Made it over the hump

Almost a week ago was Mother’s Day. On the same day, I celebrated a milestone in my and many other peoples lives. I turned a half century old. I wish I could tell you that I felt differently than I did a week ago, but I can’t. I still wake up groaning the same way as before. Mentally, it only slightly bothers me and I have to admit that I currently think about my age a bit. Hopefully, those thoughts will quickly fade though.

In other news, we’re about to head for the States for my sister-in-laws wedding. We’ll be hitting Seattle on the 23rd of May, then head south for the wedding, back to Seattle for a couple of days to see friends, hit REI and the Patagonia store and then off to Canada. In Canada we’ll visit a couple of friends in Vancouver, then hit the Arcteryx Outlet store and work our way over to Banff. Kera will drop me off and she’ll head off to a family reunion in Montana.

Out for a training ride…. I made the yellow bags

On June 8th, I’ll be off on one of the biggest adventures that I’ve ever undertaken. From what I last heard, there were somewhere around 120 people signed up but the hope was to whittle that number down to around 100. If it’s anything like normal, at least 50% of those will drop out in the first week. I’m going to do everything possible to avoid becoming a statistic at that point. ‘Sides, I don’t think that Kera will let me attempt it a second time. From all accounts, if you don’t finish it becomes something that haunts you until you do.

I have to say thank you to my loving wife Kera as she’s put up with a couple of years (mostly the last year) of me talking to Phil and David about it relentlessly every time we get together. She calls is the “Big Stupid Race” because of the bear danger. That’s something I don’t take likely. I’ve never lived somewhere that I’ve needed to worry about bears and it definitely makes me nervous. That’s part of the reason that it’d be nice if I can keep up and ride with Phil at least till we get out of bear country.

Anyway, thanks so much to Kera, my friends around the world, my team mates in Big Wheel Racing in Europe and the States, sponsors and family. I also have to mention my various employers and students as well. All have been incredibly supportive. I really hope to come back with lots of stories and photos for them to hear and see.

I found another site with some good info. on the TDR with GPX files, etc. Check it out HERE. A couple of their statistics that might be interesting though.

Trip statistics:
2562.77 mi (870.37 mi uphill, 951.49 mi downhill, 735.62 mi flat)
191,525 ft total ascent (191,325 ft descent) – 5.4 % ave uphill grade, 4.9 % ave downhill grade

I’ve had a few requests for how you can follow along. Here you go. Go to the TourDivide.org website and click on the Leaderboard. That’ll take you to where all of our SPOT trackers report. You should then be able to choose my name and see where I am. If all is going well and I’ve remembered to turn on my SPOT or it’s not out of batteries, my track should show where I am within a 10 min. span. Additionally, you can subscribe to MP3′s of the racers call-ins. I believer that we’re supposed to call in daily but most don’t ever seem to do it. In any case, most people are so tired that they sound drunk or stoned. Therefore, the phone calls get pretty animated and funny. Just go to MTBCast.com and subscribe through iTunes or you can listen via the website.

Honestly, I think I’m ready to tackle this beast. I’ve ridden so much this year. In April alone I rode more than 1400 kilometers. Pretty much the last 6 months of my life has been dedicated to this race. Maybe more actually. We started with intense spinning in November and did that through the winter. I also rode and ran during that time as well. There was about 3 months where I was working out about 25 days out of 30. Right now, I’m feeling very strong but I’m also attempting recovery mode. Kera calls me the “shittiest relaxer” as I have a really hard time sitting still. Relaxation for me is movement. As you can imagine, recovery mode is difficult.

After I finish the TDR and figure out how I’m getting to K.C. I’ll stay a week or so with family and friends. It’s been more than 5 years since I was back in the K.C. area and I’m overdue for a visit. It’ll be really good to see everyone. Sadly, Kera has to go back to work so she won’t be able to come along. Coincidentally, she’ll be heading back to Seattle for “work” about the same time I’ll be heading back to Germany. She’s going to Glacier Bay via a client which ought to be great. Our kayaking trip there in 2005 is still one of the best trips I’ve ever had.

My hope, when I return, is to go back to teaching half-time and start making the bags half-time. I’ve already received a few orders and it seems that if I come through with those, it’s likely to break into a much broader group. Wish me luck!

We came and kinda conquered the 2012 Munich City Bike Marathon

Just after the neutral start

I think she's having fun!

As in every year for the last 5 or so, I went and participated in the Munich City Bike Marathon. It’s always my first race of the season and even though I usually end the race wondering why in the world I go, come January of each year I start chomping at the bit to sign up again.

