268 Thrilla for the Garage Gorilla.

Check this out. This has to be one of the coolest garage gadgets ever. And yes we have way too many bikes. I counted 13 at the house today. Only 12 of them belong to us. Geez. I never throw anything away, or donate anything . I think it is probably about time to thin the heard. Anyhow check out the Garage Gorilla. It is awesome. Maybe too awesome Susan wants one more. Push the button and it raises the bar holding up to 220 lbs of garage stuff. With the work we have been doing in the basement it has been tough going for the garage. This definitely will let me park one car back where it belongs in the garage. Viola we have a bunch of bikes off the ground and out of the way. The only draw back that I can see is that you have to install the thing. Which by the way was not too difficult but it was not that easy either. I hate working on ceilings. My garage has about a 12 foot ceiling so it makes it even more difficult. Anyhow now that it is done I would do it again and I would be willing to bet Susan has another one for me next week. On that note I think I am headed out for a ride.

272 Texas the land of cologne.

The guys in Texas like their cologne. Imagine High Karate, Old Spice and Mombo on every person you walked past. That was what it was like on the River Walk in San Antonio. Susan usually likes cologne but the high temperatures and the strong smell from every guy we passed was a bit much. It was hot and I am not sure if they were looking to mask something or if they really like the stuff. Either way it was really strong. I am usually oblivious to smells but you could not miss this. At some point it was funny. Anyhow the River Walk in San Antonio is really cool and I would highly recommend walking the 3 miles.

I did not take any photos of the water park. We found very early that you would need to be wet to survive the heat so taking photo's was the last thing we were thinking about. The Schlitterbahn is very cool. The park is all river water. The water coming from a spring fed river that is connected to the park. If you like water parks this is the place. I thought the trip would give me some time to recover. I underestimated the effects of climbing stairs for 3 days. You see water parks have lots of stairs and the Schlitterbahn is built on a hillside. We spent 2 days in temp's above 100 with high humidity. Luckily most of the time at the Schlitterbahn was spent in the water. But any time we were not in the water we were climbing stairs. It was sort of like being on a never ending stair stepper. We opened the park at 10 am and closed it both nights at 8 pm. I was only mildly sore after the first day the second day was more of the same. I did not really suffer until we went to Sea World. That is where we were in the water much less and the temp's were again above 100. I hit the wall at about 2 in the afternoon. We spent some time seeing "Shamoo" and the sea lions. Sea World also has a water park. We hit their park and cooled off. I have to say that I enjoyed the Schlitterbahn much more than Sea World. The whales and the Sea Lion's were cool. And I would do it again. I would probably just do it during a time of the year when it is a bit cooler.


Erich finding out what happens when you try to bring Gatorade into the air port.

Photo from the River Walk.

Another shot of Erich getting frisked.

Seal Posing

Here fishy fishy.

Another photo from the River Walk.

265 Dawn Patrol

Lovely photo. My camera phone thinks 5 am is way too early to ride too. I felt like dirt. Rode Corner Canyon. No surprise there. Trails were tacky and in very good condition. I thought it may be muddy. Today I could not get my heart rate up out of zone 2 at all. 10 miles and 1900 feet pf elevation gain. Did the whole ride with a heart rate under 145. The average HR was 114 Low 61 and high 143.

I fly out on Saturday morning to go to the Schlitterbahn in Texas. It is one of the worlds largest water parks. A few days of chasing the kids around a water park should fix my wagon. I will take some photos.

263 Ride today and some photo's

I did the tour of Corner Canyon today. I rode up bst to corner canyon road then down the new multi purpose trail which is fairly rough and loose. Then up Clark's down Ghost over to Bst again and down Lizard road. Man there were lizards everywhere. I was trying to keep my HR below 140 and I was fairly successful except going up Clark's and up the Wall. This was the first time I have ever cleaned the wall. I usually spin out or something. This time I went immediately to the Granny gear and was able to spin on up. Today was Draper Trails Day so there were some runners on the trails. They were pretty well done by the time I headed up but I did see a few runners and some family's out hiking the trails. One group was walking through the poison ivy over by Ghost Falls. I bet they are hating life about now. It ended up being a fairly big day of climbing with over 4000 feet. I wanted to go to Park City but Erich is still hacking his lungs out. He stayed with me until we went down the new trail then he and Susan went home. I am not sure he should have gone with us He has a fever now and I hope this does not set him back even more. He has lost 10 or so lbs and is really thin.

It is hard to see from my camera on the cell phone but the new trail has tons of roots sticking up all over and is loose on the edges. It needs lots of people to ride it slowly to buff it out and get it into better shape.

Mr. Skinny telling me he is going home.

This week was Alyssa's birthday. She wanted a new bike and the shop had an 08 model. She was thrilled especially when I tattooed it with several hibiscus stickers.

The infamous valve. Somehow it blew up. I probably did not let the glue set up enough before I turned it on and one of the joints failed. Major bummer. I have no idea how long it was running but I did not have to dig it up. The water did that for me. It was a quick fix. It better hold this time.

This is from 2 weeks ago. Erich and I went on a road ride and at about the 2 hour mark he bonked. He needs to find something he can eat on the bike. That and he needs to get in some miles. Lacrosse hurt his endurance and he needs to build it back.

266 Son of a.. Miserable scale.

I am not sure what I am doing wrong. I am watching what I eat and keeping my calories under control and still slowly gaining weight. My cycling has been a bit interrupted in the past week but I still had 2 hours Saturday 3 hours Sunday and then the sprinklers blew up again and my Daughter had a birthday so I missed 2 days of riding but I should not gain weight. I told Drew about my gains yesterday and he was very nice and said muscle is heavy and you are building muscle. If only that were true. The only muscle I am building is table muscle and it looks like I have a keg for a midsection.

Last night I did the Round Valley Race. Since I had no idea where I was going I entered with the beginners. After the first lap I just could not finish the race and wanted to do the second lap which is the same as the Sport class. Anyhow when I finished I told them to change my category and that I did the 2 laps. I am slow and I apologize to any of you that I slowed down but I think I was able to ride on the right and step out of the way fairly quickly. I do not think I hindered anyone too much. My lap times were a bit slow at 25 minutes per lap and I finished in just under an hour by my computer. I am sure I will be a bit faster next week. Erich skipped this one because he has been sick for about 10 days now. He hates going to the Doctor but he really has no choice and he is going today. He tells me he wants to do the PC Point Point race in September. He has not ridden hardly at all this year so he needs to get better and get in some miles.