It has been ten days since my last update and I haven’t made a single mile of progress toward my cross country goal but I have traveled and ridden quite a few miles just the same.  The last week and a half has been a great “vacation within my vacation”.  After I arrived at the Oldenburg’s in Galena, IL (Tami, John, Rachael, Adrienne, and April are Robert Smith’s cousins), I flew to Denver.

It was great to be back in Colorado and I spent the first day in Boulder visiting my friends Gail and Jeff.  Jeff and I worked together at GP for the entire time I was with the company.  Gail worked trying to fatten me up while I was there by feeding me enough for three people (this has been a theme in the last 10 days!) and it was fun to catch up with them.  From there, I headed to Winter Park to watch my friend Nick (he’s a professional mountain biker) compete in the Crankworks Colorado Dual Slalom.  Nick did an outstanding job and finished 5th; the only people who beat him were current and/or former world and/or national champions.  I don’t know who was more excited about the result, me or Nick, but I can guarantee you that I was the proudest person on the mountain….  That may seem strange since I had nothing to do with Nick’s performance, but he’s a little younger than me and I’ve known him for quite a while and it has been a true pleasure to watch him progress from just loving to ride his bike to being one of the best riders in the country.  After the event we headed back down to Nick’s house in Boulder but not before we made a stop at Beau Jo’s, home of the world’s greatest pizza (we stopped at the original in Idaho Springs… the other locations are good, but this one is still the best).  For the early part of last week, I stayed in Boulder basically being lazy and hoping to allow my legs to recover enough to allow me to turn in a good performance at Leadville.

It was quite an adjustment to go from pulling my trailer 100 miles a day and figuring out all of the logistics associated with each day of my trip to essentially having nothing to do, so I ran some errands, caught up on some communication and watched several movies.  That lasted all of two days when I borrowed a bike from Randall Scott Cycles and went for a ride… it was either that or start repainting Nick’s house to keep from going stir crazy (Nick said he didn’t trust me inside with paint when he was gone to work!).  Later in the week, Thursday was an exciting day for me, my friend Kevin who also raced Leadville, drove his RV out from California and I met him in Leadville.  At home in our regular lives, Kevin and I ride bikes together several times a week.  At some point last year, I managed to convince Kevin that it would be a great idea if we signed up and raced Leadville, for reasons I’ll never know, he agreed and so I was glad to see that he actually arrived in Leadville and hadn’t gotten smart and changed his mind!  Not only did Kevin come to Leadville but he also brought my brand new Dean singlespeed bike (there isn’t enough room in this blog to describe the 8 month ordeal that was capped off by Kevin’s delivery, but it took a half dozen people and a lot of determination to make it happen).  There is a phenomenon called “new bike psych” (think: feeling like a kid on Christmas morning) that occurs when you get a new bike and in this case it was more extreme than usual due to the fact that this bike was custom built to my specifications and that I would be racing it for the first time in two days in Leadville.

After I met Kevin we headed out to Pine and one of my favorite parts of the Colorado Trail (a 500 mile long singletrack that stretches through the mountains from Denver to Durango).  Kevin will tell you that I knew where we were going but that I had absolutely no idea how far away it was or how long it would take to get there (that could be true, or it could simply be that I was afraid that if I told Kevin we were going to be in the car for 3 hours on top of the 14 he’d already driven that he wouldn’t have come along with me for the ride… you be the judge on that one…).  In any case the section of trail that we rode is fairly remote, is incredibly beautiful and fun, and as I had suspected for years is perfect for singlespeeding, so we had a great ride to loosen up our legs for Leadville (on our way home, I made Kevin eat at Beau Jo’s… gotta stock up since I won’t be back to CO for a while!).

The following day we went through the pre-race check in and then spent the day anxiously waiting for Saturday/race day.  Fortunately, the Olympics were on and we were entertained by the inspiration which comes with watching some of the world’s best athletes achieve life long dreams on sport’s largest stage.  It’s truly impressive to learn the stories of the athletes and to watch them push themselves beyond their limits.  Only slightly less impressive is the amount of food that Kevin’s wife Suzie had sent with him, so I practically ate myself into a coma while we watched the games and waited.  Later in the afternoon, one of my best friends, Travis, arrived from Albuquerque (Travis and Nick supported Kevin and I during the race on Saturday).  I’m relatively sure that Travis just came in hopes of getting to watch me hurt myself (he’s been involved in one way or another in most of the stupid things I’ve done), but Kevin and I appreciated the help regardless of his motives!

Finally race day arrived and at 6:30 in the morning 1000 crazy mountain bikers (including Lance Armstrong and Mountain Bike hall-of-Famer Dave Weins) headed off on a 100 mile journey.  Leadville is an out-and-back course that begins at an elevation of 10,200′ and undulates between 9,500′ and 13,000′ for a total of 11,700 vertical feet of climbing over 104 miles.  The ride is relatively difficult due to the climbing and to the elevation, so of the 1000 people who start the race only about 700 people finish (Dave Wiens beat Armstrong by 2 minutes to win for the 6th consecutive year).  Kevin and I were both fortunate enough to finish and although I know both of us would have liked to have gone slightly better, we each did reasonably well. More importantly we each had a great time (at least I think we did…Kevin did inform me after the race that I was never allowed in their house again and he also gave his wife and daughters instructions to remind him never to listen to me again… I don’t think that was associated with his feelings about the race, I think he may have been slightly delusional when he said it… but only time will tell for sure).  I loved my new bike, at some point I said “this is the best bike I’ve ever ridden”, but Travis and Nick were quick to point out that I’ve owned somewhere around 30 bikes and I’ve said that about virtually all of them…. Nevertheless, I’m sure that this one really is “the best bike I’ve ever ridden”!

Following the race, I started my trip back to Illinois to resume my cross country adventure.  Along the way I stopped and stayed with Nick’s parents who took me to dinner and then I visited my cousins Mark and Lori who took me to lunch and ultimately I arrived back at the Oldenburgs who have done nothing but feed me for a day and a half (I think there may a conspiracy to make me fat!).

The time off from riding across the country and the fact that I didn’t race quite as well as I had hoped allowed me to reflect upon my trip so far and to remember the fact that anything worth having takes hard work and perseverance.  As a result, I’ll definitely be going back to Leadville next year and more seriously, I’ll continue to push to raise money and awareness for Mikyla-cure, believing that the money we are raising will fund research that will cure Rett Syndrome and allow Mikyla and thousands of other little girls to pursue their dreams just as Kevin and I did last weekend in Leadville.  Tomorrow I will leave the beautiful town of Galena and head toward Milwuakee and the Great Lakes which will begin the final third of my trip to Boston.  If things continue to go as they have throughout the summer, I should arrive in Boston on approximately the first of September.  I am very excited to get started tomorrow, but before I do, I need to say thank you to everyone who has been so incredibly nice to me during my “vacation within a vacation”.  It was great to see all of you and I had an outstanding time.  I’m looking forward to the time when you visit me and I can reciprocate your hospitality (of course, you will have to wait until I have a home to welcome you into!).

You really can’t put a value on friendship, it makes all of the difference!

Scott

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 7:35 am and is filed under Ride Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.