Annular Eclipse and busy Weekend

This was a busy weekend here for us. We headed to El Rito to do some climbing on Saturday with Jodi and her daughter Livia as well as Greg and Magdel and their 2 kids. It was my first time climbing in about 5 weeks, since I crashed on my long board and and scrapped up my forearm and hip (bruised as well, this seems like it is going to continue to be an issue for another month or more). Anyway I was predictably out of shape and got super pumped and almost pitched off the top of a couple of routes that I normally run laps on. Once at the top of a climb after clipping the anchor I dropped back exhausted into my harness, not a good move when you have a bruised hip, and immediately jumped back on to readjust.

Later we set up a rope swing at the base of Bolting Barbie for the kids. Magdel and Greg's two thought it was better than anything they had ever done and threw fits when their turns were over, sorry about that guys. Her Livia helps Dylan out with the swing and yes there is usually a Barbie doll hanging out around the route.

On Sunday I left home really early to head to Santa Fe to ride the Santa Fe Century. I made good time and with the early start it was a bit weird being out on the course with nobody around but still with all the aid stations set up and waiting. Towards the end I ran into a fair number of other riders since the end of the course is used as an out-and-back for shorter rides. I was finished and driving back to Albuquerque by noon, not too bad since I've not ridden more than about 50 miles since PBP in Auguat. Linda and Dylan spent the morning at the climbing gym and Explora!, a children's science museum. In the afternoon there were 2 rare events happening.

The first was Page and Anthony's wedding. Both of them have house sat for us and are good friends and great people. We could not be happier seeing the two of them exchange their vows. Here is Page being walked in by her dad Charlie.

 And the happy couple walking out after the ceremony.

 Dylan was well behaved for the most part through the ceremony and afterwards when we were hanging out with some fellow climbers waiting for the reception to start Dylan got his hands on a Canon, with a canon for a lens. He had a good time taking pictures of everything, all very zoomed in since it was a 70-300mm lens. Tim, the camera's owner keeping a close eye on proceedings.

After playing with the camera Dylan also helped put away the folding chairs. 

Dylan entertaining himself with the place settings.

 Dylan getting his mug in every shot possible then asking to see it immediately after, the sticking out the tung in a nice touch.

And stealing the bride after.

 Our Sunday ended looking at the sun. We had a good view of the horizon where the sun was going down from the synagog parking lot and several of the guests had either glass from welding glasses or the eclipse viewing glasses that were in short supply but given out for free around town during the last week. Pretty cool stuff, this annular eclipse, and how lucky for us that Albuquerque was right in the center of the viewing path. It took awhile for me to figure out how to get a photo of the sun and with sharing the glass and glasses it took a bit, but eventually... the moon moving over the sun,

 and the moon centered in the sun creating the "Ring of Fire" or the "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them..."

 OK so maybe it did not get dark, but if you looked at the thing without the special protection you'd be blind, not quite like disappearing but hey. I guess the last time this happened around here was 1994 so a pretty rare occurrence and one I'm glad I was able to see and share with Dylan and so many friends.

Weekend in Austin

This past weekend we headed to Austin to visit with Linda's family. Dylan had not seen his cousins since sometime early this year before we headed to China. 

Dylan checking out the cockpit of the Southwest  plane that we flew out on.

On Saturday after the cousins were ready to head off to their respective weekend activities we met up with Thu, Nat, Noah, Matt and Katie to climb at Flat Creek. In the past there has been plenty of water for the kids to play in and for us to cool down in between burns right in front of the cave. Right now there is almost no water.

Thu walking with the boys in the dry stream bed.

Anyway, Linda continued to work on Scapegoat, a very steep 5.12. I ran a couple of laps on a 5.11+ so that Katie could work it on TR, it was her first time climbing at Flat and her first time on a rope since she had Tyler.

Katie with Tyler, who has amazingly fat thighs, you have to fight to get the pants on and off.

