Vapor Trail Part II: The Race

I'm not going to lie and say that I wasn't nervous for this race. I was probably the most nervous that I've been in years. I knew it was going to be very hard. I tried to relax the day before the race, but it didn't really work. We left our house casually Saturday morning and drove down to Salida. The place Mrs. Geology found on VRBO was nice, and a quick drive from downtown where all the stuff was happening. As I was eating lunch, I realized that I had left the reservoir for my pack in the fridge... at home. I panicked for a second and then realized that I am an adult with money and went and bought a new one at an outdoor shop downtown. I checked Absolute Bikes first, but they didn't have any 3 L reservoirs, so they sent me to the local outdoor outfitters. Minor crisis averted. After I set my bike up, I settled in for the all-important pre-Vapor nap.

The full Vapor Trail 125 set up.

The race start came sooner than I thought it would. The next thing I new, I was sitting on the F Street bridge next to Kerkove about to ride off into the night. The start was the most neutral neutral start I've ever been in. We were actually going at a conversational pace for the first half hour of the race. As we settled into the first climb up to Blanks Cabin I hit what I thought would be my pace for the rest of the night and the next day.

Waiting. Photo courtesy of Mrs. Geology.

The section of the Colorado Trail went well. I walked some of the steeper climbs, trying to stick to Jeff's rule of not sweating for the first four hours. With the 28t ring on my XX1 setup it wasn't that hard, Aside: I'll probably end up sticking with that chainring instead of going back to a 30t since I spend more time in the middle of the cassette with it. I'm too much of a spinner now. Anyway, my Mach 429c was performing brilliantly and my dual Light and Motion Stella 500s were keeping me pointing in the right direction. I had replaced the stock two-cell batteries with slightly larger three-cell batteries so the light on my bar was good for something like 18 hours on low, which was where I had it parked. The light on my head gave me a little over four hours on high, and it was only on for parts where I actually needed to see (i.e. singletrack). Plus, I had the two spare two-cell batteries in my pack just in case. Other than my rear blinky light (which went out before I got to the Cascade aid station), that's all the lighting I was carrying.

The Colorado Trail section went a bit quicker than I expected. I really love riding technical singletrack at night (I can thank the Weiser's, Uncle Don, and Zach for that love), and that section of the CT was some of the best night riding singletrack I've ever done. I'll have to go back and enjoy it sometime. I rolled into the Cascade aid station and found it positively buzzing with activity. About a dozen folks alternating between huddling around a fire to ward off the chill and helping racers with bottles and hydration reservoirs, and an equal number of racers enjoying a hot cup of coffee or a breakfast burrito in the early morning hours. I don't remember exactly when I rolled in, but it was definitely after 1 AM. Thanks to those folks who stayed up probably all night helping racers out. At the aid station, I refilled my water and headed out into the long night. I really had no idea what lie ahead of me.

After the hike-a-bike/scramble over the new landslide, I hooked up with Carey Lowery. We rode the rest of the night together. I don't know what I was thinking, but that climb to the Alpine Tunnel was long. Strava says that it was 17 miles, but goddamn if that wasn't the longest 17 mile climb I've ever done. I don't know whether it was the dark, or the lack of grade, but it felt like we climbed forever. Once we got to Hancock (I think), we followed a sign that said "Alpine Tunnel Trailhead: 5 mi." Ok, five more miles of climbing. When we got to the Alpine Tunnel Trailhead, it said "Alpine Tunnel: 3 mi." Ok, three more miles of climbing. Finally we're getting somewhere. Then I saw a few lights above us and knew we were there. We dismounted and started our hike-a-bike over the tunnel. I was feeling good. I had maintained a good pace and kept my cadence up the entire way up the climb, and I was making a good pace walking, which I'm not typically good at. Once we topped out at Alpine Pass, I was eager to get back on my bike. I actually cleaned most of the sketchy, brush covered (an odd thing for being above treeline) descent back down to the old railroad grade, and we were soon bombing down the road. After a surprise visit to Aid Station 1.5 (thank you to the folks who camped up in the high country to cook bacon and make coffee for a bunch of crazies... I never got your names, but thank you) with it's amazing coffee and bacon, we started heading up Tomichi Pass. Now that I'm looking at the race with the clarity of hindsight, this is where things started to unravel. We gained the pass as the slightest hint of color was returning to the eastern horizon, As Carey and Kip got their pictures taken by the moto guy (one of the race promoters), I watch the lights in the distance dancing up the hulking dark mass that is Granite Mountain.

While I had led our little group over Alpine Pass, I struggled to maintain the walking pace that Carey set going up Tomichi Pass. I struggled even more up Granite Mountain. After our first major stop and the break of down Carey and Kip left me behind. I couldn't keep pace with them walking up this mountain. I don't know how long it took, but I eventually reached the top. I sat up their in the early morning cold and took it all in. The most important thing I had to do now was eat food. I had a one hour plus descent ahead of me.

Sunrise. 12.5k ft. Canyon Creek Trail.

Obligatory Granite Mountain selfie.

The descent is now a blur of rough alpine singletrack and smooth, wooded trail. The alpine part went by way too quickly, but the rest of the trail was pretty much perfect Colorado singletrack filled with natural jumps, things to manual, and high-speed corners. Other than the steep climb near the end, I honestly don't remember much of it.

