Win a Cannondale cross frame & fork, Durango Cross, Phil's World, Aluminum Bolts, Ride the Divide, Osprey Packs

Enter HERE for a chance to win a custom painted Cannondale Caad 9 Cyclocross Frame and Fork! In support of Utah Cyclocross Racing.

Write a 300 to 350-word story about your all-time best mountain bike experience for a chance to win a Cannondale Jekyll, a five day, four night trip to Punta San Carlos, Baja, Mexico (you can bring a friend), the chance to ride with Chris Van Dine and a byline in Bike magazine as guest test editor. Enter HERE.

September and October in Durango, Co have been different versions of off-season "do what you want". September ended up being: get caught up on all things life, tally up everything that is in need of repair on the motorhome and figure out how to get it fixed, find new health insurance, a dentist, go to Interbike, etc. Basically do everything except get on the bike (for the most part). I got back from Interbike and our last remaining, 14 year old, dog Jake got sick and spent three days at the Durango vet. Luckily he is fine now.

 Jake right before I took him in, not feeling very well...

October, aside from having our $3800 refrigerator fail, has been more relaxed. The fridge is covered under a service plan, but I am without a fridge for 4+ weeks.

I started to ride again, "just for fun". To keep things interesting I decided every ride had to have a new or different quality to it, I think I mixed it up pretty well and the only thing missing was a good DH shuttle ride or Super-D.

Oct 2nd: Group Road Ride on new (to me) roads. From no riding to a 32-mile road ride is something, my legs felt it.
Oct 3rd: Wells Brothers Cross Race at Durango Mountain Resort (Purgatory), awesome venue.

 

(photo by Sven Brunso/Durango Mountain Resort)

Guess I do get enough air, it's cool to actually see what I am doing. Photos are from the Durango Herald Newspaper coverage (!) of the race. It was cool to see Nina Baum and Shannon Gibson there after having raced the Road Apple MTB race the day before.

(photo by Sven Brunso/Durango Mountain Resort) 
1st Lap: Chasing Nina with Shannon two spots behind me.

Ned Overend is hiding in this picture of the venue. He didn't race, but it was cool that he came out to support.

 Candy, beer and flowers; and all in pink for Get Out!

My cross bike!

 with new red Al bolts from CadenceWORKS!

 The Mens' A winners Todd Wells (drinking his winnings) 

and my new DZR Urban bike shoes that I bought at Interbike, I love these shoes.

The leaves are changing so I probably won't stay here too much longer. But there is so much to do.

Oct 4th: Another fitness class at Core Value Fitness, "Burn and Firm". All I know is I could not walk for two days after this class. I dug out my Singlespeed (last ride was SSUSA in February) for an evening ride at Hermosa Creek.

 

I ride WTB saddles (Silverados on most my bikes), and have a box full of demos for anyone who wants to try them out. Just for kicks I am trying out the Koobi PRS Alpha "suspension" saddle (sorry, none of these to share). So far my thoughts are that it is comfortable and you do not notice the suspension until you hit a rock just right. When you would expect that super sharp jolt up your spine it just isn't there, this saddle makes a stiff HT feel more like the Flash and that is a good thing! I am not sure it flexed at all when putting out high power while seated. It comes with multiple elastomers so you can fine tune the "suspension": extra soft (white), soft (yellow), medium (red), and firm (blue) offering up to 4/10 inch of travel.  I have the white and it feels stiff enough for me. Todd is using the red elastomer.

Oct 5th: I raced the Durango Wheel Club (DWC) MTB TT at Horse Gulch trails (super fun). Being all racy-like I removed my Big Air and tools for the race. Big mistake, I had not tightened my valve core tight enough and lost all the air in my rear tire over the first few minutes.  Luckily I ran into someone (Ben?) riding the trails who offered the use of his pump. I am extremely thankful but I do not have the upper body fitness for pumping up an entire tire quickly with a little hand pump, I will remain a fan of the Big Air! Since I was racing roadies I still won the women's race. They all kicked my butt the rest of the week.

Later that night I finally got to see Ride the Divide on the big screen. 

It is really worth watching, it'll make you laugh and cry. Click Here for the schedule of showings.

Oct 6th: Cross practice at Fort Lewis College at noon then a drive to Cortez, I almost turned around. Glad I didn't, the riding was perfect. 

Phil's World. A great trail system in Cortez, CO that I heard about through the folks at Osprey Packs. These are the trails of 12 hours of Mesa Verde, fast and fun, smooth and roller coaster like.  

Oct 7th: DWC Road TT (ouch, must have forgotten that I am only riding for fun right now, what was I thinking?). The on-line results list the weather conditions exactly: Epic, Cloudy, Clear, Rain, Hail, Thunder, Lightning, Rainbows, Variable Wind (and a smoldering lightning strike about 800 feet from the finish line)

Oct 8th: Visited Trimble Hot Springs for the first time.

Oct 9th: DWC Road Race. It was mellow and fun, the majority of the group including all the women were together at the base of the final ~1mile climb. I had no legs on the last bit, I really tried, but just didn't have it. In true Durango fashion I rode to and from the road race and got in ~ 70miles total. Then attended my first ever yoga class at Yoga Durango but I drove to the Yoga class. So much for being a true Durangoan.

Oct 10th: DWC Road Crit. Today I kept it fun and did not suffer like you should. Way to go Dana Shinn for winning the Championship! And thanks to all the guys who let us ride with them.

Oh, beer, I forgot to mention that I sampled local beer all week (and ate an entire package of Peanut Butter Malted Milk Balls Saturday night). Fun stuff this "Off Season".