Eight kilos

Last week I started reading Lance Armstrong's War. For those not familiar with the book, it's essentially a play-by-play of the months leading up to and including the 2004 Tour, including profiles of all of the key contenders.

Aside from the fascinating look inside the pro peleton, for me the best part of the book has been to read about the training program Lance, and his trainer, Michele Ferrari, used to prepare. As an aside, most of us in the states who get our tour coverage via versus/OLN were under the impression that Chris Carmichael was the main dude when it came to Lance's training. Wrong. Lance is a co-owner of Carmichael Training Systems, and so has a vested interest in giving the impression that Carmichael deserves some credit for Lance's success. But it's pretty apparent reading this book, including comments from other Posties, that Ferrari is the man when it comes to Lance's training.

For me the true revelation in reading this has been that I am entirely too fat (those are not my feet, by the way--just some random picture from the web). I have no delusions of ever being pro-peleton skinny. I simply don't have the genetic makeup for it. But I could certainly shed quite a few pounds without ever missing them, and would probably get a bit faster in the process. According to Ferrari, for every kilogram of weight lost while maintaining the same wattage, Lance can climb 1.25% faster. Mathematically, this makes sense, because Lance started his 2004 training season at about 80kg, so losing one kilo is also 1.25% of his body weight. The mathematical corollary to this is that for every 1% of weight lost while maintaining the same wattage, a cyclist can climb 1% faster.

For the weight weenies out there, it doesn't matter if the weight comes off of body or bike, it's all the same. So unless you are skinny enough to race a grand tour (which I found out means that your cheeks are sunken, your upper arms are as delicate as a girl's wrist, and your skin is paper-thin with no fat underneath it, to the point that your kidneys, liver, and other organs start to become visible through the skin), forget dropping the coin to buy those carbon bottle cages, and just cut off your food supply instead. It's a lot cheaper, but perhaps not as fun to talk about and show your friends.

When I started reading the book last week, I weighed about 80kg. It was enough to scare me into not eating, and I set a goal to drop 8 kilos over the next 8 weeks. So far, I'm down 1.5 kilos. If I can drop eight kilos, I should be able to climb 10% faster. On a ride like Lotoja, where I spend a good 3 of the 11 or so hours climbing, that would take 20 minutes or so off of my time. Last year, we finished in 11:20, with a ride time of 10:40. If I can climb 20 minutes faster and spend 20 fewer minutes at the aid stations, that gives me a 20 minute fudge factor for less-favorable wind conditions or other problems but still getting a sub-11 finish. That would be quite nice.

Crap. Now I feel like the fat cyclist, obsessing over my weight and even telling you what it is AND publicly declaring my goal for my finish time in my biggest (and only) race of the year. At least I don't have nearly so many readers...

RUSH

Last Tuesday night, I went to the Rush concert. I would have written about it sooner, but our seats were in direct line of fire of a speaker stack, and my ears only quit ringing on Sunday. I thought it best to wait until I was all the way done hearing the music before I write about it.

As concerts go it was pretty good. If you're a Rush fan, they're worth checking out. Musically, they're a talented bunch. As one would expect, Neil Peart, the drummer, did a solo that was nothing short of remarkable. It was on par with Axel Rose playing the piano, or Tom Scholz on the organ. It didn't provide the "I can't believe I just saw that" feeling of a U2 concert, but it was still an impressive show, especially considering these guys have been making music for as long as I've been alive.

Of course the real fun of going to a rock concert is the show within the show. So let's talk about that as well. I was actually a bit surprised at the low number of mullets, especially after my experience at the Australian Pink Floyd show at the same venue. But there were a few, as well as several hairstyles that had apparently been adapted from a mullet once the wearer decided to try and catch up with the times.