I will admit that I miscalculated my nutrition for this. I should have taken two more bags of drink mix with me so I could refill with the stuff I wanted at Snowblind. A guy that I thought looked like the great Dave Wiens was there and lubed my chain (turns out it was Dave Wiens). And I turned down a few offers for pancakes because of the presence of peanut butter on the table (see my previous post). I refilled my reservoir, and made a mix with some non-CarboRocket drink mix and set off. Once I hit Old Monarch Pass Road I could instantly tell that something wasn't right. the non-CarboRocket drink mix wasn't doing it, and my legs were reduced to tubes of jelly. I walked the last mile of the road, and every single uphill of the short section of singletrack between the top of Old Monarch Pass and the new Monarch Pass aid station. Everything had come undone, and the amount of coke (none) and lack of food at the aid station did not help fix it. I cried somewhere between the walking and getting into my car. Maybe twice. I honestly don't remember. I stayed awake just long enough to get off Monarch Pass as Mrs. Geology drove me back home. As soon as we hit the flats, I was asleep. Race over.

I'm honestly still processing this, so I'll likely write more later. That's all for now.

Vapor Trail Part I: The Preamble

So I did Vapor Trail 125. Well, most of it anyway. Before I go into a detailed account of my race, I'd like to start with this.

A Request for Organizers/Promoters of Endurance XC Races

Over my actually kind of long career of racing, I have had the pleasure to compete in many different races in many different and unique regions of the country. Since my preferred form of cycle-based torture is long endurance races, many of the races I have attended have been supported by aid stations out on course. These aid stations run the gamut of nothing more than a dude with an easy-up in the woods and a bunch of water to a small full-service restaurant and bike shop. Most of them offer some kind of drink mix as well as a number of sweet and salty snacks for racer to gorge themselves on while wondering why they are going to leave the wonderful bounty of food laid out in front of them. A staple of aid station food at most endurance races in the peanut butter and jelly sandwich (PB & J hereon). The PB & J is, after all, a perfect source of energy for the trials ahead; it contains an ample amount of nutrients to keep a racer fueled up until the next aid station. Everyone loves a good PB & J mid-race right?

Well, not everyone. I, and probably a decent minority of other endurance racers, have a severe peanut allergy. Severe enough that if you eat your PB & J, then grab a handful of salty tortilla chips, then I come along and grab a handful of the same chips, I am risking going into antiphylactic shock in the woods, miles away from any medical care (and no, an EpiPen is not medical care. The EpiPen is only designed to keep you from dying before you get to the hospital). No, when I see a tray of PB & Js sitting on a food table at an aid station, it means that I'm not getting any food at that aid station. This makes it difficult to plan a nutrition strategy at races where you are limited to a certain number/size of drop bags.

My request is simple. I don't want to eliminate the PB & J from aid station food menus, I just want race promoters to remind their aid station volunteers to be cognizant of this very dangerous food allergy and to do their best to keep the PB & Js separate from the rest of the food. Maybe even put them on a separate table?

That's all... I'll be back later with Part II of my Vapor Trail story.

In which I win a bike race in Colorado...

My 2015 racing season got off to a good start with a 9.5 hr finish at True Grit, but quickly turned "meh" with travel in April and June, and cancelled races in May. July, though, has been pretty good. So far I've raced twice, and both times have been really fun. First I raced the Firecracker 50 Team Relay with KMill. He's gotten really fast (again), so we ended up in the top 20 with some pretty fast dudes ahead of us. Last weekend in went up the Breckenridge again for the B68, which is the last two loops of the Breck 100. I honestly had no expectations for this race since I was using it as prep for the upcoming Maah Daah Hey 100, so when the race started I immediately started going my pace instead of trying to keep up with the two other people I saw in my age class. We hit some trails familiar to me from the Firecracker first, including the climb part-way up Little French Gulch, but soon we were on new stuff. All the trails around Breck are some of the best I've ever ridden, and West Ridge and the Colorado Trail did not disappoint.

I kept rolling at my pace with no indication of where I was. Occasionally another 68-mile racer would pass me, but it was mostly the 32-milers (they were only doing Loop 2) coming by. I had a little bit of a sucky section on the Gold Run Road, but other than that I rode pretty steadily the entire loop. There was nothing too technical out on course, just lots of fast descending and steep climbs.

The third loop (the second loop for the 68-milers) was a little different and would take us up and over Boreas Pass and down into Como. Of course we didn't just climb up Boreas Pass Road to get to the top. That would be too easy. There was some singletrack that turned into doubletrack, that turned into eroded, rock doubletrack, that eventually dumped us out on Boreas Pass road less than 1000 vertical feet from the top. Other than Little French, the trails getting you to Boreas Pass Road were probably the hardest climbs of the course. Even with 30x42 as my low gear on my SRAM XX1 transmission, I did a lot of 60 rpm mashing to keep moving through the loose grapefruit-sized rocks. I stopped at the aid station at the Pass to grab some magic juice (Coca-Cola), and hit out down what would turn out to be the best trail of the day, and definitely the best trail I've yet ridden in all of Colorado. Gold Dust Trail is an amazing almost 10 mile long singletrack that drops from about 0.3 mi off Boreas Pass into Como. Along the way there's wide open rocky sections, a section of old flume which is basically a slot-car track with berms on both sides, a section that reminded me of Iceberg in the Frederick Watershed, and a tight, twisty, rooty descent to finish it off. You have to pedal to maintain speed because the grade is very gentle, but I don't think I touched my brakes once during the flume section. I would definitely make trips to Como just to ride this descent plus the climb from there up to the Pass.

After Gold Dust it was straight back up and over Boreas Pass, then back down to Breck with a diversion onto Baker's Tank and some other singletrack to finish the race. I had started pushing a little harder on my second loop (as dictated my my training goals), and really went as hard as I could  over the top of Boreas and on the whole route down. When I finished, I was pretty shelled; racing in Breck for near 8 hrs is hard on your entire body. After I collected myself, I checked the results sheet and it had me in second place, but I noticed that my times for both loops were exactly the same (down to the hundredth of a second). As this seemed very unlikely, I walked away hoping to still be on the podium when the got it sorted out. When our podium eventually happened, they called my name up in first place. Apparently I was one of two racers in my age category to finish both loops, and I did it 45 minutes faster than the other guy.

