Sorry for the long silence.  I was on the go go go for a week, but finally have a few spare minutes to have at it with the blog.  I had never spent longer than one day in the LA area, so it was fun to see the area in full force.

Here is a photo recap of things that caught my eye.

Cool shot from the airplane.

Hollywood Blvd.

Trafffic…. ughhhh, glad to be away from that. We spent a lot of time in the car.

Driving through downtown LA in the early evening.

Laguna Beach!

Afro??

BJ Penn’s UFC training ring at RVCA

I got a couple awesome items of clothing.

At RVCA (pronounced rue-ca)

Surfboard Beach Cruiser Rack…. creative!

Too many good sunset photos to pick just one.

I got to see Rebecca! She’ll be on your 5 person Co-ed team at 24 Hours of Old Pueblo in 2 weeks.

Stopped at Stone Brewery for lunch! One of my top 5 favorite breweries! This will get its own post.

I was off the bike for 6 days, which was a good break for my knee. It still feels a little weird (I got to ride yesterday), but it isn’t hurting and I am still taking care of it. The first race of the year is in 2 weeks. It’ll be more training for me since I just finished my base! It’s in Tucson (we went last year)… looking forward to riding singletrack!!

This week has been a bump in the road for training. My knee started hurting on Thursday in a really bad way. I can train through uncomfortable knee pain, but I know when I need to stop. Out of the blue, my knee went from feeling perfectly fine to shockingly painful… so I went home and took a few days off. Last year, I had this kind of pain, but it would twinge every once in awhile for a second. This time, it was every pedal stroke. I’m guessing it’s tendinitis of some kind, because I am very prone to it. Today, Saturday, it felt fine so I headed out on the bike for 2 hours… especially because I’ll be off the bike for the next 6 days.

Sometimes, where the pavement ends is where the real journey begins… it can be a journey of the outdoors, or a journey of the mind.  There’s a reason we love to ride our bikes or be active, and part of it is the processing and cleansing of our minds.

When I can’t ride singletrack, I’ll take gravel roads. Today was really beautiful. It was windy and chilly, and the light was amazing. I barely even noticed that I was fighting a headwind because I was so in awe of the beauty around me that is so easily overlooked.   The sun was shining, and the light seemed very white and clear. I smiled to myself because I felt happy and alive, and best of all, thankful for everything in my life. I have been trying really hard not to take things, moments, and people for granted, because the truth is you never really know how much time you have in that moment…whether it be on your bike, with a friend or family member, doing something exciting and new.  In high school, I was a huge fan of the Transcendentalists. …particularly Thoreau (and Walden). “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life…” insightful.

I am trying hard to live deeply.  It’s so easy to get caught up in being busy that we put our heads down and just get it done.  I mean, sometimes you have to.  I’ve been trying to live with intention more often and not be on autopilot.  Doing more than just breathing in and breathing out, but savoring what I’ve got.  Anyways…

My knee didn’t hurt at all on the ride today.  Funny how something like an injury can make you appreciate a simple 2 hour zone 2 ride when just the week before I was thinking, “Ugh… no more!  e.g. the Carter Lake day”   Unfortunately, my knee twinged again when I went from a sitting to a standing position from the floor this evening. So weird… It’s back to feeling fine. R.I.C.E. for now. I have forced time off the bike which is actually a good thing due to the injury (not so good that I rode my bike 5 hours total this week, but what can do, eh?) After all, it’s still winter time!

So! I am off to LA in the morning. To quote Pretty Woman, “Welcome to Hollywood!! What’s your dream?! What’s your dream?!”  I have many dreams!  Jeff and I will be doing a lot of bike shop visits around the LA area. It’s going to be busy, but a great way to see SoCal. I’m just excited to see and HEAR the ocean, dig my toes in the sand, and feel the waves wash over my ankles.

Wow…. that’s…populated…!

I’ll try to get some sort of update to ya from the big CA.  See ya on the west coast!

I got to go skiing this week! The snow was ok… only a few inches of new snow on the ground, and the bowls at the top of the mountain aren’t quite filled in. Hopefully next time I hit the slopes, I’ll be rewarded with a powder day. It was still an awesome time, and I felt fortunate to be out there.

The sun peaked through the clouds on the Continental Divide only briefly during the day. By late afternoon, the wind was ripping around and making it very cold.

This is all at Loveland Ski Area. I got a 4 pass for the year… not too extreme, but enough to get out there a little bit and “shred the gnar.”

See if you can make out the difference between horizon and sky. We got there early, so it was not crowded until after lunch.

Awesome.

