Skinny #1 Racing

Check out the new jerseys that we got from Ironhorse. I got mine in the mail today. I think we're going to end up changing the graphics around and putting our sponsors on there. I like how it looks right now though. It looks like a downhill jersey in this picture, but in real life it's the perfect size for mountain bike racing. I hope we get some skinsuits, too, but I have a feeling that won't happen.

Well I've got to get going to the cycling cub meeting. The only reason I'm going is to see if we got the new bib shorts in yet, cause I want to get a few pairs of them. Believe it or not, the collegiate road season starts this weekend. I won't be able to start until I get back from spring break and have those big Arizona miles in.

I remember back in the day (a few weeks ago) when I used to be able to down a foot long Meatball Marinara, a bag of chips, a Powerade, and an Italian BMT from Subway. Today I ate everything, but only got about 3/4 of the way through the BMT. What a sissy I am. I must have eaten everything after a four hour ride. Today I only did 3.5 so I figure that's what's holding me back from eating everything.

Last night I watched Cradle to the Grave with Jet Li and DMX. It was actually a pretty good movie, I think just because of all Jet Li's sweet kung fu ninja action. Right now Armagedon is on. I remember that it's pretty good, so I figure I'll watch it while I'm doing my homework. Geoff Oglivie won the Accenture Match Play Championships. Talk about a darkhorse. I had my money on Phil Mickelson because he puts up like 7 birdies each round.

I'm gonna try to stay up and watch the Tour of California again tonight. Hopefully there will be a good move that gets away with some good riders. I wouldn't mind if Levi Leipheimer got away, because the light blue Gerolsteiner kits are really nice, and I'd rather see that on the podium than Floyd Landis. Did you see on the polar heart rate monitor thing last night where the guys resting heart rate was 55 and his anaerobic threshold was 160. That's the smallest range ever. Chris Horner's was 40 and 170. I think I'm probably like somewhere in the 50s to the high 170s. I like that little feature, it gives me a good way to compare myself to the pros.

I went for a good ride today. I rode past Masonville, up Stove Prarie, and then down Poudre Canyon. I had a headwind all the way down Poudre Canyon and I didn't have any wind practically going up Stove Prarie. Wierd how that works that the wind always shifts/starts up when you change directions. I have heard that it's always windy in the Poudre though, so that could explain how I encountered this strange phenomenon.

It's great being able to ride the road bike again, I forgot how much fun it is. Maybe it's because I've been watching the Tour Of California, but road racing now has this real appeal to me, almost like I would rather be doing that than racing mountain bikes. We'll see this year. I'll be racing a lot of road in the early season with CSU, and then I'll only have time for Working Man's Stage Race and The Longsjo when I'm home because I'll be racing mountain bikes every weekend. All I can think about when I ride is how sweet a set of Ritchey carbon tubulars would look on my road bike, or my IF cross bike that I will hopefully be getting this summer.

I got this good little scratch (it looks much sweeter in real life) when I was riding in the park today. I was riding around this tree that was kinda elevated on this hump, and I kinda fell into the tree and slid down it. At least I have a battle wound to show that it actually happened. Anyways, on my way to the park to mess around for a few hours I took this ONE trail, and it was so muddy that my rear wheel locked up and would not spin. Like seriously, my bike wouldn't move, I couldn't pedal it anymore. I ended up having to walk my bike for a few minutes, and that was no easy task. Once I got to the pavement, I shook it off enough so that I could ride it. At the park, I had to break through the ice on the lake so I could pseudo clean my bike so I could keep riding for a while. I ended up getting my bike rideable, and was still able to have a lot of fun in the park. Next week I'll know not to take that ONE trail, because nothing good will come of it.