A nice plaque and a sixer of Oscar Blues were my prizes

I'm really stoked to have a result, especially since I was treating this as a training race. I had a really great day on the bike, and am looking forward to taking this fitness forward to my greater goals this year, the Maah Daah Hey 100 in two weeks and the Vapor Trail 125 in September. My Pivot Cycles Mach 429c did everything I asked of it without question during the race, and my Kappius KW-1.5 wheels are still round and true even after taking a few accidental hits. As always Ergon kept my hands and butt comfy, and Carborocket kept fuel in my belly. Thanks to 92Fifty for just being the best damn team in the business! I'm looking forward to a few more races this year, and maybe some stuff into October on the mountain bike.

All smiles coming off the Colorado Trail before Aid #4

Internet Blackout Weekend, or the most boring Moab post ever

Last weekend was 92Fifty's 2nd Annual Spring Moab Camp, and I decided to treat it a little differently than I have treated bike-related trips in the past. As soon as we arrived at our campground, I turned my phone's Ultra Power Saving Mode (A handy feature that turns most applications off, turns the screen to grayscale, and puts a cap on processor speed, but still gives you access to SMS, phone calls, and a web browser. When fully charged, the phone estimates it has 12 days of standby time.). This gave me access to text messages and a phone so I could keep in touch with Mrs. Geology, but took away stupid temptations like Facebook, Twitter, and the camera. The last one is most important. Not only was I going to do a little break from social media, I wasn't going to take any pictures either. I spent the entire weekend soaking in Moab with my eyes, instead of trying to capture it with my camera.

Early Thursday morning I met a teammate and his friend, loaded up in his car, and headed up I-70. It was cold and windy at the park and ride in Morrison, so we shoved everything in as best we could, loaded the bikes up, and hit the road. The drive was completely uneventful, and eventually we stepped out of the car into Moab's warm early afternoon sun. We quickly set up our tents, claiming the best spots in the group camping area at the Slickrock RV Campground. Eventually more people started arriving and our leader, JD set out our ride plan for the day. It was the middle of the afternoon by then, so we set out for the Pipe Dream trail. Pipe Dream is a relatively new trail that's basically right in town. It gives those new to Moab riding a chance to test the waters, as it were; it is neither steep or technical, and exposed enough that you can most likely fall off without falling to your death (a fact demonstrated nicely by one of the women in our group during the ride... yes she's OK, see a recap here). I hit the singletrack third wheel and immediately found myself and Andrea trying to hold Josh Tostado's wheel. For mere mortals, this is a bad idea. I may have been able to at least keep him in sight if we had been more than an hour into the ride and I was warmed up, but that was not the case. I'm pretty sure when I finally reached him stopped at the top of a climb looking down on Moab and out to the La Sals he had been sitting there for at least five minutes. Nice guy that he is, he made no mention of it, and we soon shot off down the trail again. We got to the turn around on the trail, and briefly regrouped before setting off in the other direction. The ride back up (down?) Pipe Dream was relatively uneventful. I got dropped by Toast and Jakub (our resident Czech World Cup pro) at the beginning, but managed to make some time back on the hardtail-riding Jakub in some of the more techy sections near the other end of the trail. As we rolled back to camp, I kept thinking about how this was just a preview of all the good riding to come.

Friday morning woke me up by being a typical frigid desert morning. Even Toast and JD, in the comfort of their respective pimped out Sprinter van and large RV commented on it. I didn't sleep that well, I kept waking up to put more clothes on, but I felt rested in the morning. I think hitting some Elevated Legs before I went to bed helped that out. Plus I always sleep pretty well in the tent, regardless of how cold it is outside. Saturday's plan was UPS Down, which is possible also known as the Half Enchilada (you go halfway up to Geyser Pass). The ride would consist of going all the way up Sand Flats Road, climbing up the bottom of the Kokopelli Trail, then shredding back down to Moab on Upper Porcupine Singletrack (UPS), Lower Porcupine Singletrack (LPS), Porcupine Rim Trail, and Porcupine Rim Singletrack (I'm looking at The Whole Enchilada map right now, so those trail names are correct). If you're as confused as me right now, we can stop: why is the combination of UPS and LPS not called UPS since there is a singletrack along Porcupine Rim much lower down that could be called LPS? Is it because UPS and LPS are on a rim that overlooks Castle Valley and has a different name that Porcupine Rim, which overlooks the Colorado River (unlikely, since the Porcupine Rim jeep road starts overlooking Castle Valley)? I propose a that the trails be renamed, so that the section of singletrack on the Whole Enchilada between Kokopelli's Trail and the Porcupine Rim Trail is called Upper Porcupine Singletrack (UPS), and the section of singletrack between the Porcupine Rim Trail and UT-128 be called Lower Porcupine Singletrack (LPS). Anyway, enough geographical semantics...

