Purging things from our basement, I uncovered a goldmine of old pictures from 'the day'. Many were from when we'd just moved to Colorado from San Francisco in October of 2004. It made me reflect upon the amazing community we have here, great times and memories of great races....and more recently, the dream of seeing my son's do the same. We're all still learning, even after 18 years of putting numbers on my back for this sport. I can't stop. Won't stop (tm - Michael Cody). 

2004

October at the CU Research Park...a.k.a: The worlds crappiest cross course. Opperman and me slaying each other. I think he won that day. I think I passed out as this was my first race at altitude. 

2005

Racing for and managing Bobby's Rocky Mounts cross team. We were a crappy squadra but well loved. This was States, Cat 3s I think. I won some races but not this revered one at Xilinx. It still is one of my favorite courses. 

2006

States again at Xilinx, this time I move up to the fast old guys, the 35s. Great weather that year. Jon C motored all of us. Couldn't catch that guy as I remember each time on the pavement he was a blur scooting away from us, then each time in the mud/technical we'd accordion that machine back. 

2007

35's States, Lyons, CO, 17 degrees. I had frost nip for 4 months after this race. 

2008

Cross Vegas UCI race. It was like racing in an oven. When Frischy caught me at minute 50, that was that...but it was a dream come true. 

2009

Cross Vegas UCI race again...more oven. 

2010

35's, States, the first year of the BCS Ambassador squad. That's Pete throwing hup at me. 

This was Aiden's first 'season' - he did a few races and fell in love. 

2011

Xilinx, men's open, hotter than Hades. 

Aiden getting some at States at Castle Rock. 

2012

USGP, 35s, massive field, great day and most perfect conditions. 

Aiden bos-rijden at Xilinx, Blue Sky Cup. 

Seamus in his first year of racing the beautiful sport with three to go. States, Castle Rock. 

2013

Blue Sky Cup, 35's, slipped pedal at the start - literally put me DFL, and had to fight back all day. Anvil material. 

Aiden pushing hard at Primal Palooza in Golden at a horse farm. We got poop on us all day. 

Seamus showing fine Boulder Junior Cycling form at Primal Palooza in Golden. 

On to 2014. More memories to be had as this whole story evolves. Proud to be part of this community and fabric of characters who call themselves Colorado crossers. Lots more photos collected over the years found here in my Flickr repository. You may see yourself in there! SO many great photographers out on the race course every weekend it's incredible. Dejan Smaic, Shawn Lortie, Terri Irsik-Smith, John Flora, Mountainmoon Photography, Daniel Dunn, Yann Ropers, Bo Bickerstaff, Green Curry Photography, and many many more. Thanks for being out there and making memories. 

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It's cold. And snowy. And we're smiling here in Boulder. The motivation of the crew here in Boulder is extremely high to perform well in Madison and in Louisville. Almost all training exclusively outside., suffering gladly in the bitter cold. It's so inspiring to push each other as hard as possible as we all want to see that sweet Colorado flag flying high on podiums and for our own personal bests at the Big Shows. Our beloved 'Parc des Champions' has become a playground-cum-battleground to push each other to red-line limits while ensuring our bike driving is as smooth as ever...

For me, I will be absent from Madison. My eldest going in my place to rip up the 10-12's in his first Nationals appearance. He's stoked. And my wife is the best for inspiring the idea that she is taking him to the great white north while I am here in Boulder busily working and training for Louisville. 

One month to go. I am deeply excited and motivated to shred. Giddy up. 

Yup. Nice work Za Dubba:

Hello Cyclocross Fans!

Colorado Front Range Cyclocross from Celin Serbo on Vimeo.

What an amazing weekend! The camp was an absolute success. It was incredibly fun to participate and help out where I could amongst these behemoths of cross. The preparation was amazing by Frank Overton of FasCat Coaching, Albuquerque native and uber-coach to cross hardmen John Verheul of JBV Coaching and Boulder’s own Brandon Dubba Dwight. The camp also had phenomenal support from Donn Kellogg of Clement tires (and each participant got a free set of the new Clement PDX mud tire. Amazing!). Let me give you the blow by blow of the weekend….and if you’re on the fence for doing a camp or you  think you’ve “already got it”, etc, think again and try and make it to next year’s camp. Amazing time spent.

