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Crashing down Green Mountain

Posted on 13. Nov, 2009 by Derrick.

On Saturday, The guys and I decided to ride Green Mountain. It was a beautiful day and what a better way to celebrate Colorado then to go enjoy the outdoors, on a bike, with friends.

Because non of us have been on a bike for any good rides in the last months, we decided to do an easy ride. When we got to the base of the trail head, about half of Denver decided to do the same.

On the way up Justin got a flat, thankfully giving us a nice rest and gave Hyon and I a chance to do some photo shooting. (All the pics taken are courtesy of Hyon and are Copyright © Hyon Sim, to check out all the pics, click here)

Gave me a chance to play with my iPhones panorama feature. I love that phone!

After some figuring and laughing at Justin’s expense we made it to the top.

And leaving the best for last…. The crashing part. Start to pay attention at about minute 1:45. In my mind this was an epic fall. The reality? I just biffed it, mildly. Its still funny though.

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Apex one more time.

Posted on 29. Aug, 2009 by Derrick.

Hyon and I tackled the trail one more time with our MTNBK’s. Hyon looked liked he was going to fall a sleep. I was having my own mechanical issues. Watch the video for more details.

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Week in review.

Posted on 19. Jul, 2009 by Derrick.

This past week has been action packed. So much so, that I didn’t have time to post any of this weeks events. So I’ll just do a day by day break down.

Saturday July 11th. Summer, Hyon, Theresa, and I had a road ride planned. The girls bailed, so the boys decided to do some mountainbiking. Not that I don’t love riding with Summer, but when its just the boys we have a tendency to go lickety split. Hyon took me to a place called Apex.

The trail in its self was difficult and challenging with multiple bike-n-hike areas. It was about 8 miles total with roughly 2200 feet in elevation gain.

At this point we were about 3/4ths of the way up (Hyon kept saying that at least)

On our way down we hit the Enchanted forest. An amazing decline, lots of roots and little hazards that made the ride just a tad more fun!

Saturday, July 12th. Summer and I rode 26  miles down the Platt river and back. We spent a good portion of that time chilling at a splash pool in littleton watch kids play.

Monday, July 13th. I took my mom out to the Westminster Open space. Guinness’ favorite place of all time. Mom was laughing at Guin and his antics in the water. Later that week we found out that they closed the Open space due to the plague.

Environmental Health Services submitted flea specimens to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment for testing on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 and received results back this morning. The area is being closed to the public and posted with plague warnings signs today.

Dr. Jim Dale, DVM, MPH, Director of Environmental Health Services said, “There have been no reported human cases of plague in the area and if precautions are taken the disease is not considered to be a threat to humans.”

Apparently all the little prairie dogs are extremely susceptible to plague. It was odd because Summer and I were lamenting before the press release that we hadn’t seen any little faces around open space. We thought it was simply due to the grass being to high in areas. Its a good thing that our dog has given up on trying to catch those little guys.

Tuesdays, July 14th. Mom and I swung by my little gym and I swam 2000 meters. It was a good session, and the Total Immersion training is paying off. I can easily swim the 750 meters required for my triathlon. We then headed downtown so we can buy her a new rain jacket at REI. Then sat and shot the shit for a couple of hours while she was amazed at how many people used the bike paths in downtown Denver.

Wednesday, July 15th. Since my mother is visiting form Germany, I loaned her my car. I normally commute on my bike anyways. So I hit the road and had a uneventful commute into work. Most of my co-workers seemed concerned about it being in the mid 80′s, but I have been used to riding in the 110 degree heat of Phoenix.

I got a call from Hyon at about 7:40pm asking if I wanted to go do lookout mountain. I knew that I was going to have to ride again on Thursday and Friday, but I could never turn down an evening ride.

So decked out in my commuter gear (ie T-shirt and running shorts) We hit the bottom of the ride at about 9:30pm. It was a nice cool 70 degrees, and the darkness hid the hill climb. My legs were still a little sore from our ride just a couple of days ago, but I put my head down and we made it up in about 40 minutes. Respectible time but we decided to push it to the tippy top and ride another mile.

Bombing down the mountain with just some bike lights was fun. My heavy ass steel touring bike with 28mm wheels tends to handle the descent better then a normal road bike. So I had to slow down a bit for Hyon.

Thursday, July 16. Commuting only! Just good ol fashioned bike commuting.

Friday, July 17. I thought that since I had not swam since Tuesday, I would hit the gym after work. So I packed my panniers with my swim gear and headed off to work. After work I rode over to the gym and figured I would get another 2000 meters in. This time I wanted to see how fast I could get my first 750 meters done. 22 minutes! When we started this Tri-training, I was well over 30 minutes. My goal is to be in the 18 minute range before the tri.

So in review, the past week I;

• Swam 4000 meters
• Hiked 5 miles
• 67 miles of road riding.
• 10 miles of mountain biking.
• Rode just under a mile of elevation (5000 feet)

I think somewhere in there I worked. I’ll have to say though. With all that I did, my legs feel great. I’m looking forward to running 4 miles on Monday

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"Green" Mountain

Posted on 05. Jul, 2009 by Derrick.

Since moving back to Colorado, I haven’t done any real mountain biking. I’ve only gone with Summer on the occasional easy ride. So when Hyon called me late in the after noon to go ride, I thought “Sure sounds like fun”. He invited me to go ride on green mountain right off the Morrison exit off I-70.

I drank to much yesterday, so I’m nursing a hang over and including, I ate pizza for lunch (this is usual for my hangover days). Dehydrated and with a stomach full of Papa Johns, we hit the trail at about 4:30. Our first half mile was all incline and when I got to the top, the pizza was rearing its ugly head, and I was definitely “green”. So I just took it easy and on some hills took longer to ride up then my usual climbs.

Hyon tried to make me feel better about dogging it by taking lots of breaks and claiming he was tired too. He kept climbing like a mountain goat while I felt someone tied one of those drag racing parachute on my back. The ride itself was some pretty good single track, some parts were technical, some not. It’s a spot to revisit.

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Guinness is on the snide

Posted on 13. Jun, 2009 by Derrick.

Yesterday we went to open space for some mountainbiking but before we went, Guinness drank two bowls of water. Somehow that gave him massive diarrhea. We have no idea what happened but last night our dog woke up every 2 hours wanting to go out. We didn’t get much sleep.

In the morning Guinn ended up having a little bit of blood in his liquid poop. So we have decided to take it easy this weekend and do some spring cleaning.

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Last call for alcohol

Posted on 10. Jun, 2009 by Derrick.

Last Sunday was the absolutely last day of Skiing/Snowboarding this year. We were hoping for atleast one good sunny sping ski day and today would have been no different than the previous 3 months. Once again it was gloomy and a chance of thunder showers.

To chear our mood up. We all decided to dress up for the last day of the year. Annika was a super hero. Kit, ze german raver. Soren, the camera guy. Summer, little Bo Peep and I just wore yeti pants.

All in total, Summer was able to get 12 days in this year. Even after taking December, January, and February off. I was able to get 15 days more and for the first time in 10 years made it more than 5 times in one season. Living in the AZ doesn’t leave you with to many ski days.

Just to prove that we didn’t waste a day on just Snowboarding. We took Guinness Mountainbiking, and  tried a trail from Bakerville to Loveland pass. It was moderate but at about mile 3 it started to snow??

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