The Bike and MORE

12 Hours of Cranky Monkey

2012-02-02T07:23:00.001-05:00

I did this race with Mike K and Jonathan W. Since I had been running a little bit in the spring, it was decided that I had to do the dreaded first lap with the run. The race started out fine. I can run, but I’m not a sprinter, so I didn’t actually gain anything in the run itself. Once on course, I was able to keep a steady rhythm, and I came in at a respectable time for Mike to go out for a lap. Jonathan went last and busted out a smoking lap, putting us in the lead of the three man 35+ division. We then continued to do consistent laps, finding that we actually could win the race without my going out for a final lap. As usual, Mike K would have none of it, giving me the guilt trip and saying that I had to go do another lap. So I went out and did a final lap at an easy pace, but you really can’t go that slowly, because there are hills you have to get up. In the end, we won the three man 35+ class, and our compatriots got second place in the three man 40+ division and first place in the open division. Our team (Mature but not Old) actually got the most laps in time of the race. With my lap times of 53:21, 53:05, 53:00 , I was really happy that even though I wasn’t sometimes as fast as Jonathan on the team, I was consistently getting negative splits every lap.

Mountains of Misery 2011

2012-01-22T08:31:00.003-05:00

This year I decided to do Mountains of Misery instead of the IMBA Mountain Bike Festival, which I’ve done for the last five or six years over Memorial Day Weekend. A bunch of my PPTC friends do Mountains of Misery annually as one of their challenge rides. Mountains of Misery is not a race, but it is a timed event, so you get a chip and an official time. This year, they decided to do waves, so you didn’t know who you were going to end up riding with at the beginning of the event. Because this is a road event, to actually get a good time, you would need to be with a good group of people that you can draft with. Since this was my first time doing the event, I had no pressure on myself, so I could just enjoy it.

So we were the third wave of riders to go off, and I was in a huge line of drafting with Chris, Jonathan, and Rudy. There were some fools taking huge pulls for no apparent reasons, but I was like fine…if they’re willing to do that, I will just stay behind them. I didn’t waste much energy until finally we got to the big downhill. The downhill was a little sketchy because I had never done it, and I was with a pretty big group of people who weren’t always taking the best lines. Rudy had charged off to the front for what I thought was no apparent reason, but he knew the hill was coming so he got to the front so he could choose his lines and get down the mountain pretty quickly. After the downhill, there was a rest stop, which we passed, and at that point we got a good group of people I could see myself riding with for a lot of the day. We started doing some smaller country roads that had kind of stepped hills, which is more my kind of terrain, and I was gapping the group I was with. I decided to pull back, though, and save my energy for the end.

Rudy got a flat, so I said I’d wait for him since I had no time to beat from previous years. He fixed his tire, and the sag came by, which was great because I was able to refill my water bottles. Rudy was pretty pissed off since this took off about four to five minutes, which would be hard to make up. Once we got going again, we hooked up with three other guys and we were going along at a pretty good pace. Rudy was falling off the pace a little bit and waived us on. We started going downhill toward one of the big climbs of the ride. I decided to push it a little bit with the guys, staying with them until the base of the climb and then assuming everyone would do their own pace up it.

John's Creek Mountain is actually a pretty good one for me, since it’s around three miles and varies in pitch. I pushed it up the climb and took a pit stop. I think this was crucial in my overall time, because since I had gotten the water from the sag wagon and brought my own food, I had not stopped at a rest stop and had an official break. The rest stop girl thought I was a little crazy because I was one of the only person to eat the pickles, but I have found that pickles do me right on this kind of event. I continued to then ride the next forty miles by myself. I think what helped me was having done the SM100 and other long-distance mountain bike races. Through them I learned to ride at a high pace even by myself.

The Hardest Climb I’ve Ever Done-Mountain Lake

Since I had my Garmin, I was could see I was doing consistent riding at pitches of 14 to 15 percent. The climb started off ok, although the heat was starting to get bad at around 90. It then just turned into a grudge match of me against my pedals. I kept thinking I was going to have to get off the bike and either push the bike or take a breather. There is a reason that this climb was in the old Tour DuPont—it really is pro-level. The people cheering from the roadside was great but also frustrating because I was going around 3 mph. I did love the wet towels on the neck—great relief. I finally got to the finish line happy to be done. The food afterwards was great, but I couldn’t eat too much having put out so much effort and just nibbled at a hamburger and had a Coke.

Final Note
I’m actually really proud of that ride considering my body weight(in the 190s) and how big the climb at the end was.
Stats
Ride Time: 6:07:46
2nd, Age35-39
17th Male
18th Overall

J. Bishop Grand Fondo

2011-09-29T08:04:00.001-04:00

This was a beast of a ride, I have done rides with more Climbing, but this thing had 3 really hard climbs. The First was Rt. 33 VA to WV, not my kind of climb consistent 6-8% pitch that keep going up and up. The Downhill was super fun though. The second dirt climb I was totally at my limit, and going up 14 and even 16% pitches. I was better here since I could use more of my power, and the grade was not constant. The 3rd climb was not that bad, but Reddish was a tough one. Alot of people had issues cause the climb was a dirt rough road climb. My issue was that it was just so long, my body has a hard time climbing for more then 2mile sections(I was going 3.0mph at one point). Nice ride Got to do it with Matt Donahue, and Jonathan Wheaton. At the end of the ride I did the last 15 miles with Jonathan and Chris my PPTC friends. Thinking I might do it next year as well.

DirtyBurg Extended

2011-09-18T06:37:00.000-04:00

Great race Prep for Iron CX, 65 miles with only 7-8 miles of road. Right now after the big rains we have hadm the Gravel is not as it was in the spring.

Rattlin 50 a tale of two races.....

2011-08-22T13:32:00.000-04:00

Short story
Pretty solid ride for the first 40miles...UNTIL my rear derailleur broke. Until the end Single Speed with a max speed of 7.5mph. Fine for the trails but too slow for the fireroads towards the end.

More detailed view:
The race is a pretty good one. It is also very different compared to other endurance races I have done. There is not as much climbing, but there was plenty of points in the race where you needed your power to get through the rocks.
The race starts out with a 2.5 mile climb, but after that you never climb anything else that is more then 8%. The race includes some really Technical Shed/Gambril like trails, and with some fun super tight single track with mountain shrubs(maybe mt. laural?) giving you only 2 ft of trail up to your top tube. I was happy to just "ride" steady at this race. I had some issues where I couldn't actually go full out, cause I had to make sure I could get through the many rock gardens. The Rocks for the most part are actually setup pretty well so you can ride them. There were about 5-6 times I got off my bike, cause I dabbed and just walked through that rock section. Since the race was not the usual Fire road up and then Single track downhill, you had to be on the gas when you could, but this meant being on the gas through real singletrack. So you had a good amount of spinning. There were some Dirt roads, and grass tracks as well. I actually didn't find those that annoying since you spent some upperbody/core energy on the single track. So the Fire roads and grass double tracks were good to regroup on. I had some good back and forth with some folks, but once my derailleur busted that part of the race was done.
Broken Derailleur
What makes this annoying was that I had a derailleur hanger, but these new XT mechs have a piece that is suppose to break off, and I guess you are to have the replacement for that too. After I made my bike a SS I could only go 7.5 miles an hour. I was just trying to get the ride done at this point. If I could have set it up with a little bigger gear that would of helped. Taking what I had done, I kept the same avg. speed to the finish I think I would have done a 5:15 hour time. Well here are the stats:

9 hours of Cranky Monkey

2011-07-05T11:47:00.002-04:00

3-Man 105+ Results:

9 Hours of Cranky Monkey

I really enjoyed this race in 2010, so I signed up early to do it again in 2011. DCMTB had a big presence with 5 teams. I was a little unsure of my form, considering I had just been in Europe for 10 days and only did one major 50-mile ride in Berlin, so I asked to go last in the rotation. The weather looked really unpromising, with a forecast of rain and dark and cloudy skies at the start. By some crazy act of God, the race area never got rained on--although we know that some locations 5 miles away got drenched.

Start

Mike started us off, having to do the run. We found out that Mike is not a very fast runner. He was able to pass some people on the singletrack, and Joel went out next. My first lap I felt pretty good, but wasn't quite hitting some of the lines that I wanted to. To my surprise when I came back, I saw I'd actually gotten the fastest time on our team.

Rest of the Race

I was pretty stoked to have negative splits on my next 2 laps. The course seemed to suit me well, with the fast flowy sections and then the big climb in the middle where I could get into a rhythm. We ended up having a race on our hands, against the aptly named Two Wookies and an Ewok (the 2 dudes were like 6'5", while the last was about 5'4"). Since I was pulling pretty fast laps, I was actually bringing us back into the lead on my laps...then their fastest guy (the Ewok) would end up passing Mike on the climb.

Finish

So the race came down to the final lap. We were both going to be able to put out a third man on the course before the time cutoff. I was hoping that we would get the lead and then I could just maintain it for the win. Joel did a solid lap, but we still ended up down over a minute and a half from the other team. Mike gave one of his motivational speeches (aka yelling at me to go fast), and I went out full steam. I ended up catching up to Bill early in the course (I found out later he had wrecked because he pushed it too hard knowing that our team was right behind him). So once I was ahead, I knew I had to just keep it going and we could pull out the victory. Going down the big downhill, I ended up getting a slow-leaking flat. I jumped off the bike and used a CO2 to hopefully get enough air in there and get the damn tire home. It held, but just barely, and I kept my weight off the rear end of the bike. It was a pretty cool feeling coming into the finish having the whole DCMTB crew cheering me on.

DCMTB-Mature not Old

Darren Biggs, Mike Klasmeier, Joel Wilson

8:36:05

0:44:03

0:43:51

0:40:44

0:42:32

0:43:25

0:40:32

0:45:44

0:43:32

0:40:30

0:43:18

0:45:16

0:42:38

Two Wookiees and an Ewok

Daniel Tille, Chris Mayhew, Bill Schieken

8:38:11

0:46:02

0:43:05

0:39:51

0:44:20

0:40:09

0:43:18

0:39:39

0:45:53

0:43:52

0:40:23

0:45:32

0:46:07

Biking in Berlin

2011-06-29T08:58:00.000-04:00

From May 2nd

I saw the famous Bar Bike, but did not get a ride on it.

Solid Entry Level, Aluminum Shimano 105 BMC I rented.

This Column Was helpful for getting my bearings

Biking in Berlin

I had found a BMC bike online from a shop in West Berlin. It was one of the few places that actually had regular road bikes and not city bikes available to rent. So I took the subway and got off in the Zoo stop to pick it up. Once I got the bike, I had planned to do a roundabout ride back to the hotel to test her out. It was a really awesome experience biking after having been walking around and using the subway. This made me feel more like a part of the city. Even with my GPS, I ended up going around in circles, but using [insert name of victory statue thing], I was able to find my way back to Freidrichstrasse.

Biking to Potsdam and Back

This ride was only possible because of the Garmin. I didn't have much time on the S.L.O.W. computer at the hotel using Windows 95 in German, so I just used the cycle map on bike route toaster to get directions on bike preferred/bike lane roads. I got up early in the morning and to my huge dismay, it was below 40 degrees and drizzling. It had been sunny most of the trip, and all I had to wear was shorts, knee warmers, a jersey, arm warmers, and a vest. I headed on out to West Berlin until I got almost to the river and went south through [add park name]. While riding, I encountered several commuters--the few bikers I saw wearing helmets. The roads in the forest were the only ones I encountered with hills the entire day. Outside of Potsdam, I ended up going on a scenic route that goes along the river and had great views. You could imagine people going there and hanging out at the several biergartens I saw along the river bank. I had to imagine this, as there was no one around, it was gray and cloudy, and there was drizzle coming down. I went through Potsdam along some crazy route that I never would have figured out without my Garmin telling me which way to go. It included a driveway that turned into a small road along a canal and several other random paths that connected larger roads. Once back outside of Potsdam, I had tried a chancy move of going through another forest, not knowing exactly what surface I'd find on the trail. The surface ended up being dirt, so I rode a race bike for 3-4 miles on singletrack. Luckily, there were not too many rocks or roots, so I didn't get a puncture flat. Getting back into town, I was now in Berlin rush hour traffic, and lucky for me it now really started raining. The road that I was on was a "bike lane" road, but in Germany a bike lane means a lane that can either be on the road or on a sidewalk--which is quite sketchy if that sidewalk is made of cobblestones and wet. Once in Berlin, I was freezing and just wanted to get my ass back to the hotel to warm up. Lucky me again...I get a flat. I did have a spare tube, but I had no pump to blow up the tube. I speak no German. "Woe is me," I thought. What was I to do? As the tire is slowly deflating, I ended up passing a bike shop that had just opened, so I went in and was able to its pump and get myself back to the hotel. This was one of the coldest rides I've ever done because of the 40ish degree weather, rain, and lack of appropriate clothing.

Random Thoughts

Even though Berlin/Germany has a lot more bike lanes than we do in the U.S., I actually don't like the bike lanes there. When they were on the road, they were great, but many times they took me onto the sidewalk and it was pretty scary due to pedestrian traffic.
With the different road conditions, I actually think a cross bike would have been better to use. Some of the streets were pretty heavily made of cobblestones.
I really enjoyed being able to experience the scenery on a bike and getting to see Potsdam as well as Berlin.

Biking in Amsterdam

2011-06-01T13:46:00.000-04:00

From April 31st

This is a travel bike post. I was doing a trip with Sara, and her parents. The trans-atlantic flight came into Amsterdam, so we spent 2 days there before heading to Prague and then Berlin. On the Second day, we rented from Yellow Bikes and guess what we rode Yellow city bikes. We picked them up and rode them to the canal, where Sara did a Canal trip again that we did the day before. I think had an hour to ride by myself. I had brought my Garmin and hooked that up to the bike. The Garmin is great to know where you are at, the scene is not big enough to use it like a map. So I rode around on my front brake, and rear coaster brake bike. I could only get the bike to 17 mph since the gear was pretty small on it. I rode around and did a lap at Vondelpark which was near our hotel. On the way back to where the Canal trips started I went through a bicycle, pedestrian only road, this was very cool(Max Euweplein). The 3 story Bike Parking garage was a site to behold. After the Canal ride Sara and I biked to the Maritime museum that was still closed so we went to the next best thing the Heineken Experience :-) The paths were nice enough that Sara felt ok to bike on them, she was a little scared when we were in the city center, and you had tons of cyclists on the path, and some motor scooters. The most interesting thing that I didn’t see was actual cyclists. I saw tons of people riding bikes, but only like 5 cyclists on bikes doing a ride.

Greenbrier 2011

2011-05-22T09:03:00.000-04:00

I decided to do Greenbrier since Sara and I were coming back from her cousin’s “couple’s shower” for
her wedding. I thought at the least I could get some good training in. Good news is I got sixth place. Bad
news is there were only six people in my field. I’m still listed as a CAT 1 mountain biker, which I am not.
It was a forgettable race considering I battled for two laps with a hole in my tire. Finally, I got it fixed
with a plug from one of the junior riders so that I didn’t have to walk the bike in.

Dragon's Tail 40m mile race

2011-04-21T15:56:00.000-04:00

From April 3rd.
Dragon's Tail was a race I had heard about for years. This race used to be Dragon's back, a race that was 25miles or so and took a long time to finish. Chris Scott brought the race back as Dragon's Tail and made it longer 40miles but more like 37miles.

Jon W. from the team had talked about the race, and I was on the fence about going. I was waiting to hear about the weather before committing. Thursday came and weather looked ok so I was in. I went down with John Rogers and Joel Wilson. We went down on Sat. got some Thia food in downtown Roanoke which was good. The boys went to bed early which was ok, but I woke at 3am for about an hour and listened to an audiobook to go to bed.
Race,
We drove about 30minutes to the start of the race, really low key, good vibe. Chris Scott gave DCMTB a shout out since we had 10 riders there out of of a field of 50+. The ride starts with a neutral roll out slightly downhill pavement to a dirt road. Once we got to the dirt road the fast cats zoomed off the front. I was riding around my teammates just keeping my cool. The road went through 4 major stream crossings. The first I waded through while the others I rode through. These were BB height, so your feet were soaking wet. after the streams you start making your way up the mountain on the fire road. I was in front of most of the DCMTB boys, with Ian and Mike T(the fast robots) in front.
Finally we get to the single trak, where there is an aid station with our drop off bags. I have bad feet(they get cold easily) and knew about the streams so I had new shoes and wool socks in my drop bag. I was glad I changed my shoes, but in doing so I lost 4-5 minutes. In that time though the DCMTB crew came up to me and I then was riding with Erik Spar up the climb for a bit. I then was riding with 5th place female up some touch switchbacks. I was actually going a little slower then I could have been going, but in retrospect this was a good thing because you need your energy later in the course.
Once on the ridge saw Chris Scott doing race coverage, and then riding with the 3rd place female. I passed her on a big log hop. I did not go crazy on the downhill just tried to enjoy it. The downhill is big enough that my brakes started squealing at the bottom. Once at the aid station I just filled up my bottle and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I was then going up the climb again, but since I knew the climb now I was going faster. I passed Misty who was in 2nd place, and then later in the climb she and 3 other people ended up passing me cause my chain dropped. As we were going up the 3rd place female was gaining on us. I found out later she had broken her front brake line and was doing the downhills with only a back brake.
Once on the ridge again, we took a left this time. This ridgeline is what makes Dragon's Tail. The ridge is very steep so the views are pretty awesome. Compared to other ridgelines this one goes up and down the whole time, and has many, repeat many steep pitches. I was doing well and actually catching people on the ridgeline, using my power that I have up the steep ramps. After awhile the 3rd place female must have passed Misty since she passed me on a incline where I had to walk. As I saw her go up the trail I was thinking,"well that girl is a bad-ass" I was doing well, but it was the early season form that was getting me, after 3 hours I lost that raw strength that have. There were some false downhills, that had you climbing again. I was damning Chris Scott at this point just lamenting in my head,"get me off this damn ridgeline!!!" Finally it descended into a rest stop.
I wasn't there too long, but the next climb was the big disappointment for me. This climb was very doable, but since I had used so much energy already I was on and off the bike the whole way up the climb. I had seen the downhill of this climb on video, so it was cool when I finally was riding what I had seen.
Once down off the mountain it was just a short road ride back to the start.

Random stuff:

Bring extra socks and shoes(I will bring my hiker-biker shoes next time since I had to walk so much)
Was happy with my 5:20 time best of the normal DCMTB riders, considering Ian got sub-4 hours
The day was beautiful mid sixties and completely clear skies
Great race vibe, stations, and post ride beer, and burgers!
Not sure I will do this again, but I think best to save yourself for the ridge line
The Anthem 29er was rocking the course, needed to let some air out of the shocks.
This is the hardest race I have done basically 35miles with 7200 feet of elevation.

DirtyBurg Big-Day-64Miles

2011-03-31T16:07:00.001-04:00

From Early March

The usual DirtyBurg ride is 40 miles, but this is a version that I routed out after seeing a posting on the MORE board that listed all the dirt roads of Loudon County. So I took roads from the normal DirtyBurg ride and added some from the previous extended ride that accidentally went on some private farms DirtyBurg Extended. I then connected those roads with some new dirt roads from my Leesburg dirt road ride that I had done in years past with the famous Jets and Sharks ride, which was a combined PPTC/MORE ride.

