Busy Busy

First off, sorry it has been so long since my last post. I was out of town in Fruita again this last weekend with a Tim and my buddy Keith from Steamboat and then this week has been crazy busy with work staying late to help my boss put the budgeting package together and keep up on my other everyday duties.

This past weekend at Fruita was even better than the first time I was there which was hard to top! The weather was absolutely spectacular with temps in the 60s and nothing but sunshine for us to tear up the single track! I got to play guide since nobody else I was with had been there before. The first time I was there I got a bunch of maps and trail descriptions from my boss who goes out there every year for his birthday and committed everything to memory.

When Timmy and I got there at about 9:30 Friday night the moonlight was absolutely amazing! So bright you didn't even need a headlamp to walk around. I got everyone to agree to go out for a midnight ride down a trail named Kessell and it was a blast!

The next morning we woke up and rocked about 30 miles of trails that day. Everyone had a great time and there were no injuries. However, we had 6 FREAKIN FLAT TIRES! within an hour. Rob had a reasonable pinch flat from hitting a rock. Then Timmy got a flat from a cactus. We made it back to the camp site and had lunch and were getting ready to ride again when Scott and Keith picked up their bike they both had 2 FLATS A PIECE! Turned out that Keith and Scott had both run over the same freakin cactus and there were needles all over their tires! We got everyone all fixed up and headed out again.

Sunday morning we headed out again hitting about 25 miles of trails. I was able to ride with a guy named Greg from work as well. He is a middle aged guy who absolutely rips it! He stopped by our camp just as I was finishing lunch and I asked if anyone else wanted to head out with us. Timmy decided to head out with us as well while the others took a rest for a bit. Greg and I charged a run called Joe's Ridge which is an absolute riot! Up and down winding and haulin ASS! We flew down that Greg right behind me and Timmy a little ways back. We then took off down Kessell and decided to climb back up Kessell. Timmy tried to keep up but Greg and I were puttin a hurtin on the climb and on Timmy! I look forward to riding more with Greg around Boulder as well. He will definitely help my riding and I hope I continue to stay in shape like Greg!

So as I said earlier work has been pretty busy. I have stayed about 2 hours late each night and 3 hours tonight working on learning the budget process and all the inner workings of the excel sheets, pivot tables, and databases that form our budget roll up. I have a long way to go but I have learned a lot so far and I am enjoying learning the financial analyst role. Now it is onto the month end usual duties that will keep me busy for the rest of the week. Here are a few photos from this weekend in Fruita.

The group of fellers; Left to right , Timmy, Me, Rob, Scott, and Keith



Single track on Western Zippety



Ridgeline on Frontside



Me launchin off a rock jump after flying down the windy Joe's Ridge!

Lazy

... that is exactly what I was this weekend. It all started Friday night when I went out with some friends from work on Friday night. I was just going to go out for dinner and a beer with the crew since I had to drive down to Arvada to hang out with them. No gettin tipsy when you have to drive back to Boulder. However, it turned out that the crew I was with started gettin really tipsy so I ended up staying out with them shutting down the bar to drive them back to one of their apartments. I was actually the responsible one. I didn't mind and it was kind of nice not spending a bunch of money and still being entertained by them all. But not getting home till almost 3am made me pretty tired. So Saturday when I woke up all I felt like doing was sitting around and getting stuff done around the apartment. Which is exactly what I did along with getting a few things done for work to hopefully make my week a little easier.

Once again today it was more of the same. I did a major number on cleaning the apartment, cleaning my bike, and just kind of hanging out. The weather was pretty chilly as well and we got a few flurries here in Boulder. I do love the cold weather but looks like it is going to warm up again this week.

On another note Graham Knapp is crashing on our couch for possibly up to a month. His parents are looking into buying a house for him down in Denver and they have put an offer down that was accepted however, it still has to go through the inspection process. It will be good to have him down there so we can go to events downtown and have a place to crash. We are planning on having Thanksgiving down there if everything works out with the house so that would be awesome!

Alright I am kind of out of it and need to head to bed. Possibly heading back out to Fruita this weekend but with some fools this time. Tim and Graham will probably go and Keith Gnar is going to come down from Steamboat with a buddy of his. Should be a good time if it all works out but it could fall through we'll see. If so I am sure I will find something to get into. It's good to have a lazy weekend now and then but I think it's time to get back into the bike riding groove indoors or out.

Surprise Weekend!

I am finally sitting down to write about what I had been holding out about for my weekend plans. Over the weekend I made what was a surprise trip to some. I took off to Charlotte, NC to see all of my family and my baby niece Camden who was born last week... see previous post, and a couple of my other "family" members from Glacier and Steamboat. My trip was awesome! I totally surprised my sister Reagan who had no clue I was coming down. She kind of took a double take when she pulled up in the driveway at her house and I was standing there waiting to see her reaction!

