BTC 2010

Getting ready to register for the Bicycle Tour of Colorado. Marcie isn’t going to be able to ride it this year because of her knee, so I am on my own. She and the kids may be BTC groupies and follow the tour independently.

I was looking at the meal plan and made the mistake of getting the calculator out. Don’t get me wrong, the food was good, even great by cafeteria standards, but it works out to be more than $17 a meal. I know if I went to a restaurant and paid $17 for their food, I would feel ripped off.

I know I need to take into account the other options I would have. I am going to camp and most mornings I would not have access to a microwave, much less some place to cook and clean up. For the cost, I could eat out every meal, but some of the tour stops are pretty small and I don’t like the idea of relying on there being a restaurant every day. Bonking early in the morning because I couldn’t find anything to eat would be bad.

I’m Getting Old

I’ve tried to really ramp up my workouts the last month or so.  It’s going well, except I’m beginning to feel my age.  For the last month, I’ve been in more or less constant pain.  Not terrible,  more a slow to get up – hard to feel comfortable kind of pain. 

A normal person would take a couple aspirin, and call it good.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t work for me.  I am one of the 5% to 20% of asthmatics who also can’t take NSAIDs (Non Steroid Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (Aspirin – Ibuprofen – Aleve)).   An hour or so after I take one, I become a snot producing machine, can breath and my stomach starts to hurt.  I will literally go through a box of kleenex in a couple hours.  It ain’t pretty.  I can take acetaminophen (Tylenol), but it doesn’t reduce swelling which is really what I think I need most.

The other day I was trying to hunt down some Tylenol.  The office has a cabinet located on each floor stocked with medical supplies, but all they had were NSAID-based drugs – that’s not entirely true – I did find something, but I couldn’t bring myself to take something called PMF – Pre Menstrual Formula.

Moonlight Classic

I don’t consider cycling a religion, but it does carry with it its own holidays – New Year’s resolution, Spring training, Elephant Rock…  One of the more fun and unique “holidays” is the Moonlight Classic.  The MC is held each year around mid July or August and starts around 10:30 pm.  I think the first one I ever rode was in 1997.  For this year’s edition, they managed to arrange for a closed course – not auto traffic.

The route is pretty short, ten miles starting and ending in front of the state capitol.  This year, we let Jessica ride it on her own.   A choice I was questioning when we were lined up at the start with several thousand other cyclist.  I needn’t have worried, she did fine.  Becca got to ride on a trail-a-bike hitched to Marcie’s bike.

The beginning of the route turns up 17th st., past a number of bars.  I imagine it is kind of like the Tour de France - alcoholically uninhibited people on both sides of the road cheering you on.  Except of course in the Tour the riders in the peleton don’t generally head for the side walk to join the crowd for a drink.

After 17th st., we turned south up a gradual incline.  Jessica struggled some, but made it to the top by the botanic gardens without stopping.  She got lots of encouragement.  There were actually quite a few people along the way, people on the side of the road, and other riders encouraging her along. 

We peddled into the first rest stop at Cherry Creek and had the usual rest stop fare – power bars, oranges, water – they even had Oreos.

After the rest stop, we headed up Speer.   We were near where the course crossed Lincoln.  A car is coming down Lincoln.  He has the green light, but there is a cop in the intersection stopping traffic to let riders through.  This guy is so intent on these cyclists “in his way” all he can do is honk.  He wasn’t even trying to slow down.  He had to slam on his brakes and skid to a stop when the cop walked out in front of him.  He almost hit the cop.  The cop really didn’t do anything.  I was kind of surprised.

We turned off Speer, and then turned down 17th Street through the heart of downtown.  We had to circle the park in front of the capitol to go under the ‘Finish’ banner.   I saw a smile come over her face as she crossed the line.  I couldn’t tell if that was a smile of accomplishment, or a smile of relief that the ordeal was over.

We had breakfast, a so so breakfast burrito and headed back to the van.  1:30 am.  The girls were asleep soon afterward.

Tornado

After returning from the Elephant rock bike ride, I laid down for a nap.  About half an hour later, I was awoke by the sound of hail stones hitting the roof and windows. I looked out the window and there were hail stones the size of golf balls littering the lawn.  I went to the kitchen, Marcie is on the phone with her parents. andlooks outside and sees a funnel cloud in the sky to the East.  She grabs the kids, the kids grab the cats and theyall  head downstairs. I stayed and watched it for a while. It was hard to tell which direction it was going. It was definitely going South but I couldn’t tell if it was going East (away from us)  or West (toward us).  Evidentually it moved out of view behind the house behind us.  At that point, I headed downstairs also. Found out later, that the tornado went through the Southlands Mall about two miles to the East of us.  It damaged a JC Penneys and the Lowes.  Only one injury, a guy who was trying to take a picture from his roof.

