Chad's Oskar Blues Blog is Better Than Mine

Well, the brewer's sufferfest known has the Tour of BoulDurango has arrived. I've made it to Colorado's Front Range and there's all manner of good stuff happening today such as the World Cup finals, the Tour De France, the 1st Annual CO Beer and Cocktail Party at Denver's Star Bar, and Reel Big Fish is playing at the Odgen Theater, but all I can focus on is this silly ride, and how I, once again, have found myself committing to it.

We take off in the morning from Avery Brewing in Boulder with much of the same sweet crew as last year. Adam and six others from Avery, along with Dale, Chad, Dave, and Jeremy from Oskar Blues, a couple of the Grossman clan of Sierra Nevada fame, and Arlo (Barroom Hero), Sam (Accountant), Robin (Chemist), and myself, all from Ska.

The bottom line on internet coverage is this: Chad's Brews and Bikes blog from Oskar Blues is much better than this, with killer photos to boot! That being said, I'll try not to dissapoint--I'll be the Stats Man, keeping running statistics on the really important things such as mileage, mechanicals, crashes, and types and amounts of beers consumed, at least until I'm too happy or sad to care. We'll arrive back home at Ska, hopefully with everyone still in tact on Saturday 7/23. I'll do my best to keep this updated daily, so stay tuned!

I Kept Trying to Will One More Gear Into Existence But My Summons Fell Short

What a day! I thought I'd throw some summit photos up however and just mention that It's incredibly beautiful in Colorado at 12,000 ft! We were joined by the Brick Oven/Avery team as we hauled ourselves up and over Cottonwood Pass from Buena Vista to Crested Butte. Thanks for the hospitatlity at Brick Oven Pizza!

Loveland Pass, Elevation 11,990'

Hoosier Pass, Elvation 11,542'

The 20 mile climb up Cottonwood Pass ended with us crossing the Continental Divide once again,

Elevation  12,126'

The Brick Oven/Avery Brewing team made today's ride with us from Buena Vista to Crested Butte, obviously leading the charge

Here's us, we're what you'd call "Way Behind"

"Today was a record I hope to never break" --Matt "Truck" Thrall

130 miles today! Talk about a pain in the ass. Literally. Yesterday we made it over Cottonwood Pass after a grueling 20 mile climb and a somewhat unappreciated payoff in the way of a 15 mile dirt downhill, and eventually (after 76 total miles)wound our way into Crested Butte. Today, however, 130 miles. Did I mention the taint pain? I guess so. The picture is Matt, "Truck" Thrall after we found our way to Hutch's Ourayle House Brewery. The contrast between 100 degrees in angry-big-truck-Montrose, and the beautiful box canyon town of Ouray was that of apples and oranges. Make that worm-ridden apples, and fresh-picked oranges. I'm too tired to blog, but will add more about Crested Butte's Brick Oven Pizzeria, the beer selection, and their kick-ass bike team on the next post. Cheers!

Community Cycles--Folks that Deserve Emulation

We kicked off the ride with a wonderful party at Avery last night with some great beer, a fantastic carbo-load pasta feast,and a top notch raffle with some high end donations from the Garmin/Slipstream team, The Kitchen Upstairs, The Sink, Deuter packs, and the Boulder Rock Club among others.

The beneficiary, however, was the highlight, and that was Boulder's Community Cycles. Your Boulder hippie-type/bike culture sort of dude, Peter, was on hand to tall us a bit: Community Cycles provides re-cycled bikes and a welcoming space to learn about bicycle repair, maintenance and operation through outreach and advocacy activities. They serve a wide range of people in the Boulder community, but focus on at-risk youth, low-income individuals and work release program inmates from the county jail as well as college students and others who are interested in commuting via bicycle. In addition, Community Cycles supports schools, businesses or other organizations interested in establishing a bike fleet program. The Earn-a-Bike program lets kids volunteer at the shop for 10 hours and they walk away with a bike of their own.

These are folks that deserve emulation.

Adam's Dumb Idea (and my dumber response)

The phone rang at Ska and it was Adam Avery of Avery Brewing in Boulder, Colorado.

"We had this crazy idea that we should ride our bikes from our brewery to yours and we're hoping you could do a fundraiser and maybe tap a special keg when we arrive," Avery said.

We always open our home to our fellow brewers, and I was about to reply that 'of course, we'd love to' when something ridiculous spewed out of my mouth instead. "We want to ride, too."

That was a couple of months ago, and honestly, I thought that by the time the third week of July rolled around, I would be in shape, or better yet, the idea would simply have faded away. Well, the idea didn't fade away, and now the portentous day is here. Although I'm in better shape than I was, I can't stop thinking that we're about to ride 426 miles over 9 of Colorado's high mountain passes, and I'm a fatty. Somehow, with few words, my friend Jon Bailey at the Durango Cyclery put a much better spin on it. "Dude, you're riding your bike all day and then drinking beer."

Adam's dumb idea evolved into a collaborative beer, the Wheelsucker Wheat Mountainous 7.2%. Bavarian-style Hefeweizen, and a charity fundraiser at a different Colorado brewery each night of the ride. The beauty here is the beer part, the beast is of course, the bike. If we were doing a ride like this with non-brewing road bikers at least we would have a professionally hung-over leg up on them. Not the case, the Avery boys are good. Note the photo above--this was taken July 1st when they came down to Ska to brew the Wheelsucker. Ska Head Brewer Thomas Larsen simply dilly dally's while the Avery crew (Adam, Orli, and Breeze) work their asses off.

So with that Arlo Grammatica (Ska's Barroom Hero) and I are off to spend the week picking up all manner of road bike guy fashion tips from the Avery boys, and maybe a couple of brewing tips as well...