Into Thin Air...

If you want to destroy my sweater
Pull this thread as I walk away
—Weezer, "Sweater Song" *

Downtown Denver is dreary and oddly desolate today. Sixty-something degrees, with a slight breeze that recalls November in DC. Rain threatens, clouds loiter. And when it comes, a pathetic drizzle, people sprout from the pavement like mushrooms. Odd.

I wake early in the rented room 10 stories above Champa Street with a slight headache and a timid malaise that isn't sure if it wants to rule the day or not. Getting out of bed is a coup. Below, outside, cyclists glide by silently in their own little hard-earned lane, safe and secure while the white lines last. Along neighboring 16th Street, horse-drawn carriages compete with human-powered pedicabs. LoDo and the ripples around it belong to cyclists, no doubt there. I feel at home.

Last night was a modest tour of the town, tour-de-force style, on foot. Great Divide is a small and unassuming red-brick building, industrial, with a functional bar area that believes in drink but not food, with plenty of locals lounging inside and out. No Hercules, no Hades, no DPA; all of it kicked. Not much left from which to choose. Two new 100-barrel fermenters couldn't forestall the unexpected shortage. Success has its downside...you would do well to remember that. Settled on the Tripel, which left me wanting (alas, Russian River and Allagash are pretty much the only two American breweries that can consistently make an enjoyable Belgian, as far as I'm concerned)—I knew better, but a man has to drink, doesn't he? Marco's Coal-fired Pizzeria has very good pizza and a disappointing beer selection, but the sultry charm and built-for-speed chassis of our waitress made up the difference. Monica. Who would have guessed? Hades, like the Tripel, needs some work, but it went down, all the same, and no better offerings meant a lower bill in the end. See the good in the bad, right?

Today, we hit Wynkoop Brewing Company on 18th Street, where a very dry but nonetheless interesting oak-aged barleywine started me off. That drained, I moved on to a Silverback Porter, whose disappointing sour taste (where's the coffee nuance?) put an early lid on things. Followed that joint up with a trip to the Falling Rock Tap House on Blake Street—"No Crap on Tap" and they mean it. Reminiscent of Charm City's Max's on Broadway. Pliney the Elder, Damnation, Modus Hoperandi (what a name!), Hopsickle, name your passion, it's all there. Willie G's Oyster Bar is calling to me now, and I won't keep it waiting much longer. Breckenridge Brewing Company figures into tonight's plan, and that should wrap it all up nicely.

SSWC09 is a week away, and I'm about as prepared for it as I am for La Ruta de los Conquistadores. Want proof? Okay, this should do: the Monkey is still in fixed mode—been that way for more than three months—and unless I can find a well-stocked bike shop between now and next Saturday, I'll be riding the course with an even greater disadvantage than my meager talent normally fronts. But apathy settled in weeks ago, and I don't know how to kick it. Whatever; I'll handle it as it comes, when it comes.

What else, what else? Oh, I'm the artist for a new stage race from the guy who brought you the Leesburg Baker's Dozen and Snotcycle races. Okay, I'm supposed to be the artist. Trying to finish up my design this weekend. Rob, have patience; I won't let you down.

Lastly, those looking for a conclusion to my report on Big Bear, well, keep hope alive. I mean, why not? It's free.

*One of the songs playing in Marco's Pizzeria. Great Divide featured a Pavement track, "Shady Lane." Ah, nostalgia.

Goin' Postal...

Upon the chitinous spire of a snail glides my registration form, clinging tightly to the undulating mollusk as it makes the interminable journey westward to Durango, Colorado, where I hope the fine folks throwing the 2009 Single Speed World Championship shindig will deem it acceptable and see fit to welcome me into the fold. Guess we'll see.

Oh, by the way, if you haven't already sent in your registration form, please be aware that the envelope has to be postmarked no later than Friday, January 23—that's tomorrow—or it makes it no further than the waste basket. Good luck if you haven't already made the list!

Oh, and yes, I completed the required personal information before I mailed it. And included the check. Score one for me.

Update: I'm in!

More Bars In More Places...

Okay, managed to plant my ass in Boulder Cee-Oh for a little more than four days over this past weekend. Wow!

[Let me just get this out of the way: didn't take a bike; the trip was just too compressed and last minute and, with SSWC07 about to get underway in Scotland for me and a few other lucky individuals, I just didn't feel like dealing with the complications of packing, shipping, and reassembling my Inbred. Yeah, I know, silly me, but there will be a return trip. From what I saw of the trails and terrain, and knowing that there wasn't much time for acclimatization, it would have been a strange mixture of pleasure and pain anyway.]

