Wintery Time

I've been trying to get my cycling feet back under me since oh, about November, and I think I've made some progress in the last two weeks.  The week between Christmas and New Years, I actually clocked about seven hours of riding!!!!  A whole seven hours!  It was amazing.  All on my singlespeed, which is nice, because I love that bike.  It is my favorite out of all of them.  It just feels right.  It's even better after I got some new parts for it for Christmas.  It's much easier to pedal with a bottom bracket that actually turns round.

Took one of my friends from college, a new cyclist, on a road ride yesterday.  He brought the great weather up from Florida for our ride and we ended up putting in 31 mi at a chill chill chill pace in shorts and short sleeves.  It was pretty cool to get out on the road again, as I haven't really done that in a few months.

Enjoying some fresh powder trails in upstate NY.

Pretty NY countryside.

Shiny bits for the SS... plus a bath which it hasn't had in a few years.  Salsa Toothfairy is the best bashguard ever.

 After watching the 'Cross nats coverage on Cyclingdirt today, I'm definitely excited to get riding again.  It was pretty awe inspiring to watch those Delaware's best walk away with the women's race for the eighth time in a row, and to see her young protege pick up the silver.  And watching JPow's perfectly timed attack left me with goosebumps.  Now I am really ready to start 2012 with a bang.  I'm continuously honored to be able to ride with the great group of guys and gals that is the C3-Athletes Serving Athletes team.  All of you inspire me every time you turn your pedals over.  I'm also proud to be an Ergon Factory Rider again for 2012.  This year, not only will they be keeping my hands comfy, but my rear end as well, which is always a plus for 100 mile races.  Sore butt = unhappy bike racer.  I'd also like to tip my hat to ENVE Composites, who is coming on board with some support and some super sweet cockpit components.  They'll cut a few grams of weight off the Epic and pile on a few kilograms of sexiness.

So now that 2011 is actually over (with cross nats being finished and all), congrats to all my friends who trekked out and raced, and I'll see you all when the mountain bike thing starts up again!

Fifty Seven Percent

Yesterday I finished 57% of the Shenandoah 100.  If you do your math, that's 57 miles, which put me right at Aid #4, conveniently staffed by my parents and Miss Geology.  That's the second NUE race I've DNF'ed this year.  The first one I was instantly ok with.  Not much I can do to fix a broken freehub in the field.  This one I was a little less ok with.  I'm still mulling over my decision to pull out at Aid #4.  I know it was the right choice, but it's still a tough decision to make.  It's not like I was cramping, or bonking, or having bike issues.  I was just moving really slowly.  I rolled into Aid #4 (remember, that's mile 57) at around 2:00 PM, 7.5 hours after the start.  I thought about it, and at the pace I was going (climbing specifically) it would have been another 5 hrs until I finished, if not more, due to late-race fatigue.  I know it's kind of a lame excuse, but that finish would have put me two hours behind my PR, and an hour behind my finish time from the first time I did the race.  I wasn't mentally ready for a 13 - 14 hour day, as I had been thinking I would be coming in under 10 hours.  It just wasn't happening.  I made it through the first climb of the day ok, spending a good bit of time climbing with Buck until he had to do his singlespeed thing on the steep parts and I elected to gear down.  I made it a good bit of the way up the singletrack climb (Lynn Trail????), which was nice, but I may have burned one two many matches there, as a lot of people walk it since it's so steep and so early in the race.  Coming down Wolf's Ridge, I crashed again.  No tire issues, no injuries like last year, and only one bike part failure!  I must have hit a soft, sandy patch because before I could actually do anything I went from railing a corner to rolling on the ground.  I got up, with no injuries whatsoever, and jumped back on my bike, pedaled once and realized that something was wrong.  My derailleur was no longer attached to my bike.  Oops.  I will give a +1 to the X12-style derailleur hangers, where the hanger itself is not meant to fail.  Instead the bolt that attaches the hanger to the frame is supposed to fail, which it did, saving my derailleur and my frame from damage.  I re-installed the derailleur with a new bolt and went on my way.  Shifting was in no way effected, which is the way I like it.

Got to Aid #2, and made the decision to roll through without stopping.  I still had food, and I still had drink.  I ended up off the bike early going up Hankey Mountain, so I should have probably stopped and ate some free food.  Anyway... Dowell's Draft was awesome, the folks at Aid #3 were mostly awesome.  The next climb sucked balls, although I did run into a few of my fellow Darksiders as I was walking up the singletrack.  They were walking down.  Definitely the last people I expected to see in the GW all the way down in Virginny.  Braley Pond kicked ass, and that was pretty much my race.  I rode back to the campground with a group of people who had the same idea that I did.

