Mission Accomplished

Rob and I successfully wore the crap out of each other today. I met Rob down at White Ranch this morning for what is one of the most brutal climbs around due to the loose rock and steep grades. Not to mention Rob has joined the single speed mecca that has been established in recent years. He rides his mountain bike with 1 gear. Insane. I rode a bit heavier gear than what I normally would to try and feel some of his pain as well but that kid is a beast. I am really wanting my lungs and leg power back but I know it will take a bit. I just get frustrated when I can't ride to my capabilities.

Once we hit the downhill it was game on though. This trail has some absolutely nasty water bars on the trail. These are wood timbers that angle the water off the trail to prevent erosion. However it is super nasty to have them in the corners and makes you have to be super focused and on top of your bike handling when flying into them at high speed. I have had my fair share of ass over tea kettles on this freakin trail... which I guess is what brings me back to it :)... gotta have a challenge! They are even more of a challenge to climb up on the uphills. Anywho the downhill we took is called Long Horn and there are some sections that are straight up nasty with rocks. They are steep, technical, tight, and most likely have another obstacle after you make it through the rocks. We passed a guy who was climbing up on a single speed rigid 29er mountain bike and wasn't even breathing hard. This trails is hard to go down let alone freakin climb up. I aspire to be that guy. Just to explain his bike, it doesn't have any suspension just 29 inch wheels vs. 26 inch standard wheels which allow it to climb better, roll over things better, and the rigid frame allows for better power transfer from the pedals.

Here are some pictures from the ride. We didn't get any pictures of the nasty rocky sections because you have to hold your speed through them and Rob and I usually ride pretty close together and have to much fun so we don't stop very often haha... sorry...

Rob coming through a steep section... pictures just don't do justice sometimes


Rob flying down the steps... watch the dust fly.. love having this guy on the Front Range! (He just moved down from Steamboat)


Rob then me flying down over a drop with a great view of the snowless sunny November Front Range... too hazy in the picture but a good view of the city of Denver was in the distance..

Updates

So I went for my ride today. Climbed Look Out Mountain down in Golden. Mother this is the road we drove up to go to Buffalo Bill's Grave. We saw the mountain bike trail and I said I should ride it. I finally got around to it. After being sick... yeah it whooped my ass. There are some super steep climbs and switch backs at the bottom that sucked the life out of me. Will be a good training ride after work next spring. It was a fun trail and good to ride something new.

Went out to dinner with my buddy Rob, his girlfriend, and her sister tonight. Rob just moved down from Steamboat and I am stoked to have him around here. It was a good time and we will be heading out to ride tomorrow down at White Ranch near Golden. Greg and Jon might join us as well but I haven't heard for sure.

So what this post is really about. I just added Joel and Neil Kauffman's blog as a link on this page to the right. Some absolutely breath taking pictures of rock and ice climbing. Just have a look through and you will see some amazing things. These guys have turned into amazing climbers. I think they might be headed down to South America. Not sure though. Just have to keep checking back as they have not posted in a month.

Also I have added Graham Knapp's Blog. Graham is heading to India. He is going there for the first month with his friend Ryan who I had the pleasure to meet last year and then he is going to continue working there. If you read his first post you will find out more about Ryan and why she is going back and what Graham will be doing while he is there. Enjoy!

B

Back in the saddle

Tomorrow I plan to get back on the bike. I am starting to feel much better from the sickness that I have had for the last week. I feel bad for my body because I will probably over do it after not being on the bike for over a week. Not to mention I have some serious tension built up and I need to release it.

I guess I really don't have to much else to say. Hope everyone has a great weekend. Perhaps something interesting will come up to write about this weekend.

Sickness is a downer

Yeah I definitely picked up a full on cold as much as I didn't want to tell myself that is what was happening. Friday at work I felt crummy. Saturday I tried to ride it out of myself and today I finally listened to by body and didn't do anything except for clean up around the apartment and get groceries. I think my body appreciated it though I am still congested and have some drainage with a slight cough at the same time.

Anywho, the ride on Saturday was super fun. We pretty much took it really easy because the trail was super technical and we had some riders with us who were a little sketched out in the nasty rocky sections (and there were quite a few of them). Which was actually good because I didn't have the legs or the lungs to go constantly. Soooo we turned it into a picture day which was a great idea since I haven't done that much recently since we have just been flying around the trails.

