It’s been a few weeks, so I can finally type it out without getting too upset. You gotta gut out the sad part of this post to get to the exciting part.

The weekend of the Land Run 100, I made the decision to put Indy to sleep. His dementia had made caring for him a pretty full-time job for at least the last year. I missed out on some bike racing, some good friends’ weddings, and some other life stuff in the name of watching after him. He’d been with me through so much of my adult life, he was worth every second of it, though. He’d just slipped to the point of where he didn’t do anything except eat, sleep, and walk in circles.

I won’t sugar coat it and say he was a loving, sweet baby… he was a little terrier a**hole (saying that with a little grin), who most people have a story about “that time Indy bit me.”

He did typical terrier things like getting in to the compost bin to dig for critters:

He had a ferocious appetite for sticks:

One time he broke his foot, and I never figured out how it happened:

 

He was definitely a giant dog in a tiny dog body:

He wasn’t 100% piss and vinegar, though:

I miss him a lot. It’s lonely not having a dog.

I do, however, get to borrow Matt’s dog Marley… which brings me to the part of this post that as exciting as the first part is depressing.

I’m moving to Salida, Colorado in May.

I’ve lived in Colorado for two years now, and, while the Front Range region has a lot of upsides, it also has an insane population density. Everywhere you look, multi-story apartments are being built, so it’s not like it’ll get any better any time soon. The trails are great, but they’re also really crowded. User conflict abounds.

Ever since the first time I visited there, Salida has remained one of my favorite towns. It’s small- around 6,000 people, and it’s nestled right in the crook of the mountains not far from both the Colorado Trail and the Continental Divide Bike Route. It’s the home of the Vapor Trail 125 race as well. So, saying I’m excited to live there is somewhat of an understatement. I’m going to work at Absolute Bikes, which is basically your one-stop place for all things cycling in the area- they’ve got a really great demo fleet, maps, local knowledge from people who built some of the local trails, shuttles, and, pretty soon, a cafe next door.

I’ll be taking Marley with me for the summer while Matt works in Wisconsin for Mountain Bike Radio.

It’s going to be quite the adventure. I can’t wait to be living in the mountains again.

Have you ever watched a situation unfold and realized that it’s something that would never happen to you? Or could happen to you? What’s your Realm of Possibilities?

For example- at my gym, there was a laser tag night. I joked that one of the coaches has probably been kicked out of laser tag before for being too rowdy. He laughed and said that wasn’t outside of the realm of possibilities.
Example two- I see a couple unloading three children from a van. One is screaming, one is pestering the screaming one, and the other is drawing on the side of the van with a marker. That situation is so far outside my realm of possibilities that it will literally never occur in my lifetime.
Example three- It’s 11:30 pm and you and your friends decide you want to go to Taco Bell. Everyone hops in the car, windows down, music up. Along the way, you change lanes without signaling. Suddenly, the police officer you just drove by (not speeding) dives behind you and pulls you over. He wants you and your friends to get out of the car for no specific reason. He calls for backup because you have no idea what you did wrong and you’re questioning his authority because of it. Things escalate, and you and your friends end up drug out of the car on the ground in handcuffs because you didn’t think you were doing anything wrong and didn’t comply with an officer acting as if you did. Oh yeah- I forgot to mention- You and your friends are black.

How far outside of your realm of possibilities is that third one? I’m going to go ahead and assume that most of my readers are white, and therefore, that situation is 100% outside of your realm. All the way. Just like me and a heard of children in a van. You will never be stopped and questioned by police because you “look suspicious.”

When things are outside your realm of possibilities, you tend to ignore them- especially if they’re unpleasant. I’m white and was raised in a middle-to-upper-class suburb by two parents. It’s easy for someone like me to deny that racial profiling by police even exists because it’s something that is so far outside of where I exist.

I can ignore it.

Last night, Black Lives Matter protesters shut down the “M” bridge in Memphis. If you’re unfamiliar with the Memphis landscape, that’s one of the two major arteries across the Mississippi River in to Arkansas from the city. As a cyclist, I can tell you, people feel ownership to roads. When you slow their forward progress by even a handful of seconds, they lose their shit. My social media feed was full of white people screaming about how that’s not the answer. It was also full of white people saying they’d like to take bulldozers, guns, grenades, etc. to the protesters.

Suddenly, the plight of Black People became something they couldn’t ignore. It was suddenly within their realm of possibilities that the profiling of a race could effect their lives in some way, shape, or form, and there was nothing that they could do about it.

