US Grand Prix of Cyclocross - Round 3

The big show hit Longmont on Saturday, as the national championship series of cyclocross hit Longmont on the Xilinx campus. I figured I should go check it out, as Boulder County alone has enough pro talent to make for an entertaining race. Rumors had been swirling about the various pro riders that would be showing up, and the rumors all turned out to be true.

The two most notable names were American Tour de France riders Chris Horner and "Fast" Freddy Rodriguez. These two guys are Elite roadies who have both put in impressive showings in le Tour, so when I tell you they were not factors in the race that should give you some idea about the level of competition yesterday.

For you non-cyclist readers of the blog, cyclocross is a combination of road biking and mountain biking. The bikes look like burly road bikes with skinny tires that have tread on them. The courses are usually a combination of pavement and dirt with mandatory obstacles where riders dismount and carry their bikes over before remounting and continuing on.





Ryan Trebon (pictured below) came into this round having the #1 plate and has won the first two rounds. As the gun went off, he was with the lead group and wasted no time in riding off the front. A pack of riders grouped up to run him down, but it wasn't going to happen today as he was just too strong. He was putting big time into the chase group in the 3-6 laps and then cruised for the last couple.



I was very impressed with the turnout, crowd support and how professional everything was run. This was the big show, and I was glad to have been able to catch it so close to home. The other impressive thing was how fast these guys move. They were at a near all out sprint for an hour straight, on a difficult course that saw a lot of crashes. In fact, I was shooting pics and almost got taken out but a fatigued racer who lost the front wheel and started sliding towards me. Luckily for me, my reflexes were faster than his at that point and I managed to escape unscathed.

Here are a couple more pics from Saturday's event...

Geoff Kabush on his incredibly sweet Van Dessel cross bike



A Giant rider pushes hard to get back in contact with the leaders



3 riders battling it out in the late stages of the race

The Pearl St Crawl

Friday night is for dinner and drinks with friends. Last night we ratcheted that up a bit last night. Jill put out the call for a Happy Hour, and it was on from that point. Our group would start with Jill, Sarah, Scott & Kim Turner and myself meeting up at West End Tavern.

Our visit to West End Tavern was quite brief. They wouldn't let us have a table (even though they had about 10 open tables) since we were just having drinks and appetizers. They wanted us to move to the bar area. Uh...OK, whatever. We went to the bar area, but the heaters were cooking us so we moved on to a place that seemed to want our business more.

Bacarro was right across the street, and new to me so we stopped in there. We got settled upstairs on the balcony, grabbed a round and then set sail again. 2 establishments, 30 minutes and we were just getting started.

Brief walk to Rhumba, a cool looking always busy place with lots of action. We grabbed a table, some appetizers and a couple drinks. We lasted about an hour or so at Rhumba, and our crowd grew as we picked up some law school buddies of Scott's.

Another 1/2 block walk and we were at place #3, a local Mexican dive called Juanitas. I've been there many times, kind of the greasy spoon Mexican place in town where the slogan is "Praise the Lard". We grabbed a couple tables and some beers & margaritas. Just like always, I ate at every single place we stopped, grabbing a chicken soft taco and even more chips and salsa here.

The fourth stop in our 5 hour tour of Pearl Street would be the Pearl St Pub, which is a dark, cozy little place that feels somewhat out of place on the commercialized Pearl St Mall.

We didn't make it too long here before here before heading off to Pizza Calore, where we grabbed a couple slices of pizza and then headed for the house about 10pm. The young law school kids (early 20s) kept going, but us old folks were tired and ready for bed.

Catching My Breath...

Its been a hectic week or so since getting back from Oklahoma. I started my new job at MarkWest, we had a big snowstorm where we lost part of a tree, and I’m a veteran bus rider now among other things.


First things first, the new job…
Things are going very well, although my first 2 weeks are nothing like any other first weeks at any previous job. I have been busy since walking in the door, which is a good thing really. Since MarkWest uses RightAngle, I came in knowing a lot and its just filling in the server and database names. I’m quite pleased with how quickly the RightAngle stuff came back to me, but I guess when you cut your teeth on a system it sticks with you.

All in all the job switch seems to be a huge step in the right direction for me. Everything has worked out perfectly thus far. People at MarkWest are all very nice, and it seems to be a really talented staff which is always nice to be a part of.

Perhaps the strangest part of it all is that I also find that I seem to really enjoy working on the 16th St Mall here in Denver too. I never realized that I liked the downtown working environment until I wasn’t working downtown anymore. In Tulsa I always worked downtown, then in Boulder our office was off the Pearl St. Mall. When we moved to Louisville the commute got much better, but I realized how boring it was when nothing happened in our Tech. Park. So now I’m back to a downtown office with lots of good eating and things always moving.


