Cycling is my original passion. Be it racing against cars by Lodi Lake during my teenage years, struggling up Salsberry Pass in Death Valley with my faithful Cannondale or recumbent, or riding in the historic Paris-Brest-Paris 1225-kilometer bicycle race, the memories are large and plentiful.
Latest epic adventure: the 2,700-mile, self-supported Tour Divide mountain bike race along the world’s longest MTB route, as chronicled by the movie, Ride the Divide. I finished sixth!
“One of the fitness standards that I set for myself a long time ago,” I said to Tori, “was that on any given day, I could bike 200 miles. I guess this would be a real test of that.”
Indeed, as a side effect of a high-mileage year for running, I’ve had the lowest-mileage year for biking ever since I started doing long-distance cycling events 17 years ago. I’ve actually run three times more than I’ve biked this year distance-wise. The number of times I have pedaled could be counted on my digits; my long ride in 2010 was a mere 40 miles.
But since the summer is winding down and the amount of daylight hours is decreasing, I figured I’d better squeeze in a 200-miler now to continue my annual double-century streak. Besides, I figured it would be a good way to whip me back into cycling shape. I call it the shock-and-awe approach. Continue reading »
Last month’s Tour de Coop was so fun and educational that Charis, Chris, Leah, Tori and I pounced on the opportunity to do a similar bike ride featuring trees. It seemed like a particularly good idea considering how I’m a self-professed lover of the Great Outdoors, but am even more of an ignoramus about leafy barky objects than edible feathered friends. Continue reading »
“We have to do this,” I excitedly told Leah. “The Tour de Coop! It is an eight-mile bike ride in Fort Collins on Saturday, May 1st going from chicken to chicken, learning about our feathered friends from beak to butt. Don’t worry, we won’t be eating any!”
I had to add the last part since Leah is a vegetarian. But I really didn’t have to do much more prodding than I did. It turned out the cutie wants to raise chickens one day. “And goats,” she added. Continue reading »
At the pre-race meeting of the 2008 Tour Divide, the 17 racers (including myself) were briefly introduced to Anthony Camino and Hunter Weeks who — along with racer Mike Dion — were going to produce a documentary about the Canada-to-Mexico mountain bike race. Twenty-two months of hard work later, the 1.5-hour movie entitied Ride the Divide premiered at the Vail Film Festival. And I’d say it was worth the wait! Continue reading »
One year and seven months after the event, I’ve finished transcribing notes from the ’08 Tour Divide, the epic self-supported MTB race from Canada to Mexico I finished sixth place in. This includes notes I scribbled daily inside a notebook inside my ultra-light one-person tent under the glow of a blue pen-light, usually at night after at least 15 hours of riding. They also include cleaned-up versions of the transcripts that Sherry (wife of one of the racers) took from my race call-ins. Continue reading »
There are many organized bicycle rides that honor specific foods. For example, there is the Giro de Vino (wine) through the vineyards of my old cycling grounds of Lodi, California; the San Francisco Tour de Ice Cream; and the Texan Tour de Donut. But as far as I know, there hasn’t been a ride specifically for one of cyclists’ favorite foods: pasta. That is, at least until my friend Scott devised his very own Noodles 2 Noodles century last year. That ride went so well that he decided to do it again this year — this time in the company of friends. Continue reading »
 in the Fort Collins City Park playground. "Yours truly hugging a 90-year-old Northern Red Oak (a #2 champ) in the Fort Collins City Park playground.")
 "Felix's blue dot on the official online leaderboard on Day 4 of the Tour Divide. (Courtesy of Tori)")