Saturday when I got in I hung out with the family for a bit before I headed to downtown Charlotte to hang out with Kate and Jenny for the night. We sat around and drank for a little while at Kate's apartment talking and what not and then went to dinner. We ran into another guy we had worked with in Steamboat who was working in the kitchen of the restaurant we were at. The beauty of having been a seasonal worker is you never know who you are going to run into or where! Then we went back to Kate's apartment and hung out drinking and waiting for her roommate and co-workers to get back so we could head out for a night on the town. As always when the "family" gets together even if it doesn't have all members in attendance it is always a good time. We had a great night out on the town proceeding to get bombed! We all made it back to Kate's apartment successfully which is a huge accomplishment with my track record of going out in Charlotte from back in the days of my internship! HAHA I have had some interesting times in that city to say the least!

Sunday was a day with the immediate Fam! We hung out all day and my Dad cooked up a delicious feast on the grill. It was great to hang out with my nephew and niece and the rest of the family. That night we went and watched Matt (my brother in law) play hockey in his adult league. I'm not sure which was more fun; watching Matt play or watching Brayden (my nephew) run around with his stick and puck wacking at everything in site!

Monday was pretty mellow hanging out with the Family before my Dad, Leslie, and I all left for the airport. My Mom dropped us off and she headed back to Reagan's to hang out for the day before she left on Tuesday. My travels could have been a little better on the way back but oh well no worries talking about that because the weekend was a total blast and worth every minute. I wish I would have had longer. Glad I could surprise the hell out of you Reagan!

With all that said... as usual I was glad to be back out in CO. The fall weather has definitely rolled in and the high country is full of snow! I am excited for the upcoming snowboard season and each day takes me one day closer to strappin on the boots and board for my favorite season! Hope everyone else had a great weekend!

Ahhh the weekend...

The weekend has finally come. I got through a major part of the budget process today. I sat down with my boss in one of the conference rooms and we pounded out all of the budget sheets for each department and sent them out with appointments for me to meet with each dept head if they have any questions. When they all come back I will be rolling them all up into spreadsheets that will be presented to the execs and then sent off to DS our parent company for the first round of slaughtering haha. Then we get to do it all again. Anyway it was a big relief but next week brings on more of the same. However, I am going to forget about all of that for a few days because it is the weekend and I don't think about work on the weekends! HAHA!

So Timmy is going to go up to Arapahoe Basin tomorrow because snowboard season has begun! Yes that's right it was the first mountain to open in North America. There is only one run open and people are calling it the white ribbon of death because there only one strip of snow mostly man made on the mountain as the run and the rest is well... like a mountain that isn't covered. Rocks, trees, grass, and whatever else stickin and juttin out of the ground for you to slam into if you go off the run. Anyway it is going to be pretty lame with just one run... it would remind me of the old days at Swiss Ditch... which was actually fun but I think I have moved on from that and I can wait till Nov 9th when Keystone and Breckenridge open with at least a few more runs than that. But I will be there when those resorts open no matter what haha! With that said I am passing on the opportunity to go.

So what am I going to do with my weekend?... Well lets just say I think I have some good plans and I will let you all know about them tomorrow... I think I will just take off somewhere... that always seems to work out well for me!

What a beautiful day!

MY NIECE WAS BORN TODAY!! Reagan and beautiful Camden Victoria are both doing well and will hopefully be going home Friday.

Camden Victoria Stille!


If it wasn't for that news I think this would have been a pretty rough day. Things are starting to pile up at work with new responsibilities on top of normal responsibilities on top of adhoc responsibilities that for some reason have just seem to come out of no where. Looks like I am going to be learning how to tell people to go away I'm busy and prioritize.

I am excited about the new budget responsibilities which will teach me further how to pull specific data needed in pivot tables and learning further how to link and refresh data. I am a bit concerned about it though because I may not be able to learn it as fast as needed and won't be able to contribute as much as I want. But I guess all I can do is just charge it and get done what I can.

On a more positive note though I met with some sales reps from ADP our payroll provider yesterday and was able to exchange some valuable information with them and I might be able to present this information back to the Executives on how I think there are some changes that need to be made to make some of our processes more efficient so that I will be able to focus more on some of my new financial responsibilities. I was pretty stoked on the meeting because I felt like I actually knew what I was talking about!

Anyway not much else going on just waiting for the weekend. Who knows what kind of event I might get myself into. I am sure I will be going somewhere doing something exciting as always! :) I'll have updates later.

Oh WOW!

Two words... STELLAR! and RESPECT! Those two words describe my trip to Fruita, CO this weekend. I got in Friday night around midnight after trying to find a camp site up near where I would be riding the next day with no luck! So I hit the highway again down the road about 15 miles to the Rabbit Valley 2 miles from the Utah border. I took the Jetta aka the Red Sled aka the Ghetto Jetta where she really doesn't belong but once again she came out on top! I found a site and proceeded to pitch my tent in 25 mph winds... none the less interesting! Here is a picture from the next morning when it was pissin rain and still blowin like hell! Rocks holding the tent down.



