Fall Moab 2009 - Fruita Edition

Just spent the weekend riding with friends in Fruita, Colorado. For the last seven years or so, after every Fall Moab, I've written a summary of the trip by handing out awards based on movie quotes. I'm not going to do that this time, and I'm not going to tell you why. In order to tell you why, I'd have to make up a reason, and then you'd think that what I wrote was really the reason, giving you a illusory awareness. Although I want you to be unencumbered by speculation, I can't explain why.

A Brief History

The Fall Moab event has evolved over the years. When Fall Moab started, email was a new tool to play with, the World Wide Web of the Internet was still a twinkle in Al Gore's eye, and we rode Slickrock in shorts, t-shirts, and sandals. At first, we called it Fall Moab to distinguish it from Spring Moab and Solstice Moab and the other times of the year when we headed down to the Canyonlands.

In the early days, we went to Moab in groups of two or three guys -- often for just a single day -- and we went several times a year. I went down whenever anyone else did. I was single. The married guys had a more difficult time getting away, and when the married guys started having kids, it wasn't easy for them to get away, at least not without making a huge withdrawal from the bank of good will.

"Would you rather spend time with your friends or be with me?" says the wife.

"I'd rather be with you! But every once in awhile, for the teeniest bit of time, I want to have fun with my friends. But I love you more than biking and more than my friends. Have no illusions. You mean everything to me. You are my buttercup, my golden dove. I just want to ride my bicycle a little bit." So says the husband.

We came up with a name. Fall Moab.

"Honey, I just fixed the garage door and sent that package to your Aunt. Oh, by the way, Fall Moab this year is the first weekend in November. We're leaving on Friday morning and coming back on Sunday."

Even then, it didn't always work. Some of the guys couldn't make it for whatever reason. Fall Moab really became what it is now in the late 90s when guys moved out of the state and needed to make travel arrangements.

"Sugar Pod, I just cleaned out the attack and washed the car. Say, that reminds me -- Bob and Elden and Gary are flying back to Utah the first weekend in November. You know, Fall Moab."

How We Know Each Other

Dug, Ricky, Gary, Elden, and I all worked at WordPerfect. Dug and Brad lived next to each other in student housing. Paul and I knew each other when we were cub scouts. Brad did Paul's mortgage. Kenny rode Leadville with Elden and printed photos for my mother. Jeremy, Ryan, Scott, and Racer all worked in bike shops. Sleepy and Rick S. are Dug's brothers-in-law. Rick S. and I both work for Adobe. Paul knew Tom in high school. Dug invited Tom to ride with us. Tom invited Rich. Rich and Elden were neighbors. Elden is now dating Rich's ex-wife.

I love seeing these guys every Fall. And every year, a few new guys show up, which is great because it gives us a chance to tell the same stories. The red rock country feels more like home to me than any place in the Northwest.

This Year's Highlights

* Ryan's amazing drop off the cliff was something you had to see to believe.

* Rocky, Elden's brother-in-law who lives in Fruita, was an amazing tour guide. My only disappointment with him is that he somehow thinks I am either (A) a talented cyclist or (B) a fool, because he kept encouraging me to do things like ride my bike off tall ledges. On one such ledge, which required me to get speed, make a turn, and wheelie drop off the ledge, I didn't have enough speed to fly over it, and I didn't pull up hard enough to wheelie drop, so I went off the ledge awkwardly, slammed on my front wheel, and ended up with a flat tire and hurt feelings. Thanks, Rocky.

* Riding on those amazing trails that dipped into slot canyons and scrambled over ledges is one of my favorite things in life.

* All the riders on this trip were talented. I'm in pretty decent shape right now, and if we had a race, I would have finished in last place.

* We ate beer-brats and told stories around the campfire. Has anyone ever not had a good time telling stories around a campfire?

Good times.

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Drifters or Grifters?

So I was riding my bike home on Wednesday night, minding my own business -- as always -- when I passed through a group of homeless people who have been hanging around this part of the bike trail for the last few weeks.

