Friday arrival and practice getting started.

A gigantic B-52 greets you as you enter the Air Force Academy

I recently met up with a friend and rode in Colorado Springs at the Air Force Academy.  The Falcon Trail is a fun rolling 12 miles trail with twisty descents that circles the AFA campus.  We started just north of the football stadium and spun one lap out in the clock wise direction and then turned around and did the second lap in the other direction. I highly recommend hitting the trail in both directions. The trail is pretty well marked, but here is the GPS of the ride just in case.  I highly recommend the ride to anyone who lives on the Front Range.

The guards will check your car and I.D. car at the gate, so be sure to leave your IEDs and Koran at home!  ;)

The Falcon Trail circles the Air Force Academy campus

Pro Cycling Tour is planned for August '11

http://durangoherald.com/sections/News/2010/08/05/Pro_cycling_tour_to_return_to_Colorado/

- UPDATE: Dillion needed some stitches after the first day of riding the new ramp!

After visiting the Crankworx Slopestyle event this past weekend in Winter Park, CO, the Turner boys got home and started working on their own slopestyle course.  Check out the ramp they made all on their own!

Bikeparts.com racer, Ben Teschner, is spending the summer working on his masters degree doing some research in Ghana.  Ben has sent several photos to the States of him and his bike. Here is a email and link for his latest bike adventure…

http://picasaweb.google.com/bteschne/BikeTripToFantaSFolly#

Family and Friends,

I hope you enjoy these pictures. I did another bike trip to the coast for a weekend away from the mine. Four hours of bike riding each way. I figure it’s about 50 miles trip each direction. I left Tarkwa on saturday morning and returned on sunday afternoon. Highlights of the trip include the kids getting coconuts out of the trees. It was totally worth the inflated prices (and the further inflation due to lack of change) to see the kid climb up the tree and rummage around for the coconuts. Unfortunately, the kid wore a green shirt and therefore blended it quite will with the palm leaves, but if you look very carefully, you can see him way up at the top. Fortunately, he made it down from there safely. You will also see photos of the little hut on stilts that I got for the night. Beach front view, nice little bed w/ mosquito net, cost me about $15 for the night. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Now its back to work…

Ben T

Ben T enjoying the view

It was great to see so many people at the WP race yesterday. If you missed out, Jesse, Colin, Chad , Jon W., myself and several others raced the Super Loop course. Ask Jesse how “super” the road sections were! No, we didn’t do too well, but it was fun to see the group back out racing.
Actually,  I think there were as many babies representing as there were riders! Would we have pictured that back at CSU?! Nope.
Life changes, but isn’t it a fun ride.

-Micah J

This recently came to my attention, and with the temporary closure happening in less then a month, just wanted to make sure everyone knows…

For years Denver Water has invited the public to recreate on its Waterton Canyon property. Unfortunately, over the next 18 months it will be necessary to close the area to recreational use so that the canyon road can be used for its main function – to serve as an access road for maintaining Strontia Springs Reservoir. This maintenance project will allow Denver Water to continue to serve its customers throughout the Front Range. At the completion of this project Denver Water will reopen the canyon and once again invite the public to enjoy this unique and beautiful area.

Waterton Canyon is scheduled to be closed from Monday, Aug. 2, 2010 until Sunday, Dec. 3, 2010, and again from Monday, Feb. 28, 2011 until Saturday, Dec. 31, 2011. There is more than 1 million cubic yards of sediment in the reservoir, and this project is slated to remove 625,000 cubic yards. If this project is ahead of schedule, Denver Water may extend the project into 2012 to remove as much of the 1 million cubic yards of sediment as possible in order to try and avoid future near-term projects. Any schedule changes will be posted to these web pages.

http://www.denverwater.org/Recreation/WatertonCanyon/FAQs/

Taken on the 2010 Ride The Rockies south of Ouray, CO.

Courtesy of Lisa Travis….

Another photo from Ben T in Ghana West Africa…

The summer solstice is today meaning its the one day where the sun is at its most northern point in the sky which gives us the most daylight of the year!  That means this weeks shop ride from Peak Cycles will be the ride with the most evening light.

So, we were going to take advantage of the extra light and ride White Ranch!

Here is another cool pict from Ben T who is working in Ghana for the summer…

Read his other post here….

Former Peak Cycles employee, Ben T, has traveled to Ghana for work/school.  Read a little about his experience biking on the dark continent…

Ben T's Surley in Tarkwa, Ghana

I’m now in the most quit mining town of Tarkwa. I am staying at hotel located on a hill right in the middle of the town. People are beginning to know me in town as well. A white person is called a “Bruni” in the local language and most people know me as the bruni with the bicycle. The biggest challenge is learning everyone’s name.

It such a good thing that I decided to bring my bike. I’ve had the opportunity to go out and explore by bike on “real” bike rides as well. I’ve almost completely worked out a loop that circles around the north end of town along the tops of the ridges that I’m calling “Ride the Ridges” it consists mostly of small foot paths and very poorly maintained dirt roads (impassable by car, most too overgrown to bet through by 4×4). I go through the heart of some small villages where children yell “bruni! bruni! bruni!” as I cruise on through. At one point I had developed an entourage of nearly 25 chasing children yelling “bruni! bruni!” and any other words they knew in English (including “give me money”). I stopped and gave out countless “high fives” in lou of cash donations which seemed like an acceptable substitute.

One of the nice things I’ve noticed about riding here is that water is readily available, and I’m not talking about the consistent afternoon deluge. Countless people walk around with buckets on their heads selling 500ml plastic bags of water. The bags are sealed and the water is perfectly safe to drink. Most people will buy one and walk around sucking on the corner. I don’t recommend the “suck on the bag” technique because although the inside of the bag is fine, the outside has been handled extensively by filthy hands and been sitting in a bucket full of cold stream water for who knows how long. I’ve found however, a quick tear of the bag and transfer of the contents to my camelbak works nicely and is satisfactorily sanitary. The going rate for one 500ml bag is 5 peswas (which is literally about 3 cents), so a 12 cent investment will easily fill your camelbak. Not too bad!

Sorry so long.
Cheers!

Benjamin Teschner
Masters Student
International Political Economy of Resources
Colorado School of Mines

Here is a photo of Bikeparts.com racer, Colin McKernan, on the MaverickBikeEvents Blog… go check it out!