Riding in the 19th century


Kenda block 8's didn't seem to be so resilant

For the ride, there were three of us: Matt, Mark and me. Mark is a beast of a rider, and I can only hope to hang onto his back wheel, while Matt is always the wild card. At the start of the ride, I found out that Matt had ridden his bike a total of five times since late November. We started the ride a little cold, as even though the forecast had said it would be sunny and a high of 50 degrees, it was cloudy and in the 40s --a big difference.

We did Busthead Road, and once we got onto the climb I ended up putting some distance on the boys, mostly because they were riding really high gearing. I think Mark had a 34-23 and Matt was running a single chainring and I believe a 38-25. I was running a new crank set that I had bought for my new Giant cross bike that was a 36-46(came with a 38-46) with a 28 in the back. Once we got to the top, we started the fast downhill and I kinda let it hang out, which led me to eventually go off the road (that was kinda sketchy). Matt ended up bombing the downhill and getting in front of me. The road then went from regular dirt to soft gravel/dirt/etc. that would make you wipe out if you had too much weight on the front wheel. We continued on and Mark was riding pretty strong, doing a couple digs where I was wondering whether I'd be able to keep up that kind of pace for the length of the ride. Matt had a funny comment once we got over an old stone bridge and were going by some stone farm fences. He said, "I think the Confederates still hold this area," which made us all laugh because when we looked around it seemed like we could have been in the 19th century.

We got onto some of the new roads, which were pretty nice--constant ups and downs. The only blunder in the route was when we were going down a hill and came upon a deep creek covering the road. There had been a major storm two days prior, and most of the roads were fine, but this road was flooded out and not passable. We rerouted to get around it (it's great to have a Garmin when wanting to change course mid-ride). We then hooked up with some of the Leesburg roads I had ridden multiple times before. By this time, Matt was still riding ok, but he was beginning to feel his months of not riding. I could not believe he was riding as good as he was. Then we started onto some new roads that I had not done before, but right as we were getting on them, Mark got a flat. One of the problems with this route is that there is not a clear place to stop to refuel, so with my new bike only having one bottle holder, I had to get some water off of Mark's Camelbak as he was changing his tire.

Around this point, the sun finally decided to show itself, which made the day a lot nicer. We got back to the end part of the DirtyBurg ride, which consists of riding up Bull Run Mountain on a diagonal that makes you go up and down the ridgelines. We ended up going our own pace and regrouping at turns. Finally we came back together as we hit Hopewell, and just to get it all out of my system, I took off on a flyer for the last 3 miles on Busthead Road.

After the ride, we went to Joe's Pizza (which is really hard to find now that Gainesville is all screwed up with the roads) and we ordered three large pies. I couldn't believe how much that little guy Matt could eat. It was a great time with the boys.

For the route, I need to find a refueling point. There was a small country store that might have potential, but it might not be open all the time.
I do like my new Giant cross bike, but for these dirt road rides, it's not as smooth as my old Jamis. Most importantly, it doesn't have 2 water bottle mounts, so I might want to get a second mount to use for rides like this.
The ride is a doozy, as it involves 6000 ft. of climbing in 64 miles.
Definitely good Iron Cross training. Will try to do this ride again before that race.

AZ Trip 2011 Day 5-Phoenix T-100 East Side

2011-03-23T17:46:00.002-04:00

From Feb.


Sunrise on the mountains

So for my last day on the tip I was not leaving until 5pm so I was to get one last ride in the morning. I had run the day before, since we were visiting my Aunt and Uncle. The running was pretty hard, and this made my legs dead for this ride. I tried to ride some trails on the south side of the T100, working my way around to some trail I had done before. This trail had some good sections while others were just too hard to ride. I saw a good number of hikers, and most were supportive of my efforts. One women exclaimed that she had been hiking out here for 20 years and never saw a biker on the trails I was on. I think those routes are do-able if you work your way through the neighborhood streets to link up trail.

Once I got to the trails I had done before, I was able to get myself moving faster. The trails on the north side is where the bikers ride, since it is more flowy. I had a fun time my last day, got to do some new trail. I got home and packed up the bike in about an hour then left for the car rental and airport. Next year I hope to maybe go to Tucson again to change it up.


The Hiker-Bike shoes were the ticket to riding some trails cause you had to walk a lot on rocks

AZ Trip 2011 Day 4-Black Canyon Trail

2011-03-20T07:58:00.001-04:00


Cactus Galore!- this part was a like a tunnel and they were big

From Feb.

I have done the BCT everytime I have come out to AZ. The trail is a great one, it was built by hikers who also bike. It is in an area that has a bunch of ATV trails, and it is nice to ride on the man-made trails that go up and down and turn like a nice roller coaster.
This year I rode part of the trail I had never ridden. I rode from the southern end point of the trail. I didn't know if you could park where I did, but I parked in front of the gate and hoped for the best. The first part of the trail was really flat, going slightly uphill. Wasn't much to it until I got to there more practical end point of the trail where there is a parking lot, tables, grills. I then rode north to most southern part I had ridden before. I went another mile or so and then turned around and rode back. I had a good ride, thinking next year not to do that most southern part(but it is very close to PHX) and try and ride the new northern trails. The only thing this trail is missing is a loop, right now it is pretty much an out and back.

Huge Wash that I got over at the BCT trail

AZ Trip 2011-Day 3 Quadruple-By-Pass

2011-03-18T11:25:00.001-04:00


The Anthem 29 liking the trail

From Feb.


Saw a hare

This is one of my favorite rides when I come to AZ. This ride reminds me of riding in GW forest where you have a big climb and then a big decent. This year I brought a GPS with me, but I forgot it for this ride! I had one of the maps the park makes so I was ok. The windGate climb was brutal as it was last year. With the new bike I will say it was nice having good brakes for the descents. I liked this ride more this year, cause since it was so early in the season it wasn't as hot. Also since I had done the ride before I knew what I was getting into. The tricky part where you go through the neighborhood, was no problem now since I knew where I was going. I ended up taking a wrong turn on the Quartz trail. I ended up at a Golf course and knew I had gone the wrong way. I looked at the map and saw my mistake and then continued to get back to the trail I needed to get to. I was out there a long time, I started around 11am and didn't finish until dusk. When I was coming over the last pass the sun was behind the mountain. Also I lost my cleat in my shoe(found the cleat not the bolts), so had to do an emergency repair and rode the last bit with only one bolt in each of my cleats.
Great ride, longest of the trip 6+ hours out there, riding for 5+.

Highest elevation 3100ft, lowest 1500ft

SunRise Valley Climb

http://bikeroutetoaster.com/Course.aspx?course=217443


A cycleways map of Open Street Map Data, I added the details on how to get out of the neighborhood to the DixieMone trail

AZ Trip 2011-Day 2-South Mountain

2011-03-14T10:05:00.004-04:00

From Feb.
I had ridden here every year I have been down to Phx for my little training camp. The first year I did Coast to Coast which is 40miles and a pretty long day in the saddle. For this day I needed to be back around 4:30pm to watch Kennedy in a volleyball game. I also knew I was going to do a big ride the next day so I didn't need to go too deep. The issue with riding here is that you can really hurt yourself if you are not careful. There are people on the trails so if I got really hurt I would not have been left for dead.
I did some trails that I had not done before, then I worked my way to the National trail. I did this trail a lot better then I did the previous time I came. There was only one little downhill that I think I could have done, but I didn't to wreck and hurt myself. I met some guys on the ridge we talked a bit, I was riding the rocks really well, too well it seems. When I got to a saddle to go down to the Desert Classic trail I started riding some sketchy stuff riding the walls of the trail. Then I when off a 3+ drop-off and over the bars I went. Luckly didn't get too hurt, but after that I walked down the sketchy stuff on that trail. Once on the desert classic trail I just chugged along to the car. Will come back here again since I seem to be riding the rocks better.

AZ Trip 2011-Day 1

2011-03-11T14:38:00.002-05:00

From Feb.

This year I decided to do my trip earlier then I had ever done it before. I figured that Febuarary would be a great time to be in AZ since the weather would have to be nicer then in DC. While if you go in March it is nice and warm in AZ, but you will still have 60 degree days in the DC area. My parents were in town the week before, and AZ had record lows in the 20’s in the morning. By the time I got there the weather was nicer with 40’s in the mornings and then up to 60’s-70’s in the afternoon. Interesting thing with this trip I didn’t get on the trail until almost midday for every ride besides the last day where I needed to catch a plane.

Day 1

T-100 West Side.
First Mt. Ride with My Garmin, it lost signal or something. Cause I didn’t go 12,000 miles! I had a good ride, and ended up getting there late in the day and rode until almost sunset. I had done this part of the park like 3 years ago, so This time I made sure to go up the fire road climb. Got my heart rate to 186, but didn’t know the heart rate thing was working at the time.

T-100 West Side
Wed, Feb 9, 2011 10:34 AM added by lovedabikes

Biking in the Everglades

2011-01-26T11:46:00.001-05:00

Being down in Florida and looking at the available routes near Pompano Beach/Fort Lauderdale, I noticed that I was pretty close to the Everglades. I looked on the usual sites (mapmyride and bikely), but no one really had routes that went into the Everglades. Upon further investigation (looking at the satellite pictures), I saw that there were service roads that were somewhat close to the suburban area near Sara's parents' Florida apartment. The issue was that it was 13 miles to the Everglades from where we were staying by the ocean. I didn't want to bike 26 miles there and back in addition to doing the ride, so I was able to convince Sara's father to drive me out Atlantic Blvd. to take off 13 miles of pure road biking.

I started out from a church parking lot and worked my way along the toll/exit ramp to a dirt side road. I took that to a gate that said "no motorized vehicles" and assumed that I'd be able to ride there. Once on the service road, I found nice gravel that paralleled the highway to my left, with a canal, service road and the Everglades to my right. I road this south, then veered west, then turned north and crossed the highway to pick up the service road. Then I crossed the highway again going east through the airboat recreation area to the service road that went back to the starting point. The next part of the ride was the most desolate, with the Everglades on each side. I was able to see many cranes, fish and buzzards as I road along. It was an interesting feeling being out there, as I could see civilization in the distance but was fairly isolated. It reminded me of the feeling I had out West in the desert. The weather was pretty hot. It was 80 degrees, but around 90+ degrees with humidity (I was basically riding next to a swamp). I noticed that I was getting sunburned on my arms.

I got back to where I'd started and wanted to continue onward back to the shore/coastline while continuing to stay as off-road as possible. I had seen during my satellite recon that there was a canal that had a path on it and some service roads. Unfortunately, the end of that path was near the toll road entrance ramp, so I had to hop a fence to start the trail. The trail was nice, but kind of more of a jogging/walking trail since it was cement instead of asphalt. Eventually, it ended and turned into service roads once again. I had an interesting encounter during which I almost hit a 4-ft iguana that then ran in front of me and jumped into the canal. I also had a funny little dog jump a 4-foot fence to run after me, but it knew to stop at its house's property line. Eventually, I ended up biking on grass on state lands near the canal near people's homes, and it was slow going. At one point I ended up having to go back to Atlantic Blvd., which is a major road. I went on the road, but it was pretty interesting since people were trying to enter and exit I-95 at some points. I was able to take more side streets after that and got back to the beach. As I got closer to the beach (about 4 miles out) I began to feel the temperature drop, so I knew I was getting close.

Notes:

Florida, no matter how you cut it, is pretty flat biking.
In the future, if I could have a car, I'd prefer to park and ride just the Everglades for more mileage without riding on the roads.
From the research I had done, it sounds like there are some park trails that would be good for biking. With the non-technical nature of them, a cross bike with bigger tires should be fine.
Considering it was 80 degrees and 90% humidity, I can't even imagine riding in Florida during the summer. It would be very uncomfortable.

Riding A1A on New Years Day

2011-01-23T08:54:00.001-05:00

Rode the Jamis with 28mm slicks, only CX bike I saw

One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to bike in new places. It seems to give me the ability to actually visit a place more completely since I've seen more of the area while riding around. A popular place to ride in South Florida is A1A, which goes along the coastline.

I decided that A1A would be an easy ride to do. Since it's an out-and-back route, there are no turns and it's impossible to get lost. I didn't know how far I was going to ride since I had forgotten to bring the magnet for my bike computer, but I figured that I'd just ride to a certain time and then turn back. Unfortunately, there was a 25-30 mph wind blowing that day. I went up the coast and ended up seeing around 300 bikers, some in packs of 50+ riders. At certain points I ended up riding with some bikers I came across, and I ended up riding with one gentleman on the way up as well as on the way back. I rode all the way up to South Palm Beach before turning around. Unfortunately, I had a headwind going almost the entire way back to Sara's parents' apartment. I finished the ride pretty spent and out for a lot longer than I had expected to be. On the upside, however, I got to see much of the coastline of South Florida.

2010 YearEnd Totals

2011-01-19T14:48:00.000-05:00

This year wasn't as bright as some others, but there were a few shining moments. The best ride of the year would have to be the 18 hours of Scouts Honor, where my team got first place and I was able to ride consistent laps without many back problems. The surprising runner-up for best ride was the 9 hours of Cranky Monkey race. I ended up doing it with a broken finger. I'd gotten the injury during a volleyball game. Because of the broken finger and my move into the city with Sara, I didn't have much structured training from mid-May to late-July. The worst ride of the year would have to be the Greenbriar marathon race, where my back was hurting so badly that I basically stopped and didn't go out for a final lap when I could have.

The Moots--2,286 miles

She is now a year older and feels a lot more at home, as she lives in our apartment with us (in the bathroom hallway). I had some fit issues on this bike that I finally figured out by getting some new handlebars. She's feeling a lot nicer to ride now. I enjoyed some interesting rides in Cape May, NJ and I finally did the 4-ridge ride climb I'd been meaning to do in Lewisburg (Sara's hometown). I threw in some OMG Frederick rides as well.

The Fixie--1,004 miles

The Atala is still going strong, primarily for bike commuting. Sometimes her wheels come out of true because of potholes.

Jamis CX Super Nova --814 miles

This is the do-all bike, so some of the mileage was from commuting to work, some was from dirt road rides, and still more was from cyclocross. I would say that the highlight for this bike was doing Iron Cross this year.

Gary Fisher Hi Fi Pro--300-ish

Had some good races on the GF this year. She was actually riding pretty well, but yet again, she broke. This happened in late summer. The Hi Fi highlight of the year was riding in Arizona and Vegas.

Voodoo Diabla--450

This year, the Voodoo had an identity criss. She went from a rigid single-speeder to a front suspension single-speeder to a 3x9 hardtail suspension bike, and finally ended up as a 1x10 hardtail. Since the GF broke, I had to use the Voodoo as my main mountain bike. In doing so, I set the bike up with full gears and was pleasantly surprised that I was able to ride Liberty Furnace, and Southern Traverse reasonably well without a full-suspension. Once I took off the gearing to put it back on the Gary Fisher when I sold it, I ended up making the bike a 10-speed in back, which works reasonably well with the low 36-tooth cog. Probably the highlight of the year with this bike was, as I said previously, Scouts Honor. It might have even been a better bike for the race than the GF could have been.

Tandem--300

Sara and I were able to get some miles on the bike, and I think there would've been more miles on it if I'd have lived in the city the entire year. We were able to squeeze in rides about once a week before work. Hopefully in the next year, we can get in some more riding, but that is looking doubtful given the amount of schoolwork that Sara is doing. The big news for the tandem this year was that I raced cross on it with Matt. I will say that it was a hoot riding DCCX and then Tacchino on the tandem. Riding a tandem on a cyclocross course actually makes the course pretty technical, as it's tough to simply get the beast around the corners. Hopefully next year (if Matt's on board), I will try to race most of the series with him.

Supposedly, 2011 should be a big year. Sara is still in school, so I have plenty of time to ride; we do have 7-8 weddings this year to attend, so that may present some conflicts.

2010 YearEnd Totals

2011-01-19T14:43:00.000-05:00

This year wasn't as bright as some others, but there were a few shining moments. The best ride of the year would have to be the 18 hours of Scouts Honor, where my team got first place and I was able to ride consistent laps without many back problems. The surprising runner-up for best ride was the 9 hours of Cranky Monkey race. I ended up doing it with a broken finger. I'd gotten the injury during a volleyball game. Because of the broken finger and my move into the city withSara, I didn't have much structured training from mid-May to late-July. The worst ride of the yearwould have to be the Greenbriar marathon race, where my back was hurting so badly that I basically stopped and didn't go out for a final lap when I could have.

The Moots--2,286 miles

The Fixie--1,004 miles

The Atala is still going strong, primarily for bike commuting. Sometimes her wheels come out of true because of potholes.

Jamis CX Super Nova --814 miles

Gary Fisher Hi Fi Pro--300-ish

Had some good races on the GF this year. She was actually riding pretty well, but yet again, she broke. This happened in late summer. The Hi Fi highlight of the year was riding in Arizona and Vegas.

Voodoo Diabla--450

This year, the Voodoo had an identity criss. She went to a rigid single-speeder to a front suspension single-speeder to a 3x9 hardtail suspension bike, and finally ended up as a 1x10 hardtail. Since the GF broke, I had to use the Voodoo as my main mountain bike. In doing so, I set the bike up with full gears and was pleasantly surprised that I was able to ride Liberty Furnace Southern Traverse reasonably well without a full-suspension. Once I took off the gearing to put it back on the Gary Fisher when I sold it, I ended up making the bike a 10-speed in back, which works reasonably well with the low 36-tooth cog. Probably the highlight of the year with this bike was, as I said previously, Scouts Honor. It might have even been a better bike for the race than the GF could have been.

Tandem--300

Sara and I were able to get some miles on the bike, and I think there would've been more miles on it if I'd have lived in the city the entire year. We were able to squeeze in rides about once a week before work. Hopefully in the next year, we can get in some more riding, but that is looking doubtful given the amount of schoolwork that Sara is doing. The big news for the tandem this yearwas that I raced cross on it with Matt. I will say that it was a hoot riding DCCX and then Tacchino on the tandem. Riding a tandem on a cyclocross course actually makes the course pretty technical, as it's tough to simply get the beast around the corners. Hopefully next year (if Matt's on board), I will try to race most of the series with him.

Supposedly, 2011 should be a big year. Sara is still in school, so I have plenty of time to ride; we do have 7-8 weddings this year to attend, so that may present some conflicts.

A Mountain Biker is Born

2011-01-16T11:14:00.000-05:00

This Christmas, I continued the tradition of giving my nephew a bicycle-related item. Previously, I had given him his first bicycle with 12-inch wheels and training wheels. Next, I got him a trailer bike. Then I bought him a sixteen-inch BMX bike, but Cole was having trouble with balance and continued to need his training wheels a lot. I got him a scooter, which I hoped would help him learn to balance. Eventually, when he went back to his bike, he was able to ride within two tries. Cole has been growing fast, and he needed a new bike this year and so Sara and I planned to get him one for Christmas. I decided to go with a 24-inch wheel mountain bike. I realized it would be big for him now, but he is going to be tall someday, as his dad is 6 ft. 4 in. Also, it should last him a while. Of course, Cole was happy with the present (which we gave to him on Christmas Eve Day), and Sara and I told him that it would be for Christmas and his birthday (in January). Young boys do not know how much things cost.

