Carmel Bay

Traveling with a 3 year old doesn't lend itself to really long drives, so we broke up the trip into 2 days. That didn't leave enough time for me to race short track race on Friday. But it did give me a chance to pre-ride part of the xc course. It was really hot on the course so we headed straight to the beach afterwards! I took a very quick dip in the ocean. The kind of dip that takes your breath away because it's so cold, I love those moments! I just couldn't drive so far and not get in, I'm not sure when I'll be back to the ocean! 





Rubber Ducky

Less than 24 hours after standing on top of Mammoth Mountain, I  was back to riding in the desert. If you've ever ridden at Blue Diamond, you've seen this Yucca with rubber ducks tied to it. 

After my spin I hassled some burros at the Blue Diamond park while Kirkham practiced riding his Strider. Good family times.





Bike Stand!

It's official: I am the luckiest girl on the planet! My husband treats me like a princess. He takes such great care of me and makes sure I have everything I need for racing my bike. He is so thoughtful and kind and knows exactly what I want. This year it was a bike stand. Honestly, I had been talking about getting one off of craigslist. But this beauty showed up and I've never been so excited about a birthday gift. It is exactly what I wanted, except it's even cooler than I expected. I didn't even know you could get red bike stands. This present will be used & abused almost daily from now on. Thank you Johnny!
Even had a red ribbon tied to it! 


Round Valley

Round Valley dried out enough for a spin on Saturday. These two fellows were on their rigid single speeds. I did some proselytizing and preaching and let's just say that by the end of June they will both be on the Cannondale Carbon Flash 29ers. My bike is that good, seriously.
Carl & John





















John, Erica, Carl
















But even more importantly, our Memorial Day weekend started out right...with a trip on Thomas!



Emigration Canyon in the snow

It warmed up considerably at the end of the week, enough that the road became ridable. That also meant that the snow was PERFECT for building a snowman. So instead of a boring core/floor workout, I shoveled as much wet, heavy snow as possible. Building an 8' snowman is a full body workout! I rode up Emigration to Little Dell afterwards. Repeated the ride again today with a little loop up pinecrest.
Workout #1, building a large snowman with Kirkham
Workout # 2, View of the SLC valley from Emigration
I guess this is where I turn around!

Little Dell on Day #2
Music: Born on the Cusp by The American Analog Set

Mammoth Lakes

There is beautiful smooth single track that parallels the road from the town of Mammoth Lakes up to Mammoth Ski Resort. We've seen from the car and I finally had the chance to check it out. I rode from our hotel to the resort to explore what I hoped were trails similar to Park City or Deer Valley. Not quite. It was really pretty, but this resort is completely tailored to downhillers. In a very serious way. They have built features all over the mountain that, to me, look insane. I rode one short bridge, but at the end there was a 3 foot drop, can you guess if I rode it? Ya...no. In fact, I am ashamed to say, I walked my bike down much of the mountain. Even walking around some of these features was hairy.
Singletrack through the trees at Mammoth Ski Resort
Morning clouds rolling off the ridge at the resort
This bridge repeated a few more times
The one I rode, just to the end, not off it though!

There is another berm built a few feet off the ground in the distance, it's hard to tell just how huge these are from this photo


When I rolled back into town Kirkham was celebrating his birthday with Johnny by swimming in the huge hot tub at the hotel. No other hotel guests were around, so we all played the pool for the next few hours. The weather was so ideal and we thought we work on getting rid of our biker tans, no such luck, that'd take days and days in the sun!
Post ride plunge
Soaking up the mountain sun

Next up was a quick drive through Yosemite. We made it to Toulumne Meadows, then went for a little hike on Lembert Dome.



Tour of Park City

In White: Todd, Unknown Jans rider, Johnny-yes, I know he is cut off and out of focus, I bought the wrong photo. Sometimes I am a real smarty pants.

As has been the case with just about every ride/race my husband has done this year, The Tour of Park City began with a short drive to the North Las Vegas General Aviation Airport and then an equally short flight to Heber City, UT. What would normally take him over seven hours in a car ends up taking him less than two in the small, twin engine Cessna.

I’ll spare you the boring details of the 150 mile race itself (road racing is much less exciting than XC racing) and skip to highlights. The main objective was to keep Steve, the best rider in the plane, near the front and out of trouble so that he could take off on the climb up to Mt. Baldy. I’m guessing they did a good job, because Steve ended up in second place and was very pleased with the outcome. John and Todd were blown from sitting at the front through a “nasty” dirt section (how could dirt be nasty?) and across the windswept beauty that is Evanston, WY and limped in sometime later.

Where were the highlights you ask? Well, for these boys the highlight of racing their bikes comes several hours after when their stomachs have recovered from the overload of power food. Since they were staying in a cabin in Heber (have I mentioned that my husband’s weekends do not suck), Kirkham and I met up with them for milkshakes at a great new place in Midway named Fill'er Up Coffee Station. We then drove up to the cabin and hung out on the wrap-around deck, taking in the vista and sharing stories, truly the highlight of the race day.

On Sunday morning they were back in Vegas by 9am, just in time for church!


John, Steve & Chad unloading Todd's plane at the Heber Airport


No race photos yet...check back in a few days



Post Race at the Cabin: Steve, Todd (preparing Gospel Doctrine Lesson and wearing recovery tights) and Johnny, Chad was inside for this photo