Heil Hail

Well now that it seems like I live in the Pacific Northwest going out in the rain is no big deal. I finally got into the Laramie Enduro, but now I am second guessing that decision, as I have felt a bit lazy and unmotivated to get on the mountain bike for some reason, well just this week. Perhaps it was riding 9 days in a row, bad idea. After a week in Houston I was so excited to get back on the bike I went a little crazy. Anyway took yesterday off and, well, felt like I should keep the wheels spinning to get all good and ready for Laramie. Didn't want to drive up to Ned so decided on Heil, which is not my favorite, but it's close and I could get in a short ride. Saddled up the ol' blacksheep and headed out under low clouds blanketing the foothills, reminiscent of my time riding a real horse across the Mongolian steppes. Ran into Bobbie Bensman, on her road bike. She started talking about the Vapor Trail 125 and that got me thinking about entering, but found out it's full and there's a waiting list, that might be a good thing. Luckily I got a late start this morning and avoided the marble size hail that pounded Heil Ranch. The hail looked like snow, and for a minute I thought I had traveled back in time to March. I got rained on the entire ride but I am used to it, now that I live in PNW climate, so no biggy. Along the ride I started to notice all these cacti bunnies and snapped quite a few photos, they were everywhere. I have a strange obsession with bunnies, as is expressed in my art. Art, hmmm, yea need to get on it. I just can't seem to get away from the bike and it's difficult for me to fit in both. Lately I find myself doing more business related to art. Sending portfolios, working on the new website, sending images, securing shows, etc. etc. I have been thinking of new ideas and projects, but at times I feel like I need an army to execute these grandeous ideas. I just got into Art Prize an American Idol type of contest. Catch is that it's in Grand Rapids, Michigan but there is large amount of money being offered to the winners. So who knows, the chances are very slim, but I got into my top choice venue which is an art museum located in the old Federal Building. More to come on that later. Will probably be requesting folks who know people in Grand Rapids to come out and cast their vote for an inflatable rabbit and rubber rabbits.

riding in solitude

Headed up to the hills to get in a solo mountain ride. Felt good to get outside and spin the legs on dirt after being indoors most of last week. Always good to take a break and always good to be back home. Looking forward to the next outing.

Bald porcupine on Neva

Summer is finally here, for me, yea! Sometimes without a fixed schedule it's hard to manage time. Never been good at it, my 1st -3rd grade teachers often wrote "needs to use time more wisely" on my report cards. I day dreamed a bunch in elementary school, guess I still do. Memorial day plans were set to ski up in Mt. Neva with Tracy, Steph, Rugi (dog), and Neva (dog). Unfortunately we did not take the most direct route losing time to summit before 10am. Skiing Mt. Neva never did happen that day, as Rugi and Neva encountered a porcupine who shot its quills, into the dogs' sides, feet, nose, and mouths. Horrible sight to see, dogs yelping, the cries echoing down the valley. Neva ran off after trying to get some of the 500 or so the quills out of her. Rugi was limping and we had a long way to go. Tracy yelled out every minute for Neva, but no sign. We had hoped to find Neva at the car when we finally made it out. No sign of Neva. Steph and I took Rugi out called the vet, called Tracy's husband who left to meet her and find Neva. Steph and I told hikers coming up to be on the lookout for a dog with about 500 quills on its side. Luckily those hikers did find Neva managed to get her to Tracy. This is not Rugi, but a look alike found on google web image search. I just wasn't in the mindset to pull out the camera and take photos of the poor pups in pain. Finally 2 hours after the incident down the canyon and in Boulder, Steph rushed Rugi to the vet and had quills removed. Neva finally found but in critical condition as the quills can migrate into the body cavity. The quills managed to puncture which they Neva's lung. She had a slim chance of survival and was sent to Wheatridge. Thankfully Neva and Rugi are both doing much better. Perhaps we'll get back up there to ski this summer. could have been worse, they could have looked like this poor pitbull. I never thought a porcupine could be so life threatening. I am sure that porcupine is up there wandering around looking like a marmot after shooting all it's quills.