I tried to hold Toast and JD's wheels on UPS but quickly found myself in no-mans's land between them and Jakub. We stopped a few times to let everyone regroup before deciding to split up and go our own speeds. This would mean a the majority of our group riding together in the back, Jakub, then me, somewhere in the middle, and JD and Toast way, way, way out front. I came up to the Snotch (it'S not the Notch... the Snotch is the divider between UPS & LPS, it is above the skill level of all but the most skilled riders. The Notch on the other hand, is only ridden by the 1% of the 1%, and mostly on full DH bikes at that) with all intentions of riding it, but balked as soon as I saw it. Jakub and I both walked. A bit of twisty trail later, we ran into JD fixing what turned out to be flat number two (the second flat was his spare tube to fix his first flat). We waited for him to fix it and rolled on to meet Toast at the end of LPS. We decided to roll separately again, and after a few regroups and one stop to fix another flat on JD's bike (they come in threes, you know...), found the entrance to Porc Singletrack. Then the fun really began. Porc Rim can be a bit punishing on a short travel bike, and by short travel, I'm talking anything less than 150 mm front and rear. The Mach 429c's dw-link suspension is fantastic, but 100 mm of it is not enough to cover the repeated square-edge hits that Porc Rim has. Lower down, on sections where I could jump between smooth bits, I could keep up with JD on his 160 mm travel Nukeproof Mega AM, but anytime the road got rough for a long stretch he was gone. On Porc Singletrack, though, I felt like I was right there. It's like the people who put this ride together purposely saved the best part for the end. It's such a short trail compared to many other things (or at least it feels short), but there is so much technical goodness in there that it may be my favorite of the entire route (Burro Pass is damn close, though). And it's technical stuff you actually have to think about, too. Porc Rim is a jeep road, so you can pretty much go anywhere, but there are line choices to make on Porc Singletrack, places where things could be amazing, or things could go badly wrong. It also brings out all the interesting people in Moab; dudes on high-seat hardtails bouncing down the trail, families on rental bikes wearing jeans and Keds towing kids who didn't know what they were getting into, guys on department store bikes with kickstands riding more things than most, and super #Enduro (tm) bros trying to set a PR on Strava. Hopefully our group fell somewhere in the middle there. Jakub impressed a lot of people by riding the whole slab down to the last gully crossing on his hardtail with the seat up (did I mention he raced two World Cups last summer?), and soon we were on the bike path headed back to town. I sat nervously behind JD and Jakub (note: Toast was probably back at camp making two sandwiches at this point) because I had this feeling that this would turn into a race before we made it back. We maintained a happy tempo (what Fatmarc would call "no douchebag pace") until we got to the underpass at US-191. On the short rise after the underpass, Jakub stood. Then I stood. Then JD stood. Before I knew it, JD and I were going full gas into a blind, uphill, off camber, left hand corner when, mid corner, his rear tire folded sending the back end of his bike sliding about a foot towards me. We both backed off a lot thinking of the disaster that could have been. Jakub went to the front and continued the aggression, though, a line of us wizzing down the bike path on the opposite side of the road from our campground finish line. JD jumped early crossing the road, his 28x10 high gear and 160 mm bike making him the least likely to finish first. Now, on the correct side of the road, though, he had the advantage. Jakub and I followed, and my 30x10 got me in front of JD, while Jakub's 34x10 immediately gave him three or four bike lengths for the win. Well, the group sprint win, at least, Toast was already changed and making two sandwiches by the time we got back. Getting out all your pent up aggression is the best way to end a chill group ride, and we settled in to hang out by the campfire on a cool desert night.

Saturday was the traditional Hymasa/Ahab ride. A few of us, at Toast's advice, switched it up a little bit. Instead of turn on Cliffhanger and riding up Hymasa, we kept going on Kane Creek Road. And going. And going. And going. Eventually we were on top of Hurrah Pass and were dropping down into the valley that the Amasa Back overlook looks into. From the top of the pass, the valley looks flat. It was anything but flat. After a bunch of punchy climbs we arrived at the base of the overlook staring straight up the cliff. For some reference, this valley is amazing. It's solitude incarnate. It's all the best parts of Moab without all the other people. We reached that small butte kind of in the middle of the valley, skirted around it and stopped at the base of the cliff. I watched as Toast, Kerkove, and the others threw their bikes on their backs and started walking. Staring up the cliff in front of me, I struggled to find the trail we were going up. I spotted a small figure about two thirds of the way up the cliff. It was a runner taking part in the 50 mile running race that was going on that day. That's where I was headed.

With my bike on my back, I followed the snaking path up a joint in the cliff. The path wasn't that difficult, I only had to use my hands a few times, and was wide enough that it didn't feel sketchy walking up it. I had a little bit of fear going into this since I'm pretty afraid of heights, and I tend to get a bit wobbly when I'm standing on the edge of cliffs. I'm glad to say that I had no problem with this climb. When I got to the top I looked down with a smile; we had just done what bikes are made to do: we had an adventure. For some reason I headed straight back down when we got to the Amasa Back road, but Captain Ahab is such a damn fun trail. In hindsight, I probably could have stuck with Toast and JD on their Pothole Arch/Rockstacker/Jackson/Dave's Trail (I think that's the name) ride. I've ridden all those trails before, so I know the route. Either way, Captain Ahab (which I rode) is a fantastic way to finish a ride. I set a Strava PR on a few downhill sections of the trail, which is pretty impressive since I was on my 120 mm/100 mm (front/rear) Pivot Mach 249c with kinda skinny XC tires (Maxxis Ardent Race 2.2 front, Ikon 2.2 rear) as opposed to the 160 mm travel Felt Compulsion I was on last time. It's good to see that I'm getting better at desert riding since I tend to do a lot of it (Front Range riding is pretty similar to desert riding as far as the quantity of sand on the trails).