What we were lacking in mullets, though, was more than made up for with tattoos. Perhaps tattoos are the new mullet. The "business up front, party in the back" attitude has been replaced with tattoos that may or may not be covered when one is dressed in business attire. In fact, upon entering the arena, I noticed a no-higher-than-expected frequency of low-cut shirts on the female attendees. I was amazed, however, that the first ten or so women in such attire all had tattoos on what would rightly be considered their breasts. Come on, of all the places to put a tattoo, that was the best you could come up with? Or perhaps reality lies closer to the more shocking corollary, specifically, that was the only place left.

Once we settled into our seats, we got to actually sit in them for about fifteen minutes or so before the show began. (Being old guys, Eric and I considered viewing the concert from a seated position as a good thing.) When the band began playing, everyone rose, and a seemingly nuclear familial unit a couple rows in front of us turned themselves into a fire hazard. Rather than standing in front of their seats like the rest of us, they stood in the stairway aisle adjacent to their seats. The woman/mother was the most enthusiastic, flashing the "rock on" sign and banging her nearly femulleted head with such vigor that there had to have been some stimulants at play. The older male/father and younger male/son of this group were also quite enthusiastic but exhibited their pleasure in a less typical fashion--they hugged several times during the show. On a handful of occasions, all three would embrace in a group hug, whose tightness hit an apex during the intro to "Tom Sawyer." More on this later.

This theme of female fanaticism for the band Rush was also displayed just a few seats over by two ladies attending the concert on a girls night out. There was enough resemblance to suggest they were sisters, but they also chose to enhance the similarity by wearing matching tour shirts. To get my sisters to attend a concert performed by an all-male band would require that one or more of the band members are gay.

The more typical female attendees were those accompanying their male dates, but even these elicited surprise. The most notable case was the attractive young lady accompanying the beer-bellied, balding, gray-haired guy a few rows behind us. Either she was a lot older than she looked, or he was absolutely filthy rich. Either way, he should have been flagged for "disproportionately hot girlfriend."

Another one I got a kick out of was the 17 year old with the anti-gravity devices attached to her chest. I'm assuming she was 17, because she and her date left mid-concert, shortly before 10:00 p.m. She must have an early curfew on school nights.

I do not, however, mean to imply that all the women were attractive. Not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, either the skank wrangler had the night off or had passed out on the job.

Given my desire to sit down throughout the performance, I have no right to consider myself anything other than an old guy. But at a concert for a band that rose to prominence in the 70's and 80's, I'm still among the youngsters in the crowd. The funny thing is that a lot of the people didn't realize that they had gotten old, and were still acting and dressing like they would have had they seen Rush back in '82. One that comes to mind was the woman a row in front of us who was sporting a very professional, bookish-looking hairstyle with an equally sophisticated pair of glasses. And a halter top. That was a little incongruous.

The air guitar, the singing along, and all the other behavioral quirks of rock band wannabes also contributed to the entertainment value of the show within the show, but the climax had to have been about halfway through the second set when I turned to Eric and asked if I was the only one who thought it smelled as if someone had gone to the restroom and returned with the urinal cake in his pocket. Eric indicated that this was not an olfactory delusion and pointed behind us to where three rows by six seats were vacated, and one of the venue employees was busy spraying chemicals, sprinkling things on the ground, and otherwise sanitizing the recently unoccupied seating area. I'm sure someone was having a great time. But wouldn't it be cheaper to get roaring drunk and go see a cover band at some dive bar? I mean, if you're not going to remember the event anyway, might as well save some coin, right?

I guess it's a little cheap of me to poke fun at all those around me without poking a little fun at myself, but thankfully the band members were willing to take the high road when it comes to humor. They did so by introducing "Tom Sawyer" with the following. That and the song that followed were the high point of the evening. Especially since by then the urinal cake smell had dissipated.

Habitrail

Today's lunch ride got called off on account of rain. So I went to the gym instead. I haven't done any strength training for weeks and decided I was partly overdue, in no small part because of the way Ladd worked me over on Saturday. My knee was also pretty sore after playing soccer with the kids and some neighbors last night, so I figured I should go back to doing physical therapy again.