Eddie came with me and showed me around the mountain… and is a badass snowboarder. SWEET! I gotta get back up to James Peak Wilderness with him and see how the snow fortress is doing!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new Adidas goggles! I got the Yodai! I’m renting equipment. I STILL don’t own skis/boots/poles/helmet. I will buy my own helmet at the end of the season, but ski equipment is sooo pricey! Even the deals are pricey. It’s actually cheaper for me to rent 4 times a year. Plus, if I had my own equipment, I’d feel very inclined to buy a season pass and my winter cycling training would go right out the window!

I really sucked with my photography skills that day… I was pre-occupied trying not to make an ass of myself (and I did by the way!)

and then it was back to the bike….

Still too muddy to ride some of the open space multi use paths at the Boulder Res… boo. I’m sooo ready for summer. I usually start getting impatient this time of year!

So I decided to ride somewhere else. Who says you can’t find singletrack? haha. This is a very poor excuse and I hesitate to even call it “singletrack” but that’s all I have to work with right now!

Now, the plan is to get in some big days. I leave for LA on Sunday, and will be off the bike until Saturday. That’s 6 days of no pedaling!

I got an email last night from JohnG, requesting an interview for his popular cycling podcast (twojohnspodcast). I was flattered! We chatted, and I did my best not to sound like a total dork.

Click the image to get to the podcast, and click the video to listen. Thanks again!

Duh… duh… duh….!

This is the first weekend I’ve spent in Colorado since 2009.  Fortunately, the weather was mild in the 50s, but it has been cloudy!  I am in my third and final month of base training, and starting to introduce some light to moderate intensity to build muscular endurance. I’m just glad it’s not freezing and snowing.

My hip is sore, but manageable.  The worst is when I’m laying in bed at night.  I’m not sleeping that well for a number of reasons, but that’s the worst of it.  The training camp I was going to next weekend in St George (Camp Lynda) got canceled due to a high chance of rain.  Once those trails get wet, you can’t really ride them.  Bummer for sure, but that’ll buy me a few more days at home before I have to head to LA for Ergon related work for a week.  That will be fun too!

And of course, a few photos from the weekend.

Carter Lake… I don’t enjoy this ride, but it’s a good, flat continuous effort. I try to make myself do it once a week.

The canyons are still crisp.

And the deer in Boulder County are plentiful… and everywhere… and not shy.

Here I come! Beep! Beep!

“And you are…?” (umm, dude, you have one antler)

Dirt roads are good.

Very good.

My buddy keeping me motivated. How do ya like his new white glasses?

I’m trying out some new lenses on my Adidas Adilibria Shield glasses. I usually use smaller lenses, but it turns out the big ones really block the wind and elements nicely. I like to call it the huge windshield on my face! hehe Nahhh, they are cool!

A quick video, composed by J to the K.

Lefthand Canyon from Jeff Kerkove on Vimeo.

Serenity… now.

Tomorrow, I’m putting on some DH skis, and heading to Loveland. I’ve never skiied there before (just ridden the Lenawee Trail). The ski area is on the continental divide and tops out at 13,010′. Sweet.

I’m not talking about polishing school where you learn to become a lady with manners. I threw that out the window a long time ago. I’m talking about etiquette on the bike – on both the trail and on the road. Most of us know the general rules, but I often can’t help but think that there are riders who simply don’t know the rules(and then there is the group who simply doesn’t care). I get annoyed and frustrated when I don’t feel like myself or other riders are being respected, so here are a few pointers so you’re not “that guy.”

As cyclists, if one guy screws up, cyclists are guilty by association.  Let’s make a good name for us on the trails and roads.

On the trail:

• Always yield to the uphill rider.  In other words, don’t go bombing down a trail at mach 5 and run the person riding up in the opposite direction off the trail.  I know we love bombing down singletrack, but not at the expense of others.
• Don’t litter!  Pick up your trash, douchebag!
• Stay on the trail. This seems like a no brainer, but by going off the trail, even a little bit, the singletrack is no longer so single.
• If you are going to stop, at least be aware of your surroundings.  Try to stop at a wider section of trail so you don’t cause a traffic jam.
• Don’t be a chode.  I.E.  Don’t try to race people because they look fast.  Chances are, you’ll make them mad and look like an idiot in the process… especially if you try to get in front of them just to get in front of them, slow down, and then end up in the way.
• Don’t modify the trail because it’s too hard.  That means, don’t move that rock out of the way because it trips you up.
• If you see a horse, slow down and say something.  If you don’t say something, the horse won’t know what the heck you are and probably get spooked.  Give the equestrian time to move over and be patient.  Ask the equestrian how they’d like to you to proceed. I know this is hard sometimes, especially when they take forever and you’re like, “AHHH MOVE!!!”
• Give hikers the right of way too.  In fact, slow down…especially if they have dogs.
• Say hi to people!  It doesn’t hurt to be friendly, right?
• Ride in control… you wouldn’t like it if someone came right at you screaming and out of control.  Has that happened to me?  Yes, and I promptly moved out of their way.
• If you are walking a technical section and someone is riding behind you, don’t walk in the line the rider would take.  This happens a lot in races.
• WEAR A HELMET!