Elephant Rock

We ended up not doing the 32 mile route as planned. When we left home in the morning a long line of dark clouds hung over the city. By the time wewere ready to start riding, the skies were overcast, and we didn’t have any rain gear for the kids, so instead we decided to try a couple loops on the seven mile family course. We made a quick stop at the rest room and were on our way. We were about a mile or two into the ride, when we got to the first turn. The ride offical directed the people with the white tags (7, 25 & 32) to the left, people with orange tags (65 & 100) to the right. Which was fine except the family riders needed to go to the right also. About the time the 25 & 32s started to head up thefirst climb out of town we realized we couldn’t be in the right place. We back-tracked to the first turn and were directed the correct way. The family ride was actually pretty difficult. I imagine would have been hard for anyone thinking they were just doing a quick family loop. We passed quite a few people walking their bikes up the main climb.

The problem with the loop was by the time we got to the course start again the girls were ready to call it quits.  Rather than push them, we headed back and had lunch.  BBQ chicken on a bun, pasta salad and a chocolate chip cookie.  We were home by 1:30.  I think that is the earilest  we have ever made it back from an Elephant Rock.

TdF Party

Every year, I try to have my friends over for a summer party of some sort.  Unfortunately, I seem to only manange to actually do it every 2 or 3 years.  So this year, I’ve decided to start a new tradition.  Since the Tour de France always ends on a Sunday, I am going to reserve that day for a Tour de France party.  The type of food served will be determined by the nationality of the GC winner.  If Alberto Contador  wins, we will have Spanish food (At the moment, I have no idea what the spanish would server at a BBQ).  If an American wins, its hot dogs and hamburgers and apple pie.  If an Italian wins, it’s pasta seasoned with a good healthy portion of EPO — I mean garlic.  Since there is a fairly challenging stage on the day before the finish, I probably won’t know what I am serving until that day before the party.

Remeber to set aside July 26, 2009.

Saturday Ride

Marcie and Jessica had a Brownie camp to go to this weekend, which left Becca and I to fend for ourselves.  Saturday we went for a 22 mile ride on Toll Creek Trail.  It was a nice outing.  We stopped at a playground and had lunch.  Discussed the advantages and disadvantages of trail-a-bikes and tandems with another cyclist who stopped for lunch.  It was perfect cycling weather going out (slightly downhill), but some pretty strong head winds with even a sprinkling of rain on the way back.

When the kids were a younger, we usually took them with us when we rode, either in our trailer or on their trail-a-bike.    This had the psychological advantage of giving you the feeling your performance had greatly improved when you were kidless.  The flip side of the coin is, when you ride most of the time by yourself, and only pull a kid occasionally, you really feel like you’re dragging.

Go Manchester United!

I got a bill yesterday from France.  Evidently my credit card was used to order a couple Manchester United items from an online store in France.  I think it is interesting that they didn’t print the shipping address on there.   Are they just trying to get me to pay the bill becuase the credit card company wouldn’t?  If they think it would be a dead give away to me if shipping address is significantly different than the billing address, why wasn’t it to them? 

Am I going to problems if I ever go to France?

Evidently, I’m Not As Funny With The Under Eight Crowd

My youngest daughter came to me yesterday with a band-aid on her finger. I asked her where she got that. She said she got a splinter at the store. I told her that she didn’t have to go to the store to get one, we have plenty of things here she could get one from here at home. I then asked her how much she paid for it. All I got was ‘the glare’.

The Tooth Fairly Should Publish Her Rates

Jessica went to the dentist the other day.  She evidently inherited the long roots of her father.  The dentist decided to pull a couple teeth that wouldn’t come out on their own.

The tooth fairy left her three dollars for each tooth.  Her friends evidently get five dollars a tooth.  She hasn’t asked, but how do you explain that? 

“I’m sorry, your teeth aren’t as good as your friends’”

“ Well honey, the recession is hitting everyone pretty hard, even the tooth fairy” 

“We use a discount tooth fairy – the Wal-Mart of tooth fairies -  she doesn’t pay as much per tooth, but we make up for it in the stock dividends she pays us each year.  And if you hear anything about sweatshops where underage tooth fairies sort teeth for 50 cents a day in third-world fairy countries, you just have to ignore that.”

It would be so much easier if we were all on the same page.