100 Miles of Nowhere

In April the Fat Cyclist ("Fatty") proposed another great idea for a fund raiser: The 100 Miles of Nowhere ride.

The basic idea of the 100 Miles of Nowhere is that no matter where you are, on May 23 you’re going to either ride your rollers, trainer, or a very small outside course for 100 miles. Or if that sounds like too much, you can do 50 miles.

Or 25.

But, ideally, 100.

And since you will be the only one racing in your age group, gender, category, and region, you are clearly going to win your age/gender/region/category group.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m guaranteeing you are going to win. How often do you get that kind of assurance in a race?

Oh sure, as you ride, you will certainly have qualms, and may find yourself saying things like, “I can’t believe I’m riding my trainer for 100 miles,” or “I can’t believe I’m paying to ride my trainer for 100 miles,” but then you’ll remind yourself, “But I’m doing this for a really, really good cause.”

And that cause, of course, is helping Team Fatty raise money to fight cancer. Out of the $75 registration you pay, $50 will go straight to the Lance Armstrong Foundation (the other $25 pays for boxing and shipping and stuff like that — trust me, nobody’s making a profit here).

Really, a brilliant idea.

I couldn't make myself sign up for it, given the several hundred (maybe even a couple thousand) miles we have already ridden in the pain cave this year.

Those who did sign up seem to have been an extraordinarily talented group. I strongly urge you to get a big mug of coffee and surf on over to Fatty's site for some of the "race reports" he has shared over the last 3 or 4 days.

This video is simply amazing.

100 Miles of Nowhere from Noodle on Vimeo.

First, she obviously knows what she's doing when it comes to making a video – great pacing, great visuals, and great music. More importantly, she captured the monotony, pain, and mental effort required to complete the challenge. Also, she likes Guinness – brilliant!!

If you are inspired, it isn't too late to donate to her fundraising effort – all donations go to the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Glenwood Springs

Despite frequent, and sometimes torrential, rain showers, we managed to squeeze in several bike rides over the weekend.

Saturday we intended to ride the Loop From Hell


with a little extra fun added in by riding from Golden (makes a killer 75 mile/6 hour ride).

We were either saved or stymied by the rain – it really depends on your point of view!

We got aced out of riding Squaw Pass due to rain and sleet. So, we improvised and rode from our house, up Highway 40, down Lookout Mountain to the stone pillars, back up Lookout Mountain, and then back down Highway 40 and home. I don’t have a bike computer at the moment, but I think it was about 40 – 45 miles, and just under 3 hours of riding.

After a big bowl of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (it was that kind of day – now that I think about it, I should have had a mug of hot chocolate, too!), we packed up our road bikes and our mountain bikes and headed up to Glenwood Springs for the rest of the weekend.

Phil has an interest in Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. From the time the Park was in its first phase of development, through its opening 10 years ago, and during its first 5 years in operation, Phil put in a lot of sweat effort. Recently his job, our home improvement projects, and our cycling have conspired to limit his time there. It was time to do some catching up.

Of course, based on our load of gear, we planned to multi-task while in Glenwood Springs.

Sunday morning dawned cloudy, cool and with about a 130% chance of rain.



Since we both have Gore-Tex, the rain gave us no excuse to back out of our planned ride.

[We took off from the base of the tram that ferries guests up to the cavern park.]

One of our favorite rides in that area is from Carbondale through Redstone and over McClure Pass. Due to the expected holiday weekend traffic, we decided to try something different – and I’m really glad we did.



The Rio Grande Bike Trail between Glenwood Springs and Aspen is a “rails to trails” project which is built in the Aspen Branch of the historic Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. Train operations in the corridor ceased in phases, between the 1960s and the mid 1990s.

There is a steady 2% grade from Glenwood to Aspen, with a few rolling hills thrown in.




Once again, we were robbed of the downhill by a headwind on the return trip, but it wasn’t too bad, all things considered.



We rode about 75 miles, with 4 hours and 45 minutes of ride time.

We came across a little cattle drive just outside Carbondale, and that was fun to watch for a bit.