Oh well...

In older news, I had my best race ever at the Wilderness 101 a month ago.  Set a new PR of 9:10.  Very happy, even though I didn't break nine hours as I had hoped.

Now is time to forget how to ride for a day on end, and remember how to ride so hard that I want to throw up after 45 minutes.  This will be new, as I don't think I've done a race shorter than 4 hours since, oh, APRIL!!!

Making the Best of Things

Recently I have been working a lot.  I have been riding as much as I can, and actually felt good coming into my first main event, the Mohican 100.  I was ready, so Ms. Geology and I set out on a sunny Friday for Ohio.  It was a fairly uneventful drive all things considered.  Other than a bit of mid afternoon traffic through Pittsburgh, and the awful interchange where I-70 merges into I-76 (seriously, whose idea was that?) we made it in good time.  The last part of the drive, through the Ohio countryside, was the best.  We got to the venue, checked into out campsite, drove up the mountain almost to the top and set up our campsite.  I went to ride, and was greeted to some pretty sweet singletrack.

Money...

It was this, plus some cool rocky sections, so I was stoked.  I got my bike ready in the dark while Ms. Geology read by what little light was left from the sky.

Didn't feel like making a fire... we were just going to go to bed

Most legit number plates ever. 1/8" thick plastic with a timing chip on the back.  Mid Atlantic Timing, take note.

We were camped right on the course.

The next morning, we were up early for my pre-race breakfast.  I rolled out to the start (about 2 mi away in the center of town) about 45 min before the race just to be sure I wouldn't miss anything.  I imagine that this is how many European races start.  A few hits of the horn of an early 90s Chevy pickup and we were off and running.  It felt like an XC start.  Very much not like the 100 milers I was used to with their controlled neutral roll-outs and all.  I did really enjoy starting in the center of town.  A lot of townsfolk were out watching even through it was 7:00 on a Saturday morning.

Rassin...

Needless to say I didn't get very far.  About 9.5 mi into the race I stood up to power up over a little rise in the singletrack.  Two pedal strokes, a loud crack, and I was going nowhere.  Confused, I looked at my chain.  Not broken.  I stood on the side of the trail for a bit wondering what happened, then I spun my crank.  It spun forwards and backwards.  My race was officially over.  I debated my options.  I could either walk backwards on the course to my campsite, then kill myself to make it to the first aid station by 11:00AM (the cut off).  At this point, it was 9:00AM, which left two hours to walk back 4.5 miles on trail, through traffic.  Not happenning, since it took me 15 min to get back to the last intersection, which was less than a quarter mile away.  I decided to bag it, rolled down a trail, ended up on a road, and scootered myself a mile down the road until I came to a check-in building for the state park camp ground I had popped out in.  Using their phone, I called Ms. Geology and she picked me up and brought me back to race HQ to officially DNF myself.  I'm not bitter at all.  I'm glad it happened in the first 10 mi, instead of at mile 60, or even worse 80 or 90.  Hell, then I would have probably attempted to run the last 10 miles.

We made the best of it though...

Mini Golf across the street.

Hiking and spectating.

It seemed like he was moving a lot faster at the time...  A LOT faster.

We pretty much had a good day hanging out at a bike race, watching the leaders, watching the awards and drinking a few free beers.  Next day we packed up and left after a quick bike ride in the morning into town.  Considering I didn't get to race, it was a pretty good weekend.

I spent the next week in the field for work, and came across this little gem on the Surly Bikes blog.  Pretty funny...

Last week I hitched up my car and struck out on my own for the Lumberjack 100 in northern Michigan.  It's the longest drive I've ever done on my own, and for my health, I decided to break it up into two days.  Leaving after work, I drove until midnight on Thursday, woke up, and was on the road by 7:30 the next morning.  It was a pretty much uneventful drive.

When I reached the race venue, I stepped out of my car and was greated by a swarm of medium sized mosquitos.  Welcome to the North Woods (cue stories from my Grandfather and his brother).  The course was wonderful.  Just miles and miles of flowy, sandy singletrack.