Back to work tomorrow with still a busy week however I think the hours should be some what back to normal even though things will still be lively our French Internal Auditors here for the rest of the week and catch up on neglected duties along with further Concur Implementation.

Here are some pictures that most of you who read this have probably already seen either from Facebook or through the link I sent you.

The dude who will hopefully be my partner in the BC Bike Race Greg tearing through the nasty slanted jolting rocks.


The Group


Steep? Nut uh!

Done

I awoke to Boulder's first snow of the year this morning! Looks like that was about it though. Supposed to warm up again this weekend and into the first part of the week next week. Winter is coming though.

Patrick and I finally finished up and published the budget today. We decided to stay pretty late last night to try and get most of it done because we figured there would probably be something that didn't turn out right once we got the budget into Maggie aka Magnitude our new consolidation software. Boy were we right. We found out that our database wasn't properly distributing our facilities allocations like our accounting softwawre we have set up since moving to Maggie. We decided to call it quits last night around 10:30pm and wait till the morning to finish everything up. I came home and worked for another 2 hours trying to get our revenue all set up and worked out amongst intercompany and third party's. I was successful and headed to bed around 12:30am.

I was feeling a bit under the weather yesterday with a sore throat and knew I probably wasn't going to feel so well today. I ended up drinking a ton of green tea and honey this morning at work and started to feel better but things seem to be moving to my sinuses now.

Anywho I screwed around with the expense input into Maggie today and struggled for a while trying to match up all the intercompany and third party expenses but by 2pm I was successful with NO ERRORS! Only bad thing was that I now had to input the changes to the allocations that Patrick had been working on. However, I now knew how to find the errors and after a bit fiddling by just after 5pm the 2009 Budget was ready to published! I peaced out immediately. It was good to get home tonight and be able to clean up the kitchen and get the bike ready for my ride tomorrow morning with Greg, possibly his wife, John, and his friend.

Hopefully a good ride in the chilly clear mountain morning air will help clear out this nastiness that is hanging in my body. It hasn't been too bad and hopefully I can work it out without it getting to bad. Off to bed for this guy. It should be a nice peaceful weekend around here.

Challenge to be set

The last two weeks have been some what of a whirl wind at work. Patrick and I have been going hard on new consolidation software as well as working on many iterations of the 2009 Budget. I have definitely put in some hours over the last two weeks and the days seem to keep getting longer not shorter but I won't complain too much because we are getting somewhere with it all and I have been learning a lot. We should be wrapping the budget up hopefully tomorrow night and a bit into Friday if some things don't flow right into the new consolidation package on the first try.

In family news Reagan, Matt, Brayden, and Camden came out to visit for a long weekend last weekend. We had a good time hanging out though the weather wasn't perfect with a lot of wind. We ate well and spent quality time together and that is all that matters.

In personal news it sounds like Greg might come into the office tomorrow and we could be signing up for the BC Bike Race! He told me he is down to do it we just have to sign up and hopefully there is still a spot open. I purchased a new mountain bike from a guy at the bike shop I always go to. It was a steal and the fact that Robert my buddy at work will likely buy my old mountain bike makes it even more of a steal (though I will miss it with all the work I put into it this summer and simply the sentimental value). I put some good miles on the new bike last weekend and I super pleased with it. I kept the wheels off my old bike which were the big investment this year and I love them! I also sent Greg an email today about another race that is starting this week. It is called the La Ruta and it is in Costa Rica. Supposedly it is one of the hardest mountain bike races out there. It is 4 days 235 miles and 45,000 ft of vertical gain. The race goes from coast to coast through some miserable but also amazing terrain. We will see how the BC Race goes and this could be another event sometime down the road I might find myself getting into. But first things first. I will be sure to let you all know when we are officially signed up for the BC Race and it is game on.

I am starting to feel a bit of an itch for snowboarding but the weather has still been pretty nice down here on the Front Range (though I have only seen about 25 minutes of day light each day) so I am not pushing getting up into the mountains just yet. Sounds like Greg, John, a lady friend of John's, and I are going to do some mountain biking on Saturday down towards Morrison so that should be a good time. I am really looking forward to this weekend and finally having the first round of the budget done.

All for now. Hope everyone is well.