Fruita Bound

I must say the weekend can't come fast enough! OK OK I know I almost always say that but this weekend is the first bike trip of the year! I haven't had my mountain bike for two weeks and the weather has been beautiful and it is driving me crazy. I have been on the road bike the last 4 days for over 100 miles and Saturday and Sunday combined for 70 of those miles. My legs are considerably fatigued and it feels good to have some soreness in them cause that means I am coming back!

Just a reminder of what Fruita is all about!


Greg (the old man HA!) and I will be heading out to Fruita to enjoy 60-70 degree weather in the Bookcliffs on the western slope just east of the Utah border. Tim can't go because he is going on a spring break rafting trip though he really wants to since he finally got another mountain bike. Rob can't go because his Dad is coming into town and they are putting in final preparations for the Boston Marathon which Rob and his Dad will be running in April. Jon can't go because he has to work to pay the bills as he has taken much of this week off with a friend in town. I am not sure if any of Greg's other buddies are going to join us. I guess we'll find out tomorrow when a group of us meet up at Boulder Beer for some drinks after work.

When I was in the shop today finding out when I will be getting my bike back for like the 3rd time (yes I am persistent when it comes workin with the guys at the Trek Store) Joey made a call while I was there to Fox and they said I was covered under full warranty which means either they put all new internals in the shock or I am getting a whole NEW Shock! AND it will be there tomorrow! Either way it is like a new shock and I am stoked! While Joey was making the call I was talking tires with Matt for my up coming races in may. We talked over a few I might want to use and he ended up tossin me a barely used pretty much new tire to try out! $50 bucks saved! That's what I'm talkin about! So I am going to throw that on for this weekend and see how I like it. While I was paying for some other odds and ends I needed for this weekend like tubes (incase I blow my tubeless off the rim like last time I was in Fruita), quick links (in case a chain snaps) and some more Stan's Sealant (for running tubeless tires) Matt told me how the store was putting together a little store team for some races. They are keeping it pretty small just some of the mechanics and friends but he said he would see if I could be a part of it if I was interested. I said heck yeah if they don't mind havin a straggler on the team. He said it was pretty much for fun Joey would prolly have a tent sent up drinkin beer and fixin our bikes if we needed it. He said they have put together a pretty sweet cycling kit (jersey, shorts, socks) and he would see if he couldn't get me one. He said you just have to commit to like 5-6 races and I already have 3 planned on the calendar and 2 I am registered for! So hell why not right?!?!

After all I would love to ride around and represent those guys! It's the least I could do since they have always taken care of me with smiling faces! Although they don't really have a choice since I am pretty much in there what seems like at least once a week. If they are working on my bike I am pretty much there everyday seeing how things are going trying to pick up on this I can do myself. Although since I am a preferred customer my stuff always goes to the front of the line when it comes to maintenance along with about 25 other people... they know how to run a business!

Anywho three more days of work to get through and then it's out to the smooth packed single track of Fruita!

Western Slope Desert Splender!

Spring Race Schedule is Set

So a little update on the happenings of recent. I pulled the trigger on a race after hearing about not getting into the Leadville 100. I will be doing the Gunnison Growler again Memorial Day weekend and my buddy Greg will for sure be doing it with me and his wife might do the half Growler. Our friend Jon will probably be doing the race with us as well. He will probably put us both to shame as he has been doing races for a few years and is a phenomenal rider.

Today I also finally committed to doing the 12 Hours of Mesa Verde May 9th. I want to do well in the race however I will be doing it more as a training race for the Gunnison Growler which will be two weeks later. The 12 hours of Mesa Verde will be down in Cortez, CO which is 40 minutes west of Durango and right outside of Mesa Verde National Park. I have wanted to visit that area for quite sometime and this is a great opportunity to do it. I have taken Friday off before the race so I can perhaps take a peak into the National Park as well as ride the course and see what it is all about the day before the race. The objective of the 12/24 hour races is to ride as many laps as you can on the usually 11-13 mile course in the time alloted. It should be a great time.

Until then I will be trying to get on the bike more and more. I also got my plane ticket for Lester and Ryan's wedding in Ft. Myers, FL at the end of April. I am having flash backs of Florida last year which was two weeks before the Breckenridge 100. HAHA!

Alright all for now. See the Fam in Chicago in a week for the Bachelor and Bachelorette parties!

Twitter

Yes I have joined yet another electronic craze. I now have a twitter account which lets you know what I am doing at all times... well whenever I update it. You don't need an account to see what I am doing. Here is the link and you can go to it whenever you want. https://twitter.com/BrandonNewcomer Sorry no blog post. Nothing exciting to write about. Been a slow winter, not really much worthy to type about. Hopefully smaller updates on twitter will lead to bigger stories to write about.