After I got done with the weights, I got on the habitrail -er- treadmill for a while. Nothing major, just five minutes of walking to warm up, twenty minutes of running, and five more minutes of walking to cool down. After I had been running for a whopping two minutes, I began looking at the clock, wondering when this torture session was going to end. It could not have helped that the guy on the habitrail next to me was breathing as if he were going to blow out his diaphragm, lungs, and trachea, along with all corresponding phlegm, with every breath.

I have seen this guy at the gym several times before. He has a hunched over posture and the upper-body development of an eleven year old girl. His legs are thin but as muscular as one would expect from a runner. When he runs on the treadmill, he keeps it cranked up to about a 10% incline. I have no doubts that he could outrun me on any course over any distance. But it doesn't change the fact that he looks and sounds awful. A lot of runners around here are really into the race to Robie Creek. I'm pretty sure this guy is focused on this race in the same way Gollum was focused on the one ring--to the point that his obsession has deformed his body.

Anyway, back to my run. I don't know why it is that running for twenty minutes seems so tortuous. I am no stranger to running--I've done a couple marathons, a handful of half-marathons (including the Race to Robie Creek so I could see what all the fuss was about), and a number of shorter events. The thing is, I don't know how I did it. I guess a big part of it is that I was running outside rather than in the gym. And the motivation for whatever event I was training for had to have helped. Yet I still don't see myself ever going back to being a runner.

Unfortunately, my physical therapist told me about five months ago that I needed to be running once in a while to get my knee back in shape. I think the pain I suffered from the pickup soccer game is an indication that she's right and I've been a slacker. Guess I'll have to experiment with the ipod and other distraction methods to get me through a weekly run. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will help me lose some weight, since the bike's certainly not making a difference in that regard.

Deceptive rides

Bike Race:
-noun
1. Any occasion on which two or more cyclists--typically, but not always, of comparable ability--are riding on the same course at the same time. All riders need not be aware that the ride is competitive for it to be a race.

Ladd and I met up Saturday morning for what would ordinarily be a fairly easy 70 miler. The first 10 miles or so we didn't even bother trying to get in a paceline; we just rode side by side, chatting, discussing the Giro, and not really pushing it too hard.

Once we got to the first of the two climbs, we settled into a rhythm, and I pulled up the first pitch. I felt fairly strong and left it in the big ring as we made our way up a moderate hill. Towards the top, Ladd made the comment that we were really moving. I looked at my heart rate monitor: 178. Yeah, I was going too hard, so I backed it off a bit.

Ladd took the lead, but didn't back it off as much as I'd have liked. He opened up a small gap, which I was content to let him have. There's a false flat before the final three mile pitch, where we regrouped, caught our breath, and agreed that neither of us was looking forward to finishing the climb.

Which is not to say that we took it easy. Ladd continued pushing the pace and opened up another gap. He runs a standard double crank, while I've got a compact. So when it got steep and he was out of the saddle, I was just spinning in an easy gear. I gradually started reeling him back in. Towards the top, I could tell we were both hurting, so I decided to try and pull in front. I accelerated and moved past him. I expected he'd let me go considering we still had another 50 miles to ride, but instead he latched onto my wheel. I accelerated again hoping to drop him. He stayed on. Finally, I shifted up two gears, got out of the saddle, and attacked, hoping to win the imaginary King of the Mountain points at the top. He tried to follow, but had nothing left. Unfortunately, neither did I, and after about ten cranks, I sat back down. I looked at my heart rate monitor: 192. Tactically speaking, this was not my best move.

Fortunately we had a five mile descent on which to rest our legs and spin out the lactic acid. Would have been nice to have a five mile descent that finished at my driveway, but instead it finished in the Payette River Canyon, which meant a moderate but consistent headwind for the next 25 miles.

