beer 211

Vanilla Firkin from Red Leg. 

Great show last night at the Black Sheep.  The Toadies opened by playing the entire Rubberneck album.  Hard to believe that album is 20 years old.

Out late, so no run this morning.  Got in a half hour at the Y over lunch.  Blasted the pecs, worked the guns, that kind of stuff.

beer 210

Easy five on the Garden roads on Tues AM, easy seven on those same Garden roads in the PM.  10K on those roads Wed AM.  The Garden never gets boring.

Rumor has it that Green Man here in the Springs has been contacted by lawyers from Green Man in Asheville.  To be continued...

The Springs brewery scene continues to grow.  Iron Bird will open on August 16, and Gold Camp Brewing will open a few months after that.  Read about them here.  Both breweries are walking distance from my office and a quick ride down the bike path from my house.

Toadies tonight at the Black Sheep.  Gonna party like it's 1994!

beer 209

I swear I'll get this updated some day.  Lots going on.  Spent all weekend up in Breck hiking around with the dog, $100, and the in-laws.  Not the biggest fan of Breck but I can't say enough great things about Broken Compass Brewing.  It has replaced Backcountry Brewing as my brewery of choice if I'm in that area.  No food there, so it will keep out all the runners!

Surprised myself with an eleven mile run after work today through the Garden, possibly the most I've ever run on a Monday.  Easy 5K (had to get to work early) this morning and a good half hour at CityRock as well.

Have sort of started my taper since concerts on Wednesday and Saturday will render this week useless from a training perspective.

beer 208

Chocolate Coffee Stout from Broken Compass. Highly recommend this joint.

beer 207

‎Hop Ticket from Victory Brewing in Downingtown, PA. Yummy!

Grays Peak

beer 206/brewery 102

‎Broken Compass IPA

beer 203, 204, & 205

Snuck out at lunch on Tuesday and headed over to Fieldhouse Brewing for a Fist Pump Milk Stout.  I attended the Hops for Heroes later that evening, but I stuck to New Belgium Ranger all night (life is so rough) and I couldn't remember if I had that for the beer challenge this year.

Wednesday was the Golden Ale from Eldo Brewing in Crested Butte.  Please see my review in an earlier post about how this brewery has really good bands play there.

We're over the 200 mark on the beer challenge, and I have yet to touch my stash in the basement that I built up over the last few months of 2013 specifically for this throw down.  Probably have 200+ different kinds of beer down there.  I've relied mostly on trips to Colorado breweries and friends hooking me up.  I should try to take a chunk of that collection out so the wife sees what she calls "progress" in clearing out the basement, but that might be a challenge as I have lots of trips coming up which present the opportunity for new brews.

Training is going well.  Might have drank a few too many brews on Sunday, as my ride up Cheyenne Canon on Monday was rough.  Rough as in I had to walk my bike up part of it, and I may or may not have been seen lying on the side of the road in the fetal position crying for my mother.  Bad day indeed.

But I have a short memory, and I headed back up the Canon today after work.  Crushed it.  Under an hour from the office to the top of the Canon, and sub 1:15 to the top of High Drive.  On the way home I got caught in quite the storm, with lightening such as this:

That pic was stolen from the FB page of our local super hottie meteorologist, pictured here:

July has been a good month for me.  Not much going on this weekend other than hiking with the in-laws up in Breckenridge, but I'm still on pace for 215 miles running and 350+ on the bike.  After this month it's just lots of yoga until I can (hopefully) put this Leadman thing behind me.

Drank an Elevated IPA from La Cumbre Brewing Company out of the A-B-Q tonight.  Not quite as awesome as blue meth, but pretty good.  Went down well while watching Slaying The Badger, which is well worth the three bucks on amazon if you're into the Tour de France or watching a good 'ol 'Merican boy kick the shit out of a Frenchie.

Saw this shirt the other day.  Couldn't agree more.

beer 202

This was my supper on Monday night.  Being an adult rocks!

Red IPA from Eldo Brewing in Crested Butte.  Payment for the strenuous job of dog sitting for Marc and Amanda.  Eldo has a great music lineup.  That's all I'll say about that brewery.

beers 200 & 201

On Saturday I met Grimes up at Twin Lakes for a tour of the harder parts of the Pb100 bike.  We rode up and down Columbine, then drove over to Fish Hatchery and rode up and down Powerline.  Of course I drank a beer in between, Fire Eagle IPA from Austin Beerworks.

The rides went well and I'm feeling confident I'll finish the bike, barring a mechanical issue or wreck, in around eleven hours.  Coming down Powerline was rough for me but not the impossible barrier I was expecting.  Here's proof I made it to the top of Columbine:

We stayed up high for a bit to get in some altitude. 

