The Iron Horse Classic, 2011

Thank you everyone for supporting me in riding the Iron Horse Classic to raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation! The race was held on a beautiful sunny day (one of only a few we’ve had this spring) and it was special in a lot of ways. Outside Magazine just named the event as one of 50 you have to do in a lifetime. I've done it twice now, so I guess I'm down to 48 something or others left!

The men’s race was won by 56 year old Ned Overand, the oldest elite racer in the field, who battled the youngest rider to the top of Molas Pass where he proved that cunning and experience will almost always overcome youth and enthusiasm!

The Mayer brothers, who started the event 40 years ago when one was an engineer on the train and the other a bike rider decided to race each other to Silverton, came back to town to do it again. And the bike rider rode the same bike he peddled over the hill 40 years ago!

Everyone on our team finished the race and we raised about $150,000.00 for Livestrong.

This year, when the hills got steep, I chose to concentrate on the people who are close to me that are going through the battle with cancer. When you think of what they do, everyday, with no choice, it made the peddling a little easier.

At the dinner Saturday night, so wonderfully hosted by President Dean Thomas at the new Student Center and Fort Lewis College, a short film, The Livestrong Manifesto, was shown. I’ve posted it here and hope you’ll take a minute to watch it. It tells you where your money went and you’ll feel good about it!
http://www.livestrong.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Strength/LIVESTRONG-Manifesto

One in three people will have cancer in their lifetimes. People like you, supporting people like me, have raised over $400 million for the cause. Here’s an example of how that has been leveraged: In Texas, Livestrong was the prime mover in successfully lobbying the state to appropriate 3 Billion Dollars for Cancer research!. Now that is leverage!

So thank you and know you’ve supported a great organization!

And here is another short film about this year’s Iron Horse Classic!

http://303cycling.com/iron-horse-40th-edition

I wish you health, happiness and a wonderful summer!

Thank you so much,

Jackson

Six more days til Iron Horse

Six more days until the Iron Horse and things are finally looking up training wise. And it’s just about time! Lots of snow and rain in Durango and I found myself inside on the Bowflex doing leg presses. There were some die hard people out there riding in the rain, but somehow, I think I’d be more a danger to the world and myself riding in that kind of weather. Actually, I’m pretty dangerous on a dry road! More on that later.
We had a great Gallery Walk on Friday night in Durango and I left right after it to drive to Denver for the show with son Ed. Made it to Denver at 4 am and his phone started ringing about 6, so it was a short night. I had my bike with me and was going to ride that morning and the next, but it snowed both days so the only work out was two martinis on Saturday night and and an hour on one of the “eliptical” machines in the hotel. I don’t think I spelled that right, but I could hardly work it right either so it doesn’t matter! Very confusing with arms going back and forth and legs going around and the control panel blinking and the television on the control panel giving me political updates.
I drove back to Durango on Monday and left for California on Wednesday. I was glad to leave nine inches of sloppy, wet snow behind. If you can’t ski on it, it’s worthless!
I got to Los Angeles about 1 in the morning and had my bike as well as Kris’s on the back of the car along with a trailer filled with merchandise for the Pasadena show. I picked her up at 8 in the morning at the Ontario Airport and we went to the Autry National Center to firm up a rug auction we are doing there on June 11. What a wonderful museum! Don’t miss it if you are in LA.
Then we set up the booth at the Pasadena Show and went back to the hotel, thinking we’d change clothes and head to the Rose Bowl to ride around the stadium and up and down some small hills surrounded by beautiful houses. BUT! The manager of the hotel said, “Why don’t you just go up Santa Anita and ride up the hill?”
“How far does it goes?” we asked.
“Just up,” he replied.
No lie, from downtown Arcadia, we went up. And up, And up! In Colorado, this would be considered a real mountain! Here, because it starts at 300 ft. elevation, it’s not, but for the next three days after the show, we hit Santa Anita Canyon Road. 2700 feet elevation. We never made it to the very top because of the darkness the first two nights and the rain the last day, but we came close.
Riding up the first day, I was dying. Kris was in front and we were moving slow, in the very lowest gears, really trying to keep it going. At least I was. She’s a little like a wound spring that just keeps going. I was hurting so bad I closed my eyes for a few moments to just concentrate on pushing when, BAM, I felt this collision. I had run into her rear tire, scaring her and darn near putting me on the pavement! I wobbled back and forth several times before catching my balance.
“What are you doing?” she asked over her shoulder as she continued up the road.
“I had my eyes closed,” I replied.
“You what?” she said, pedaling away.
It’s one of those things that’s hard to explain, but we went on up and coming down was a total gas. I like going downhill!
Now we’re driving back to New Mexico for one last easy ride and then to Durango for the Iron Horse.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, to everyone for your support. Just this week, another friend was diagnosed with Cancer. Just this week, as you hear all of the things that people are saying about Lance Armstrong, it is important to remember that this man and his foundation have done more to support cancer victims by providing information and support and resources than any other organization in America. Please, take a few minutes to visit: www.livestrong.org where 28 million people have found help and support. It’s also important to remember that he is the single most tested athlete in history. And he’s never tested positive for any illegal substance.
So, I don’t know if he ever did anything illegal or not, but it sure seems like there are a lot of people out there wanting to tear someone down who has made a real difference in the world.
You can know that your donation is appreciated and will help people. Thank you!

