Things are not always as they seem…

Since I’ve gotten a few comments lately from people wondering if I’m dead or out of business, I decided that it was time to make a blog entry… after 6 months of inactivity. The truth is that I’m both busy and lazy… so something had to give… and the blog was one of the easy things to forget about. However… I’ve made a late summer’s resolution to update this at least once a month.  

Instead of trying to bring you up to date with what has been happening for the last 1/2 year, I’m going to start with 2 weeks ago. Me and Klaus decided to try an epic ride around the Capitan mountains just to see what it was like. It looked to be ~110 miles but the tricky part was the ~11 miles of “primitive” dirt road. We were riding on road bikes with skinny tires, so I figured this part would be interesting… and it was. Actually only 4 miles or so was really sketchy (meaning you wanted an MTB for this part)… and the rest was not so bad. Steep up and down… lots of stream crossings, etc. We didn’t see another human being or vehicle. Klaus was a lot better than me in this section and he surged ahead… but we both got flats at about the same time… his due to a sidewall cut, and mine due to a thorn. I crashed twice in the gnarly section. Having regular Shimano road pedals was not good… the sand and dirt made them very difficult to disengage. That is one change I’d make if I was to try this again. Even though we’d filled up with water in Tinnie, we were both out by the time we got the paved road. It was 32 miles to Capitan… which was the nearest place with facilities… so we figured we’d have to do some begging. After a few miles we came to a house along the road, but it seemed that nobody was home… and their dogs were unfriendly… and we couldn’t see a hose anyway. We knew it would be another 15 miles or so before we came to the next house, but we didn’t have any choice but to hope that someone would be home. We were lucky that someone was. Micheal was working in the garden, and he was very friendly… and that water tasted so good! Unfortunately we were both a bit dehydrated and wasted at that point and we still had over 25 miles to go. We made it to Capitan ok, loaded up on coke, then set out for the final uphill leg of 13 miles or so. I was surprised to see Karen (Klaus’s wife) meet us a few miles up the road. She offered apple-fritters which I couldn’t refuse, but she never mentioned that we could quit and get a ride home! She knows. I’m surprised that she didn’t go. Klaus said that she will probably do this ride on her own in the near future…

I’m doing one “real” race this year… the 40K Record Challenge Time Trial in Moriarty, NM on the 31st of Aug. We’ve been having the Tues night TTs here since April. I was exceptionally fat and slow at first, but I think I’ve managed to get in shape. Klaus has been killing me though… not because I’m slow… he has just been incredibly fast. Last year my best was 24:45 and I won by 1 sec. This year I have better equipment and managed a 24:02 last week… but a coupe of weeks before that Klaus got a 23:27! Considering that his equipment is about the same, that is a huge improvement for a 49 year old man. I wonder what his secret is… maybe not getting fat and slow in the winter like me? This is a picture of me on the TT bike…

Well… it hasn’t been all that cold, but the waterfall next to our property froze up really well! I guess it is warm enough upstream, but then this spot in the valley tends to get very cold on calm nights. The white stuff down at the bottom is frozen water spray… not snow. Saw a huge herd of turkeys on this trip as well… at least 20 of them. I wonder if it was the same bunch of little ones we’d seen last summer, only now they are almost grown? They wouldn’t quite let me get close enough for a good photo, and of course it was almost dark.

The deer photos were taken a couple of days ago off the back porch. Our neighbor put out some feed for them for some reason. They get really tame when they’re being fed.  

Speaking of deer, they are quite a road hazard around here. Elk are much more rare, but I did see four big bulls cross the road in front of me while bike riding, just two miles east of where we live. The most surprising thing was how each of them stopped and looked both ways for traffic before crossing… no kidding! I guess they must have gotten the word that roads are dangerous…

I guess things are going well… both Shiva and I are getting busy with work again, and she has put in an application to run a massage school next fall. If she gets enough students I guess it is going to happen! Hope she enjoys it… sounds like a lot of work to me.

I sure am fat and slow this winter. Hopefully that will change when it warms up and I can get more exercise. I bought a TT frame… well… actually I bought two of them, so one will be for sale. I’m still looking for the rest of the parts, plus a skinsuit and an aero helmet. I better be faster than last year… by a lot. It would be sad to spend all that money for no reason! I plan to do some real TTs next year too… I figure it will be easier to get in shape for those… vs heinous races like Gila.