And, that’s where I’m going with this. A lot of people ask, “what good is it doing to shut down an interstate?” That’s what it’s doing- it’s making the lifetimes of anger and frustration caused by racial profiling everyone’s un-ignorable problem. It’s bringing attention to someone else’s realm of possibilities. For most people reading this, being profiled by a police officer because of your race is far outside of your realm of possibilities. So, you don’t pay much attention to it. It doesn’t matter to you. You may have even decided that racial profiling doesn’t exist because you don’t do it yourself. Being stopped/questioned by a police officer because you’re “black and in the wrong place” or, in more politically correct terminology, “looking suspicious” is something that has not and will never happen to you.

People wouldn’t be shutting down interstates if a problem didn’t exist. I don’t have a solution, but I know that empathy and admitting that the problem exists makes a hell of a first step. I still claim Memphis as my home town, and I’m proud of Memphis for a peaceful protest on both the protester and the police side.

It started back in October when I was working at the Elevation Cycles location in Boulder- a man came in the shop asking to use our phone because his friend outside needed an ambulance. Outside, there was a man laying in the grass by the main entrance of the shopping center. I have some first responder training, so, as the guy inside was finishing his conversation with 911, I grabbed a pair of rubber gloves and went outside to help. The guy in need of help was under the influence of god-only-knows what and could barely hold himself upright. I put a hand on his shoulder and asked if he was OK and he eventually sat up on the ground, and his friend sat down next to him and put his arm around him. The guy who had used the phone explained to me how they were homeless, and all they had was each other, and that they watched out for each other. I brought them a cup of water and sat on the ground with them until the police and ambulance showed up, and the really high/drunk dude told me I was the most beautiful angel that he’d ever seen, and his friend (who was not quite as drunk/high) agreed. I laughed and took it as a drunk/high expression of general appreciation.
The part of this story that really hit me hard was the statement the guy made about how he and his friend watched out for each other, and how no one else cared about them.

Yesterday I was leaving Whole Foods, and a man was standing outside, asking random shoppers for help. As I put my cart back in the cart area, I watched someone blow him off and someone else ignore him completely. He approached me and said, “I need help. I’m having a really hard time, and I just need a couple of bucks.” I paused and told him, “Yeah man, I’ll help you out.” I gave him two dollars, and he seemed a little overwhelmed, then held out an arm like he wanted a hug. I gave him a (somewhat tentative) side hug, and he thanked me profusely and walked off down the sidewalk towards the main road. I have no idea where he went or what he had planned for the $2, but I don’t think it really matters. There’s a chance he went straight in to the liquor store that’s next to Whole Foods. He could have used it to get on the bus. No clue.

Since I moved down in to Denver from Blackhawk, I’ve given a few other handouts- either a few bucks or whatever food I had with me- to people obviously in need.

I’m writing about this because it seems like there are so many people who don’t want to help anyone but themselves. There are people who won’t hand out a couple of bucks because they think the person they’re giving it to will spend it on booze or drugs or whatever. My thought is this- no one stands outside a Whole Foods asking for help if their life is totally effing peachy. What they spend the money on doesn’t matter… what matters is that they asked for help, and someone thought they were worth helping. If you strip down the rough appearance and addictions of anyone, they’re human, flesh-and-bone, just like you.

There was a man passed out on the bike path a couple of weeks ago. He was laying motionless in the middle of the path. It’s a well-traveled area, so I’m assuming people had been just riding around him like an inconveniently placed speed bump. I stopped and asked if he was OK. He gave me a thumbs up. There was a big plastic bottle of vodka next to his bag leaned up in the bushes on the side of the path. A couple of days earlier, a customer had tipped me $10, and I had it in my jersey pocket. I handed it to the dude and told him, “next one’s on me, man.” He was really happy and wished me a merry Christmas. That’s the only Christmas present I gave anyone this year. I’m sure he went and bought booze with it. It doesn’t matter.
Empathy- imagine if you screwed up, made bad life decisions, and were homeless and alcoholic. You probably don’t like yourself, don’t care about your well being, and don’t feel like you’re worthy of anyone else caring about your well-being. In my optimistic brain, if enough people show you that you’re worth caring about, maybe you’ll eventually think of yourself as worthy of getting help. Or, you’ll go buy another cheap bottle of vodka. It doesn’t matter, because, at least for a few seconds, that guy felt like someone gave a damn that he looked dead instead of just dodging him like an inanimate object.

When you’re warm and well-fed, empathy can be an uncomfortable feeling to deal with. It’s way easier to ignore someone and/or assume that they have ill intentions and go on about your comfortable life.

