Things are not always as they seem…

Had to do a couple of hikes in the mountains while the pretty colors were still happening. The above were taken in Bonito Canyon… although that is probably not its real name, it *is* where the Bonito Creek comes from. The ones below were taken mostly in Nogal Canyon, which is someplace I’ve never been before. Kinda looking forward to getting a mountain bike fixed up to make exploring these areas a little easy.

And I’m getting a mountain bike because Shiva is getting one of these… her old MTB will then be mine! It’s a nice road frame made from Deddacci U2 aluminum… weighs ~2.4 lbs which is the same as my carbon frame. Color of course was the first priority for her, but I wanted to get one that was light and good quality also. I’m still getting the parts but hope to have it put together in a few weeks. Hopefully this will keep her riding next year!

We found an interesting rock while wandering about our property. Quite square shaped, brown, and covered with interesting markings (fossils?). It didn’t fall from a cliff or anything, and it was sitting all by itself… weird.  

Other than that we’ve been getting on just fine. Shiva’s school didn’t pan out this year, but that is probably just as well. She has all the work she wants. Work has slowed down for me, but so far that just means I have less backlog. Time to hibernate for the winter.

This ride reminded me of the scenery in the movie (and the unfenced cows)… plus I hear Kevin Costner owns a bunch of land in this area.

We needed to do a long ride to get ready for the Ruidoso Century. I thought we’d head south through the Res towards Cloudcroft, but Klaus and Karen voted to ride to White Oaks instead. It’s sort of a ghost town… a few dozen people live there and some old mansions from the gold mining days are still up. They figured that since it was Harley weekend, there would be fewer hawgs out that way. So we headed out through Nogal and Carrizozo. When we turned off the highway towards White Oaks, it became obvious that we weren’t going to be avoiding any motorcycles. Wave after wave passed us… but we had no idea what the occasion was. When we finally got there we could see that they had a big outdoor party going on! Looked like fun, but we only stopped to get more water, since we had another 40 miles to get home.

I thought we would come back the way we went, but Klaus and Karen both wanted to try taking the dirt road back that connects to the highway north of Capitan. I think this was ~15 miles of rocky dirt, but frankly I don’t remember. It was nice scenery almost devoid of humans… but like riding a jackhammer. It’s amazing what you can ride on with skinny tires, provided that the dirt is packed down pretty good… and the recent rains ensured that.

It was a great day with perfect weather. I felt good, especially my back. Klaus and me raced up Angus hill at the end… this is a 1.5 mile climb at ~8% grade that goes from the Bonito creek and tops out right were we live. He won… even 310W power wasn’t enough!

The Century itself was another story though. I know now that I was getting sick at the time, but didn’t feel too bad… yet. We took off in the mass start at 8:10 am. It was only 49 degrees, but sunny and calm… and we got “warmed up” pretty quick. A couple miles in there was a 1 mile climb that averages ~10%. I figured I’d have no problem staying with the leaders on this, but with Klaus pushing the pace at the front, I ended up getting gapped at the top. My “superior mass” allowed me to catch up on the descent, and I continued this pattern for the first few hills. On a couple of the descents I hit over 55 mph. We had a group of I think 9 guys riding together for the first 20 miles or so, then there was the long climb heading east towards Capitan and I was dropped again. Klaus was nice enough to wait for we and we chased back to the group before reaching Capitan. Oddly 4 of the guys pulled off there (I don’t know why). 3 went ahead and Klaus hung back with me. Even though we were still riding hard, the “race” was basically over. On the way back from the turnaround I got a flat, which took a few minutes to fix. Not long after that we were joined by a couple riding a tandem… and going very well! They pulled us into the wind until we hit Airport Rd, and then we decided to stay with them til the end.

It was another nice day… not nearly as windy as last year, and we had a tailwind at the end which is always nice. Klaus and me finished 4th and 5th in 5:37. The first finisher was at 5:22, so we weren’t too far back. Pretty decent pace considering ~10k ft of climbing. I’m sure Klaus could have stayed with the leaders if he had wanted. Next year I hope to be in better shape (and not sick!) so we’ll see.

It was a cold and blustery morning. I woke up at ~6am actually feeling pretty well rested… better than Shiva anyway… the low budget motel experience wasn’t working too well for her. Still I’m sure it was better than what Klaus, Karen and their two kids experienced… sleeping in a leaky camper… parked in the mud. Anyway, Shiva went out for coffee (the Lariat does not offer such amenities). I don’t usually do caffeine but I was hoping that it would help. Well… I certainly was awake… and jittery… don’t know if that was good or not. I’m glad I brought the trainer so I could at least warm up a little before I went outside.

When I took off at 8:42:30 it was 58 degrees with a strong headwind, and pouring rain. Not ideal conditions. In fact they were so un-ideal that Klaus decided not to race. He was supposed to start 30 seconds ahead of me and give me something to chase! Not that I would have caught him, and I surely would have blown if I’d tried.

This is a very flat course, so it is good for getting in a steady rhythm. About 8 miles in some guy blew past me… then a few seconds later another guy went by, but not so fast. You might think this was demoralizing, but I wasn’t really paying attention to anything else. I was just trying to feel what my pace was for this distance… and trying to avoid standing water in the road. I’d never done a 40k (24.85 mi) TT before so I wasn’t sure how to pace. I had an iBike powermeter, but it went wonky in the rain so it was no help… just as well though since I prefer to pace by feel. I’ve done a lot of 10 mi TTs this summer, but they are very hilly, which is a totally different experience. I like the flat course better… easier to get in “the zone”.

The second guy who passed me started 1 minute after me (I could tell by his number), and he sort of just dangled there a few hundred feet ahead. After the turn-around I felt renewed with a nice strong tailwind. I knew I was doing ok… I’d successfully avoided going too hard in the beginning, and knew I’d be able maintain the same effort to the end. A few miles later I passed him back… about the same time I was starting to get complaints from my quads and back… not a big problem though… just an indicator that I was going as hard as I could.

The course is quite flat but there is a little bump of a hill about a mile from the end. As soon as I had this in sight I started pouring it on. Unfortunately it was a little farther away than it seemed and I was really suffering when I got to it… but heck then there was only 1 mile left… time to turn it up a little higher yet! I can safely say that I finished with an empty tank. I was going ~35 mph at the end and passing someone, and I guess the officials were screaming at me to get over to the shoulder (according to Shiva; I didn’t hear anything) because that was where they have the little ticker to record your time. Thankfully they managed to get it anyway.

I wasn’t that fast, but I felt like I did a good race anyway… paced well and finished strong. Time was 58:48 which works out to an average of 25.4 mph… or 15th out of 50 who rode it. The wind, rain and cold probably added a couple of minutes to what an ideal day would have been. I don’t think Shiva had that much fun, but I’m glad she was there. Next year she is going to do it! 

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…