Me, Jeremy (not my roommate, but the runner), Evan, and Daniel just got back from seeing Hoodwinked. It only cost us $3 each to get into a movie at 6:40 pm, that's the best deal ever. The movie was pretty funny, I especially liked the little chipmunk, he was absolutely hilarious. He spoke so fast and you could only make out a few words that he said. There's the one part where they're in a mining cart and the wolf asks him what kind of candles there are, and he says DeeNaMeTA, it must be Italian. It was a stick of dynamite. That was probably the funniest part in the whole movie. That and when they give the chipmunk coffee, they were both really funny parts.

I stayed up late last night to watch the Tour of California. It was well worth it. Mark McCormack was in a break, but it got caught before the finish. I really wish it would have stayed, because it would be great to see a guy like MM get a really good result in a race of that caliber. Colt's telling me that there's a big climb at the end of the stage tonight, so I'm definitely going to have to stay up to watch the finish. My money is on Chris Horner. Any guy who drops a woman to become a bike racer deserves to win races!

Would you look how low those shorts are. I do not understand how he wears them that low. Somebody has got to get to this kid. I'll let him know sometime that it doesn't make you cool to wear your pants low. Haha.
Oh yes, the Little Debbie's. As you can see, me, Nick, and Josiah made another run to Wal-Mart tonight. I just cannot resist their low prices, they're so good. I looked through the $4.88 DVD bin again and there was not a single title that I recognized. One of these days I will eventually find a DVD that I want, I know I will! I also broke down and bought some lemon juice to try to get the soap taste out of my water bottles. I bought two 4.5 oz bottles at only $0.74 each, what a bargain! I should have four bottles to ride with by the weekend. The only problem is that I forgot to buy Gatorade powder. Oh well, water will do for a while.
I already mentioned that Tiger Woods 2005 is now the new game on the floor. This right here is Cole playing it. He's still not as good as me, but he's getting there. I swear he played the game two days straight when he first got his hands on it!

My honors seminar got cancelled today, which meant I actually had time to ride on Wednesday. This is only my second time of the year riding on Wednesday. Usually I end up playing basketball, and I think today I would have ridden the trainer. I saw Evan when I was riding today, and somehow he had some crazy hand gesture going before I even saw him. I don't know how he knows I'm coming. He must have some crazy ESP. Looks like tomorrow I have to go to a 3 hour chem lab, and then I'll have time for my tempo ride in the afternoon. Ooooh, tempo ride, my favorite workout...

Apparently Evan did! (The picture would be better, but he took it with his cell phone, and I couldn't figure out how to turn it into a .jpg picture.) The song has taken over almost everyone's lives, it's soooo sweet.

In other news, I'm pretty tired from my ride today. 3 hours with a 45 minute zone 3 tempo effort. I rode up to Stove Prarie, I think I'm gonna ride all the way up it and down Rist Canyon on Sunday for my long ride. When I got back I was so cold and hungry that I ate the rest of my cowboy cookies. Right now I'm going for the Charleston Chews MINIS...they are soo good!

This picture right here verifies that there is indeed a guy named named Clifton that lives on the same floor that I do. We hardly ever see this kid, and when we do, he is practically running down the hallway. He is called "The Yeti" and I cannot emphasize how rare sitings are of this beast, so the fact that I caught him on camera is simply amazing. I have been talking about catching him in a good snapshot for a while, and I got my first opportunity the other day. I saw him walk, I mean speed walk, by my room and enter the bathroom. I immediately knew this would be my only chance, so I made my move. I prepared my digital camera and took post at my door. When he walked out of the bathroom I was there to finally catch his image and prove his existence. Of course, The Yeti knew what I was doing so I tried to play it cool and tell Eric (the person in the background) that I didn't get a good shot of him and would be forced to take another. The thing I find funniest about this photo is that you can see The Yeti is walking really fast, because the picture is so blurry! Maybe in the future I'll try to get a real shot, because this photo is somewhat sketchy as to prove his existence.