running from rabbits

Change is happening on our lands and it feels good, so I guess we won't need to be rushing to Nicaragua to escape McCain and that lady pit bull, to build a life down in the tropics, although who knows, the ocean and surf sounds so good. soon very soon it will be. Last week might have been my last high alpine MTB ride. The hikes have been good. The fishing needs to become more, perhaps a little get away in a couple weeks will provide opportunity for that. The plants and animals treated me right although solo and very solo as the folks who know were not there that day. The fantastic lookout, the mountain air is fresh, wet leaves under the wheels. Soon two planks will be under the feet with (hopefully) glorious powder shots to the face, the blinding kind. Travel might need to happen to get it. Aspen, JH, maybe a venture to Wolf Creek, Taos (now that they allow the likes of Will and his kind, those knuckle draggers). Recently I feel like this rabbit is chasing me around during the weekdays. So much to do and I manage to find other things. I am such a great procrastinator. I have been running a lot more now that the days are so short, it's hard to get a ride in after work. Have been trying to get up early early to run run run, but I want to sleep sleep sleep. Art needs happen, just difficult to get in that creative space after any long period of neglect. The to do list maybe I will include getting this blog written it's been so long.

all of the above

The ss trio headed up to my old home town of Nederland for some riding this weekend. I have still not adjusted to work and getting up earlier than my body wants to, I guess it's only been a few weeks. Just can't seem to get to bed early to wake early, too much to do. We got a super late start on Saturday and road up some trails covered with elk poop and down to a town called Marysville. Sunday we put in some miles, about 54, and elevation, quien sabe, but wish my wheels were 3" larger for that ride. Next weekend we hope to get up early and ride places named after extinct animals. Open Studios is just around the corner, I just dropped of my piece at the library for the opening show. Riding my bike seems to be getting in the way with making art, as well as, fly fishing. Can't believe it has been over a year since I last casted a fly into a stream. I do struggle with the whole catch and release notion. It seems so traumatizing to the fish you yank out of the water by a hook (preferably barbless), causing it pain, as it gasps wondering what the hell just happened. I recall catch and release fly fishing in Mongolia for greyling, taimen, and lennox (a trout species). The Mongols thought we were absolutely insane, why would you fish if you were not going to keep the fish to eat, what's the point. What is the point? I suppose for me it is being outside, in a stream, figuring out what the fish are eating, and trying to find that big one to take a photo of it and return it to the water. Perhaps I could call myself a fish educator, teaching the fish I catch to look out and be more selective about what they choose to eat. Sort of like eating organic over conventional? I digress. William and I headed out last week to fish with the one weight and 6 weight rods, yes quite a discrepancy there, but it worked. The ideal rod would be a 3 or 4 weight for that stream. A cool rod to have would be the 7 piece which you could stuff in your camelback to do a mt. bike/ fishing day trip. It had been a while since Bill fished too, we were both enjoying this new activity off the 2 wheels. Caught some browns and a rainbow, think we'll need to head up to RMNP to go for that grand slam. Or better yet Nicaragua for some bone fishing coupled with a journey to the pacific for some surfing in Costa Rica. Uh, yea, I am all over the place in my head: teaching ideas, bikes I want to buy and ride, places to ride, surfing, fishing, art to make for Open Studios. Hmmm, maybe I should get a rigid fork and put a 29" front wheel on my bike or there is always 650B?