To Donate: http://ride.livestrong.org/teamls2011/jacksonclark
Or mail your check Made out to Livestrong Foundation, % Jackson Clark
P.O. Box 2168, Durango, Colorado 81302



Thank you,
Jackson

Mother's Day and Death Defying Events!

In honor of Mother's Day, My Grandkids, Aidan and Gabby who are lucky to have such a wonderful mom in Teresa! And, My mom, Mary Jane, in a Kentucky Hat Shop, getting ready to go to the Kentucky Derby. (she bet on the wrong horse!)

I had two death defying experience this week, one while training for the Iron Horse and one on a different kind of Bike.
The Iron Horse experience first. Training is going pretty well. I’m doing something every day, from leg presses to short flat fast rides to rides up and around the Fort Lewis College Campus.
Today, I planned a two hour afternoon bike ride down La Posta road, south of Durango. But in the morning, I was at the Cabin I live at at Electra Lake (8500 feet) and decided that it would be better to get some altitude training. My road bike was in town, but I had my mountain bike and thought that it really doesn’t matter what type of riding you do as long as you do some!
First, I took my mom’s dog, Jewels, with me as I rode on the road around the lake. She got a workout and I got warmed up. Then, I left her are the cabin and headed south of the dam, down a old dirt road that has a lot of up and down in it. The road goest to Four Bay, which is a small lake above the canyon where the Animas River Runs.
Normally, and the plan for today, was to go about 3/4 of the way down that road and then turn off on another dirt road (path, deer trail) that leads to Haviland Lake, a small recreational fishing lake near highway 550. I would then jump on the highway, ride back to Electra and would have gotten a great two hour workout.
The problem started when I missed the turn off to Haviland and ended up at Four Bay. I definitely did not want to pedal up the hill I just came down and I thought to myself, “I bet there is another trail off to the west from here that would lead me back to the highway.”
So, I started out. Had to ford a stream, carry the bike over a small dam and under a flume, and I did find an old road. It wound around a hill and up and down, then mostly down, then disappeared. I was on a ridge and it seemed pretty smooth, so I decided to ride down it. Mistake.
Eventually, after going over lots of logs and through bushes, I found myself at the top of about a 40 foot cliff. Not a straight up and down cliff, but one that had ledges and places where you could find footholds. Now, I had a choice. If I had gone left, or right at the top of the ridge, I could have traveled to the bottom of the canyon in front of me on fairly smooth terrain. As it was, the only way to get back to that terrain would be to push or carry the bike about half a mile back up the hill. That wasn’t going to happen.
I picked the bike up, put it first on my right shoulder and began climbing down the cliff. About ten feet down, I had to reverse directions, so I switched shoulders and moved the other way. I was doing fine until one of the rocks I was standing on broke loose and a was just able to grab an bush that was growing out of the rock.
I stopped and got myself back together and remember thinking, “No one knows where I am. I don’t have a cell phone. If I fall off of this rock and am not hurt too bad, I might be able to crawl out, but if I were hurt badly, or even killed, it could be twenty years before someone discovered a skeleton with a Monavie biking jersey. And everyone would think the same thing I’m thinking now. “What the hell am I doing here?””
But, no choice in the matter, so I edged down and finally reached level ground where I found myself bushwhacking through a pretty dense growth. Then, about a mile in, I found some survey flags, spaced about 10 yards apart that seemed to head in the direction of the highway.