I took Cole out for a ride, and it ended up being a long one. We got to go off-road for a bit and around the Lake of the Woods development, where my parents live. We had to do the obligatory roll down the hill (without the bikes) that almost made Uncle Darren puke and also stop by the playground so that Cole could race me on the jungle gym apparatus.

I ended up biking again with Cole when we visited my sister on Christmas Day. He had been waiting for me to arrive for another bike ride. I took him to Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, and this time we actually went on some hills, and Cole got to understand that gears are good. He also got to understand that what goes up must come down, and he enjoyed riding the downhills. On one of the steep hills, I knew Cole wasn't going to make it up, so I had him go in front of me and jumped off my bike. As I cheered for him to pedal, I lightly pushed him up, but he still did most of the work. As usual, he seemed pretty tired both days. I hope to take Cole on some real mountain bike trails in the future.

Tacchino CX

2010-11-07T18:29:00.000-05:00

Big Jim has carved out himself a great race. I went and watched last year, and this year I was able to race.

Masters 3/4
I got an ok starting position, I was lined up next to Gwadzilla. I wanted to keep it smooth and see if I could not hurt my back too much. I got an ok start, and had Bruce B. in my sights. I don't know if ever passed him, but by DCMTB teammate Brian caught up to me. I had a bad remount, landing on the tire/brake. I losed some time there. After the first 2 laps it was just going into maintaining mode, since I couldn't really get any power out of my body. I got passed by a good many people, but the only saving grace was that I was able to get the guy who caught up to me on the last off camber(almost wrecking there). I liked the double logs where you could jump them or dismount. I think bigger logs would be better so it was more of a question. Reminded me of the Swiss worldcup I watched, the barriers are not as high as the ones we use cause most pros were bunny hopping them and it didn't look 40 inches high.

Tandem
There was a tandumb race happening, and this time I made sure the pedal was on ok. I had Tyler from Family Bikes pack a pedal tap so that I could clean out the threads. That did the trick Matt's pedals went on fine, and we were ready to roll. We started in the first row, and were able to get the lead after the first corner. I knew the Padam team was coming behind us. They got us on the off camber downhill, and we never saw them again. We were riding good together, and had our shinning moment/almost disaster when we did a planned move that we talked about in a practice lap. After a downhilll there is a U-turn then an uphill rise. The Tom team was in front of us and Matt kicked it in going out of the turn and we stood for the whole hill. The almost disaster happened at the turn where we passed and hit a root I never saw in the Masters race. When we hit the root is sent our bike into the tape, but luckly I was able to control it. We did ok at the barriers, but we were not as insync as we were at DCCX. After the first lap we were in no-man's land, but our luck changed as we saw the Toms team have a mechanical with their timing chain having fallen off. So we caught them at the double logs, and tried to get them at the berm, but we were running out of trail. We got them on the off camber, and on the pavement for a 3rd place. We made the podium DCMTB's second podium of the day.

Thoughts:

Jim put on a great race, cool prizes I got some of the sausage and ate this week-yum.
The vibe pretty awesome.
I found the Elite race a lot more fun to watch since Joe D. started 2:30 down on the whole race, and he came back to win big.
The team support was out there today
Tandem races are great! I mean pretty cool motivating, and dieing out on the course with a friend.
Right now My favorite races for Mabra are Ed Sanders, DCCX, and Rockburn. I didn't do the one in Winchester, but I have seen the course so I will try that next year.


An artsy version of a shot I found online

DCCX 2010

2010-10-24T21:34:00.000-04:00

Most photos by Jon Janis

As the captain of DCMTB, DCCX is more than just a race for me. It's our team's way to give back to the biking community by putting on the best event that we can. Yet again, I think that we have succeeded, having over 700 racers and shattering the MABRA record of 80 women at our race. Mother nature came through as well (for the fourth year running) with sunny skies and mild temperatures. A big thank you to all the sponsors--Dogfish Head Alehouses (for tasty beer and pourers), Family Bikeshop (Jonathan rocks), Bobby's Pottys (we had to go big this year, with 7 porta-johns that still all became out of order by the end of the day), the Dutch Club (for making great pancakes). Stickyfingers Bakery, and Joe Foley Photography. Special thanks also to the Armed Forces Retirement Home for allowing us to use the beautiful grounds.

Men's Masters ¾

Well, I was worried a little bit going into this race. I had been working on the race and on my feet all day Saturday, and then was working the VIP team tent area in the morning. One good thing with having your own race, you get an ok start position. I was starting next to Mark D. from the team. I got a pretty good

s tart(which I seem to be able to do usually) Right before going to the finish line for the first time, I was able to get to Bruce B’s wheel. I had the opportunity to pre ride the course a Bruce had not been able to pre ride, and was not riding as smooth as I was. I got a little impatient and passed Bruce. This would be short lived as Bruce passed me, then Bill of CXHairs passed me as well. Around the 2^nd or 3^rd lap my back blew up. At that point I was in trouble, I went from like 17^th to the 31^st position I ended up at. I guess Gwadzilla was behind me closing in cause he finished right behind me. I did ok, but when you loose 15 places you are not going to be too happy.

Tandem

This was the race that I had been thinking about leading up to the race. I had originally planned to do the race with Sara. After pre-riding the course, Sara and I thought it best for our relationship that we didn’t ride it together. I got Matt E. from my team who was a great sport. He is a really strong rider, and fit the tandem great. Matt, and I had pre-ridden the course on Sat so we had an idea what we were doing. We had a slow start, but by the first turn one tandem blew up, and we were in 3rd place. At the barriers our technique came into play and we were in 2^nd. The Toms boys caught back up to us, and we were doing ok until we messed up at the stairs(which we did good in practice). At some point we lost a pedal and some time getting it back on. I think after that on the backside of the course we saw one of the tandems roll a tubular(don’t use tubulars unless you have defense grade adhesive!) We lost some time on the uphill pavement, then lost our pedal again. We fixed it with a pedal wrench, but the damage was done we went into steady mode. The best part on the tandem was doing the bricks to the downhill, we were doing 33mph there. I had a good time on the Tandem and will hope to do it again this CX season.

DCCX has gotten better every year, and this year I was really happy with the course, and my little off road addition to the mix. Sara was great for coming out for the day as she was reading when she could and watchin’ her man do his thing too.

18 hours of Scouts Honor

2010-10-20T08:09:00.000-04:00

From August


With the Boys with the FAT $200 for winning, unfortunately that didn't cover registration.

I have been lame and not been keeping up my blog for my 3 loyal readers...... Well I will be doing updates this week, and try to be on it for the next couple of weeks if I am racing.

I have done Scouts Honor I think like 4-6 times. I might have only missed one year of it. I did the first one at Poorfarm Park in Ashland which was cool. They have had Scouts Honor at the boy scouts camp for the last several years, and I think it is a great venue. The course this year was even longer then last year with around 12 miles. I think they have hit the sweet spot for course length right about an hour. The only thing I would say against the course, I don't know if it was new cut trail or weird drainage, but there were some slow sections in there even though it had been really dry. Hopefully it was new cut trail and next year it will be fast and smooth like the rest of the course.

-before the race:
So we decided to go down the day of, and I was going to have Sara come down at the end of the race and drive me to my parents. Things did not got to plan, I had Jonathan pick me up at my work parking lot and he went all the way to Annapolis to get Leland. We got to the traffic jam known as 95 and were running late to make the start. Mike K. was down in Williamsburg with his family and was to meet us there. Mike got there, and ended up having to do our first lap, as we got our registration. If Mike wasn't there it would have been a little dicey.
-the race

Mike did a good lap having us around 5th over-all, after the first lap. Jonathan went out and ripped a crazy fast time like 5 minutes faster then Mike which put us in 2nd over-all 1st for 4-man. I went out did a pretty good lap, and then Leland went out and pulled a good one as well. After the first laps we were into the darkness(race starts at 4pm). I was rocking my second lap when I had my front tire burb on me after I railed a turn with a dip in it. I had to refill the tire a little bit, so that cost me some time. We did consistant laps through the night with that 3-5 stretch being people's slowest laps. Jonathan was the rockstar of the race, he was just killing it the whole way. I wanted a sub 1:00 for my last lap and was able to pull that off. Jonathan took the only 5th lap, instead of Mike since he left to go back to Williamsburg to his family.
Notes:

-Good course, alot of ups and downs. I made a point to stay in the middle ring, and stand out of the saddle when I needed to.
-The Voodoo worked great in it's 3x9 geared with FT suspension. ( usually run this bike Rigid, and SS)
-Getting first was nice, and we grabbed 2nd over-all the 1st place duo team is semi-pro.
-I was riding with my saddle more forward then usual, but I really like to be "on-top" of the pedals for a fast course.
-We all did the race, on the bare minimum, got food on the way down(would eat half later that night) Jonathan brought the boiled potatoes which really helped. I didn't bring a tent but just rested in the chair with my lite sleeping bag.
-Bring bug spray next year!

-Have to see how the 2011 summer turns out, but I could see myself here once again.

Iron Cross 8 the X X X edition

2010-10-10T00:30:00.000-04:00

From 10-10-10

Iron Cross

Iron Cross
Oh you beast, I think I know you and then you go and change on me. The Iron Cross race is something that any biker who has a CX bike should do. The race is between a SM100 kind of race, a dirt road race, and a mountain bike race. The nice thing about the race is that it is short enough that most people finish within an hour of almost everyone else. This was my race this year. I had broken my pinky in May, so this was my objective race. I started training late, cause I moved from Arlington to DC this July. So it wasn't until late August that I started to get the miles and rides in (the OMG-Shepherdstown stuff is great training). By September, I was getting a good amount of rides, and I had done Ed Sanders, and AVC cross before Iron Cross. My back was starting to act up even with those short events, so I had no idea what was going to happen at Iron CX.
An Unexpected Partner
Two of my DCMTB teammates Matt E. and Mark P. went up a day early and stayed in one of the cabins. I am thinking that will be the ticket for next year. The unexpected partner was Sid. I haven't ridden with Sid in a long time so I was surprised to hear that he was going to be doing Iron CX. He rented a CX bike, and I gave him a helping hand by letting him borrow a set of 38mm WTB interwolfs. This tire is not made anymore, but it is the perfect tread for this event. I might try and run them tubeless next year. I ran them this year with Latex tubes. So Sid and I met up at Scots run near 495 at 5:15 am and got on the road. We got up there pretty quick with plenty of time to spare.
Pre-Race
This year the weather was warmer then when I did it in 2007. I was worried about clothing, but I settled on wool bib shorts, knee warmers, arm warmers, jersey and vest. Sid and I met up with Matt and Mark, and we were able to put our stuff in their cabin. I planned bags with CO2 and tubes at both stops just in case.We talked about the course, and people were getting nervous.

The Start, Lippencote Trail, to Wigwam

Matt started fast and I was on his wheel, but then we switched. We got to the open road/trail, and Matt went speeding ahead. Mark eventually caught up to me as well and passed me. I had only been racing for 30 minutes and I was already starting to feel my back. I knew it was going to be a rough day. I was climbing ok, but I think this year my descending was going great. I felt really comfortable on the downhills. The road sections were not going well for me. I think that next year I will have to work on doing more road riding to work on my high-end speed. We did a paved road climb, and then it was on to the first real singletrack. One of the keys to racing this race is top levers on a CX bike. Going up the trail, I was riding smooth and slowly catching up to and passing some people. Once the trail went downhill I started doing even better. I somehow ended up behind two other mt. bikers or skilled riders, cause the three of us passed like 20+ people on the trail. We were going over logs (some over a foot high) and I made it past the part in 2007 where I walked. Now I was in front of 30+ people who had previously been in front of me. Just as in 2007, everyone was doing pacelines that were going too fast for me to even get in on. Matt caught up to me again (I had passed him) and passed me again.
Wigwam to Aid 3
The good thing about having done the race was that I knew how much Wigwam sucks. This year I carried my bike across my back, with it kinda resting on my camelbak. I think this was the right way to do it, but I think that if you could have a bungee to hold on to so that your hands are not in a weird position, it would be bettter. Might work on that. Once at the rest stop, I took a minute to take off my vest, arm warmers, and knee warmers, put them in my drop bag, and fill up my bottle. Matt was just in front of me. I caught up to him and he was going a little slower, so I passed him. The next downhill was sick, I was riding it fast like 45 mph and felt comfortable (my back not so much), but was thinking if I wreck this is going to be bad. At one point I took a turn a little too hot and ended off the road, but I was fine. I dropped some people going down the mountain, but the problem with that speed is you can miss your next turn! So I went left at this Y and felt that there should be someone near me. So I turned around and saw some people up the road going into the woods. So I was now behind like 10 people I had passed. I saw Matt again, who was cursing me, the race, and his lot in life it seems. This was a new singletrack section, where my top levers, and 34-32 gearing was coming in handy. I was passing people and hooked up with a mountain biker. I actually passed the mountain biker on the downhill--pretty amazing. I was then mostly on my own to aid 3.
Aid 3-Fin
So at the aid station, I filled up my bottle again, and had a cup to go as well. This was the start of the big ass climbing. I had 2 interesting experiences. One was with Todd B. from the SS Outlaw crew was rocking it on his SS. I was climbing steady in my small gear as he was mashing away. We both said that our legs were getting some twinges. At some point Todd must had had both legs cramp, cause he fell into a heap on the side of the fire road. The other person I rode next to was a beast of a rider. She was the 4th or 5th place female (and I later found out she was 51 years old--go her). She was riding a bike almost like a touring bike. She was breathing up a storm, pushing a big ass gear. and she would pedal, then walk, pedal then walk. I was just going constant (slowly). We went back and forth, with her going in front until she had to walk, and me catching back up to her because I was still actually pedaling my bike. She then left me as it leveled out at the top. Once it started down hill I dropped her hard. I finally got to the last singletrack section. This is the funnest part of the course, but you are usually too tired to like it. The singletrack seemed longer, and more technical then before. I knew I was running slower, cause last time I rode most of the last walk up. After going though the last singletrack, I heard my tire rubbing. I looked at it and I had broken a spoke (I found out later it was 2). So I was thinking about what to do. I didn't want the tire to take off all my paint on the bike. I found the bad spot and just whacked it a couple of times, and that seemed to true it enough not to hit my frame. Now I had no rear brake though. The last pavement downhill was trickier then last time, since I only really had a front brake. My wheel was so messed up it made the bike do a lurching motion. I did the last 2-3 big rollers, then back to the finish. I made it just under 5 hours. I achieved my goal, but I thought I was faster. I think that most people's times were slower cause of the added singletrack (which is a good thing).

Thoughts

This race should be only CX bikes like the Three Peaks Race
Next year if I got up with some people I will try to have us ride as a group until the first singletrack
I need to work on leg speed for the road sections
I should make a small bungee thing to help hold the bike for Wigwam, and then dump it at the aid station
I plan to ride my stans wheels next year
Thinking about doing a spring training camp and doing the ride then
Seems like most roadies were riding mountain bikes, and it was mountain bikers on the CX bikes.
I think the Camelbak and one water bottle is the way to go, only had to fill it once.

A guy shot a video of the race, the cyclocross stuff you see that is only at the very beginning. You can see Matt E. @ 1:52 on the HUGE hike a bike. and you can see me at 2:02 at the rest stop eating a GU. Also I zip on by on the trail at 2:25 (had taken a wrong turn so had to pass a bunch of people I passed once already)

DCMTB-retreat Day 2-Southern Traverse

2010-08-14T19:30:00.000-04:00

The Boys of DCMTB

From August

We got down to Harrisonburg and got our camping spot setup up on helopad area near Tood Lake. Mike K. had a huge tent and Leland, Mike, Ian and I all slept in it. It was big enough for Mike and I to have to full size sleeping mattresses and the other guys were on their own bedrolls. Best comment of the night was in the morning when Mike said we are some quiet ass sleepers. None of us are snorers which was nice.

So in the morning the weather was total crap, it had been raining the whole night, and it was not looking great for riding. Kevin, and Matt B. stayed at a hotel, and joined us, and Jonathan got down to the area around 10am.
We decided to do the Southern Traverse because we thought we might get out of the lite rain we were in. We were kinda right. We got to the start of the Southern Traverse and it was a little misty, but as we climbed the ridge to get to the single track we basically climbed into a cloud. This would be how the rest of the ride would follow, we would go up, down, going left and right of the ridge line and would get less rain or more.
After the ride we did yesterday, I was not feeling as spunky. I felt I had the endurance to ride just not the snap. I ended up riding mostly with Kevin, and Matt B. Matt was having some issues getting used to the rocks we have here in the east coast compared to UK where is from. The front guys would wait up for us, even though I told them to just go ahead.
After we did the big downhill, we were going to do the 16 mile slog back on the road. I had told Kevin I would ride with him back on the singletrack if he wanted. In the end we all decided to take the road. Chris D. was riding strong, I ended up catching up with him, and pace lining with him for like 10miles. He lead most of the way I tried to contribute when I could.
We went out that night to the greek place in Harrisonburg, and had some laughs. I ended up going back that night with Kevin, which had I known I was going to do that I would have done the singletrack back instead of the road. Hopping we can do this again next year, and there is some better weather.

Kevin got this for X-Mas I thought it was a joke. but it is real.

DCMTB-retreat Day 1 Liberty Furnace.

2010-08-13T18:17:00.000-04:00

Boys on the Lookout

Almost there, it was raining in DC, and sprinkling here, luckily on the trail totally dry

Leland was leaving the area and I wanted him to experience some of the big up, and downhills that he never got to ride during the various races. Four of us were taking Friday off to do Liberty Furnace, and we would meet up with more of the DCMTB crew on Friday/Saturday to do a ride in the Stokesville area.

LibertyFurnace1

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I will not lie this ride has some major climbing...... as you can see that first 3 miles is a whopper! Some in the group were not happy about it, but Ian and myself we fine to try and climb what we could and walk the other stuff. We got the first climb and descended the fire road to the rocky downhill trail. We then took a right onto a trail I had not done, but it part of the Big Schlosh loop. There were some rocky sections, and a full on rock mine field in the forest that we had to go through. I did my rendition of a hail mary, superman endo going through the rock garden. Had to deal with that bruise the whole weekend.

Yes, that's a trail. See the yellow blaze

We took the road to trout pond, in the future I will do the double track by the general store. Ian and I had a good challenge up this climb, and I think we might have made it, but there was a tree down so it was not to be. On the ridgeline, Mike finally seemed happy, and I was just happy to be riding my HT OK here, since I am used to having my dual suspension bike with me. The downhill was too much for me, I didn't take it as fast as Young Buck and Mike. The ride was good, minus 25minutes of Ian fighting a UST tire that had a sidewall gash. A big THX to Mike for the post ride Burritos!