On the road

• Pass other cyclists on the left
• This one is debatable… you’re supposed to call out “on your left” to pedestrians.  In my experience, they usually freak out and jump to the left.  I usually just say, “Hi!  Excuse me!”  and watch how they proceed.  Head on collisions with people on foot is never fun for either party involved… or the small rodent like dog dressed in the sweater.
• Don’t sit on someone’s wheel.  You know who you are.  You see someone up ahead, and you get right behind them and draft off of them without saying a word.  This will really piss off the person you are behind and worse, it can be dangerous because they don’t know your back there… OR they could brake check you.  Do your own work.  If you are coming up on someone, wave as you pass, or say hi.  Don’t sit behind me and then “attack.”
• Which brings me to DON’T BE A CHODE.  Don’t pass me, going .2 mph faster, get 10 ft in front of me and slow down… and then when I have to pass you again,  try to race me.  I’m not interested.  I don’t care if you pass me, but please don’t chase me down only to go slow… and then speed up greatly after I pass you again.  Please??
• Try to be nice to cars.  I know they suck sometimes, but it makes all of us look bad if you’re waving the bird and screaming at the car who cut you off.  It’s frustrating, but the car wins and the last thing we want is a bunch of motorists driving around with a chip on their shoulder about cyclists.  We want respect, but so do they.
• Try not to blatantly blow through red lights and stop signs.  At least yield.
• Oh, wear a FREAKING helmet!
• Don’t litter
• Don’t take up the whole road.  I know we like to ride next to our friends on rides, but if you’re taking up the whole lane… that’s not cool.  (and another thing to annoy motorists).  This can also put the motorist in danger trying to pass you across a double yellow.  Share the road also means cyclists sharing the road with cars.
• Be friendly.  I hate it when people think they are too cool to wave at you because um… you’re NOT.

Think of something I left out?  Feel free to add it.  Think I’m being irrational?  Come spend a warm day on a bike in Boulder county when you encounter 100s of cyclists in one day and you’ll understand.

Jeff is very talented with his graphic art and movie making skills. Yesterday, he rode with me for awhile, gathering clips to make a video of training. Thanks!

Here it is. The last part makes me laugh.

Sonya Looney training outside Boulder, CO from Jeff Kerkove on Vimeo.

He also was clever, and took a video of how I use my favorite Ergon grip – the GX3. We can argue to the death of whether bar ends are better or not. For me, personally, I won’t ride without ‘em. I went a few years without bar ends to give it a try, and I missed them. When Ergon came out with the bigger bar end (I used to use the GX2 before the GX3), I was ecstatic. I had GX2 on one bike, and GX3 on the other bike… now I have GX3 on both.

Leverage, baby, YEAH! Click here b/c I can’t embed this for some reason. We need to play with the permissions.

It’s Friday, and I think it’ll be in the 50s here this weekend. I miss the NM sun. It seems brighter and the sky seems more blue there.

That’s what you gotta tell yourself when you are riding on snow and gravel. This is my 4th winter in CO, and I have been pretty cautious and lucky. I have taken a few spills on the ice, but never crashed going downhill on a snowy road. There is a first time for everything, and today was that time.

Today was my inaugural 2010 ride to Gold Hill. This is a ride I do quite often as you get over 3000′ of elevation gain in about 10 or 15 miles, plus you get to ride the dirt! I usually go up Sunshine Canyon, and down 4 Mile Canyon. Sunshine was great today… dry and painful as always.

Kerkove demoralized me as I was burning, huffing, and puffing…and he was riding circles around me. ptttph on him. It’s good to be humbled, right?  He rode with me to the pavement change, and then I was on my own.

I had a little buddy “riding” with me for awhile. I hope he wasn’t lost… he wouldn’t let me grab his collar to look at the tags. Somehow the most artistic photos I take are the ones where I point and shoot, and don’t even really look at what I’m doing. Kinda funny.

We got our new Adidas eyewear for the year! I have 2 other pairs of glasses that totally rule. These ones are the Supernovas.

After sweating bullets on the way up (I was overdressed), it was time to get chilly on the way down. I brought an arsenal of clothing with me for the way down. I have frozen solid coming down these canyons far too many times… (like my hair has actually frozen solid!)

4 Mile Canyon was very snowy and slick at the top, and the pavement near the bottom was wet. Shortly after I took this picture, I was one with the ground.

