A Hard to Beat Weekend!

It was a great start to fall here in Denver this past weekend. Here's why:

Last week the Denver Athletic club had it's kick-off the season squash tournament. I signed up for two divisions; 40+ and beginner open. I got knocked out of the 40+ group in the first round. However, I made it to the finals in the beginner group! The finals were Friday evening and before a wild crowd of 5 or 6 , I won, 3-1! Scores were 9-1, 9-5, 7-9, 9-5, so it was pretty close the whole time!







Next, my friend David and I signed up to take the Motocycle saftey course to get our 'M' endorsement on our licences. The class was going to be all day Saturday out on the practice course as well as some class room work. Sunday was going to be some warm up exercises followed up by our timed and scored range evaluation and a multiple choice exam. We both passed with flying colors, so watch out Denver, we're both legal and saving our pennies for motorcycles :)





Since I was on the motorcycle range all day Saturday and Sunday, Laura took advantage of the fabulous fall weather to ride little horse.

On Saturday, she went to Longmont to practice chasing cows. Then, on Sunday, she and her friend Aliza loaded up their horses in the trailer and did a three hour ride at the Chatfield recreation area in the foothills south of Golden.











Finally, to cap it all off, I'll be starting a new job on Monday! But, I'll save that for another post.

-Rich-

Scooters Take Over!

Today, scooters took over the streets of Denver, Sportique Scooters sponsored:



I didn't hear the actual rider count, but based on these pics I'm guessing somewhere between 60-75 scooters took part in the ride.










Laura and I were just about in the middle of the pack, the first pic is looking forward, the next looking back; As you can see, it was a long line of scooters.









The ride was about 3 hours (including stops) and covered about 50 miles all around Denver.



After the ride there was BBQ and a live band, a great way to finish up a fantastic day of riding!







I took lot's of pictures throughout the day, you can go to our Smug Mug Gallery to see them all.

Great Day!

-Rich & Laura-

Snuggles Makes a New Friend!

Laura and I were Scoot'n around our neighborhood last week when we came across a lady walking a dog and a cockatoo; You don't see that very often, so we stopped to chat. After talking for a while we decided our 'toos should meet up.

Here is Snuggy meeting Monty for the fist time. Monty was inquisitive and Snuggy was stand-offish (as usual). Despite the fact that Monty is quite a bit bigger then Snuggles, they were on Snuggy's turf, so Snug was the dominate too.

I don't know if Snug is interested in seeing Monty again, but we're looking forward to hanging out with Kelly and her husband Jeremy sometime in the near future.

-Rich-

Playing catchup!

OK, I've been pretty 'lame'(scroll down to see why) about keeping the blog up since the DNC was in town! So, I got caught up and posted a few entries all at the same time, scroll down to catch up and we'll try a little harder to update on a regular basis (no promises though)

Lame, September 3

On Top of the World, September 9

New Object of Desire, September 12

-Rich-

New Object of Desire!

Since acquiring my 'scoot', back in May, I've been bitten by the two wheel bug really, no, REALLY bad!

We love exploring downtown with the scoots without having to worry about parking(both spaces and cost), as we can park them anywhere you park a regular bicycle. 90+MPG helps too and has us both using our car/truck a lot less. In fact, I've gone from filling the Subaru up weekly to once every 2 or 3 weeks (that will change once the snow starts to fly). And, while Laura needs the f-250 to transport the horse around, it's just not practical around downtown.

But, I have a need, a need to go 2 wheeling up into the mountains, on those twisty roads and on the freeways! The scoots, even though they'll do 55-60, just are not meant for serious highway travel.

So, I've got my eye on one of these:

It's the 2009 f 650 GS; A 'dual sport' bike meant for urban commuting and 'light' off road use like dirt and fire roads that are so prevalent up in the mountains!

I don't have a lot of experience with 'real' motorcycles, so I'm taking a basic rider course the 3rd week of September to give me the basic info I need to get started and to get my motorcycle endorsement on my driver license.

So, I need to start saving my pennies. Hopefully, I can get this by next spring. Now the real question....How do I get a rack like the one below??



-Rich-

On top of the World....

....at least as close as I've ever been!

One day after getting the stitches out and being cleared by the doctor, we had scheduled to go up to Salida and bike the Continental Divide, also known as the Monarch Crest trail!

We really love Salida, in the banana belt of the mountains, the weather always seems to be fabulous there! We found these great little cabins along the Arkansas river to stay. The activities around the area are endless; superb biking, hiking, horse back riding, rafting, hot springs and unique little restaurants. We went up with our friends David and Aliza.

The girls dropped us off at the top of Monarch Pass where our adventure would begin. The girls had their own plans....



...they rented ATV's to ride some of the very same trail we were going to ride but we had nearly 30 miles to go before we would meet up with them!


We started at 11,300', but our goal was 12,600; So the trail started out with a 3.5 mile climb to get us to the summit! I've gotten a lot better at climbing at altitude in the past year, but still have a lot of trouble over 10,000'. This is only the second time I have ridden my bike at this elevation. The views all around us were amazing! Here is David making his way towards the summit.


Almost there! That peak just to my left at 12,600'. The landscape up that high isn't much more then granite. The sun was intensely hot but we had a very cold stiff wind I guess had to be over 20 mph! We spent the next 12 miles going in and out of the treeline between 10,000 and 12,000 feet. The terrain kept changing from the open, rocky area you see here to dense, twisty forest with pine needle lined trail. It for a fantastic bike ride with a little bit of everything thrown in to keep you on your toes!

Here is a poorly drawn graphic of our general path in and out of the treeline as we made our way back down from the summit.



We made our decent along, and sometimes in, the Silver creek. Near the end of the ride, a blazing fast 5 mile 4X4 road(I saw 32 mph on the computer) back into town, we ran into these 2 crazy girls on quads!

We knew they would riding some of the same trail, but we never figured we'd actually run into them out there!

The girls' had a blast on the quads and they were glad they chose the non guided tour so they go where they wanted....as fast as they wanted :)




We finished the day with a fabulous dinner at the Laughing Ladies in downtown Salida, and a long hot tub. This was my first big epic ride, nearly 5 hours, since we moved here....and I can't wait to do another one!

-Rich-

Lame!

There has not been a lot to post lately! A few days before the DNC started here, I took a pretty serious spill over the handlebars of my mountain bike, cutting open my left shin. The gash was big enough to lay your thumb into, and a little longer then the typical thumb(I'll spare you any pictures)!

Besides the 18 stitches in my shin, I had a huge egg sized knot on my calf, behind the cut,(from the bike crashing down on top of me I'm sure) that made it nearly impossible to walk for 5 days.

So, the labor day holiday was a pretty quite one around here. We did manage to 'scoot' downtown to the Taste of Colorado for some tasty treats and good music! We were treated to a free concert by John Waite (Babies in the 70's, solo artist 80's, Bad English 90's).

Now that the stitches are out, it's time to get back at it and do some things to blog about ;)

Rich