We put our heads down and pushed through the canyon, without saying much for the first ten miles or so. I was starting to fade and needed to eat something, so I sat up and reached for my jersey pocket. A few weeks back, Fatty wrote about the "best jersey pocket food ever." I'll admit that I've never actually tried it as he recommends--plain avocado on white bread--mostly because we almost never have white bread in the house. But I did have my variation on this theme with me today: turkey, avocado, and cheese wrapped in a flour tortilla. Without having tried the original, I cannot categorically state that mine is better, but I've got to think that a flour tortilla is better than bread just because of the squish factor.

I've been experimenting with on-bike food lately to try and get a better understanding of what my body can tolerate on long rides. I know from experience that I cannot tolerate straight energy food for more than a few hours. I get to the point where I know I need to eat, but I just can't get myself to eat any more. I'm trying to figure out whether if I eat normal food as much as possible during the first hours of the ride, my stomach will better tolerate gels and blocks later in the ride.

So far, I've found three things that I tolerate well: turkey & avocado wraps (I can take or leave the cheese part, avocado must be salted), fruit (apples and bananas, though these are best picked up from an aid station and eaten immediately), and coca-cola (in the water bottle, on the rocks). I'll continue playing around with this, particularly as my rides get longer in preparation for Lotoja. One thing I know for certain I will be skipping is Red Bull. Unless I feel like I'm going to die. Even then, I'd rather just have a coke.

With a turkey-avocado wrap and some coca-cola in my belly (Ladd had some concoction he described as being similar to vanilla cake batter), we were ready to get back to business and push until we got to Emmett where we could stop and refill our bottles.

I'm always delighted to visit a convenience store and encounter happy, helpful clerks that don't laugh at my lycra. Usually if I smile and ask politely, they're glad to let us have free water and ice. In this case, I grabbed a bottle of coke as well. And Ladd learned when purchasing his peanut nut roll that you CAN use a debit card for a purchase of 53 cents.

One good climb and 22 miles to go with full bottles and stretched-out legs is a good feeling. Ladd wasn't willing to let me take it easy on the climb up Old Freeze Out, though. Had he not been in front, I may not have noticed the large snake sunning itself directly in our path. From the top of the last climb, it's just a flat to rolling grind back home. Usually at this point, I can smell the barn and have some extra snap in my legs trying to get the ride over with. On this occasion, however, we could smell the barn and then some, as our course took us past about 160 acres of feedlot, directly upwind.

The last ten miles after the feedlot seemed to go by quickly, though I was surprised how tired my legs were. I thought for sure that having already done a century on my mountain bike that riding 70 road miles would be a piece of cake. I was wrong. I went way too hard on that first climb and blew a lot of my reserves. By the time I rolled into my driveway, I had logged a little over 70 miles and 3,000 feet of climbing. Not really that big of a deal, yet all I had left was two servings of over-cooked leg from the Bonketeria.

Disaster averted

Lately it seems like I've been writing a lot about the things that have gone wrong on bike rides. For once it's nice to write about something that could have gone wrong but didn't. Last weekend, a few of us were planning a memorial day ride through the Boise mountains. The route we had planned was about 150 miles, very few of them flat.

As I was getting my bike cleaned and lubed for the ride, I looked at my rear tire and noticed this:In case you can't tell, that's the casing of my tire exposed through the rubber. The tire has about 1500 miles on it, and I knew it was getting worn, but I hadn't been getting any flats, so I figured I'd keep riding on it until it became a problem. The smart thing to do would have been to buy a replacement tire to have at the ready when the problems arose. But I am not nearly practical enough to do something like that, even though I thought about it on dozens of occasions.

Fortunately, I noticed it before the ride began. Unfortunately, all the shops were closed by then. It took me exactly one phone call to find a replacement tire.

"Hello, Ladd?"
"Yeah"
"Hey, I've worn through the rubber on my rear tire. Do you happen to have a spare sitting around?"
"Let's see, I've got a cyclocross tire, a 28 from my daughter's bike, how about a new 23--Vredestein Fortezza?"
"I'll be right over."