OMG-No Shepardstown w/Coxy

2010-08-01T12:53:00.000-04:00


The Boys and I

The Route

OMG No Shepherdstown w/Coxy

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I've done this ride once a year for the last four years or so. This year, I was doing the ride with a smaller group and it was a little more relaxed. We started off, and at Hamburg, we all went our own pace. It was very interesting because having done the climbs out in Boulder recently, I was able to compare and contrast them with the Frederick climbs.

I do quite well on a climb like Hamburg, which is pretty steep--being 3 miles and 1168ft of elevation. The difference between this ride and the ones I'd done in Colorado was that even though there is a good amount of elevation gain, there are spots of flats or a lesser gradient where you can catch your breath. I finished the climb a little bit before Chris and Jonathan, and then we worked our way down Highland School, getting to some high speeds. My bike wasn't feeling quite right, and I realized once we got to the bottom that my tires were a little overinflated. Right before we got to Harp Hill, Jonathan had a flat that we had to change. This took a little bit longer than usual, but while we were there, I used the stop to deflate my tires a bit and get more grip on the downhills. I was the last to leave, and a lady in a minivan said to me, "You can't delay the inevitable," before I started up the next climb.

Going up Harp Hill, I caught up to Jonathan and Chris, who had gotten pretty far up the road already. I did the climb at a pretty good clip, using my technique of attacking at the super steep parts to keep my cadance high. We worked our way down to the first rest stop and bought some extra water.

On the way to the Gapland Climb, the scenery was nice, but we were a little exposed to the heat and sun with the 90 degree temperature.

At the top of the Gapland Climb, which is very steep at the beginning but mellows out after the initial push, there is a park that is a great rest stop with bathrooms and water. After a discussion with the group and a look at our watches, we decided that we didn't really need to go all of the way to Shepherdstown. I came up with an idea for a route that would add a climb and allow us to get the same elevation as going the extra 20 miles to Shepherdstown and back. I decided that we would take a little northern detour and then hook up with Dogstreet Rd. to then hit the Reno Climb that we would normally hit on the route from Shepherdstown.

We did the Reno Climb, which is always an interesting one because of the super sharp kicker in the beginning--after which you lose all of that elevation and have to go up again to go over the real ridge. We didn't get to enjoy the full downhill of the Reno Climb because we needed to take the left-hand turn to Foxgap Road that would lead us to an extra climb. We went back over the ridge that we just came down on Alt. 40, which was a little crowded but had a shoulder.

What is nice about the Alt. 40 climb is that it is graded for trucks and so it's a gradual ascent and you just need to keep a good rhythm to get up it. Once we got to the saddle of the climb, we went further north up the ridge on Monument Road. At the top, we waited for Jonathan, who was kinda cramping by that point.

We then did another road called Michael that I'd never done before that is a super fast downhill and has two or three tight corners. I was leading, and I had two little surprising moments. I yelled out to warning to the guys about the turns, and I believe Jonathan actually ended up having a two-wheel drift skid. We made it down the descent and then continued on Monument to the prior rest stop, where we had stashed our extra water. Jonathan had put too much mix into his drinks and wasn't at his best, but he still said he would make it through and do Coxy Brown, which he had not done in two previous attempts.

We left the rest stop and worked our way to the Mother Coxy Brown. Coxy Brown is a very interesting climb. It seems no matter how many times I've done it, I still have my "come-to-Jesus" or "am-I-going-to-get-off-this-bike-and-walk" moment on it. I have done the climb enough to know that it's gonna hurt, but I know I can do it. I realized I'd gone out a little too fast on the first part when after the flat middle part, the second seemed even harder this time despite my past experience with it. All three of us made it up the climb, and what goes up must come down. The downhill back to the cars on Gambrill/Shookstown Rd. is a blast, and you can coast all the way back to the cars.

So we ended up with 68 miles and about 300 ft. less of elevation game than if we had done the full 83 miles of the original route. In some ways, I like this route better, but I do like that bakery in Shepherdstown.

Boulder Day 2-Peak to Peak Hwy or Boulder-Ward-Lyons

2010-07-24T20:27:00.000-04:00

For my second day in Boulder I was to do a solo ride, while Rob was running the route of the Boulder half Iron man, and Sara and Christie were doing their own run. I had thought to go out to do the Mountains that were behind the house. I went on Bikely to scope out a route, and made one that was only 37 miles and let me go up the mountain and then come back down.
I woke up early with the weather being cool in the high 60's and cloudy with Fog. I got my cue and got the bottles filled up with water and Power Aid. I also brought a 3rd bottle in my jersey so I wouldn't go through the problem that I had the day before of not having enough to drink.

Darren Boulder Mt. Adventure

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The first thing I noticed was that the 60miles the day before had done a number on the undercarriage. Rob's seat was harder, and narrower then I am used to. So I lubed up :-) I decided to be cruel to myself, and instead of going around Lee Hill I thought I would go over it, since it would be less mileage.

The first thing to note is that Rob's bike is a regular 39-53 with a 25 in back. I am used to riding a 36-50 so I knew the gears might be an issue with this ride. Climbing Lee Hill reminded me of the climbing I usually do on the hilly rides on the east coast. Pretty darn steep, with some steeps, and not too many miles. As I was going up Lee Hill I was getting worried, cause I was on the lowest gear and breathing up a storm. I kept it up and eventually I got to the top. I was a little worried, cause if the rest of the ride was going to be like this my knees would be toast! The downhill to Lefthand Canyon Dr. is crazy steep going into a full U-turn, I took it nice and easy since I wasn't in a race or anything.


Right at the cloud line

Once I got to Lefthand Canyon Dr. I started the gradual climb up to Ward. Now this kind of climbing is not to my liking... It was a shallow grade of 4%? maybe and I was running the upper end of the cassette, but was not pedaling slow. The climbing never let up, so I never got a breather. I would stand to change the tempo of the climbing, but the lack of steps was taking it's toll on the boat anchor of body weight I am carrying around. As I was climbing I was seeing a number of cyclists coming down the mountain wearing arm warmers, and jackets. The weather was still cloudy, cool, and muggy. I was wearing a muscle jersey after the 90+ degrees the day before. The only thing keeping me warm was that I had been climbing for an hour or so. It got to the point where I had goosebumps on my arms. As I was getting into Ward I was hitting the clouds, thinking if it isn't sunny on the decent I am screwed.
Once I got on to Peak to Peak Hwy, I realized why I had seen a fair amount of bikers. They were part of the Sunrise Valley century going on. They were going the opposite way that I was going. I must have seen around 1000 bikers throughout the ride. Peak to Peak Hwy was nice, and had some great views. Thankfully the sun decided to show itself so I was finally not cold.
As I was starting to descend I was looking for a road called Jamestown, and by this time my cue sheet had gotten a bunch of sweat on it and was soggy(so I couldn't read it). I ended up taking a right on Rt. 7 but still descending. At mile 38 I knew something was up, since I should of been done with the ride. I wasn't that upset, cause I was still descending, but I didn't know if this was taking me to the other side of the mountain away from Boulder. I was thinking to call Sara and see if they could come pick me up since I was not going to be able to make it back over a mountain, and we had plans that I needed to get back for(I had no cell signal). I happened by a park, and I thought to just look at the Kiosk hoping there was a map or something. They had a brochure on the parks in the Boulder area, that had a map. With the map I could see where I was and realized I could get back ok, even though it was going to be a little bit of a drag. After 18 miles of descending......let me repeat that 18 miles of mostly going downhill that is something I am not used to. I got into Lyons and then took Foothills back to Boulder. I was now riding with a lot of the Century folk, Foothills has a nice big shoulder, but it is a busy road. There are a few up and downs that you have to do, but finally I made it back.

2 hard days, but two totally different experiences I liked the day two terrian better
Decsending through the canyons made my trip, something that I will remember.
Great to experiance 20+ miles of climbing before topping out.
With my build the power climbing with steps suits me better.

Maybe next year do an extended vacation with more biking.


With the Crew before the airport

Boulder Day 1-Carter Lake

2010-07-23T15:40:00.000-04:00

Carter Lake

Well Sara had been meaning to visit one of her best friends Christie since she had moved to Boulder CO. I had met Christie several times, and her Husband Rob, who is a triathlete. Rob and myself had talked about biking a little, but we had never ridden together.
Before the trip I knew that Rob and I would get in at least one ride. I was going to try and ride his bike instead of renting or lugging my bike out there. I found out later that Rob used to work Velonews/Triathlete and knew the head guy at Cervelo. So Rob had a SL-3 for me to ride, and he would ride his P-3. I brought out my ancient spd Dura Ace pedals I use, since I ride with Mt. shoes all the time. I also brought out my 130mm stem to go on his 56cm bike(I ride a 58 normally). He said there was enough post. I put on my stem, and raised the seatpost, moved the saddle back, and when I tightened the clamp-POP I broke the seatclamp. We went to Excel sports and got another Clamp that was a Cervelo clamp, that was made the same way, but had been beefed up where I had cracked his. The clamp cost me $35, but was a lot cheaper then renting a bike.


56cm SL-3 That rode for the weekend

One fast dude

The ride we did was on a 90+ day we did a rolling ride to Carter Lake. I am used to riding a compact, and was interesting being back on regular rings for the weekend. On our way out we were hitting some pretty high speeds on Foothills road. I did some digs on Rob, which he might have been surprised by. This was the first time I have ridden with someone on a Tri Bike. For the riding we were doing, it was interesting cause once we got to the high 20's I needed to draft behind Rob, and in the 30's I couldn't let him get too far away from me or I would loose him. There were some small hills, nothing too big, the biggest being the climb to the lake itself. The gearing was fine for that, but I was worried cause I was to do another ride the next day with more climbing.

The ride back was almost the same way we came. The ride down the hill we came up to get to the lake, I gave Rob some room, and the last turn off the hill he was in his aero bars, and must have been doing 35-40 so I really couldn't catch up to him. He waited for me at the next turn. So as we were going back. I was starting to loose it, I didn't drink enough I think. I also had said that I would be good for 50, and it was the last 11 that really got me(we did 62). I would have been fine if I could of just gone my own pace. Rob was being nice and would slow, and I would suck his wheel at 20 then 18,and 16 I just couldn't keep the pace. After the ride, my legs hurt so bad that I really couldn't stand I had to laydown for a bit to recover.
Was a good ride, I think I can ride with Rob pretty well when I am in shape. I think I surprised him on how I rode the small hills there, but I didn't have the power with endurance when I am in shape too keep my speed on the flats.


I saw this a lot during the ride back, I was a wheel sucking fool

Carter Lake

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Lewisburg PA, 4X over the Ridge with the Big Guy

2010-07-18T17:25:00.000-04:00

I knew I was going to be up in Lewisburg, PA in mid-July because Sara's parents were allowing me to store some things at their house. After a hectic Friday packing the Uhaul and an equally hectic Saturday unloading it, I thought I needed to do a ride on Sunday for body and soul. The route that I planned to do was one that I'd plotted out two years ago that was very similar to a route that I'd found on the Bucknell cycling website. The route had three climbs, with one being pretty darn big. Sara and I had come down the big one on the tandem.

4X over the Ridge with the big Guy

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The ride started off fine--foggy as per usual for a summer's day in Central PA. Going south on Stein was the right route to take, considering the road is blown out and would have been pretty unsafe if I were to be coming down from the ridge that way. Once over the ridge, I crossed over Rt. 304 and got onto some nice small roads, even crossing a nice little bridge on a road strangely called Little Mexico Rd.. I missed a turn or two along the way to New Berlin.

It was early in the morning, and it was very different going through New Berlin this time as opposed to when I went through it with Sara during a craft show. The small town was all quiet. I went up the ridge to go north out of the town and took Mountain Rd. to the left to go diagonally. This road ended up being a dirt road--and a little grippy at the beginning. I had to stay seated to keep traction, because if I didn't my wheels would spin out. It turned into a downhill that was still gravel, but a little more hard packed. It's always a little unnerving going 30 mph on road tires in gravel.

The next part of the ride was probably my favorite, going along the ridge on the north side, where there were flat-to-rolling roads. I encountered the Amish going to church. Some of them were riding bikes, but in their normal Sunday clothes rather than in spandex. I also had a first-time experience of following two horse-drawn buggies, which were going at a pretty good clip but were slower on downhills because they couldn't freewheel like I could. I overtook the buggies on a downhill section, and the kids in the back seemed amused.

Then came the big climb on RT 235. The climb was actually too my liking--somewhat stepped, but still tough. It took a while to get to the top, but what goes up must come down. The downhill was pretty straight, so I was able to let it hang out and ended up going 50 mph at some points. As I worked my way back to New Berlin to go over the ridge again and head to Sara's parents' place, I took some back roads instead of the more direct route to the town. I went through some rolling, hilly sections, finally going up one last hill that turned to gravel. As I I was riding another gravel downhill, disaster struck. I got a sidewall cut in my tire, which basically ended my ride. The kicker is, I was only 50 yards from the gravel ending and going to pavement. I called Sara to pick me up, and luckily she was home and willing to do so. Interesting to note, I was able to ride three or four miles on the flat, tubeless tire, in the process catching 2 girls on mountain bikes who caught me after I'd flatted. Sara came shortly thereafter. I got a nice warm reception and we rode home together in her mom's car.

I ended up with a little under 50 miles on the day and only didn't do the last five to Sara's parents' house. So it was a good ride. Next time I will cue it to stay away from the dirt roads.

NJ Beach weekend Day 2

2010-07-04T20:00:00.001-04:00

From July 4th

For the Second Ride of the Trip I decided to do a shorter slower ride.
I saw from the New Jersey department of tourism that have a 50+ mile ride
that goes from Stone Harbor to CapeMay and back. I was going to use this route,
but instead of going to the west side of the peninsula I was going to go straight
north through the middle of the peninsula.I went out south out of South Harbor.

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Avalon-to-CapeMay-and-back

Avalon to CapeMay and back

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There were several Bridges that I had to cross that cost $1 or so but free if biking. The view was nice an I was enjoying the nice summer weather with highs in the 70's in the morning. The riding down south was not as crowded, but at the same time it wasn't a great place to get a workout on. I saw that you could ride the boardwalk in the morning in Wildwood so I went up there with every other person who was out and about. There were the cycle cars which are like a car with four passengers who all pedal. They looked fun, would like to try it sometime.

The Glass field on the side of the Road

I finally got to the Cape May lighthouse, and it was really funny getting cause once you got to the tip, it was like being in the country. The roads were not city streets anymore.
There was a vineyard, and some farms down in CapeMay. I went around the to the west and then headed north over the bridge to exit the technically a island of CapeMay(since there is a canal that separates it. As I was headed north I found a nice path that I rode for a bit unfortunatly it ended and I was back on the road. I took Rt. 9 which was not too fun, and then back over to the sea. I heard some crunchy sounds and I relised that I was riding on a glass field on the side of the road. Somehow I didn't get a flat. As I was heading back I saw that the car was gone from the hotel, So I called Sara and she told me that it was up at her Uncle and Aunt's place. So I rode another 4 miles up there to make it a 50 or so mile day. The riding was OK, if I did it again I think I would have Sara drop me off on the way to the beach, and would ride to it behind her. In that way I could get some of the nicer country roads.

CapMay is an island since there is a canal you have to go over.

Beach Ride Avalon and more

2010-07-02T17:39:00.000-04:00

Did a ride the second day at the beach. It was still nice with low humidity. The roads were a little more crowded then I thought they would be. The moots was riding nice since I had the new bars on it, which make it fit the way I thought it would. The beach riding wasn't that great because you didn't really ride next to the ocean, as much as you would like. I also ended up with a bit more miles from one or two wrong turns.

Avalon Solo Ride

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The Best riding on the ride were the roads near Belleplain State Forest. Seems that you can mt. bike there, so would be interested to see a map of the trails.
On the Way back I found a great bakery and had some carrot cake. The cars were backed up and going 10mph to the beach while I was doing 20+ next to them. Ended up being a pretty good ride, but the legs were fried after 61 miles spinning non-stop.

First Bike ride in almost 7 weeks

2010-06-17T12:09:00.001-04:00

I was sick before the CM 9 hour race so I only rode once(with a slight fever and hocking up phlegm) The ride this morning was like a winter ride where you are happy to be riding since it is nice out, but are totally out of shape. The doc. said no sports on my papers, but I am interpreting that to mean ball / hand sports. The feel on the CX bike was good on the hoods didn't notice the pinky too much. It was on the drops where I could feel and notice my pinky not bending. Happy to be on the bike though. I will do mostly road, maybe a little mountain, it will be awhile before I do some really tight singletrack or rocky stuff, cause I don't want to bash my finger or have to use it for support when crashing. I will be out there, so be nice to me and go a little slower :-)
My season goals have changed, might just enjoy riding this summer, and see how I feel in the fall.

The 9 Hours of Cranky Monkey at Rocky Gap

2010-05-15T12:09:00.000-04:00

This is a new race put on by the EX2 Adventures folks at Rocky Gap State Park. Both Leland and Tom liked the course, so I thought it would be a good place to go race. I had never done a relay race with Chris, so I teamed up with him and got Jonathan to join us. We were able to sign up for a 120+ team because our ages were 45, 43 and 35.

I got to Chris's a bit late and he was a little upset, but all was good once we got on the road. We got there in a little over 2 hours, with an hour to spare before the start. Originally, I was going to go third, thinking that I would be the slowest...but Chris said I had to go second because I was late. The crafty old man played his cards well, and he ended up doing only three laps instead of the four that Jonathan and I did.

The Start

Jonathan started us off. Unfortunately, there was a little bit of a run at the beginning, which is not Jonathan's strong suit. He went out, did a good lap and came in about a minute behind Leland, who was riding on a 3-man open team. I was a little worried about racing with my finger. I thought it was sprained (found out after the race it was broken), so I put a little mini-splint on and hoped it wouldn't hurt too much while I was riding.

I started my first lap and things were going well. I was feeling very comfortable on the flowing singletrack considering that the last race I had done was very twisty (12 hrs of Lodi). I was picking off people and I think I was in the lead of our class when I spied Mike S. from the DCMTB 3-man open team in front of me. As I was starting to gain some ground on him and was excited about the prospect of passing him, I felt my pedal at an odd angle. My crank arm was coming off the spindle. I had to stop to take care of this, which took some valuable time (around 7 minutes or so) to fix. Fixing it entailed bashing my multi-tool against the crank arm since the screw thing had broken when the crank arm came off. I was feeling my finger a little bit, but I was still hopeful that the pain wouldn't get too bad. I then started doing some of the downhills on the course, which turned out to be a different issue. I was almost crying and each time ended up losing some precious momentum that would have helped me up the uphills. I finally brought it in and Chris went out for his lap.

Rest of the Race

After my lap, I believe we were down by almost 12 minutes to the first place team. I was able to ride with my pinky taped to my ring finger instead of riding with a splint. It was still painful at times, but if I gripped the handlebars really tight, I was able to deal with it.

