Today I finally ventured out into the cold of Colorado for my first bike ride since driving my little road racer 1,200 miles from California on the back of the Volvo. Dawning my Chinese riding pants and socks, I also made sure to put on my sleeved Mizell Racing jersey because of weather. I packed some goods in case I broke down or stopped to dine, which included a light jacket for any sudden storms that may approach this reckless land and strapped it all to the back of my Trek 1000, just so I could reminisce of the good old days of packing it all down the road. I inflated the tires to their peek performance level of 120 psi, strapped on my helmet, and downloaded MapMyRide for my iPhone. (I also started up my Holux m-241 for redundancy and spot checking.) The only thing left to do was embark.
I stepped out into the brisk 70 degree air, lightly clouded, so the nuclear heat of the sun could be avoided. I shivered. This was a desolate place. The light cloud cover, still air, and seventy degree ambience created a surreal mind fog. Burrrrr…fog.. I plunged right into my ride with vigor and quickly found two factors to be the most obnoxious: one, there was debris all over the roads from the previous storm and de-icing techniques, two, I was dehydrated before my first mile was completed. Racing downhill, I was struggling for good deep breaths, and found mucus collecting faster than I could project it into traffic. However, my body quickly warmed up and I drained a water bottle. Then I began to enjoy the ride, the weather, the scenery and my brief loop through the springs proved to be a fantastic dry, thin-air, up-down warm up for the end of a riding season up here in the Colorado Rockies.

bikeride-Nov_5__2009_12_12

… I suppose I should add that it really isn’t cold here. It’s beautiful and warm and today was a perfect day to ride… but I’ve got to scare the other Californians away, right?

This weekend, Mizell Racing entered 7 members into the Orange County Triathlon and everyone completed it!

More Pictures on Tripp’s Page

Official Results (< link)

Tripp Mizell 2:46:54

Grant Mizell 2:59:37

John Mizell 2:43:07

Dan Tuttle 3:02:34

(Mom-Swim, Karen-Bike, Evelyn-Run) Relay Team 3:12:34

My Splits

Place: 25
Over All Place: 300
Bib#: 487
Name: John
Wave: 5
Swim Rank: 257
Swim Time: 0:27:07
T1 Time: 0:03:29
Bike Rank: 424
Bike Time: 1:20:03
T2 Time: 0:02:12
Run Rank: 228
Run: 0:50:16
Finish Time: 2:43:07
Photos to come! -

I finally got the route off the gps and online!!

Cycling China
For the full GPS file, us this URL:

http://blog.johnmizell.com/man-uploads/gpslog/2009-08-23-china.kml

We’ve arrived in Hong Kong. – there’s more to say, but I fear I’ll fall asleep.

Attempting to recall as much as I can now… standby

- there was…

a bus ride & an honest taxi driver, sunrise, an argument, a breakfast, our bikes, the 1-2 change-up in the middle of the train station, failures, another argument, repairs, lost within 500 m of the border, border crossing and a bad choice, some riding, a new friend, a tour, some reflection with puffer fish, sunset, shower & shave, dinner, sim-card all used up, Guinness & Twitter, Dan’s mental collapse, asleep.

Today’s ride was 50 km out of Chongwu along the coast. It was quiet, sunny, beautiful.. well, better than no coast, and a wonderful ride to ‘end’ with. Into Quanzhou we hopped a bus and went straight to Xiamen. In Xiamen we shipped our bikess, via rail to Shenzhen and called up our couch surfing host, a nice young lady. She gave us just what we needed a shower and a place to put our bags down. Fed, cleaned, and now interneted, we’ll stay here for a few days and then catch a bus into Shenzhen where we’ll pick up our bikes and ride across the border into Hong Kong, arriving earlier than expected, but still generally on time. Three days later we hope to meet two friends who will catch us up to speed on how to act American, as well as how to live well and drink hard. I expect good things. I’m especially looking forward to the reunion with my laptop, as I’m sure Dan’s excited about the 6 G’s of equipment he entrusted to a box and a generic non-insured shipping company. (fingers crossed)