Poor Matt

So Matt got here yesterday to hang with me until the race.  I brought his motorcycle with me as well as mine so that he and I could go do some exploring in the time I'm not still training (and there will be a lot of that to kill).  Both of our motorcycles are "dual sports", which means they are street legal and very street capable, but are also very off-road capable.  That helps up here where the roads turn to rutted out rocky dirt roads with little warning.

Unfortunately, Matt realized a bit late in the game that he needed a new front tire for his motorcycle.  He ordered one and thought he'd have it in time to install it before I left, but it was a day late.  So he shipped it to Leadville and I picked it up.  He rode his bike to a dealer about 40 miles away (the closest one!) this morning to have it installed.  Unfortunately, on the way back he picked up a nail in his rear tire!  He was only about three miles away when he noticed it, and with little alternative he slowly rode it the rest of the way back to the campground.  Right now his bike looks like this:

It's missing something.

Unfortunately some part of this journey destroyed the tube in his tire to the point that there was no way we could patch it.  So we spent the next 30 minutes googling dealers and calling only to finally find one about 40 miles away.  Unfortunately the road between here and there is closed due to a tunnel collapse, so it'll be more like 60 miles for him to ride MY bike around and pick it up.  But at least it looks like we can get one today instead of having to wait until Monday at best, and that's using next day shipping.

The worst part of all this, too, is that not only did he get rained on this morning some, but it looks like it's raining in every direction from here right now and he's likely to get drenched on this trip, too.  Sucks for him, but what are you gonna do?

My day wasn't so awesome, either, but simply because I had a six hour training ride to do.  I wasn't supposed to ride terribly hard, just needed to ride for a long time.  So I did about all the riding there is to do in this area that doesn't involve crazy amounts of mountain climbing.  You can see the data here.  First thing you'll notice is I didn't go for the full six hours.  That was due to the aforementioned weather situation.  I started at 7:30, but really should have been moving by 7am and I would have made it.  But alas, I was at that last hour about to hit thirty minutes of singletrack before making the 30 minute trek back to town when I heard thunder.  Looking through the trees I quickly discerned that this was going to be a significant event.

So I skipped the singletrack and started getting my butt off the mountain.  I did get rained on pretty good, but at least I was able to get to lower elevation pretty quickly.  And while the rain wasn't ever terribly bad, there was a good bit of lightning and thunder in the area, so it seemed best to just cut it a little bit short.  I was pretty happy with how well I did at a ride this long at altitude...I'm getting more and more accustomed to it, which was the whole point.

It's kind of weird, though.  That was my last "long ride" until the race, which is now just over two weeks away.  And I probably won't have another six hour ride for a month, I'd guess, if then.  That kind of makes me happy right about now.  *grin*

Hopefully Matt gets the right tube and it stops raining by the time he gets back with it so we can install it.  That way we can go check out the Colorado Freeride Festival over in Winter Park!  Ashley and the kids and I got to see some of a similar event there last year, and it looks like a blast.  Wish us luck!