As a team, we all rode consistent laps after my mishap, and we were able to chip away at the lead of the teams in front of us. On the last lap, which was mine, we were up by one minute. I went out pretty hard to ensure that no one would get past me. At one point, a rider caught up to me, asking what class I was in. I didn't believe it was the rider in our division, but at the same time I wanted to drop him if I could. I rode the rocky uphill section at a steady pace and was able to slowly distance myself from him. Once I got to the downhill, I took the left-hand side, which was a lot rougher but let it all hang out and bombed down. I passed seven or eight people and left him behind in the process. I ended up having the same time on my last lap as I did on my third lap--pretty crazy.

Because I held off that racer (he was part of the first-place 105+ 3-man team), we ended up getting third place overall for 3-man teams. We also won the 3-man 120+ division. It was great hanging out with the DCMTB and Family Bikes crew and watching Ian and Mike crush the competition. They ended up being first place overall at the race. The Family Bikes team did a great job getting 2nd place in the 105+ division and the other DCMTBers on the "Not the Old Guys" team got 3rd in their race. Good results for all.

So the big question is...after I have surgery on my pinky, will I be able to hold the handlebars to train for the 12 Hours of Cranky Monkey. If not, I think I might start running again :) Maybe I will go to the 12-hour race just to watch and pit with Mike K, who has a broken foot. Special thanks to Sara for typing this up because I couldn't do it with my pinky in a cast.

12hours of Lodi

2010-05-02T14:15:00.000-04:00

From May 2nd. Photos by backlight photography

This race has a special place in my heart, it was the first 12 hour race I had ever done. I did this race in 1999 or 2000 when it started at 12 mid-night and went to 12pm the next day. It was my first night ride too! We raced it in a impromptu 2 man division(our 3r rider bailed) and won. I have done the race 3-4 times over the years, with last year being the first to do it single speed.
I am not a single speed mountain bike person, but I found the single speed is fun to ride at the easier places in the area like Wakefield, Larual Hills, Roseyville, Schaffer. I usually ride those places rigid, but I had bought a front shock for Lodi. Compared to other racers I was running a really low gear a 32 x 22 29er. I love that gear at Lodi, cause with the turning and short hills it lets you have the ability to climb everything. There are only two parts of the course that are longer then 50 feet of flat/straight.
I raced 3-man SS with Jonathan, and Kevin. We were competing against the other DCMTB team of Mike, Joel, and Kent. We had our work cutout for us. I was going last since I knew I would be the slowest of the three of us. Jonathan did a great first lap, but got a little dehydrated out there which would effect him the rest of the race. Kevin did a strong first lap as well. My first lap I had a lead, but I knew that Mike was coming behind me. I was able to hold him off until the end of the lap, so it would be up to my teamates to build that cushion.
We ended up slipping father and father away from the other team, ended in 2nd place by 11 minutes or so. I was not happy with my times, but considering that this year has been slow-slow start up I was just happy to be tired on my last lap and not to have my back hurting me. I do like racing the SS at certain races. I like doing wakefield on the SS, and am thinking I might the battle at burke farm SS. Or maybe the Schaffer CM race.
I want to give a big thanks to Sara for coming to the race, and for picking up some Chipotle and driving me to my parents place at 12:30am.

Random Notes:

Great weather this year at Lodi, was warm but no rain
The course started to get slick with the temps falling in the evening.
First Year I have done this race without the poison ivy, used Jonathan's trick of wiping off with rubbing alcohol with baby wipes every lap.
Lodi is still great event even though the amount of teams has gone down, while the solo's have gone up.
Hope to race here next year, but be in better shape.
DCMTB had great crew out there with a 2nd place expert(team was co-ed) 1,2 3-man SS

Las Vegas- Day 6 Cottonvalley Canyon

2010-04-08T10:20:00.000-04:00

I had ridden these trails on a rented bike back in 2003 or so. At the time I went with a friend, who was not a fast biker, so I was looking forward to riding these trails on my own bike and at my own pace. I decided to start at the Blue Diamond Trailhead, since that is where I started from before. I decided to do the old Norba course across 160 and then come back again.

I started the day at 5:15 a.m., was on the road by 6 a.m. in Phoenix, and got on the trail near Las Vegas around 12 p.m. The first part of the trail was pretty good getting to 160. Since 2003 there has been a new paved parking lot added on Rt. 160. I got over to the other side and did the trail there and it wasn’t bad, although it was kinda slow since it was going uphill the whole time. I ended up going towards 160 to get the start of the Norba race trail. I had to ride some blown out Jeep road to get to it. The trail was ok. I thought it would be better, and it had too much jeep road for me. I did like the part that was single track, and I thought Satan’s Ladder was good challenge (I made it up at least without dabbing). Once at the top, I saw the time and knew that I needed to get going to meet Sara in Vegas (she just came out for the wedding). I had some issues finding the Red Trail to take back, so I ended up just taking the double track road. I was flying on that, which showed that I had been climbing a long time. I ended up seeing the Red Trail later on, so I took that and road back down the trail that I came up. This trail was a blast riding the other way. Once I got back across 160 I decided to do the other half of the Blue Loop to get back to Blue Diamond. I will say this trail was the funnest of the day. It had you going slightly down hill and through some big rollers. There were some technical rock bits in there as well. I got back to the car with some good riding for the day to end the bike part of my trip.

Thoughts:

The trails closer to Blue Diamond are more frequently ridden and are actually more fun to ride to boot.
If I get back here again, I want to hit the Bonny and Clyde Trail, it was the only trail I didn’t ride at all, and it would be the most logical choice for the next ride here.
Blue Diamond Bike Shop is a place to know. If you are in Vegas and have a car, just ride like 25 minutes from the strip and rent a bike for $40 to ride for the afternoon.

AZ Trip-Day 5 Quadruple Bypass (MacDowell Mountain Preserve, and Park)

2010-04-07T13:06:00.000-04:00

I have found my favorite ride in the Phoenix area! I had read about this ride, and had gotten the intel on how to put the trails together to make this ride happen. I started up the Windgate Trail, and it also turned out to be one of those trail systems that has a ton of hikers on it. I must have passed like 50-60 hikers and only three bikers—compared to Black Canyon where I passed two hikers walking together. Everyone was pretty cool, so that was nice as well. As I was going up Windgate I was a little worried cause I was already walking my bike though a good number of sections. I did this mostly to save my strength since I knew it would be a long day. I was a pretty happy man at the Windgate pass. Had a great view, I knew that the Bell Pass wasn’t as big of a deal to climb since you did not go all the way down then back up. At the top of Bell Pass I saw the downhill and was excited and little apprehensive with my brakes having gone a little squishy (I think I need to bleed them). The downhill off of Bell Pass was fun, and I was only white knuckled on this 50 foot section near the top where the trail really dropped off. After getting down this trail I took the Paradise Trail. I would have liked that trail more if it did not go so close to the neighborhood, but beggars can’t be choosers. I stopped before tackling the Sunset Pass. I was not a fan of the first ¼ of this trail with its blown-out huge rock jeep track nature, but once it really started going up, it was nice. I really liked the ridge ride at the top, and the downhill was one of the funnest of the trip.

The next part of the ride was the part I was the most worried about, as you have to go through a gated community to get to the Dixie Trailhead. I went up 145^th Street, and saw a bike route sign, so I followed it. As I was riding this Jeep road, I knew I had made a mistake and I should be biking in the neighborhood. From the topo map, it looked like the jeep road would meet the Dixie Trail eventually. I think I saw a sign that I had entered MacDowell’s Park (Fontana Hills). There was a map on the sign that I had not seen anywhere on the net. This map made clear where the trail head was in the neighborhood, and that you can take the P (trail name), and the S (trail name) to get to the Dixie trail. So seeing the map I was happy because I had confirmation I was going the right way. The S (trail) was a tough trail in places with very steep switchback where I had to walk. I was rewarded, though, with a really sweet downhill to the Dixie Trail. I was tired, and was happy because I knew that the hardest parts of the ride were done, and that I just needed to do one more big climb. I was riding the Dixie Trail, and saw that there were two ways to get back to the Windgate Pass. I came to Prospectors Trail, but it wasn’t marked, so I decided to stay on the Dixie Trail. Once I saw the Coachwhip Trail I knew I missed the trail that was on the topo GPS I was kinda following, but knew the Coachwhip Trail would take me to the Windgate Pass. I got to the Windgate Pass, and was very happy man again. The Windgate downhill was fun, and as I was going down I realized whoever came up with this route was smart. The Windgate hill was the hardest to go up, so it was best to be tackled first. I came down the mountain and took a wrong turn somewhere, ending up at a bigger trailhead and the equestrian area. When I got back to the 104^th St. trailhead, though, I had done 36 miles over 6,500 ft. of climbing, so I was pretty proud.

Thoughts:

The MacDowell Preserve, has had a major over-haul, with several major trail heads that have water and and parking(so you don’t need to park at the grocery store)
This kind of riding reminded me of the East Coast riding I like—where you do some major climbs with the reward of long downhills. The trails where not overly technical like South Mountain and some in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve can be, but they still had some rocks and other bits added in to keep it interesting.
I can see the Sunset Pass being a great test to get up the whole thing without dabbing.
Even though I kinda messed up the Fountain Hills area, I think doing the more trail version is the way to go.
I know this will be one of the rides I do next year.

AZ Trip-Day 4 South Mountain

2010-04-06T22:54:00.000-04:00

After the big day I had on Monday I decided to take it easy and do a shorter ride. I had ridden the Coast to Coast on South Mountain at the spring fling before, but wanted to check out the dessert classic, since I had not done it before and it would be an easier ride (also since I was alone I didn’t want to chance it with crashing too bad). I enjoyed the ride, ended up doing a little more hike-bike then I thought on some of the side trails, but was rewarded with some nice down hills. I wandered around past the Helo pad trails and then decided to head on back directly on the Dessert Classic trail. After getting back to my car, I had more in me, but I decided to just save it for my ride the next day.

AZ Tip-Day 3 Black Canyon

2010-04-05T19:27:00.000-04:00

The Black Canyon trail I had done 2 years ago at the MTBR Arizona Spring Fling has grown (65 miles) and is expected to be 85 miles when complete. I really liked the trail because you could ride it without worry about breaking your arm falling in a bunch of rocks. I decided to start from the southern area where I had finished 2 years ago on Table Mesa Rd. I had wanted to ride south for a bit then back north to the Black Canyon Trail head parking lot and back. I didn’t see the trail going south off of Table Mesa Rd. I ended up going on an ATV trail that dead ended, but got back to the trail I knew. I went north and was amazed at the amount of spring vegetation and the wild flowers in bloom. The biggest disappointment in the ride was the middle river crossing. With the winter rain Arizona had gotten, the river had become wider and the crossing just). I had another first on my trip after the earthquake—an encounter with a rattlesnake. I have experienced snakes on trails, usually as they slither away, and one or two times I’ve bunny hopped over them. I came around a bend and was about to do a dip in the trail when I saw a snake curled up in a striking stance. I held up and when I did I heard the telltale rattle. I backed off and threw some rocks to scare it away, but I still heard the rattle when I tried to ride on through the dip. The snake was under a bush hiding, but when I threw more rocks he eventually went on his merry way.

By the time I got back to the Black Canyon parking lot I was already tired—but I was only a little over half way done. I then went back and took the western option. I got a little confused and the river was really washed out. I had to walk around in the sand to figure out where to pick up the trail. I ended the day with my first long mountain bike ride of the year.

Random points;

The southern trail continues, but you can see it a lot better coming from the north, not coming from the southern trail head.
The gates on the eastern trail were a little annoying, mostly because I was very tired. Not sure why they are needed.
I do like this trail, but I was amazed yet again, how slow your avg. speed is because of all the turning.
Next time I do the trail I might start even farther south and just ride to the river and back.

AZ Trip-Day 2 Phoenix Mountain Preserve

2010-04-04T18:43:00.000-04:00

For Easter Sunday, I wanted to be able to have dinner with my aunt and uncle, my two cousins and their families. I knew I couldn’t spend all day on the trails. I had ridden the Phoenix Mountain Preserve more than any other trail system in the Phoenix area, so I knew my way around the park. Plus, it was only about seven minutes from my cousin’s house.

I got up early and was on the trail by 8 o’clock. As usual when it comes to Phoenix, there were tons of hikers. I must have passed 70 throughout the day; everyone was nice and courteous, which was always good to see on a shared use trail. I started at Dewey Dream again, which is the middle of the park, and decided to do the eastern half, which has more trails and variety. As I went along, I was never lost, but sometimes I wasn’t quite sure which trail I was on. I ended up going on the 302 toward the south end of the park, which has some pretty steep drop-offs that caused me a scary moment or two. I had to walk down two of them—better safe than sorry. I went up the 8A trail, which was where I dealt with the most hiker traffic. I got some encouragement from the hikers—or was it just strange looks?—as a mountain biker going up a really steep climb. I did pretty well, but I had to walk some of the rocky stair steps. After that I worked my way to the eastern end of the T100 trail, turning around when I realized I needed to get back soon after. I took the fenced trail that parallels the T100, which I think is the smoothest in the park. I ended up trying to do a rocky cut-through, where I had my only wreck of the day. I got hung up and couldn’t unclip—and the park boundary fence made a nice purple tattoo on my ass. I got back to my cousin’s house within 1 minute of the time I said I would be there—go me :)

Side note: At Easter dinner, I experienced my first earthquake. It was in northern Mexico and was a shallow quake, which I guess reverberates more and allowed it to be felt all the way in San Diego and Phoenix. It felt exactly like the effect of the ground “swaying” when you get off a cruise ship. At first I thought I had low blood sugar from the hard ride, but then the pool had water sloshing out of it.

AZ Trip-Day 1 Dewey Dream Park

2010-04-03T23:39:00.000-04:00

This was my third trip to Arizona to get some good mountain biking miles in before spring came to the East Coast. Usually, I go in February or early March, but this year since I was attending a wedding in Vegas April 10^th, I moved my trip to coincide with the wedding. In 2009, I had to forgo all but one day of riding since I got the flu and ended up with a temperature of 104 degrees. This year I was hoping for a better trip.

Day 1 Dewey Dream Park

After getting to AZ late on Friday, I leisurely put together my bike Saturday morning, got the bike rack set up on the rental car and decided to do a shakedown ride with Kennedy, my cousin’s daughter. I had ridden with Kennedy two years prior, but we rode on the street and a paved trail. I decided this year to try to take her on a light foray into mountain biking. We went to Dewey Dream Park, which is part of the Phoenix Mountain Preserve. We did some of the trails, which were harder than I thought they’d be, and considering that her bike did not have low gearing or shocks, she did fairly well. We rode a little bit on the trails and the paved bike trail that goes along the park. All-in-all, it was a good little spin—I got to spend some quality time with Kennedy and make sure that the bike was working well after being taken apart fully and then put together again.

First Long Ride of the Year

2010-03-28T19:50:00.004-04:00

From March 20th

I hadn't ridden with the PPTC crew over the winter cause of the snow and whatnot. This was to be the first big ride of the year. The ride that was chosen was ZapMan. This ride starts from Marshall, VA and does Chester Gap before Front Royal. The big monument of the ride is the 6 mile climb up Blue Mountain with the last 2 or so miles being dirt/gravel.

The day was a great spring awakening with a high of 75+ so that shorts and even a short-sleeved jersey could be worn. There were around 8 of us at the start. I had carpooled with Chris and it was good catching up with him on the way there. We went out of Marshall at a leisurely pace, with me going off the front a couple of times on some of the rollers. Once on Chester Gap, Jonathan took off on his own with the rest of us following. Rudy set a good tempo that was right around where I needed to be up this gradual climb, terrain that doesn't really suit my talents best. Once at the top, we started this descent with Glen trying to catch Jonathan, followed by Rudy and me. With my winter weight, I was able to plummet down the mountain at sixty pounds over Jonathan's 135, passing and catching Glen in the process. The five of us bridged up together and rode into the rest stop at Front Royal. (At the rest stop, I tried to talk Ed out of getting the Hostess cherry pie while I got the Dutch apple danish. The cherry pie would later not feel so good on the Blue Mountain climb.)

We then left Front Royal, going through a neighborhood that has two streets "named after" two of the guys on the ride--Ross and Cook. We went along the railroad, then the Shenandoah, to the bottom of the Blue Mountain climb. The Blue Mountain climb is around 1,600 ft. vertical but doesn't really bite until the last four miles. We started up the climb, which is some uphill rollers, continuing until the first switchback--from then on everyone is going his own pace. I wish I would've talked to some people a bit more about the climb. I had done it once about four years ago and remembered that it was pretty steep and gravel at the top. Beyond that, I couldn't recall much else. I started off going at a pretty high cadence, distancing myself from the rest. I wasn't trying to be first as much as just trying to keep a fast candence and keep it smooth. Jonathan and Ed were around me, with Jonathan creeping closer to me. We hit the gravel, where I started distancing Jonathan again and really began to feel the climb. I was happy that it would soon be over, since the crest was just ahead. DAGGER--that was only the first crest.

Jonathan caught up to me on the slight downhill, as I lamented the fact that no one had told me there were two summits. Nonetheless, the short downhill and flatter section helped me get my breath back. I had to accept the fact that a man who weighs 135 lbs is almost always going to be faster going up a big climb than someone who weighs close to 200. I then got into my own rhythym with Jonathan slowly distancing himself from me. I finally hit the pavement, which signals the top of the climb. I had lost sight of Jonathan completely and Ed was a ways behind me. There is a county sign that's at the bottom of the downhill. I thought maybe if I could see Jonathan, I'd be able to catch him on the descent. Yet again, my lack of knowledge of the climb prevented me from being aware that there were two more big rollers on the ridge. With Jonathan nowhere in sight, I decided to just go down the mountain at a comfortable pace, practicing my techniques on the switchbacks. Unfortunately, I was riding the Michelin Crylons, which are very durable but don't have the best grip--so I wasn't as confident as I could be on the corners. As I came out of the last corner, lo and behold, Jonathan was in front of me. I thought, "shit--I might catch him," so I started speeding up. He still had not noticed that I was getting closer to him. I ended up passing him and gaining the county line by 20 ft.

We then waited for everybody else to finish the climb and I put down a double shot espresso gu and had some of the tasty throwback Mountain Dew (new retro Dew made with sugar cane, not corn syrup). People headed out, and I ended up with the second group since I was still messing with the bottle. The first group was really charging along, while my second group was a little slower. Rudy was not on his best day, as he had not gotten a chance to eat at the bottom of the climb. I decided to try to bridge the gap solo. I jumped out of the group and was going about 30 mph, which only lasted about a minute or so (I guess all that caffeine really kicked in). With the first group up ahead, I continued to whittle down the distance over the next couple miles. I finally caught them about 3 miles from the finish. We completed the ride totally dead, knowing and feeling that we had done our first long ride of the year. I ended the ride with a good meal at home of meat, pasta, and vegetables.