Saturday's race went less well than expected.  I was feeling great, and racing hard for the first 50 miles, then my stomach decided it was quitting time and sent me into a downward spiral of feeling like I was going to throw up and "find the brown speed" at the same time which eventually ended in dehydration and me finishing the race in 10:45 instead of the eight-something I was planning on.

No pictures because I didn't have any cameras and I was racing.  And a special thanks goes out to the guys at Twenty20 Cycles who fixed my broken bike up from Mohican just in time for me to leave for Lumberjack.  Also to Ergon for making everything but my hands hurt during races.

I'm gonna chill for a while now, then hit up the Fair Hill 50, Iron Mountain 100k, and the Wilderness 101.  Since I can't really do anything towards an overall in the NUE series, I'm going to refocus on cross and just do a bunch of mountain bike races I enjoy for the rest of the year.  Who knows, maybe I'll be more successful that way...

We-viewz

So now that I've spent a good bit of time on my new stuff, I figure I should write about it.  Really, I'm just super bored at work and need a distraction during my lunch break.

The Bike: Specialized Epic Expert 29er

First of all, this bike is amazing.  Huge thanks to Auer-Power at Twenty20 Cycling for hooking me up with this ride.  I'm glad we were able to make it happen.  Super-great bike shops are just that.  If you're in the Baltimore area and need anything bike-related, they'll hook you up.  The bike is Specialized's new carbon-framed full suspension 29er.  This specific model actually has a carbon front triangle with an aluminium rear triangle.  A good trade off to take a thousand dollars or so off the price.  Specialized is pushing the technological limits by making the dropout spacing 142 mm (as opposed to the usual 135 mm) and including fitments for a 12 mm through axle (a.k.a. the Syntace X12 system).  Their goal was to increase the "lateral stiffness" of the rear end of the bike, whatever that means.  I was initially a little put off my the rear through-axle, thinking that it would be burdensom during races when trying to change a flat.  It's definitely not.  You unscrew it, and the wheel comes out like usual.  Plus it includes alignment tabs so it is impossible to put your wheel in out of alignment.  No more franticly fixing a flat, throwing your wheel back in only to find 10 feet down the trail that your wheel isn't in straight.  Very good addition.

The rear suspension it dampened by the Specialized/Fox Brain shock.  Active when you want it, locked out when you don't.  I'm running mine at "fully firm" which means that the bike feels like a hardtail when your up on the pedals, but like a smooth full suspension rig when your in the rough stuff.  The trade off is less response on smaller and slower-speed hits.  I am fine with that, because I, you know, know how to ride my bike.  Plus everytime I stand on the pedals the speed and acceleration I get washes away all my concerns about lack of plushness.  Travel and dampening is matched on the front of the bike with the Specialized Reba Brain fork.  It's a Reba with a Specialized tapered crown (mine is aluminium, the top end is carbon) and the Brain damper.  I'm runing that at fully firm dampening as well, with equal air pressure in the positive and negative chamber.  The result is a fork that is rigid fork-firm when you're on smooth terrain and wide open and smooth when things get hairy.  The Brain in the fork is tuned slightly softer than on the rear end, meaning that it opens up for a smaller hit even when both are set to firm.  It works very well; much better than I expected when I first got the bike.  The only complaint I have about the bike is that I wish they had included a through-axle up front to match the stiffness and rigidity of the through-axle in the year.  You can't have everything right?  Maybe next year's model will include such a thing.

The rest of the bike is just parts.  Durable, reliable, light (enough for now) parts.  X0 rear derailleur, X7 front derailleur with X9 shifters.  2x10 drivetrain with a Specialized specific 24/38 chainrings, and a regular 11-36 cogset.  Personally, I could care less for the 24/38 rings and would rather have the standard SRAM 2x10 26x39.  Unfortunately the removable spider kit is not available aftermarket yet.  C'est la vie.  Maybe I'll pick one up once they exist.  The other parts on the bike were stock Specialized stuff.  I haven't changed much, just dropped a cut to 660 mm ENVE Composites Sweep Bar on the front end.  It's super pimp.  Subtle, strong, and light.  Eventually I'll put a full set of ENVE cockipt stuff on there (stem and seatpost), which will drop some static weight off the bike., which weighed 26 lbs 2 oz when I picked it up.  With the race wheels as pictured it's probably 1 - 2 lbs lighter, although I have not actually weighed it yet.