He could have charged me whatever he wanted, and I'd have paid it. But he stocked up on those tires when they were on sale and said $25 would be more than enough (he initially suggested $20). Aren't friends great? Especially the kind that ride bikes. Then again, I don't think I have any of the other kind.

Unfortunately, we called off the ride due to thunderstorms in the mountains and did something much shorter instead. Oh well, at least I have a good tire now.

Technical incompetence

I work for a very large tech company. As such, many people who don't work with me think I know a lot about technology and how to do stuff. These people are wrong. May I enter into evidence Exhibit A, my writeup of my Moab trip. Those of you who read the writeup probably wondered where the pictures were. To me they showed up just fine, because they were hosted on my machine. To the rest of you, they were invisible. My apologies.

Six days in Moab

Another trip to Moab is in the rear-view mirror. We've been back for a week, but organizing the photos and doing a writeup took a lot longer than I thought it would.

Upon arrival in town, our fist order of business (other than a bite to eat) was the Slickrock trail. I've done Slickrock enough that it would have been ho-hum except that this was my first time on my 29er. All I can say is that the bike and trail seemed to have been made to go together. The big wheels made easy work of some of the trail obstacles that were challenging in the past.

One of the lines I had never cleaned before was a spur we dubbed "Road to Paris," since Chris Paris was the first person we'd seen clean it. I gave it a shot and didn't make it. Brad tried it and failed. Paul tried it and didn't get it. Chris took a crack at it and couldn't get over the hump. We were ready to give up and move on when Paul took another run at it and made it all the way up. Crap. Now I had to do it. After one more failed attempt, I nailed it, with Brad right behind me. Enough fun there, time to move on.

I've never not made it up Cogs to Spare, but I've never made it on my first attempt either. This time it was a piece of cake. The only thing hard about it was that it's a long, steep climb. But the little crux move was like running over a garden hose, where in the past it has been enough to knock me off balance.

The rest of the day went fairly smoothly other than Steve K's ongoing drivetrain problems. His chain and cassette worked just fine on the tame stuff at home, but when tested on the steep slickrock, kept skipping under load. We replaced it the next day, but walking was required on many of the climbs. Steve K made the comment "I've never wanted to climb steep hills so much until I couldn't."

On the home stretch of the trail, I decided to descend a little gap in the rocks rather than up top where the "trail" indicates. This was one of those gaps with little basins scattered throughout the bottom. Since there'd been rain earlier in the week, these little basins were filled with water. I rolled through the first one with no problem. Hit the second one thinking it was an inch or two deep--wrong. Some witnesses indicate the water was hub deep. Didn't matter, because I was over the bars and wet. No injuries to anything other than my ego, but it was enough to win the endo award for the week. Not really the kind of attention I wanted, but someone's got to win it I guess.

Thursday was our big shuttle day. Hazzard County wasn't open due to snow, so we had to settle for Kokopelli to UPS to LPS to Porcupine Rim. While this trail certainly would have been rideable on the 29er, that's not to say it would have been fun. So I went to Chile Pepper and rented a freeride bike for the day. It's been a long time since I've been on a big bike, and it was a ton of fun. Brad was on his 7 point, so I pretty much just followed him and tried to nail everything he nailed. Which is not to say that we did everything, as we had the sense of self preservation to watch and take pictures while others crashed down the staircase, without actually hitting it ourselves.

I'm always amazed, though, at how much worse a line seems when you're at the top looking down versus watching it on video or looking at pictures after the fact. This little drop seemed like a really big deal at the time, but now that I've watched the video, I'm surprised I balked at it at first and was still hesitant right up to the point where I nailed it.