Sunday I shuttled to the top of the Mag 7 trails with my ride back home and the group of women. The guy I drove out with wanted to get back home not too late (I kind of agreed), so we opted for a shorter ride. Mag 7 trails are super fun and much more mellow than most stuff in Moab, so it was a great way to end a fantastic trip. The ride, at least the way we did it, is just like a ride from El Bretto's house; it always ends on a climb. In this case it was a long, gradual singletrack climb, then a short section of road back to the parking lot. After dropping back down into Moab to get some food, we were on the road and headed back home. We arrived just after dark, and I pretty much took my bike off my car and went to bed, still thinking about all the great trails I rode, and all the great people I rode them with. I thought about having pictures a few times over the weekend, but in the end, I appreciate the memories of this trip and the fact that I focused on what was around me and taking in the amazing desert scenery. The memories from the trip will be enough to hold me over until the next one.

The first race of 2015

I'm always nervous for the first race of the year. This year was no different. Mrs. Geology realized about five days before the race that we hadn't made any travel or food plans; we knew we were driving over two days, but we had no hotel plans for the overnight. Rather quickly, we got everything together, but I'm still always worried that something would be forgotten. Luckily, this year we forgot headlamps for camping, so it wasn't something crucial.

We made our overnight halt in Grand Junction at about 9:30 PM after finding clear roads through the mountains. Friday we drove the rest of the way to St. George, and made it there just in time to sit in a medium-long registration line. I did a quick ride with some openers on the first short climbs of the lap, and settled down for a sleep before the race start.

For some reason I set my alarm for 5 AM the next morning, even though the start was at 8 AM. It didn't matter anyway, because a dog (owned by one of the people staying in the camping area, mind you), began wandering around and indiscriminately barking at things at around 4:30 AM. I was instantly awake and ready to go. Who ever was so inconsiderate that they let their dog roam freely around down town Santa Clara (as far as I know) should be punished in some way. I'm sure the dog was scared, but until I figured out that it belonged to one of the racers, all I wanted to do is throw rocks at it at 5:15 AM as it sat about twenty feet from my car barking at me. When I found out that it belonged to someone camped near me, I wanted to throw rocks at them (aside: we were camped at a municipal baseball field, so when a local little league team came to practice later that day a mom called animal control because the dog was harassing the kids. Apparently they came and took the dog, and the people were no where to be found when I came back to camp after my race).

The race start was chilly, and I lined up with the thirty-odd Open Men for the first wave of the day; the Open Women, Singlespeed, and Masters would start seven minutes later. It was a chilly wait.

Waiting...

We rolled down the opening road section at a relaxed pace. The group was so small that we didn't really need to jockey for position too much. That combined with the steep opening dirt climb meant that gaps would open naturally. When we hit dirt, I watched as my heart rate climbed up and up, then decided to just let the group go. Going straight to Zone 5 at the beginning of a hundred isn't a good thing, and while I've gotten a lot faster in the last two months, I'm still not front-group-in-an-NUE fast. The lead trio in the SS field passed me about 20 minutes into the race. The first women passed me about a half hour later. Being in such a small field, I was pretty much alone the entire time. This was ok since there were no long road sections to like in the 101 or Shenandoah, and it allowed me to attach the technical sections without being held up by anyone. I rolled right through the Waterfall section Barrel Ride (I think that's the trail name) without any trouble; it's just steep after all. Zen went much the same, as I distanced myself from folks who had trouble with the technical parts. At the end of Zen I rolled up the road climb with Roger Masse and Amanda Carey. These were probably good people to be with, and I let Roger lead down Bearclaw Poppy. After the turn around, his pace was too high, so I let him go.

Zen Trail, first lap.

Carey caught up to me on Stukki, and we worked together on the most boring part of the course for a while. Stukki might be the most boring trail, but I think it has the best views on the entire course. At the end of Stukki, right at the base of that last steep climb, Carey attacked me hard for some reason. I suppose there's a reason why she's won the NUE twice or something...

The first Barrel Roll was uneventful. Junstin Lindine passed me near the end of the loop to win the 50 mile race. The second lap went about as expected; making the best time I can up the climbs, and attacking the descents. The second time through Zen was a bit uneventful as well. Zen is definitely harder the second time, since you have to constantly throw down large bursts of power to clear the various tech moves that come up. It's still a fun trail, though, and I think I'd rather ride it Zen a few more times than do all that fast stuff between in and the Rim Runner stuff. I say that now, fully realizing that I probably wouldn't like it if I actually had to do it.

Barrel Rolls.

Somewhere in the hot and boring part of the course (read: everything from the end of Zen to Rim Runner) I think I got a little heat stroke. I definitely stopped sweating, and started to get a bit of a headache. Near the start of the two-way section before Rim Runner, I got caught by two other guys. I think they saw how bad I look and took a bit of pity on me. One of the dudes gave me some endurolytes, and informed me that we weren't far from the cut-off water stop. At that water stop, I switched my bottle of caloric stuff I'd been drinking for a bottle of emergen-C in order to replenish some more electrolytes. It worked. A few minutes later I felt much better, my skin had a bit of a sweaty sheen to it, and I motored on. The remainder of the race went really well, and I finished in around 9.5 hours. Unfortunately there's no way to compare this to other hundreds I've done since A) It's only 88 miles, and B) it's a lot harder than any of the other hundreds. Next year, though, next year I'll have something to compare...

I spent last weekend hanging out with some friends and riding in Boulder. Friday night we went to dinner up there with old C3 friends that were in town. Saturday we did a classic Boulder loop on the roads (Boulder > Lefthand > Ward > Ned > Coal Creek > Boulder), and Sunday I rode Betasso with KMil and Jay. That was my Boulder fix for the next month or so. Tomorrow I'm leaving for the 2nd anual 92Fifty Moab Camp, so that will be fun. Look for another update after that. Hopefully I'll take some pictures.