road riding

Managed to get a ride in after work and before the BMOCA cocktail reception, for those of us artists donating a piece of work to their annual auction. Unfortunately we do not get a percentage of sales, which kind of irks me a bit. As an artist I do not make much money so it is nice when the organization you donate to at least gives you 20% back to cover your cost of making the work. Whatever, I suppose I donated to support the arts and get more exposure. It's all about exposing yourself. William and I decided to save fossil fuels and avoid making carbon footprints by road riding yesterday. A good 50 miles of up in the hills with a loop out on the flats. Was a bit chilly up in the canyons. While on the ride I started thinking about future art projects. I really want to do more with my inflatable pieces. One idea is to make some forms that I could then place along 36 towards Lyons. The wind get real good out there, I mean real fierce. As we road along the hwy. I notices the remnants of old plastic shopping bags blown into the fences and shrubs, just mere shreds of plastic remain blowing in the wind. Would be cool to install a bunch of inflatables with open backs along the roadside and photograph them. Okay, guess it's just another item to add on the to do list.

setting sun

Thanks to the Eldora Escape race a couple weekends ago, I was able to ride through private land legally and head down Marysville (cleaned it this time after my bad crash). Headed up roots to do a few mini supercircle dizzy laps and on up to Tennessee. Hit Setting Sun as the sun was setting, how appropriate. Decided to head down Marysville which can either be stellar or quite painful. Then on to 505 to head back down into Ned. Couldn't ask for a better way to finish off a day of work. Looks like it might be snowing soon up high, it's in the air.

closures & openings

We had spontaneous plans to go bike in Fruita and take advantage of the sunny dry weather. Right before leaving Will noticed liquid leaking out from his disc brakes. No way to fix that problem and leave by a decent time so we bagged it. Our misfortune was a blessing, had we left yesterday we would have spent last night at the Idaho Springs Red Cross Emergency Shelter situated in a local middle school, eating cup o noodles for dinner. So bad luck was good luck, yes? This morning I woke up early got ski gear to get some pow at Abasin. Decided to check traffic on CDOT, hah, I-70 CLOSED both directions! It eventually reopened by 10 am, I pondered getting in the car and driving, but that would break my driving to play rule, which is: if driving to play must spend more time recreating than driving. So here I sit on a rainy day blogging, which I haven't done since January. Will and I decided to get down to Denver and do the urban thing, check out art, vintage shops, famous pizza and the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art. A journey down there on the weekend is always in the plans, but never seems to come to fruition until the rain pours. The museum visit gave me inspiration to start creating again. Finally had to opporunity to see one of Damien Hirst's pieces up close and personal. Hirst is the most prominent member of the group known as "Young British Artists" and is the richest living artist to date. Death is a central theme in Hirst's works. He became famous for a series in which dead animals (including a shark, a sheep and a cow) are preserved—sometimes having been dissected—in formaldehyde. Sunday, finally made it up to A basin and fortunately got some fresh turns in all day hiking up on the ridge a bunch and the staircases provided ample face shots. February treated my art world well, Angela Beloian and I showed our work at the Dairy Center for the Arts. A great priveldge to be able to show work, no sales, but stellar feedback. Now I need to get ready for the show at the Houston Art League this summer also with Angela. March brought on the memories of the annual Dojoe Memorial Uphill Downhill Event. Fantastic weather, great costumes and skiing. Thespring backcountry looks like it will be good. Hoping to get out and ski in RMNP there are some peaks I'd like to ski. We hope to be biking in the hot desert for a few days next week, unless it snows 4 feet....

SSWC 09

Thrown abruptly back into the workplace after a fantastic extra long weekend, thus I lack time to write an update on the Single Speed World Championships in Durango this past weekend. So in the meantime check out Will's post & photos:


http://1speedmindset.blogspot.com/

Larmie Enduro

We drove up Friday to partake in the Laramie Enduro. Camped out and got rained on all night. Thankfully the tent held up considering it was brand new. Having the larger tent this year made for a more pleasant sleeping experience. I failed to seam seal the tent and it leaked a bit, but we stayed dry. The morning was crazy, it always goes by so fast at that event. I get so anxious there I think because someone is constantly announcing the count down time to the start. I started boiling some water on the ol' Coleman 2 burner, fortunately it did pound rain last night, because I thought I was going to start a forest fire as the flame on the stove reached to 2 feet high, sometimes higher, but eventually it petered out and the blue flame finally boiled water for the morning coffee. "30 minutes until start time..."

