All Good Things... (Part III)

In a departure from its Star Trek TNG namesake, I now move on to part III of my life since I took an unplanned vacation from the blagosphere.  This part will be shorter and hopefully wrap up everything...

The next big thing that happenned was that I finished my daily driver for the winter.  Pictures of the new Vassago Jabberwocky in all it's sexy orange-ness will be available as soon as I remember to bring a camera on a ride.  The build-up story is actually kind of funny.  Bretto emailed me at like 2:30 last wednesday saying that whY Be Racin cross practice was cancelled and that I should come ride.  I followed up with the fact that I didn't have a MTB that was in riding condition yet.  He followed with an offer to help me built it with his spare parts.  This we did, and I took the Jabberwocky on its maiden ride on October 15 at 6:30PM under the lights of my NiteRider TriNewt.  It was beautiful.  I don't know how I ever rode bikes with small wheels.  I also really like that I have to re-learn how to ride technical stuff now that I no longer have the aid of 4 plush inches of suspension under me to cover my ass.  This winter will be most fun.

I think that's it.  The next thing I did was race some more cross, but I will have to tell you about that later as it's fucking late and I want to go to fucking bed...

All Good Things... (Part II)

In the tradition of semi-obscure Star Trek quotations, I continue my updates on my life in the last month. The next major thing is the Fe Cross (those of you that know your periodic table and cyclocross racing should be laughing right now). The Fe Cross is held over two days: day one (Saturday 10/11) is the Fe Cross Lite, your standard length cross races featuring the famed spiral of death, which is more fun than it's name sounds. Day two is the actual Fe Cross, a 100km point to point cyclocross race which covers roads, mostly dirt, and singletrack within Michaux State Forest. At the behest of Coach Zach, I did not race Sunday's Fe Cross because I have done so many long races this year. I'm glad he said that. I need to be focusing on regular length cross anyway.

So Friday I helped The Legend and Kuhn set up the IC Lite course. We had it up pretty quick and then hit the trail for a late afternoon ride with Kuhn, Zach and Chris. It was fast and good. Then I went to bed.

Next morning I work up earlyish and headed back to Camp T for the C mens IC Lite race. When I got there Zach chastised me for racing C's, so Zach and El Bretto decided by vote that I could do the B race for free since I helped set up the course. So the C race...

Small field, only about 25-30 riders. I had a crappy start as usual (note to self, work on starts). I found myself in about 7th or 8th and started picking through the riders until I was in 2nd. The leader, some kid named Daniel from NY, had gotten the hole shot and was still in the lead. I worked on realing him in, but it was to no avail. He stayed out for the win, and I had myself a nice gap on 3rd. And that was my first 'cross race.

The B race didn't go as well. They were faster. I didn't have fresh legs. Running uphil without fresh legs hurts me. The same Daniel kid won the race (sandbagger...). I ended up 15th. Not bad I guess. Some pictures:

B race, down the big descent


B race, over the barriers

To be continued...

All Good Things... (Part I)

So I suppose I should start with what I left off with last time. Mountain biking. Specifically the end of the 2008 mountain bike season. The last race was the Bear Creek Summer Showdown Weekend, 9/20-21 (christ that was a long time ago). Saturday was the MASS STXC finals. I was sitting pretty in 2nd place in Sport A for the series, so I naturally wanted to improve. I was looking to win the race. I did that, but not in the manner I had hoped. I was hoping for the epic battle for the finish, and all I got was a nice 4 laps of the course at a semi-fast pace. The other two (read: 2) guys in the race were not interested in racing. At all. Way dissappointing. Post race I hung out with Jay and ripped up the super-d course trying to keep up with him (pfh...). T'was good. That night I enjoyed some good food at the lodge, a soak in the pool, and a nice Die Hard.