It’s been winter for about a solid month now (no temps above 60F)… not my favorite season. Snow on the mountain at least (taken with a cell phone), but very little in town. Colder than last year and less snowy… based on the stats it looks like a “normal” year would be somewhere in between. Can’t complain too much though… I still get out to ride often enough, and I’m comfortable down to ~40F so long as it isn’t windy… and it is sunny enough, so not gloomy. It’s been super windy the past couple of days though… but warmer… pick your poison…

Shiva’s friend Lauren just departed early this morning after her week long visit. It was nice having her around… nice change of pace. In the photo above we had a fire and Optimators out on the property one night… so I guess we can use it even in winter!

Time to get back into the routine again. We’ve both been getting lazier as the work has slowed down a bunch since Thanksgiving. I always appreciate this though, since I hate working too much anyway. We were even just lazy through Christmas, and did little but have a nice dinner and watch The Grinch with Jim Carrey. Neither of us had seen it before, and I was amazed at how much I liked it! Very funny with lots of subtle cool things included… highly recommended. It follows that cartoon pretty closely, but adds a lot of new material.

I’d planned to do a lot of updating on my website (yes, this one), but I’m lacking the ambition for that as well. Instead I’ve been researching all sorts of things, including “home building” stuff. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to afford to build until the land is paid off in 10 years, but it is fun to try and figure things out anyway. I know I want to heat it primarily with passive solar… basically south windows and thermal mass… with a woodstove for backup. The house will be ~50ft x 30ft with the long walls facing south and north. The walls will be some kind of masonry like concrete blocks or adobe, with external foam insulation (inside the walls if adobe) and probably a stucco exterior if block is used. I thought of having barrels of water in front of the south windows, but I’m not settled on that yet. The south half will have a concrete floor, and the north half will be a few feet higher and raised. I’m trying to make it simple, and outside of Shiva’s massage room it will be very non-fancy. I’m still not sure what it would cost though. People seem to think $150 a sqft is mimimal around here to have someone else build, but I’m still hoping to come in at around half that if I do a lot of it myself.

I like the idea of using adobe (actually cob… free form adobe), for the walls… but it takes a lot of hand labor, meaning that I’d have to do it myself and take a lot of time… or pay a fortune to have it done. I was thinking of doing something like a post and beam with vigas (logs), put the roof on, then build the cob walls up outside the posts to meet the roof. I don’t know how much maintenance it would require. I certainly want it all to be low maintenance… as I know that I am not someone who enjoys having chores to fill up my time. Cutting firewood and stoking the stove in winter will be plenty!

I’ve been liking the new frame… seems stiffer than the old one, which is most noticeable when standing or making sudden motions. The Zep would flex in the middle, while the ZX3 is just steady. Weird thing though is how *slow* I am now. In early Nov (on the Zep) I set a record of 8:32 climbing Angus hill. This was only 3 seconds faster than my previous best, but it was on a very calm day, so I knew it wasn’t wind aided. Since I’ve recovered from the back injury I’ve tried it 3 times and they were all between 9:40 and 10:00. That’s a big difference in power output… over 15%. I don’t think I was that slow when I moved here… and that was after taking over a month off! Frankly, I don’t know what to blame. The frame certainly should be a little faster, and I don’t feel weird like I’m sick or anything. I’m not riding a lot, but I didn’t last year at this time either. I keep wondering if the whole back and tooth deal is a symptom of something else that isn’t working so well… guess I’ll find out eventually.

First a couple of photos of the local wildlife. The deer in the driveway is so common that you can pretty much take one of those anytime you want, but it took me awhile to get an Elk to stand still when I had a camera in my hand. These were seen about a mile south of our property. When I see the bulls out in the “wild” they always run and hide, but I guess they feel safe in town. The deer are much thicker in town than anywhere else… makes me think an in-town hunting season is in order.

Turkeys on the other hand I never see in town, but I’ve seen them several times outside. Five big healthy ones ran across the road in front of me while I was riding today. Shiva and I did a little hike a few weeks ago to check out the land north and west of our property. Someone has made dirt roads out there and they’ve staked boundaries, but it all looks very old… not a new development. Anyway, the roads were covered with large bird tracks (like as big as my hand) and I was trying to figure out what could be leaving tracks like that. Shiva figured it out…

It’s been 2-1/2 weeks since I threw my back out… and I’m finally pretty much recovered. That was a bad one… worst ever. Like usual I wasn’t really doing anything… just straightening up after being bent over. I’ve gotten something like this every year or two for a long time. Usually it is a very sharp spasm, then sore for a few days… with an occasional aftershock. This time the sharp spasm seemed to last forever. Shiva helped me to the bed, where I fell with one arm and leg hanging off. It was a couple of hours before I could move from that position. I couldn’t believe how much of an invalid I was!

