika Powers won the Best Female Legs contest last year with her killer Quads. This year Rhonda literally jumped into the competion and made it into the finals with her presentation skills. It came down to Rhonda and Erika in the finals. Erika's legs were superior but Rhonda was able to sneak out the win (and the $50) with an impromptu cheerleading leg kick which wooed the judges and kept the title for Revolution.

Fall is close

Today was the first day I realized that fall is nearly here. There was a cool, moist breeze blowing from the north when I woke up and the sun had not yet risen when I started my commute. I love the fall. I like sleeping in, fixing a nice breakfast and not worrying about the heat when I don't hit the trail till noon. I love cool rainy evenings, weekend trips to Fruita and new adventures. This year it will be some cyclocross, 12 hours of Sundance and maybe 24hrs of Moab. Fall is good.

Solitude Finale

The grand finale of the Solitude Tuesday night series was last night. Where has the summer gone? It seems like just a few weeks ago the series started and I was in wonder at how the sport class had grown from an average of 7-8 riders last year to close to 30 this year. I decided to try some different things last night just to see how they went. I did a long easy warmup by climbing the road and riding the course down and I also took it a little easy from the start and gradually ramp up my intensity. I had some pedal issues at the start and along with my slow speed quickly found myself near the back of the 20+ rider field. Got around a few people on the climb but was still near the back. By the top of the climb I had caught up to Jim and Janelle but decided to chill behind them for a bit of recovery before I hit the road. Once I hit the road I felt better than I ever had at that point and turned on the burners blowing by Mark and about ten other riders. I picked up Ken and we took turns pulling across the top but I let him scoot by to kill the DH. I lost some time to Ken (who is an excellent DH'er) but caught him midway through the 2nd climb. I hung on his wheel thinking I could make the pass on the road but he must have held a bit in reserve as well because I couldn't get by before the 2nd DH. I finished a few ticks faster then last week but nothing spectacular. The main difference was I felt like I could easily have held the same pace of about a 23-24 minute lap time for another lap while normally I'm pretty tired by the finish. I held on to my 5th place overall in the series and was treated to $100 cash for my efforts. I wasn't the 5th fastest rider in my class but I was one of the most motivated and in a points series showing up is half the battle.

Rhonda ended a strong campaign with a 2nd place overall finish and collected $300. We decided to re-invest our winnings in cycling by buying a couple seven race packages for the cyclocross series this fall. CX looks like great fun and at the very least it will help me work on my top end performance and bike handling skills.

Just in time for CX

A smokin deal on some Sidi Dominator 5's. $135 at sierra trading post plus new customers get 10% off. They also have the Genius road shoe if that's how you roll.