Six hours of riding total, I was pretty beat by the end.  Refueled with brews and pizza at Eddyline.

On Sunday I made the drive up to Elk Park and ran up to the summit and back.  Think it was my 23rd legit summit.  Long day due to some trashed legs, the entire trip took over six hours.  Saw a guy on top sporting a Hardrock t-shirt, turns out he's a five time finisher.  We chatted for a bit and he said he got his 5th finish back in 2008 and then went on to find other non-100 miler things to do.  Think that's the boat I'll be in after Leadville this year.

Sunday evening was spent at Front Range BBQ for some brews and live music.  I feel my life has a much better balance lately now that I'm seeing live music regularly.  FRBBQ has the 120 Minute IPA from Dogfish available.

 

This Tuesday I'll be headed over to McCabe's for the Hops for Heroes shindig.  I work very closely with the Operation TBI guys so being able to support them by drinking beer is pretty awesome.  If you live in Colorado Springs you should check this out.

beer 199

Silver Rush

Nice shot of the 1500 meter run at the Monaco diamond league meet.

Just kidding.  That's me and some other dude, obviously in a big hurry, putting the rush into the Silver Rush 50.

Another one.  Still crushing it.

beer 198

Rode down to the New Belgium Clips of Faith shindig at America the Beautiful park on Thursday night.  Lots of NB stuff on tap and I went with the FOCOlaboration for the beer of the day.  Two of my favorite Colorado breweries teamed up for this, New Belgium and Odell's.

Got to meet one of my bike heroes, Fixie Dave.  He parked my bike for me at the bike valet.  Dude rode the Continental Divide Trail on a fixed gear mountain bike in 33 days.  When I had a fixie, I struggled to control the thing on the 3.5 mile paved commute to work.

 A few of the usual suspects on the red carpet:

Before the movies, $100 and I dropped by the new 503 West, formerly known at the Dutch Mill Tavern.  Good burger and if you're a fan of Colorado beers you won't be disappointed.  $100 is now dying to hit up there weekend bloody mary bar. 

On the ride home we couldn't pass up a visit to Alchemy.

Needless to say, I did not get up early enough for a run on Friday.

beer 197

Scotch Ale from Rohrbach Brewing Company in upstate New York.  Good stuff.

Close call from all the rain on Wednesday evening.  Camp Creek filled up FAST!  But the creek held.  Whatever flood mitigation work the city is doing seems to be working.  SOP for floods is to head down to the Red Rock Lounge, which was filled with folks from Woodland Park and Manitou who couldn't get home due to closed roads.

beer 196

Red Betty IPA from Central City Brewing in Canada.  Our neighbors up north can brew some decent beer!

Finally starting to feel normal again.  Did an hour of hot yoga on Monday evening, which helped speed up recovery.  This morning it was an easy 30 minute dog jog, followed by the quick bike to work.  Not much of a lunch, but I snuck out for a few routes up and down CityRock.  Then an hour home on the bike in the rain.  Easy day, but I feel much better than yesterday.

beer 195

One of my favorites, the Cheyenne Canon Ale from Bristol.  All profits go towards one of the best parks in the city.

Speaking of Canon, I signed up for the Bikes & Brews hundred mile ride in Canon City this September.  Finish line pic from last year:

beers 193 & 194

Survived Silver Rush weekend.  The bike was tough, but I managed to crank out a 6:19 finish.  Came back the next day for a strong run, 9:30.  Negative split the run, a testament to how easy I went out and how much quicker the second half of the race is.  A shot I got from the top of the first climb, mile ten:

Thanks to Lucho for taking care of my nutritional needs out there.  The last climb of the day was a lot more enjoyable for me than most runners.

beer 192

Liquid lunch down the street at Phantom Canyon.  Grievous Angel Hoppy Lager.  Meh.

Off to Leadville.  Good luck to all the Hardrockers still out there running and all those getting after it in Leadville this weekend!

beer 191

Thurs AM the dog and I headed up the Incline for my 34th time this year.  Bike commute to and from work, and that was it for the day.  Got packed for Leadville a whole day early, pretty amazing for me.

Headed over to Front Range for Ska Brewing night.  One of (the many) brews I had was the Esteval Cream Stout.  Delish, as is the standard for Ska beers.

Peter and I stayed up a bit late drinking, so no morning run.  Did get up early enough to fill one of my Hardrock finisher mugs with coffee and toast the start of the run.  Little bit homesick for Silverton today.  Rob and I have a bet as to who crosses their respective finish line first - him at Hardrock or me at the Silver Rush bike.  It's like taking candy (beer) from a baby!

Two Story Shitter

My friend Nacheaux grew up during the stone ages in a tiny Wyoming town called Encampment.  How old is she?  Her high school is in a museum!  Not turned into a museum with exhibits inside, but the entire one room school building is an exhibit at a museum!  For her senior project she invented fire.