Phil had a flat tire near Basalt, but changed it with a minimum of fuss and we were back on our way in no time.

By Monday our legs felt like lead, and the rain was starting to get on my nerves! We had planned to ride our mountain bikes up Transfer Trail but it was far too muddy to do that.

So, we got all loaded up to take a spin on the bike path along the Colorado River through Glenwood Canyon – and the minute we wheeled out of the parking lot, the skies opened and the monsoon erupted!

We beat feet back to the hotel, watched the rain, read for a while, took a nap . . . and by 3 pm the sun was trying valiantly to shine on us. We took another chance and actually got out for about 90 minutes. My legs felt pretty good on the flats, but the climbs were murder. Yikes.

The trail was closed down at the Shoshone Power Plant (the river is extremely high, and there were some washed-out sections beyond that point, I guess). We headed back to the hotel, but took a fun detour up No Name Creek. I only had my cell phone camera because I didn’t want to ruin my other one if the rains returned. So, the photos don’t do justice to how gorgeous it was. The creek is just ripping!

[Almost cut Phil's head off - not familiar with the cell phone camera - takes some adjustment!]

We closed out the weekend with a tasty dinner at the brew pub, then I suckered Phil into watching game 4 of the NBA Western Conference Finals – popcorn, a couple of beers and hoops on the tube [the Nuggets actually won!] – the perfect wrap to a good weekend.

Memorial Day

So, this morning we rolled out of bed at 4 am to do an abbreviated core workout, and then do a 90 minute bike workout. This was a scheduled recovery week, so we had three consecutive rest days this week – woo hoo! We should, by all rights, be completely rested up and just rarin' to get back at it.

Yeah . . . not exactly.

Time off seems to merely create the desire for more time off . . . funny how that goes.

Anyway, I was able to suck it up and get going knowing that today is Friday, and even better than that, it is the Friday before a holiday weekend. It doesn't get much better than that.

Like many people (I'd wager), I didn't give any thought to the origins of the upcoming holiday – I was (and am) just grateful for an extra day away from the office.

But by sheer random happenstance, the movie we had from NetFlix to keep our minds distracted this morning was Taking Chance.

In April 2004, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Strobl, USMC, came across the name of 19-year-old Lance Corporal Chance Phelps, a young Marine who had been killed by hostile fire in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. Strobl, a Desert Storm veteran with 17 years of military service, requested that he be assigned for military escort duty to accompany Chance's remains to his family in Dubois, Wyo.Witnessing the spontaneous outpouring of support and respect for the fallen Marine - from the groundskeepers he passed along the road to the cargo handlers at the airport - Strobl was moved to capture the experience in his personal journal.

His first-person account, which began as an official trip report, gives an insight into the military's policy of providing a uniformed escort for all casualties. The story became an Internet phenomenon when it was widely circulated throughout the military community and eventually reached the mainstream media.

'Taking Chance' chronicles one of the silent, virtually unseen journeys that takes place every day across the country, bearing witness to the fallen and all those who, literally and figuratively, carry them home. A uniquely non-political film about the war in Iraq, the film pays tribute to all of the men and women who have given their lives in military service as well as their families.

It is tough to do interval workouts at the best of times – that is the whole point. You go as hard as you can for a specific period of time, then recover for a short time, then go again – over and over.

Let me just advise you right now not to combine interval workouts with weepy movies. Maximum heart rate efforts, combined with sobbing, is a recipe for disaster. Let this be my public service message to y'all!

But seriously, watching the movie humbled and shamed me. Memorial Day is not about the "beginning of summer" or just another reason for a family barbecue.

Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the military service. First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War, it was expanded after World War I to include American casualties of any war or military action.

Traditional observance of Memorial Day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day.

Many feel that when Congress made the day into a three-day weekend with the National Holiday Act of 1971, it made it all the easier for people to be distracted from the spirit and meaning of the day. As the VFW stated in its 2002 Memorial Day address: "Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day."

So, as you enjoy your holiday on Monday, take a moment and remember those who have served our country. Whether they were "ready" or not . . .