Quick tid bits. Bobby and Jess are engaged! Jenny is coming to Steamboat this weekend and will head up there for a couple days of fun. Went down to Denver over the weekend and went to the Galactic, JJ Grey, and Mofro concert. Was a good time with Rob and Megan. Went for a muddy freakin ride with Rob today. Both decided we should not have been on one part of the trail. He has a single speed and had to hike some of it. I dug through the climb and my chain, gears and bike were literally coated with thick mud and my gears weren't working right. We nursed the bikes home squeaking the whole way.

Back to work in the morning. I should been sleeping. Good night.

Holidays are over

It's been a while since I have posted as many of you have probably noticed. Glad the Holidays are over is all I have to say. I will start with the day after my last post.

The day after Christmas I headed up to Vail to meet up with Jaime, her husband, and her husbands sister. We were delightfully greeted with about 6-8 inches of new snow which made the conditions fantastic. We skied pretty hard all morning and headed in for lunch. After lunch the weather took a bit of a drastic change as the winds picked up and the clouds moved in which made the visibility in the back bowls next to nothing. We had the complete vertigo feeling going on and you couldn't tell where the ground was. You lose all of your senses and it is a pretty wild feeling. Jaime and I actually ended up above a cliff and couldn't tell how far down it was to the landing. We worked our way through it and when we looked back up at the cliff it would have been about a 15-20 ft drop which would have been interesting not being able to tell where the ground was. We took a few more runs and then it was time to head home. All in all a good day.

After a pretty lazy weekend and one day of work I flew out to Detroit for Laine and Caseys' wedding. Justin and Erika picked me up from the airport and we headed to the Hotel where the wedding would be and where everyone was staying. When we arrived we went and met up with all of the family members who were already there including one of my favorite parents Mike Gordon. He was excited to see me as well and I had a lot of fun with him over the couple of days. Some other fellow Eddies who were there included Kyle Bartosiak, Risa Zander, and Jason Ball. We all had a great time and rang in the New Year during the reception. During some of the reminiscing Mike brought up a point that he remember most about me in High School. It was the day we graduated when he was handing out our diplomas. He shook everyone's hand as usual but when I came up I told him to come in for the "real thing" and gave him a big hug. He said I choked him up with that which was pretty funny! He's a good dude! It was good to see everyone and a great trip over all. I spent the whole flight and the next day sleeping and recovering from the nights festivities.

The day after I got back I headed out on a muddy bike ride with my buddy Rob. The weather was nice and it felt great but a bit awkward to get back on the bike. Most of the trail was pretty dry but there were some muddy spots and eventually on the north facing slopes it go to be a bit much in the corners and we decided to turn it around.

Over the next several days I actually got on the trainer which made me feel a lot better. It's amazing what the bike can do for you. Even though it is sheer torture to sit on the trainer inside I just put a movie on and make the best of it.

This week was a busy full week of work. We are currently into our year end reporting with deadlines next week. Other than work we had an eventful week here in Boulder and the winds were absolutely crazy. There were gusts of 100mph recorded in Boulder which lead to power lines and polls getting knocked down which eventually sparked several wild fires. One of the fires burnt over 1,100 acres, 2 houses, and 3 out structures including a barn. Thousands of animals were evacuated as there were lots of ranches around the fire area. The fire was in North Boulder just beyond residential areas many of which had to be evacuated. I first noticed the fire from work out in Broomfield. We had a good view of the fire making its way up the mountains. When I got home I could walk out of my apartment look to the North and see the fire raging furiously. We had sustained winds of 40-60 mph hour which just fueled the fire like crazy. Below is a picture of just how close it got to the Dakota Ridge subdivision. The fire fighters did an absolutely stellar job of saving structures and peoples lives. Kudos to them.



Today I am going to get on the mountain bike down by Red Rocks with a buddy that lives down that way. I told myself if the mountains don't get more than 6 inches over night I wouldn't make the trip up. Vail and Beaver Creek got 8-9in but I didn't feel like driving out that far at 5:30am when I checked the snow reports. I am going to head up to Copper Mountain Tuesday night to stay with Rob Habicht and his friends to ski Wednesday and then we are planning to go to Steamboat next weekend so I am not to worried about heading up this weekend unless a storm moves in over night.

All for now.

Seasons Greetings from Boulder

Yesterday was a good day... today was a good day... and tomorrow looks to be another good day.