It doesn’t take much… you start daydreaming a little bit, and suddenly you are going way too fast down a snowy, gravely road. If you touch the brake at an inopportune moment, down you go… and down I went, HARD.

All I remember is the sound of me hitting the ground, looking uphill and moving further and further away from my bike, and thinking “I am still sliding.” Good thing the road was covered in snow.

This is going to be a bad pain in the butt, especially with the accompanying bruise. Pain in the butt… to quote a dear friend – “Pun intended!!!!”

Ironically, the blood makes it look worse. The cut doesn’t hurt… but my left glute and hip got ROCKED. There will be cursing up every single stairstep to my room, and I’m on the third floor.

Time to ease the pain with some happy hour, and hopefully this won’t impinge upon my training for the rest of the week… If a sweet bruise forms, I’ll keep you updated with the black and blue artwork.

Well, I had a great few weeks in ABQ.  I made some good progress in NM for Ergon, some great training, and logged a great deal of new memories with friends and family (*sniff*).  I have a few more pics from the last few days here.  I got to ride with Nina Baum and Shannon Gibson – 2 buddies from when I first started my racing career in NM.  That’s always a happy reunion!

You can never go wrong with cookies…. never!

I love you, Nina!

Riding the Tues night crit course at Balloon Fiesta Park.

Spent time loving my foothills trails. Look how blue that sky is!

Singletrack rules.

and a recap…

awwww, I miss my buddies. We’ve known each other for half our life!

Sweetness.

Magic.

Mom!

and…

DAD!

and sadly I didn’t get a pic with my brother! WTF?

My peeps! Nina and Tina.

Not a bad way to start the new year…. I miss everyone already! Thanks for an amazing time!

I grew up in NM, and moved away a few days before turning 22. I never put a lot of thought in NM culture. That is, until I went out for “Mexican” food in Colorado and was grossly disappointed. What I failed to notice was that there is a difference between Mexican and NEW Mexican food. How is a girl to know? In Albuquerque, all the New Mexican restaurants say “Mexican” food, hence my confusion!

So you might ask, what is the difference? What is New Mexican food? For one, it’s delicious. I figured I would share a part of the culture that people may not know (unless you’ve been to NM).

The biggest difference is that New Mexican food uses chile. Red… green… or “xmas”(both) if you prefer, which I do!

Green chile is made from chopped, roasted chile peppers (usually from Hatch, NM). They smell so good when being roasted. Red Chile is made from dried chiles that have been ground. No vinegar is used in Chile Sauces. My mom adds some tomato sauce to red chile sauce to thicken it and give it some extra flavor. I could eat it with a spoon. Most traditional NM dishes come with pepitas (or chopped, fried potatoes) and pinto beans…covered in cheese and chile sauce. Also, sopaipillas or puffed, fried bread is served and usually free at the end of each meal in a New Mexican restaurant. Most people put honey on it, but some entrees come with meats in the sopapilla (or stuffed sopaipilla).

Here are a few other dishes I happen to LOVE:

Chile Rellenos

breaded/battered whole green chile, stuffed with cheese and fried. Cover with chile sauce.

Chile Con Queso

Green chile, cheese, sausage, evaporated milk, cream of mushroom soup.  It’s a dip for your chips!  YUM.

Chicken Enchiladas

This isn’t the best photo. I should have taken one of my mom’s enchies.  Corn or flour tortillas (I like flour), with chicken or beef (I like chicken), rolled.  Covered with cheese and red and/or green chile.  You can get flat ones too.  Enchiladas are one of my favorites!

Sopaipilla

puffed, fried bread… put honey on it.  DELISH

Tamale

Meat rolled in cornmeal, and put into a corn husk (served with red chile)

Carne Adovada (not my favorite but must include it!)

This is a photo of a burrito, and often it’s served this way.  It is marinated cubes of pork in garlic, red chile, and oregano.

Salsa…NM salsa is different from Mexican salsa.

It is made with chile, and can be thicker at certain restaurants. It is WAY hotter than Mexican salsa in a lot of cases. We joke here that you run out of salsa before you run out of chips (meaning we put tons of salsa on a chip!)

This is what’s on the NM flag. The Zia or ancient sun symbol.  It is supposed to symbolize the sun, with rays pointing in 4 directions.  (it is from the Zia Pueblo/Native Americans) The Zia Native Americans believed that the giver of all good gave gifts in groups of four.  Notice that each ray has 4 lines as well.

• The four directions – north, east, south and west.
• The four seasons – spring, summer, fall and winter.
• The day – sunrise, noon, evening and night.
• Life itself – childhood, youth, middle years and old age.

All of these are bound by a circle of life and love, without a beginning or end.

This sign is very special to me because the sun is a very special entity.

So there you have it, a little NM culture.  I’m sure I left things out, so feel free to add whatever in the comments section!