"hard core" mountain unicyclist

new location

ok, i finally got tired of blogger. it's been good to me, but it's time for me to move on....

http://ex-cyclist.com

check out my new bike!

enjoy


when i get some time, i will try to archive the posts from this site.

first morning in california

i was very excited to be in the california mountains again. so excited that i woke with the sun [5:00am]. i never checked my watch, but it was pretty early i could tell.

my first goal was to climb donner pass and get some pictures along the way:

you can see the old railway along the top.





this picture on the left is looking down at donner lake.

the climb up to the top was pretty easy... at least easier than i remember. after all i did this climb twice last year, once on a rented mountain bike, and once on my unicycle while carrying a huge back pack. this was nothing like that, thank god!!

i got back to camp pretty early and decided to do some more exploring on my bike. i am so happy that i decided to bring my old bianchi with the cyclocross tires rather than my mtb bike or road bike. since i had a bike that could go anywhere i found a pretty sweet single track not far from camp.


if anyone knows "jp" please thank him/her for me. this trail just climbed up the mountain on the south side of donner lake. it was full of switch backs and until i got a peek of the lake i had no idea where i was. it was one of those trails where you want to turn around because you're getting further away than you planned, but because it's so unknown, you're all alone, and the gound is perfect.... you keep going.






so i kept going and i am so glad that i did, because at the top of the trail i found the railroad tunnel....and i just love tunnels.











it was really freaky to go inside because it was so dark, damp, and full of bat noises. there wasn't much room on the sides to dodge a train if needed either!






but i had to get this shot :)

first night in california.

after driving all through the night we arrived at donner lake about 6pm. it was still pretty light and we were able to find a pretty cool camp spot, and put up our tent. we had dinner at taco jalisco in truckee [best mexican restaurant ever!!]... with our full bellies and still a bit more day light left we headed off to lake tahoe.







we stopped several times along the way to take some pictures and by the time we got to the lake it was starting to get a bit dark. i don't have any pictures, but me and the boys took a little swim that night. it was pretty creepy swimming in dark cold water, but very refreshing!

sacramento

it's been about a week since my vacation was over and i've been busy catching up with work and home projects. actually it's been so hot i just sit around all day and try not to move.


i think that right now i am hotter than i was when i was back in sacramento. weird, but for the first time in a long time it was actually cooler in sac than in colorado. speaking of sacramento:


while in sacramento i tried do as much as i could but we only had a couple of days, and doing just "me" stuff would have pissed off the family.


i did a little bit of running one morning around william land park. when i was younger, i used to run this every day.... twice a day!

i know it may not seem like anything special, but it was about 3.1 mile around, and almost completely shady. on this morning i only ran two laps, because i'm not in the greatest running shape right now.


anyway it's a beautiful park, and it reminds me of home.... speaking of home, it seems that the neighborhood that i grew up in turned into a ghetto. i'm not using the word loosly either.... it's really bad. my old house looks pretty good however, and it still has our family name on the driveway.

while running on the beach part i.

There guys were holding what looked like a shark

running at morro bay

where in the world is the ex-cyclist?

while running part ii.

my bare feet were killing me at this point, but i still managed to climb this coral covered rock to get this picture

lame sand castle

I did not build this

mary jane sand dollars

I was going to carry these back with me but then i decided that a picture would do

From above

descending monument

A little bit scary going thru this thing especially going down hill. I was trying to out run a truck, and this tunnel was lot bumpier than the rest of the road. after coming in out of the sun, the tunnel almost seemed completely dark. i couldn't see the wheels or the ground... only the light at the end of the tunnel.

I'm not sure if i already posted this or not... So I'll do it again. This was from my ride up monument. In grand junction

dumb ass

so this week has been kind of a busy week for me at work. the ceo was in town and i had to give a little presentation to show what i had been working on for the past 3 months. the ceo is actually only a few months younger than me, and he's in pretty good shape. he rides his bike a lot from what i hear and does a bunch of other things. so, since i don't really have anyone to ride with these days i thought it would be a good idea to invite him on a mountain bike ride. since i've been working here i have invited about three people so far, and no one has accepted. a couple of them were vendors that stopped by and one coworker.

the ceo was only in town for a few days and had to fly back to va this morning. he accepted my invitation but he was going to need a bike. i found a place near by that was open pretty late so we could rent one after work. i was pretty excited about the whole thing. i was even getting ready the night before. i always like riding with someone for the first time, but this time it was my boss. since i don't golf, i missed a lot of opportunities to schmooze in the past.

after work we drove down to the bike shop and picked up the bike. it was an ok bike with low end components, but it looked brand new. when things are new they tend to work better... at least low end bike components do. i put the bike on rack, and my boss put the wheel in my trunk, and headed out to the trail. i was a little embarrassed that he had to see all the crap i had in stored in there. i have just about everything i need in there; my unicycle, unicycle shoes, spare workout clothes, swim trunks, flippers, snorkel, running shoes, rain jackets, bike tools, helmets, misc bike tubes. [i think that's about it..hmm]

anyway, the trail was about 12-15 mile away, and it was now a little after 7pm. a little earlier in the day it had sprinkled some and trail was nice and tacky. when we got there the sun was behind the mountains and it was getting a little cool. we changed into our cycling clothes, put our shoes on, and packed our camel baks. i got his bike down from the rack and went back to the trunk to get his front wheel. as i grabbed his wheel from the back of my car, i noticed something very very bad... my wheel was missing!!! mother fuck! i organized this whole fucken event drove all this way out here, had my boss rent a bike so he can ride with me... and now we were going to have to call it off, or i would just sit there in the parking lot while he rode an unfamiliar trail.

this is the first time i've ever packed my bike without a wheel. i've come close a few times, but i've always had the where-with-all to run down my check list of things before i leave the house. i have a mental list of things i need for myself starting from toe to head. i have a similar list for my bike, and it goes from front wheel to back wheel. if i could have only remembered to run down the list i would have gotten it right off.

this is so embarrassing, how am i going to save face? just for the record, there is no graceful way out of this situation. i've already done a pretty stupid thing, now it's important for me to not do anything else stupid. so i stayed calm, and browsed through my trunk. i thought about unicycling while he rode, but that won't be good for him. he would get about 3miles in for the ride... and it would take about an hour and a half. then i noticed in my back seat that i had some running clothes... shoes and all. i suggested to him that i was going to run while he rode his bike, and i could tell that he wasn't too keen on the idea, but it was better than nothing.

it's a pretty technical trail with lots of hills at the beginning. i was able to keep up with him on the up hills and i actually had to wait a little bit. on the way back however, i could not keep up with him, but he was nice enough to wait for me pretty regularly. i felt badly that he had to wait, but i wasn't about to tell him that he didn't have to, because it was getting pretty dark, and i was getting pretty tired.

i didn't really save face, but he was pretty impressed with my running skills. also, i think it actually worked out better, because i think my bike skills were a lot better than his, and i might have frustrated him on some of the technical sections. this way, we were just an apple and an orange, no competition, no judgment, just having fun.

Well, here it is the 21st century and we still don't have flying cars. We don't have automated houses. Where did we go wrong? Well, at least we have high speed internet... at least we usually do. how about on-demand cable?.. nope, not today. ok then, nice clean water right from the tap? WTF is going on? this morning i woke 2 no water, no internet, or no cable. at least i have electricity and phone....hold on....ok, i still have phone. i have to figure out how to shower before work.

p.s. this message was originally sent from my phone.