Yesterday I couldn't help myself and had to take one extra day off work for this long Christmas weekend. You see the mountains had got dumped on Monday night and when I checked the snow report at work I was extremely frustrated I was sitting in an office. Therefore I figured I could still catch some of the good snow the next day and indeed I did. I headed up to Breckenridge and got up into the high cirque on some of the steep stuff where the snow was untouched in some spots mostly because the crazy wind had blown it all over. Anyway it was all good and I only took one double whipper rag doll style as some of the wind blown snow got a bit of a crust on it and grabbed the front of my board... game over. It was a soft landing though and I was right back at it.

Today Christmas day I woke up watched a movie and exchanged texts with good friends wishing each other a Merry Christmas. Then it was off for an afternoon mountain bike ride. I was greeted by high winds heading out to the trail which had me leaning the bike into the wind at pretty much a 45 degree angle. I was feeling worked before I got to the trail but I knew it would be a tail wind heading back home so it was all good. The ride turned out to be muddy which is always fun! Then I cooked a good dinner (thanks for the Amish noodles Mom they were DELICIOUS! and the jerky is already about half gone).

Muddy Shoes


Muddy Bike... MUDDY CHRISTMAS!


Changing lenses in anticipation of a cloudy day with new snow fingers crossed! with the most delicious beer Alaskan Amber


So tomorrow I head up to Vail to meet Jaimie Niblock aka Jamie Rowe a long time family friend. Her and her husband are down here from Spokane for the Holiday and it should be good fun. Jamie went to CU and her husband graduated from the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. I haven't seen Jaime in a long time and it should be good times!

That's Cold

I have decided it's time to sit down and blog about the last month. I procrastinated long enough. Where to begin....

Well first off I went home for Thanksgiving as the whole family was going to be back in Michiana. I linked it up with a trip to Boston for training and all went swell though it was a long time to be away from the mountains with the snow starting to fall. I got in on Wednesday night and my sisters soon to be husband Ryan picked me up at Midway Airport in Chicago. We made the two hour ride home to surprise the parents only to find out that my Mom had already figured it out not only because of myself pretty much slipping but Lester (my sister) slipping as well. No biggy her and my Dad were still happy to see me.

We had a delicious family Thanksgiving dinner and hung out with old friends such as Graham and Bobby who most of you who read this know but the others you may not so I'll spare the writing. Just plain good ol friends in general and of course the family time. I also saw a few of my cousins who I hadn't seen in quite a long time and my Grandma Miller and Great Grandma Slabach.

Sunday I headed back to Chicago with Les and Ryan. We went out saw a movie and then went out to Tommy's Ryan's cousins bar and proceeded to "have a good time." Ryan and I stayed out late with his brother and Lester headed home since she had to be up at 5 for work.

The next day Ryan took be out to this killer burger place called "Kumas" I do believe. They specialize in unique burgers and they were quite tasty! After that it was off to O'Hare to sit and work for a while and then fly to Boston. The trip to Boston was way better than the last trip and I learned a lot more. Probably both because our instructor was an American who lives in France vs. a native French citizen and because I have become more familiar with the software vs. not knowing anything about it before. Anyway it was productive but I was ready to get back to the mountains either way.

My last night we stayed in downtown Boston. I was on the 23rd floor of the Radisson in the Theater District and here are a few shots from my balcony.

Beacon hill and Boston Commons... awesome old school area





By the white triangle bridge with the green lights is Boston Garden




Once back in Boulder I made it home just in time for the snow storm that was rolling through and I was stoked! Finally got to drive the Outback in the snow and I don't know how I ever got around without it. The Jetta was good to me but it is nice to be able to hit the gas at an uphill stoplight in the snow and actually go vs spinning out and holding up traffic.

Tim and I headed up to Breckenridge that weekend and got in some good turns on good snow even though not of lot of runs were open. Then this past weekend it got SUPER COLD! and the snow flew. Rob and I headed up to the slopes on Sunday and good times were had in the 6-12 inches of snow. However, I think my chin might fall off. The weather was prolly -3 temp and with the wind chill plus riding speed plus snow in the face made for possible frost bite with a feel like temp of about -20 degrees. I don't think I got it that bad I just think I got really bad wind burn which is taking a layer of skin off my chin. Oh well I will survive and the snow was worth it!

On a somber note. A week ago yesterday one of my bikes was stolen. Tim had been riding my old mountain bike because his is a little rugged and I had no problem with him riding mine. Tim came home one night with no bike and I just pointed and thought maybe he left it at his friends since it had been snowing hard that day. He looked at me and I was like it got jacked didn't it? Yup sure enough someone stole it off campus. Must have cut through the lock. I had a lot of good times with that bike. I took it well though and said shit happens. Good thing I have another one or it may have been a bit different story.

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..