It is an absolutely beautiful canyon and the flags seemed out of place. I knew is was Forest Service Land. Then It dawned on me. During the Bush Administration with Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, the Government had approved a trade with the Glacier Club, a very nice high end gated community with a golf course owned by a Texas multi-millionaire, a large parcel of land south of Haviland Lake. In return, the Forest Service got a worthless piece of land of top of a mountain where no one will ever go and a piece of land that gave the public access to the Hermosa Trail, which the public already had access to.
So, I’m sitting here, scratched all up, looking at this absolutely pristine forest that was going to be filled with houses and condos that our government traded for absolutely nothing. Hundreds of people wrote letters and protested the trade, the Glacier Club owners and the Forest Service were the only ones in favor of it, but it went through. I’m not saying there was any money under the table, or any political favors involved because this is the United States and we don’t do that, but it really made me see what a completely stupid decision this was by the people who control those decisions.
Shortly after, I came on the hiking and horse trails that wind through the property and rode back towards Haviland. When I got close, the trail wound again to the south, so I opted to cut through the bush and forest to get to the road. As I came out near the camping area at Chris Park, a young man about five years old grabbed his father’s hand and asked, “Why is that man in the bushes with a bicycle?” His father had no reasonable answer and I certainly couldn’t think of one, so I told his wife Happy Mother’s Day and headed to the highway, back to the cabin and the whole adventure only took three and one half hours. And with the exception of the cliff, it was all good.
The second near death experience came a few days earlier. I just bought a 1980 Honda Motorcycle. It weighs about 500 pounds. The first nice day last week, I road it to the cabin, had a great ride, and pulled into the driveway. I put the kickstand down and got off of the bike, never thinking that the ground was soft from the snow the two days earlier.
I turned around and, as I was taking by backpack off, with my arms trapped behind me, the bike fell over and hit me right in the posterior. The force of it sent me flying forward and into the wood pile where, I am certain, my helmet saved my life. I knocked that pile of wood all over the place and then had to deal with getting my arms out of the back pack and my legs out from under the motorcycle!
At 500 pounds, it took me a while to get the leverage to stand it back up, but there was no serious damage to the bike. My ego suffered a little! So, I am a firm believer in motorcycle helmets. Don’t leave home with out them!
Again, thank you to all you have donated the the Lance Armstrong Foundation and supported me and so many other people in riding the Iron Horse. We are three weeks out.
I am reminded that in every sacred text, all the new age literature and the advice of wise people, the rule is that you have to give in order to receive. As Americans, we are the most giving people on the planet. We should be proud of that.
Remember, every dollar makes a difference.
Ten bucks, three lattes at Starbucks, that’s all it takes to help someone through a tough time! The Iron Horse team has now raised over $57,000!

To Donate: http://ride.livestrong.org/teamls2011/jacksonclark
Or mail your check Made out to Livestrong Foundation, % Jackson Clark
P.O. Box 2168, Durango, Colorado 81302
Thank you!

Ironhorse YogaTraining and Snow Delay

Again, thanks to everyone who has sponsored me and contributed to the Livestrong Foundation! The Iron Horse Livestrong team is now over $47,000 with a month to go until the race. Thank you!