Day 1: Welcome to the camp, fitting and VO2 Max testing

To begin, the camp had some great and passionate participants: Denver-Boulder locals Tim, Ed, Doug and new Boulderite Dave Hackworthy.  Dave is an Elite and U23 rider and Worlds and Euro Camp Participant for new the new Clement | Ridley | Boulder Cycle Sport team. We also had Wes from Indy and Joe from Idaho. Great characters. Make no mistake: This was a crew of passionate ‘crossers who want to get their game dialed. The skill levels ranged from first season to Pro. If a Pro rider is in the midst, you should be too! Everyone should continue to learn. It’ll make you fast!

The first day was spent with essentially a 3:1 ratio of coaches to camper focusing on your fit and your fitness. It was a true 'lab coat' session and wonderfully educational.

Coach John V used 20 + years of experience (and coaching many of YOUR heroes on the cross scene to huge seasons and World Championship podiums) to get YOU dialed on your bike. This is not a road bike fit for your cross bike. This is position-forward, milk-the-power fitting specific for your cyclocross bike, your style of riding and of course your physiology.  The software programs used (primarily Dartfish) were amazing. You could see in amazing slow motion how various changes would radically improve your position which by extension improves your power and most importantly ‘freshness’ on the bike.

While one camper was getting fit, another was in the VO2testing torture chamber. FasCat coach Krista would work with you on the VO2 max/lactate testing. I’d never had this done before and it was…frickin’ hard!

The VO2/lactate testing was very ineteresting. It involves a radically hard ‘escalation’ of effort starting at 150 watts and progresses in blocks until you’ve reached your threshold.  This could be 350 watts for some, 5 or 600w for others. The interesting part is how the body manages lactate during this load. I was told that I was at 2x the amount of lactate produced than any other camper at my threshold (400+ watts for roughly 60 seconds at the end of my testing). Good? I still need to get the analysis walked through but it’s really how you process lactate and manage it under load. Trust me, no Lemond am I but having the data is better than NOT having the data! I am better prepared with how to handle it during races.

To get your lactate measured, you offer your finger for prick

ing. You can see my right hand in the picture to the left about to get pricked. Or, here’s what it looks like close up (right)…

So, again, the effort was massive and was (for me) the first depth I’ve done since coming back from busting myself up. But it felt great to go fully cross-eyed for the first time in 9 weeks.

While one camper was being fit and another wired up in the hurt box, Rebecca’s incredibly capable hands as a PTA would ensure your muscular/skeletal system was in good order from the exertions you were putting out. She was also critical in the fit process to ensure your body dimensions matched the bike fit spot on to keep you injury free…

Day 2: Equipment and Skills…

Saturday morning was a cross geek’s dream. We spent considerable time diving into low level details of cyclocross equipment. Brake set up, tire pressure, gearing ratios, running double versus single rings….you name it. It was discussed. Brandon painstakingly walked the campers through all these details and answered everyone’s questions.

We then kitted up and got ready for our day-of-skills training. We would do an AM session at a large thickly-grassed park, the afternoon session at the infamous Elk’s Lodge: where legends are made and hearts are broken every Wednesday morning.

The instruction and training was infinitely low-level. All ninja tricks were exposed to the campers to ensure fluidity and fun. The smoother you are, the faster you are, and it all adds up to more smiles and podium potential.

For our skills sessions, Paul from CrossPropz was a huge help to the camp by providing TONS of his portable barriers. We had them spread out essentially in mini-courses on the grass with Coach Frank equipped with Dartfish taping EVERYONE’s game.  We'd come through the barriers over and over again. We would watch the films, rewind, critique and try again until ALL the campers felt great and proud of their improvements. Everyone was markedly faster through barriers after seeing themselves and having some of the best coaches in the industry work with them to refine their game. Between sessions, we’d go back to the plush HQ of FasCat Coaching and analyze everyone as a group. It was enlightening to hear everyone help eachother out, no holds barred, just to ensure their camp-patriots were faster…

Later in the evening before team dinner, Coaches John and Frank got together with campers one-on-one to walk through individualized training plans…a HUGE part of this camp’s draw. Campers are worked with on their goals for the season and plans were created accordingly…for each individual. Amazing.