Now that I think about it, they could have been hanging out there for years. The city just extended the bike path on Alaska Way near the football and baseball stadiums (stadia?), so I've only recently been riding that new section, which just happens to be near Pioneer Square.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Seattle, Pioneer Square is an old and beautiful section of Seattle that's famous for (1) Elliot Bay Bookstore, (2) the underground ruins, (3) live music hopping, and (4) crime and homelessness. Unfortunately, crime and homelessness is on the rise in Pioneer Square, as evidenced by the fact that Elliot Bay Bookstore will be moving to Capitol Hill soon.

Anyway, a number of Pioneer Square ragamuffins have been making their way down to the bike path that runs under the Aurora Bridge and hanging out in a certain area, forcing cyclists to slow down and weave through them.

On Wednesday, as I was making my way through the crowd, I noticed a homeless guy look at me and then start riding ahead of me in the same direction. I was musing about why the guy decided to hop on his 45-pound mountain bike, and why he was riding in the middle of the path, and whether I should pass him on the left or right, when all the sudden he slammed on his brakes and turned his bike sideways.

I slammed on my brakes and t-boned his chain stay, barely pulling myself out of an endo. When I glanced at the guy for a reaction, he had a funny look on his face, as if he were trying to look sorry but was secretly disappointed. A few of the other loiterers approached the scene of the collision, and a woman was yelling, "Are you OK? Are you OK! Are you hurt?"

Something felt wrong. The last time I'd been in a situation like that was in Barcelona, when two guys hopped on the subway in front of me and started jostling each other unnaturally, which led me to think that they were trying to pull something over on someone. As it dawned on me that that someone was me, I turned around and noticed that a third guy had opened my fanny pack -- which was filled only with tourist maps and a bike lock* -- and was trying to pull out the coiled bike lock. I grabbed the other end of the bike lock, hopped on the subway, and won the little tug-o-war as the train pulled away.

* I have been using the coiled Avenir bike lock since 1989. Still works great.**

** Footnotes are frequently distracting.

Anyway, as I was standing next to this homeless guy I had crashed into while a woman behind me seemed overly concerned, I had one thought -- get the hell away from these people. No apologies, no demands for apologies, no lectures. Without saying a word, I hopped on my bike and rode off, even though the front fender was scraping against my wheel. I spent the rest of the ride home wondering whether this was a dopey accident or a lame scam.

I still don't know what that was all about. When I was riding home on Friday, I thought about skipping the new section of trail where the homeless loiter and just riding on the Alaska Way shoulder, but I was too curious. I rode along the homeless section on the night before Halloween with my head on a swivel, riding over leaves that may or may not have been covering cracked vials, used needles, and burnt spoons, looking for a person dressed in rags to jump out at me.

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Race Across the Sky

Last night, Wendy and I went downtown to see Race Across the Sky, a documentary about the 2009 Leadville race. The movie was shown as a special event in theaters across the country, which I think is a cool thing for movies with a relatively small but enthusiastic audience -- vertical markets, as marketing people would call them.

The people who created the documentary did a good job of showing what the race is about. It's primarily a race for amateur cyclists who want to test themselves. Even though the Lance Armstrong-Dave Wiens battle is the focus of the movie, the filmmakers emphasized the grassroots nature of the event, cutting back and forth between the leaders and the unknown cyclists battling to finish. Personally, I would have preferred a little more of the unknown cyclist and a little less of the top riders.

Here's what I liked:

* Near the beginning of the movie, they showed the terrain by tracking a yellow line over a Google Earth-like map. They cut back and forth between the racers and this map, letting viewers know exactly where the racers are on the course.

* I was wondering how they would show the heartbreak of failure, which is very much a part of the Leadville experience, as Dug wrote about in my favorite Leadville write-up. Dug talks about a wife and kids waiting for their husband and father to roll across the finish line in under 12 hours, and the disappointment on their faces as the shotgun goes off and he's nowhere to be seen. You can't end the movie on a downbeat note like that, so instead of showing some of the tragic figures who cross after 12 hours -- I was one of those people in 2007 -- they show the people being pulled off the course before the Columbine climb because they missed the cut-off time. It's a great agony of defeat moment.

* They did a good job of emphasizing the altitude and its effects. All four times I've done the race, I've traveled from Seattle. The thin air isn't that big a deal to my Utah friends, but it's a major factor for some of us.