It was not a week for bicycle training. Since last we talked, Kris and I did two Yoga Classes in Sacramento taught by Nick Clark, number 2 son, fellow Livestrong rider and health fitness guru (www.nickclarkhealth.com) , at a great studio by the name of Zuda. I don’t know what “Zuda” means, but I think it means “twist your body into unrecognizable and painful positions while you are sweating like a firehose and your instructor tells you to “breath, feel your breath” or something like that. I think it is Swahili.
But, if you’ve never done yoga, believe me, this stuff will get you in shape. It is hard to Image that you stay on a little pad, 2 feet x 6 feet, never do anything fast and you have lost about 10 pounds and feel like you just ran a couple of miles after an hour of Yogaing!.
Anyway, that was two days of training then I took off to drive to Durango and took the “Loneliest Road in American (Highway 50 across Nevada). It is lonely because there is no one out there. I passed one bar and restaurant and stopped to see who could possibly be there as there isn’t a house in a hundred miles. There were folks there, but I felt like I was in the movie “Deliverance” so I left. The first town you come to is Austin, Nevada and I knew they had some mountain bike trails there.
But it was raining and I’m not much good on a bike in the rain, so I kept on driving, thinking I’d be in Green River, Utah or Moab about midnight. Well, they were having a 4 wheel drive “Boulder Climbing Event” in Moab and there was no place to stay, so I decided to bring it on home. Thank Goodness for Monavie EMV (the energy drink that's good for you!) 18 hours and no bike ride but I listened to a scary book on tape that number one son Ed had given me. Called “American Gods” it is a little weird, but is absolutely beautifully written. It is by Neil Gaiman. He really can describe a scene as well as anyone I’ve ever read. He talked about a man walking in 20 below cold through snow and I had to turn the heater on!
Sunday morning it was snowing, so I hit the Bowflex for 500 leg presses and called it a day. Monday was supposed to be clear and sunny so I set the alarm for 6 thinking I’d ride to Purgatory. When I looked out the window, there was six feet of snow, so it was back to the Bowflex.
Tuesday was better. I stopped at the Rec Center and road one of those spinner bikes for about half an hour. I didn’t realize they closed at nine, but that was enough to wear me out. While on the bike, I recognized the young man (now closer to 50 than 40) spinning next to me. Lindell Chee worked for Toh-Atin while he was going to school and is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. He graduated from Fort Lewis and works in Aztec, NM while living in Durango. He actually made that spin bike spin. I was more the lumbering pedal pusher. Lindell told me that he sometimes rides his bike to work from Durango to Aztec! Whoa, now that’s serious. Anyway, he inspired me.
It is always special to see young people that you’ve worked with that have a great life for themselves!
It looks like it’s clearing up, so I’m looking forward to doing some actual bicycle training this week. The team that is coming from Sacramento has been hitting it hard, lots of 40 plus mile rides, so I have a lot of catching up to do!

Ten bucks, that’s all it takes to help someone through a tough time!

To Donate: http://ride.livestrong.org/teamls2011/jacksonclark
Or mail your check Made out to Livestrong Foundation, % Jackson Clark
P.O. Box 2168, Durango, Colorado 81302

In case you didn't believe me!

This is the actual California Inspection station where they ask you if you have any Fruits of Vegetables or Firewood. This time, however, the diligent person protecting the
state of California from contamination only asked if I "Had any Fruits or Vegetables?" I asked him why he was no longer asking about firewood and he told me, "Winter is over." So there you go!

Great Mountain Bike ride today. 16 miles in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Tomorrow it's Yoga in Sacramento with Nick to see if that helps with sore muscles!
Thanks for your support,
Jackson

Contents: Update, Ranting and raving about California Highway Inspection Stations, Good news about David.


This week’s training for the Iron Horse Race started slowly and ended with a completely unplanned training effort of a 15 mile ride and a 15 mile walk/run. I am doing double Monavie and Advil tonight!

The first part of the week in Durango was, as most April days are, completely unpredictable. One day the wind blew branches off of trees, the next day was beautiful and the next day saw snow. You just never know. I never understood that whole thing about people who like spring because April in Durango is just not fun. Better to go straight to summer if you could somehow cast a spell and do that!