I'd like to thank all our team sponsors for my race at True Grit, and all the people who have supported me so far this year, especially Pivot Cycles for making the best damned bike out there for this kind of racing, Race Face for making really comfy handlebars, and Ergon for keeping my hands and butt happy. Here's to the 2015 racing season!

Announcements

This week marks the start of two things: the first is the 2015 mountain bike rassin season, and the second is a new chapter of my non-bike life. As of last Monday, I'm taking over my bosses position at work, so I'll be the Customer Care Manager. He's moving up into a sales management position. It's going to be really good for both of us as we continue to expand and grow. I'm pretty excited about this because it means I'll be able to spend more time at home with Mrs. Geology and more time riding my bike. Although it is a bummer that I'll be traveling less, I get to set the schedule so I can keep my really cool sites in Alaska and the Canadian sub-Arctic. It's going to be a busy time for me in the next six months while this transition takes place, but in the end, it will be good. It's good to feel like I'm valuable to my company.

In the bike world, I'm in taper mode for the True Grit Epic right now. It's the first race of the NUE Series, and the course is super fun. I'm lining up for the full hundred miler (2 laps, 88 miles), and I'm feeling stronger than I've felt in a very long time. All this training has done me good.

I did a few good rides this weekend. Saturday I did a road/trail loop on my mountian bike that included sliding down most of White Ranch because there was so much snow. It was that funny kind of ride where you'd just ride until you crash, and repeat until the bottom. It was a lot of fun.

Blue skies all day.

Selfie.

Road riding on mountain bikes.

Sunday I headed up the mountains and did a short (<3 a="" an="" and="" another="" bird="" blue="" but="" day="" didn="" dirt="" easy="" few="" get="" good="" hours="" hr="" i="" in.="" it="" jd.="" just="" kind="" loop="" many="" mountain="" much="" of="" on="" p="" pace="" pictures="" put="" really="" road="" roads.="" so="" stop="" t="" time.="" to="" was="" we="" went="" with="">
My next post will be after True Grit, so you have that to look forward too. My goal is to not crash and break everything this year.

Laters!

Almost racing time

I was going to write about my opinions about flow trails, but every time I worked through my arguments, I managed to convince myself that they were incorrect, so I'm bailing on that. My thoughts, after thinking it over for the better part of a week and a half, are maybe when you build a new flow trail, you should have to let it sit for two to three years and not perform any maintenance on it (unless there's some severe weather event such as flooding or large blow-downs). That way, the trail corridor you created will merge itself into the surrounding landscape so it doesn't look so out of place. After that, the goal of your maintenance should be to maintain that merged status, not to return it to it's just-built form. This addresses my main problem with new-school flow trials: they just look out of place in most areas (see the cover photo of Access Action in Dirt Rag issue #182). My second issue with flow trails is just as easily addressed. Other than a few trails on Narrowback Mountain outside Stokesville, VA, most new-school trails I've seen/ridden completely bypass (or remove) any natural features (i.e. scree slopes, or a rocky ledge). I believe that trails should reflect the geology of they area they are built in. If you're in Michaux, why would you build a trail without big rock features? Michaux has big rocks. The counter-argument (i.e. the pro-flow trail argument) here is that new-school flow trails are easier for beginners and help get them into the sport. This is great, and necessary, but there has to be some progression. If you have an area large enough to have 20 trails in it, how many of them should be easy, flow trails, how many intermediate trails, and how many advanced trails? This is a hard question to answer and means that we can't just have one approach to building trails. Certain areas have to be only beginner trails, or only advanced trails. Basically, my point is make the trails you build match the geology/terrain of the area you're building them in. Most people who want to get into mountain biking want to get into it because they like the idea of riding a bike on the trails nearest them, regardless of how difficult those trails are. In Fair Hill NMRA (in MD), they're like "The idea of riding a bicycle on these tight, tight twisty trails sounds rad!" while at White Ranch OS (in CO) they're like "The idea of riding a bicycle on these rocky, steep, switchback-filled trails sounds rad!" Both of those things are awesome and should be supported by building trails that are appropriate to the area they are being built in.

Anyway... I digress...

Last week I drove to Dallas and back, which kind of sucked. I was pretty impressed with northern New Mexico (many cool volcanoes) and the Texas Panhandle (cool, rolling desert-ey terrain), but the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metro Area reminded me of the worst parts of the Baltimore Metro Area (i.e. the part that we lived in). Don't get me wrong, Havre de Grace is a cool little town and we were lucky that it was more or less the end of Baltimore's suburban sprawl, but areas like Abingdon and White Marsh are just endless shopping malls. It's definitely not my favorite place, and neither was the suburb of Dallas I was in. I did, however, have some good barbecue, so there's that.

Beautiful volcanoes in northern New Mexico.

Texas-shaped waffles in Texas.

Water + below freezing temperatures + centripetal force = SCIENCE.

The big news in the bike world this week is that I went full in and bought a SRAM XX1 group and Shimano XTR pedals for my Pivot Mach 429c. I am very excited about this. While 1x10 gearing might work for a lot of people in a lot of places, here in Colorado, having the wider range offered by the 1x11 set up is almost necessary, especially for doing long races. I'm also stoked to not have to rebuild Crank Brother's pedals every year (or twice a year). It might take me a few rides to get used to the pedals, but the increased reliability will be worth it. Plus, since I was using Crank Brother's Candy pedals before, I'm not taking that much of a weight penalty. I think if I decide to dive back into cyclocross again I'd still use Eggbeaters on that bike; Eggbeaters are far and away the best CX pedal.

Pretty bike, ready for rassin!

Pretty XX1, ready for maintaining reasonable cadences on steep climbs.