The next day proved to be more interesting. Sunday brought the XC Finals races in all their rocky glory. If there's one thing that Bear Creek has it's rocks. Not rocks like Michaux though; these rocks have been engineered to provide the most fun, most difficult, and most sustainable trail by our good friends at IMBA (for they are good people, 10% rule be damned). So the course is hard, fast, rocky and flowing. The best. It's probably one of my favorite XC courses. So I lined up for my first XC-length race in a long while against my old friends who probably thought that I had lost touch with my bike. The gun went off and immediately the fastest group of us (about 7) made our way up the opening road, around, and into the singletrack. Hal, who had taken the holeshot, jumped off and ran the fun rock section and caused a huge bottleneck behind him. I repayed him for messing up the flow once we got to the main fireroad climb up the ski slopes by setting a solid tempo trying to shell riders off the back. He immediately went off. We hit the first descent and I hit the flow with a bit of a gap. Flow was interrupted when I mis-read a section of trail and took the wrong line. Todd took over the lead. I rode with him for a while in the back of the course, then more stupid mistakes on my part allowed him a gap. He held that gap into the second lap. I knew I was out climbing him so I laid it down on the climbs. I had almost bridged back up to him by the first singletrack, when I laid it out in the first turn. Ouch. Back on bike, go faster. Bridge back up on the fireroad. Todd descends away. Bridge up on the back singletrack, Todd sees me and runs and I clip a pedal on a rock and almost nut my stem. I spend the rest of the race trying to chase back up but he has too much of a gap. So the last race of the 08 mtb season continued my season long trend of first loser. I'm ok with that. I think I rode a good race for a while, and I enjoyed the podium time.

So that's mtb for this year. That race officially retired my good ol' Spider (I did one ride on it after that). And put me on the market for Vassago parts (shall be addressed at a later date). I'd like to thank all my sponsors who have supported me throughout the year: Intense Cycles for their awesome frame whose true potential I only realized this year, Evomo for their awesome clothing, Ergon USA for keeping my hands super-comfy when everything else was not, Crank Brothers for keeping me securly attached, and TekBolt for keeping things tight. Your guy roxors. I'd also like to thank all those who have supported me this year, especially my parents.

After a bit of recouperation time (much to the dismay of Coach), I turned my attention to the next big thing. That thing is a dirty little addiction called cyclocross.

And now it is time to officially announce my 'crossin plans for 08. I will be riding for the Allied Milk Cycling Team. I know, I know the irony (I'm allergic to dairy... shhh don't tell anyone). Dan, manager of the team, hooked me up with a sweet bike for cross. Now at races I throw my legs over a Van Dessel Hole Shot. It's a pretty frikin sweet bike. Full 09 SRAM Rival grouppo, Kore brakes, FSA kit, wheels, and crank. It's candy apple red paint glistens in the sun and just sreams "Hey big boy lets go jump some barriers and ride throw some nice sloppy mud." In a metaphorical sense that is...

To be continued...

Jake has been absent from the blogosphere for a while now. He will be absent until he gets his shit together.

Thank you,
The Management

Good ol' Michaux Riding

Now this is something I haven't done in a while. Went for a solid 2hr ride w/ Matt today. I gave him the grand tour of half of the Pine Grove SP area. Rode from the Furnace Stacks, up Creek Trails, to Michaux rd, then up to Brett's where we played on his rock and hit Derailleur Trail up. When we got out of the singletrack onto the road I almost ran over a 5+ft long black snake. Friggin huge it was! Unfortunately as soon as Matt got his camera out it scurried off into some hidey-hole and we couldn't find it despite poking around for a few minutes. We then headed up Ridge and Woodrow to Deer Bingo. We were followed for a bit by the tree sanctuary guy. I don't think he liked us on his road. Then it was onto Rattlesnake v.1, where I rode like a girl, and Rattlesnake v.2, where I rode like a girl and crashed on the hardest switchback (those of you who have ridden know). I have an ouchie on my forearm and a bigger ouchie on my leg. Ouchie. Then went down corkscrew, and down trail to nowhere to the bottom of woodrow. Then up the logsled connector, up logsled and down community to home. We proclaimed it a good ride and so it was. Next time Matt gets a tour of the Piney Mountain Ridge stuff...

