"Brian Head, the god of single track"

this is the peak at brian head utah, more to come !

"THE GOD OF THUNDER"

thats thor hushvod, he won the stage today, hes a bad mammajamma, a raping and pillaging viking from norway, thats how he sprints, pillaging the peloton, hehe i like that, i like thor hes been winning sprint races for a while now, badass white boy !....

does anyone remember this ? it was the tour a few years ago, the stage was a flat day and ended in a sprint, thor was starting to make a move to the front coming up the inside next to the barriers with about 750 meters to go, there was a spectator holding i big laminated sign out and thor was going soo fast that he hit it a gashed his arm, cool huh ? (he was ok)

so nothing happened to the overall standings today, that will take place in the morning my friends ( and that other one of you ) do we think lance can do it in the mountains tomorrow lizard fans ? i wouldnt put it past him, hmmm.......

" Tour the Beaver, no really !"

those are the tushar mountains in south western utah, the tallest peak you see there is delano, ( not delauno for gods sake )its 12,175 feet above sea level, there are three other peaks 12,000 or better and three more 10,000 or better, they are freakin beautiful lizard fans ( and that other one of you ) when you head north on I-15 from st george utah you come to a town called beaver utah, the home of the "BEAVER, BEAVERS", im serious, thats the name of the high school team there, cool huh ? BEAVERS, teehheeheee...

thats about 15 miles in and about 3000 feet up, this was a really cool road ride, the forest was amazing, i saw deer three different times, theres a beautiful river flowing from the 12,000 foot peaks, it was just a fuckin bitchin ride today, it was a stroke of luck to do it, my dad needed help up on the mountain, see my mom was born and raised in beaver and they have a trailer parked on property by kents lake in the canyon, i know about these mountains for a long time, i just never rode my bike here before. tell you what, this canyon and this forest and these mountains stack up against anything in the state and this ride is now on my top 5 hill climbs, and im a mount evans topper, lest we forget....

so what we did was, my old man dropped me outside of town by the interstate and i used the run up into then through town to the canyon as the warm up, as you head east into the canyon you pass the horse race track and the golf course, the road just meanders through the country side past some houses and into the trees, the river runs right by the road most of the time so you can hear the water a lot which i found very spiritual today.

so you just climb very gradually for exactly 8 miles, i know this because i saw the mile marker, and them it swings up for about a half mile, then is swings up again, this time its hovering around 9 or 10 % for a couple of miles. then you get a chance to recover for about a mile, i think i even went down just a bit, then you come to the switch backs up the cliffs, thats where this pic was taken, i was suffering bad here, rubbing the wheel on the frame at times, im still fat damnit !!

from there its a series of 10 to 15 % grades with flats and even a bit of down again, when you get to the top you have gone from town 20 miles and 4200 feet of gain, the road has a lot of character, its always changing its mind on whether or not its going too punish you or give you a chance to breathe, thats delano peak in the back ground, remember, from the freeway ?

speaking of breathing, its been a minute since i have been to altitude, as you can see i was pretty fuckin happy to reach the top, more altitude is on the horizon though, i will be going to salt lake to rail the wasatch for a couple days with the zaun at 10,000 +, and at the end of the month the cali characters will be headed this way to banzi the brian head at 11,000 +, damn i love bikes, whos with me ???

p.s. thanx 4 the pics pop !

"Tenths of a second i get the other thing i dont"

it was a hell of a race, this discipline is soo cool, i think its one of the things that are cool about roadies, these guys were in such major amounts of pain when they crossed the line, it just makes me shake my head at they effort the aliens are able to put out, makes me feel like a slug....
astana won the race, which was no surprise, anyone that thought they wouldnt win just doesnt get it, i think the time was 19 seconds or some thing for the win, but here is what i dont get....

astana had to beat saxo bank by 40 seconds to get armstrong into the yellow jersey, now i watched the race live and when they crossed the line it was a tie and it was claimed that saxo bank survived by tenths of a second to keep cancellara in the lead, so i just caught the last part of the rebroadcast and it read on the tv at one time that astana must get a time under 46:29:46 to get lance the jersey, astans finished at 46:29:32 ??? im no math major but thats faster than 46:29:46 right :32, :46. i dont get it !!!

like i said this is a stupid cool event i think, being a mountain biker at heart i give roadies a hard time once in a while, well ok , most of the time, but these guys are such monsters on the bike i just gotta take my baggies off to them, wooh did i just say that ? never mind, strike that last part.

they took this race away from the tour for 4 years, mostly because the teams with americans were kicking the shit out of every one i believe, its fitting that the year they bring it back that the americans put it on them again, way to go astana, now save it for the mountains lance cause contador will be in it to win it...

