I'm Now a Yeti Betty

The new bike arrived today! It's sick light and covered in bling, courtesy of Sports Garage:

I guess this means I am now a member of "The Tribe," as Yeti owners like to refer to themselves. :) I haven't named this bike yet; I need to ride it a few times and see what its personality is like.

Yeti the company is based in Golden, which is cool. That means that both of my mountain bikes are from Colorado companies (even if the actual frames are made in Taiwan). Here's the Yeti headbadge:

And here's a peek at the lovely new XTR derailleur and wheels:

I would like to publicly thank my sponsor, the Joseph R. Caivano Foundation, for his immense generosity and his patience in listening to me freak out about my financial situation. I dedicate this racing season to him!

Another great thing about today is the weather. The snow that was predicted never showed, so I got to ride outside -- yahoo! I didn't even care that it was windy. I can't even describe how great it feels to be on the bike and outdoors again. Being injured and trapped inside for so long made me feel half dead.

A lot of what I love about riding outside is just noticing things. A lake I passed had ducks out exploring the half-melted surface:

There was also a guy standing by the bike path with an SLR camera and an enormous lens, probably a 600mm, photographing prairie dogs, of all things. I almost stopped and said, "Wow, that's a really big lens," like dumb people always say to me, just to irritate the hell out of him, but decided to spare him at the last minute. It's bad enough he was taking pictures of rodents in really bad light.

More good news: the Maverick folks have decided to use me for their ads! I'm very excited. I go in for a photo and video shoot next week, so I need to get a haircut and run through some possible things to say besides "My Maverick is, like, way cool, dude." Actually, they're wanting me to paint a picture of myself as a maverick, too, and then explain why the Maverick bike and I are a perfect marriage. I need to put some more thought into this and try to make it really compelling. They already liked what I wrote, but I want to show up with several options in my head, ready to say in a compact "sound bite" kind of way. They sent me a sample of the print ad:



Thank god I'm too broke to get into motorcycling, because this would probably tempt me.

I don't get the comment about how the bike would piss some people off. That doesn't make any sense. Unless he's referring to other bike makers, who might get mad they didn't think of such a beautiful way to solve the problems inherent in suspension design.

Update on the Karen Rodarte story: We're in a substantial dilemma about her family's status in this country. They're illegals, as you might have guessed, but they've begged us not to print that, obviously. But the trouble is, if we do that, we're leaving out an important fact, and we ARE journalists, after all. Now, we could just let readers figure that tidbit out for themselves (it's pretty obvious, since the family has no access to medical care), but then so could the INS or anyone else in a position to deport them. They MUST be aware of the risk in talking to us, I would hope...but maybe they're not clear on how public this story will really be. So, I've taken a break from shooting any more photos, because this story could very well get axed altogether if we can't figure out a way to deal with this. Obviously, I would feel tremendous guilt if they got kicked out of this country because of us, when they desperately need to be here for Karen's treatment. I mean, I have my own conflicing feelings about illegal immigration, but this family is already here, and Karen is highly unlikely to get what she needs in Mexico.

In the meantime, I really need to get on the ball with doing an audio slideshow about SOMETHING. Folks in the newsroom have definitely noticed that Mark and Josh are the only shooters tinkering with multimedia so far.

Speaking of work, I won second place in the Colorado Associated Press Editors and Reporters contest for Portrait/Personality with this picture:


I've just started entering contests again this year. I've always found them kind of meaningless, especially in Colorado, where there just aren't a lot of newspapers. There's only about four papers in our circulation category. The next category up is even more lame: The Denver Post, the Rocky Mountain News, and the Colorado Springs Gazette. And I'd be willing to put money on the fact that the Gazette's circulation has fallen below 100,000 Sundays, which would actually put them in our category. And then the Rocky and the Post are owned by the same people anyway, so....what's the point? ;)