I’m not trying to pat myself on the back. Don’t give me any “atta girl” comments or anything like that. I don’t even want you to acknowledge to me that you read this. I just want to take advantage of the fact that I have an audience to motivate/encourage people to help other people however you can. Just read this and go do good for other humans who need help.

If everyone on earth had to live in the mountains for a few months, they’d learn first hand that nature is something that you respect, because it’s way bigger and more powerful than any of us. It’s not just predators like mountain lions and bears, either. The mountains, in general, don’t play around. You have to know what’s out there and prepare for it, and you still may get caught off-guard on occasion.

The other day, I went out for a ride up Rollins Pass. It was my 3rd attempt at getting to the top, and, I’m happy to say, I made it up…

…and over

Something wasn’t right, though. I usually love being over treeline on top of mountains. It’s a very special place for me. Instead, I felt anxious. I wanted to get down… for no obvious reason that I could see (there was that one grey cloud that skirted by in the first photo, but it was otherwise nice), hear, or think up. I just didn’t want to be there, which is way out of the ordinary for me.

So, rather than explore around up there, I started back down the way I’d came. Just as I crossed back over the tunnel you see in the pics, a huge, black storm cloud appeared from around the mountain in front of me. On top of a mountain, lightning is both extremely dangerous and absolutely terrifying. It was at least two miles to get solidly back below treeline where there was less chance of getting struck. I saw some people hiking away from their truck with Missouri plates, and told them, very firmly, to get back in their truck until the bad weather passed. Then, I put my jacket on (you always carry a jacket up here because it’s possible to go from 70 and sunny to 45 and raining/sleeting/hailing in two minutes flat) and pedaled my ass off to get down the mountain.

Luckily, I was into the trees when the storm was overhead. Not totally safe, but way better than being exposed. It’s a good thing, too, because the thunder was deafening. There was hail… lots of hail. I didn’t want to stop because I didn’t want to get hypothermic (my pocket windbreaker is great, but it has its limits). It was incredibly painful, but at that point, I was just really glad that I wasn’t being struck by lightning. I didn’t get a picture then, but here are a couple of pics from a nearly identical storm I drove through the other day. The hail was so blinding and thick on the road that traffic stopped for a few minutes-

When I arrived back at my car (parked at the nearby Moffat Tunnel), My upper thighs and back were welted from the hail. That was scarier than a bear outside your RV at 4am.

Also on the list of “non-predatory things that could kill you” are moose. They don’t have natural predators in this part of the world, so they aren’t afraid of much, and occasionally get territorial towards humans. I was riding with a teammate the other day when we rounded a fast corner and startled this guy off the trail. He went right back to what he’d been doing, I snapped the photo, and we GTFO of there.

Yesterday, I went out for another adventurous ride into the backcountry. The same thing happened- I started a large moose as I descended into a small clearing. It moved so fast, I only saw the back end of it as it jumped into some thick foliage. It was as if someone was driving a brown minivan into the bushes. I kept going without trying to get a good look at it. I definitely heard it snort at me.

I respected nature and everything in it before I got here, but in the last few months, that sense has been elevated to another level. While the risks are still relatively low, it’s still humbling and awe-inspiring and so many other things all rolled in to such an amazing place.

This bike was purchased back in 2011 soon after the Jet9 RDO was first released. In 2013, I broke the front triangle while racing Trans-Sylvania, and it was replaced under warranty. So, this is a 2013 bike with a newer Fox Shock, carbon links, and 142×12 rear triangle.

I’m selling the frame (it’s a size Small), SID RCT3 fork (120mm), Chris King headset, Zipp stem, Niner carbon handlebar, Hope seatpost collar, spare derailleur hanger, and a nearly new GXP bottom bracket in a PF30 adapter.

This bike has been used. It is in good condition, but the frame and fork do come with some cosmetic scratches and chips. When Niner warrantied the front triangle, they sent to protective tape uninstalled. I suck at installing those things, so the edges peeled, and now it looks less than perfect. Everything still works great, though.

I’m asking $1600 plus shipping (if you’re in the Front Range, we can work out a delivery). Email me andrea at brickhouseracing dot com if you’re interested.

 

 

Sorry, the posting here is going to be even more scarce than what it already was. I went to Land Run 100 over the weekend, and I’ll post a link on social media to my audio race report once we record one for Mountain Bike Radio.

While I was in Oklahoma, Turbo, my 13-year-old Malinois with heart disease and chronic pneumonia took a very sudden and drastic turn for the worse, and I ended up having to put her to sleep yesterday morning. I don’t really know what else to say…

If we all strived to be the people that our dogs think we are, the world would be a totally different place.