The Necessity For Ruins Subtitled I-70 West

The Necessity for Ruins

Subtitled: 1-70 West

There is something substantial about roaring into the state of Kansas in a rear drive V-8 propelled American car. Watching the landscape change from the vast mountain scape, into the plains, into the rolling Flint hills and finally into the lush forests of eastern Kansas is one of my favorite parts about returning to the place I grew up in.

There’s a special place in my heart that I hold for the thick, heavy Kansas air. The smell of dogwoods and whatever they clean the floor of Free State Brewing Company with. There’s a special place in my heart for the same roads and shortcuts I drove on and rode through growing up. And there’s a special place in my heart for conversations of past that echo through the walls of my favorite restaurants and taprooms, conversations that happened years ago but, with the right people, could spark again in seconds.

Here’s the thing though. I hold it closer to my heart when I point whatever it is that I happen to be driving to the west on I-70 and here’s the secret as to why: the cardinal direction of west represents freedom for me. And everyone that I count myself lucky enough to share the fond memories and bar stools with on the eastern plains has, indeed, driven west on I-70 with me towards some great adventure.

I started rocketing down that road before I even had a driver’s license. When I was 11 I spent a wonderful spring break with some phenomenal friends learning how to ski at Sol Vista. I had a wonderful ski instructor who had me believing that I could ski Mary Jane by the end of the week (and that we did… and it was comical). That was my first real taste of the mountains and I was hooked.

 I was lucky enough that I continued my yearly pilgrimage for years to come. The following year I was packed up with friends heading to Boy Scout summer camp. The year after I spent two weeks backpacking with the same young men through some pristine Colorado high country. The summer after we indeed plowed through Kansas again, this time on a train. We headed into New Mexico (by way of Colorado) for a 3 week backpacking trip in New Mexico. Those were highlights of my life, the train that left from Lawrence to New Mexico was almost 14 hours late. I made more memories staying up all night in Lawrence, KS during that 14 hour Amtrak delay than most 15 year old kids make in a year.

 I literally have no idea what happened to any of those young men that I spent so many nights under the stars with. I hope they are well and look back at our journeys with the same reverence that I gleaned from the mountains and their friendship.

I returned to the mountains regularly for the next few years, mainly to ski Winter Park and Mary Jane.  I took more than a few flames across the state only to watch them suffer wobbly kneed down bunny slopes while the back bowls called my name. I ended relationships because of those back bowls, and in the end their calling still has a firmer grasp on me than they ever did.

I had a close family friend buy a hotel in Grand County and I went to work for them for a brief stint. The pickup truck I owned was so unreliable that if I turned it off at a gas station I worried that it wouldn’t start, so I rarely turned her off.  That was a short lived and tumultuous month. I’m happy it didn’t turn out, Grand County turned out to be the girl I fell in love with in Junior High School that I knew it would never truly work out with but I couldn’t get over for some inexplicable reason. Yes Sol Vista taught me how to carve moguls and Winter Park taught me about long runs, and Mary Jane taught me that she could buck me off at a minutes notice and if I weren’t ready than another man would be. But the last summer I spent in Grand County was indeed a lesson to be learned in life, love and ability.

I swore off Colorado for a brief stint. Cursing its very existence and heartbreak. And then it happened my first senior year of college. Once again I rocketed across Kansas. This time with my absolute friends, the people that today I call my friends and count on and rely on and hopefully them me. In some ridiculously large SUV packed to the gills with friends and dogs and skis we pointed west towards Frisco and I discovered Breckenridge in all its beauty. And it skied better than anything else in the world, and its peaks were more majestic than the Indian Peaks surrounding the Grand County wilderness, and my friends were happier. And we drank more wine and we cooked better food and we danced more merrily and we expressed ourselves freely in a state and on a vacation with no limitations. And in that instant I fell back in love with a place that I had just cursed so wholeheartedly months ago.

And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Those who know me know that I spent some time in the desert. I spent that time with a close friend who had made the I-70 journey with me before a time or two. Our resounding opinion was that everyone we wholeheartedly cared about would end up on the front range by the time we were 30, young enough to raise our families together in the correct setting. I’m only 27 now and I’ve already seen the migration begin. But to those individuals who have chosen to share their life with me and myself with them, we’re here and it’s good.

Oh yeah, I wanted to share real art too… it's at the top. I saw this piece in January of 2011 at the Denver Art Museum. It is literally the only art piece ever that has stuck out in my head that I would buy if I had all of the money in the world. And that is because it reminds me of I-70 west.

Our Own Personal Rapha Continental

I got up way too early this morning listening to the jackhammers tearing up my parking lot and watching the dog run around like a crazed beast barking at them for making too much noise. I'm not riding with the team guys for another hour so I've been sitting here in a post morning dog run but still pre-caffeinated (completely) watching the Rapha Continental Videos on my AppleTV.