But one thing that was cool is that CAPER made a Best in Show category this year, and Todd Heisler from the Rocky won with this amazing photo:


(Sorry it's so small; I nabbed it from their website.) It's from a story about the soldiers whose job it is to deliver the bad news to families. Go here to see the whole package, which is an incredible example of great journalism and use of multimedia. http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/news/finalSalute/

Karen's Story

I'm working on a new project about Karen Rodarte, an 11-year-old who survived a rare, aggressive brain tumor. Research tells me that:

"Brain Tumor: Atypical Teratoid / Rhabdoid Tumor
This rare, high-grade tumor occurs most commonly in children younger than 2. It is generally found in the cerebellum, which is the lower, back part of the brain that controls balance. These tumors tend to be aggressive and frequently spread through the central nervous system.
Even after surgery and chemotherapy treatment, the survival rate for children younger than 3 at diagnosis is less than 10 percent. It appears that older children, when treated with chemotherapy and radiation therapy after surgery, do somewhat better long-term, nearing 70 percent.
Treatment generally involves surgical removal of the tumor followed by chemotherapy. Radiation therapy may be considered depending on the age of the child and whether the tumor has recurred."

It's wonderful that the survival rate is better in older kids like Karen, but what this doesn't tell you is the impact on their daily life. At 11, Karen's memory is heavily affected, making it difficult for her to remember even simple things like basic addition; it took her a very long time to memorize the alphabet.

Here, her teacher admonishes her to pay attention to her math work, in spite of having onlookers:


Each day she gets the challenge of having to remember her lunch code, a surprisingly long string of numbers she'll have to produce while feeling the pressure of standing in the lunch line. Here, she gets a high-five from her para-educator after she practiced the number correctly:


Karen has grown up speaking Spanish at home, and prefers it, but understands English very well and has no trouble making herself understood. She does struggle with writing in either language, though. Here, she laughs with one of her teachers, after finishing an assignment with the translation help of friend, left:


Her Spanish-speaking parents, however, are having a hard time with the medical system, especially as they continue her treatment without the benefit of health insurance. Perhaps this story will bring some Good Samaritans out of the woodwork.

In the meantime, Karen enjoys recess with her friends:


The tumor has stunted her growth, and part of her treatment includes doses of human growth hormone, an expensive substance also prized by endurance athletes. Who knows... maybe she'll grow up and become an Olympic marathon runner or something...her balance doesn't actually seem that impaired.

I have about six weeks more to devote to this story -- an eternity in newspaper time -- so I plan to record audio and create an audio slide show, which will be my first (and long overdue) foray into the multimedia trend that is rapidly becoming the future of newspapers.
I just hope I can capture Karen's hilarious giggle, which was cracking up everyone in earshot.

I've Been "Modeling" More Than I've Been Riding Lately.

Dammit. But hell, when I'm 70 years old I can look back on these and reminisce about being able to stay upright on a bike.

Josh came through for me again, this time for the folks at Maverick American Bicycles, who plan to use real Maverick owners in their advertising, and wanted to see pictures of their potential people.

I don't know if they'll choose me, but it's nice to have the photo either way.

Mmmmm....food.

Sometimes I think I should quit the news biz and become a food photographer. I seem to be decent at it and it's fun.

From a story on Valentine's Day food:


Oysters with champagne "caviar," from Q's Restaurant.


Spinach mousse with Meyer lemon. I got to taste both of these, and they were delicious. The concept was food that you could feed your sweetheart, which is why they're bite-size portions. (I think I would probably throw up if I had to watch another couple feed each other in public, though. I mean, come ON. Gross.)

I just like to analyze the dish and figure out how to light it in a pretty way, and make it look tasty. I usually use just a combination of window light and one flash... I'm always amazed that it looks pretty tolerable. I mean, it's no fancy studio light like the food pros would do, but what the hell. I work for a small-town newspaper.