The map for 2012

“Normally” (there’s nothing normal about this race), it’s in the 90 km range and it only has 120 vertical meters or so of climbing but this years due to tree work and an event following the race they shortened the course by 25 km down to 65 km. Well, that is until it started raining anyway.

The race starts and ends at the Munich Olympic Park and the last 5 km or so are run inside the park grounds. Some of that, mostly climbing and descending is done on cobblestones. If you’ve never ridden cobblestones, you should. They’re bumpy as hell and when wet, you might as well be on ice, especially if there’s any hint of mud in the county. In any case, they knocked off another 3.5 km because of the rain. Therefore, the race ended up being 61 km and change. Also, they not only shortened the race but they moved the start to 7:15 in the morning. Ugh. Nothing like having to get up at 5:00 and try to get to a race which starts early but to also start without a warmup and to have it raining…. needless to say, it didn’t start well.

Zooming by

Topping the little hill

Unfortunately for me, I could have used the extra 30 km this year. I’ve been training for the Tour Divide Race so I’ve got a lot of miles in my legs for 2012. In face, I checked today and I’ve already hit 1600 km (not counting the 2-4 times a week we hit spin class in the Winter too) for 2012. Anyway, the distance wasn’t the problem by any means.

The race starts with a “neutral” start which takes the racers across town to the Isar River. It’s really anything but neutral as most people are already jockeying for position to keep from getting stuck behind the slow riders. I got stuck behind a bunch of the riders from the 2nd start and ended up one of the last to leave from my group. I made it to the river, and about 2 km up the river before the motorcycles from the 2nd start group caught and passed me.

I spent the rest of the race pretty much riding alone. For the next 25 km I felt terrible. My heart rate was all over the place and my stomach and legs were anything but happy. It wasn’t until we hit the mid-point of the race by the Alliance Arena (where Bayern München plays soccer) that I started to feel civil again. Suddenly, I started to feel like I had some power in my legs and felt semi-civil again. Coincidentally, that’s about the same time that a lot of the people that had passed me previously started to slow down. I started passing people left and right from there to the finish. Like I said… I wish that I’d had the extra kilometers as I’d have probably managed a much better finish than I had.

This year was the first year that the weather has ever been anything but nice. It was probably part of my early issues both because of being chilly at the start with no warm up but also because I had to wear a rain jacket which then cause me to overheat a bit (for me, that’s usually worse than the cold). In the end I finished 25th in my class at 2:10:04. The winner of my class finished almost a half an hour ahead of of me and he’s 8 years older (58 years old!).

I thought that Kera did well, mostly because she said that she had a good time. Being so competitive she’s not so please with her finish. She placed 13th in her class at 2:21:31.

More photos here….

Now I’ve really gone and done something stupid!

Dear Matt,

As a misplaced American I feel it’s my duty to represent my country in this great adventure.

Ah, hell with that! The reality is that I’m turning 50 less than a month before the start of the 2012 TDR and I can’t and will never be able to afford a Red Ferrari and I’m already in possession (snicker) of a Trophy Wife. Thus, a friend of mine (a French bastard) challenged me to do the TDR for my 50th. Not surprisingly, he’s now backed out and left me hanging (like bull testicles) in the wind. However, I’m going to soldier on, as it were, and do my best to show those young Whipper-snappers that an old man can kick ass from time to time.

My wife, friends and students all think that I’m crazy and an idiot (they’re probably right) but the race idea now under my skin and I need to get it out. If the race doesn’t work, I’ll see a dermatologist.

Thus, I’d LOVE to be included (sensing sarcasm here?) in the start-list for the 2012 TDR starting 8 June 2012 in Banff.

Thanks… Michael Cleveland (aka wunnspeed)
                                 ————————-

The above is my Letter Of Intent to do the Tour Divide Race starting on 8 June 2012 in Banff, Canada.

Wish me luck gang!

Michael

p.s. David G….. I’ll make you buy me Mexican food one day to repay me.

The Triple Whammy!

Grrrrr!

My last post was called Anticipation and this is one of the things that I’m anxiously waiting for….

This is the time of year that Kera spends a fair amount of her time traveling the world for work. I miss her a lot in part because she’s my wife (of course) but she’s also my best friend and adventure buddy. Mostly because she’s just pretty AWESOME! She’ll be home Saturday and then off again in a week. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder….” Right?

My Triple in Construction

Second would be this… My new Retrotec Triple 29′er which will be my singlespeed and probably my primary bike.