The bike rides very well.  The first time I jumped on it (a singletrack ride on packed/unpacked snow) it felt like I had been riding it forever  The geometry is very neutral feeling.  Snappy when you need it to be, and super stable on long fast descents.  Once the suspension opens up, the bike just floats over everything.  I had a bit of a learning curve while I readjusted my riding style to doing certain technical moves such as logs and rock-overs on the full suspension (adding about 10 psi to the rear shock helped a lot).  At speed the bike is a dream.  It's like riding on a cloud.  Going slower, the bike (probably because I have the Brains set on fully firm) actually feels awkward.  You can actually feel the brains opening up and hear the definite "clunk" coming from the rear end.  It's not a problem; it just means that I have to go faster, and since this is a race bike faster is better.

New Ergon Stuff: GS-2 grips and GX-2 backpack

New Ergon stuff is always appreciated.  I grabbed myself a pair of the new GS-2 grips this year.  They are a cross between the GX series, which fit my small girly-hands very well, and the GP series, which are a bit more comfortable.  The result is a grip that is still small and light, but offers a bit more padding for the long haul.  They also have the new GFK bar-ends, which are much more comfortable than the previous carbon ones that I had, although a little heavier.  Meh.  I'll take slightly heavier for more comfortable hands.

The BX-2 pack is Ergon's newest pack.  They're other packs are very comfortable (I also have a BC-1), but because they have a plastic frame and are meant for carrying a day's worth of gear, are too big and too heavy for racing.  The BX-2 fixes that issues.  No frame.  Light weight.  8 L capacity as opposed to 14 L on the BC-1.  Now I can hear you now.  8 L is still pretty big for a pack I plan on racing with.  Yup.  But the pack is pretty light and from the one time I've ridden it, super comfortable and stable.  Plus I can carry 1.5 L more water than my previous pack I wore for long races as well as all the tools and flat stuff I need.  Hey if Brandon and Rob can rock packs this size for 100 milers, why can't I? 

Heading to Danville this Saturday (not Friday, mind you) to race up some mountains.  Should be fun.

Mid-Atlantic Monuments

Fair Hill XC is a Monument.  At least around here.  Like the Marysville Relay, Greenbriar, and Granogue.  Classic bike races that should be on everyone's calender every year. I didn't race last year (some college-related musical commitment I believe... psh) so this was my first time rolling with the Elite Field.  It's been a while since I've experienced Spit-Out-The-Backitis (probably since the U23 Elite race at Kansas City CX Nats).  I got a very good taste of it on Sunday.  Second row start (same as CX Nats)

Where am I?

But got spit straight out the back at the start.  I definitely don't have the snap I need to hang with guys like that at the start.  Normally I would make the excuse that these guys train for short XC events, but 4 of the top 5 guys will be throwing down hard at NUE races this year.  I think this start may have been faster than some 'cross starts I've been a part of.

Zero to what??? in 10 seconds

Rest of the race went pretty well.  Entered the singletrack behind Madison, passed him, rode in no mans land on the climb.  There was a huge group right in front of me, but I couldn't seem to grab hold of them. Got caught by the Madison group again.  Destroyed some people on the gravel road starting lap two, Yada yada...

Bike Racing Ensued...

I felt super-human on anything uphill, but it took me a lap to get my flow on the downhills together.  I guess I stiffened up with racing nerves or something, because I couldn't keep off my brakes and I had to think about leaning my bike over in the admittedly slick corners.  That was the worst part of my race.  My third lap was fun, pretty much alone the entire time because I managed to catch a guy who was cornering slower than I was in the slick tight Fair Hill-ness, so I could put enough gap into him on descents that I could extend it on the climbs.  Rolled across the finish in 1:43:35 with 3 very consistent laps.  Good enough for 24th place.  I'm going to have to work hard if I want to see the top 15.  Being able to make enough money to cover gas or maybe lunch would be cool.

The new bike performed fantastically in its first real racing test.  Having my race wheels on there drops almost 2 lbs off the bike and made it really fast.  The rear end is much stiffer than anything else I've ridden thanks to the 142x12mm through axle.  Picked up some super-bling XX brake rotors to keep the weight down.  New Ergon GS-2 grips are much better than the GX's that I was running last year.  Thanks Ergon!  I'm proud to say you'll be keeping my hands happy for another year.  And thanks to all my  C3 teammates that were out there cheering.  Heading up to Danville, PA for some more XC racing next weekend and the first real test of my climbing legs. Mmmmmmm climbing...

Best Scotty face ever!

End