Laramie Enduro was kind of a last minute decision. I did it last year, but when Will asked me if I had registered back in late Feb. or March, I turned my nose down on the event and racing all together. Funny how my attitude changes when summer comes on and ski season is over, I am ready to be on the bike. Luckily I got in a couple weeks ago. I had to go to Houston the 2nd week before the event, when I would normally log on the miles and intensify the rides, but oh well, Houston was great and still overwhelmed about the opportunity to show art out of state.


"15 minutes until start time." Rushed to put on my bike gear get everything sorted, I am not a good morning person. Headed over to the line up and ended up at the very back of the start, which sucked because it was a bike traffic jam into the single track, great track standing practice, but jeez could it go any slower.

I tried hard to get out in front, but my legs were so cold and stiff, my back hurt 45 minutes into the race. Not feeling so great, but thought maybe when it starts to warm up I'll feel better. The Aleve and Sport Legs kicked in and made me feel a bit more energized. I had no idea where I was in the pack of single speed riders, my main goal was to beat my time from last year. There was a larger than normal and strong group single speed women riders this year. The first place woman got 3rd overall, she switched categories from Pro Open to single speed last minute I guess. She has a nice life, from El Paso, she and her husband travel around all summer racing in the Rockies.

The water crossings were epic, waist deep in some sections. Luckily I did not get off course, like last year. The last 10 miles seemed to go on for an eternity. So ready to be done, I could hear the drone of I-80 and knew the finish line and beer was close! I saw Will at the finish all clean and changed. I asked if he won, and he laughed with a beer in hand and told me he got lost, spent about 10 miles off course, bummer. He got 3rd last year and I bet he would have had a podium finish if he didn't get off course.

I ended up getting 4th place in single speed and 2nd in the 40-49 State Ultra Marathon Championships, and I beat my time last year by 20 minutes.


finish photo by WFS 2

Hot Art in Houston

The week finally arrived for Angela Beloian and I to fly out to Houston to install our "Detritus" show at the Art League of Houston. My first out of state show. I have been super excited about the opportunity and nervous at the same time. We had to ship all our work and I decided to omit a few pieces to save money as the shipping costs added up quickly and the space is a bit smaller than the Dairy Center, where our Detritus show exhibited a few months earlier.

Houston surprised me, it has quite the art scene and a quaint historic district, where we stayed, which is in the Heights district. Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, the largest city within the state of Texas, and "the energy capital of the world." My energy levels were low, I attributed this to the constant humid air vs. air conditioning contrasts. People in Houston spend the majority of the summer living in A/C.






















Day 1: we pick up the rental car, drive to the Art League to see if our art survived the journey via UPS. I took 2 rubber rabbits with me on the plane and added those to the pile at Houston Art League. Two of my packages were damaged, the only 2 which I did not insure, don't think I'll use UPS to send art again. Luckily my art is not too fragile since it's mostly made of rubber and plastic bags, but the blower for my inflatables broke, which was easily repaired. We headed back to Angela's friends' home to find a branch for her 1,000 crane installation piece. She lucks out and finds a dead fig tree branch in their backyard.




Day 2: installation scheduled to begin, but repairs needed to happen first. Madame X was set up to be installed but the hanging wire broke immediately before we even hung it. Thank god for Sarah, she rigged up a chain to hang it up, it weighs about 80 + pounds, so I figured 100lb test picture hooks should work just fine. We got Madame X up, the inflatable rabbit as well as Angela's album cover piece. We needed to head out to give an artist talk at Artist SPEAKeasy in Houston. Heard some fabulous stories read by two different authors. Diggin' the art scene in Houston it's pretty hot!