So that's cool. Thanks to SRAM for hooking us up at 92Fifty with these sweet parts! I'm most excited because the first race of the year is next weekend. I'll be putting all the training I've done to the test by throwing down in the hundred at the True Grit Epic. Hopefully you'll hear from me again after that!

It's still winter, so stay warm everyone!

Places most people have likely never considered going: Boise, Idaho

When one considers vacation destinations, Idaho is generally not on the list. Other than skiers visiting Sun Valley, I'd wager that not many people visit Idaho, or even really know much about it (other than potatoes). Mrs. Geology and I had decided to take a long weekend somewhere over Valentine's Day, so we started looking around. We were originally looking at Chicago, but hotel prices for the weekend were jacked up in expectation of people like us wanting to come on a holiday. Looking at the map of where Southwest flies from Denver, we settled, kind of on a whim, on Boise, Idaho. When we started actually looking into it, Boise turned out to be pretty cool: over 100 miles of singletrack right out of town, a bunch of interesting sounding restaurants, and a few museums. This was good enough for us, so we booked the trip.

Last Thursday night we got on a plane and ended up in Boise. The next morning, we (casually) headed to the Peregrine Fund's World Center for Birds of Prey. Many of you might not know, but I really like raptors, especially falcons. The Center had a lot of those, which was pretty cool. They have a decent number of live birds, including a few California Condors, which are huge.

Large birds.

My favorite was the Gyrfalcon, even though he was behind sad bars. The reason the bird is in captivity is because it was impressed by some human falconer at birth (most birds on display at the Center are in this situation). It basically wouldn't be able to survive in the wild. They are really cool, though.

Gyrfalcon. Native to the Canadian Arctic, where I have actually seen them.

The next day we went to the zoo, and walked around the Boise River Greenbelt for a while. At the zoo, we saw a lot of fuzzy things.

Snow Leopard...  fuzzy!!!

Red Fox... FUZZY!!!

Zoos are always a little bit sad, but seeing predators in a setting where they aren't trying to eat you is always nice. The snow leopard was funny because it was just lying in the sun away from the glass until a toddler waddled up to the glass and leaned up against it. The leopard casually got up and walked right up to the glass and stared at the kid. I'm pretty sure he thought the kid would make a nice snack. The leopard quickly got distracted by some geese that were alighting on nearby rooftops and making a lot of noise. He prowled for a while until the geese flew away. It's a shame that there was some netting on the top of the leopards enclosure; I would have loved to see a goose land in the enclosure with the leopard. I'm sure it would not have been nice for the kids, though.

Sunday we decided to take a hike and explore some of the trails around Boise. I cannot say how, unfortunately, disappointed I was by these. We didn't hike very far, but from the research I've done and what I experienced, the good trails don't exist until you get much higher up in the mountains, and even the good trails are very smooth (like leave your suspension at home smooth). I do want to step back a little here, though: I would love for someone to prove me wrong. I really, really want to find some rad, technical trails outside of Boise, and I really, really want someone to show them to me. Most of this disappointment likely comes from my personal biases (something I'm going to write about in a few days), but I was still sad. Sad enough that I didn't take any pictures.

The next day we did a little driving tour of the Snake River area, which was much cooler. The Snake River Canyon, where the Snake River cuts through many layers of basalts associated with the Columbia River Flood Basalt province, was a sight to behold.

Snake River Canyon.

Also the Snake River Canyon.

Mrs. Geology and I had a good time exploring the basalt boulder fields in a nearby park. It's definitely a unique area with interesting geology. I'll leave you with a few more pictures. Look for another post this week on trail stuff.

Boulder fields 1.

Boulder fields 2.

Basalt cliffs with alternating columnar and less-columnar layers.

Basalt boulder with flow banded vesicles. Mrs. Geology for scale.

Going to get good at hundreds

If my entire goal this year is to become a better hundred mile racer, I think I'm on the right track. Last week, amid unexpected car repairs after sliding into two curbs while going around a snowy roundabout at low speed, I got in some pretty solid days on the bike. All the trainer rides were capped off this weekend by two very good mountain bike rides. On actual real-life trails that didn't have very much snow on them. There were definitely some bad spots, I had to butt slide down one switchback which was off camber sheet ice, but most everything was good and dry. One might even call it hero dirt since it was a bit more wet than dirt normally is in these parts. Regardless of what you call it, it was a fun day to ride a mountain bike, especially since it was pushing 70 degrees both Saturday and Sunday...

On Saturday I did some race simulation stuff at Apex Park. I've never ridden at Apex before, but I looked at a bunch of maps and figured out that Apex was the best place to put together a 10 - 15 minute loop that I could race on. I figured that I would ride bike paths all the way to Apex (I can do that because of Colorado), do some laps, and ride bike paths home. I did end up doing just that, but it took me near an hour to get to Apex, then I had to climb all the way up to the top where my loop was. It wasn't bad, but it probably wasn't ideal. The laps went well, I couldn't go as fast as possible in some sections because of lingering snow, but I think I put down some good power. I also got a pretty damn good view of the plains, and a sweet techy descent down from where I did my laps.

Race Face, Ergon, and Denver

Freshly rebuilt fork from 92fifty, and my lovely Pivot Mach 429c.

On another note, I think I have finally dialed in my bike's suspension. Now that I have a working shock pump, I've set my sag correctly and gotten the rebound dialed in (full fast, for what it's worth) the bike feels so good. I also got to see some cool geology on the way back.

CSM Geology Trail

I find fault with this image.

Structure > Fossils

Looking up Lookout.