First, no newsflash here, but Boulder is a beautiful town. Nestled up against the Flat Irons to the west, it's awash in brewpubs and adrift in bike culture. Seriously, there are almost as many bike parking racks in this town as there are car parking meters, or "organic" and "fair trade" and "free range" and "eco-cycle" stickers plastered on the windows and doors of all the great eateries. And bike shops abound, sprouting from the concrete at intersections, rubbing shoulders with the aforementioned brewpubs and the occasional coffee shop. Yeah, it's a biking town, one that puts DC and its suburbs to the level of shame normally reserved for unrepentent pederasts. And bar rides? Yep, Boulder's got 'em. Thursday evening, ran smack dab into a group of about 25 or so cyclists dressed in freaky attire and riding freakier bikes—choppers, trikes, fixies, full-sussies, tall boys, singles speeds, you name it—sounding bike horns and bells and cheering madly at onlookers and motorists alike, as dusk settled in around their pulsing bike lights with all the certainty of a post-binge hangover. Beautiful sight, these kindred spirits claiming a little pavement for the evening on a two-wheeled dérive of sorts.

On the topic of beer, offerings from Left Hand were as ubiquitous there as Budweiser and Miller Lite are in the District, and no self-respecting drinking establishment was without a Fat Tire tap handle and neon cruiser logo prominently displayed. The first place I hit was Mountain Sun, a quaint, informal, psychedelic den of iniquity favored by bleary-eyed college students and stubble-jawed drifters alike, and whose owners have an overbearing penchant for Greatful Dead memorabilia, which clung to the walls like lichen in a cave. Good food and a great array of beers, including their own tasty and creative renditions and others from Stone, Left Hand, Breckenridge, and New Belgium, to name a few. I went with their Illusion Dweller IPA...very good, though with a surprisingly (given the closeness of the West Coast) dry finish.

Now a thing or two about thin, dry air and elevation and acclimatization and flatlanders from the east: hop off the plane in Denver, make your way to Boulder, drink two beers, and half an hour later your organs feel like they've turned to sand. I'm talking serious dehydration and thirst, the kind that has you upending a gallon of spring water before you've even paid the cashier for it. Okay, until acclimatization takes place, dessication is a real concern for freshly-expatriated beer drinkers. Next up: three beers in CO equals five beers in DC. Seems that thin, dry air makes "getting there" a little easier, since you're already a bit lightheaded. In no time flat and with your wallet still fat, you find yourself unexpectedly and prematurely "pissed," as the English say. Nice, sure, but I suggest drinking the water along with the beer as a sort of pre-emptive strike. Your liver and kidneys will thank you for it.

Okay, so what fun thing did I do? Well, for kicks of a slightly more sober nature, I ended up summitting two peaks, a 13er (South Arapahoe) and a 14er (Quandary). I had been warned several times about the importance of acclimatization and the perils of altitude sickness. The rule for acclimatization, as I understand it, is one day for every one thousand feet of elevation you plan to tackle. Because I was in CO for only four days, lying idle while my lungs adapted to the thin air wasn't an option if I wanted to partake of the grandeur bursting through the horizon all around me and do something I hadn't done before.

So I went hiking, and was rewarded with some of the most beatiful views my eyes have ever had the pleasure of drinking in. And though I saw one lady sitting uncomfortably just off the crumbled rock trail above the treeline on Quandary, wracked with altitude sickness*, her face knotted in anguish "like a devil's, sick of sin" (as Wilfred Owen so eloquently framed it**), I suffered little more than an occasional shortness of breath, despite a rather strong and fast pace up and down both mountains. That, and raw blisters on the achilles area of both ankles—my own stupidity and poor planning led me to break in a new pair of boots on South Arapahoe. Unfortunately, they tried to do the same to my feet. But the damage was minimal and all but forgotten in the post-summit euphoria I felt on a balcony overlooking the ski resort in Breckenridge at its namesake brewery, a cold 471 Small Batch IPA in my hand and the ghost-prints of fantastic panoramas floating around in my head. Next time I'll experience the beauty (and, no doubt, pain) from the vantage point of a bike saddle.


















*Information on altitude sickness can be found here.

**See Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen, 1917, first published in 1920.