I was thinking to myself that these guys are essentially making a living capturing a type of memory that most of us have from seeing the world a top a bicycle. I'm jealous from that standpoint but it got me thinking about what my Rapha Video would contain and came up with a short highlight list in my head, there's dozens more I'm sure but these always stick out.

- Jumping head first off the Clinton Lake dock during KU Friday fun Rides
- Relaxing in the campus fountain post the aforementioned rides
- Pushing through peanut butter mud attempting to cross some old farm bridge on the first Bundy Hundy
- Cresting Texaco Hill during every single Dirty Kanza attempt
- The first time riding down the switchbacks of Lookout Mountain
- Seeing 50mph for the first time on an unmarked 4wheeler trail aboard my first 29er high above Hot Sulphur Springs with a dense pine forest to one side and a sheer drop on the other
- Stopping at Oskar Blues mid epic out in Lyons for some views and brews


Alright, time to start airing up the tires to go make some more memories.

The Long Road to CX Nats

There's a pretty fresh foot of snow on the ground here in Denver. Cyclocross season is over, road season has begun and MTB racing will be upon CO in short order. But I'm thinking about cyclocross.

I had the revelation sometime during November that I am tired of being one of the slowest Cat3 CX racers in Colorado and decided that I will have a better season this year. So here I sit with a road racing calendar in front of me. Circling the crits that I can do before work, highlighting the stage races worth taking the weekend off for and wholly ignoring the mtb race calendar for the first time in a loooong time.

I came to the realization this year that ultra endurance mountain bike racing as a 20 something isn't good for much besides padding the ego. If you can ride for 60-100 miles off-road then chances are you get a top 10 finish automatically with the dismal fields that show up for the non-masters categories. I'm not trying to diminish the accomplishment of racing for an extended period of time on a mountain bike, it's hard. It really is a truly difficult task, but it doesn't make you fast in any other discipline of the sport and rarely shows you just how hard your competition is. That being said I got into the Laramie Enduro this year and will be racing it slowly and at the back on my 5" travel 29er as an attempt to shut down into base building mode before CX season gets hot.

I guess I have my first crit race this Saturday. My fast twitch muscles are finally starting to feel okay again after they took a solid 4 years off while I rode centuries. I got lucky enough to contest a city limit sprint with a Lululemon pro last week after we shelled the 20 other dudes on our lunch break ride, so I guess that says something about my fitness. I hit 1000 miles this month with no rides longer than 60 miles for this year, last year I had 5 centuries under my belt by this time... my body feels different.

Anyways, I want to do well at cross nationals next year. They are in Boulder and I can feasibly see myself finishing top 50 as long as I stay consistent and motivated. I really want to hire a coach and buy a power meter but it's a pretty steep investment to have someone tell you what you already know after 15 years of racing a bike. So I guess I'm just going to keep consistently struggling for a while.

As as aside I'm a Master BodyGeometry Fit Technician now. I just got back from Specialized HQ in CA a few days ago. I'm sure ol' Waller still doesn't want me to fit him on his bike since I am "just Andrew Slater." But it was pretty neat discussing synovial fluid and chondromalacia with Andy Pruitt over breakfast. I guess being a Master Fit Tech puts me in a pretty solid league of my own in my part of town and even in this country. I was feeling pretty un-easy over the whole certification process when I first got there but I quickly realized that most shops offering these fits are working with an older group of clients and working around specific medical diseases, I do that too but... I am super fortunate to have the trust of a ton of racers locally. It never even crossed my mind that while I'm not only servicing a customer base that needs to be kept comfortable on their bike, there are quite a few less technicians in the US that are working with athletes to produce power and race results.

I guess I look at my fit business differently than most individuals. I have always been here for the racers first and foremost, that's probably why I have 3 teams under my director-ship right now. I'd love to have my own little fit studio one day. Working with racers and performance level individuals to figure out their body on a bike, it's a very under-served community that is very hard headed when it comes to their own personal beliefs of how a bike should feel.

I guess that's rant over time. Maybe one of these days I'll start updating regularly and adding pictures again.

Cycling As An Introvert's Sport

I read this again in a Sport's Illustrated article last week that was chronicling Lance's predicament. It described racing bicycles as (essentially) an introverted man's sporting event. It went on to say that many high school kids get along with cycling based on a pre-disposition to not compete in a team sport because the need to have time by themselves... an outsider's sport.

This infuriates me. I thought we got rid of this attitude 10 years ago during Lance's first promenade. Maybe this was the attitude during the 1970's but it absolutely should not be how the sport is perceived now.