* They showed what a great job the volunteers and medical staff do. I was telling Wendy after the movie what a cool experience it is to pull into an aid station and get treated like royalty, despite the fact that I curse them while spitting half-eaten banana chunks at their feet. OK, that's not true.

* The scene where Lance is riding across the top of Columbine with a huge drop-off in the background. Purple mountain majesty that.

Here's what I didn't like:

* No mention of the 9-hour belt buckle. I guess they didn't want to over-complicate the story, but breaking the 9-hour mark is a huge deal to about a quarter of the racers.

* Not enough Fat Cyclist jerseys. I actually saw more Racer's jerseys than Fat Cyclist jerseys.

* Bob Roll narrates the movie and does a good job despite a few wince-inducing lines, but where were Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin? They might very well have had something to say about Lance Armstrong.

I loved the movie. It's going to join my DVD collection as soon as it's available.

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October Update

It is a possibility that my readership is dwindling.

I like to think that this is not the case. In fact, I assume that the longer I go between web log entries, the more hits I get, as devoted readers continue to click the link to my web site a couple times in the morning, once in the afternoon, and several times in the evening, and then more and more people join in the clicking fray. Unfortunately, there is no way to determine how many hits a web site gets, or else I would test this hypothesis using some kind of analytics program. For now, I'll treat it as a theory, like the theory of relativity, and assume that it is true because it falls under the umbrella of science.

Fatherhood

It turns out that I don't have much in common with 5-year-old boys. They like to talk about things that I don't care for, and I am frequently bored. Let's take last night as an example.

It was my turn to put the boys down. I gave them a bath and sat in their room while they toweled off and put on their pajamas. For people in their forties, toweling off and putting on pajamas takes less than a minute. For 5-year-olds, this task takes 7 hours unless they are prodded and coaxed and threatened. An argument broke out.

Max was upset because he had the idea of putting underwear on over his pajamas, superhero-style. Unfortunately, because he had put two pairs of pajamas on, and I made him take off the second pair, he watched in horror as Luke put underwear over his pajamas. You see, that was Max's idea. Max threw a fit. He shouted invectives at the brother born 20 minute before him.

Frankly, I wasn't interested in the argument. It was beneath me. So I just said things like, "It looks like there's no way out of this jam" and "Only one superhero wears his underwear over his pajamas, and that's Aquaman." Then I pressed my forefinger and thumb against the bridge of my nose and sighed. No one listens to me.

In case you're wondering how it played out, Luke put underwear on top of his head and hung his long soccer socks from each of the holes, making him a Super Rabbit of sorts. Max, seeing that Luke's version of a superhero differed from his, stopped throwing his fit, and covered his arms with socks. Both willingly brushed their teeth and succumbed to the ritual of reading books.

Good night, young superheroes. Now let me relax.

Weight Loss

When I rode in the Livestrong event in June, I weighed 194 pounds. A few weeks later, when Stan and Grey came up from Portland to visit, Grey noticed that several of us were fat and challenged us all to a weight loss contest. It was actually a smart contest. We must lose a certain amount of weight in two months, and stay below that target weight at a weigh-in five months later. If we fail to make our weight at either weigh-in, we must pay $75 to everyone else in the contest.

I was inspired enough to change my diet. No more grazing. No more apple fritters the size of my head. I permitted myself to eat whatever I wanted for breakfast and dinner, but I could eat only one dinner. No seconds. And just soup or salad for lunch. Given the fact that I lost 12 pounds in two weeks, you could imagine what my eating habits were before. Now I weigh 173 pounds or so, and I'm down to an A cup.

MS Bike Ride

In the summer, I got fired up about doing Leadville in 2010 on a singlespeed. Since I didn't sign up for any races this year, I treated the MS Bike Ride as if it were going to be a grueling event that required ferocious training. So I went on long weekend rides and did hill climbs and burst riding.

The MS Ride itself was laid back and charming. I camped with a bunch of other Adobe folks, but I rode on my own, at my own pace. The first day was a 90-mile ride around Whitbey Island. On the second day, I wanted to get back in time to see the end of the Colts game, so I rode the 70 miles averaging nearly 20 mph. This is fast for me. I was able to watch the end of the Colts game, which they won 14-12.