Friday with the Boys

2010-03-24T14:59:00.003-04:00

I went on Friday for a quick ride with Kevin and Leland. I wanted to go do a Mt. bike ride since I was riding road on Sat. My back was not in the best of shape since I had taxed it a lot during the week, riding a little too much. Leland and I got there in time, then Kevin took his sweet time even trying to fix his front brake. Out on the trail I wasn't really feeling it, and it might have also been I was running too low of a gear ion the SS cause I couldn't really keep up with the boys. After one lap Kevin and I went and did another 1/2 a lap and ended the ride around dusk. I am looking forward to riding with Kevin at 12 hour hours of Lodi in the SS class. I will see him next weekend at the Ride the Ridge Race down south.

First Hard ride of the year

2010-03-10T14:14:00.003-05:00

On Sunday I went out with the DCMTB boys(Kent, Tom, Mike, Jonathan, and Mike) and we did this 45 mile ride with 5000 feet of climbing. The weather was to be nice, so it was a good day for a hard ride. In hindsight I would of done my "The Good, the bad, and the Hilly" ride out of Riley's since Frederick was about 10 degrees cooler and over the mountain was even colder. I rode up with Kent, and we ended up parking in snow at the ride start at the bottom of Gambril rd.
The ride started rough right away going up Grambril park road. I had put on a 11-28 cassette and I was happy I did. The Gambril climb was definitely a wake up call. I rode the climb mostly with Tom and I would ride most of them with him. We re grouped and then went down the mountain, where Mike K. really seemed happy with the ride, compared to the uphills. The next climb was Harp hill, and Mike K. was giving me a hard time so I went at Harp hill, and I think I blew a gasket on that. I went up the climb a bit faster then the rest, but at the same time I was just trying to keep the pedals moving. I had to tack to keep any kind of cadence going.
After Harp we regrouped and then went to Catoctin mountain park, there was climbing as well, but more gradual. We did a lollipop and the climb coming back, I almost had to give up and have Tom go on his own. Once on the downhill Mike K. came out of nowhere, showing his great descending skills. The last climb on the agenda was I believe something School that we had done coming down. The climb was a little broken up which helped. I went up on my own and Tom yo-yoed with me. I almost wanted to get off the bike at one point but 20yds later I saw the stop sign ahead sign so I knew the top was close. That was it for me I did well on the climbs, but the endurance was gone. So when we regrouped I rode fine for a bit until I got the leg lock on my quads, so Mike K. and Mike S. and Tom fought it out on the ridge to down back to the Cars. I think Tom would of had it if we both just kept on going after the climb.
Observations of the ride:

Jonathan does this route a lot, well it isn't a shocker he has a triple!
Mike K. Showed some good descending skills and that he kept some of his condition in the winter.
Mike S. seemed to riding a little better this year then last.
Tom seems like the person I should try to train with we were around the same speed.
Kent get the Iron Man reward he was riding a 39-23 while I was riding a 36-28.
Don't go so hard on Harp hill

Snow riding before Snowapocalypse

2010-02-08T18:09:00.003-05:00

f

Sat.
I went out riding the last weekend of January in the snow on Sat. and Sunday. The Sat. ride had promise, but turned out to be not that good. I went riding at Wakefield. I had been at volleyball and was going to get some more of my workout on with some riding in the snow there. By the time I got there the snow had gotten too deep. I like to ride in snow that is like 3-4 inches. The snow was closer to 5 or so. With my SS I couldn't stand on the hills so I was slipping. I had an ok time of it on the flatter stuff. The snow was slippery and not very good at cushioning the fall. I was hating life going down the bermed downhill where I fell twice hurting my knee and arm.

Sun.
I was to ride with some folks on the CCT and Fairlakes, but after Saturdays's adventure I decided to just ride the C&O canal. I rode the SS and the canal had a fair number of users walking and CX skiing. I was able to ride fairly well with my SS, I had a leaking ft. valve so I had to run the front tire a little higher then I would like. It was sometimes faster to ride in the fresh powder and hit real ground then to ride in the ski tracks. I started from chainbridge, and then by the time I got to 495 I decided to ride with a Bike Doctor rider who I be playing leap frog with. He was bolder then I riding a CX bike in like 6 inches of snow. We rode together with me gaining on the rougher sections, and Eon gaining when going through fresh powder where he could get to the real ground and use his gears. We rode to Great Falls, and I then turned around. Ended up doing like 2 hours of non-stop pedaling(and I really couldn't stand up). I am glad I ran into Eon, who I found out was on the rain ride I had done the week prior with his teammate Evan, and the DCMTB crew. He gave me the extra motivation to get to Great Falls, cause once I was there I had to ride back to get to the car :-).

Arlington Hills

2010-02-01T23:00:00.000-05:00

Well I have found myself in the bad situation that many cyclists see themselves in. I am out of shape and heavier then I would like to be. I had hurt my back doing the SM100, so didn't do CX but did running instead. I was doing well with the running then I got plantar fictitious- corrected kevin Plantar fasciitis (PLAN-tur fas-e-I-tis) ! To add insult to injury I was sick most of December. This added up to me being the heaviest I have ever been. At this rate I can race the clydesdale class!
I play volley ball through out the year, but in the fall and winter I play on the weekends as well. I still need to get some biking in so what I have been doing is a afternoon Saturday ride. I did my first one, and it ended up being a DCMTB west ride with Tyler, Vince, and Mark.
Tyler had never biked in Arlington so I decided to give him a tour of some of the hills I do. Mark was running late, so Tyler, Vince and I did the double banger of Walter Reed and then Oxford. We then went to Mark's house which was harder then I thought it would be top find.
After Mark's we did Wilson, then up to northern Arlington for the hills there. One hill we did I call it Jim's hill after Jim York who showed it to me, Mark had never done so that was a little treat for him. We finished the hills with mini Alpe d'Huez then took George Mason back home. I will try to keep these rides going if the weather is good enough, and hopefully people can join me.

Tyler Arlington Hill Tour

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

Laural hills only trail dry

2010-01-29T13:30:00.005-05:00

From Jan. 15

Well there was some warm days and people thought all the trails would be too messy, I thought maybe Laural hills would be dry enough. I went out there on my SS which always makes trails like this more fun. I met up with Dave(might be wrong) from MCEngraving a MORE sponsor. I rode with him for a bit, and then went on my own little adventure. I found that the place was totally ridable, there were a few muddy sections, but not many. The only issue was that trail rode a lot slower then usual. I have a 20T on the SS right now so I was able to do more climbing seated, which I am not sure was a good thing. So did my laps and was able to get done before it got dark, was nice to do a January ride in knickers.

2009 Year End Totals and thoughts

2010-01-12T16:50:00.001-05:00

2009 was an OK year, I didn't push my back as much and was feeling good late in the season. I did one of my goals which was the SS class at Wednesday at Wakefield. I had much better time in that class which wasn't as fast as the expert class. I was able to actually race people and some top 10 placings and then the final week I got a 1st so pretty cool. I had my best race in August with the 18 hours of Scouts Honor. I also had my fastest solo ride the week before the SM100 I did a 40 mile ride without stopping with a avg speed of 21.6 with no time trial bars at my parents house so I was pretty stoked. The SM100 hurt my back again(had not trained enough), so I only did the DCCX and did not ride much in the fall, and I have been sick for most of December.

Tandem- 140 miles

The good news about the tandem is that I think we have Sara's knee issue figured out for a bit. I think she pushed herself too hard and then the clipless pedals were hurting her knees. I had her ride with her normal shoes and toe clips, and haven not pushed the distance as much and things seem to be going better. Sara has started to do some spinning classes, so hoping to have over 500miles on the bike next year. Will have to see how Sara's body holds up.

Single Speed 29er- 266 miles

I like riding this bike on some of the trails in the area(Roseryville, Fairfaix CCT, Schaffer, Fairhill) . I had a blast riding the bike at the 12 hours of Lodi. I don't like the bike at Patapsico where there is too much elevation change. I improved the bike greatly with some Stans wheels and setting it up tubeless for the W@W events. In 2010 I will have a Rock shock Reba to use at events like Lodi or to have more versatility riding.

Dual Suspension Mt. - 643

My mountain bike had some good miles on it but if you take out Bakers, Big Bear, Iron Mt, Scouts Honor and the SM100 I think I only did like 400miles on the bike.

CX Bike - 1007 miles

Usually my CX bike doesn't get that much mileage since I stopped using it as my commuter bike several years ago. This year after I cracked my Raleigh last fall I road my CX bike as my road bike for all of spring until I got my Moots. I was bummed that CX season didn't work out but I did like riding it with a tubeless setup, only issue was that the rims were wide and were painted so did not brake very well might get Stans wheels for this bike next Fall have to see. I did not ride it much this fall. I hope to do some dirt road rides on it in the spring and then the Wintergreen ride/race in late August followed by the Iron Cross in October along with like 5 CX races in the fall.

Fixed Gear - 1022 miles

Pretty happy with how much I rode the fixed gear bike this year. I became my go to bike for commuting to work. With its 32mm SERV-T tires it can be ridden on the C&O Canal or cruddy city streets. I also didn't have to0 worry to much about the bike being messed with.

Race bike - 1379 miles

This was the biggest disappointment, I think I did a fair bit of riding, but not the distance. I stopped doing the PPTC Tuesday ride which brought my mileage down by quite a bit. I got my Moots in the early summer and I was able to pound out to OMGWTF Shepardstown Rides. Will plan to do that ride again with the more direct downhill. I was able to ride the bike on some good rides but would like to get some more mileage on the bike for 2010.

Snotcycle Pre-Ride

2010-01-08T00:11:00.000-05:00

With the trails frozen, I was pleasantly surprised to hear there would be a snotcycle pre-ride. I am not doing snotcycle cause it sold out and I wasn't sure because I am out of shape. I put an email out to people about doing the ride and ended up riding with the Bike Lane boys. I got there, early and it was cold but at least it was sunny. I did a warm up with Todd from Bike Lane, he was rocking the bling GF superfly100. We were riding nice and easy then got back to the start, and I lead us through the first part. I went out too hard, and then my water tube froze so I was toast! I ended up doing the 2nd part of the lap solo. I then went back got my SS Rigid out to do a loop on that too. The course is ok on a rigid, and I think with my front shock the Bakers course would be great on a 29er hardtail. I didn't get into Bakers, so it was a good thing I was able to ride it when I did. I had a good time seeing the guys, reminds me I need to ride more with them.

First Winter ride

2009-12-11T15:27:00.000-05:00

from Dec12th
I had been in Puerto Rico the first weekend of the December so when DC was getting some wet snow on the ground I was hiking in shorts in a tropical rain forest. I really liked my PR trip and could even see myself maybe going down there for a biking trip.
The DCMTB boys got together for a Patapsco ride. This is a park that I have ridden a good amount over the years but not as much as other places. I think it has to do with it being as far as the Shed for me and that the riding is good, but subject to rain more then other parks. Also the park has many visitors so unless you go at off times you have to deal with a large amount of people.

The weather was cold around freezing and getting up to 38 or so by the time we left. I had started to get sickish after I came back from PR, I guess my body is allergic to the cold. As usual we were to meet at 9am and all of us came late-shocker. I got dressed for the cold with wearing a little too much but glad I had my neck gator. I had a sore throat the night before so I knew I was not really the best idea to be riding in the cold, but I thought I was going to get sick no matter what. I decided to ride my SS Rigid at Patapsco which was a first. I put on a 32 x 20 on the SS which I usually ride a 32 x 18 at places like Rosy, Shaeffer, and Laural hills. The ride went well with Mike K. ribbing everyone, and I actually handled myself pretty well on some downhills going fully rigid. I think I could of run a little less pressure in the tires, but I had just set up the wheels tubeless again. The weirwolf LTs were not the best when it got slippery, I think that a Racing Ralph 2.4 might be the next big tire to try on the SS. I wish there were more Bridges over the creeks, cause that is the biggest reason not to ride there, cause you are likely to get your feet wet, and that is no good in cold weather.

The ride was fun, thinking next time if I go with people I will ride gears, cause for me I need to sit down and not be standing all the time. I found that the 32x20 was a little too much for me on the ridge trail. I was pushing the pace there, not so much that I wanted to but I wanted to be on top the of the gear sitting down. So I would maybe go to a 21 there, I spin allot more then others, since I rode the lodi race with a 32 x 22 and felt that was the right gear while others thought that was way to low of a gear. Will have to see the next time that I end up there what bike I am riding.

Last good day before winter

2009-11-29T10:09:00.000-05:00

Post from Nov. 29th.

It was Thanksgiving weekend, and I had ridden with Sara on Friday in a freak sleet storm for 10 minutes, but was hoping to ride on Sunday mountain biking. The weather was great. We decided to do a Shed Gambril ride, and one that I know well. I have been doing this ride since around 2000 or so. The only things that have changed is that there is now a down hill trail that is doable going up, and the fire road has become a lot harder to ride(and almost impossible to not dab and walk when there are leaves on the ground). I was riding with young buck Chris/Leland on his full suspension Epic(which he is riding a lot better then he did last time we came), and Kevin on his Rigid SS 29er. Kevin seemed to ride stuff better on the rigid 29er, but was having to go slower on the steeper downhills where you can just have the suspension soak up stuff. We did the ride, and we didn't wreck so that was good. The Fire road climb turned into a little bit of a death march, but we all made it up it in good time. I call this the lower part of the figure 8 I like to do at Gambril-Shed area, I hope to do the Upper part in the coming weeks.

From the better half

2009-11-24T12:17:00.003-05:00

Guest Blogger Sara

Until I met Darren, I'd hardly ridden a bike since the training wheels came off at age five. On our first date, we chatted about how he was into cycling, and I asked him jokingly if he had a tandem. He surprised the hell out of me by saying yes. Little did I know that a couple years later I'd be whizzing along on that very bike regularly. Although the first several attempts at riding with Darren caused me a lot of knee pain and frustration (I thought runners were supposed to bike to save their knees from the impact), it seems that we've finally gotten things figured out. We have now realized that: #1. I need to wear regular sneakers and use toe clips (adjusting the bike shoes just wasn't working) and #2 It's unreasonable for a person who doesn't bike (no matter how fit) to be expected to go out for 40+ mile rides without working up to that distance slowly (oops).

Last weekend, the weather was perfect, so we went out on a section of the W&OD trail that Darren used to frequent when he was younger. The parking lot was completely packed--the area has changed quite a bit since Darren's youth (which has brought a lot more contruction and a larger population) and the trail was a popular destination for individuals and families on such a warm day in mid-November. Before we left, we saw a bunch of kids on little bikes slowly following their dad like baby ducklings. Cute.

Darren had wanted to take me on a fairly quick, flat, shorter ride--to get the legs spinning and compensate for our last outing (a longer one on some dirt roads with potholes that made me quite tense). We were passing a lot of people on the trail (not an experience I'm used to since I'm relatively slow on my own!), and some of the riders laughed as we made our way by, saying things like, "No fair...you have two people!" We stopped for a little break at a park in Leesburg and rested by a stream before heading back.

The ride ended up being pretty fun..although there was a lot of dodging in between the crowds and one sketchy turn. We stayed with two different riders for a while on the way back to the parking lot. I don't like when the wheels of our bike and another person's are so close together...not sure how the peloton does it! Luckily, I'm just the stoker, so I don't have to maneuver!

Riding the tandem has already taught me a lot of things. It allows me to better understand a sport about which my boyfriend is incredibly passionate (I even went to my first spin class this week so I can improve). It gets me to return to my roots in the countryside and see some beautiful scenery (a great contrast to my daily life in the city on some of these rides). It provides us an opportunity to work together, in sync, to achieve a common goal--whether reaching the summit of a big hill, rounding a corner, getting fit or simply arriving back home in one piece. It helps me, as much as I fight against it and try to look ahead up the road, to give up control and just enjoy the ride. At least there's no one I'd rather have as my captain :)

Fall Tandem ride

2009-11-05T13:40:00.002-05:00

For Holloween, Sara and I were to be out in Leesburg for a party and the parade. We decided to do a tandem ride before the party. Sara had issues before with the Tandem and her knees. I have been doing a experiment where she is not wearing bike shoes but her tennis shoes and toe clips so that her feet can go where ever they want. This seems to be working cause she hasn't had knee pain.
I had found a route that did road from Leesburg to Purcerville and the trail back. That route on bikely was 40 miles and I was looking for us to do something in the 30miles territory. I made it 30miles but messed up the ride greatly because of that. We were riding well, Sara liked going through Waterford, but then after being on Milton Rd, we started hitting dirt. Then with Purceville Rd. it was all dirt. If I had a map I would have had us go a little bit west to the next road which was paved. So we did the dirt road on the tandem with 28mm tires a little too small. Sara got annoyed when I would make sudden changes which were because of pot holes I did not want us to hit. We eventually got to Purceville, and then took the bike path back. We ended up riding for 1:50 minutes so next time I will shoot for us riding around an 1:30. Hoping to ride more with Sara on the tandem in the future.

DCCX 2009 Great race, mine not so much

2009-10-24T14:54:00.000-04:00

DCCX is the big CX race of the year for me mostly cause it is the race that our little team of 30 members puts on so almost everyone is involved. In years past I have done a fair bit of lawnmowing on the course, but this year with the rain the week of the race I could not get out there. The other big consideration is what kind of facial hair to have; this year I did Stache and Burns.

My Race

I wanted to finish midpack and try to hang with Corey on my team. I got a 50th start position and Corey was in the 20's so I knew I had my work cut out to catch him. I usually don't worry about starts, cause I seem to usually start fast but have more issues with holding that position. So we get sent off and I was able to close and pass Corey before getting to the pavement after the up and down hill.At the out At the out and back, I felt I was with some people a little too fast for me and held up a bit. By the second time through the start/finish line my back was done. The course was very slow, so you had to engage your back to get any kind of speed. So I was in pain, but I wasn't going to hurt my back worse by pushing it with my back. So I got up to the 30's I think but ended up in 65th place, with Kevin from my team passing me on SS! I had wanted him to race so I could beat someone :-( Boy, was I wrong. So now I am doing planks and other core stuff along with no CX racing this year to be back strong next year. Sara seemed to be happy with the way I did compared to my own feelings on it.

The Event

DCCX yet again had beautiful weather, and with that came the crowds. We had over 500 racers and spectators. I think our team has created the kind of race that everyone wants to go to. I mean, there are other courses that are more challenging, but few in the area are able to create that atmosphere with the free beer, frites, and Dutch pancakes. We had a record 70 women, and that is the one area where we can improve for next year since we were at the field limits for the other races. It was also pretty cool to watch and hang out with my teammates and to see them put up good results.

Also want to give a shout out to Alex on my team who moved to San Francisco, sad to see him leave was able to do a mt. relay race with him and do some riding in GW forest and other places. Hope to visit him and his wife in the future.

Laurel Hills Oct. 2009

2009-10-19T18:50:00.005-04:00

This was my 3rd trip to ride here. I have been here on a SS and a CX bike, and rode around a bit on the full suspension bike. I think this place is pretty fun on a SS Rigid bike. Dave and I were going to meet and he had my SS and I brought my full suspension bike. I was almost in a 5 car pile up on 95 getting to Lorton. I was the 6th car and because I had given the people space in front of me I was no way close to hitting this SUV in front me. I had a scary moment where I thought someone was going to rear end me after I just had 2300 spent on my car after someone rear ended me a couple of weeks ago. So I made it through that ok, but Dave was behind me and got caught up in that.