 The weirdest part was that when I went to bed that night a tooth started throbbing… the left fang that got paved over at the dentist in Oct. No warning… just all of a sudden. While I was marveling at this, a sharp jolt of pain went through the tooth and my back at the same time! The tooth was so sensitive the next day that I was sure I’d need to get it “fixed”, but it has slowly improved just like the back. Can’t imagine what connects those two, but who knows…

So work backed up for awhile and I couldn’t get any exercise… which is just as well since we were visited with a little winter… snowy with highs in the 20s for a couple of days. This was after having only two days all fall when it didn’t get above 60. Then it was over 70 a few days ago, but might snow again this weekend. We are prepared now though. Shiva got her snow tires put on today and there is a big stack of wood on the porch.

We got some new confusers from Dell with 22inch displays… what a difference from those 6 year old laptops! Seemed pretty cheap too with the $350 off $999 or more deal. They’ve got all the stuff and even some we didn’t need, but hey… had to get the price up to $999 somehow. I didn’t realize how much better XP is compared 98SE… lots fewer crashes anyway.

I finally managed to get my new plastic (carbon) frame (Pedal Force ZX3) put together, and I must say that it is a fine piece to attach the rest of the parts to. It is a lot stiffer than my Zep, but I’m not so sure that buys me much. I like the look and durability of titanium, but this frame is a lot lighter and more stable, so I’ll see what happens. I’m planning to turn the Zep into a TT bike if this one works out. The wheels aren’t mine… I built them for a customer… but I plan to put some like them together for myself by spring.

The first two photos are from a “picnic” on our property a couple months ago. We went for a hike along the Bonito… in search of petroglyphs that we failed to find again. As we headed over to our land a storm cloud came up and passed through around sunset. The last two are of a 15ft waterfall we discovered about 400ft from our east boundary… a really nice spot! It’s on the 30 acre lot next to ours that they are asking $295k for (?). This is the same stream that passes through our property (I’m going to call it Box Canyon Creek until I hear different). It is apparently spring fed because it has been flowing continuously since we started coming out here. It’s been a pretty wet year though… it will surely dry up in a dry year. Every time I go over there I just love it! I hope we can save up enough to build something eventually and make it work.

The business has been fine… plenty of work and sometimes too much. I had a rash of bad parts there for awhile… pretty much everything… hubs, spokes, rims, etc from different manufacturers. It’s the nature of small companies I guess… they don’t do any QC so it is up to me. Or maybe they like to send their rejects to independent builders, and keep the good stuff for their own wheels which they make more money on. Hmmm….

Shiva of course is great and has been doing great. She has plenty of business and is even scaling back on working at the spa. Her situation will only improve I think.

The Tues night TT series has finally ended, and since I had the fastest time… by a whole 1 second over Klaus!… I guess I won. Next year things are going to escalate I think. I’m planning to use some aero wheels and an aero helmet at least… maybe even a skinsuit… and a dedicated TT bike. My best this year was a 24:45 and I’m shooting for <23 next year. Impossible? Maybe… I might need a new body too…
Ruidoso had a century this year in late Sept, and it went very well! They got 150 people to sign up… though most of them did the 100 kilometer ride rather than the 100 miles. I rode it with Klaus and his friend John from Santa Fe. There was a mass start, but we took off a half hour late and raced from rest stop to rest stop. It was the windiest day we’d had all summer… and of course it was right in our faces for the last half of the ride. There was a pro there who did it solo in 6 hrs… a very slow time but not so bad considering the climbs and the wind. John said our riding time was 5:45, so we would have been at the lead if we hadn’t goofed around so much. I was cramping and pretty wasted by the end… but that is what I expected. There’ll surely get a bigger turnout next year.

I went to the dark side and finally got a plastic (carbon) frame… a Pedal Force ZX3. Now I can see what all the hype is about. It is ~1.5 lbs lighter than my Airborne Zep including the fork, and should be a lot stiffer too. Pics to follow when I get it built up.

Well, not much anyway… which is why I’ve been putting this off.

