Merry Christmas
I haven't posted for a while, been too busy with work and the holiday festivities. Zoe says Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Hopefully I'll have time to post more soon.

Mmmmm.....Smoggy
This photo was shot from my hotel room in Century City, looking towards downtown L.A. Not only can you not see downtown (which is about 15 miles away) but you can barely see the office buildings in the background that are about 3 miles away. And this is at 8:30 in the morning. The air smells like a wet ashtray, especially the closer you get to LAX.

Traffic. Holy crap does traffic suck. There was an 85 year old woman in a wheelchair wearing an oxygen mask going faster than my cab. Santa Monica to Beverly Hills/Century City is only about 15 miles. I spent one and a half hours in a cab listening to the soft jazz CD my unintelligible driver was playing. I believe this was one of Dante's cirlces of hell.

On the plus side, great weather (although everyone was complaining about how cold it was at 70 degrees), great sushi in Santa Monica and VIP treatment at the hotel and Fox Studio lot. Rob "Meathead" Reiner and creator of Family Guy, Seth McFarland, chatted with us. Cheech Marin was on my flight home to Minneapolis. No sign of Chong.

Rock Art
Centuries old Anasazi petroglyphs on Poison Spider Mesa, Moab, Utah.

Moab Takes It's Toll on Everyone
After 21 hours in the car, desert sun, being sandblasted by the wind, and having constant attention from anyone near our camp, Zoe gets some well-deserved shuteye. She's an awesome travel dog. The only time she even made a peep on the entire drive was on the rollercoaster drive out of Moab along the Colorado River.

24 Hours of Moab Summary
First of all let me just say that this was the hardest race I've ever done. The driving alone was epic, with almost 3,000 miles covered in a few days time. Thanks to Jen for keeping me awake and to Zoe for being the best travel dog ever.

With the Subaru locked and loaded, we left the Twin Cities on Thursday morning for the slog to Denver. We left Denver Friday morning and arrived in Moab with enough time to set up camp and do a team pre-ride on the course. Having been sick and off the bike for 7 days, the pre-ride nearly did me in. The course is a sampler platter of everything Moab has to offer: slickrock, ledges, sand, jeep roads and brutal sun (even in October).

Saturday morning arrived and after the race meeting we made our way to the start. Richard had the "honor" of going first since he was team captain, which meant he did the Le Mans start. I was last in the rotation, so I had a few hours to wait before my lap. I really wanted to get that first one out of the way so I could get a gauge on how I was doing. After fueling up and chugging much Accelerade and water, it was my turn to ride. I got stuck behind a few riders on the sandy singletrack, but dropped most of them on the first technical climb. I was feeling much stronger than on the pre-ride and cleaned about 90% of the course, walking "Nose Dive" and the super steep sandy climb as I would do for the entire race. I never saw anyone ride Nose Dive, but saw one guy almost punch his ticket on the EMS helicopter trying to show off before he thought better of it at the very last second. I finished my first lap with a respectable 1:20 something time.

Lap 2 was my first night lap. As soon as I hit the singletrack I knew that my light was way too weak for this course. I was running a helmet mount only, and all I could see was dust between my eyes and the handlebars. I was pretty much riding blind, and the weight of my light kept shifting my helmet around, causing endless aggravation. My lack of vision cost me in the technical sections as I couldn't get into a rhythm and and to repeatedly dismount and carry my bike around sections I could easily ride in the day. When I finally hit the jeep road I opened it up. I still couldn't see anything and occasionally I'd nail some rocks at about 35 miles an hour, but the bike sucked it up fine. I was just about at the end of the last climb when my battery went dead. I struggled up the last 3/4 mile rock and sand section, unable to find a line in the dark. A woman I had just passed a couple of minutes earlier now passed me as we approached the descent. I grabbed her wheel and poached her light the last few miles in. She was awesome, absolutely drilling it the whole way. Mindi from Team Sleeping Beauties I owe you a beer, you're an absolute rock star. This bit of good fortune turned a potentially disastrous lap into a minor miracle time of 1:48.

Lap 3 was another night lap. Needless to say I had zero confidence in my lights at this point. I borrowed a handlebar light from Daren who had finished his night riding duties. It wasn't fully charged but I was hoping it would get me through the technical stuff before I'd have to switch to my headlamp. It almost made it. I was at the bottom of a rocky descent went it went very, very black. It was Zen riding at its best as I let gravity and momentum take over and when I rolled to a stop in the sand I quickly switched on my headlamp. I was starting to bonk so I sucked down some Gu and some Accelerade. Riding with my headlamp was pretty sketchy again, since all I could see was dust. My lighting cost me at least 40 minutes during the night. Very disappointing. Next year it's all about the H.I.D.