Katie managed to get the route down to one hang on her second try, not bad for someone that gave birth less than 7 months ago. Though she climbed her first 5.11 when she was 7 month pregnant so it really is not a surprise, probably won't be long before she climbs 5.12 as long as she and Matt manage to get out regularly. After the warm up I surprised myself by fighting my way up a new route for the flash. It is a route Vinnie put up this year and I don't remember the name but the climbing was good and thankfully had a jug and a good rest right before the top out or I surely would have fallen trying to top out. After that I struggled my way up Scapegoat  hanging on pretty much every bolt, my skin but mostly forearms, had had enough.

Overall t was a promising day of climbing for me. After the rush to get in shape for Paris-Brest-Paris I am not desperately trying to get into climbing shape to set for a competition in the middle of next month. As a setter I don't need to be able to climb the boulder problems but I do need to be able to do the moves. Needless to say, being able to peddle a bike forever has not helped my ability to climb. While climbing Vinnie's route would have been a given on many other occasions that I've visited Flat, it is at this time the first route I've done of that grade in at least 6 months and a good marker for where I stand as far as getting back into climbing shape.

On Sunday I borrowed a bike  from Pam (one of Patricia's friends) and rode with a group for the "cream cheese ride" which starts at an Einstein's Bagels and goes about 60 miles. I felt pretty good for the first 50 miles or so until the 100 degree heat got to me and I hit the wall and went into survival mode. Jason, the group leader was nice enough to slow up and pull me in to the finish where I started lunch with chocolate milk and a cookie followed by chips, bagel sandwich and juice then more water in about 15 minutes.

Monday was a lazy day. Linda and I found a pool that was open in James' subdivision and hung out there for a bit then got lunch with her mom and sister before heading to the airport. At this point without Monday the week seems to be going pretty fast, nice.

PBP 2011, Dad is out on Course

So I just checked and dad has made it out onto the course. Here is a shot of him as he left the hotel to go to the start area and get in the queue,

The 90 hour group started leaving at 6pm (or possibly a bit later) in waves of 500 riders, dad got on course at 7:15pm.

PBP 2011 is about to Start

On Saturday dad headed to the ride start area to get checked in and I tagged along to see what the situation was. I did not make it very far because there were a bunch of people, bikes and you had to be checking in to get into the area, so I just headed back to the hotel to rest some more. This morning I headed back to the start area to check in and was somewhat surprised that there was no line whatsoever,

This is largely due to the fact that all the 80hr, 90hr and special bikes (5,000+)were checking in yesterday to start today and today was just the 84hr riders (less than 1,000?)

Here is my WW, for the most part PBP ready,
With a little treat on the back for after the ride,
I like porto which is usually red and when I ask about white porto people usually look at me like I'm crazy. I saw a bottle of it when dad and I were getting lunch at a small grocery store since most restaurants are closed on Sunday's and the store closed at 1pm as well, so I picked it up. I think, in general the white porto is less bitter and dry, not that the red is bitter or dry compared to most regular wine to begin with.

Anyway, time to head down to get dad off to the start. He starts tonight, Sunday sometime around 6pm here 6-9hours ahead of the US and I start tomorrow, Monday morning at 5am. PBP has rider tracking and we will be wearing ankle bands that will record our presence at each check point, you can follow at this PBP site, dad's frame number is 4459 and mine is 8224.

Friday Paris Tour and Quick Ride

On Friday, after all the walking around Versailles the previous day, we just wanted to rest. Given that we had signed up for the Paris tour that Clauss with Des Peres Travel puts on, and we had heard that it was a lot of driving around looking at things but not much time exploring, it seemed as though we would get to give our feet a rest.

After breakfast we met up with everyone from our hotel who was going on the trip and boarded the bus. Dad and I sat in the back with David Charlton of David's Salon which is a hairdressing chain in the Philippines. Now David must be one of the best bosses ever, David's Salon sponsors a race and club team. About a year ago, one of the girls on the race team brought PBP to his attention and he made the offer that anyone who qualified for PBP he would pay for their trip. In all honesty he only expected a few to make it, instead 10 members of the club qualified as well as the girl from the race team. On top of that David qualified as well despite having had heart bypass surgery a year and a half ago.