Maybe living in Colorado has jaded me since I get to see these 15 year old Clif Riders dominate the fields every weekend but c'mon. Legitimize the sport mainstream America. There are plenty of exceptional athletes who came to cycling from another background. Brian Jenson was a phenomenal runner at a collegiate level (came to mind off the top of my head). And he's just a local KC pro.

I want to shake these journalists sometimes. I ran track in jr. high and some high school, and it was boring out sprinting other suburban white kids. I played high school lacrosse and could be considered mediocre to good. Hell, I worked at a sporting goods store selling sporting equipment to "real" athletes... something about baseball bat's and soccer cleats doesn't turn me on. Sport's Illustrated could never tell me that I'm an introverted geek with no friends who rides a bike just to get away from it all.

At the end of the day, in this era, cyclists are as much or more talented than the large majority of high school athletes. I see that drive every weekend on the race course. Some 15 year old kid took that fire that I had in my teenage belly and left it all on the course so he could absolutely demolish a fully developed adult cat3 racer who trains constantly day in and day out.

Maybe the main stream media see's these young athletes as introverted because they don't adhere to traditional American sporting events. But in my mind these athletes are driven. In no other sport can you work and train and claw your way to the top and not be praised.

And for the introverted part, I dare someone not to be taken into a Bad Goat party and not have the time of their lives.

1 Week in CA

I'm a Body Geometry certified fit technician now.

So... that's rad. I just got back from a week at Specialized's headquarters in Morgan Hill, CA. And if you thought I was over-analytical about bicycles before (I am and I know) this just gave me the tools to go 10x the previous.

I gained more information pertaining to things that I want to make a career out of in 5 days than I did in 1 semester in college (not all of them mind you, but I can think of a certain few). Yes, this is my crack and yes I want to make a living being your crack dealer for a lonnnng time.

I now have the ability to put you on a massage table and measure every inch of every part of you, if you are so inclined, to make your bicycle work ideally with your skeletal structure and flexibility. I knew going in what a good BGFit was all about, I've had a few. But every time I've had one it has just been mine. I knew how great it was for me, since the minute I was done replicating all of my fits on all of my bikes all I could think of was "this is better than everything I have ever ridden and I wish I would have discovered it years ago." But now to have the tools and knowledge to provide that to clients is mind-blowing. I always respected my fitters but the amount of information they hold in their head I never could have guessed.

But onto the good stuff, I got to ride a few S-Works bikes while I was out there. And I was lucky enough to know my fit numbers off the top of my head...err, off of the top of my droid... to make them ideal for me on our mid-day rides.

I'll start with the Venge, this bike has always done it for me aesthetically and I was almost sold on buying one this month. But after an extended ride all I can say is that I am not fast enough in an all out sprint to handle this beast. It rides fast, it doesn't flex all that much and I don't weigh enough to make it "act right." The descending prowess of this beast is ridiculous, I can objectively say (with my strava to back me up) that I can do on this machine downhill in the drops what I can do on any other bike in a full aero tuck.

Roubaix SL4: Holy balls, how did they make my Tarmac SL2 act the same but with more road feel absorption. This thing climbs exactly like my old Tarmac, handled corners exactly the same and rode uphill (wait for it)... exactly the same. I have never been a proponent of the Roubaix, it was always a sloppy and power sucking beast. This new one is ridiculous. I would buy one... if I wasn't 25 years old and a bike snob.

Tarmac SL4: I feel like I have talked about this bike here before. It's my dream machine, in fact it's just my machine. I will buy one this month. Every time I have ridden this bike I have thought to myself, "self, this if better than everything." And it still is. The thing dances up hills, not that I dance up hills all that well but I do it better than some and this thing wants more than I can give it. So bottom line young energetic friends that weigh less than 175lbs, buy a damn Tarmac SL4. I'm a little upset that I can't afford the 13lb S-Works SRAM red version that I rode in CA, but I figure the 16lb Ultegra version with a set of 303 tubulars should suffice for a year or so.

What have I learned from this experience: everything. I rode every bike I wanted to. But the big part of this post is that I can now agonize over your spinal structure and sit bone width better than most people in my tax bracket should be able to. I've spent sooo much time trying to get certain bikes to act and feel certain ways that I am more than ecstatic to be able to provide a client with a service that they need. Yes $4000 road bikes are great, but a $4000 road bike with a $200 fit feels like a $10,000 road bike.

On the up and up. I may have shaved my legs tonight in preparation for a new bike. Yes I talk like a damn roadie and yes if you are in town and want me to fit you than you should.

Cheers, Slater

The Season is Here

I wax poetically about cyclocross every year, no doubt about it. It is the end all, be all of bicycle racing in my opinion. So I figured I should write a little something here.

