Weekend of Not Racing

I love racing my bicycle.  The thrill of lining up, even if at the back, with a bunch of like minded folks and laying it all out for really nothing more than the glory of it sometimes keeps me up at night.  Racing is definitely one of my favorite things to do, and I will usually choose it over other possible weekend activities.  This past weekend, though, was different.  After some less-than-lackluster performances as the previous weekends bike races, I needed to do something different.  I changed my whole routine that week...

Monday evening I did a short spin on the trainer and a bit of yoga.  Wednesday I put myself through The Sufferfest's "Rubber Glove" video, which consists of a good warm up, then a 20 min FTP test.  I'm a big fan of using data to inform my training.  It's something that I haven't been doing lately (the training part, not the data part), and I need to get back into it.  A good FTP on which trainer workouts will be based is going to be beneficial for me.  I have a feeling that I'm going to be spending a lot of time on the trainer this winter; there doesn't seem to be much in the way of night MTBing around here.  Quite frankly, I'm not even sure if it's legal in most places.

Saturday I got out on my cross bike and did a lap of the Marshall Mesa trail system with Kyle.  It was a super fun mix of doubletrack, walking paths, and primo cross bike singletrack.  It's very close by, so I'll definitely be back there regularily (maybe with lights after work).

Marshall Mesa Singletrack

2014 Corvette Stingray at a posh hotel in Boulder

Sunday my work colleague/new riding buddy and I threw our singlespeeds on top of my can and headed of Boulder Canyon to Nederland to ride the West Magnolia trails.  West Mag is one of the more popular trails in the area, and now I understand why.  It's not your typical front range stuff.  There are trees, and sometimes you have to ride in between them.  It's a pretty cool place and the 2 hrs we spent riding there didn't even scratch the surface.  Once I get a new geared squishy bike up and running I will spend a super long day just exploring.

Informative Trailheads are nice.

We hiked up some snowy south-facing slopes for a while.

Persistent crank arm loosening syndrome.

Not what the actual trails looked like.

There's a rider in  there somewhere...

The Continental Divide felt so close.

Small Races

I have to be honest, small cross races still sort of weird me out.  I don't know what it is, but the fact that I was completely alone in both directions for about 15 min of the race on Sunday (that's a full third of the race) gave me a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I'm used the solitude in a 100 mile mountain bike race; I've spent many hours turning pedals through the woods without another soul in sight except for the rocks under my tires and the trees around me.  The silence there stills me and focuses my riding.  Even the thought right now, while sitting comfortable at my dining room table, of being alone in a cross race gives me chills.  I feel utterly alone, never mind the few screaming fans around me.  It's then that how slow I'm going really sinks in...

I've only ridden a few times since the Boulder UCI weekend, mostly due to work.  I'll definitely have more work travel in the future, but for the most part, the new job is pretty relaxed.  If you've watched my Strava you'll see that I've gotten out to some new MTB locations with one of my new coworkers.  He's a strong rider, and a MUCH better downhiller than I am (his 7 in travel bike doesn't hurt).  I'm really looking forward to learning a new riding style from him.

The Schoolyard Cross (Saturday) and the Feedback Cup (Sunday) were the small races in question this weekend.  Schoolyard was supposed to be at Research Park, but was changed to the Boulder Res a few days before the race.  I am not a fan of the Boulder Res, primarily because of the goatheads and secondarily because it's just a bunch of 180 turns in a loose, sandy field.  Zero flow.  Pedal, pedal, coast, turn, pedal, pedal, coast, turn, etc.  It's not even worth sprinting out of them like you usually would, because there's always another turn ten or less meters later.  I do like the telephone poles to hop (they ran them a little differently this time), and in general I like the beach sections.  I will say that this race made much better use of the beach than the Cross Classic did.  Including two man made piles of sand at the end that you had to run.  I managed to ride to the corner before them on my third try, but it was much, much slower, so I ran it for the rest of the race.  I probably lost a ton of time that way, but after almost making it and endoing at the corner on the first lap I had to prove to myself and the loud fans sitting there that I could do it.  I had on/off periods during the race (on whenever I had someone to race, off whenever I didn't), but overall I had much more fun than the last time I raced at the Res.  Mrs. Geology's pictures below:

Dug out the ol' Stormtrooper skinsuit because it's rad.

Hopped some logs.

Rode by a nice lake.

The guy announcing was giving me a whole lot of love for being in last and rocking a white skinsuit.

Feedback Cup was a whole different story.  This was at the same venue (in Golden) that the Back to Basics Wednesday night races are held at.  Same course as well.  I like the course.  There are sections that are just sandy turns in a field, but there's a cool downhill/uphill flowy off camber section that I feel good and can just flow through.  There was a really cool section with a quick downhill, a corner, and  a steep up (a run if in traffic) that I felt good on, as well as a really fun steep up followed by a steep down (almost a jump, but a little too steep) with a fast downhill entrance that I would gain a few seconds on each lap.  Unfortunately, my legs weren't up to the task to what my bike driving skills could do; I was spit out of the back of the 3's, then spit out the back of the 35+ 3's.  Definitely not my best race ever, and by the end I barely had the power to soft pedal around the course.  It was a beautiful day, though, and I was really happy to be out riding my bike.  Pictures again:

I pulled this guy around for a while...

But eventually he rode away from me.

It was surprising how many people ran this little up.

I thought I would be traveling next week, but it looks like I'll be home, and traveling the week after.  I'm hoping to get in some cool mountain biking this weekend.  There are cross races to do, including a Cyclo-X series race, but I'm feeling doing some cool MTB rides, so I think I'll do that instead.  Gotta keep it fun...