When we were trying to decide what trails to ride before the trip, I was pretty lukewarm about doing a big shuttle on Porcupine Rim, mostly because it's a rough trail and can really beat up both rider and bicycle. But the consensus was to do this ride, so I embraced it, made the most of it with a big bike, and had a great time. Now I can't imagine going all the way to Moab and not riding that trail, nor can I imagine not doing it on a long-travel bike. It was that fun. Kudos go to Paul N, who flew (himself) in Wednesday night, grabbed a rental bike, and made the most of the shuttle trip with us Thursday morning. Paul is a roadie who hasn't ridden a MTB in 15 years, and this is how we introduced him to Moab.

After a bite to eat, we headed up to Arches so we could hike up to delicate arch. I have no idea how many times I have done this hike, but I never get sick of it. The arch is beautiful in photos (and there are lots of 'em!), but there is nothing like coming around that last rock and seeing it right there in front of you.

Friday we split up the group and headed in different directions. Paul N, having arrived later and missing Slickrock, wanted to ride that trail, so he and Mark P headed over there, while Chris, Steve K, Steve A, Paul, Brad, Eric, and I went the other direction for our own epic ride. (You'll notice that we have a real shortage of naming diversity in the group with two Pauls, two Steves, and two Marks; things only got worse the next day when my brother, Steve, showed up to ride with us. Perhaps next year we'll all just call ourselves Bruce.)

The intended route for the larger group was to ride Gemini Bridges to Gold Bar Rim to Blue Dot to Poison Spider, then back on the road. We saved ourselves a long slog on the road by having Mark P and Paul N drop us off at the Gemini Bridges trailhead. It was a tad hot, and by the time we got to the top of the first big climb on Gemini Bridges, Eric wasn't feeling well. He seriously considered bailing out on the ride, but decided to stick it out. He ended up being glad he did.

Gold Bar Rim was a lot of fun, with lots of chances to climb technical moves. Steve A really stepped it up and exhibited the typical Moab "day 3 mojo." It usually takes about two days to get used to riding there before a rider is comfortable opening it up and really being aggressive. Steve was on my wheel all day and cleaning some pretty impressive moves that stymied even some of the most experienced riders.

Blue Dot is a relatively new trail and probably not "official," much like Sovereign and UPS were not too long ago. It runs more or less parallel to parts of Gold Bar Rim and Golden Spike, but instead of winding back and forth across the top of the mesa, it runs along the edge, including being right at the edge from time to time. Everyone but Paul got off and pushed the bike at the spot where this picture was taken. We all know that it's as wide as a sidewalk and none of us would worry about whether we could ride our bikes on a sidewalk without falling off, but the exposure is just enough to prompt us not to test things. Paul was comfortable on the sidewalk and just rode across.

Besides riding the cliffhangers, Paul does some remarkable stuff on his stumpjumper. It's a XC bike, but he was still rolling it through technical lines and not really hesitating on anything. He's a funny rider, because he's pretty reserved when we're riding at home, but we get down to Moab, and it's as if someone else shows up and starts pushing the envelope.

At the top of Poison Spider/Portal trail, we ran into the Vehicross rally. We had seen them in town and were making jokes about how they had organized a rally and both of them had shown up. We were surprised to find more than a dozen at the top of Poison Spider. They were quite a bit more surprised to find out we had ridden our bikes there from Gemini Bridges.

As we made our way down Poison Spider, we rode along some slickrock that we thought was the trail but that turns out wasn't. When we finally reconnected with the actual trail, we couldn't tell which way we were supposed to go. We asked some guys coming up in Jeeps, who pointed one direction. We should have done just the opposite. The direction they pointed took us on Poison Spider loop, a piece of trail we were not familiar with. While it did in fact get us back to where we wanted to go, we had to cross several big, deep sand traps to get there, including one that had to have been a quarter mile long. Ick.

Once back at the Poison Spider trailhead, whatever it was that was making Eric sick earlier in the ride decided that it needed to come out. So we waited. And waited some more. I was out of water, and it was hot, so Brad, Matt, and I decided to take off down the road so we could stop at the spring on our way back into town. We got our water and cooled off a bit and then got back onto the road right behind the rest of our group. We spent the rest of the afternoon cooling off in the pool.