In other news, the Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 epidemic has struck the floor. Mikah and I were up both Friday and Saturday playing this game until 1 am against Nick and Harm. We got the better of them in our first match up Friday night, but lost two in row on Saturday. I would be practicing, but it seems as if Cole is hooked on the game. Every time I walk by his room he's playing it. I figured he'd have to be getting good by now so I challenged him today and pretty much rocked him. I'm going to need to get some more practice in if I want to beat the Harm and Nick duo. However, Mikah and I are the best par 3 players in the world. In our last game, the course had 4 par 3s, and I aced two of them. I don't know what it is, but I'm simply amazing on the par 3s.

Saturday and Sunday I was forced to ride the trainer in Evan's room. That may sound bad, but it really isn't when you get to have a fan with cold air blowing into your face while you're watching Damiano Cunego win the 2004 Giro. I would have to say the past few days have been some of my best trainer riding experiences. Of course, the old Tuesday and Thursday night trainer sessions with Coach Troy at Pedalsnpacks were pretty good times. Until next time...

Due to bad weather and too many classes, I had to cancel my ride yesterday and replace it with a hardcore snowball fight. The snow was a little too fluffy, so it took about a minute to get a good snowball that was worthy of throwing. We started at the Newsom front yard, but were forced to move because "quiet hours" were now starting. We ended up in the "horseshoe". To my credit, I got Taylor in the foot (he was barefoot) and Skye in the crotch. I still haven't figured out what gets you more credit, a head shot or a crotch shot. Jeremy took a snowball to the eye from Josiah and was forced to retire a little early. Looks like we'll be doing it again tonight. The snow is a little more sticky, so we should have a pretty good fight. I left my winter gloves at home so I was sporting the cold weather riding gloves.

Speedskating and Cross Country Skiing are on at 4:00 pm so I'm definitely going to have to watch that. I hope Apollo can redeam himself and not crash in the upcoming short track races. I watched the relays last night, and that was pretty insane. I really want to try speedskating, it looks like a lot of fun. I hear it's the best form of cross training for cycling, too. If anything, it's got to be better than snowball fights...

Remember how I was talking about how it was 57 degrees and sunny yesterday? Well that kinda changed. This is what I now get to look at from my room. Kinda crappy. It's been like this all day, and I think it's only about 20 degrees outside today. I hear it's supposed to be the same weather-wise tomorrow. I'm planning on playing some basketball tonight to get a good cross training workout in, and it looks like I may end up playing again tomorrow. Let's just hope that tomorrow is a little nicer and I can get out for a good ride.

Did you guys happen to see the GT ad in the newest VeloNews featuring T-O Double D. I absolutely love it. I hung it up on the bulletin board in my room yesterday. I also liked how it featured his bike, which is pretty sweet. It would be cool if GT made me a custom frame for cross, but looks like I'll have to settle for an IF.

Valentine's Day is probably the "holiday" that I care the least about. I'm pretty sure this "holiday" was designed only for the women, so that they could have something to get dissappointed about when they don't get anything. Oh well. On to other news...

Today was the nicest riding day of the year, with temperatures around 57 when I was out riding. I rode a little past Masonville today, with my first tempo effort of the year. Tempo efforts are my favorite, I don't know why, I just like them soo much. I had a headwind the whole way out, with a nice tailwind on the way back. There is gradual downhill that's so not-steep that it's almost flat, and I hate going down it. On the way back into town though, I was going about 26 mph up it, it was soo much fun. The road bike is nice, it was a lot of fun to get out on that bike again after a long time without it.

You mine as well call me Todd Wells. I've been eating my cowboy cookies like you wouldn't believe. I don't know if it's because they're homemade, or just that I have a gigantic bag in my closet, but I've been eating so many of them. Everyone on the hall is jealous of me, but their moms are only like an hour away so they should be able to get good homemade cookies whenever they want. I think it must just be that their mom's don't love them, so they don't end up with closets full of cookies like me.

Haha. I wonder what I would look like with a grill. Could you imagine a 6'4" scrawny white boy with red hair walking around with a grill? It would be the funniest thing ever. If I had ridiculous amounts of money I would get a grill like Paul Wall with my name written on it.