The fork for said bike plus some Chuey hats

and this…. The fork for the Triple.

The view from the Prienerhütte

Last weekend I went snowshoeing a couple of times. Friday for a couple of hours close to home in the mountains and on Saturday morning I headed about 25 km/15.5 miles south into the mountains and hiked up to Prienerhütte. It was a beautiful hike and I motored it trying to make it into a workout. It must’ve worked because the recommended time was 5 hours and I made it in about 3.5. It’d been more fun with Kera there though. Next time!

My second prototype for a front toptube bag

I’ve been doing a lot of spin class, some running and two weeks ago I did the big 4+ hour spinning marathon at the fitness center. Some other things I’ve been working on are my bike/part reviews for twentynineinches.com and maybe the coolest is prototyping the SpoK bikepacking bags. I’m about half (or more) complete with a frame bag and I’ve finished a top tube bag that I’m proud of and worthy of selling. Step-by-step….

Next steps

As some of you know, I’m pushing 50 years of age. Most people have one ‘mid-life’ crisis in a lifetime. Strangely, I seem to have them every few years. Maybe it’s due to my curious nature in that I LOVE to learn about new things and new people. As far as jobs go, I often go into a job, take it till I ‘finally’ figure out that it’s not going to take me any further and then move on.

Well, it seems that the time has come to maybe look into moving on to my next life step.

Steps... where am I heading?

Granted, I love teaching but with most things in my life (other than my loving and VERY tolerant wife), I want to do it on my terms and mine alone. It’s been that way my entire life. One reason might be due my parents early deaths but it could be other things, my age (my mid-life crisis possibly), situational, etc. I’m not sure. However, since last years accident, I’ve grown ever more restless in wanting to set my own course. Not only that, but we Clevelands (especially the males) aren’t known for our bullshit tolerance and that trait kicks in on nearly a daily basis.

Honestly, I’m not sure what that means for me. Does it mean attempting to start SpōK as a business or to get mountain guide training and then hope that I can get a license? Possibly, it could also mean that I go back to freelancing and try to cobble together a living from doing two or three things? These are the questions I’ve spent hundreds of hours contemplating during bike rides and while lying awake nights and have yet to achieve any ‘real’ answers.

I know that I’m a good, if not really good teacher. It shows in my students scores and their feedbacks. Also, in the number of them that renew or ask me to teach them privately (which I can’t/won’t do for ethical and lack of time reasons). My guess is that freelancing might be a good start along with SpōK and maybe, just maybe I might check into SPIN training as well. Kera always tells me that I’m a shitty relaxer, maybe I should take that as a sign and do something active.

Hindsight is 20/20 as they say. If only I had known this 30 years ago I could and would have had my outdoor career and could now pass that accumulated knowledge on to others.

Alas, I’m left wondering the age old question of “what am I here to achieve?”

A FEW DAYS AFTER STARTING THIS ENTRY…..

After speaking with Kera about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that I should kick up the pace on trying to get SpōK off the ground as a legit business. I’ve never tried to run a business of my own but I think that it’s time that I try it. As some of you know, I’m not good with failure so the jump forward is not only scary, the future is more so. However, Kera and I are pretty good at putting our heads, hearts and skills together to come up with some pretty cool ideas. Combined with that, as I get to thinking about potential things to produce, my creative nature goes into overdrive. Seems that I need to start carrying around a sketchbook for all my ideas otherwise they may pop into being and vanish like a soap bubble.

Last thing… Saturday is 8 months + 1 day from my accident. On that day, I’m having surgery to remove the plates that were installed in July of 2010. The doctor says that there shouldn’t be any complications but please cross your fingers for me if you would.

It’s been ages… or literally months…

Sorry friendly readers… I/we aren’t dead and didn’t fall off the face of the planet. I just haven’t really had much to tell other than the million things running through the gourd on top of my shoulders. Normally, it just spews from my mouth (often without a filter) and you take it in or don’t. As you can decide whether to read this or not, I realize that you don’t really care about my every waking thought or whim. Thus, I’ll shorten this to the Readers Digest (are they still in business) version.

Kera on the Salt Flats

Us... hanging out on the Salt Flats of Bolivia

Kera helped a couple of these ladies by buying lots of yarn

Machu Picchu before the landslides

My guinea pig dinner. Fit for a King!

