It's dry and sunny in Pueblo

Marty finally got the new GT dirty

hey kids:

Marty and i here, rappin' at ya via the world-wide-interweb from Pueblo.

Why are we in Pueblo, you might ask? good question... we are down here for a little mtn bike race that is being put on out on the trails around the lake.

We left Longtucky midday and drove through fog and rain until we got past Colorado Springs, and then it cleared up as we suited up at the trailhead for a little preview of tomorrows course. The trails around the lake, for those of you who have not been there, offer up at least 20 miles of singletrack. Not sure exactly when these trails got built, but i'm pretty sure it was an effort similiar to that of Troy Rarick out on 18 road in Fruita. in fact, the trails are kinda similiar to 18 road... except the surface has a lot of semi-loose shale-type rock. when you ride over it, it sounds like you are riding on thousands of broken dishes. pretty cool.

anyway, the course looks to be pretty fast--all middle and big ring with a few power climbs thrown in there.

We were about 35 minutes into the ride when we stopped to get our bearings and take a few pictures. I went to clip back in and the main spring on my eggbeater pedal broke right off. dammit. Being the astute planner that i am, i had a large contingent of spare pedals and hardware tucked away nicely in a drawer in my garage at home. a quick look at the watch showed 4:18, and we had less than an hour to get back into town to try to buy a new pair of pedals at a shop. we b-lined it back to the car--riding about 3 miles with one foot clipped in.

This picture shows the extreme topography of the course, and is pretty much exactly when i broke my pedal

We showed up at Great Divide Bike and Hike (4th and Santa Fe, downtown) with about two minutes to spare, and i threw down some hard earned cash on a pair of Smarty's. Luckily, they are white, so my image can remain untarnished on the start line tomorrow.

Anyway, a dude that works there named Joel is the guy who is putting on the race... so he gave us some more info about the rest of the course and we were off.

Rob "I keep crank brothers in business" Love

As always, the pics were snapped by Marty... more updates tomorrow. or maybe not, who knows?

Over&Out,

Rob+Marty