Any way, here are some shot from the tour, Arc de Triumphe

In front of the Eiffel Tower,
The worlds best or luckiest BOSS, David Chalton, and some of his girls,
City bikes, in Paris you can check out a bike and ride it for free for half an hour, then it is 1 euro per hour after,
Looking in the front of Notre Dame cathedral,
The back side of Notre Dame,
Man purse alert in front of the Louver,
After the tour we decided that we would get out and try to ride the start of the PBP route to loosen up the legs. One bad thing about going on the tour is that there was a CA rando group ride that went out in the morning and did this with leaders that knew where they were going. So we figured we were going out to get lost. The bike room at this point is getting pretty crowded here at the Holiday Inn,
The David's Salon team came out to get lost with us,
And, I made sure to get us lost, but then found again. We rode out about 15 miles and only missed one short section on the way out. On the return trip we followed the route correctly until we ran into a couple that had done the ride before and we followed them the rest of the way in, taking the roads that are the finish of PBP which is a bit different than the start.

PBP and Trip to Versailles

Today after breakfast most people headed off to see some sights. Dad and I caught the train to Versailles and walked to the Chateau. On the other hand, the Seattle Rando group apparently went for a 90 mile ride, guess they can't get enough.

In front of the entrance were these tall (22 meters) curved features on either side of the path.

The inscription said 85.5 X 16 which did not make much sense at the time. We had bought our tickets at the info center so we would not have to wait in line to buy them at the Chateau. Here is the line for people that had pre purchased tickets.
At least it moved quickly and we did not have to wait to buy the tickets and then get in this line.

Versailles is completely over the top, not unlike the Forbidden City in Beijing, but with different tastes. Here is dad taking a picture through the ornate front gate.
In China you hire a tour guide for about $15 for a specific location, here is our tour guide for Versailles,
In the opening corridor there are sculptures of loads of important figures from French history lining the walls and a couple of them are in repose.
The chapel with the over the top ceiling and organ,
The original "Hall of Mirrors", kind of like the play house ones but not quite.
Incredibly ornate carvings in the ceiling,
In China most of the interior work was done in wood and the marble was reserved for outdoor spaces, in Versailles there is tons of stone inside.

Military guarding the garden with with semi-automatic weapons,
It is striking the difference between the Asian gardens and the one at Versailles. In China it seems like they try to imitate what they like about nature for the gardens, while in Versailles they force nature into forms that suit what they want.
Here is another of the curved sculptures. This one 216.5 X 5, meaning there are 5, 216.5 degree arcs making up the sculpture.
More forcing nature into something it is not, which way do we go?
The garden is huge, if there was no one else there or you did not have a map it would be very easy to get lost. The shear size dictates special "tools" for the gardeners as well,
After we returned and rested we checked out the bike room here at the hotel. It is starting to get crowded,
There is a whole crew on matching bikes with matching bike boxes. They are from the Philippines and they are the David's Salon women's team. I guess David is a British ex-pat who runs a chain with 400 shops, in 2007 after PBP he offered to pay for the trip for any of his employees that rode and qualified.....not a bad job perk, in addition they will do a week long cycling tour of England after PBP is done.

We then checked out the bike room over at the main hotel, closer to the start than ours,
Bike boxes stacked to the ceiling and barely anywhere to walk. I have no idea how you would get your bike out if it was against the wall.

Assorted

Happy Birthday to my dad, last Friday.

Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers in our lives.

Congrats to Chris and Joanna Eckstein on finishing the Tour of the Gila. Chris raced quite well staying with the lead group on the first few days and placing well in the TT before suffering a bit on the final day. Joanna was coming back from assorted broken bones on both sides of her body.

My dad just did his pre-registration for Paris-Brest-Paris, the 1200km brevet, held every 4 years. I'll get to register in another week. Hopefully dad finished his 300km this last weekend to finish the qualifying series.

