Check it out...

I wrote a little journal article for insidetri.com. Note the strategic placement of the bike, resplendent with CAF stickers. Last weekend's trip to Durango was lovely. Great weather, fun racing and some solid tele runs on Sunday before driving home. It's a bit of a haul to get down there but definitely worth it. I'm not sure if I'll ever be a full-on Durangutang, but I'd like to visit a bit more often. Kate wrote a pretty solid blog on this trip, so I'll let that speak for itself.

Bonne Discipline, Yah!

A week ago, I was in France, racing in my first Winter Triathlon World Cup. It was quite an adventure, and I've been so busy since then that I haven't managed to get this story written until now. It was a really quick trip — I flew Thursday night, raced Sunday and flew back Monday morning. At first, that might seem like it wouldn't be worthwhile, but I made the most of my time. The weather was really snowy for the first day I was in Valberg, which is a small mountain town a couple hours outside of Nice. Once it was all said and done, we had a solid three to four feet of fresh snow. Made me wish I had my tele skis with me! Especially when the course was neither marked nor groomed the day before the race. Oh well. I was staying with the Czech team, which was pretty amusing. Only a couple of them spoke English, and even then, communication was challenging. Those guys are so funny. They eat all this weird Euro food and like to hang around in their boxer-briefs. But they are fast.
The race itself was pretty good overall. I had an amazingly good run, which was a surprise, as that's usually my weakest discipline. I was hanging with the leaders the whole way! Probably helped that the course was straight up and down an alpine ski hill. Either way, the bike was a bit disappointing. I had too much tire pressure and the snow was very soft. However, I battled back and had a good ski, finally earning me ninth place on the day. Helloooo USAT performance bonus!
The excitement didn't end there, though. I found out, shortly after the race, that I would have to go down to Nice that afternoon, even though my flight wasn't until the next day. That meant packing up my crap. Really fast. Once I was down there, I made the best of the circumstances. I found a pretty nice hostel and went out on the town. I had some great beers, an amazing Nutella crepe and I went down to the beach, which was really nice (hahaha get it? Nice... nice!). It was an unexpected way to end the trip, but I really enjoyed it. Now, I head off to Durango and then Bend. Valberg was a great confidence boost... I'm ready to rock!

Grizzly Rose!

Boy howdee, did we have a barnburner! Last Friday, I went out to the Grizzly Rose cowboy bar with the old lady and a few of her friends. Cross-Canadian Ragweed was playing, so we had some good, live country music, and the place was packed. Throughout the course of the evening we helped our friends sneak into the place, since the show was sold out and they didn't have tickets; we watched Anna ride the mechanical bull (way better than the other people who tried it), enjoyed the stunning scenery of western wear and we drank a lot of cheap beer. Grizzly Rose gets two thumbs up! The highlight of the evening came when some crazy drunk dude grabbed Anna and dragged her out onto the floor to dance. After that, we watched him for awhile, and he pulled this trick on at least five or six other girls. So classy.


The crabby old lady running the mechanical bull yelled at me for taking photos. Apparently they'd rather sell you photos then have you take your own. I sure showed them! Look at the quality of this image!

Christmas Vacation

As the song goes, "I just got back from a lovely trip, along the Milky Way..." Well, okay, so I wasn't taking an intergalactic journey, and I didn't stop by the North Pole either. But I got a heck of a lot closer to there than normal, as I took a trip home to Vermont for Christmas. The travel was heinous. My flight to Burlingtron, city of the future, was canceled, so I had to fly into Lebanon. Then, on the way back to Ballerado, my flight to Philly was too delayed to make the connection to the Dirrty D, so I had to fly out of Manchester. According to the airlines, their only duty is to get me to a destination safely. Apparently, they do not need to get me there at any specified time. I could have gotten back to Denver in July and they would have still "Fulfilled their duty of care." Absolutely hilarious.
Either way, it was nice to be back home. Weather was so-so (typical), but at least it wasn't pouring rain this time around.


Church Street, lovely as always. Definitely puts Boulder's Pearl Street to shame.


Ever seen a samurai Dachshund? I didn't think so.

Velodrome Action

Shout out to our homeboy, Kevin, who's rockin' the Burnaby Six Day track race in British Columbia right now. Nice discipline! Read his blog for updates. Go Fruitcup!