Iron Horse training was limited to one afternoon riding a stationary bike at the rec center and two days of 500 leg presses on the Bowflex. Definitely not enough, but I knew that I was leaving town and would be able to train on the road.

I left Saturday on a trip to pick up things from people who want us to sell them this summer. Some of these consigned collections are really great! I drove to St. George, Utah Saturday to do an appraisal and then had dinner with John Rick, owner of Jacob Lake Inn on the North Rim. What a great guy and fellow lover of Navajo weaving! I planned to drive to Las Vegas that night where you can usually get a deal on hotel rooms, but checked on the net and, duh, It was Saturday night and there were no rooms under $200. I decided to stay in St. George.

I thought that being in St. George would be a good thing. I have my mountain bike with me as I thought I might be able to more easily train with it and it's an old bike so I wasn't worried about taking it on a rack on a long trip. I got out at 7:30, planning to take an hour or so ride up into this recreational area on paved roads. I'd forgotten my helmet, but thought about it and decided that I never fell off of a bike when I was a kid so I was probably ok. The first part was great. In St. George, there are no people out on Sunday. So I had this road all to myself for about 15 miles, then I saw a mountain bike trail, The T-Bone trail, that went off the side of the main road. I decided that I should try it. It was fine for about a mile, then it got steep and I decided that I really needed a helmet if I was to do that, so I went back to the road.

Somewhere in there, I poked a hole in the side of a tire and ended up with a flat. Ever prepared, I took the tire off, replaced the inner tube and found I had forgotten my tire pump. So I had a new inner tube with no way to put air in it! Duh! So I put the tire back on and held the handlebars while I ran a mile, then walked a mile, then ran a mile, then walked a mile until I got back to town and my motel! Made it by 11:30!

Now I was running late to drive to Santa Barbara where I hoped to meet up with my nephew Jeff and see another family about a collection to sell. I took off and everything was fine until I got south of Vegas where the traffic slowed to a crawl on the interstate. Everyone that had one of those rooms the night before was headed home! I have no idea why it slows the traffic that much, but I suspect it is because the state of California stops every car to ask if you have any "fruits, vegetables or firewood." Honest to goodness, they do that. And they do it at every highway that goes into California! No wonder the state is broke, hundreds of people looking for fruits and vegetables and firewood? They already have lots of their own fruits and vegetables. I don't know about firewood, but they pay all of these people to stop every car and ask the question. Once in a while you will see a potted plant sitting on the curb next to one of these guys (or gals) just as a warning about what can happen. You could lose your plants! And don't even think about questioning them about the value of their jobs or they will have you get out, open you trunk and search your car just in case you have an orange tucked away.

Wow, that must have hit a nerve with me. Sorry!

Anyway, I'm stuck in traffic and after two hours, a quarter tank of gas (at $4.299 a gallon), and most of my patience, I'd gone about thirty miles. I pulled off at Primm, Nevada, and after working on my computer in a parking lot for about 2 hours decided to just get a room (Sunday nights are cheap in Prim!) and get up early to drive on to California.

Great room, internet connection and I successfully avoided the casino so all is good. And, since I almost killed myself training today, tomorrow is going to be limited to driving and listening to Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville channel on my Sirius Radio!

Back at it on Tuesday! Thanks to all for the donations to the Livestrong Foundation! I appreciate it and believe me, even if it doesn’t seem like much, a lot of $10 checks can turn into real help for someone who needs it.

To Donate: http://ride.livestrong.org/teamls2011/jacksonclark
Or mail your check Made out to Livestrong Foundation, % Jackson Clark
P.O. Box 2168, Durango, Colorado 81302

And, an update on cousin David who was scheduled to have his femur replaced last week. I asked you all to send good thoughts and prayers and they must have gotten there. After months of the bone is his leg showing no growth and basically dying, the doctors did one more MRI the day before the exam and found that, inexplicably, there was new cell growth in the bone! David is pushing hard at the exercises they are giving him to do and, with lots of work and lots of good thoughts, he might not need that operation! The world is full of mysterious things, yes?

Training for the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic!

