Frozen Dead Guy

No, I’m not referring to unforseen road  schwag from one of my freezing rides, I’m talking about Frozen Dead Guy Days up in Nederland, Colorado.  “Ned” as we boulderites call it, is one of my favorite towns around here.  For one, it’s where a lot of the trails I like to ride are and fun places to pitch your tent.  It’s a common misconception that there is a lot of great mountain biking “in” Boulder.  Sorry folks, the impossible hikers have taken over which was a horrible realization when I moved here.  Two, it is very unpretentious and “granola-like.”  Three, the Mountain Peoples co-op has the best breakfast burritos and muffins.  Anyway, Frozen Dead Guy Days is an annual festival held because some guy cryo-genically froze his dad and stores him in a tuff shed(supposedly still up there in Ned somewhere), keeping him frozen with dry ice.  Weird-ass mountain people…  I missed the fun festivities on Saturday, but was able to check it out on Sunday.  Apparently on Saturday, they had a parade with people dressed up like the dead guy, alpacas, music, the works…

Alpacas are sooo weird.  People use their fur to make sweaters.  This one was all stressed out and making the weirdest high pitched whining sounds.

New Belgium was there all weekend as well.  They also have coffin races, some sort of deal where people go jump in the frozen reservoir, and frozen turkey bowling.  I missed out on all that good fun, but I still got to laugh at the tourists.

Apparently once the tourists saw that we took a photo by this sculpture, they all flocked with their cameras and stood in the middle of the freaking street.  I wonder where they were from…

There was this tent with a bunch of exhibit table.  Now I’m a solar engineer and I love trying to reduce my impact on the earth, but there was a table where they have “green” funerals.  They don’t embalm the dead bodies and do something special when burying them.  I didn’t look into it in great detail, but thought that was kind of funny.

Some peole from Utah drove down solely to go to this festival (it’s not very big) and they graciously gave me free drink tickets.  Now I know I’m on my two beer a week rule, but I got a cool pint glass and when something free is involved, I am going for it.  C’mon, I’m a dirtbag mountain biker. 🙂

My two favorite drugs- caffeine and alcohol (especially beer…) Calm down folks, I only drank half a beer.  But I did drink the full latte. 🙂

I had my bike fit at Boulder Center for Sports Medicine on Tuesday.  They very drastically changed my position from last year, and yet I feel much more comfortable on my bike.  I had MAJOR issues with too much weight on my hands.  I lost a LOT of time in races because I was having trouble descending- something that used to come second nature.  I’m glad to say that I should not have any problems with that anymore.  I was impressed with the technology and can understand why European cyclists fly to Boulder for this fit.  I probably drove the guy giving me the fit (Sean Madsen) crazy with all my incessant questions.  The engineer inside of me just couldn’t help but wonder many things.  I am very disappointed with the Rocket 7s I got last year.  They are supposed to be “custom” and granted, they felt much better than my old cycling shoes.  However, Sean informed me that they still do not give me enough support at the heel, and because of their proprietary design, you can’t take the insoles out.  Sean usually puts shims under the insoles to aide with support, but because these are melded into the shoe, they are almost rendered useless.  Disappointing, but my shoe sponsor for this year is Diadora anyway.  I think I get all my Cannondale stuff very very soon (including my road bike next week!)  I am like a little kid waiting for Santa Clause to come, and I won’t have to wear a pink kit anymore.  Hurray!

I’m headed to Albuquerque tomorrow for some sunshine and riding on some real singletrack.  I can’t wait!  The drive is always long and boring (7 hours), but I’ve made some sweet CDs and I always stop in Trinidad to inject caffeine to my veins to blast through northern NM.  Too bad I have an old beater for a car… still dreaming of that WRX wagon with the mad sound system to blast some techno…