Sunday's ride was much more adventurous. I was planning on heading up into the mountains and doing the Idaho Springs loop, but the weather report said it was as windy up there as it was down here, which was very windy. The deciding factor was that it was supposed to be 10 - 15 degrees warmer down here. I ended up doing a big trail loop from my place down towards Morrison, I rode damn near five hours, and most of it was on actual singletrack bicycle trails. This was definitely the best Front Range ride I've done yet. I rode, in order, North Table Mountain (where it was super windy at the top), Golden Cliff's Preserve, Windy Saddle (also windy, obviously), Apex, Dakota Ridge (a.k.a Matthews/Winters, picture a longer, more exposed Grave Ridge and you have Dakota. It is probably the single most technical trail on the whole Front Range), Red Rocks, and a bit more North Table Mountain on the way back. I had a really great day, even though Dakota was about as crowded as a shopping mall on a Saturday. I rode solo, listened to music, and was pretty tired by the end of the ride. It was great training for hundred mile races, where I'll be alternating between trails and not-trails. Hopefully more rides like this are in my future. Now for a few pictures.

North Table Mountain.

Golden Cliff's Preserve. 

The saddle at Windy Saddle.

Windy Saddle overlook.

The top of Apex.

I guess this place is called the resting tree. Apex Park.

Small overlook on Dakota.

What Dakota actually looks like.

Red Rocks.

Caught this guy on Dakota, rode with him for a bit through Red Rocks.

Called Red Rocks for a reason.

My bike afterwards.

What to do when it's not windy in the mountains..

I got pretty lucky this weekend. The snow that was forecast for Friday night/Saturday morning never materialized. I was a little worried when I did a short North Table Mountain loop on Friday that I wouldn't be seeing dirt for a long while, but I managed to get out on some trails for my ride on Saturday. The ride was scheduled to be some tempo intervals, which I usually do on my road bike because it has my power meter. I decided to change it up, do a mix of road and trail, and ride my Pivot Mach 429c. I (obviously) did my intervals on the road, and a bit more road climbing after that, but I ended my road climb at the top of White Ranch where I proceeded to shred down the Belcher Hill Trail. I was planning on doing the whole Longhorn, Shorthorn, Longhord Whippletree descent, but I got to the trailhead at about 5 PM and I didn't have my lights (for some reason). Here in Colorado, or at least in Jefferson County, you get one hour after sunset to ride in Jeffco Open Space areas. Now that sunset times are creeping towards 5:30 PM, I'll be having enough time to get in a decent mountain bike ride after work. Hopefully this will be worked into my training schedule soon. Doing Zone 1/2 stuff at White Ranch will get easier in a few days (hopefully) when I have a new SRAM XX1 kit on my Pivot. I am very excited for this, and for the team to be representing SRAM for the 2015 season. While I don't really like this night riding policy (I would be totally in favor of something like they do at Fair Hill so we can get longer rides in on trail during the winter), I like that we can actually do it here; in Boulder County you can only ride at night on Marshall Mesa, which is so smooth you might as well ride a cross bike.

Road intervals. Mountain bike. Winning

Sunday those of us who live down on the Front Range woke up to five or six inches of snow. I was sad. I thought that our planned Cheese and Fries ride would have to be cancelled. JD messaged and said that he was worried about the snow up where he is, so I suggested fat bikes. There just happened to be a demo Felt fat bike bike in the shop that was my size-ish. I went up there, got the bike set up, and headed out to ride. JD wanted to get 5k feet of climbing to give him an even 30k feet for the week, so we basically road around and climbed a bunch of stuff on fat bikes. If you don't know about fat bikes (what rock are you living under?) let me tell you a little bit about them. They are slow and heavy. There is no getting around that. Even the 22 lb full carbon Borealis wonder bike that I got to ride last winter was slow. Slapping a four or five inch wide tire on a three or four inch wide rim and running it at less than ten psi is going to have a lot of rolling resistance. If you're riding on a road, you'll want to put a few [hundred] pumps of air in the tire to mitigate that as much as possible. I can't see riding them on smooth tight trails at high speeds to ever be enjoyable. Fat bike wheels conserve noticeably more angular momentum then even a 29er.

Don't let that deter you, though: fat bikes are very fun. In the right conditions (ex. semi-packed to packed snow and sand) they are, quite frankly, amazing. This was my first real ride on a fat bike (my Borealis demo last year was at a race that ended up being mostly running), and I had a ton of fun riding some of the trails that I ride all the time in the summer. Even with fat, knobby tires, there is a lot of sliding. That combined with the constant possibility of straying from the section of the trail packed by hikers into the deep, soft powder along it's edges and ending up with a face full of cold stuff. even riding snowy roads with tires at 12 or 15 psi (we added air to our tires for the road sections) was tolerable. The Felt, which was a small, had a super stubby stem so it felt close to what I imagine a BMX bike feels like. Since it put me in a very upright position for climbing, I'd rather have a medium with a stubby little stem. All the shop had was a small, though, so I rolled with it.* JD and I had a fantastic ride up in the mountains, and I was pretty worked over afterwards. I got a few pictures.

Felt Double Double with Bar Mitts (which are also rad).

Coach, team manager, shop owner.

Winter above 8000 feet in Colorado

This is why we ride high

I'm starting to get into a real rhythm with my training now. Wake up, either run or do core work, go to work, come home, ride, sleep. It's starting to feel good. I've already dropped almost 10 pounds from what I was after Christmas (at least on my crappy scale). I don't think I'm fast yet, but fast is closer to the horizon than it has been in a few years. It's a very exciting time indeed.

Laters!

*The Shop has a medium Pivot LES Fat coming in for demo use (can you see the plans forming in my head yet???)