(madame X is the long rubber piece left, on the wall)

Day 3: hit up Inversion coffee house for a double espresso. Inversion Coffee House is a pretty hip spot attached to the Art League. It draws its name from the now infamous Inversion house that once stood in the location of the original Art League of Houston building. In 2005, the Art League was preparing to begin construction of a new facility to house its art classes and the new coffee house. But first, two 1930's bungalows that stood on the site needed to be demolished and cleared. The director of Art League, decided it might be interesting to utilize the abandoned spaces for a temporary art project. She contacted artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck, a collaborative team that had created installations using condemned buildings. Lacking any budget, Havel and Ruck erected the work with the materials at hand, an exercise in architectonic excavation. After about 400 hours of work over a month of nights and weekends, Havel and Ruck opened the piece ( literally ) to the public in mid April 2005 by cutting a 30 ft. opening in the west facade facing Montrose Boulevard, exposing what appeared to be a vertical tornado of whitewashed wooden siding. The funnel bore through the two houses, dropping back 80 ft. and shrinking in size until it reached a 4 ft. opening onto the east sculpture garden.



After the java stop we walked into the art league, I was shocked to see Madame X lying on the floor, guess she ripped out of the wall last night. Maybe I should have named it the Beast of Burden or better yet, Pain in the Ass. Sarah came to the rescue again beefing up the wall mounts using huge screws placed into the studs. We finally got the show up and headed to Angela's friends for dinner.


(notice above madame X on the ground)






Day 4: The day of the opening. Angela has great connections in Houston and she really knows the art scene there even after 3 years of not living there. We hit up some galleries dropped off some portfolios in hopes that a gallery will want to represent us and take all our work so we won't need to ship it back, fingers crossed. We stopped by the Rothko Chapel to relax and meditate before the opening, I was so tired.




A large number of people showed up for the opening, we gave an artist talk and then mingled with the crowd. Met some really amazing artists doing incredible work. Hopefully this will fire up some inspiration for creating new work. We received wonderful feedback, so thankful for this opportunity.





Day 5: last day in Houston. Stopped into Apama Mackey Gallery to drop off a portfolio and veiw the current exhibit. We visited the museum district. Visited the houston contemporary art museum and the fine arts museum. Definitely more to see than time allowed. Thanks to Angela for being such a great tour guide! Looking forward to the next opportunity to show Detritus.

Hopefully I'll become a better blogger. Perhaps I'll get a post up of previous events, maybe. Stay tuned.

Flintstone bikes hit bedrock

Finally made it out to the desert. We had been planning this trip the past 2 weeks but were denied by various factors. Drove out Friday evening stopped in GJ around midnight, headed out early to hit up Moab. Last time I road in Moab was probably in 2003 when a group of us crazy tripped out Ned Heads ventured out to do White Rim in a day, would like to do that again or Kokopelli. Found some vacant trails luckily as town was packed tight like a can of sardines. Amazing overlooks and crazy winds.





Sunday we rode up from town to ride Porcupine Rim, damn think I rode that trail back in the late 90's. The whole experience seemed so green to me and it was a maiden voyage for the ss black sheep. The descent mighty fun and technical. I appreciated the curved seat stay James welded on my bike during the downhill. Encountered some folks outfitted in DH apparel. Some guys, aka. "steaks" trying their hardest to bomb down sections, tryin' to look all tough and buff but crashing and bleeding.



After PR ride we cruised out of town towards Fruita, made it in time to ride some trails on 18 rd. Great way to end the day riding on the backs of dinosaurs on our Fred Flintstone bikes. Verdant trail abound in Fruita, the greenest I have ever seen. Would be nice to hit it up in May to see the cactus flowers in their bloom.




Monday was our Sunday and we road all morning and afternoon in the sun in Fruita. We descending back to Boulder into the fog and clouds after a weekend of sunshine! Ah glorious weekend and perfect timing! Gracias Guierllmo por un fin de semana fantastica!


photo credits WFS II

Now back to a rainy weekend. Worked in the garden most of the afternoon digging trenches for papas and getting intimate with the mattox.