A few weeks ago we did a story on liquor for winter sipping, and I got this good layout with my photo:


But honestly, I don't think I could do this kind of thing full-time. I'd really miss being outside, for one thing. Plus, I really do like to shoot things that move and talk. :)

Nothing But Crickets

I know it's been way too long since I've posted here. I'm probably just talking to myself. Wait, what else is new? :)

But I gotta get this rolling again for summer, when I'll actually have a life.

In the meantime, I've had two consecutive back injuries that have kept me off the bike since my ruined trip to Fruita in October. I won't even try to describe how frustrating and depressing this has been , since nobody likes a whiner. But I will say that I've been spending WAY too much time here:


The lovely Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, where I have been contemplating life's meaning while strapped into this medieval device:


Traction is strangely relaxing. You get a harness strapped around your chest (woe to the girls with the big boobs) and another around your hips, and then the machine pulls the two apart. Ahhhhh.

Also slowing down my life (for what -- eight weeks??) was this:


So let's just hope that the rest of the mountain bikers around here have screwed up their training as much as I have. ;)

Since I've been down for the count, I've been trying to write that book on photojournalism. I've spent many hours looking at this:


The writing process has been really enjoyable, actually. It's made me reconnect to some of the deep-seated reasons that I became a photojournalist -- just in time to attend "the sky is falling" meetings about the dire straits of the journalism industry. Yay. You kids in journalism school make a run for the business school while you still can.

So my life has felt like a kind of "Groundhog Day": Get up. Go to work. Try not to fall on ass in Daily Camera parking lot. Go to physical therapy. Form a close and personal relationship with Advil and the floor of my apartment. Abuse caffeine while working on book. Go to bed, get up, start over. Drag friends out whenever possible, but discover that people are seriously hunkered down with NetFlix. Ponder subscribing to NexFlix. Remember the torture of watching "Failure to Launch" (which has a hilarious "mountain biking" scene that made me almost regurgitate my popcorn) and go back to working on book. Space out in endless fantasies of travel, mountain biking, and good-looking men. Realize I'm still here and sigh in disgust. Repeat.

I did take some time for fun, though, most recently by going to the Boulder Mountainbike Alliance black tie fundraiser. Some local celebs showed up: Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski and his wife Heather Irmiger:


Giro d'Italia winner Andy Hampsten and University Bicycles owner Doug Emerson:


And as for me, I pulled out my 1940s-era dress and accessorized with the usual hardware:



It was also an opportunity to wear the necklace my mom gave me and actually buy cute hair gadgets, something this tomboy hasn't done since middle school.



The other freakin' fabulous thing is that the cold weather finally headed out to the East Coast for a change. Today my coworker Josh and I did assignments on foot to bare our bumpy white flesh to the sun:


We wandered around together for a few minutes, since we're usually never able to do that; Josh oogled the co-eds out on their afternoon run while I got jealous watching people ride by on their bikes. Everyone looked ecstatically happy to be out in the warmth.

But I heard it's going to snow again this weekend. Sigh..... and repeat.

Proof That I Can Laugh at Myself

The Daily Camera marketing department has reached new heights of desperation: they have decided to use US (the humble, badly-dressed, behind-the-scenes journalists) as marketing tools. They seem to think that if readers know who we are, they'll feel more of a connection to the newspaper. (I personally think that if we simply write good stories with the facts straight and everything spelled correctly, and shoot compelling photographs, that's probably good enough, but hell, who am I?)

So we all had to suffer through having "marketing" photos taken of ourselves. I managed to get out of it for a long time, by going on vacation the week the marketing photographer was here to shoot them. I mean, come on, most photographers can't stand being in FRONT of the camera.

But last week the proverbial gun was held to my head, and the result is, as I expected, cheesy. Yes, folks, it's very clear that I'm the "Cycling Columnist!" Now I'M on my way to the gun store, because if this photo ends up on the side of a bus, I'm going to shoot myself.

