Brian's blog for two wheel tales

Snowing and 40, B’man blogs
This post was written by Brian Smith on November 30, 2008
Hey all. Brian Smith here in wonderful Gunnison, Colorado. My wife Jenny and I are enjoying our tiny window called ”off-season”. We currently have snow flurries and its 40 degrees. I am trying to get excited to run an hour and head north for some early season skiing. Maui seems like it was years ago already, maybe even another planet. Time to get the snow bike up and running andstart nordic/randonee skiing. Any of you that has access to randonee equipment you should check out the Cosmic race series that Pete Swenson and Monique Merrill put on. www.cosmicski.com They are a lot like mountain bike races on skis. Same race time and elevation gain. Quite a hoot.
The date for the USAT winter triathlon nationals has been pushed ahead 4 weeks as it overlapped with the ITU Winter Triathlon Worlds. These events are a lot of fun as well. Trying to skate ski after running and biking in snow till you see stars. What could be more fun? I have these funnew toys called rollerskis I picked up after Maui. Hopefully I will be ahead of the game once we have some good track. Salomon has been very kind to us this season. We both have complete kits for skate and classic skiing. We have to be sure to make the skis go fast as well!
Our dog Max is helping to keep up our running fitness. He completely trashes the house if he gets left behind. He isn’t all fun and games as his nickname is “nightmare dog”. We have to brush him 3 times a day or we will have a new shag carpet each day.
Sorry I don’t have any pictures. I promise to have some for my next post. Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays.
Brian

The mystery ear infection

I went to another doctor on Friday. I'd been really frustrated as 3 weeks in despite/ rest/antibiotics/medicated ear drops etc.. My ear was still infected and hurting me crazy.
The doctor commented on alot of sand in my ear, embedded, inflammed and infected> We need to get the sand out. So she washed it out. It was alot of sand!
Do you want to know how much better it is already. Amazing, awesome. I feel like a human being again.
Equally amazing is that it took 3 visits to get the sand problem taken care of, both earlier visits commented on the sand but in a oh observation kind of way. Amazing!...
I think I have just changed doctors.

flat batteries

1/2 way around the white rim I remember... didn't I have fresh batteries for the Camera in the glovebox in the van?! Yep.. please check out http://www.urbanassaultride.blogspot.com/ for josh's perspective and more pictures.
The white rim was cool. We had a great group of friends to ride with and the day was spectacular. The pace kept moving along, which was nice as we didn't stop for too long along the way. It was quite Sandy out there during the early part of the ride.
I wore stylie (not so much) 180's ear warmers to protect my ear infection and rode. My newly built single speed. As its my 08 hardtail bike turned (white brothers eno's hub) single speed I felt super comfortable. But I have to say. I'm done with the single speed white rim ride for awhile. 30 miles in I realised.. this ride in dumb on a single its too much of a range of steep climbs to flat riding. Oh well it was a stunning day.

How was Brian's ride? It was his birthday, he celebrated... Of course. This year he got lucky and rode (demoed for Brian Reipe /Mountain flyer magazine). A 29er belt drive single speed spot titanium bike. ( what alot of words... for a one geared bike) The Spot bike rates in Reipe's top five bikes ever and Brian agreed.cheers
Jen

time to do it again

Are you coming to play?

In threes... fours...

They say that bad luck comes in threes. Don't they also say you make your own luck?

My three of late ie: the past few days have been:

A whopping ear infection. This was a total downer as I went to a doctor on Wednesday, only to go back again to my regular doctor on Friday desperately needing antibiotics. I probably should have been given the option to take antibiotics the first visit. It would have saved me $50 and some pain.

A broken tooth: . Dried pineapple hard as leather is not the right food for me to eat! The dentist saw me today though and I have a temporary tooth and crown on the way. Pricey wee lesson.

The others where minor, but next time I make an awesome pot of vegetable soup I should taste it before putting in cayenne and 2 cans of Mexican hot tomatoes. Hot hot hot... too hot to eat! After trying to tame it with the only yoghurt we had .. vanilla.. I gave up and just ate the yoghurt. Soup anyone.. a whole pot full is in the fridge!

I'd put a container of ear drops on the kitchen bench, that night when I asked Brian if he'd moved them he said he'd put them on top of the oven, so I go to the kitchen and get drops from on top of the fridge next to the toaster oven. It's 11, I'm tired. On Sunday afternoon I see my drops on the microwave oven on the bench. Been using the dogs ear drops for 2 days!!!

B'man joined in the not thinking fun and dropped his cell phone in the dish water this morning.

But we did race a super fun cyclocross race on Saturday. A shout out goes to Western state college's Mike for putting together a super course, w/ snow off camber sections, a 180 degree snow corner and a brutal run straight up the embankment - sledding hill. Then to boot he rounded up amazing prizes and prize money. Brian held off the always fast Brian Reipe for $200, and I won a Smith ski helmet, Smith goggles and $100 voucher to Sugah's restarant... Local races are the best right!!! The weekend weather was awesome for this time of year and we got to ride with Jeff and Laura at Heartmans yesterday. MTBing for fun is my favorite thing to do. Plus the dentist in Montrose meant 'targe't' and a run on grass and trails by the Montrose river. Max has a new target toy and said the run made him very happy!

Two wheel Tales

We are contributing to a site managed by Gregg Stephan. www.twowheeltales.com Its a neat concept. Contributing Authors include 24 hour phenom Rebecca Rusch, Mountain bike, cyclocross extraordinaire Jeremiah Bishop, Creative Genius and endurance cross country racer Kelly Magelky.. So far its a group of diverse athletes... hopefully you read and enjoy.

Not in Hawaii anymore Dorothy

30 degrees and snowing all day. Got a call from Brian.. I'm up in CB full on winter went skiing at lily lakes.. AWESOME..
I'd figured.. pant and shoes on the floor, garage key missing...
Speaking of Brian, I haven't said too much about the crocodile undee costume at Halloween, cool idea for sure.. execution?? decide for yourself...shame he left the plastic knife at home it was an integral part of the costume. Check Conrad Stoltz's website www.conradstoltz.com for the incriminating evidence.
More on Brian:
Its Brian's annual birthday white rim ride Saturday Nov 15th ... 6th year running... wanna come ride?!!

More Hawaii

This picture is beautiful. Lieb took us for a hike from the end of the road on the North side of Kauai. It was amazing.

Swimming behind the waterfall was swimming into a gale force blizzard, I was expecting snow any second. The photo was worth it.
The hike was awesome, our second neat hike that week. We'd joined Michael and Kristin in the bamboo forest in Maui. That hike had gone through bamboo up a creek bed and ended swimming up a river and climbing into a pool at the base of a waterful . The previous day we'd gone to Smugglers bay, Trevor has no fear and Brian is crazy.

The boy's resurfaced and our hostess with the mostess introduced us to the game of Sit. The game of sit is when you sit in the waves breaking on the shore and stay put. As it was stormy the waves on the shore where decent. The game of sit was very similar to toss the cork. I found the others dying laughing being tossed around the shore and joined in, still have sand in my scalp and water in my left ear from the game of Sit.

Our friends Dan and Cathie had told us to seek out Puka dog, so we did... so not dissapopinted!!! With likola mustard, and relishs: pineapple/ coconut/ mango... these where not your average hotdogs!

As we where leaving Honolulu last night Brian with a mouthful of icecream said 'being fat Brenda and getting fat is fun!' Well yeah...

Max was super excited to see us home and I'm a little envious of Lisa still being in Kauai.. what day is it tomorrow??