Hell of the north 2011

Another road biking season started out in a painful way. Last year I was lucky to finish this race, getting dropped from the lead group on the 2nd of 10 laps and flatting somewhere along the way, coming in close to last place. This year the course was as fast as I have seen it with a good tailwind coming out of the south making the gravel section dangerously fast. When you hit a pothole at 35 mph, it can be painful and very hard on a bike.
I was able to make the selection on the first and second laps when our group that started with 30 but got reduced down to 10. I was feeling as good as I could with my heart rate never seeing south of 170 bpm for the first hour and 20 minutes. After we had whittled it down to 6 guys my legs gave. I got popped somewhere around the 7th lap (i lost count of the laps
In there somewhere) and limped to the finish, getting caught by one guy that was riding very strong and just unfortunately went down in the first corner of the race and had to fight his way back, and then by a group of 2 guys from my race that had attached on to the back of a cat 1/2 break and sat on.
The pirate did well finishing in a respectable 13th with only One leg. I wasnt there when he crossed the line but i wonder if he pointed to his stump for everybody that came in after him.

photo courtesy of cyclingutah.com

Why do we have so many daughters?

This study may suggest why:

Single girls have always grumbled that good-looking men are difficult to find.

But science may have just proved them right – because beautiful women are more likely to have daughters than their plainer counterparts, according to a study.

As parents tend to pass on genes that determine looks, this could result in handsome men becoming rather thin on the ground.

Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, of the London School of Economics, analysed data from a survey of 17,000 babies born in Britain in March 1958 and tracked them throughout their lives.

At the age of seven, their attractiveness was rated by their teachers.

When they reached 45, they were asked about the gender of any children they had.

Those rated as attractive were equally likely to have a son or daughter as their first child – but the unattractive sorts were more likely to have a son.

Put another way, the beautiful women were more likely to

have daughters than those who were less blessed in the looks department, the journal Reproductive Sciences will report.

A previous study of 2,000 Americans suggested that women are becoming more beautiful over the generations because attractive women have more children than plain ones – and a higher proportion of their offspring are girls.

Dr Kanazawa believes that parents tend to produce children who benefit from their own attributes.

Beauty, he says, is of more benefit to a woman than a man, and so it pays for attractive women to have daughters.

But couples blessed with strength and aggression rather than looks are better off having boys, as these characteristics are of more use to males.

It is because my wife is beautiful and I lack strength and aggression.

I just figured i was plain enough looking that i could have tilted the scales towards a boy just a little bit. I guess my wife's attractiveness far outweighs my plain looking-ness.

New Movie

2010 was an challenging year for our family.

According to the Chinese calendar, this is the year of the Rabbit. We are looking forward to what we can expect from 2011.

I have been busy that last little bit writing, directing, filming and editing this latest movie.

I hope you enjoy it.

Family Portrait

We were able to get a family picture done this last December.

We are very excited about how it turned out.

Final CX RACE of the 2010 season

Although this was not my category, here is some footage of the highlights of the Masters 35+C, the juniors men 14-16 and the Clydesdale category held out at Butterfield park out in Herriman.

Cold that cuts through your clothes, 40 miles an hour wind and mud,..mmmmmmm, good times.

What to Take to Disneyland....

...someone in a wheelchair.

Can you believe Megan's Brother is still single? After his 3rd knee surgery, he is legitimately, temporarily handicapped. That worked out well for us. On Storm mountain, he got 9 of us straight to the front of the 60 minute line. It turns out that Walt has a soft spot for wheelechairs. Most rides have a separate handicap entrance. You roll up to the front of the line with your group, you get out of the wheel chair and onto the ride and the when you are done, you get right back into the wheelchair. After this fact, i started noticing A LOT of people in wheelchairs.

Kevin just got his own place so he no longer lives in his parents basement. Let me know if you want me to line you up with him.
As it turns out, the Jazzy® was also very convenient for carrying all of the overpriced Disney paraphernalia we purchased.

It rained the day we got there and the day we left.

Weather was sunny and in the 70's-80's the rest of the week. Water was cool enough that all of the local surfers had full wetsuits, but the kids didn't seem to mind since it was snowing back home.

We spent some time in OLD TOWN San Diego and had dinner at a Mexican Restaraunt. When there is an item on the menu that dares you to eat it and then makes you sign a waiver before you actually eat it, it might be a good idea to order something else.

Here Ryan is sweating and eating and the Hot burrito of Death, or something like that. He only made it about 1/4 of the way through it. He paid for it all night long.

RAGNAR Vegas & CX RACE in SoCal

I realize that almost all of our vacations are based around either a bike race or a running race of some kind. Well it just turns out that this year, we planned a trip to Oceanside with Meg's family, and then it worked out that Meg could go a couple days earlier and run RAGNAR in Las Vegas with a bunch of friends. We could pick her up in Vegas and keep driving to California. We could spend the week in Oceanside with the in-laws and then i could do a Cyclocross race in San Diego before driving back to Utah.

We came down and saw Megan at her second exchange and then went and stayed with my favorite Aunt Barb for the night. We woke up the next morning to homemade waffles and lotsalaughter.

We went and saw the ladies finish their 195 mile run and drove to CA. It was much prettier than megan had anticipated since you did a giant circle around vegas starting in Valley of fire, heading to Lake Mead and then down and around, ending up at red rocks casino.

We spent a wonderful week having a great time in Oceanside. We had to be out of the Beach House by 10AM saturday morning, so that was just enough time to drive down to Balboa Park, clean up some kids throw up in the back seat, warm up, and do a couple of races.

I really take for granted the CX scene we have here in Utah. You can sign up for whatever category you want and don't have to have a racing license. The fields are huge and growing. Going to California, i was confined to race with the cat 3-4 field since i am technically a Cat 4 cyclocross racer. I figured i would do 2 races, not knowing what the fields would be like, how big, how competitive etc.

I started with the Masters 35+ 3/4 race which only had 12 guys line up. I missed the hole shot and settled back into 4th place to see how the competition was. After a lap, i had worked my way into second. I attacked on a long, hard, muddy section and got around front. I kept the pace high and stayed there. Around the corners i could see a gap starting to open so i drilled it some more. By three fourths the way through the race, i couldn't see the 2nd place guy anymore. I eased up a bit knowing i was going to be racing again after this race was done. Now i know how Bart Gillespie feels.

The 3/4 race started right after the masters race was done, so i had time to pin on a different number and get back in line. This field was a bit bigger with around 20-25 guys. I started and dropped into 4 th place again. we rode like this for a lap, but i could tell this was a lot faster pace. On the second lap, the guy that was sitting in 5th came around me on a corner that there wasn't room for 2 bikes and ran me off the road. I am fine with racing aggressively, but don't run me off the road only to ride the same speed as i was that early in the race. I passed and dropped him a lap later while another guy and i were swapping 4th and 5th place as the first 3 riders were 10 seconds up the course. Most of the race went like this until about a lap and a half to go. I realized at this point that it was now about 2 o'clock. I had breakfast at 8 o'clock, which consisted of a bowl of frosted flakes and a couple of donuts. This is the point where i dropped from 4th place to 10th place and was just glad to get in the car and make the 7 hour drive to St George.

The good news was that for winning the Masters race i did get some socks, a water bottle, a gift certificate to a bike shop in San Diego that i would never go to, and some beer which i also gave to the 2nd place finisher.