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Best Place to Get Creamed on the PGA Tour

The International

Everybody from former winners Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson to the craziest heatstroke victims screaming "You da man!" from the gallery on fourteen agree: The creamy, Häagen-Dazs-laced milkshakes for sale at The International golf tournament at Castle Pines Country Club are the best on tour, maybe the best on the planet. Especially when the August sun is blazing and your favorite player has just double-bogeyed that little par three on the backside. Tournament director Jack Vickers is known as one of the best hosts in golf, and the icy confections in the green and white cups have become a personal trademark.

Best Bike Club

Team Evergreen

There are plenty of bike clubs, but several factors separate Team Evergreen from other velocipedal gatherings. Start with location: Most of the training rides -- usually every Sunday -- wind through (and up and down and up and down) the foothills west of Denver, some of the most scenic and challenging pavement around. The rides are progressive, too, starting with easier pedals in the spring and becoming increasingly more difficult. This is because the program is largely geared toward preparation for Team Evergreen's big shindig, the Triple Bypass, a one-day, 120-mile, three-mountain-pass, 10,000-foot-of-elevation-gain bit of a hell ride from Evergreen to Avon (this year scheduled for July 14). Organized rides continue into October. While some members are serious bikers (loud, silly-looking shirts, goofy sunglasses, shaved legs), many are just out for a good time. Best of all, the club strives to buff the image of all bikers by putting its money where its wheels are. Last year it donated $20,000 to various causes. Explains TE president David Nelson, "We're trying to reach out to the community to let them know the cyclist they're about to pass is a decent person."

Best Bike Club

Team Evergreen

There are plenty of bike clubs, but several factors separate Team Evergreen from other velocipedal gatherings. Start with location: Most of the training rides -- usually every Sunday -- wind through (and up and down and up and down) the foothills west of Denver, some of the most scenic and challenging pavement around. The rides are progressive, too, starting with easier pedals in the spring and becoming increasingly more difficult. This is because the program is largely geared toward preparation for Team Evergreen's big shindig, the Triple Bypass, a one-day, 120-mile, three-mountain-pass, 10,000-foot-of-elevation-gain bit of a hell ride from Evergreen to Avon (this year scheduled for July 14). Organized rides continue into October. While some members are serious bikers (loud, silly-looking shirts, goofy sunglasses, shaved legs), many are just out for a good time. Best of all, the club strives to buff the image of all bikers by putting its money where its wheels are. Last year it donated $20,000 to various causes. Explains TE president David Nelson, "We're trying to reach out to the community to let them know the cyclist they're about to pass is a decent person."

Best Place to Cream Your Boss

Action Pursuit Paintball

After a certain point, running around a field blowing away your buddies just isn't enough. Even the most dedicated sniper craves variety. Action Pursuit Paintball offers four separate killing fields to hold your interest. The main field encompasses nearly 24 acres and is dotted not only with the standard sand and hay bunkers, but also realistic replicas of World War II landing craft, à la Saving Private Ryan. In addition, there are three smaller tournament arenas for one's shooting pleasure. The first has large, colorful, inflatable bunkers in different shapes. Another is dotted with the lower-tech -- but still classic -- cable spools. The third is the "Brazilian field," which features large, thin, movable obstacles that make a loud, pleasing thwack! when blasted.

Best Place to Cream Your Boss

Action Pursuit Paintball

After a certain point, running around a field blowing away your buddies just isn't enough. Even the most dedicated sniper craves variety. Action Pursuit Paintball offers four separate killing fields to hold your interest. The main field encompasses nearly 24 acres and is dotted not only with the standard sand and hay bunkers, but also realistic replicas of World War II landing craft, à la Saving Private Ryan. In addition, there are three smaller tournament arenas for one's shooting pleasure. The first has large, colorful, inflatable bunkers in different shapes. Another is dotted with the lower-tech -- but still classic -- cable spools. The third is the "Brazilian field," which features large, thin, movable obstacles that make a loud, pleasing thwack! when blasted.

Best Locally Owned Racehorse That Flies

Reraise

We are not talking $5,000 claimers here -- the manes-and-tails that run at Arapahoe Park. Reraise, majority-owned by Denver rock promoter (and longtime student of the breed) Barry Fey, is what racetrack people call a "freak" -- an animal that regularly runs faster than anyone thinks possible. In November 1998, Reraise beat the best sprinters in the world in the top-of-the-line Breeders Cup Sprint at Churchill Downs and won the prestigious Eclipse Award for sprinter of the year. Despite a long convalescence from minor injuries, which could make for an uncertain 2001 schedule, the speedster is still considered one of the top ten turf sprinters. Giddyap.

Best Locally Owned Racehorse That Flies

Reraise

We are not talking $5,000 claimers here -- the manes-and-tails that run at Arapahoe Park. Reraise, majority-owned by Denver rock promoter (and longtime student of the breed) Barry Fey, is what racetrack people call a "freak" -- an animal that regularly runs faster than anyone thinks possible. In November 1998, Reraise beat the best sprinters in the world in the top-of-the-line Breeders Cup Sprint at Churchill Downs and won the prestigious Eclipse Award for sprinter of the year. Despite a long convalescence from minor injuries, which could make for an uncertain 2001 schedule, the speedster is still considered one of the top ten turf sprinters. Giddyap.

Best Place to Be a Junior Meteorologist

Skinner Middle School

Meteorologists are made, not born. Seventh-graders at Skinner get the chance to not only give morning weather reports but also do serious scientific data gathering, thanks to the state-of-the-art weather station on the roof of the school. One of only six in the country donated by Canadian climatologist Reese Halter, founder of Global Forest, the weather station monitors everything from rainfall and snowfall accumulations to ultraviolet radiation and heat stress. The students download the data weekly and transfer it to Global Forest's site, where it's analyzed by scientists at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. The forecast is sunny.

Best Place to Be a Junior Meteorologist

Skinner Middle School

Meteorologists are made, not born. Seventh-graders at Skinner get the chance to not only give morning weather reports but also do serious scientific data gathering, thanks to the state-of-the-art weather station on the roof of the school. One of only six in the country donated by Canadian climatologist Reese Halter, founder of Global Forest, the weather station monitors everything from rainfall and snowfall accumulations to ultraviolet radiation and heat stress. The students download the data weekly and transfer it to Global Forest's site, where it's analyzed by scientists at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. The forecast is sunny.

Best Knee-Destroying Ski Run

Pallavicini
Arapahoe Basin Ski Area

Colorado ski areas present an embarrassment of riches for the downhill crowd, but a mind-bending, knee-breaking bump run at Arapahoe Basin called Pallavicini deserves special mention. Named for an Austrian nobleman who was also a skiing pioneer, it's a broad field of daunting moguls piled up on a forty-degree pitch for more than a quarter mile -- a challenge that only the most daring hotdoggers take up. Reach the bottom in one piece, and you've quite a story to tell. Fair warning: No skier over 35 need apply.

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