Like Raystown, but slower

Headed down to Fair Hill yesterday for the Classic, or more accurately the Fair Hill 50.  Riding 50 miles at Fair Hill should be a fairly easy thing, right?  Not too much climbing, no ridiculously gnarly trails, no descents that make you scared for your life.  Fair Hill, though, has a way of wearing on you.  50 miles there is hard.  The first lap, I felt like I was dragging a 50 lb weigh behind me for a while.  Second lap I started riding lighter, and was climbing very well.  Looks like this week of interval work helped.  I should be running in tip-top shape for the 101.  Not much more to say, going to take it easy and taper for the next two weeks.  Not much more mountain bike racing this year...

Updated with picture:

Photo by Tom Burrows

Cyclocross is a silly, expensive thing

I finally took the time to survey the damage on my 'cross bike today.  I say damage because it sat out in a bit of rain for a while during Transsylvania and didn't get any TLC until it was too late and un-ridable.  I'm still trying to remove one of the brake arms from the brake boss on my fork; much WD-40 has been involved, but to no avail so far.  I am now beset with a laundry list of parts I need to get her ready for 'cross season, so I may be resurrecting a few parts from last year to save a little money.  We'll see how that goes.  But in the meantime, my 'cross bike is nice and clean and shiny.

I secretly wish all my bikes were this color

For now I'll bide my time and see what my new team manager can hook me up with.  Oh yeah, I don't think I mentioned it, but I'm joining the Dark Side for 'cross this year; I'm riding for C3.  You've all seen them, and now I'll be sporting the sweet black kits.  Look for me near the front of a MAC race near you!

In other news, I got my plaque from the Hoo-Ha finally.  Looks like I finished 3rd after all.  For a while I thought I was sitting pretty in the dick spot (4th place), but they must have fixed their results.

It's heavier than it looks...

A good solid block of metal for a good day on the bike

Gonna hit the sack now, I need to prepare for what looks to be a rainy training ride tomorrow in preparation for the Wilderness 101 at the end of the month.  Maybe a rainy ride is what I need right now...

Good Day

And a good week too.  Ms. Geology and I spent the week looking at apartments in Maryland because of her new teaching job down in that area.  We settled on this

View from the back of the complex

No, this isn't the view from our porch (we have one though), but if you walk out the front door turn left (east) and walk a mere 50 m or so, you'll see this.  I'm pretty excited.  We're pretty excited, and there will definitely be more on that in the future.

Today was a day filled with sports.  This morning was the first mountain stage of Le Tour, then I went for a ride, and although I didn't put out as much energy as Andy Schleck on his perfectly timed attack for the win today, but I can take solace in the fact that I felt good during my sprint intervals.  Small victories... small victories.  After that was the final minutes (probably more like the final hour) of the World Cup.  Good job Spain.  Good job Netherlands.  See ya'll at the Fair Hill Classic this weekend!

Bottom of the Barrel

I hit the bottom of the barrel hard last weekend at the Long Pine Classic. Didn't even finish the race. I've been excited by this race for a year now; it's my "home" course, it has classic trails, it's raw, just like racing in Michaux should be. I really love this course, and Michaux in general, so needless to say I was a bit disappointed that I didn't finish the race.

How didn't I finish the race you ask? Well, coming down the descent after the last Beginner/Sport split (on Ridge Rd.) about half way through the steep, rocky ATV-width trail, I hit something (no I wasn't riding the front brake) and ended up catapulting off my bike. I landed perfectly with my head tucked, on my shoulder and right palm and rolled over my shoulder right to my feet. My bike was six or seven feet behind me. I think that's the furthest I've ever flown. So, time to assess the damage. Little cut on my knee, brush burns on my shoulder, right palm swollen a lot. Can I move my fingers without pain? Yes. Can I move my wrist without pain? Yes. Good. Not really any worse for the wear, I went to get back on my bike, which as usual had a bent dérailleur hanger. As soon as my right hand touched my bars I knew my race was over. There was no way I could put any pressure on my hand. Cringing, I made it down the rest of the descent and onto the long road climb to the last checkpoint. Pickle caught me on the climb after flatting before, and he rode with me until the checkpoint. When we got there, some adrenaline had kicked in and I could put a little weight on my hand, so I decided to continue for the last 2.5 miles of the race. As soon as I hit the singletrack after the power line, I knew I was not getting back in a reasonable amount of time, so I turned back to the checkpoint, hitched a ride back, and began icing my swollen hand.

Since I crashed pretty hard, I spent today pulling every single part off my bike to check for cracks.

Stripped Flash 29er frame... ~3 lbs of awesome (includes BB and headeset bearings, dérailleur hanger, front dérailleur and some stickers)

And to perform some Lefty maintenance.  I think I was only running about 1.5" of my 3" of travel at the race (bearing reset time!)

A fully extended, reset Lefty.  Exactly 140 mm of travel.  Switch the damper out and you could put this on a RZ140 and I think that's pretty cool

So.  My Lefty's back in tip top shape.  I'm going to do some experimenting with the travel to see if I can squeeze another 10 mm out of it.  90 mm of cush up front instead of 80 mm could be cool.  I also picked up some new wheels (No Tubes 355 29er's with American Classic hubs) from a very nice person in Boalsburg (thank you very nice person) so now I have a set of race-only wheels to make my bike the proper weight!  I'll post more pictures of my bike once I have it built up again in a few days.  It's going to be shiny as hell, just so I can get it dirty again!

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