First… Kera and I hit Peru, Bolivia & a very small slice of Chile (maybe our next big vacation). We had a great time, saw amazingly beautiful things, met some really cool people and discovered a place that we didn’t have any idea was so cool and beautiful. If… when we go back, we’ve decided that to make the trip all it could be, we need to know a reasonable amount of Spanish so it might be a couple of years before we can swing that.

We seemingly preceeded a number of natural disasters as we travelled. First, El Nino has hit South America hard this year and it’s to blame for a lot of things. However, we were in and out of Macchu Pichu just before the landslides and then we left Santiago just a few days before the earthquake that rocked the city. Are we bad luck? Maybe you shouldn’t answer that.

Our tour guide Shirley was awesome! She took care of our little group like a mother. She really tried to help us have the best time possible and answered our every question. Our co-travelers were a very diverse group from Ireland, Korea & Canada. We really enjoyed meeting all of them and they all really added to the enjoyment of the trip as well. We hope to see all of them at some point in the future.

Peru photos click here

Bolivia photos click here

Kera took some beautiful shots that are still yet to be posted and there are some great ones from Chile yet to be posted as well. I’ll update the links as soon as I do it.

Cheese! Don't get bugs in your teeth.

Kera has been working like a slave lately. The last few months she’s been in either or both Zürich or London seemingly once a week. As I write this, she’s in the U.S. on business which was preceded by a few weeks in Australia. She also has to go to Canada and may have to head back south of the Equator before she lands back on European soil. Her business trip might be as short as a month and as long as 1.5 months. That’s the longest, by far, that we’ve been apart in almost 6 years together. Weird… we’ll have been married 5 years this year. Hmmm!

My job is going pretty well. The trainers/teachers that I work with are a really diverse and interesting group of people. Most have travelled the world, done things that many people only dream of and make me jealous on a regular basis in those terms. The people that I teach also teach me many different things about finance, banking, Real Estate, IT, fund & asset management and so much more. I work hard, like the people that I work with but really, really wish that I got paid significantly more money. For the amount of stress and number of decisions that I am asked to make daily, I feel like I’m way undervalued. For the most part, I can’t complain about too much more though. Our office is on Viktualienmarkt (the big fruit & veggie market next to Marienplatz) and I get to get out of the office for lunch daily.

I did my first race of the year yesterday. Last year when I did the City Bike Marathon I believe that I mentioned that I would probably never do it on a singlespeed again. Well, it seems that I’m now a liar! Sorry gang… guess it was only a matter of time. I debated all last week; gears…. singlespeed…. gears….. singlespeed. In the end, my love toward singlespeeding won out. I finished 125th overall but I believe that I was the first place singlespeeder! Woohoo! I suppose that since there were 1500 people in the “race” my placing isn’t too shabby. I’ll post pics as soon as they are available. A few more pics of me here.

I’m about to finish building a really nice set of wheels to ride and race. They are White Indus. M16 hubs laced to FRM/Bor XMD 388 rims. They’ll be tubeless and light. Zoom!

That’s it  for now. Tschüss!

Kind of alive… Finally an update!!!!

My dear wife being herself!

This is us at Dachstein - click for more pics

Before the carnage - Click for more pics

After the carnage

It’s been ages since I’ve written.

Why?

Well, my excuse boils down to my new job and trying to ride as much as I can. Sadly, a large part of the time the two goals seem to cancel each other out.

Not only have I pretty much vanished as a web presence/blogger, I’ve also not been able or made time for a few other things (i.e. Phone calls, emails, stuff around the house, the list goes on).

For that, I apologise. Things are slowly starting to normalize, a bit. I’m managing, or should I say, we’re adjusting to me working full-time and not having anywhere near as much time for all the things I could do as a freelancer.

Kera and I have begun going on one, if not two long rides (100 plus kilometers) each weekend. Also, I’m doing my best to get out at least twice a week for a ride with intervals. Strangely, I feel like I’m in pretty good shape because of those rides.

That was two weeks ago. Almost no exercise for me since then. We’ve been on a long weekend trip to Hallstatt, Austria since which was great and we both needed.

Wow, that was written a few weeks ago. Things have changed a bit…. or, a lot!

It’s already snowed here. I crashed pretty hard in a race and have hardly exercised in a month and we’re both very busy with work.

Right now, Kera us in Australia. In the last month, she’s travelled to Toronto, Canada, Seattle, London, Zurich and now she’s taking on the Southern Hemisphere. Needless to say she’s a busy girl.

I just felt the need to get something posted for the first time since June. Please excuse the absence and scattered thoughts. This was all typed while on the subway or train between classes.

Ciao!