Coming Soon

I am going to try something new with the next couple posts.  I want to do a series of post on one topic.  I will be working on this for the next few weeks.  If I am lucky I will get it down this week, but if your reading this I am still working on this series.  You'll hear from my soon.  Please subscribe and comment.

Ride of the Week - Green Moutain 04/04/11

This was it.  The first official ride of the season.  I mark the beginning of the season here in Colorado when Daylight Savings hits.  Only then do I have enough daylight to get in an afternoon ride.  Today, I had taken the day off work because of the long night schedule that I had to work over spring break.  I spent most of the day relaxing at the house.  The kids were back in school so it was just me and my wife.  She went to meet a friend in the morning, but during lunch we rested in front of a movie.

Around 2:00 PM, I got ever thing packed up in the "Ranch Hero" and drove out to Green Mountain.  I thought this would be a great place to start my season.  I'd lost a lot of my muscle over this winter which became painfully clear to me during the prior week when I attended Patrol bicycle training.  I was sucking wind all day and had to be pushed up the hill during our lunch ride (one of the older guys literally rode up behind me and grabbed my belt to give me a boost up the hill).

Green Mountain is a trail that I know well but have never finished the whole loop.  It's a great trail for working on endurance.  It's got great climbs but little to no technical spots (that I have found).  I knew that I needed to work out my body so this was the way to start.

I rode up the trail to a junction that I usually take to the south around the mountain, but this time I took it north.  I thought that I was going to make it that far, and if I found a way to loop back to parking lot in a short amount of time that would be great.  I was already sucking wind.  I was also a little cold.  When I left my house the sun was warming everything up.  Green Mountain was sunny but the wind was coming out of the northwest pretty hard making it feel a lot colder.  I made it up to a small rock out crop where I took this picture of me.  I also found the remains of something tucked in between three rocks.  Coyotes got something rather large.  It wasn't a cat maybe a medium sized dog or another similar sized animal.

I kept going till I looped back toward the parking lot.  I was glad I took the shorter loop.  I didn't think I had much more energy in me.  I decide though at the last minute to ride up the fire road to see how far it went.  I thought I would not have any problems but I was wrong.  I was still not in good shape so after climbing around a few turns I decided I was cold and tired enough to call it a day.  I coasted down to the car.  I was not really breaking a sweat and my arms looked sun burnt due to the cold wind.  I loaded up and headed for home.  I was rather pleased that I'd been able to ride that much with out walking the bike.  I hope to hit Green Mountain again this week but I also want to try out the Golden Bike Park.  I will given you a report on either trip later.

Happy Trails!!

Winding Roads

This is my one hundredth post.  It’s a small accomplishment but I want to savor it since it is a pretty great personal mile stone.  I had a one point thought myself a writer, but then lost track of that dream for a time.  I got back to writing again in this blog as a way to “air out some things that are brewing in my brain.”  Since the time that I wrote my first post life has been a series of winding roads.  I have seen my dreams realized and sometimes discarded.  God provided in amazing ways.  What surprised me over and over again was the way that God gave me the desires of my heart.  Things that I never even prayed for, but every time I got what I desired I wasn’t really satisfied by those things.  

The desires of my heart were never really for the really important things in my life such as my wife and kids.  I love them so much.  They drive me crazy sometimes.  Seasons of my life with them have been tough (like right now).  I have had to eat crow many times, and I will never get used to having to admit that I was wrong.  God knows all these things about me.

If there is one thing that I wish could be said about me from the first post of this blog till now it is, “He followed God’s plan for his life.”  I am often trying to run my life on my own terms.  Men tend to do that. We don’t even have to think about it.  I get so caught up in the day to day running of my life that I often miss the callings of God.  The little voice during times of trouble or times of ease telling me to let God take command.  I can think of a thousand times when I nearly drove myself into a panic trying to run my life.  I tried to solve my own problems and get out of my own troubles.  


Right now, God is got me in season of life to teach me to let him run my life.  I don’t know if I have a choice this time.  God seems very serious about closing off my life from me.  With car wrecks, mental health issues, and other challenges, God is going to get through to me.  I need to learn what HE’s teaching me.  

My wife is calling me to her side so that’s about all I have to say about that.  I hope to have another one hundred posts to celebrate sooner rather than later.  Please comment and then subscribe.