"The missile from the isle of mann"

thats cavendish taking the stage win today just ahead of thor, the god of thunder, well the god had nothing for the missile today. this guy seems to be unbeatable in a 500 meter sprint, it was a great race to watch, with about 25k to go the peloton hit a series of s turns and with a big head wind switching to cross, about 25 riders made a move and gaped the main peloton by 39 seconds at the finish, and in this break was non other than,,,

you guessed it, LANCE ! dont know what was up with contador but he was caught behind with the main pack, he never even tried to bridge, so lance leap frogged alberto into 3rd place by 19 seconds.

with the team time trial tomorrow lance could take yellow if astana performs as they are expected to, very interesting development this early in the race. contador is probably steaming, i believe if lance does indeed take yellow tomorrow the fight in astana may be over. if lance does get the lead i think the race its self will be over i dont see him ever giving up the jersey.

tomorrow is gonna be cool !!!

"canadian girls, wooh, gotta love em "

sophie & julie, my new friends from canada, i just cant tell you how much fun it was to meet, get to know, hang out and ride with these two girls, ok, not only are they hot ass hell, but damn it if they couldnt ride too.
sophie is a little new to mountain biking, but she races sport in quebec, couldnt tell, she was a soldier, about ten minutes into south rim you come up on a 4 foot drop, now theres a bail out to the left so you dont have to jump off, well sophie was right on marks wheel and he went ahead and jumped off the drop, poor girl thought she could roll this one, not so, she went over the bars and did a belly flop right onto the next rocks, she came up complaining but i couldnt understand what she was saying with her french accent. as soon as we all realized that she had fallen we gave her a minute to recover, she had this big mark on her chin and the first of what would become the legs of a thousand bruises. on we went, what a soldier !!! i think this pic was taken on slickrock trail in moab, sophie on the left and julie on the right, turned out that julie used to compete in the elite pro womens category of no less than the world cup circuit, a couple of world championships also, fuck, i must have done some thing right some time to meet these two out of the blue...

this is the point at gooseberry mesa, the end of south rim, views are out of this world...

the girls, looks like they are contemplating jumping doesnt it ? dont do it, theres so much to live for !

this is the unearthly spot just after dropping into the main south rim trail, first timers to the mesa always trip on this section, as a matter of fact after being at this spot no less that 30 times it always trips me too..

reminds me of saying good bye..

"catchin up is hard to do"

so mia was in town, we had hauled it back to st george and got up the next day to pack and head out for gooseberry, we got up and just kicked it that night , it was so cool to have some time with my friend, jordan had gone ahead to cedar city to ride up at brian head, crazy kid, he ended up riding in the snow, but then he got back in the car and drove to the goose, so he went out on a ride while mia and i set camp. when jordan got back he told us that he was driving back to cedar city for the night, my friends from california have one large flaw, they dont like to car camp on bike trips ???? weird huh ??? when they come to brian head this month they dont even want to sleep on the mountain ????? anyway, on that monday morning mia and i had drove back to town to rent her a bike,,,, thats when i met them. them, weird way to describe them huh ? well when i meet THEM i had to make a new catagory for women, these two are off the charts !!!
on the right is julie, and on the left is sophie, they are french canadians from quebec city in quebec canada. i was standing in the bike shop getting mia ready and in walks this adorable girl, she looks at me and in this cute little voice and accent says " can you tell me where to ride my bicycle ?", " well hell" i said, "come with us", she said "yes ?" i told her "yes, come with us", "okay" julie said and out the door we went. thats when i met sophie and her incredible butt that i have fallen in love with, more about that later....