My wife and kids and my brother and his family arrived shortly after our ride, so the kids joined us for a nice soak before heading over to Pasta Jay's so we could carbo load and do it all again the next day.

Saturday was our last day of riding, and Amassa Back was our destination. Our original plan was to do Sovereign on Saturday, and I brought my rigid single speed with designs on riding it on Sovereign and letting my brother use my 29er. Amassa Back is less suited for a rigid single speed, but I brought the bike all the way down there, so I may as well ride it, right? Brad rode his 7 Point, making Brad's Yeti available for Steve to ride, which he (wisely) chose over my 29er hardtail.

I'm pretty sure the last time Steve rode a mountain bike was last year when we were in Moab. That didn't seem to slow him down though, and he didn't even hesitate rolling down this line that caused the otherwise fearless Mark P to pause.

The trail itself was a lot of fun, though I will say going up was more enjoyable than going down on the single speed. I was surprised at some of the moves I was able to do on the SS--I think the higher gearing forced me to go faster, which gave me enough momentum to get over some of the big step-ups. Matt's a strong enough climber that he spend most of the week off the front while the rest of us struggled along behind him. On Amassa Back, it was a bit different, since the single forced me to go faster up the hills. I yo-yoed with Matt most of the day, passing him, then stopping to catch my breath while he passed me, then repeating the process. He made the comment that he could always hear me coming because I was breathing so hard.

Once at the top of the mesa, we had stunning views all around us, including vistas of the world's most scenic potash plant (intentionally left out of the photos).

No photos of the way down, as Steve and I had to leave the group and book it back to town for the sake of marital bliss. Would have been nice to stick around, as Brad demonstrated his ample skills on the many drops and booters along the trail. On the way down, I got a shoutout from another rigid single speed rider coming up the trail. Rigid single speeds are like their own religion, though I'm not the most devout of members.

One of the cool things that Chris does every year is an awards ceremony on the final day. Chris organized the first of these Moab trips for our group eight years ago, and he has been back every year since, even though he moved away several years ago. Each time he puts together some nice awards and lets the guys vote on who the winners should be. This year's awards were:

Rookie of the year: Steve A
Climber: Matt
Descender: tie between Paul and Mark P, but since Mark has won this award pretty much every time he has come and already had some lock-on grips (the prize for the award), he gave it to Paul.
Endo: yours truly
Most Impressive Rider: Brad--he locked this up by day 2, but kept on impressing. Brad can do it all, uphill and down.

While I was hanging out with the family on Saturday night, the rest of the guys did a night ride on Sovereign. Mark P thought that was the highlight of the trip--I'll need to make sure and give that one a go next year.

The rest of our time in Moab was spent hanging out with the family. We did some nice hikes in Arches, including Park Avenue, which we had never done before.

We also took the kids to their favorite spot--the sandbox between two fins on the Devil's Garden hike. I think we have as much fun as they do just watching them play and run around in the sand.

Before heading home on Monday, we took the kids to hike up to delicate arch. Our youngest fell asleep in the car on the way there, so she and I stayed in the car while everyone else took off on the hike. She only slept about fifteen more minutes, so once she woke, I put her in the pack and hauled her up the trail. We met the rest of the family at the top. Now all of our kids have done that hike, but our oldest holds the record for doing it earliest, since we carried her up there when she was five weeks old.

On the way down, our one-going-on-twelve baby decided that she needed to get out of the pack and hike on her own. It was pretty funny watching her stumble along the trail and stubbornly refuse to hold a hand or receive any other assistance. Eventually I tricked her into getting back into the pack, which saved us from spending all afternoon hiking that last half mile of trail.

Going to Moab is like a ski trip with guaranteed powder. No matter how often I go, I never want to leave, and I always look forward to going back. There's just something magical about that place--even when it's hot and miserable from a weather standpoint, it's still fun. You just can't get much better.