That’s me and Klaus on the far end of a ride to the north side of the Capitans… one in which I died severely on the way home. Yes, it’s 30 mile bonk time again! I’ve decided to try not eating at all before a ride and that actually seems to help… for now at least. Klaus missed the next Tues night TT, so I had nobody to push me. Conditions were ideal, but I only managed 25:32… 21sec off my best. The following week we had headwinds on the uphill leg, so conditions were slow. Klaus passed me at the turnaround (he started 30sec after me), and proceeded to get a good lead. I think the headwind on the return favored his superior aerodynamics, plus he seemed to pace better in the beginning. I eventually began to gain on him and passed him at the top of the last hill… but noooo… he had to start sprinting!.. so the last half mile or so was hell… at least for me. I thought he was right behind me, but he actually dropped off and cruised in, 10sec back but 20sec ahead. I think it’s great that we are so close in ability. I’m very lucky to have somebody cool to ride with who is also underemployed. That reminds me, we did a little 30 mile ride a couple days ago that turned into a “sprint to the top of the hill” contest. I haven’t hurt that much since Gila…

BTW, Shiva has been coming out on Tues the last couple of weeks, and rides her MTB on the course. I think she’s done pretty well considering that she hadn’t ridden a bicycle since she was a kid!

I guess we bought some land… at least they got our money, and in return we got a mass of boring paperwork. It’s a good place to have picnics anyway… and the mosquitos have not returned! Last week we were visited by a bunch of wild turkeys… 3 big ones and about 15 little ones. I’ve seen adult turkeys by themselves before, but never a group like that. They wandered past us and then a few minutes later they wandered back… didn’t seem too concerned about us.

Shiva finally got a car yesterday… and I get the truck back!. It’s a ‘95 Infinity G20… pretty old but seems to be in good shape, with 124,000 miles. It cost $3k. Has all the electronic gadgets… and most of them even work! These cars are made by Nissan but I don’t think this one is similar to a Sentra or a Altima… anyway, it’s small but bigger than a Sentra and has 2 liter 4 cyl that puts out decent power (SE-R engine)… considering. She seems to love it… I just hope it lasts a few years without needing any major work. With all the deer jumping out on the road it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to get a new car

This is less than a mile east of the property, on a 24,000 acre BLM (government land) parcel. Really nice! There are trails all over this section as well and… no people… at least none when we were there, though I’m sure you’d run into someone occasionally. Frankly, this is a better place and more luxury than I ever expected. I’ve seen all the nice places out west get priced way out of my reach during the last 10 years, so I feel pretty lucky. If (when) this area gets Californicated, I’m sure it will be out of reach as well. Maybe it’s already happening… the owners of this development have stopped selling while they decide how much to increase the prices.

We sat down by the stream on our property in the evening, and there were no mosquitoes at all… so I guess they are intermitant in the summer.

As far as cycling goes, I randomly was ill last week (again). I only rode once in between Tues night TTs. I figured I’d do poorly last Tues, but Klaus was worse and I ended up winning anyway. He started behind me and blew by about 3 miles in like before. This time he faded early though, and I passed him about a mile after the turn around. A lot of people had personal bests, but I was 5 sec slower than the previous week. This stuff is hard! I felt like I was going to puke the whole way back…

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So… this is our “rebound” property… 3 times as big (16 acres) and twice as much money ($79k)… and nicer too. This time we are really under contract and not just planning on it! No getting sniped again. I’m sure we could have gotten it for $70k if we’d only made an offer a couple of weeks eariler (when none of them had sold yet), but like before as soon as we got interested everybody else did too. They sold 7 lots in one weekend! And so the owner wouldn’t budge on the price… said he was going to raise all of them in a week anyway. It’s about 10 miles from Ruidoso, has paved roads, electric, phone, good well prospects (~300ft probably), a nice accessible flatish meadow to put the house on, a stream going around the south and west sides, great southern exposure for solar, interesting topography, nice view of Sierra Blanca if you are willing to climb the hill, etc. It’s the best one in there for the money… just wish it didn’t cost so much. A trailer on an acre in the hillbilly neighborhood would be more my speed, but Shiva has high ambitions.

Our neighbors says that only the shamans were allowed in the area where our land is because the north side of the Bonito was a burial ground. Apparently there are 4 known archeological sites in VRB. I don’t mind having dead indians on the property, so long as they aren’t buried in the spot where we want to build. Remember Poltergiest?

Oh, and another thing… pretty surreal. I’ve been enjoying very much the lack of biting bugs around here… haven’t been bitten by a mosquito since I arrived… until Sun evening… a few minutes after we signed the contract. And guess where we were? Yes, on the property, sitting next to the stream! And there wasn’t just one… there was a pretty good swarm. Wimpy mosquitoes really… didn’t leave itchy welts, and couldn’t even feel them biting. The buzzing in the ears was probably the most annoying. But still… why are they here? We’ve been here several times before in the evening and never saw any. Maybe it’s just their time. Most likely the wind blew them in from nearby stock ponds since I don’t think they would breed in a flowing stream very well… but who knows. Their are a lot of swallows that come out in the evenings, so I guess they need something to eat…