Saguaro 300km Brevet

So last weekend Chris and I headed out to AZ to do the Saguaro 300km brevet. It took us a lot longer to get going in the morning than we remembered and we ended up getting to the start with only about 20 minutes to get ready. Chris had an issue when the zipper on his jersey split and that added extra time to us getting ready. I ran over and checked in and as I was headed back to see how Chris was doing someone called out 2 minutes to start. So I headed back and just check Chris in as well and grabbed his card. He was rollong into the start area as the group was rolling out and just turned around and joined the flow.

There were between 45 and 50 riders at the start which is more than ever show up for any of our local NM brevets. Everyone sporting some sort of light, some quite bright and others barely visible, for the 6am start with a 730ish sunrise.

This year the start was much more casual than last year and a good group formed of about 12 riders. After about 25 miles I was feeling like the little sister and sprinted ahead to pull over while letting the rest know what I was up to. As the group rolled by I heard someone yell to soft peddle and when I finished my business and got back on there were 4 or 5 others taking advantage of the break as well. So we regrouped and chased down the rest of the group that had continued on and rode into the first check point at about 45 miles.

Everyone took care of their business and we all got don to work grinding out the Pinal Parkway, which is one of those "climbs", 1 percent grade for 25 miles or so and into a light headwind. As we neared the top it becomes more rolling and couple of the guys could not help but push the pace a bit and the group broke up. Chris and I probably could have stayed with the three in front but decided that with 100-120 miles still to go it was not the best idea. Lucky for us the guys that popped earlier where big, meaning that once things leveled off they went steaming by and we hopped on for the free ride up to the front three. We entered the outskirts of Tucson in a group of 8 or 10 and rode to another convenient stop at a gas station at about 90 miles to refill water. This section had some roads that were different from last year or at least repaved and was quite nice.

After toping off bottles we were all back on the road still together. Eventually we turned onto Silverbell Rd and followed it passed Ina Rd at which point the pavement gets terrible and the terrain becomes rolling. This naturally lead to the group breaking up again and this time pretty much for good. The ride up and over Gates Pass was longer than I remembered and narrower as well. We picked up one guy that fell off of the front group on our way to Gates Pass and rolled into the lunch stop will him to see the front 3 or 4 sitting there eating.

We probably could have hurried out of the lunch stop to leave with the lead group which were a bunch of Canadians, how are they in shape to hammer for hours coming from Canada?, but again decided to take our time and make sure we got enough fuel in our bodies to survive the rest of the ride. We ended up leaving the lunch stop with Roger Peskett and having a third to share the work with was nice for the return trip.

We ground around until we reach the I-10 frontage road and I had to stop to give my legs a break. I always go through a bad patch at some point on rides of 300km or longer, it just depends on how bad. A quick stretch and we were back on the road. The frontage road is pretty good to start but eventually the pavement deteriorates, it is like they tried to chip seal over the top of the old road surface and it did not all stick and in places the whole surface looks like checker board due to cracks. Through all this your scenery never changes, you are staring at Picacho Peak which looks oddly like a rumpled cowboy hat sitting beside the interstate. Luckily the road surface improves and you get to stop at Picacho Peak to refuel.

From here it is a series of long, straight and flat roads until you are only a couple of miles from the finish at which point you have to fight with traffic on Florence Blvd for a mile or so to get to the finish. We rolled into the finish a little after 5 in the evening, checked in and headed off to get some food and start driving back.

All in all it was a good ride for me, any ride of this length in which I don't have issues with cramps or an upset stomach is good, but I also managed to do my share of work on the front through out the day as well. Now it has been a week and I have not been on my bike since, not by choice though. NM got hit with the winter storm and temperatures of -5 to -10 for a low and in the teens for a high will put riding on hold for most, maybe not the Canadians that we rode with though. Hopefully I will get in about 60 miles tomorrow in 25-35 degree weather, riding when it sucks just makes the LONG rides so much easier when the weather is nice.