Day 3: Putting it all together…

The prior 24 hours were intense. Tons of watts put out, tons of hot laps put in and LOTS learned. Yet, still tons more to try out! In the morning, coaches John and Frank talked through a general philosophy of training for cross to ensure freshness by the end of the season (sound familiar??). We also talked of how to efficiently warm up. I did a small contribution on race day rituals....quite fun to articulate some of the ninja tricks I've learned over the last 14 years of racing this beautiful sport...

Hot laps and more instruction on handling off-cambers and run ups happened Sunday, the last day of the camp. Coach John dialed in everyone’s technique to show how to save energy, be strategic in taking ‘your space’ through barriers and finding lines that you’d NEVER think about. Only that amount of experience can show you these details.

If you’re interested and have plenty of time to waste, you can look through my Flickr album for the camp. Or, feel free to leave comments to ask any questions about it. Worth every second.

I HIGHLY recommend the camp, or any camp you can attend if traveling is hard to do no matter where you *think* you are in your cross ‘career’. You…Will…Learn…LOTS! You’ll also make some rad new friends in the process who share your passion for what we do on any given weekend in the fall.

Hup hup, buttercups! What did YOU do this weekend to get your head in the game for cross??

P.S. Our camp had Space Legs? Did yours? Ha!

I met a good bud of mine, RSteve, on the street in downtown Boulder yesterday. The guy is a human GPS unit having mentally mapped most of the best Colorado has to ride off road and is a walking lung. A wheel that very few can hold.

“Keller! Dude, why aren’t you writing as much any more?”

Cue in the sad trombone music.

The reality is with everything going on, I just don’t have the time to write…let alone ride.

But I miss it so. Telling stories, ranting, laughing…you know me by now. So, just know I’ll keep trying. And so I am posting. Thanks for re-inspiring me, RSteve!

So with that known…especially the lack of riding part…I headed to one of the most beautiful areas in all of Colorado: Gunnison. A true Western town (yes, I saw horses rambling down Gunnison’s Main Street along with the cars) and home to some great folks like Dave Wiens and wife Susan De Mattei…both institutions of our beautiful sport and the single classiest people you could ever possibly meet. We’ll get to those folks in a moment.

I decided to pull up my big girl panties and zip-tied a number on to my Ahrens 29’er for The Growler… 64 mile (2 x 32 mile laps) of some insane singletrack tied together with fantasmic rock gardens and doubletrack. The Boulder Cycle Sport crew of Brandon Dwight, Pete Webber, their families and myself met up at our home base with the Brown family for the weekend. These guys have known each other for a dog’s year or more so it was great to hear old racing stories and shenanigans.

We prepped bikes the night before…a bunch of kids geeked up on tire  pressure, suspension cush and nutrition. “Are you wearing a camelback? I’m not wearing a camel back. Are you wearing one?”

With the bikes dialed we all woke up at Oh-Dark-Thirty for a 7AM shotgun start to the race. 40 degrees out and it was a careful balance of what to wear before you start hotting up. We did a neutral roll out until we came to the race course area (Hartman Rocks BLA managed open space) where the first thing you experience was a MONSTER climb. The 360 or so participants pretty immediately thinned out with me thankfully making the front 3rd.

From here the day would get…harder. The singletrack was absolutely gorgeous. Buffed and flowy with true berms to rail corners sans brakes. Between these sections of singletrack, you’d hit these insane rock garden sections. For those here in Boulder,  imagine constantly taking on rock challenges like those on the front side of Hall Ranch…both climbing AND descending. Lots of carnage but the Growler folks made it UBER clear that this race is not for the inexperienced.

I’ll make a long story short. An hour and a 1/2 into my first 32 mile lap I develop shifting problems. While I am riding, I start playing with the barrel adjuster to fix it. On a small climb it happened: “PING!” The chain tears off. I pull off to the side of the singeltrack while 100’s of riders zoomed past. I start to use my Crank Bros tool to work the chain. The link is broken so I have to take a few out to try and get ‘er back together. I’m fumbling to get it back together and I lose the pin in the sand. ARRGH! A guy yells at me that neutral service is “right over that hill (in front of me).” So I start my trail run. Bike on back, I start my hike/run. 20 minutes later…still no neutral tent. I then start to mess around again at a trail junction when my friend and savior Jorge comes in after fixing his own issues with his bike. He helps me get the pin in and we’re off. 200ft later: “Ping!”. Chain pops again. Done. I limp it to the tent coasting, etc, and I get help from some great folks. They get me squared away and I finish the day after a lap. In at 4 hours. Awesome. But I’ll be back to ride that insane course again.