I got my care package today, which featured this beautiful road bike. It also included my kilt, cowboy cookies (oatmeal chocolate chip for those of you who aren't down with the lingo), road shoes, a new edition of my bible (VeloNews), clothes, and lots of other little stuff. I got the package in about 4 business days I think. That's pretty fast. My mom ended up shipping it through DHL, and that was our first experience with that company. I guess they get a good report from me. I won't hesitate to use them again.


Nobody's bid on my Trek again, which is kind of dissappointing. Hopefully there will be a mad dash on the final day when people bid like crazy and the price just gets sooo high. I don't know what I'm going to do with the money yet. My options are: 1) Tubeless disc wheelset for my Azure 2) IF cross frame 3) Ritchey carbon tubulars. All 3 options are great, and the cross frame would probably make the most sense, because mine is getting a little small. Plus, Evan told me he would buy my old frame off me, which would work well for me, because I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. What would be even nicer is if I could get all 3 things. The only downfall about the carbon wheels is that I've never owned a set of tubulars before so I would have to learn how to glue tires, and I'm sure it would be a major pain to change tires before a race, and all that good stuff. The clincher version of those same wheels is like 400 grams more though, so I don't want to go that route. I think it's really between the mountain bike wheels and the cross frame...

I just got done watching the 30 km pursuit. It was probably one of the best things to watch ever. Not only is it xc skiing, but they have to go from classical, change skis, and then into skate. It was really intense. You could see them taking gel packets in the feed zone, which I thought was pretty cool. And there were guys pulling and guys attacking. However, there weren't as many attacks as I figured there would be at the Olympics. I figured people would be going crazy trying to get away from the main field.

In other news, my Trek is up to $1,400 on ebay with 4 days to go. It would be really cool if it got up to around $2,000, but I may be thinking wishfully. I rode for the first time since Tuesday, and I'm still feeling a little stuffed up. It was really nice today though, 53 degrees.

Apparently my bike is in Loveland right now. So I should be getting it tomorrow. Maybe I'll get to ride it all this week. That would be wonderful.

If you feel like bidding on my Trek 9.8, I now have it up on Ebay. Do a search for 2005 Trek 9.8 and it'll be the only that one comes up. I started it at $1.00 last night and it's already up to $300.00 this morning. I hope it sells for quite a bit so I can have some extra money to buy a set of tubeless disc wheels for the Azure. Right now I've got some WTB hubs with Mavic X-317 rims and some DT spokes. They're a pretty nice wheelset, but I would rather have tubeless tires, because I think they help a lot. It's such an advantage to be able to run like 25-30 psi for those really muddy races (like Mt. Snow most likely). My only flat while racing came while using tube tires, and I had something like 40 psi in the front when it happened. That sucks, especially when I was right about to bridge up to the lead group...

We took a trip to Wal-Mart last night when we had nothing better to do. In other words, Josiah realized he would never be able to get my Air Make record in 1080 Snowboarding. Initially, I was going to just buy some candy because I was having a craving. However, when we walked by the snack isle that contained the Little Debbie's, I soon changed my mind. I ended up getting a box of Swiss Cake Rolls, Fudge Brownies, and Oatmeal Creme Pies for only $3.24. It was pretty much the best bargain in the store, with the exception of the $4.88 DVD's that they had for sale. We ended up skipping that rack because in the $6.50 DVD rack there wasn't a single title that we recognized. You have to move up to the $9.84 rack to get recognizable DVD's.

In other news, my road bike will be shipped out tomorrow and hopefully arrive early next week. I can't wait to get back on that bike. I haven't ridden it since August, right after I got back from the Brian Head Norba.

So I just booked my tickets to go down to Arizona and stay with my Aunt during Spring Break. I'll be there from Friday March 10 through Sunday March 19. I was checking out the weather down there and it's been in the 70s all week. I can hardly wait. She and her husband live in Fountain Hills, the same exact place as the NORBA last year. I think I'm gonna bring my road bike though instead of my mountain bike, even though it would be a blast to ride McDowell Mountain Park all day long. I'll probably change my training around a little bit so that that week will be really big, because I'll have nothing better to do than ride and sit in the pool all day. Did I mention that they practically live in a mansion. Their house is sooo nice. I haven't seen their in Lake Tahoe yet, but I'm sure that that one is beautiful, too. This will be a geat opportunity for me to work on my sweet tan lines because I've been riding fully covered up here in Colorado.

