Ready to Rock (Ride the Rockies)

One week from today I'll be boarding a bus from Denver to Durango, Colorado, headed to the start of Ride the Rockies 2008. After putting in 265 miles on the road in the past week, my legs are feeling good and I am ready to rock!

One week ago I averaged 16.0 mph on my ride to work and 14.5 on my ride home (net elevation gain on ride home). My previous best was 15.5 and 13.3, respectively. I felt great about the steady progress I had made since getting back on a bike on March 30 after a seven month hiatus.

[Above: the view of Mt. Evans from the E-470 trail on my ride to work]

But this week I made a quantum leap. Riding to work Tuesday I averaged 17 mph and turned around and did 14.5 on the way home. I was pumped. I had "found my legs" again and not a moment to soon, with Ride the Rockies less than two weeks away. But then I kicked it up another notch. After taking Thursday off to rest my legs, I rode to and from work yesterday (25 miles each way) averaging 17.5 on the way in and 15.6 on the way home!

I'm psyched. Last year I didn't find my legs until after Ride the Rockies. I was training hard for the Vineman Ironman 70.3 and just didn't get enough miles in the saddle (less than 500 miles). And I paid for it. I'll never forget climbing Independence Pass feeling like my legs were spaghetti. Not this year. Since March 30 I have logged 833.61 miles -- 280.37 on my CycleOps Fluid2 trainer and 553.24 on the road.

But that wasn't the real highlight of my week. Yesterday I had my three-month checkup following my collarbone surgery in March. Dr. Loucks (at left) was pleased with what he saw on the X-ray -- a large mass of new bone forming in the gap between the shattered pieces of my clavicle! If you look closely at the X-ray below, you can see an oval cloud of white bone cells. This is new bone. Lots of it. As Dr. Loucks said, my clavicle is going to be as large as my femur (the most voluminous and strongest bone in the body)!

After seeing the X-ray Dr. Loucks gave me the go ahead to do Ride the Rockies...and just about whatever else I want to do except "checking somebody into the boards" (he's Canadian and plays hockey). I told him that wouldn't be an issue!

So I'm off to meet my Team DFL friend Patty for a ride. It's a beautiful day in Denver. Life is good!

Ride on!

Daren

Accident Saga Update

For those of you following my bike accident saga, I have a quick update. I recently met with my lawyer, Brad Tucker, and discussed my options. Basically, Allied/Nationwide Insurance has failed to accept liability even after the eyewitness account and forensic engineer's accident reconstruction report clearly indicate that their insured was 100% at fault. Not only have they failed to accept liability, they have failed to even give us the courtesy of responding to numerous letters from Brad. So, we were left with no option but to file suit against the driver.

Well, today I received a copy of a letter Brad sent to a woman who has apparently "taken over the file" from the former adjuster (not sure if she still works there, quit or was fired for incompetence, but in any event she is no longer in charge of my file). It seems the new adjuster has wisely asked for time to review the file before we file suit. As Brad said in his letter...

As we discussed, I am willing to wait a week in order to allow you an opportunity to review this file. If you will accept liability for purposes of our settlement negotiations, I will not file the lawsuit, but instead, work with you in an effort to reach a fair settlement of Daren’s claims.

If not, we will proceed with the lawsuit. Or, as Brad said more eloquently...

On the other hand, if you intend to maintain the liability denial, or if I do not hear from you, I will proceed with a lawsuit against your insured.

Hopefully cooler (wiser) heads will prevail and we can avoid a lawsuit. Stay tuned...

Daren

Where in the World is Elephant Rock?

I woke this morning feeling very stiff after yesterday's 65-mile Elephant Rock Ride from Castle Rock to the northern edge of Colorado Springs and back (At left: at the rest stop in Palmer Lake). It was a great ride, despite the stiff headwind that beat us back for the first half of the ride. Otherwise the weather was perfect: sunny and cool for most of the morning and the tailwind was great when we turned back north for the home stretch back to Castle Rock.

The Elephant Rock ride begins and ends in Castle Rock, Colorado but is named for an Elephant-shaped rock supposedly somewhere near Palmer Lake, Colorado (one of the stops along the ride). I kept looking but never saw the elusive Elephant Rock. And I asked a number of other 7,000 riders and nobody seemed to know which rock was THE rock.

I searched Google and found an Elephant Rocks State Park in Missouri, a picture of Elephant-shaped rock, Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada, Elephant Rock Nature Park in Oklahoma and even le Rocher aux Elephants (the Elephant Rock) in the Republic of Chad in central Africa...but no Elephant Rock in Colorado (like most people, I only checked the top 10 listings in Google -- who has time to sort through the other 391,990 hits for "Elephant Rock"?).

Back to the ride...according to my Garmin Edge 705, I completed the 65.62-mile route in 4:39:45 -- an average of 14.1 miles per hour. Not particularly fast, but I was happy with the time given the 5,426 feet of elevation gain (most of which was into the wind headed south). And I was just happy to be back on my bike with thousands of other crazy cyclists.

I wasn't happy about all of the riders who insisted on riding 3, 4, and 5 abreast on Hwy 83 as we headed south out of Castle Rock. Hwy 83 is a state highway with a fair amount of traffic. State Troopers traveling the route for our safety had to constantly remind riders to move right and let traffic pass. It's no wonder some drivers hate cyclists and there have been several attempts to ban or limit large rides in Colorado.

After the ride I hosted a BBQ at my house for my friends from Team DFL (my Ride the Rockies team). After burning 3,069 calories on the ride I was ready to refuel. When I got home I pulled the brisket off the smoker, where it had been slowly cooking since midnight the night before (for my instructions for smoking a brisket, check out Life is Good, Part II).

Team DFL members Kris (our fearless, earless, rearless leader), Patty (faithful domestique) and Amy (team doctor) joined us after the ride. Kent (official Serotta test rider) called to report that he was on his couch with an icepack on his knee and was not getting up.

Unfortunately Kris and Patty weren't able to ride E-Rock. Kris has been suffering from an "equilibrium" problem and can't ride (I didn't say she was dizzy...she did!). And Patty had a run-in with the pavement on Saturday that left her sporting 11 stitches in her chin...ouch! At least there were no broken bones, so she'll still be able to do Ride the Rockies. Kris, on the other hand, thinks she's going to have to sit out this year. It just won't be the same without her!

So, we're looking to change our name from Team DFL to Team Accident Prone. First, Amy went down while training in April '07 and broke her wrist, causing her to pull out of RTR. Later, Canada Jane withdrew with a nagging injury. Then Kent did a sommersault over a car that decided to turn in front of him as he hurtled down Rabbit Ears Pass on day one of last year's ride, dislocating his shoulder and tearing up his knee. Next, I pulled a Kent and broke my collarbone on that fateful day last September. Now Kris is out of commission and Patty has some funky new hairs on her chinny chin chin.

Nitin/Jay, please be careful out there!

Daren