The Tues night TTs are getting pretty interesting too. The last 3 times Klaus has beaten me by 4 seconds, 5 seconds, and today… 1 second! Today was especially interesting because he started 30 sec behind me… and flew by only ~3 miles into the race. The first part is mostly downhill, and lately there has been ~45 degree headwind on this part as well… so aerodynamics really helps. Klaus has a very flat back and seems to have a nearly perfect aero position. Anyway, I figured he’d beat me by a minute at least this time… as I watched him fade into the distance. But after the turnaround I started to slowly gain on him, and by the time we got to the Spencer Theatre I’d passed him. Since there was only a about a mile and a half to go I didn’t think I had a chance of winning, but by the end I was 29 seconds ahead of him (and 1 sec behind)… so close! It’s weird how he gains so much on the first leg and I gain it back on the second. He obviously has me beat on aero, but I clearly seem to have a better power/weight ratio even though I weigh 15 lbs more. He’s got a nice TT frame and trispokes… but I doubt that accounts for all the difference. I’m going to do some modeling and see…

Yes… with three of these.

Klaus took me on an epic ride Saturday. I’m not exactly sure where we were but we were riding about 5 hours, so 80-90 miles probably. Took the highway to Mescalero, then went on a backroad (that turned to rocks and dirt for a few miles) towards Cloudcroft. Eventually we got on the highway a few miles from Cloudcroft… “no Klaus, I don’t want to go to town… we can head home now”. This is probably the longest ride I’ve done in 15 years anyway. So we start heading back to Ruidoso and get caught in a thunderstorm… just one of those small afternoon things, but for 10 minutes or so it was really pouring. Then the sun came out (as usual). As we approached the final summit, we heard large animals crashing through the brush right next to the road. Bull elks… big ones with huge antlers. It seemed strange but they actually kept pace with us for a half mile or so, then we didn’t see them anymore. Shortly after we started the descent we saw them though… running straight across the road on a collision course! Luckily we both saw them in time and slammed on our brakes. The elks seemed pretty freaked out too. Did I say those things were huge?! No comparison to the puny deer that are everywhere… these guys are more like moose…
Here is a gratuitous picture of a large moth I saw hanging out by a water hose I was using in Capitan the other day…

Riders lining up to start…

I’m so glad this is going on… and it starts about 3 miles from the house! It is a 10 mile out and back course with a few rolling hills and a most downhill first half and uphill return… and usually a nasty headwind on the way back. As you can see it is a pretty eclectic bunch… not really hard core racers, but people who like to see how fast they can go at least one evening a week. I’m always in the mood for that… plus it’s just nice to hang out with some fellow bike riders every once in a while. The first two weeks I managed to win, but last week a guy named Nate came along and smoked everyone. He was asking how to set up his new aerobars at the beginning. Rumor has it that he’s raced mountain bikes for money, and I expect he’ll be even faster when he gets the road bike thing figured out.

John Goodwin (a 14 year old) improved a bunch from the previous week, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was winning by the end of the summer. The week before last I started behind him and passed him on one of the short uphill sections on the first leg. I shouted some words of encouragement as I went by (something like “don’t let my wake knock you down, sucka!”). A few seconds later I can sense someone passing me… and I’m wondering who the heck can that be? Yup… it was him. He faded soon after, but that is some good competitive spirit!

It’s the first I’ve seen Karen Zoller out there on her own (once she road tandom with her son), and she did great! She started a minute ahead of me and for most of the race she was a minute ahead of me… at least. I seemed to gain on her a little on the last climb and finished 20 seconds after her. She even beat her husband Klaus… something that she assures me has never happened before.

Business has been picking up but I still find time to ride. I even did a long ride this week and didn’t feel sick for a change. On Sat I did a 42:23 up the ski road, starting at the Eagle Creek Campground turnoff (7750ft) and ending at the overlook (10,000ft)… about 6.5 miles total. That is a pretty good time for me. Before Gila I managed a 40:47, but lately I’ve been around 44… maybe I’m getting in shape now…
Land… well, we finally made an offer of $30k on Fri which was rejected by the other parties realtor as too low to bother with (he can do that?)… so today we offered $33k and we’ll see how that goes. My neighbor says his friend is interested in it, and last week when Shiva and me were looking at it there was another couple there doing the same thing! They seemed to be well informed about the property too, so we decided it was time to get moving. The land has been for sale for two years with little or no interest in it, but there just aren’t any parcels left at this price. I hope we get it… I think Shiva will be especially upset if we don’t…

Here are some random photos. The cloud was taken with my cellphone near Fort Stanton during a ride. The flower was taken during a hike in the mountains above 10,000ft.