Marty who?

I know, I've neglected this thing so long that I probably haven't a reader left! But this time of year, with a back injury keeping me from doing much of anything, I had nothing to say; I was too busy taking rides in the Whaaambulance.

Before hurting myself, however, I did some great fall rides. Here's the view from a wonderful solo jaunt in Nederland:



Then the next day I did Kenosha Pass with a group of friends. I had never ridden that trail before, and I gotta say, it rocks!! Fun, challenging riding with incredible views.



The big news is that I changed race teams in a last-minute, nerve-wracking decision. I'm leaving Blue Sky Velo, in spite of the fact that I LOVE the shop and its fantastic owners, because I really, really, want to be on a true mountain bike team. So I will be joining the black-white-and-teal camoflage clan on the Sports Garage Team.



Not pictured are the 15 women on the team -- sweet! It sounds like a great group of people, very close-knit. They all train together, travel to the races together, etc. And every member is required to host a meeting or social event throughout the year. It sounds awesome! Plus it's a Boulder team, so it will be easier to ride with these folks than the Longmont crowd.

I did have a few cool assignments recently, as well...In anticipation of the Dalai Lama's visit, I drove to the Great Stupa, deep in the mountains above Fort Collins, and took pictures of the workers getting ready. The Stupa is a Buddhist shrine, usually a place that contains the ashes of a revered figure in the religion.

Here's the Stupa:



Here's one of the founders of the place, preparing the two-story Buddha for its coating of paint, which is traditionally a vibrant gold:



This was really an enjoyable assignment. It was tremendously peaceful there, and everyone was so friendly and mellow. When I had filled all my digital media, I took a walk in the trees, and accepted an offer for lunch. I like it when I can settle in and really immerse myself in what I'm shooting. Unfortunately, I didn't get to photograph the great man himself (I had the pleasure of photographing him some years ago, though), which bummed me out. Here's Cliff's photo of him arriving to consecrate the Stupa:



I worked on a story about an old part of Louisville that the city council almost designated a blighted area so they could bulldoze everything and bring in a bunch of crappy retail. I had to find people in the neighborhood...



Not only does this guy sport the sexy mullet, he had on - no joke - these skin-tight short-shorts. Yes, WITH the leather jacket. I had to spare the readers that extra detail.

There's also this photo from a parade in Louisville:



So I haven't been a complete slacker...even though I lost a couple weeks of my life in the black hole known as "Shogun." What a great book!! I loved it. It was such a vivid portrayal of medieval Japan that I felt like my real life was a dull dream. I was even hearing Japanese spoken in my head. "Wakarimasu ka?" (Do you understand?)

I was so psyched with it that I bought "Tai-Pan," the writer's next novel, but mentally, I'm not ready to leave those characters just yet. And of course, all this is distracting me from my own writing. But, I've got plenty of dark winter nights at the coffee shop ahead, right?

Hubba Hubba

The Maverick climbs so well, I keep looking around to see who is secretly pushing me. I was still pretty tired today from Saturday's race, but still felt like riding the backside of Hall Ranch. And it felt way better than I would have imagined. Love that!





I like these isolated trees you see at Hall Ranch sometimes. The land there is an interesting combination of forest and open grassy meadows. I changed this to black and white because the light was so crappy this morning.



Then I got to enjoy the twisty, rocky descent all the way down without being stopped by a single person. Sweet!!

The New Ride

I got my new bike on Friday evening! It is really, really beautiful:



Here's the fancy Maverick fork. It makes the bike look like a miniature motorcycle. And if you squint, you can see on the head badge, where my friend Frank hand-engraves the frame's creation date and it's individual name. My frame, Basilisk, was born on June 8, 2006.



My very first ride with this bike turned out to be the huge King of the Rockies final race in the Winter Park series. It's 26 miles, with a lot of climbing and technical singletrack. I love it. This race turns you into quivering mush in the best of circumstances; riding a bike that you have not had any opportunity to dial in or have fitted can be a recipe for even more pain.

