Chicks dig scars!

The sprocket monster took a chunk outta me today. The dirt was good though.

S. Suncrest

South Suncrest Time Trial done.

photo taken another day

I felt o.k. Im still shakin off this head cold. I am also about 9 lbs heavier too.  Nice tail wind for most of it, some crosswinds, and one spot of a headwind. That part sucked.

Time was 22:16. about 30 seconds slower than my fastest time last year. I think that was in late June/ early July. So, I guess I feel ok about it. It hurt though, as it should.

TURN IT ON!

In an effort to blog about something other than backcountry skiing or cycling I was thinking of some childhood memories. I thought they would make good blog stories. So, today I bring you the story of the Swamp Cooler.

I am sure many of you if not all of you grew up in a house that used a Swamp Cooler as its main source of Air Conditioning. In Utah, it worked pretty well 75% of the time. If it was Humid it didn't work so well. Some draw backs were sometimes your food would get stale from the extra humidity, loud, really cold right by the vent and not so cold further away, gettin it up and going. This post will focus on the last one. 

You see, at my house growing up, I had 3 older siblings. The closest of which was 4 years older than I. This basically meant that as soon as I was old enough to take on certain tasks, they were immediately passed down. Enter the Swamp Cooler. I cant remember exactly how old I was when I took this task on but Im guessing maybe 9 or so. The time would come to get the coolers up and running at some point in May usually. 

My dad would get a bucket, a screwdriver and a wrench. It didn't matter what kind of wrench either. My dad would get the ladder out, carry his bucket with his screwdriver and his wrench in it with the hose in the other hand. Now, to this day I have no idea first hand what went on up there I just have my reflections of being at the bottom. That is inside working the controls of the unit. Water was going everywhere my dad made his way up to the roof while I waited patiently at the vent where the controls were. Our controls were old school. You had pump, a hi and a low along with off of course. 

And it begins. My dad would start yelling. OK TURN IT ON! Im seriously laughing while I type this. I would turn the pump on. OK TURN IT OFF! BANG BANG BANG. I am not sure if this is what the wrench was used for or the screwdriver. OK TURN IT ON AGAIN! I could hear water running, BANG BANG BANG. TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF! OK, JUST WAIT A MINUTE! We didn't have Itouch's or any of that cool stuff to kill time. I just sat there, waiting for my next instructions. OK! TURN THE FAN ON LOW! click, click, TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF! In a slightly panic voice. BANG BANG BANG! This would go on for what seemed like hours, realistically probably 20 minutes. Luckily for me, we had 2 swamp coolers. All in all it took maybe an hour or so. Every year, those coolers cranked up and kept our house coolish. I got to the point where I could figure out if we opened the hall closet it increased the airflow into the bedrooms. Awesome. I miss those days. Any time I bring up Swamp Coolers at a family function we all start laughing. Its a good time. TURN IT ON!!! We are so spoiled nowadays. 

Enough

Ok, enough is enough. This wacky Spring has left my waistline in a more round shape than I would like. Yes, I will blame it on the Spring weather. Not going to blame it on candy, cake, ice cream, cupcakes, chocolate, fast food etc. Its the Spring weather and Im stickin to it!

But, enough already! My mid-section looks the same now as it did back in January. Plump. Now, I am sorry Lindy (my wife) I know I am not supposed to talk about my weight or being fat with a pregnant lady in the house but I cant take it anymore. Aside from PCPP (which Im not even sure I will ride this year) and the Draper ICUP, I don't have any events to train for with the exception of a newborn baby due in June. Im worthless.

So, I am going to make an attempt at droppin this weight. I have about 8 lbs I would like to get rid of. Theres more there to lose but 8 would get me down to where I was last Spring. I was pretty happy with 172. There it is, I have atleast 1 month left maybe more before baby Betty gets here. Thats long enough right?

How am I going to do it? Well, for starters I will but cutting out the aforementioned things that I am not going to blame my plumpness on. I will also ride my bike as much as possible, drink more water etc. There is also some new 1 track bein cut in Draper. Although that 1 track won't help immediately but every time I drive home I will be able to see it. That will motivate me.