So the only thing that got me out of my tent Saturday morning was knowing that I had a new french press that would make some warm delicious Jittery's Joe's Morning Ride Coffee! Once I had some Jo in me the weather didn't matter cause I knew I would be tearin up some sweet single track. I made the drive back to Fruita and threw on the bike clothes. It was a bit chilly that morning with the rain and wind so I threw on the tights under the shorts, threw on a jersey, long sleeve layer, and my rain jacket. I hit the trails starting out on Prime Cut which would take me up to Chutes and Ladders for my decent. Here are a couple shots of Chutes and Ladders.



The next shot below is me getting ready to blast through this super fast meadow.



Here is a picture of the tight single track meadow.



Once back down by the parking lot I stopped to refuel with PB & J Kate style with peanut butter stacked on both pieces of bread and then a load of jelly on one side put it together and you have instant fuel! The next loop was super fun! It was called Zippety Do Da! It completely lives up to the name. You follow a ridge the whole way up and down haulin absolute ass! I hit 30 plus going down in the picture below.



Here is a good shot of the ridge line you follow before the previous pic.



I stopped at the car again after this loop since everything ends up down at the car. It's nice cause you can drop layers or fuel up. Since the rain had subsided I took off my Jacket and headed up the road to Joe's Ridge. Another super fun ridge ride with some rock drops all completed successfully without crashing. Once I completed Joe's Ridge I rode back up to ride Kessell which is a super fast winding trail. I spotted a campsite and decided to haul ass down the car to try and get back before someone else got it. On the descent I really had the bike leaned over in a turn hit the front brake a little to hard to slow down then got in some loose stuff and lost it! I totally slammed my shoulder into the ground! The first wreck! I came out of it pretty good but the shoulder is pretty sore today hard to lift my left arm without a wince of pain first. Oh well the trail was sweet and worth going fast! I would do it again! Oh yeah and I didn't get the camp site. Some other guys got to it first. Oh well back out to Rabbit Valley again. On they way I stopped for what was the best pizza I have had in quite sometime. Homemade dough hand tossed with homemade marinara! Hot Tomato Cafe was the name of the place in Fruita and I killed a whole 14 inch pie!

Sunday morning I awoke to sunny skies ate some oatmeal and had my coffee and headed to some trails along the Colorado River.



These trails were amazing but demanded respect as I soon found out. I bailed over the handle bars probably 4 times bike slamming, tipped over trying to climb tricky sections about 3-4 times, and caught myself about 2 inches before breaking my cheek bone when a rock wrenched my handle bars and made me slide out. Even beyond all those there were sections where I knew better and decided to walk them! I definitely walked away better than what I should have. Ended the weekend riding some 55-60 miles with a sore shoulder, jammed finger, scrapped and bruised calves, and my achilles on my left leg flared up again from my ride with AJ. Guess I should let it heal longer! The price you pay when your havin fun! Here is a section of pics from Sunday.

Almost planted my face before bailing coming down through the rocks down to Horsethief Loop!



Horsethief Loop sooo much fun!



Did all of the trails below!



Mack's Ridge Skirts the hole ridge line shown before descending.



All in all my trip to Fruita was PHENOMENAL! I will definitely be going back! Hopefully next time Timmy can go with and I will have some action shots hittin rock drops and flying through single track! Hope everyone had a great weekend. Back to the grind!

No even going to try...

So I am not even going to continue with my blog about the trip for one reason and one reason only... AJ wrote a great journal about our time together and I think you all should read that instead. Go to http://www.whyiride.org and go to the journal tab and read stage 6. I don't believe he has posted it on the site yet but he did send the journal out so subscribe to his news letter and you might get it. If not check back and he will get it posted. He also has all of the pictures from my segment of the trip uploaded and they are pretty fantastic! Check it out seriously!

Tomorrow is Friday and I am more than stoked about it. Reason being... I am going to head out to Fruita, CO a mountain biking single track mecca. Nothing but super fast 12-24in wide trails for bikers to blow through with beautiful scenery. I have not ridden there before but I have been through the area and heard a ton about it. The weather doesn't look like it is going to be to helpful calling for 50% chance of rain on Saturday and 40% on Sunday but I am going to go check it out and hopefully get some good rides in. I want to get about 50 miles in each day but I am not thinking that is going to happen especially if the weather doesn't participate. I don't think I will mind if I end up getting rained on since I have had plenty of that recently but it would be nice if it held out for me. Anyway, I will be back Sunday night hopefully with some good tails and pictures to post.

All for now I hope everyone has a great weekend! Reagan keep my niece in until I get back! HAHA! I might have service out there but who knows. I don't want to miss your call! Until Sunday...