I was at the park for a bit waiting for Dave so I did 2 laps of the first loop by the prison. The trail is fun if a little short I wish they would make this trail a little longer. Once Dave got there we decided that I would ride the SS and Dave the Full suspension Geared bike. With this combo we were able to go about the same speed, but Dave was not confident in my XC tires on the GF with the gravel on the trail so I would gap him on the turns. It was a sunday afternoon around 4pm and not many people were at the park so that was nice. We did a good ride and had a wreck on the rock garden practice thing, and I am not sure if it was the pedals not letting me clip out or not will have to see, but I landed on the rocks and really hurt my leg. As we made our way back, a thorn tore out a sidewall on my tubeless tires Dave was riding so he walked the last 3/4 mile. I went back via the trail and ended up breaking a chain on the SS. I will have to make sure the Cog is lined up better with the chainring. So was a good ride, hope to see Dave riding more since he is now on the DCMTB team.

DCCX Official Poster

2009-10-05T10:41:00.011-04:00

Here is the official poster, I think it looks pretty bad-ass myself. Register soon at BikeReg

For More Info go to the DCMTB website

2009 Shenandoah Mountain 100

2009-09-06T08:17:00.000-04:00

For any Mid-Atlantic mountain biker, the SM100 is a goal to do either for the first time, a personal best, or to beat your teammates. I had done the SM100 previously in 2007, and had an amazing ride, pulling a 9:33. In hindsight I wish I would've done worse the first time out, because it sets your expectations pretty high. For this year, I was training to beat the time I had gotten in 2007, but although I felt strong going into the race, I wasn't sure I had gotten enough miles in.

Pre-Race

I was able to hitch a ride down with Mark W. since Sara was to join me on Sunday coming from PA and I would go back with her. We got down to the site and found the DCMTB crew and set up our tents, eventually doing a pre-ride shakedown on the bikes. The bike was good, but the suspension felt a little slack, so I pumped up the shocks a little bit (looking back, I should've just left it the way it was). We had some good times talking that night and I was able to get to bed pretty early for the start the next day.

I got up with the usual SM100 tradition of the gong and somebody setting off some black cat firecrackers. I did not want to have happen what happened to me last year with the bathroom, so I made sure to get coffee as soon as possible to ensure that the system was flushed out. As I was going to get coffee, I saw somebody coming towards me. She looked like Sara, but Sara wasn't supposed to get there until later in the day, so I thought, "Who could this be?" Then as she drew near, I found out it was Sara, so I was shocked and pleasantly surprised. She had decided that she wanted to see the start, so she drove through the night from Pennsylvania, got to the campsite around 3 a.m. and slept in her car until I got up (she is racking up the bonus points).

As usual, I had forgotten something--this being my DCMTB jerseys. Mike K. was nice enough to lend me one of his, which would mean that I would have a jersey, but I wouldn't be able to change it mid-race like I did in 2007.

The Start

This time, compared with 2007 when I started as one of the last 25 people, I was in a good spot with all my teammates. We went down the road with lots of dust, and I was just spinning out the legs going at a pretty good clip. I was going pretty fast up Narrowback and rode well until I went through the only mud puddle on the course. I was able to ride a lot of the Cookie Trail because I was with the faster people and didn't get caught behind slow riders. I was dismayed going to check point 1 that the old Jeep road had been turned into a logging road, which made the trail not as fun as it used to be.

Check Point 1-2

I hooked up with Matty and Kent after the downhill, and we were riding a good paceline to the bottom of Reddish Knob. Once on the Reddish Knob climb, I was off the pace with Matty in front. I slowly made up ground to him and by the time we got into the Lynne Trail singletrack, I was a good hundred meters in front of Matty and Kent. I felt going up the climb that I was burning some matches, and I was not really feeling on top of my game; I felt a bit outside of my comfort zone. On the Wolf Ridge downhill, I was riding better than I ever have before. I got stuck behind a non-technical rider who had about ten of us bunched up behind him. He finally pulled over, and we went on our way. Towards the bottom, Matty caught up to me. Once we got on the road to check point 2, Matty, Kent and I got to ride together again, which was nice. We were going at a pretty good clip, but I still wasn't quite feeling myself, so I had to go my own pace. When I got to check point 2, Kent was still there, but Matty was long gone. I exchanged a bottle, ate some yummy oranges and had some pretzels, and then I was off to Hankey.

Check Point 2-3

I caught up to Kent and passed him on the climb. Then we regrouped after the downhill and rode the gravel road to the Hankey Mt. fire road climb. Going up the fire road climb of Hankey turned into me going through the rings of Hell from Dante's Inferno. I started off okay, but yet again I still wasn't feeling myself, and I had to keep gearing down. Then the mental implosion was underway when more and more people were passing me on the trail. Previously I had ridden up this climb without dabbing, and I knew that if I was going to break my 9:33 I needed to ride the climb at least as well as I had before. I started thinking about quitting once I got through 3/4 of the climb. I stopped at the top of the climb to get my wits about me, and still had it in my head to quit at aid station 3, where I knew Sara was working. I went down Dowel's Draft not even really caring if I was going too slowly or not. I got into aid station 3, and Sara looked happy and supportive, not knowing what nightmare I had just gone through. I was eating food and Kent tried to lift my spirits and cheer me up, but I was still floundering. Kent was sitting in the camping love seat and he said "Come sit down here next to Uncle Kent." Maybe he slipped something in the vanilla Coke that he'd slipped in his drop bag, because boy it sure tasted good. Kent then left and after talking to Sara I decided that I would go do the Brailey's Climb because the route would then return to aid 3 so if I wanted to quit at that point I could.

Check Point 3-4

I was going up the road climb at a pretty good clip and I had a couple guys pacelining behind me for a few miles. I decided to unhitch myself from them and just went my own speed, knowing that I was not going to get my 9:33 and that I just needed to do the race at my pace. I caught up to Kent at the dry riverbed crossing. He had stopped for a second before starting the ascent up Brailey's. I then prepared myself to go up the Brailey's climb; in previous years I have cleared the whole climb without dabbing. I didn't take the climb too fast--just a steady tempo. There was a singlespeeder and another rider who I was ping ponging with back and forth. I ended up pushing into the guy's nuts one time when he had stopped during a rocky section and I tried to go around him. I got hung off and pushed off with my hand, but what I pushed off of was actually his crotch. He was none too pleased, but at the same time I felt that if he hadn't stopped that wouldn't have happened. To return the favor, I let those guys go in front of me on the downhill. I ended up riding the downhill pretty clean. I had a guy behind me at one point who wanted to pass, but there was traffic in front of us, so we kinda went down together in a group of 7. I got down the climb and into the aid station, picked up my drop bag. I looked up to see that I had caught up to Matty somehow, but then I realized something was wrong. He was walking around in a daze, with bandages on his leg and arm, some blood seeping out of it. He said he crashed hard going down Brailey's and he was thinking about quitting (I found out later that he was really out of it there because he had already talked to the race official by that point and quit). I waited for Kent to ride the death march from 4-5.

Check Point 4-End

This is typically the hardest mental part of the race, but this year it was not for me. I ended up not being able to ride with Kent, so I went off ahead of him at my own pace. I was now riding faster than the people around me, so it was nice that now I was catching people instead of getting passed all the time. I must've passed about 20 people going up the climb. As usual, you think you're almost there, but still the rest stop doesn't appear. Finally got to the rest stop, changed my socks and ended up taking some more time, since some of the people I'd passed came into the rest stop and left before I got my ass in gear. After the rest stop, doing the Chestnut Ridge, I caught up to those people I'd passed earlier and ended up actually passing them at the very top because they knew that they weren't that technically proficient and didn't want to hold anybody up. I was doing the downhill a lot better than I did 2 years previously. This is one of the more remote trails to get to, so it was actually only the 2nd time I had ever ridden the trail, whereas Brailey's I have ridden 6 times. So I had a good time on the downhill, wasn't as scared out of my wits as I was in 2007, and got down the mountain--passing four riders (a first)--without any mishaps. For check point 6, I was just going to do an on-the-fly bottle exchange, but for some reason the little kid who was doing the bottles didn't quite understand how to do it, so that did not work out. But that was no issue since I knew I probably had enough water in my Camelbak. The second time up Hankey was not as bad as the first for me--just a lot of out-of-the-seat climbing because my nate was feeling the hours in the saddle. I had to walk up a few parts on the way back to the campground (did not have to do this in 2007), but I got down to the fire road quicker than I thought. Then it was just the ride on in to the campground and over the line to see a cheering Sara looking very happy to see me back safe and alive.

9:28 ride time 10:12 race time

Notes

If I knew that I was actually going to do a 9:28 ride time, I would've taken my head out of my ass, paced myself a little better and done a 9:45 race time.
The race is long, so there's no need to kill yourself in the beginning. Next time I'm going to make sure I leave it for check point 4-5; if I have extra energy, that's the place to burn it.
I should've kept my suspension a little softer so I could've enjoyed the downhills more...especially my front fork, since it has a lockout.
The Crossmarks 29er tires tubeless on my Crossmax 29er wheels worked great aside from the loose gravel, which I don't think any tire can do well at while being fast on smooth sections.
The bike worked great--no issues--besides some squeaky pivots that I'll need to replace over the winter.
The race support was excellent as usual, with NASCAR efficiency.
The post-ride food was great--gotta like them Scud fries.
It was cool talking to Jeremiah Bishop after the race to hear how his race went since I didn't know how the pros did. What other sport has camaraderie where you can talk with a pro as an ordinary Joe?
It was really good seeing my teammates at the race and watching some (Roy--Raul's brother from Costa Rica, Tyler and Mark D.) finish their first 100 mile mountain bike race.
Lastly, it was especially nice that Sara came to encourage me and partake in the event that is the SM100.

Aftermath

Sara and I left that night because she needed some sleep and my back had started to seize up (go figure, I think I went too deep). So we decided that it was best if we slept in real beds for the night. I rode for the first time on Saturday the following week to give my body some time to rest and to somehow to even find some motivation to look at a bike, let alone ride one. It's funny how the mind works...I said the whole weekend I wasn't going to do the SM100 in 2010, but not even 3 days later, you start thinking "If I just do this or that, I think I could do better next year....."

-------------------------------More Photos--------------------------------------

OMG-Sheperdstown take 2

2009-08-23T13:08:00.000-04:00

From August 23rd

I was going to do a good long Mt. Bike ride up at Gambril/Shed to get ready for the SM100. A Hurricane had come up the coast so the trails had 2 full days of rain, so we thought it best to do a road ride. I had done this ride about a month ago, and it was still fresh in the mind. This time out we has a smaller group of Sid, Jonthan-repeat costomers, and I was able to get Tyler to come out who I had just raced with the previous week.

This time we started the ride at a lot easier pace which is the correct way to do things. First hiccup was Sid getting a flat 3 miles in on the ride. The good news was that we found the thorn that was in the tire from an earlier flat that week. The second hiccup was helping Lucas a tri guy who had a broken chain. I gave him some pointers on having the right tools when trainning on the bike.

Lucas then followed us up Hamburg and I was a little surprised at how well he was climbing, not that I am that fast but usually tri-folks don't climb as well as he was. I was up in front following 25 yards about behind him, just going the pace I could go and then resting a bit on the flats to push on t

he uphill parts. I got closer to him and I noticed a IronMan tatoo, so this guy does IronMans, and he had almost no body fat so now I felt a little better that this guy could climb so well. Lucust then asks if I know Jeff Schalk, I say I know who he is, and he says,"yeah I ride with him sometimes". So now I know this is one fast dude. When we got to the top we waited for the others and he told me he was pro or close to it for Tri. He did a IronMan I found him in the 2008 Ironman Kona version:

300 09:59:10 McCollum, Lucas Frederick MD USA

After this we went down the mountain and did not miss the turn we had the previous time, but I have realized that I will recue the ride to just down Highland Rd. We got down the mountain in one piece, and then it was off to Harp hill. I find Harp hill easier then Hamburg, only because it is shorter. I was dieing up there, but seemed to be going a pretty good tempo. I waited at the intersection after the

climb. Tyler and Jonathan were on triples so the climbs were not bad for them since they had the gears to go lower. Sid was on a 39-53 with a 25 in back. I was on my 36-50 11-26. Which usually serves me well.

Then we were off to the Gapland climb which was the only climb of the day where I actually pedaled up it, instead of battling my bike. I could see I was having a good day cause I was putting distance on most of the people. Sid was riding well, just loosing ground on the mountains, but riding strong on the flats, and rollers. I then took the lead for the most part all the way to Sheperdstown.

Once at Sheperdstown Jonathan realized he was dehydrated and he was going to ride back solo so he could go his own pace. Tyler, Sid and I left a little later, and I was still gapping them, so it was decided I would ride the last 30miles(2 mountain climbs) solo. I didn't catch up to Jonathan until part way up the Reno climb, and I kinda felt spent at the top. I kept going, and was really feeling it on the

Mt. Tam road. After that I kept thinking only one more climb.

Coxey Brown Implosion

So I got to Coxy and I was trying to ride up it, and it seemed I was going so slow, I was trying to tack as much as I could but cars were coming every so often so I couldn't. I finally got to the flat section in the middle, and really felt like I had used all my matches. I then was going up the last part and almost stopping with the short steep pitches. I believe this section is the part where I hurt my knee. I was having to stand, but was turning the pedals so slow it was more like do one-legged squats. I was trying to tack but the again there was a car ever couple of minutes. I finally got to the top and still had the hills on Gambril rd, which were only annoying, since they can be easily climbed with the gearing I had.

I Finally made it to the finish and ended up waiting 20-30minutes for the others who took the Rt. 40 back instead of Coxy.

Notes:

I think the first downhill need to Highland then take a right to Harp hill.
I might have to put on different gearing for this ride, knees can get messed up Alex hurt his knees when he did this ride.
Always respect the Coxey Brown climb it will always bite your ass.

18 Hours of Scouts Honor

2009-08-15T15:00:00.000-04:00

For the 2009 race season, this was to be my last mountain bike relay race. Scouts Honor is probably the best bang for buck relay race in the Mid-Atlantic Region. It takes place at a boy scouts camp that has cabins, teepees and a fort you can stay in--or you can camp out. The added bonus compared to other races is indoor plumbing for toilets and showers and even an A/C mess hall with free breakfast!

The DCMTB Team was to be comprised of Darren, Mike, Tyler and Leland. Mike unfortunately got hurt in a wreck 2 weeks prior and was not able to attend. We had decided just to give it a go as a 3-person team in the 4-person division and use it for training for the SM100. One big hurdle is getting to the race. It happens to be the same weekend that many kids are going back to college, so a 2-hr trip took us 4 hours.

We get to the race 15 minutes before the required team meeting, and at registration we ended up picking up a random rider whose name was Mike. Coincidence? He was the Hawley rep for Richmond. I asked him if he was fast and he said he was expert skills and sport level fast, so I figured he would be ok. We set up our camp site right on the course so that once someone came by, you would have five minutes to get down to the start/finish.

The Start

It was decided that I would do the first lap. The race had a casual roll out lap and then we were on the race course. I tried to stay near Calvin and Ian (a new DCMTB member). I ended up passing them both and hooked up with the lead group. We were going around and I was feeling pretty good. The trail was really fast, and at this point it was too dry, being a little washed out at the corners. I was starting to feel a little itchy, and I noticed that there was a fast single speeder that was about three riders in front of me that wasn't going as fast as I would like on the straightaways. I went to look ahead and had an out-of-nowhere pedal strike on an isolated rock. I then was bucked off my seat, riding my top tube, veering off toward a destined wreck. I ended up in a four-foot ditch off the trail, very stunned. I tried to get my wits about me and get back on the trail. Surprisingly, no one had come up behind me yet. We must've had a 30-40 second gap. So I get back on the bike and for the next two miles I'm kind of out of it, but riding ok. I ended up finishing the lap with a 46.

The rest of the guys put in solid laps with Tyler doing a low 50s and Leland putting in I think a 50 and our new recruit Mike putting in something in the mid-50s.

2nd Lap

The Scouts Honor race is different from most races because it is mostly a nighttime race. It starts at 4 p.m. and goes until 10 a.m. On my second lap I was hoping to get it in before nightfall. I went blazing out of the gates and was really feeling good. Since I had already done one lap I was more familiar with the terrain and was able to take my lines a little better. I passed Calvin and several other riders and then came upon one of the two unicyclists in the race. I was calling out, "Behind you. Behind you. I'm coming behind you," but that did not seem to make him pull to the side of the trail. So I ended up right on his wheel during a rooty downhill section. He then wrecked. On a side note, when unicyclists wreck, they don't wreck like mountain bikers. When unicyclists wreck, they jump off the bike and leave the unicycle right in the trail. I ended up hitting his tire with my front tire, which then exploded my front tire off my rim (I was running tubeless stands with UST rims). I swore, which I don't usually do, because our team was in one of the top two positions at the time. That was kinda the unicyclist's fault (I did talk to him later and he said he had called out to me, but I was not able to hear what he was saying). What was my fault was that I had a hole in my spare tube that I had not used for a year, and my air cartridges were not working correctly. I ended up messing around for 20 minutes on the trail until several people came and helped me, giving me a tube and air. So that lap turned into a 1:09, with me having to use my light for the second half of the lap. The other guys pulled pretty strong laps and so although we went from second to third, we were looking good.

3rd Lap

On the third lap, I went out on a mission to try to recoup some of that time that I'd lost on the flat. I really pushed it on the hills and tried to keep a fast pace through the corners. I was finding that I was having to dig a little bit deeper than I would've liked on the uphills to keep my momentum going. I ended up pulling in a 46 minute lap--about the same speed as my first lap in the daylight--which was pretty incredible for me since my night laps are usually five to ten minutes slower depending on the course. Everyone else pulled some decent laps, keeping us firmly in third place.

4th Lap

The fourth lap is the dreaded lap of all...it is the late night/early morning lap. I went out at 3 a.m. or so and wanted to keep it going. I had eaten well and stretched out, so I was ok physically. My main issue during this lap was my focus. I kept trying to keep myself looking 20 feet up the trail, but my focus kept going to five feet in front of my bike, which made me react to the trail instead of anticipating turns. Also, during turns I found myself leaning instead of manhandling the bike like I should've. The fatigue had really started to set in. To keep my momentum going, I was using a lot lower gear so I could spin up the wheel quickly. I was also having to stand a lot more to keep the pressure on the pedals and keep my pace going unless I wanted to downshift and just granny up stuff. I came in with my slowest lap at I think around 51. Tyler was having the same problems as I was with the focusing on the trail, and everyone else pulled their slowest laps as well.

Around this time, we were looking at results to see how far back we were, and we noticed that we were in 2nd place. We didn't think this was possible because the team that we were behind was pulling 45-minute laps with some of the riders. We found out that they must've gone too hard and two of their riders had some really bad knee troubles, so they decided to pull out instead of riding the rest of the race with 2 team members.