this is out on south rim on gooseberry, these girls had no idea about gooseberry, i dont think they had even heard of it before, it was such a stroke of good fortune to meet up with these girls the way we did, it ened up being quite a cool week and a half and i made some cool ass new friends.

julie and sophie had flown into las vegas a day and a half ago, they rented a van and were on a 10 day trip through the southwest, they didnt even know about our oaisis and were on their way to zion, so it was really cool to show them our desert and they really seemed to be having fun, and it was a blast riding behind sophie :->....

we ( jordan, sophie, julie, and me ) were almost to the trail head when a car came up on us really fast honking no less, well some of you know the run ins ive had out on the road so to say that i was pissed at this person was a little bit of an under statement, turned out to be "maximus", man it was good to see my friend, i hadnt rode with him for a while as he had been nursing a climbing fall injury, ( had a feeling this could happen, i will be nervous when he starts going up again ) sob could have died, he was in zion and fell 30 feet or so, theres more to it than that but for now we will leave it be.

so yeah all of a sudden we got a kick ass bike ride brewing...

this is a spot on "hidden canyon" that piece of trail is my fav out on the goose, its 2.2 miles of fun as shit man..

thats mark,( maximus ) julie, jordan, me, mia, and sophie at the spot on the goose...

"Thats fast swiss cheese"

fabien cancellara, swiss time trial champ and former world time trial champ, this guy has an engine, he won first today by over 20 seconds, a huge amount in a bike race, he put almost a minute into lance, contador hauled ass and took 2nd, but i dont think that means much, kloden , levi, contador, and armstrong all came in top 10 so it looks like its going to take about a week or so to start getting this straightened out. this will be a fun race to watch...

"I wanna ride that"

this is the bike that lance will ride this morning, holy shit, if i had money i would have such bad ass rigs ! ive never rode a time trial bike, hear they dont handle that great, like to find out ... do think there is an aero advantage to this ? man i hope he wins the stage today, people will trip, no one in the whos who is giving him any chance, i dont know, lets get this thing going !!!

"The tour is upon us fellow mortals, all watch the aliens !"

i think many will agree with me that this will be a better race to watch than the last couple, if not only for the mans return, but to see how the other americans will fare this year on the roads and mountains that hitlers germany roamed with out resistance, teeghehe.... thats lance winning the 49th annual "nevada city classic" (not nevauda) damn, 49th, thats impressive for american cycling, i would bet there arent too many races in the states that old.
i think the time armstrong spent racing here was really cool for the sport, it was a gas to watch those guys come up palomar mountain during the tour of california, i got to see him for about 17 seconds but it was cool as shit, theres a picture of the left side of his head on the february posts...

thats levi, chris horner, and lance at the tour of the gila in new mexico, that with the tour of cali and the nevada city race, those guys had a lot of fun hanging together racing and training at home. i watched a bunch of cool videos on velo news and the livestrong site and they hung out and clowned for weeks on end in colorado (not coloraudo) and california, levi will be racing leadville with lance in august. horner got bounced from the astana tour squad because im sure contador wasnt happy with the three amigos being in the same peloton...

this is what i think, if armstrong can come out tomorrow and put some time into contador in the prologue then things will be interesting when they get to the first mountain stages, contador is an amazing climber, and he was the 2007 champ, but who did he really beat ? i know i know, he has also won the other grand tour races, im not saying he wont win this year, although lest we forget,,,,,,

lance armstrong is a raging beast on a bicycle, he has the mental ability to inflict brain pain on the other riders, and he also can cause more pain to his body than is probably humanly possible.

if he is indeed ahead and leading the astana team its his race, they are so strong, 3 of the top 10 bike racers in the world ride on astana, the team time trial should be really cool to watch, it could be an american sweep with garmin strong at the ttt also.

dont you just luv lances all black bike ? so fuckin sexy !!!

go man, tear their fucking legs off, your arrogant sure, i have heard you can be some what of an asshole so what, ok you dumped on sheryl crow, hard one to swallow, can you imagine her sitting there naked playing her guitar ? WOOOW, i only care how fast you ride your bike man, i only care that you put those euros down, let them cry in their wine and sit on their cheese, may you ride swift and safe and emerge victorious...!!!!!