Today's News

EVERGREEN — It takes a lot longer now to introduce Tim Shirley.

Back when the Conifer resident first started competing at the Evergreen Rodeo in 2001, it was just Shirley the local kid.

Now it’s Shirley the local kid with blond hair who went to the prestigious Nationals in Las Vegas this past winter and placed sixth, pocketed more than $111,000 and is currently ranked 14th in the nation in the bareback event.

While living in Tallahassee, Fla., I had the unique opportunity of meeting a lot of professional athletes.

I was lucky enough to work at the city’s biggest - and newest - fitness center. All of the former Florida State University athletes would return to the city during their off-seasons and train at Premier Health and Fitness Center - a 55,000-square foot mecca of physical fitness.

Professional football players such as Peter Boulware, Corey Simon and Brad Johnson spent a good deal of time in the weight room.

The Colorado Mountain Bike Association is proposing that open space authorities create a new trail paralleling the existing Apex and Enchanted Forest trails so high-speed users can be separated from low-speed users.

With a dual trail in force, cyclists traveling at downhill speeds would be out of the way of slow-moving pedestrians, equestrians and uphill-traveling cyclists.

Open Space authorities are taking another look at yielding rules among bikers, hikers and horseback riders after complaints about safety and conflicts on Jeffco trails reached a peak in 2008.

Yielding rules govern the behavior of trail users when they approach one another on a trail. Some bike riders have argued the rules are outdated and enforcement is too strict.

A memo published by the Jeffco Open Space Department says there was a large increase in citations written to mountain bikers in 2008 for “failing to yield properly.”