Travis and Pete had insane days with a 2nd and 4th respectively. Dubba had a great day even with a torn side wall on his tire, while our Boulder brethren Ward Baker, the Torrance bros, Dave Weber, Rob Batey and Mr. Noyes all drilled it with Mellissa Thomas and Sonya Looney kicking ass in the Woman’s group (motoring past most of the men too mind you).

Afterwards the celebration was absolutely rad. Great people, a full spread of food and beer for the racers and podium celebrations galore. We spent the day there recounting war stories of the race sipping on Mighty Arrow and getting silly on the corn bread and jambalaya. Later that evening our crew convened at a great pub. It turned into a true meeting of old friends and the posse of racers that I so admired when I was racing as a sport in the 90’s: Wiens and wife Susan, Daryl Price and wife Dana, Travis and wife Mary (who raced herself and completed the mission even after a NASTY spill), Pete Webber and wife Sally, Brandon and his new family, etc. Amazing conversations between souls who bleed this sport every day. Whether it is putting on amazing races or making the bikes you ride better, their DNA is in this sport permanently. The part that most don't get to see is that this whole culture *is* their family. Racing and the training…that’s probably a small part of it. It’s about the people they surrounded themselves with all these years that seemed to me to be the draw. The reason to keep going.

  It’s why I keep coming back too, broken chains and trail runs aside. My friends always seem to be there.

It's coming up fast. The Growler is right around the corner. An epic race put on by Dave Wiens and a crew of passionate Gunni-ites. So looking forward to this as The WB has been talking this race up to me for a dog's year.

There's two loops of 32 miles each. Participants can do the 64 mile original 'double lapper' or the single lap'er. I still don't know where my head and legs are at this time of year. My biz partner and are honored to have been selected to one of our country's most prestigious business incubators for the summer, which means hard hours and crazy schedules. Racing bikes (or getting out to train) is just less of a priority these days...taking a necessary second fiddle to earning money again (ahhh, startups...).

But alas, the call of the woods is a strong one. Just to be able to purge the soul for a weekend with friends will be more than I could have asked for, 64miles with gears...or 32 miles with none. That is the question.

If I wrote this post on Friday, it’d been all interwoven with fairly bad references to piano wire, depression, rainy days and woe-is-me’s. But alas, things change, don't they?

I don't write as much as I used to. I ride less. Every opportunity to is precious. The peloton that is life has just accelerated and I am pinned. Hoping I can stay with the group. But I did this to myself. I am in control.

But even with all that goes on these days, the focus on those precious times you can get out are so anticipated. I can not be one of those people who refuse to ride because they aren't as fast, or aren't as 'in form'. What the hell does that mean to a 40 year old husband and father anyways. Riding is my attachment to my youth. Me best memories.

So, I suit up. One leg at a time into the chamois. I throw my leg over my bike and rendezvous with my friends. Like kids. We ride and talk. Everyone is pinned with what life is throwing at us  I learn. Everyone is trying to do the best they can for their families. It’s what makes the people I choose to surround myself with beautiful.

The group ride is church for our set. Therapy at its purest. Some have the need to go off the front and put pain to the rest of us. Others  need to wheelie and table-top like little boys. We do these things and we all smile. We are alive and for the moment, the ‘real’ world is put in a compartment with its lid shut. No thoughts of deadlines. No thoughts of intervals. Just riding. Little reminders of why we commune in the woods.

We hit some intensely fun singletrack right by our houses this weekend. All from our garage doors. Deadly steeps up radically hard double track trail bringing us up to vistas that prove you really are in Colorado…and all this is available without getting into cars.

A short sneak peak at a slice of our day. The GoPro belies the steepness.

OHV Trail System Boulder (Scene 1) from Gregory Keller on Vimeo.

More of the goodness followed...

OHV Trail System Boulder (Scene 2) from Gregory Keller on Vimeo.

Commune with your friends as often as possible. For those that ‘do’, there will always be imbalance and the need to ensure not only you, but those that surround you are taken care of. It makes getting together for your penance that much more sweet.

All fancy with a press release...