Safe and Sound

I made it to NYC safe and sound early Sunday morning. Just thought you'd all want to know. The trip was great. Definitely made some lasting memories that will be some of my favorites for awhile.

Details will follow when I get more time.

ttyl

I'll see you all in NY. (in person, online, or otherwise)

Cross-country road trip

Change of plans. Instead of flying from Provo to New York, I'm going to be riding with a friend of mine who just graduated and is moving out to DC for an internship.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what route we take and/or where we stop for pictures, refueling, eating, sleeping, peeing, etc??? If anyone has family or friends along the route that would be willing to feed us and house us for a few hours while we stretch our legs and sleep that would be awesome to! Let me know.

I've driven long distances for work over the summer, but never this long and never cross-country. I've never been to some of the states that I will be passing through later this coming week so I'm excited (I leave Thursday morning).

Darth Vader video

My roommate Taylor just showed Sean and I this. Oh so funny. Behold the power of editing.

10 Hoodies!!!

I discovered tonight as I was preparing to pack some things for my move to NY that I own 10 hoodies (well, pretty much only 9 since the 10th one is a work hoodie and has reached the point where it should be thrown away.) Most of you would consider me a fairly reasonable and frugal person so let me just say on my defense, that I only purchased 3 of these hoodies. The other 7 were given to me for one reason or another. BUT...needless to say I am still shocked that I own 10 freakin' hoodies.

Obviously they are not ALL going to come with me to NY so I need to make a decision. Any suggestions?
black Stars and Stripes*
green H&M*
black/grey/yellow Senate

brand new green Sessions hoodie (not cotton)*
white Volcom*

dark blue DC Shoe
plain black

grey Americorp
grey BYU

Packing sure does suck

So I've been putting it off for awhile now, but the time has come that I need to start packing away my stuff and figuring out what I'm going to take with me to New York.

I have a lot of crap! But I've been pretty good I think: there's a big pile that's going to DI and another that's going to the trash. :)

Emily Loizeau: (Je suis) Jalouse

I came across this music video quite randomly today and I fell in love instantly. So amazing! So so amazing!



PS - I found another version of the music video with English subtitles. If anyone wants to get an idea of what she's singing you can see it here.

NYC, here I come!

It's official: I'm now a real grownup. At least...I think that's how it works.

Some of you have heard the rumors and I'd like to take a moment to confirm...Yes, (as of about an hour ago) I now have a job in NYC. Don't be offended if you didn't know until now...I didn't want to tell everyone until I actually accepted the position.

I start work in about 2 weeks.
NYC, here I come!

(crap...I guess this means I need to clean my room...)

Payson Canyon: proving grounds for the new saddle

Saturday Sean and I went for a ride. It had been awhile, and was well needed. Plus, I needed to break in my new saddle. It ended up being the longest (time-wise) ride that I've done (and maybe the longest mileage as well). All and all, the seat worked great. Pretty comfy. My pelvic bone on either side of my butt was a tad bit sore the next day, but I think that's to be expected when you combine the fact it was my longest ride yet and the first time that saddle has been riden.

We rode out to the base of west mountain and then down to Payson. After filling up our water bottles at a gas station there, we headed up Payson Canyon for about an hour of climbing. That climb just keeps on going and going. It's gorgeous.

Here's some stats from my computer:

Ride Time: 3:55 (just shy of 4 hours)
Distance: 62.8 miles
Average Speed: 16 mph
Max Speed: 37

And Here's a cool map that I put together of our ride. We started in Provo, went out to West Mountain, then down to Payson, then up Payson Canyon. The green line shows that path.

We didn't backtrack exactly the way we came. You can see the blue line is our way back once we got back out of the canyon, and it eventually merges back to our starting path as you near Provo. (Click on the map to see a bigger version.)


I'm not positive how far up the canyon we actually went so this map isn't accurate with that info. All I can say is that once we reached the canyon, we climbed for an hour and we had a decent pace set. As for everything else, the route on the map is pretty darn close to the exact route we took.

Free Root beer Float Night!

This just in. Tonight (Thu the 7th) from 8pm to midnight your local SONIC should be giving out free root beer floats. Just thought ya'll should know.

Thanks Pace!

I wanna know what it's like...

This song is beautiful.



Nada Surf - Inside of Love

Google Maps: Street View

(cue the beatnik music)

Google. Gooooo-gull. Gargantuan giant of gift-giving goodies.

You free my life.
From tears and strife.
I smile when I see your name.

I love your gadgets.
They've become habits.
They don't go a day without use.

Hey Google...keep crankin' out convenient cool...stuff.

Victoria's Secret: new biking line???

OK, so the original title of this post was "New Saddle" but after hearing a roommate's comment about the look of these pics, I opted to rename it. :) I think Larry the Cable Guy would be proud of the new title considering the second picture (if you don't know what I'm talking about, click here and once the video loads watch from about 2:40 to 3:40). Anyways, enough with the explanation of the new title for the post.

Look what finally came in the mail today!
Isn't it pretty?
I must say, I was really impressed with the packaging. I mean, I open up the cardboard shipping box and remove some packaging paper to see this:
The clear plastic "guitar case" for the saddle even has these two little clips inside for the rails (the two bars along the bottom of the seat that connect to the seatpost) to clip into and keep the seat from moving around in the package.