One drawback -- camping without a campfire is like having sex without an erection. For a man, I mean.

The First Week of School

Public school? Charter school? Private school? Try as I might, I couldn't avoid that discussion. We settled on public school.

The kindergarten teacher at our local public elementary school came by to visit us before school started. I looked at this as a positive sign. Also, our local elementary school shifted its budget a few years ago to prioritize small class sizes -- another positive sign. Unfortunately, that approach works for only a year or two in a good economy. In a bad economy, schools in bad neighborhoods shut down, and the poor kids flood into the neighboring schools, and the small class size advantage disappears as superintendents try for fairness.

I'll write about this some other time, but for now, let's just say that I have complex, conflicting opinions about race.

The first two weeks of school were rough. When I dropped the boys off while Wendy was working, I was shocked by the chaos. Instead of simply meeting in front of their classrooms, all the kids in the school, including the 70+ refugees from Senegal, met in a huge playground and lined up for their classes as the bell rang. Each teacher then led a class to their rooms, or tried to, as the different lines circled back and crossed each other. Children frequently spaced out and didn't keep up, so they ended up wandering around and crying. "I can't find my backpack!" It was heartbreaking.

Luke and Max each professed to hating school. As in, "I hate school. I have a tummy ache."

As expected, the kids have settled into a rhythm and now claim they love school. Just when I was thinking it wasn't such a bad idea to send our boys to a public Seattle school, we got a flyer yesterday that said one of the kids in the class has head lice, so we need to check the boys' scalps regularly for crawling critters. I'm trying to look at it as an adventure.

But I'm going to be doing some supplemental teaching.

Groundwork

As I continue to read mindless books and avoid creative endeavors of all types, I am laying the groundwork of a mid-life crisis. I imagine my mid-life crisis will not take the form of a sports car and young girlfriend. Instead, i expect to be kayaking in South America or sighing heavily between play dates. We'll see.

Go Mariners

A friend forwarded me this post called "Call of the Year." Even though I knew what was going to happen, I still got chills.

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Top 5 Favorite Parking Lots

Is it true that anticipation is better than satisfaction? For children on Christmas Eve and newly married virgins, I'd say yes. For people looking forward to Arbor Day, I'd say no. For mountain bikers, I'd say maybe.

The five parking lots that get me the most giddy with anticipation are as follows (in reverse order for dramatic suspense):

(5) Tiger Mountain

At one point, riding Tiger Mountain used to depress me. Instead of riding with the Core Team -- Dug, Elden, Rick, Brad, Gary -- I rode alone. Pulling into the parking lot at Tiger Mountain made me think that I made a huge mistake in moving up to Seattle.

Now, Tiger Mountain is one of my favorite rides. When I pull into the parking lot, I wonder if I can make the crux moves on the Iverson trail. I wonder if I'll have the guts to ride across the log after the second switchback on Preston Trail.

I do this ride alone most of the time, but I'm fine with that now. I like Seattle, sure, but more importantly, I have an iPod. An iPod makes friends irrelevant.

(4) Gooseberry Mesa

I'm always a little pissy pulling into the Gooseberry Mesa parking area because I'm sick of driving on all those dirt roads. Then when I pull my bike off the rack and start thinking about the twisting trail and crux moves, the grumpiness fades away.

(3) Tibble Fork

A few years ago, Tibble Fork would have battled for the number one slot, which I won't give away at this point in the web log entry because I don't want to ruin the dramatic suspense. Single-speed bikes makes Tibble not quite as exciting for me as it used to be.

The first mile of nasty, steep, gnarly trail is rideable only on a geared bike. In fact, we used to see who could "no-dab" it -- ride the whole mile without stopping or touching your foot on the ground. I was so excited I used to stretch out and warm up my legs before starting the ride to improve my chances of making it up the double switchback move.

For a brief time every year, I was in good enough shape to recover while riding up the less steep sections of that trail. If everything came together -- if my legs were warm, my lungs were fit, the trail was packed but dry -- I could no-dab it. I think. I actually can't remember if I ever no-dabbed it to the saddle. Let's just go ahead and assume I did, for the sake of argument.

(2) Gold Bar Rim

The parking lot itself is nothing special, but pulling in to the Gold Bar Rim trailhead means we'll be riding all day long. It means the start of the Main Event of Fall Moab.