Here's Cindy getting ready:



Here's me and Basilisk:



I was very happy to feel good and have strong legs. Most of my summer has been lost in a weird bog of fatigue, low heart rates, and subsequent lack of motivation. So I was psyched, for sure. I was climbing well (for me, that is... climbing is not my thing), but the bike was really helping in that regard. It goes uphill so well, with little excess movement in the suspension. And when you stand up, it feels even better. Bubba's one drawback was that standing up tended to feel worse and frequently cause rear-wheel spinout. I always thought that was just pilot error, something I could never figure out how to do right, but with Basilisk it's a cinch. Sweet.
But then on the downhill, the Maverick's suspension was surprisingly harsh compared to the GT. I'm not making any judgement on that yet, though, since I've had zero chance to tweak the suspension. The idea behind the GT and Maverick suspensions are very nearly the same, so I should think that with some knowledgeable help, I can get Basilisk to feel just as good going downhill.

At about the halfway mark in the race, my back started to hurt. This race is so long that it always hurt, even on Bubba, so I wasn't surprised, but I could tell it was going to get a lot worse, since I haven't had a bike fit on the Maverick yet. Sure enough, several miles later I was in some major pain. I had to keep standing up and trying to stretch in every direction. When I got to the final climb, I was so buckled from the pain that I could barely pedal. Luckily, the final, twisty, rocky descent was a total blast, and I cruised to the finish line in 7th place out of 15, a very good result for me, considering how crappy I felt for most of this summer.

I had to strip the final parts off of Bubba today, which was sad. But there's no denying that Basilisk is cool! I'm psyched! I've got one more race in Keystone, but most of my weekends now will be filled with fun rides with friends, my favorite part of mountain biking.

Outta Sight I'm So Behind

Hey there folks, I'm sure you thought I abandoned this blog. But life just got a bit ovewhelming there for a while! But I'm back, and thanks to my awesome brother, I now have a laptop, so I can work on the blog anytime. Sweet.

So, to catch up:

1. I had another KILLER trip to Crested Butte. This might have been the best one yet. I got put in a condo with really fun people, the trails were in great shape from daily late-afternoon thunderstorms, and I finally got to do the last descent on Reno/Flag/Bear/Deadmans.





If you're really bored or trying to avoid work, you can surf on over to Mike O's website and look at a bunch of goofy photos of the trip. It's not too dialup friendly, unfortunately. http://www.whirledmedia.com/cb06/cb06.html

2.My teammate Cindy and I went to the Blast the Mass race at Snowmass Mountain. Neither of us had ever been there, and damn, it's beautiful. Snowmass is steep as hell, and the cross-country race was brutal. It was gorgeous, and a real mountain biker's course, with tons of technical singletrack. I loved it, even though it put me in the hurt locker from the get-go. Cindy and I were both pretty hammered by it, but we managed to squeeze in a practice run for the next day's Super D race, and also scope out the Mountain Cross event:



You will be amazed to know that I actually camped at Snowmass. I know, it's a shock. Truly, I love to sleep outdoors. What I can't stand about camping, though, is the claustrophobic feeling of sleeping bags and tents. If I could just sleep on a queen-size bed under the stars, I'd camp all the time. ;) But to my surprise, I managed the camping thing just fine. In fact, the view of the night sky through my tent roof was so amazing that it was the most memorable part of the trip. I'm the background tent:



We dragged our tired asses out of bed the next morning, got stuck on the lift for the obligatory few minutes, and finally made it to the Super D start. For those of you who don't know what that is, I'll explain: It's a race that runs down a ski resort, but also includes a few short climbs. It's usually longer and not as technical as a true downhill race, which these days is extremely rocky and difficult.
I tried to go through a proper warmup, but it was a bit hard to do at the top of a ski resort, plus I was too distracted by watching other waves start. I had never done a Super D, and it's pretty funny to watch if the venue uses the Le Mans style start. This means that everyone lays their bike on the ground, and then from some distance away, when the gun goes off, everyone runs to their bikes, jumps on, and starts riding. You can just imagine the comedy that ensues. And because Super D is still finding its legs in the racing scene, all kinds of people show up. Downhillers in full-face helmets and pads; skinny cross-counry geeks in tight lycra, and everything in between. Watching all these folks awkwardly stampeding in helmets and cycling shoes is truly an amusing sight.