Ok, training for the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic is officially underway. If it was not for the commitment to the Lance Armstrong Team and their efforts to aid the fight against cancer, I can flat guarantee you there would be no training schedule!

It’s a busy, busy spring, lots of business travel and getting ready for the summer season here at Toh-Atin Gallery. But when I think about not doing this race, I am immediately brought back to solid ground when I hear the stories of all the cancer survivors and patients. They don’t have the opportunity to back off and quit fighting! If I can ride a simple bike race and help even a few people keep up the fight, I’m not about to quit.

My cousin David has been fighting cancer for over a decade. Today he goes into surgery to have his entire femur replaced by a titanium rod. It is a long an difficult surgery and he would certainly appreciate all of your good thoughts and prayers for he and his family.

So, I finally got the bike out of the basement where it has been since the last Iron Horse. I loaded it into the car along with Kris’s bike (she been actually running and doing spin classes for a couple of months) and headed to meet her in Santa Fe where I was going for the Indian Arts and Crafts Association’s annual meeting and then to the Oasis Gift Show in Albuquerque at the end of the week.

Wednesday afternoon was day one. We drank a Monavie RVL and headed out on what turned out to be about a 20 mile ride. There is a secret for those of you who don’t work out regularly. The first day is not too bad. You get a little tired, but you still feel pretty good. Don’t let that keep you from taking Advil before you go to bed and shooting a couple extra shots of Monavie......the next morning is tough! The really hard part is being around someone who says, “Doesn’t that feel great getting some exercise?” You have to say, “Sure, I feel wonderful,” and then try to walk down the stairs without looking like you put on twenty years that night!

Thursday we went to Albuquerque to set up the Oasis show booth which I share with a good friend from Alaska, Bill Lovette. I offered to rent him a bike if he wanted to go on a ride with us and he declined. He’s a really smart guy. Kris and I went to the Albuquerque Bike Trail which starts at the Zoo and goes north and south along the Rio Grande. If you are a bike rider or walker or jogger, this path is worth the visit. We only went the 18 mile north route, but it goes through beautiful country, alongside horse farms and wonderful adobe ranches. You pass fishing holes and parks and even the back side of the Zoo. It is really worth doing. Not only is it peaceful and quiet with no cars, but it makes you forget you are actually exercising!

The only problem I had with the trail was the fact that the wind blew against us both ways. Didn’t seem to bother Kris.

Friday and Saturday were days off for the show, but Sunday we had a unique opportunity! One of the cars we had was in Albuquerque, so we got up early and rode our bikes to the Santa Fe Train Station where we caught the Railrunner, a commuter train that goes between Belen and Albuquerque. It is a great ride in comfort. You travel through parts of the Rio Grande Valley that cross the inside of the Santa Anna, San Felipe and Kewa (Santo Domingo) reservations. The countryside is beautiful and I highly recommend the ride. We got to the Albuquerque station, which sits where the old Alvarado Hotel was on Central Avenue, and rode our bikes up to the car which was at Bill’s hotel about 5 miles away.

Cold day, so we called it a day and headed to Santa Fe. Not as nice a ride in a car, but on the way we stopped at another “must visit” place, The Range Cafe in Bernallilo. Trust me on this, it’s a good one.

Today it’s back to Durango and spin classes and weight training for the next few days. (There was snow there this weekend!)

The race is about 7 weeks out and, after the initial training shock, I am feeling good about it. It would be nice to beat the train to Silverton this year!

Remember, it doesn’t take a lot of money to make a difference in the fight against cancer. This year, I’m asking those that would like to help for $10.00. That’s all, just ten bucks. It’s less than a round trip ticket on the Roadrunner from Santa Fe to Albuquerque! Less than the price of two and a half gallons of gas! So, walk a little extra or maybe ride a bike, but the people who depend on the Lance Armstrong Foundation need your help! Thank you!

To Donate: http://ride.livestrong.org/teamls2011/jacksonclark
Or mail your check Made out to Livestrong Foundation, % Jackson Clark
P.O. Box 2168, Durango, Colorado 81302