(1) Slickrock

This wins. For one thing, the parking lot is paved. That's really good for drinking beer and playing derby.

For another thing, the moonscape scenery is striking. And there is a bathroom. And a metal grate that you ride over to start the ride.

Most important, there is all the history. It's where we started naming moves -- Easy As Pie (where a guy said the steep move was easy as pie just before he crashed), The Bowl, Hair Lip Hill (where the upper ledge used to give us fits), The Z Move, Egg Puke Hill (where some random rider lost his breakfast), The Sand Trap.

Slickrock is the first ride where I rode on clipless pedals. Slickrock is where Dug and I used to race each other, back before there was such a thing as the Leadville 100.

Slickrock is where I fell in love with mountain biking. Pulling into the Slickrock parking lot is like pulling out a box of old letters from friends. I can't wait until the next time I get to ride over that metal grate.

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Embarrassing Conversations with My Children, Part XIV

Wendy's family just left town. Wendy is out of town on a business trip. My parents are coming in to visit on tomorrow. That means that for about 26 hours, the boys and I have the house to ourselves. To celebrate, we did our ritualistic trip to Barnes & Noble. First we eat lunch, and then we go into the Children's Literature section where we sit in our secret corner to read books.

To my sons' frustration, we don't make a direct route from the food area to the kids' books area. I stop by the Audiobooks section, the Fiction & Literature section*, and either the WWII section or the Adventure Books section, with Max grabbing my hand and saying, "Come on, Dad!"

Today, Luke pointed at the cover of a book and got excited.

"Dad! Dad!" he said. "M. C. Hammer! It's M. C. Hammer!"

"No, that's Barack Obama."

"Oh."

Two women laughed behind me. One of them was black. I was speechless.

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* Barnes & Noble has a crappy Fiction & Literature section. Sure, it's about the same as Borders, but when you go into a decent bookstore, and I'm not talking about a fantastic bookstore like Powell's or Elliot Bay -- I'm just talking about your average independent bookstore -- the Fiction section is always richer.

And here's one of my pet peeves. Barnes & Noble puts in a ton of furniture when a store first opens, and then they slowly take most of the comfy chairs away. On the Soul Rating Scale, Burger King and Barnes & Noble are in the same category. Therefore, in honor of my sister-in-law who recently shaved her head bald to get a tattoo of a chakra pyramid that will open her third eye, I am hereby sending negative vibes towards the Barnes & Noble executives. Deal with that!

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2009 MS Bike Ride

Besides doing a naked monkey dance, what could be more fun than doing a bike ride for a good cause?

I'm going to ride in the Mount Vernon 2009 Bike MS Ride on Sept. 12-13. If you’ve been itching to give money to a good cause but just can’t find the right charity, consider the National MS Society. If you’d like to contribute, here’s my page:

Bob's MS Donation Page

It's for a good cause. But you know, if you need your money for other things like gambling and prostitution, Jerry Lewis' kids will understand.

A Swing and a Wiff

When I got the announcement that the Second Annual Adobe Wiffleball League was starting, I meant to join. I used to spend hours playing wiffleball in grade school and high school. And college. Unfortunately, a part of me resists Seattle in general and the Adobe culture in particular. For that reason or some other, I didn't sign up.

A member of the Knee Sox came into my office and said I needed to be on the team. "Sure." When I went to play in my first game, 18 players showed up for our team. Only 6 can play at one time. There's an old wiffleball saying, "Six is company, eighteen is a crowd," so I looked for a new team. A player on Ken Wiffey Jr Fan Club had just gotten injured, so the captain of the Knee Sox happily traded me to Ken Wiffey. He joked that I was being traded for a bag of peanuts.

Everyone thought this was a great solution except for Dylan. Dylan is the mentally challenged mail deliverer. And by "mentally challenged," I don't mean that he struggles with 4-star Sudoku puzzles. I mean he is mentally retarded. No matter where he is, he speaks loudly, slowly, and clearly.

"WE HAVE A BIG GAME TODAY, BOB. IF WE SCORE A LOT OF RUNS, WE HAVE A GOOD CHANCE OF WINNING."