I tried to get some sleep before my next lap but with sunrise and the return of the race announcers on the PA, that wasn't happening. I waited at the exchange tent for Grayson to roll in. We were camping with another team from Utah, friends and relatives of Richard on our team. Going into the final lap we were about dead even. When Grayson came in and I went out for my final lap, I thought I was out in front of Max from the other team. I rode hard, but within myself, thinking that as long as I kept moving and he didn't pass me we were good. Well, I had a good lap considering I got zero sleep and the sun was now starting to cook. I was killing all the technical sections and feeling stronger as the miles went on. At the top of the last climb (scene of my Lap 2 blackout) I was about to pass a rider and give him my usual "Nice job dude, keep going" spiel, only to turn and hear, "Oh no, it's you!" It was Max. It turns out he had about a 5 minute head start on me but I had reeled him in. Then he says, "You realize that you have to beat me by ANOTHER 5 minutes since Richard lost the baton, right?". I forgot that on his last lap Richard somehow lost the little wooden baton that we exchange at the start/finish line, so we were penalized 5 minutes. At that point I didn't care. I threw it in the big ring and gunned it, Hollywood crit style all the way to the finish. I put 28 seconds on Max between there and the finish, and made up 5-1/2 minutes on him on that last lap. At least I finished on a good note. We didn't beat Synagogue of the Holy Mountain Bike in the standings, but we all know who won.

Overall, I was very disappointed with my night laps. I almost hurled my battery and light off Dead Horse Point, but thought better of it (mostly for environmental reasons). With a better setup I could have saved our team a good chunk of time and I'm sure we would have been Top 30 or better. Ended up 34th out of 105. Not bad for a bunch of flatlanders (and one mountain goat from Colorado). Sounds like it's on again for next year. Big Ups to Richard, Daren and Grayson for one hell of a good time. Next year, Top 25 for sure. And Di, there is no way that 24 Hours of Afton is harder than 24 Hours of Moab.

Photo courtesy of Richard Bennett

24 Hours of Moab
Glad to be done with the first 4+ miles of technical climbing and sandy slogs. Flying down the jeep road towards Prostitute Butte.
Photo courtesy of Action Shots, Moab, UT.

Corona Arch
Another view of Corona Arch, in artsy fartsy sepia tone.
I have a degree in artsy fartsy you know...

GrannyTown, USA
Click the image for a panoramic view of the 24 Hours of Moab base camp and Behind the Rocks race course. I didn't use a tripod, so it's not a professional as it could be, but it still works.

Corona Arch, Moab
Had just enough time and energy the day after the race to do Corona Arch. Didn't go past the second fixed cable since we had Zoe with, but got a pretty good view anyway. Thanks to the guy from Seattle for taking our photo.

24 Hours of Moab
Less than a week away from the insanity. Follow our suffering in real-time online at www.grannygear.com. Look for Team RCF/Birchwood (I think you can also look for team # 210).

14.91 miles per lap
7.85 miles of climbing per lap
1,360 feet of climbing per lap
4-5 laps per rider (hopefully)

Full race report and photos next week.

Done
I put the last pieces of cedar trim on last weekend, so the only thing left are steps. One running the entire length of the deck (far left of photo), one 6 foot section near the garage and a 4 foot section by the edge of the house. Zoe really enjoys jumping on and off the deck, as well as lounging in the sun.

Next up: about 300 square feet of white gravel, some boulders and some fieldstone for the Japanese garden. Hopefully all before the ground is frozen solid and covered with snow.

Almost There
All the decking is in place, just needs to be fastened. The boards have been trimmed to the edge (after this photo was taken) and are ready for the cedar trim. All that's left is deciding where to put some steps, a final inspection and some serious bbq.

Ginormous. If you need a location for your family reunion, convention or major league sporting event, our deck should provide plenty of room. Now taking reservations...

Finally, some progress. The footings are all done and we've got all of the posts in. The section attached to the house is coming along. The ledger and joist hangers are in. Now we just need to square it all up and frame it in.

A look at the lovely, bombproof slab of concrete that we tried to take out. It was over 14" thick in some spots. A typical highway is half that thick. I voted for dynamite, but settled for building over the top of it.

Deck
8 footings down, 5 to go. Now that it hasn't been in the 90's everyday we've been making some progress. I'm hoping to have the footings done in the next few days and start on the posts and beams this weekend. Amazingly, we only have pawprints on one of the footings.

End of Season
The end of a long race season is finally within sight. No more road races or crits and only a handful of mtb races left. Skipping the 24 Hours of Afton this year and focusing on the big one: 24 Hours of Moab in October. Time for some long hours on the mountain bike and some night rides. (photo courtesy of SkinnySki.com)

Gunflint Trail
It seems once again we have averted disaster on the Gunflint Trail/BWCA. 6 years ago we were camping up here only days before "The Blowdown" flat-line windstorm that leveled huge swaths of the wilderness. This year we avoided a 1,000 acre forest fire by less than a week. I claim no responsiblity for either event.

MOOSE!
After visiting the North Shore for about 10 years, we finally saw a moose. Apparently moose keep up to date on the latest trends in American culture, as this one stayed in exactly the same spot for several hours doing nothing but eating.