Last Lap

I ended up with the dawn lap, and I made the bold choice of bringing no lights. I find that the dawn and sunset laps are some of the hardest because you're typically dealing with natural light and artificial light on the trail. What is always great about the last lap is that you can leave it on the trail. When I went out the fatigue was still there, but my focus and reacting was a lot better than before. Just like a wet sponge, I squeezed all the water out, and I ended up pulling a 47 for the lap. Tyler pulled a pretty good lap and said he was pretty beat. Leland, "the young buck," was determined to do a good lap even though I don't think he had to. He ended up pulling his second-fastest lap of the race. The final times were confusing because we didn't know exactly where we were. When Leland came in, he was battling against the person behind him, but we had to triple check to ensure that that person's team was actually a lap behind us. We ended up being a lap ahead--so Mike, our substitute rider, did not have to go out. We finished our race around 9 o'clock instead of around the 10 o'clock time.

Final Thoughts

Leland was the revelation of the race. I believe with his motocross skills, he was really able to rip up the course and he put up some really fast times. Being that this kid is only 22, he is only going to get better.
The course was great--a combination of Lodi and Schaeffer Farms. Would be a good course for a single speed.
The dew was insane...but with the course being so dusty, the dew made the night laps really great on the trail. Unless it was in your tent, however, all of your stuff was wet.
Special thanks to Sara for coming down. Even though she wasn't able to see the race, she was able to see the awards presentation with us getting 2nd place...and was able to drive my tired self back to my parents' house for a restful day laying in the lake and in the bed.
And don't forget the free breakfast!

Shed the hard stuff

2009-08-08T13:17:00.000-04:00

I was originally planning to do a Gambril/Shed ride on Saturday, but I forgot my shoes! So I ended up doing a ride with Matty, Mike, Ian, Jonathan,Harold, Brett and Donna.
Matty picked me up, and we actually made it to the Hamburg lot on time. There were a ton of people there, and we found out that the Michaux folks came down since there was a motocross race up there. They left when we got there. Jonathan realized he forgot his shoes, so he left said he would come back and meet us on the trail. Brett and Donna were some Michaux folks that came a little later so we acted as the tour guides for them.

We did an ok route, one that I wouldn't have picked, it was on the technical side. I was looking to get some good training in for the SM100. Ian and myself were pushing it on the climbs with Matty getting in there as well, Mike, Brett, Matt were riding the tech stuff well and did one Rock formation on Viper that was a little above what I normally do. Got hurt on the ride, with

Brett hit a branch that was against a tree, the branch(15-20 ft) then fell on me to hit me in the head. Was scary and I didn't get a concusion but it did remind me of playing HS football.
On rock candy I almost lost the ability to have children, damn front tire got stuck and I was able to shift the family jewels, but I still got a stem to the groin :-(
This was the most lasting one, a stupid waterbar hop up I went up it and then got caught up and couldn't unclip and landed in rocks which screwed up my elbow.

At one point when we were climbing up Gambril road I was behind, and I caught up with Matty, Ian, and Mike. I then pushed the pace and Ian was still riding behind me, I decided to go hard cause the worst that could happen is that I would ride back to Hamburg. I rode the climbs there strong and kept it up on the downhills. We came back via Deathmarch which is a fun downhill. We had to back up though, and once we got to the sand flats area my deraileur pulley blewup which then made my deraileur hanger break. So I walked down the hill we did and walked the road with Matty coming to get me eventually. We finished the ride up with some good Pizza in Frederick. I had the oportunity to get two Hamstring cramps at the restruant, I need to remember to take electrolites when I am riding.

OMG-Shepherdstown

2009-07-27T11:30:00.003-04:00

This is one of those rides that will never be mastered. I had done OMG-WTF about 5 years ago, and it was that ride that made me get a compact crankset. I did OMG-WTF the last two years and in 2007 with four of us we did the ride right. In 2008 I was with some faster people, and I ended up doing the last 30 miles solo, and taking a shortcut back. For the 2009 version I had wanted to combine the Wild and Wonderful ride. I felt that the flow of the OMG-WTF ride was pretty brutal so I had come up with a route that would have 2-3 rest stops and 80 miles of riding.

OMG to Shepards town w/Coxy

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For the ride I got a lot more people than I thought I would with Alex, Rudi, Jonathan, Eric, Sid, and Mike. We started off the ride a little fast, this is where the ride has its problems. You need to ride the flatter bits slower or the group is going to come unglued. We did the Hamburg climb and I was doing a pretty steady rhythm and towards the top Alex joined me. Alex would be doing this for most of the day since he was riding a 39-26 or something. We got to the top and the others came up at their own speed. On the downhill we made a wrong turn which wouldn't be the first mistake of the day. The turn is easy to miss cause you want to go down the mountain but you need take a right at the stop sign to stay on Crow Rock Rd. So we went down the wrong way and instead of then doing a left then right we had to backtrack for a good bit to get to Harp Hill. We did Harp, and I usually can ride that pretty strong cause it is not as long as Hamburg. We then took the route to the rest stop, which is now the gas station instead of the cute country store that we used to use. Mike was going off the front during this part and our group was kinda riding at a bunch of different speeds, so it was hard to keep the group together. At Bidle I was confused that the bridge would be out, and didn't want to go that way but Mike was on a mission so he went that way with some of the folks. Luckly we got back together, since I did not have my cell with me to call them.

We then made our way to the Gapland climb and I was in the front with Alex right behind me. We decided there to go to Shepardstown, and we knew it would be a long day in the saddle. Trego Mt. Road was a little more uphill than I thought, but the downhill was nice and I always like riding next to the canal. The Shepherdstown stop was great as usual, getting that food in me was all important. We started to ride better together now since people were getting tired. The Reno climb was tough like usual, with the first summit the steepest of the ride. I made it up it ok with Alex behind me. I think that Alex would have been riding the climbs even better if he had different gears. Once we were all at the top and regained our breath, we took the downhill on our way back to Frederick.

There was more climbing than I originally thought on the way to the last climb. We decided to take a last rest stop and then part of the group--Jonathan, Mike, Sid, Alex--took the shortcut back while Eric, Rudy and I did the Mother Coxy Brown. Once we got to the foot of the climb, we all bade our adieus, said good luck and rolled out. I was in the front setting a good tempo, having to get out of the saddle just to keep turning over the gear. After the first switchback, I was actually tacking back and forth so that I could stay seated and pedaling. Once on the flat middle section, I was able to spin my legs out to prepare for the squat leg press section to come. The next section is hard because of the steep pitches that are thrown in--up to 22% Eric read on his GPS. The way to ride this part of the climb is to actually go as slow as you can to be able to punch up the super short steep pitches. At this point, I was having to use an unusual climbing style since my typical seated upright with hands on the flats of the bar wasn't working anymore and standing was not much better. So I ended up actually holding onto the front of the hoods and was able to engage my full body and back into each pedal stroke. I finished the climb and ended up being several minutes ahead of Rudy and Eric. Rudy, who originally was not going to do the climb, was happy that he did because he said he had more in the tank than he thought. I was really impressed with Eric because I believe he did this climb in a 39-25 or -23 and he said that those gym workouts helped for the climbing.

We then rode the ridgeline on Gambril Road and got the sweet downhill, which has you going around 40+. Both Eric and Rudy missed the left on Shookestown Road and I ended up being in front. After the little rise on Shookestown, we got another sweet downhill, which I liked even better since it wasn't quite as steep and had some sweet carving turns on it. Then down to the school...and when I got to the parking lot I was there by myself. After several minutes, everybody showed up, even those who took the shortcut. I guess Waverly Street is not marked, so it's kinda hard unless you know to turn on it by sight. The guys who did the shortcut did some extra miles, but all made it back safely.

Ride notes

The ride was supposed to be 79 miles and ended up being 88 because of wrong turns, but with a bonus of extra elevation (8183ft) added to the ride :)
Mike said I am written off for road rides (I guess he didn't like the climbing).
I think doing the Iron Mt. race the week before helped with this ride, but reaffirmed that I'm better at really steep climbs compared to more drawn out affairs.
Next time, have a smaller group or have people go up the road if they are riding faster.
Lastly, the best way to end a ride like this is to go home and invite a bunch of people over to watch a bunch of pros battle it out on a mountaintop finish in the Tour de France.

Iron Mountain 100k

2009-07-19T05:00:00.002-04:00

This was the first year of this race, and boy was it a good one. Ended up being 55 miles but we are talking 8000+ ft of climbing! So it hurt, but what goes up comes down :-)
Chis Scott ran a great event, with good rest stops and great signage even better then SM100 I think.

Pre-race
So I went down to Damascus the day before with Jonathan "sweetone" Wheaton on my team. We left got a sub in Harrisonburg, and then got to Damascus around 6:30pm. We then actually ate again at the pizza place, I had some good beens and cornbread while I was there. Then set up camp. There were only about 10 of us sleeping in the public park in Damascus. We got up nice and early and I put down two hard boiled eggs and then had the two left over pieces of pizza from the night before. We got to the start line to hear the final directions and then we were off.

Parade Lap:
Great idea doing a parade lap behind the motorcycle but then I saw that my crank was loose, and I had a bolt missing. So I stopped tightened the one bolt and caught up with the group. Then before the first climb I stopped again to cut a ziptie that was holding a cable too tight, and Chris gave me an extra bolt off his own bike (shows his heart).

Start-Aid 1
So I start the race in dead last with the sweeper. I am thinking well there aren't too many people here so I should be able to get through people pretty well. Jonathan was in front of me, and I figured I would catch him around aid station 1. There had been rain on Friday night so wasn't sure how the trails would be. The trails turned out fine, there were some muddy spots but nothing that stopped you from climbing anything but the steepest hills. It was more an issue of what trails had mountain run off, with some being totally dry. The first climb is steep. I was prepared since Chris said it would be. I was passing the experienced, steady riders and catching up to people, but no Jonathan. I actually caught a guy on the downhill to aid station 1, but lost major ground to a guy in chucks and shorts with a double crown fork on the downhill. The downhill here was a blast like going through a green tunnel of fun. At aid station 1 they said Jonathan was about 2 minutes in front of me.
Aid 1-2
I was going really fast and caught the people who passed me at the aid station. I finally caught the guy with the chucks and shorts and freeride bike. I was making some good ground I felt on this section, then went up into the singletrack section of climbing. I was climbing ok, just sticking to a steady rythym. The next big downhill was off-camber with every root or rock pushing my bike off the trail. There was several sections where the trail had eroded from storms, so you had to be on your toes. I didn't make any ground here I was sure. I got into aid station 2 and they said that Jonathan wasn't too far in front of me, I ate a PB&J and was gone.
Aid 2-3
I had determined if I didn't catch Jonathan by the next aid station I wasn't going to catch him. This was the hardest part of the course, reminded me of the 18-mile part in the SM100 from aid station 4-5 where it is a fire road that goes on forever. My seat was not agreeing with me too much either, my seat bones were hurting from sitting on it. I was then getting out of the saddle more to help with that. I realized that the climbing wasn't steep enough for me to catch Jonathan. If he was able to turn over his gear (he was on a single speed) he would be alright on this climb. I might have slowed down a little too much then as well since I was all by myself. I finally got to the downhill to aid station 3.
Aid 3-4
So Jonathan had pulled more time on me, so I decided to not sweat getting him. I had packed some extra socks in the drop bag so I got those out, and put them on. I also got two cups of Coke, which really helped. I then went off knowing that the hardest climbing of the race was done. I rode and did a ridgeline at one point, let a guy use my pump to pump his tube, but his tube was busted and I was running 29ers. As I was doing the downhill, I was thinking about not being able to catch Jonathan, but was thinking too he is the "sweet one" and he gets that name from tech skills. I was doing fine on the downhills, I was comfortable, but these downhills where the kind that you could get some speed on, and if you had balls some real speed. I got down to aid station 4 and found out that Jonathan's lead had maybe even grown on me.
Aid 4-Fin
So the rest of the race, was playing the waiting game of when is this race going to be over. We were climbing this Jeep road that would go up and down, and I knew we had to go down eventually. On the trail was a little upset cause there were not many vistas to look at, just looking 50 yards off the trail and seeing how fast the ground was dropping. We get back to one of the uphills we had done earlier so I knew we were getting close. Then we went up again to a different downhill then the one we came up! This downhill was pretty steep, got my rotors really hot (they squeal when they get hot) and I felt like I had no suspension with all the rocks pounding me. I got the pavement and got my time.
Race time: 6:23
Ride time : 5:54
So way too much stop time!

thoughts:

I was happy with my ride time, I think I can do the same time or better and do like 10 minutes in stops for a 6:04 or better. But Jonathan would have still beat me with his 6:01.
I didn't feel as bad about Jonathan's time considering he did a great ride and got 9th over-all so he had a great ride out there.
To race this I think my 70 oz camel back and a bottle that I refill once or twice. Maybe only stop at Aid 2 and maybe 3.
Make this into a vacation and stay for 4 days or something too far to drive for one ride/race
Their course was awesome, like a more technical SM100. With the climbing less steep (but more of it) and the descents less steep as well.

There should be more pics will post them when I find them.

Lost River Riding

2009-07-11T07:32:00.004-04:00

Over the July 4th weekend, we went tubing on the 3rd and then spent 2 days at the Lost River State Park in WV. The Park is really nice with cabins, a pool, a rec room with Ping Pong. The park also has trails for hiking, riding and horses.
Road

Lost River 7-4-09

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The ride started off a little chilly, but one I started climbing I was doing just fine. This ride has some pretty roads from Patrick Hallow a back country road to Old Route 50 which had a great surface and banking with almost no traffic. I didn't know that there would be such steep stuff on old route 50, and was kinda funny when I did a wrong turn and ended up doing part of the route over again. This ride was a hard one, had allot of climbing and some bombing descents. I was able to test the Moots on some downhill action. The main course of the ride was the Lost River Road climb. Going from 940ft to 2800 ft. I had heard of this climb from a blog on the GamJams news role. The NCVC rider talked about people having to walk, I was like what? So I wanted to see it for myself. This is a closeup of the hardest part of the climb.It was one of the hardest climbs I have done right up there with Reddish Knob near Harrisonburg. I was riding a 36-26 and I was still going like 50rpms in some places, so I could see someone with a 39-23 or 25 dieing on it. Once I got to the Top it was some nice mountain top riding then a fun descent back to the park, only issue was that it felt like a mountain top finish with me having to climb the last bit back to the cabin.

Mountain(trails I rode in pink)
The next day I got up and went Mt. biking from the cabin on park trails. I wasn't sure how long I would ride since we were leaving that day, and there weren't too many trails to ride in the park. I get out of the cabin and go to the end of the street and bamn! I am in my 22-34 with the steepness of the climbing(I ride a 29er) I got up and on the east ridge trail which was the (mt. biking friendly trail) well some parts were big enough for a ATV to ride, but when it started going downhill you needed to be on a dual suspension, disc brake bike or have some skills. My brakes started squelling and at the bottom I put my glove on the rotor and it burned the leather! I then went up the fireroad to Big Mountain. This climb was harder then the previos day's climb but I was on a Mt. bike and had the low gears to get up it. After about 45minutes I made it to the top. There is a ridgeline trail that add some good mileage to the ride. I did an out and back on that with out ever getting to Millers Rock, it was starting to rain and I thought it would be good to get back. I took the Big Ridge Trail back down the mountain, and it was a horse trail, but did not say bikers couldn't use it. I wasn't worried about horses cause of the rain and crappy morning weather. Horses can really churn up a trail, this tail was sandy, and every rock unless it was a boulder was not in the ground firmly. I had some big rock kick up and hit me and my bike. The scary moment was when I came to a ravine, and the raing had made the rocks and roots slick. I slipped on a rock and then slipped on a root where I crashed and had my thigh pinched between the root and my bike. Was scary for a second, but luckly I have some big legs so a bruise not a broken bone. I then went back to the cabin via the howards lick trail and the lollipop trail. By the time I got back it was fully rainning, making me happy I got a ride in when the trails were dry. I did about 2 hours and only rode 12miles so that kinda tells how steep this place is. Would be really cool to have a Mt bike race here and have everyone campout and cabin at the race site.

12 hours of Cranky Monkey 2009

2009-07-06T12:28:00.003-04:00

This was one of the big races I wanted to do well at this year. I was not able to race it last year, cause of my back, so this year I wanted to do well. The team I had come up with was Mike K.(who I seem to keep racing with) and Alex who I raced with at Lodi. We made the age cut-off and raced the Open Men's division. I wanted us to do well, and I had hopes for us to battle against DCMTB's Vet squad of Marc, Raul, and Chris.
I started us off and after much debate we agreed to do single laps(which was the best call) I did the run and got to pretty good position with Matty right around me. I then kicked it on the gravel doubletrack, and was off. I was sitting in like 5th place or so then we hit the powerline climb and I had some chainsuck. I lost 3 spots there, and would then be babing my drivetrain for the rest of the race. I ended up riding with Raul for like 2 miles at the end and was a great way to end the lap meaning we were tied with the Vet team. Mike, and Alex put in some really fast laps which then gave us the lead over the Vet team and the Co-Ed team of Matty, Tom, Lynne) For my 2nd lap I was fearful of Matty catching me, and after a couple of miles I heard someone gainning on me, and I said hey Matty that you? YEP So I rode with Matty for a bit, but at one point he took a hairy turn and sped up again I knew I had to let him go and go my own pace. I finished the lap a couple of minutes down on them. After that I don't think we ever saw the front again. My 3rd lap was ok, but yet again I saw the lead go away and this was that I lost 1st place in the 3 man open division when I saw the Luv team go in front of me. I wanted to stay with him which I did for a bit, but I knew that I was going too much into the red. So I stayed my own tempo. I was starting to get some cramps. Alex and Mike did some fast laps again, meanwhile the 1st place 3-man open team was losing gas and we had taken the lead from them. With my last lap coming I knew I needed to keep on the gas and not get caught by the Luv team. I was going my hardest out on the course, I had a fast SS playing cat and mouse with me. he would catch up and then fall away then catch up again. He never went in front of me, but we rode like that for about 4 miles until around mile 8 I left him. I was also determined to leave it on the trail compared to Big Bear where I still had energy in the tank, that meant riding through several bouts of cramps that wanted to take hold but I fended them off. I came back with a 2 minute faster lap time then any of my other laps. Alex went next since he needed to get home, and Mike K. finished us off with a wicked fast lap. We won the open 3-man Division and ended up 2nd place over-all. Another thanks for Sara coming out and she also helped out and did scoring at the end of the even. Check out the pics if you can't see the slide show http://picasaweb.google.com/lovedabikes/12HoursOfCrankyMonkey2009#
The whole DCMTB team really shined out there with:

1st over-all 1st co-ed(by 2 laps) 3 -person
Matty, Tom, Lynn

2nd over-all 1st 3-man open
Darren, Alex, Mike

5th over-all 2nd 3-man vet
Raul, Marc, Chris

3rd 3-man open
Vince, Leland, Kevin

3rd Co-Ed Du0 (with PVC)
Samantha and Chris

6th Co-Ed 3-person
Mike S., Jonathan, Tris

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