Doing my best Roadie Imitation

I did my best roadie imitation today, kitting up in the most Euro looking thing I could find and hitting the road with the good ol' Scott Slowster. It's actually the speedster, but it's a tank of a road bike. I like passing real roadies on their expensive carbon rigs with. Especially wearing my mtn shoes. Anyway, went out over Waggoner's Gap, then around and back over Doubling Gap, which I have never done before. On 944 on the way back I got mauled by a veritable horde of gnats or maggots or some small bug that I absolutely killed as I rode through their masses. It felt like getting hit by tiny pebbles. For 10 miles. All this after last nights crazy highliter party... oh yeah...

Shenandoah 100

So, as you can probably tell from my lack of significant postings in the last few weeks, school has started. Which means I have work. Which means I don't have time to sit around on the interwebz. Yet here I am. Anwyay...

Labor Day weekend found me headed south of good ol' Carlizle and into the mountains of George Washington National Forest in Stokesville, VA. Yes, the Shenandoah Mountain 100, the final major race of my 08 season. I was super excited because I had heard so many good things about this race. Long, hard climbs, then miles and miles of sweet singletrack descent. Well let me tell you, it lived up to it's expectations. The race started at 6:30 and a mass of humanity on bikes (450 people !!!!) left the camp and bottlenecked their way down the road. I tried to line up behind the fast guys, but forgot that the start went to the right and not straight out of the campground. Plan foiled. Found myself somewhere in the middle. Rode the first climb with some Henry's guys and a C3-solay guy that I regularly race against in MASS XC races We picked a lot of people off on the climb. Then I was met with the inability of anyone from PA, or the area where the trails are found, to ride technical singletrack. the first singletrack had a few short technical uphills and there was a line walking up each one of them. It was a sad day. Once I got past the walkers, I flew down the ensueing descent catching and passing more riders. What a good feeling that is.

Sunday Morning roll out 6:30AM

After that there was more climbing on the road, as well as some more sweet singletrack, including a long singletrack climb that I walked up because there was a huge line of people walking up it. After Aid #2, I headed up the hardest climb of the day Dowell's Draft. To put Dowell's in perspective: it is far from the longest climb of the course, and it is not the steepest either. What makes it hard is the fact that there are 4 or 5 false summits, and the road gets steeper after each one. It was a mentally and physically demoralizing climb, and I ended up walking some of it. I can honestly say that it was the only time I have wished to have that 22t granny ring on my bike. But, the pain was all forgiven on the descent. A 6 mile technical bench cut singletrack raceway where pushing speeds of insanity was not uncommon even for me. I latched onto two other riders and we absolutly flew down, passing numerous large groups of people who promptly moved when they turned and saw our lightning-quick approach.

The next section passed without event, another climb, this time up some cool singletrack whose beginning was marked by a super steep (read: unridable) rocky stair case section. And yet things kept getting better. The descent into Aid 4 was absolute magic. I didn't think the descents could get any better, but they did. This one was long, smooth, fast, and flowy. I caught and dropped (like it was my job) the C3-solay guy. I dropped all the people I had ridden the climb with. After Aid #4 was the big climb of the day. And I do actually mean big. it was 18mi uphill to Aid #5, then another 6mi to the top of the climb. Big. I latched onto a group of 2 other guys and we pace-lined up the early slopes of the climb. Then I set out on my own in the ultimate test of survival. I had never spend 2hrs climbing before so I had no idea how it would be. It was long, and mentally draining.

The rest of the race went as planned, and I picked up the pace after Aid #6 for the last 13mi to the finish, which by the way included climbing 1/3 of the way back up Dowell's. Final finishing time was 11:13, which is in the range of what I expected to get. It was probably the most fun race I have ever done. Yeah for fun races. Yeah for long singletrack descents. Yeah for bikes.

And done...