This is season 13 I believe, which means I have been racing cyclocross 13 of my 25 years on this planet. And I'm stoked I have been. Nothing makes me happier. I would imagine it's pretty rare that someone has been participating in any specific sport for more than half the time that they have been alive let alone a niche of a niche sport such as CX.

I'm 3 races deep in the season, I had to take a 2 week break since I fly out for BGFit school next week and needed some bike shop hours this week (does anyone need a bike fit BTW?) but the season has been a huge success personally. Results wise has been incredibly lackluster, I devoted my season to only racing cat 3's and I'm getting spanked. But fit and feel wise I am miles from where I came from after I took a 3 year hiatus from racing bikes "seriously." I've still never skipped a cross season but for a few years there I spent my time training to climb and racing cross from some weird passion filled part of my heart.

My lungs feel better, I'm attacking on the stairs and barriers again (my trademark junior move) and my tech skills are above average... I'm still getting schooled in the grass criterium part of the courses and after a year that I have already put 4000 miles into the ego doesn't feel great about it, but this might be my rebuilding year. The few Cat 3 races I did last year (before ducking my head and moving back to 4s) were even worse but the cool thing about Colorado is that I get the opportunity to race on the same course 4 time per season, that may sound redundant and like a waste of creative ability but it gives a good baseline for the racers. And my baseline is significantly higher than last year.

So I may not be getting faster right now, but I feel like I'm rebuilding a racer mentality. And that's the hard part, there are guys that will go fast because they can go fast. But there are racers who will go fast because they are physically dominating a field. Once upon a time I was better at that, my goal is to get better at that again. I want to make the 3 field mine, and for some reason I still feel like it's attainable.

Long story short: I will race hard this year and not dick around and take beer hand ups anymore, I will come in midpack at best and next spring I will have a coach. So hopefully next year when I hang my head and pretend that I'm not racing my 14th season of cross when my best season ever was at 14 years old, I can start stomping faces in again.

BTW I'm running a new corporate blog, you all should read it. It get's updated more regularly because I am paid to write it. http://blog.cycleton.com. This is me being corporate, it's still funny and it's still about bikes. You can probably find some of my soul buried in there and it really is worth the read. I feel like the majority of my whit that makes my reader smile is not context but wordsmithing, so if you like this you will like that.

Mic dropped, I'm out

Blogging Used To Be Easy

Blogging used to be easy, blogging used to be fun, I used to look up to bloggers. My whit and wisdom seems to have faded over the years. I don't know if it's a sign of the times "blogging isn't cool anymore," or if it's a sign of myself being an adult with shit to do. Last years Vegas essay was the last decent thing I wrote and that was still a ripoff of Thompson.

I used to be able to sit down once a week with a cheap bottle of wine and too loud of a Dylan album in the background and crank out something meaningful and somewhat witty (in my mind). Maybe working full time and having bills kills that... but dammit I still have booze and the same Dylan albums. I feel like I still have some things to say and I feel like I still feel like I say them better than some other outlets...

Onto the mediocrity... I guess I have been riding and racing my bike some. I can say I did mediocre in some local XC races and mean it. Most people read Steve Tilford's whiny ass blog about doing mediocre (top 10) in pro races and take it for what it is. But I have actually been sticking my neck on the line in some unknown races with unknown courses and coming out mediocre (in Cat 2). And I have some good stories about it, most notably last weekend.

God damnit, I wrote 2 paragraphs about my racing and guess what, it's not interesting. Long story short, I've been racing bikes and not racing bikes well. Nothing to really report on that front. However I did have a great weekend. I skipped racing on Saturday to lay by the pool (I didn't find it necessary to drive 1.5 hours to race 12 miles) and it was good and relaxing. Sunday I hiked to Columbine lake in winter park, which is in my humble opinion, the best place in the world. I rode Breckenridge on Monday with an old college buddy and rode in Golden on Tuesday with some teammates. The end on that front... Things that I am starting to consider mundane that most people save up for all year to experience on vacation.. lame.

Has anyone heard of national novel writing month? It's in November and I guess I've been working on something for it. I feel like I need some way out of the blogosphere and nothing is knocking on my door. I guess I've been mumbling and note taking about a book for a solid 7 or 8 years now, Neta made me aware of it but by no means didn't push me towards it. She's working on her own gig for the month and the things she shares with me about it makes me feel like she has an Orwellian bond. Seeing things before they are fathomable, maybe that's her curse for working at an establishment that has it's chin up to the political agendas day to day. Sometimes I'm jealous of her education and mindset until I remember that I have the exact some one.

Regardless I feel like there's no reason not to take the bull by the horns. I hear Kindle let's you self publish so maybe something will come of it. Maybe not.

So let's hope I see everyone on the other side.

Cheers to the uninspired blog reader.