Let this all be a lesson to us in branding. I mean, how differently would I feel about this brand if I opened up the cardboard shipping box and the saddle was just in a thin clear plastic bag, rolling around the box? The packaging of this product provided me with a very different and powerful brand experience. The people working with Selle San Marco know what they're doing.

Sean said I had cool hair

Biking on Monday we stopped to fill our water bottles at Sundance Resort before continuing up Alpine Loop Rd.

Sean thought my hair was cool so he took this picture:


I guess that's what happens to your hair after a hard climb, a quick downhill, and another hard climb all with a helmet on when you have product in it from the day before.

Eat your heart out Cafe Rio

You probably remember the dinner that Sean, Jason, and I made for ourselves after our bike ride on Saturday...well today for lunch I used what was left of my steak as well as the salad we had, etc to make up a little something to rival one of my favorite places to eat: that's right, Cafe Rio.

Take a look for yourself:
I even mixed the jalapeno ranch dressing and avacado vegetable dip in our fridge (compiments of Litehouse) with what little was left in the fridge of the House Dressing from when we had Cafe Rio on Friday to make a way good salad dressing to go on top of my creation.

All in all...it was tasty.

Change of Plans

Sean, Tyler (dude from the ward) and I took off on our ride this morning around 9 am. but we didn't end up riding Squaw Peak and Hobble Creek Canyon as planned. Instead, we rode up Squaw Peak, back down...and then went and rode to the top of Alpine Loop Rd again (up past Sundance Resort where Sean, Jason, and I rode on Saturday).

It was a great ride. LOTS of climbing. On the way back home through Provo Canyon there was a crazy headwind that totally sucked. But as soon as we hit University Ave. it became an AMAZING tailwind. We were pedaling along in our top gear as if we were taking an easy cruise along the beach...and we were going 28 mph! That fast, and it didn't feel like we were working at all!

Sean and I decided to kick it into gear once we got stopped at the light at Bulldog and University to see how fast we could get going with this kind of tailwind. I got up to 36 mph on University as we cruised past 800 North. Pretty sure that's a new max speed for me on the flats. It's funny because I think that was my top speed going down Squaw Peak the first time.

Speaking of max speeds, I have a new one! I hit 48 mph coming down Sundance today! The computer on my bike says that my top speed was 47.3 but I looked down and saw 48. I wasn't going that fast long enough for my computer to register it as the top speed, but I hit it! Here's the stats of the ride from my computer:

ride time - 3:43
distance - 52.1
average speed - 14 mph
max speed - 47.3

Stay Tuned:

We're planning on riding up to the top of Squaw Peak and then Hobble Creek tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.

Alpine Loop

Ride Summary:
We rode up Provo Canyon and up past Sundance to the top of Alpine Loop. It was awesome!

Ride Time: 3:26
Distance: 48.5 miles
Average Speed: 14.1 mph

New Max Speed: 44 mph
also, it's about a 3500 ft altitude change from the base to the top of Alpine Loop.

Extended Version:
Not having school or work certainly has its perks. Lately I've been doing a lot of biking and I'm loving it.

On Thursday Sean and I rode the West Mountain Loop (you all read about that here). Then on Friday Jason, Sean, and I went mountain biking up at Sundance and South Fork. Yesterday, the three of us rode the Alpine Loop. (Please see map below for a rough visual or click here). Let me tell you about Saturday's ride:

Basically we rode up University (notice all the "up's"), up Provo Canyon, then turned left and rode up to Sundance Resort (where we had mountain biked the day before). We filled up (ok, so that up doesn'st really count) our water bottles there and then kept going up Alpine Loop to the top. I think Jason said it's a 3500 ft elevation change from the base to the top. Honestly it was one of my favorite rides yet! It just felt so good and I felt like I was climbing really well. Sean even made a few comments about how well I was riding.

Here's a pic of me during part of the climb.
At the top of Alpine Loop you can either drop down into American Fork Canyon or go to Canyon Springs. Seeing as how none of us had ever been to Canyon Springs we thought we'd head that way. It was 7 miles so it would tack on another 14 miles to our journey.

We turned right at the top of Alpine Loop and cruised down what I think was about a 14% grade. It was amazing. I reached a new max speed: 44 mph.

After a couple of miles of fast, smooth, long curved downhill the road turns uphill. We zoomed up that and stopped to discuss. What we just road down we'd have to ride back UP and seeing as how we just climbed 3500 ft and weren't sure if we'd be able to fill our water bottles at Canyon Springs, we opted to turn around. It was a steep climb, but so good. We soon reached the top and then turned to head down to Sundance Resort, Provo Canyon, and back home.
By the time we got home we were pretty hungry, but we wanted to make sure we ate something healthy. After stretching out and showering up, we headed to the grocery store to pick up some supplies to make this:
The picture doesn't even do it justice. It was SO good. Thanks Dad for teaching me how to season a great steak.

Sean's blog

You should check out my roomates blog.

He posts funny things. Like this:

I'm tired

Sean and I did the West Mountain Loop today. Basically we rode from the house in Provo down to Provo Bay, around the big mountain down there following the edge of the lake down to Genola, then back up through West Mountain, Payson, and Spanish Fork back up to Provo.

Here is a rough map of what we did. It's not really accurate (seeing as how we started in Provo and we took a couple different roads once we got to Genola), but you get the idea. That's pretty much the route.

This is what the computer on my bike says:

distance: 58.7 miles
ride time: 3:29
average speed: 16.8 mph