I was able to get a bird’s eye view of Pike National and saw Pike’s Peak, still covered in snow, off in the distance. I always loved the view of Pikes; this 14,000 foot peak standing like a gate-keeper on the front range. When you ask school kids to draw a picture of a mountain, it looks just like Pikes, a big triangle covered in snow. Today was all about getting back to basics and breathing some thin air. Although, no matter how knobby your tires are, you can only plow through a foot of half melted snow for so long. My steady climb, for almost 2 hours, got too bogged-down and I was force so to sniff out single track at lower elevations. No matter, this ride recharged my batteries much more than I was expecting.

I think that winter can be the most promising time of year for cycling. Now is when we are all flying under the radar and logging the lonely workouts that will make or break the season to come. This year I’m taking the classic, Lydiard/ Friel pyramid of training and turning it upside down. Instead of patiently laying down base miles, then doing intervals, and finally tapering and peaking for your “A” race, I’m blasting into the hard stuff over the winter. The idea is to force an adaptation now and train at a higher level through the year to come. It’s kind of a gamble, but one that I’m willing to take. Frank Shorter, the former Olympic gold medalist in the marathon once gave a friend of mine this piece of advice: “don’t increase your miles until your speed is up.” Whatever you say Frank, I’ll do it.

Luckily, we’re blessed here in the alpine desert of Colorado with dry trails and roads through the winter. It’s cold, but it’s a dry cold. That means that I’m taking my skinny tires on the endless miles of dirt roads to get ready for the first ‘crossy’ race of the year, the Boulder Roubaix. Word on the unpaved street is that it’s hard as hell. Just what I’m looking for. Let’s get 2012 started with a bang.

One things for sure, school was certainly in session up at Winter Park last weekend as I raced the Trestle All Mountain Enduro. It was humbling, inspiring, sometimes painful, and ridiculously fun.

Lesson #1: Big drops are different when taken at race pace on a smaller bike with clipless… good thing this happened in practice, not the race!

Lesson#2: Yes, you may have grown up riding slippery East Coast roots, but you aren’t invincible, and if you let down your guard, you will slide out on that cross-wise angled root.

Lesson #3: Consistency pays off, even if you don’t have the perfect run, or if you wish you hadn’t blown that berm and turned your elbow into hamburger (and I surely do), you’ve gotta get up and finish.

Rest assured, this won’t be the last enduro DH race for me. There will be more, and you can bet I’ll be ready, but first, I’ve got some studying to do. Check out this sweet race recap on VitalMTB:

2011 Trestle All-Mountain Enduro at Winter Park — More Mountain Bike Photos

At Winter Park, the course was very XC-oriented. Lots of pedaling and nothing crazy. Sure enough, the two guys on hardtails smoked the start and were right in front of me going into the only fast, technical section. Knowing they’d slow things down, I made two aggressive passes and was able to take the win, using them to block a little to get the gap.

On the flip-side, Keystone was Burly I mean like downhill bike burly, like don’t forget your kneepads burly. Again, I slotted into third after the start,  but the dudes in front of me weren’t about to let me sneak by so easily. They were battling, so I figured I’d hold the wheel and see what happened. Sure enough, things started to sort out. One of them flatted, and before I knew it, I was riding second, waiting for the perfect place to pass. Sure enough, the leader overcooked a super-fast, loose fireroad corner, and I hit the late apex, coming through on the inside, gapping him in the final singletrack for the win.

The beauty of bike racing is its subtlety. Whether it’s a road race or a downhill, it takes a lifetime to learn the little contradictory nuances. I’m no expert, but I do know that you gotta be aggressive and seize the moment… or be patient and wait for the right moment to come. See, not so simple is it?

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Maybe it’s just me, but usually when I’m riding, my mind is in the here-and-now. The trail is dusty/dry/tacky/wet; I am riding crappy/slow/angelically; it is cold/humid/hot/puking snow. However, getting out and riding Boulder’s new Valmont Bike Park got me thinking more of the future than simply the present.

The fact is that any given trail or riding venue can improve the riding community long-term and give rise to more people who love to get out and ride–whether they just do it once in awhile or almost daily like myself and many of you. Valmont especially drives this home for me because every time I’ve been out there, whether at the crazy busy opening day or a mellow pre-work ride, I’ve seen kids, some hardly old enough to spell their own names rocking out on bikes.

This, my friends, is what it’s all about. Whether you’re fortunate enough to live near Valmont (or something like it) or just have a couple of miles of trail to call your own, remember that beyond today’s ride, or even next year’s ride, it’ll be gradually introducing more people of all ages to the awesomeness that is riding. Respect that, and do your part to share the love!

Photo: Jen Dzuivenis

Summer is upon us! Thank God. That means, for Boulderites, time to race the CU Short Track on Wednesday nights. So, as per usual, I went off to the Research Park last night, all jacked up on a late afternoon coffee, ready to rip some legs off. Things were looking promising, as I lined up on the front row, inside line for the first corner, but I conveniently ignored a little crash during warmup–a bad omen. Things went South quickly as I missed my pedal as the gun went off. Not a moment later, I looked down to see no chain on bike. It broke.

As I said before, I wasn’t about to miss a hard (and in some ways fun) effort, so I hurried back to the Full Cycle tent (a Felt dealer, in fact… how convenient!), and asked the mechanic to get me back on track. As he fixed my chain, my friend Becky was kind enough to loan me her bike, so I took a couple laps on that before making a moderately clumsy ‘cross-style bike swap to get back on my Nine Team. This meant I had to work through the same group of guys twice throughout the course of the race. Again… training.

The beauty of it all is that it doesn’t really matter. I finished the race exhausted from the effort, and that was the point. It would have been fun to mix it up at the front, but I’ll tell you what; even back half of the race is plenty hard and fast. I’ll be back, but next time I’ll have a new chain.

Photo: Bobby Knight

I was bummed because I wasn’t being the racer I wanted to be, the racer I thought I was. The fact is that being true to who you want to be as a racer, even in the face of failure, is the only way race. Now, I know some folks, especially roadies, sit in for the sprint, and that works for them. But I for one refuse to race that way, and even in the face of failure, I intend to take this lesson to heart. As much as I can, I’m not going to cross any more finish lines without the satisfaction that comes from a race that took place on my terms. I suggest you try the same thing or at least know that only you can define what makes a race successful. And only you can prevent forest fires.

Photo: Courtney Livingston

This past weekend saw me hop into the Louisville crit, mostly on a whim, and it ended up being pretty fun! Yes, I had just gotten off a plane from a work trip that involved extensive beer consumption, but despite this debatable handicap, I was able to hang just fine. The course was nice and technical, which helped, and although my ill-fated late race attack failed miserably, at least I tried. I figured that, regardless of whether I attacked or sat in for a field sprint, I’d end up mid-pack, so why not do it with panache?

Next weekend will be the Superior Morgul Classic here near Boulder. Should be fun, but I’ll be honest, there are many good reasons why I don’t race road full time, and I’m starting to feel the stoke for the real racing out on the trails.

Photo: David Kutcipal and 303Cycling.com (Note the muddy MTB shoes)