USA Pro Cycling Challenge: Stage 5 @ Swan Mountain

The biggest pro road cycling race ever in the history of the US came tearing through Colorado this week. A 6 stage race through beginning in Colorado Springs and hitting some of the most scenic regions and heinous summit climbs in the state. I was lucky to be invited to join some friends at a swank mountain house outside the town of Silverthorne in Summit County. My visit coincided with Stage 5, which ran through the town on today's route from Steamboat Springs to Breckenridge. A few coworkers and I secured a fantastic spectating point at the top of the Swan Mountain 'king of the mountain' climb on the south side of Dillon Reservoir.

The crowd was huge and merry with lots of time to kill before the racers made their way to our locale. But sipping beers and goofing around with my buddies helped pass the time in a lively way. Finally the race brigade got to us, with a full regalia of police cars, motorcycles, team cars, ambulances, and finally the spry Belgian climber Andy Schleck (2nd in the Tour de France this year) out off the front in a solo breakaway.

Not too far behind with the peloton came the Team BMC boys; here's liftime legend George Hincappie smiling while pulling a less perky Cadel Evans to the top of the climb. Cadel's fresh off this year's Tour de France victory, recovered from his own broken elbow the year prior. Earlier in the week George won the Colorado race's "Queen Stage" from Gunnison to Aspen that conquered two 12,000ft+ passes over the Continental Divide: first Cottonwood Pass into Buena Vista, then over Independence Pass into Aspen.

It was simply amazing how fast all these racers (over 100 passed by us) flew up this climb, especially after 5 days of hard core racing at altitudes well above most of them are conditioned to. Just an amazing day all around. Team Radioshack's Levi Lephiemer ended up taking the overall win when the race concluded in downtown Denver the following day. Organizers, host towns, the politicians and certainly cycling fans all deemed the inaugural race a stunning success and they promise to bring it back again next year. I can't wait!

City O City expansion & remodel project

Busy local vegetarian restaurant / bar / hipster haven City O' City took on the retail space adjoining their original location near the State Capitol building in Denver. Our friends Randy and Sabin at Custom By Rushton were commissioned for the design and finish build of the new, expanded space and they had some awesome ideas. They work almost exclusively with reclaimed, reused and re-purposed materials: everything from using a 1946 semi-truck trailer to build the coffee & kitchen service bars down to the screws holding everything together are salvaged in beautiful and creative ways.

Lucky for me, they enlisted our help with a lot of the construction for this project. Randy is a true master craftsman in the old-school sense and I've been wanting to learn from him ever since I met him several years ago. Deadlines are looming, so while I'm still working full time with the couriers during the day, I head down the block to Randy's warehouse workshop in our neighborhood to work into the night on all sorts of interesting tasks and construction.

Making a curved shelf for the condiments/creamers/etc at the coffee service bar. This started as a single piece of 18" wide pine plank; we were able to cut it into 3 shaped sections, piece them together with the biscuit joiner, and end up with a beautiful single shelf. Here working on perfecting the curved edges; this started with a scrollsaw and eventually I worked all the way down to a 240grit sandpaper by hand.

Randy working on the 8-top table for the dining area. This began as an antique oak circular table that his dad had salvaged years ago from a mountain town bar. Legend has it that Jessie James himself has played poker at this table. It was lacking the 'leaf' insert, so we biscuit-joined four oak planks between the two circular halves to make a table large enough for eight folks to sit around.

We are installing two separate bars: one along the coffee service area and the other facing into the open kitchen. The materials are 100+ year old 3"x12" beams salvaged from an old barn. Two beams are joined together for each countertop, making a sturdy 2ft deep eating/drinking area about 16ft long. With the age, the wood is very weathered with small splits and various holes. Because it's an eating surface, we had to take a lot of care to hand-fill each tiny crack with an epoxy resin. I spent 3-4 hours a day for almost a week doing the finish work before they were ready to stain and seal.

April is helping Sabin with a large custom chandelier for the center of the dining room. This photo is just the beginning of the creation which will eventually have over 1000 individual strands of fiber-optic strings, each with a collection of reused items adorning the ends: Lite Brite pegs, antique typesetting parts, bicycle spokes, test tubes and plastic rings. It will be lit by LED lights shining into the fiber-optics so the entire chandelier will glow and shimmer. Each of the 1000+ strands have to be hand assembled in multiple steps.

Dillon BBQ Fest

One of the larger Colorado BBQ fests was going down in Dillon, so what better excuse for a weekend camping and getting some tasty que.

my hands-down favorite sauce makers, Brook's BBQ from Aurora, CO

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Afternoon lounging in the sun on the shores of Dillon Reservoir. April made a summer mudman:

 

Lots of folks out sailing on Dillon Reservoir in the feet of the Ten Mile Range (and Continental Divide runs south along that ridge)

Lake Granby / Grand Lake

April had a hankering for being near a lake, so we hit the road to find just that. We got a little lazy and ended up camping at the good old National Forest campground on the south end of Lake Granby. We scored the very last open campsite and $17 later we were getting settled in amongst the RVs, families, motorboats and chugging generators. Not exactly our typical M.O. but kind of fun to take the easy route.

Woke up to unexpected cold- 38 degrees! Sunday we checked out the little tourist town of Grand Lake, next to the actual lake of the same name. To cold to swim (water's about 50 degrees) but took a few fun dives off the pier to jolt the senses.

Friday around the house

Elbow update: 46 days post-op

Back to the hospital today for my first follow up appointment with my orthopedic surgeon, Dr. David Gladu. He says my recovery is coming along very well, the new x-rays show the bone is healing up but still has a few weeks to go before it's completely mended. He says I have a very good prognosis to be back to normal with full range of motion after a few more months. For now, the lingering inflammation and tight ligaments- a result of the trauma from both the injury and surgery- are keeping the elbow from its full range of motion.

Dr. Gladu is an avid cyclist himself and we spent a good deal of our visit chatting about riding in Colorado, huge climbs up Mt. Evans and the Triple Bypass Ride, the Tour de France and my fave Cadel Evans, and the upcoming USA Pro Challenge cycling race right here in Colorado. It's reassuring to know that my surgeon personally understands my desire and insistence to regain strong cycling form. He did, however, suggest I not ride until I'm more fully healed, as a crash could potentially re-break the bone and require another, more difficult, surgery to fix it a second time. I didn't exactly reveal that I've been riding (very carefully) every day for the past 5 weeks. Don't ask, don't tell. I finished my appointments, rode home and went to work. On my bike.

I also saw a physical therapist for the first time today- she also says I'm coming along just fine and everything I've been doing on my own so far is just what I ought to be doing. She measured my range of motion: flexion is 135 degrees, compared to 145 degrees with my right arm. Extension is more problematic, I can currently only straighten it to 25 degrees but am aiming for 0 degrees, fully straight. Lots more stretching in the next few months should really improve this, then focus more heavily on regaining strength.

Here's some interesting photos of my bionic arm nowadays. The first is a diptych of the original break and the repair. The second is other views of the metal hardware (long pins and the tension band wire) holding me together. In all likelihood, this hardware will be removed eventually once the bone is completely healed.