sayhitojohn

CR and his MilkMoney joined me and mine on Green Mtn this morning for a 5:00am assualt. I had the new Magicshine MJ-808 on the bars today. It really helps with the depth perception to see shadows. With a single, head-mounted, light source everything looks flat, rocks, logs, death inducing debris, land sharks. I am going to roll it out on the next ride and try to get a good discharge on the light as even the Lith Ions appear to have some memory issues. Pictures seem like a nice way to dress up a blog. This morning was going to be one of pre-dawn Denver Metro, but the battery was completely dead, bummer, that will teach me, I think. CR and I did not have any deep discussions this morning, but I am still working through the Greg Boyd sermons on Two Kingdoms. I am still developing my thoughts on this view but I get the feeling the his is a mis-characterization. While I agree with with much of what he says but I do also take issue with an assertion that he makes about who Jesus kept ...

Had the Lenzsport MilkMoney out for the 3rd time this morning, but before that ended up working from 4-6:30am - talk about paying to play ;-) I really do like my job and some of the flexibility to work from home here and there - but that does cause me to wake up early and work sometimes. The MM ran nicely on the dirt at Apex and really is quite a smooth operator over the rough stuff compared to the Dos Niner. Only had one issue - in a high torque technical move I unclipped and smashed my knee against the stem. Ouch! It really hurt. After the first seconds of moaning and groaning I heard in the near distance the bugle of a few elk kick in. I had not up until that point heard them, saw a few deer. I figured I better get moving as my moaning of pain may have had some similarities to a female elk in heat - I wasn't sticking around to find out. Ran into a friend from work on the trail an got a few turns in with him. On a recommendation from another friend at work I listened to Greg Boy...

Today I had a rare opportunity to get a short afternoon ride in and I chose the Northern route on Dakota Ridge. From South to North it is a great combination of anaerobic pain and technical intensity all wrapped up in a short ride. What was on my heart today was glory. Specifically, to whose glory do I labor, mine or Gods? We read that we should glorify God in all things - eating, drinking and I suppose riding a bike. When I ride I have at times slipped into self glorification. God has granted that I am able to do a few things just a little bit better then those around me and somehow I use that do draw attention to myself and not credit Him who works all things together. Today I tried to ride as simply as I could with a heart of thankfulness for the opportunity. It was a good ride, granted not my best but I was still out riding in the daylight!! When I approached my technical nemesis on the trail, which is a hairy section that follows the longest sustained climb with all kinds ...

Sweet Riley and I had a nice Daddy and Daughter date in Breck. Lots of us time and food! What a blessing my girls are and it was great to spend this time just with Riley. It has been awhile since I have tried to sleep the whole night in the same bed with Riley. I think I was awakened every 2 hours as she was kicking me in the back. When I told her about it in the morning she said that she was dreaming about kicking me ;-) The fall colors were nearing their peak, what a nice weekend up there. Riley brought up a topic - how it does not make sense to be good for Santa because he seems to give you presents anyway and that you should just be good for God. We were able to dovetail into a conversation about how being good for Santa is really just selfishness because you are trying to get something out of it and not being good for goodness sake. Where being good for God should be done simply because His glory demands it and not because you expect a reward from it as the best reward cannot...

Nice almost sunrise - is that lens dirty? Took the LenzSport MilkMoney SS out for its first ride from home to Deer Creek Canyon OSP this morning. Listened to some sermons by Charles Spurgeo n this morning that he preached in May of 1858. Heard these via podcast from Librivox - nice. 'He who keeps short accounts keeps long friends.' That is, he who forgives and bears all as our Lord Christ has shown us will not be without companions. I think this can apply internally as well as we allow the sacrifice of Christ to cleanse our conscious from guilt we can dwell with ourselves without loathing the sin that sometimes binds us. Took a few falls today - that is not very characteristic of me - not that I am all that great - just usually able to push right up to my limits - must be the new bike ;-) Snakes, err Snake Alive! At about 6:00am I jumped over this big rattler as he lay coiled up on the trail. He was a rattling! I was very surprised at seeing him this early in the morning...

I am back! This morning I decided I would start a pattern of regular posting.  Ha! Heard that before. I was inspired this morning during an early morning ride - got out at 5:00am - dark almost the whole time.  The highlight of the ride was trucking up Boreas Pass and coming down Bakers Tank and the Aspen singletrack. Two very beautiful things - The first snow, yes, flurries on most of the climb up Boreas and quite a ways down the Tank.  It was lit up by my lights and contrasted with the dark background. Secondly, the Aspens are not quite turning yet but there are a few early fallers.  These golden leaves were covered with droplets from the rain over the last 24 hours.  The way they reflected and refracted the light from my lights made them look like little gold nuggets on the trail. Timothy Keller was on the iPod this morning - you cannot forgive unless you are first forgiven - you cannot try to be a Christian any more then you can try to ...

Ok, this blog thing is not going very well - but I think that may change - just need to be interesting - or interested - hmm. Here is something that might be of interest - I am going to race my mtn bike once again this year. Have not done that since the 2005 Leadville 100. That was a great race - will have to post my ride report some day. Thought about Leadville again this year - signed up as a team with some buddies - one of them thought that we were signing up as a relay team and was shocked to discover that it was a solo effort. For that and other reasons we decided to bail. We had tentatively settled on 24hrs of Moab - we may still do that, but we set our sights on an earlier goal. 24hrs of ERock. When approached over the last couple years about ERock I was not interested as the course is not very demanding technically and it just did not seem like something I wanted to do. But then I decided that solo'ing it sounded like a pretty good challenge. I have done half a dozen ...