Let me know if you are interested. It's a 2005 Trek 9.8 21.5" complete bike. I raced on it for about half of the season last year. It's in really good condition. E-mail me at timmyh@simla.colostate.edu if you have any questions about it, or want to know all the components that it's equipped with.

So this week was probably the most fun I've had training in a while, and I only rode my bike 3 days. Tuesday, I rode for 3 hours. Wednesday, I got out of class late so went and played basketball with the guys for about 2 hours. Thursday, I went for another 3 hour ride. It was really cold and windy when I got out of class on Friday, so we all ended up playing basketball for 3 hours. Yesterday, I rode up Rist Canyon and down the Poudre for a good 4 hour ride. And today was the most impressive of them all, I went for a 2 hour run.

On my run today, I ran out to the Dixon, did the big loop around that, and then came back. Until I stopped running and did a 10 minute cool down/walk, I couldn't even tell that my legs were tired. Now (45 minutes later) they are feeling it a little bit. At least I have a good rest week to look forward to because I have a feeling I'm going to be hurting until at least Monday.

I should be getting my road bike and lots of goodies this week. I can't wait to start doing some tempo workouts on my road bike...

Sorry about the double post. The first time I tried, there was some type of error so I didn't think it worked. Apparently it did!

Of all the things I did over Christmas break, this is really the only thing I want to share with you guys. This is my line off the "trail" Waterfall at Stowe. You can see my tracks coming off the middle over the hanging icicles. I think the drop was about 15 feet. Of course, mine were the only tracks on it while I was up there...
My nice, orderly dorm room. I even make my bed every single day. I think I inherited that from my madre, you know how she is.
On the other side is Jerem'y half. WHOA! I can't believe I put up with this ungodly mess. The kid only does laundry when he goes home, and pretty much just throws his dirty clothes on the floor. I guess it's pretty cool if you're into that type of stuff.
Ahhhhh. The new Ironhorse Azure.
A close up for those of you without good vision. Just check out how sweet it is. PS that will be an old school XTR rear derailleur once I get home and start doing some mountain bike races.

Off all the things I did over Christmas vacation, there's really only one thing that I want to share with the people that are reading this, and that is my line down Waterfall. If you look closely, you can see my tracks going off the middle set of hanging icicles. I think it was about a 15 foot drop, but it was still pretty insane just because of the lack of snow and sheer sketchiness. I might also add that my tracks were the only ones on it at the time... My college dorm room, pretty nice and clean. Yes, I make my bed every morning for those of you who were wondering. I must have inherited that trait from my mom.
Jeremy's side of the room. Oh my God! I can't believe I actually live in this environment. He only does laundry when he goes home. Why? I have no idea. I guess that's just how he rolls.
The moment you've all been waiting for, a close up of my new Ironhorse Azure. Let me tell you, this is one sweet ride!
An all encompassing shot of the same bike. This just lets you put into perspective how big I actually am. Coop is the only other person on my hall that can actually ride it comfortably.

I thought to myself when I was riding yesterday, life isn't bad at all. This thought occured to me as I was doing a lap around the Dixon, with the wind at my back, absolutely flying on the new Ironhorse Azure. I think this thought occured to me, because at the time, there was no place else I'd rather be. I thought of Sager at the training camp in Fruita, and said, nah, Fort Collins is just as sweet. I thought of the people out partying, and said, nah, I'm not into that. I thought of my roommate playing World of Warcraft, and said, nah, that's too gay. So pretty much, I have the perfect life. Wake up, go to class, ride, go to bed. It really doesn't get much better than that. I guess I've never just fully appreciated the life that I live.