Balloons and the Human Sign

Most of you know I work in the Construction Industry, more specifically New Homes. I have been doing this for over 10 years now and over the years I have ran across some interesting characters. I have worked in Springville, West Jordan, Layton, Syracuse, Murray, South SL, Sandy. Each city has its own sign ordinances. Some cities we can put signs up, others we cant. Its kind of a pain in the ass.

In Syracuse, they wouldn't allow offsite signs or weekend directionals. So, we had a giant 6-8 ft A Frame sign that was out in this field that we had to knock down to lay flat each night and put back up each morning. Sounds easy enough except when theres a foot of snow in the field and the sign now weighs 2x as much. Oh, we also got to use balloons. The builder I worked for at the time (national builder jackass's) had these gigantic balloons. We blew them up in the model stuffed them in our car and drove out to put them on the sign. Problem was, the static in the car would cause the balloons to pop. Did I mention these balloons were gigantic? I remember the first time one of these balloons popped in my car. Thought I had been shot at, needless to say I had to make a run to get some new underwear. This was a daily ritual. I think those popping balloons took years off my life.

In Springville, we couldn't even do the above. So, we hired a human sign. Some dude or lady would come to my model on the weekends pick up our giant hand held sign drive out to the corner of the busy street and hold/wave the sign. This brought out some interesting people. I was just going through some old pictures and found these.

You see, they had no idea how big the sign was and they came unprepared to drive the 4 blocks out to the main street. I can't tell you how many times I found the sign propped up against the car and them napping inside. Easy job I suppose. Stand on the street, hold a sign, wave at people, listen to some tunes? No, tough and tiring job, must take a nap. There was the pale skinned dude who came to be my sign in the hot summer month of July. No, he didnt have sunblock and after a day in the sun holding the sign he came back and had the worst sunburn. I am pretty sure the 40 bucks he made that day was not worth it. 

There have been several others, but these pictures made me laugh and it brought back some memories. 

Dogs & Dirt

Some of you may follow me on Twitter, and some of you don't do Twitter. If you don't do Twitter, why not? Anyways, I was short on time yesterday but I wanted to get a ride in. It was blue skies and sunny and I thought it would be a great day. Like I said, I was short on time so a quick road ride would do the trick. It was a bit chilly, colder than I expected it to be. Rolling down south suncrest was cold! I threw in some intervals just to spice things up a bit. Damn, those hurt. Anyways, as I was rolling back home down Eagle Crest I saw out of the corner of my eye something running towards me. My first thought was, Oh shit! Its the Cougar! (there has been a few cougar spottings in our neighborhood over the last few weeks) then I realized it was not a Cougar, it was someones black and white dog, running towards me prepared to help me make a skin donation to the roads of Suncrest. Luckily, I saw it soon enough, swerved a little to the left, I was able to unclip and kick the bastard in the teeth. One swift kick and it stopped and went back home. Why do people leave their dogs unsecured? I had some good advice via facebook from KK. "BTW, K. Fisher taught me the property dog kicking technique. Don't swing your foot, lift it up and drive it down on top of the dog's head. It keeps you in better balance (so you the kick doesn't crash you) and pushes the dog's head into the ground which stops them better" 


Best advice I had from that little exchange. Everyone else just felt bad for the dog. Dog wanted to take a bite out of me! I had fears of eatin it, leaving my skin on the asphalt, then getting eaten. I used to get chased by dogs all the time when we lived out in Herriman, its been awhile. It will be interesting to see if that dog chases me again, thats assuming its left unattended again. 

junction of Ghost/Canyon

Today, I opted for the safety of CC. HAHAHA, Safety? Some will say, theres Cougars etc roaming around there. This is probably true, but usually want as much to do with me as I do them. That is, we want to leave each other alone. Hopefully. Dirt was in great shape, all trails are good with the exception of Clarks and Rush. I heard a few people tweeting draper "when are you going to open Clarks?" Haven't heard a response. Got in about 15 miles, did jacobs, canyon hollow x2, and ghost x2. It was a great morning. Seems that Tuesdays are always windy. What the hell? 


Saw the same Utah Mountain Biking dude there this morning as I did last Tuesday. He keeps to himself as he gets ready, once we part ways I never see him again. Don't know who he is but, Hey! How's it goin?