When our turn came, I was actually worried about being dropped during the running portion, since I run as well as a pregnant hippo, but I managed to hang okay. Our cyclocross experiences helped Cindy and I mount our bikes swiftly, but there were some wicked fast downhillers in our group, so they got way ahead right off the bat. And sadly for me, my derailleur, which had flawlesly survived the previous day's five creek crossings and other abuse, decided to blow up during the brief climbs of the Super D. I was further dropped, but still loved hauling the mail downhill, and I finished tolerably well. Conclusion: I think Super D rules!! What a fun event! I'm going to do the last one in Keystone next month.

3. After much stress and unneccessary freaking out, I finally got moved in to my own one-bedroom, for the first time ever in my 16 years in Boulder. What a blessing!!! I love it. It's tiny but perfect. I have a porch where I can see the Flatirons while I eat breakfast, or work on my bikes; a little creek passes nearby, and so far the neighborhood has been very pleasant. (We'll see if that changes when the students arrive in the next week or so!)

The porch:



And the living room:



4. The very bad news is that I lost Bubba. My GT I-Drive, always so dependably fun and nimble, suffered a frame crack, right near the seatpost weld. I'm crushed!! I wanted at least a few more years with that bike, both because I loved it, and because I wanted to actually save up for a new bike, which I was starting to do.
Here's my honey:





I really and truly was saddened by this, for reasons that had little to do with financial issues. That bike was with me through a lot; riding it was my way to escape stress and bring light into gloomy days. I will really miss it, no matter how cool my next bike may be.

I wrote an essay (that became my cycling column for the week) about the loss of Bubba and how it echoed the loss of Z.V.
On a side note, I will probably have to quit my job after it runs, either out of fear that Z.V. or his friends will hunt me down, or because a bunch of weirdos will start hitting on me. That will make life interesting, won't it? At any rate, I'll post a link when it runs.

Well, I've been camped out in the coffee shop for a while now, and the feeling that I'm a pretentious nerd has become overwhelming. I promise to be back very soon with an update on my new bike, which I should be picking up from Blue Sky Cycles later today.

May Bubba go on to Mountain Bike Heaven, which is a perpetual descent down the 401 Trail in Crested Butte.

Off the Back

Geez, I'm way behind with my blog... I've just been overwhelmed with freelance work, househunting, training, the day job, and all kinds of stuff.

So, to catch up a little:

A bunch of us from both Blue Sky the shop and Blue Sky the team went up to Ned a few weekends ago. I only shot photos during the snack break, because I was having too much fun riding. :)

The Shop Guys and Friends on one hand, the Racers on the other:



Rob's a racer, too, actually, but he was just too cool to sit with us.

All's fair in mountain bike racing:



Another crappy view of the Continental Divide:



We sure live in a purty place, all right.

Then, I managed to score second place on the paper's web-hits-of-the-day list with my column on marijuana:



Last, and far from least, was the trip I took to Durango with my brother Joe. We stayed at the Tamarron resort where he played golf all by himself both days. Here's the view from our room above the 5th hole:



The trails were equally empty:



Although I did find a guy to photograph for a future column about Durango:



This area of Durango riding, on the Colorado Trail, seemed like Crested Butte, and then the Horse Gulch area (which I didn't photograph) seemed like Fruita.



I could move to Durango and never need to leave! :)