That was the last thing Dylan said to me. Now he doesn't talk to me. You see, my new team, Ken Wiffey, played against my old team, the Knee Sox, and we destroyed them. Whenever I came up to bat, people made jokes about my being a traitor, and then I would crush the ball, and that would be followed by "enjoy your peanuts" humor.

The next time I saw Dylan, I told him it was very hot outside. Instead of saying, "YES, IT IS SO HOT I WOULD RATHER STAY INSIDE," he stared at the floor of the elevator. My friend who convinced me to join the league told me that Dylan was still upset that I switched teams.

Here's the odd thing. I really got into wiffleball, as challenged as that sounds. Our team won five games in a row and moved into playoff position. In last Thursday's game, with two out and two on in the top of the final inning of a tight game, I smacked a three-run homer that went over the bushes and landed on the Burke-Gilman Trail. And by smacked, I mean crushed, creamed, smeared, whacked, cold-cocked. I jogged around the bases, stepped on home plate, and bashed forearms with delighted teammates.

I know it's goofy, but I walked around after the last few games with a smile on my face. It put me in a good mood. When I saw a guy on my team, we stopped and chatted about the next game. All we had to do was win the final game -- against a team that was 1-9 -- and we're in the playoffs.

We played tight. In the last inning, we were down a run, and I was the first batter. I needed to get on base to start a rally. The pitcher threw two curves, both balls, and I knew he would come in with a fat pitch to get a strike. Instead of calmly waiting on the pitch and driving it, I opened my hips early, peeked at the Burke-Gilman Trail, and hit a dribbler. Out. Two batters later and our season was over.

Here's the thing. I'm going to have a difficult time sleeping tonight. I choked. I am going to toss and turn worse tonight than I did after the Colts lost to the Chargers in the playoffs last year.

I need to forget about the whole thing. I need to keep this failure in perspective. I need to settle my rift with Dylan and put it past me. I need to trick myself into believing that wiffleball isn't that important.

No way. Wait til next year.

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Susan's Funeral

When Dug and I showed up at Elden's door for a Saturday morning ride, I'm not quite sure what I expected. I certainly didn't expect Elden to answer the door with a howdy-ho cheerfulness.

"Hey! I'll open the garage. Which bike do you want to use, Bobby? The Superfly or the Fisher? Do you have a helmet?"

Dug had just picked me up at the airport, and we weren't even sure Elden would be up for a ride. So we loaded our bike stuff onto Dug's car and drove up to a parking lot at the top of the Alpine Loop, where we waited for the other guys to show up.

Whenever you're waiting at a parking lot for other riders, you derby. It isn't even a question. No one says "Go!" and no one even says, "Derby on!" You just ride in front of someone and stop, or you t-bone someone, and that's the start. There are only two rules in derby -- 1) hands on handlebars, 2) feet on pedals. As long as you follow those rules, you do whatever you can to knock other guys off their bikes.

Dug has the most experience. His elbowing is adequate and his balance is above average, but it's his head-butting that gives him his edge. Elden is -- and always will be -- slightly clumsier than any other rider, and that can work to his advantage. He's capable of taking anyone down with him.

Kenny and Larry finally showed up, and the four of us rode through the mountains, chatting comfortably and joking.

During the whole ride -- in fact, during the whole weekend -- I thought about Susan's death. I thought about how much she meant to Elden, and how much she meant to her children, and how much they would miss her.

I thought about how the cancer destroyed her body and tortured her for months. For years. I wondered how helpless and heartsick her family had to have felt as they watched her battle.

While all these thoughts were bouncing around in my head, we talked about singlespeeds and Leadville and audiobooks.

The funeral service on Monday morning was packed with people who showed up to mourn Susan's death and support the people she left behind. The service itself was beautiful. Elden somehow managed to give a tribute without breaking down, and the other speakers conveyed a good sense of what made Susan unique.

Susan didn't just try to be good. She was good. Genuinely good. She was warm-hearted and selfless and sincere.

I'll miss her.

Something else that was rattling inside my head during the trip was how Elden and Susan and their friends and family fought so hard and gave so much to help each other. Witnessing all that love and sacrifice made me feel hope and -- something totally unexpected at a funeral -- joy.