The bus, AKA the Snooze Cruise…
I absolutely love this bus riding stuff. I hop on the bus about 2-3 miles from my house, and pretty much immediately fall asleep and 40 minutes later I’m in downtown Denver about 2 blocks from my office. I can leave my house at 6:30 and be at my desk by 7:30 and grab an extra 45 minutes of sleep on the way. The Denver area mass-transit system really works well, and the comfy, nice buses make me wonder why I ever drove myself to work before.

The best example was on the big snow day last Thursday, when all the other daily gunners were 10 & 2’ing it down the road worrying about the road and the guy next to them in the 4x4 SUV speeding by at high speeds. Me? I just put the Ipod on, leaned the chair back and woke up as the bus hit LoDo.

My rush hour is the rush to get asleep before the bus pulls out of the depot…


The rest…
Other than the big job switch and my new found love affair with the bus, not too much happening these days.

The time switch has me pretty much riding the trainer at nights, trying to stay in shape for the nice weekend days.

Ski season starts this weekend, although I won’t be there for another couple weeks.

This weekend is a big cyclocross race, as the US Grand Prix of Cyclocross (basically road bikes with treaded tires) hits Longmont & Boulder on Sat & Sun. I’ll likely ride my Roubaix over and check out the action as a bundle of fast riders should be here for the Elite divisions.

Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains.

Jill & I took off last Friday morning for a brief trip back to Oklahoma, for the first time in nearly a year. We had a lot of people to see, lots of things to do and seemingly not enough time to do it all. Of course our vacations/trips are always like this so I'm not sure why I would expect something different.

Friday starts with a quick flight into Oklahoma City from Denver. Yack picked us up from the airport and we hit Charleston's (first stop on our food tour of Oklahoma) for some lunch with Martha & Georgia. Choke down some food and off we went again.

Next destination would be Bartlesville to see Jill's parents and Grandma. We stopped over in Tulsa long enough to see a couple of the Solarcers. In BVille, we were treated to some mighty lasagna, as we continued our assault on our waistlines.

Saturday had us spending 1/2 day in BVille then heading to Stillwater to catch the OState/Texas A&M homecoming game. Duke had hooked us up with some ridiculously good tickets, so we'll be enjoying super views of the game. On our way to the game, we snagged some Eskimo Joe's pasta salads, which we snarfed down as we walked to the stadium.



I won't go into details on the game, as the wounds are still fresh. Two missed extra points and a OT loss is enough details. I've found its much easier for me to be an OState fan from a distance. The game was a great game, entertaining and kept you interested, but the outcome pretty much sucked. Oh the life of a Pokes fan...

After the game we took off, grabbing a bed at Shorty's in Yukon before arising and spending the better part of the day with my parents around Oklahoma City. We hit another food destination, Abuelos, to round out the trifecta of restaurants on our trip. Sunday night we settled for some Chilis as we were all still too stuffed from lunch, but we were joined by two more extended pseudo-family members Tony & Denise Baustert.

After dinner we gathered at Shorty's place for a bit, before turning in. We had a flight at 7am the next morning, which meant we'd need to be on the road at 5:30 CST which would be equivalent to 4:30 for us Mountain Time Zoners. We made the flight, Jill went to work, and I ran some errands.

Great to get back, even if it was a whirlwind tour. I started my new job at MarkWest the following day, so I've been a bit behind but trying to get caught up. The new job hasn't been the typical slow start, its been a "hit the ground running" experience thus far, which is great as my days literally fly by.

More on the new job and all that later.

Stepping out on the town.

For Jill's birthday, we had purchased tickets to go see The Lion King musical that is currently running in Denver. I had no expectations, but it was a story I was familiar with and figured would be more my style than something like Les Mis or the like.



So we pulled out the fancy duds from the closet, and got spruced up for a night out. I broke out the suit and tie, and it only took me 2 or 3 tries to get it tied correctly. It was a nice change to get dressed up for a change, especially when you've got a great looking date.

We arrived at the show, and made our way to our seats, which were about 3 rows back, just to the left side of the stage. Soon after we got settled, the lights dimmed and the show started. The opening scene was a booming visual and auditory experience, with characters literally appearing from every direction. The costumes were remarkable and the music impressive.

Words, pictures, descriptions really wouldn't describe the incredibly innovative costumes. The storyline follows the movie pretty closely, but takes on an entirely new life with the actors and their elaborate costumes. So I'll not ramble on too much, but tell you that if you get the chance to see this show you should definitely go see it.