Anywho, she always used to tell me about the main attraction in Encampment, a two story outhouse.  I just assumed she was going senile, but when $100 and I drove through the region on our recent road trip, we decided to investigate.

Guess what?  The thing exists!  Turns out that they get so much snow up there, they add a second level to the shitters since you often can't get the bottom door open during the winter.

beer 189 & 190

Back to the Wyoming beers.  Picked up this bottle from Lander Brewing.  Tasted a bit too much like wine and not enough like beer for my standards.

Made up for it with Wednesday's beer.  Wyoming has some surprisingly decent beer.

Knocking out the miles in July so far.  Tuesday morning was an easy five mile jog on the Garden roads, a quick ride to work, and a 22 mile ride home from work.  Wednesday morning was a seven miler on the Garden roads, the bike commute to work, and a post work run up Barr Trail to the Incline bail trail.  Thursday morning is probably the last time I'll work out until the weekend.

Green Man

A while ago, back when all I was hearing were rumors, I posted something about the Green Man taproom.

I have been there a few times, and I've never really said anything bad about them.  I really, really wanted them to succeed.  But even after several months the service was shoddy at best and the average wait time to get a drink, no matter how empty the bar, was still way too high.  It's fairly obvious that the folks there aren't quite ready for prime time.  But hey, it's a bar that used to be a church, and in the Springs I think that's pretty awesome!

But then I got word that there was a cease and desist letter sent to a local beer blog, Focus On The Beer.  I'm not the biggest follower of that blog, as I don't use words like "nose" and "palate" when talking about my beer drinking.  But the guys are cool and they do great things for the local beer community.

Here's the article that prompted the lawyers.  Remember kids, when you post something on the interweb, it's there forever!

It's actually not that bad of a review.  And everyone you talk to down here says the same thing about Green Man.  "I really, really want them to succeed, but...."  You would think the folks in charge might listen to some constructive criticism.  Or maybe use some of their legal moolah to hire an extra bartender.  But I guess not.  Of course, when you steal your name and logo from another brewery, you probably need all the lawyers you can get.

This is the last straw though, I won't be back to Green Man.  Lawyers chasing after local beer swilling bloggers?  Bush league.  If I want a downtown taproom experience, I'll go drink my beers at Brewer's Republic. 

FYI, this review of Green Man was spot on!

beer 188

Solid IPA from Tommyknocker.  Been way too long since I visited this brewery.  Other than New Belgium stuff, Tommyknocker brews were my first Colorado micro, as they used to sell the stuff long ago at the Whip In.

Overslept on Monday morning, but still got in the bike commute to and from work.  Nice ten miler on the Garden roads on Monday evening.

Easy five miler, again on the Garden roads (I never get sick of that place), on Tuesday morning.  Hope to get in a nice ride later today if the weather holds.

beers 184, 185, 186, & 187

184 was a growler of River North White from River North Brewing in Denver.  Liz owed me this from when I guessed her Boston time within 60 seconds.

 185 was the just released Screaming Eagle from Red Leg Brewing.  10.5% ABV wine tasting stuff.  I told Todd if he was going to name a brew after the 101st he should have called it pussy juice.  He wasn't amused.

Hit up McCabe's at 10AM on Saturday to catch the Tour de France and to enjoy a breakfest brew.  Helles Lager from New Belgium.  On one TV they had the Tour, on another TV they had re-runs of the hot dog eating contest. 

Dropped by BierWerks on the way home from Buff Creek for beer 187.  Therapy Session English Brown Ale.  BW does some fine work up there in Woodland Park.

Pikes via bike

On July 4 some friends and I decided to ride over to the one year anniversary party at Red Leg Brewing.  But we wanted to take the difficult way, by way of the Pikes Peak Highway up to the top of the mountain and back down.  It's a straight shot five miles from my house to the brewery.  The route we decided on would give us 60 for the day.

I'll tell you this - it's a fucking hard ride!  Well, the first half is, anyways.  Here's the garmin data.  Took me just shy of six hours to get up from the house (the time included three long breaks - first at the entrance to the highway, and then at the two gift shops on the highway).

Here's the group.  Liz in the yellow jersey as she was first up the mountain.  Unfortunately, Marc and Liz would be unable to complete the entire ride, as they both arrived at Red Leg in a car.  Quitters.

Proof I hauled my bike up there:

One of the reasons I was a bit slower was that I was working on my project to piss off JMock by finding Bigfoot before he does.  I'm sooooo close!

I don't think I pedaled from the summit all the way down to the Garden.  But I was super thirsty so I had no issues pounding a few extra miles to get to Red Leg.