Glocester Grind EFTA NECS 2012 #2

Oh the Grind.  This race can't quite seem to catch a break weather wise, although I get this feeling that this course is perpetually wet.  It probably isn't but my perception is reality and all I perceive at the Grind is wet.  Sopping wet...and mud...and rocks, lots of rocks.

Weather conditions day of were actually great surprisingly, unfortunately it rained for about 20hrs straight the day before.  My day started off to driving down the hill from the house only to find our road completely washed out and impassable.  Immediately had the classic "Here we goooooooooooo" thought in my head and threw it in reverse and went around the long way.  Passed two National Guard convoys on 93 on the way down south.  Probably headed to some even bigger washout somewhere.

Arrived at the venue shortly before the Novices were heading out and chatted it up a bit before suiting up for business time.  Lined up with about 10(?) singlespeeder's or so.  Fields were fairly light with another Root66 race on the same day not that far away and weather conditions probably kept some of the folks who sit on the fence until the last second at home.  Got off the line decent enough, no one was really hammering because there is a giant mudhole about 5ft into the woods after the little parade loop they send you on.  I was sitting fourth as we all immediately got covered in shit.  Things were going fairly well early.  I was feeling good and riding well enough and keeping 3rd, although not super close, at least in sight.

I got stuck in a bit of traffic and was joined by Taylor Clark (who will probably be this years 'nemesis').  I bested him at Willowdale by a little over a minute but hes built a bit more like someone who would like a course like the Grind a bit more than me.  He got by me after I dabbed in a tricky spot and I spent rest of lap 1 stalking him.  He was riding most of the techy stuff just a tad smoother than I was.  I was forced to chase back on several times after some of the technical mud bogs and as some of the Expert traffic started to catch us it got a bit more complicated.  We were caught by a group of 4 Vet I's, Bully included and I was able to hang amongst their wheels until the end of the first lap.  At that point I was feeling great.  Fairly certain I could hang with those guys at least through the first half of the second lap...hopefully they would drag me back to Taylor and then we could slug it out the second half of the race.

 I believe this is near the lap point when I was still with the Vet I's

(many thanks to teammate Chris Taylor for sticking around after his race to take some pics and cheer us on)

Unfortunately about a mile or so into the second lap things started coming unglued or I guess unskewered would be more accurate.  Riding through one of the many puzzle-like rock gardens I heard a god awful sound come from the back of my bike.  Started with the rotor screeching/grinding, followed by a really loud thunk and then rattling as the chain came off.  Luckily I wasn't really moving all that fast when it happened because I hoped off to take a look and my rear wheel had pulled completely out of the dropouts and was just kind of flopping there in between my stays.  I did a quick inspection, fully expecting there to be something bent or screwed up...it sounded horrible when it happened.  Luckily everything seemed fine and I spent a minute or two trying to get it back seated but eventually had to flip the bike over to get it in and clamped down.  No idea how I pulled that off.  I guess it just loosened up and took one last final shot from a rock or something and popped out.

That 3-4min setback couldn't have come at a worse time though because I lost my wheels I was chasing and Taylor now had a nice cushion.  I tried to push the pace the rest of that lap but I think in the back of my head I was worried the wheel was gonna fall off again and I was holding back.  That and when you are riding really technical terrain at a frantic pace you just end up messing up more and I was loosing my rhythm a bit.  The mud was also starting to dry out a bit in spots with the nice weather which made it stickier and heavier which didn't help things.  There were a few spots where shortly after a particularly muddy bog you are dumped out onto short fire road sections where the increased speed would throw hamburger patty sized chunks of mud off your tires right into your face.  I LOVE THAT.

 see how much I love it!? 

Coming into lap 3 I was hoping I was making ground and trying to just continue with the forward momentum.  At the very least I was still in 5th so I at least wanted to seal that up.  But the day had decided it was going to challenge me and shortly into the third lap while I was running through a mud bog I slipped on a root and planted my foot hard.  I felt my shoe get really loose all of a sudden and upon looking down I realized the top two velcro straps on my shoe had snapped off and were now useless.  Well, this worked for Run DMC through most of the 80's and 90's so its gonna have to work for me for the rest of this lap.  Trying to keep my shoe on running through deep muck was pretty funny, I was really worried I was gonna lose it and have to finish in a sock (which I totally would have done).  There was really hardly anything holding my foot in the shoe so getting a full power stroke with that foot was out of the question.  So lap 3 was basically clipped in with the left foot, flat pedal with the right foot.  Made for some interesting riding.  A few times when trying to actually click out my right pedal I just twisted my foot out of my shoe.

I somehow managed to avoid complete catastrophe and actually put together a lap only about 6-7mins slower than my first lap.  Fitness wise I still felt great, a lot of the mud and tech had kept me from pushing full bore so I still had some gas late.  I think I ended up about 3-4mins behind Taylor so the wheel drop was crucial.  No one caught me one footed so I held on for 5th.  Happy with that but bummed I missed out on some great racing and a chance for 4th.  Ready to get after it at the Pinnacle...got new shoes on order already (Mavic Rush) and gave the rear wheel/dropouts a thorough inspection and its all good, ready to slay.

Yeah Long Weekends!

I gotta take more of these things.  Or maybe I should get really active on trying to get PSU to change to a 4 day work week with 10 hour days.  Although if I had three day weekends all the time I would probably die of exhaustion in about a month.  I can't stop once I start it stings!

I got all kinds of stuff in this weekend and was thoroughly wiped out by Tuesday morning, enough that riding into work ended up being a non-option.  Saturday I got in one of my new favorite past-times, Strava hunting.  Basically consists of trying to find a loop that hits a few local KOM segments and doing little segment intervals trying to clean them all up.  In the past I have always found it really hard to get myself to do intervals on the bike, they just aren't all that enjoyable.  But I enjoy racing my bike so voila! intervals by proxy.  And it turns out I really like that format of ride because you still get a great workout and I still get to enjoy the day and surroundings during the soft pedaling sections in between.  I was even able to snap a few pictures along the route:

PEMI

I had some other ones as well but as I'm typing this I'm realizing that lots of pictures on my phone have randomly disappeared and it looks like anything that I haven't Instagram'd is now missing from my phone...not cool Instagram, not cool.  The highlight was a sweet pic of my handlebars that was supposed to be a covered bridge.

The fitness portion of the ride went fairly well.  I was able to get 2 of the 4 targeted segments and the 2 I didn't get I knew were going to be tall orders.  Both are currently owned by a very strong rider and neither are really suited to me.  But I'm sure I rode both better than I ever have before and I think I can do both a bit faster with slightly cooler and less windy conditions than I had on Saturday.

Sunday we hit the new Agway over in Belmont which is huge and awesome and we doubled down on our garden a bit and did a bunch more planting as well as some serious yardwork, cleaning up and coming up with plans for some areas that we have put off for years.  Tough work but the payoff will be pretty sweet.  We are also contemplating buying some fruit trees that they have at that Agway for really reasonable prices but we have to do a bit more research to see if it really makes sense and how much work it would really be. Man would I love to be able to grab a nectarine from my yard though!

Monday Mike and I got after some of the smaller 'middle' Belknaps that are scattered in between Mt. Major and the rest of the larger peaks over by Belknap itself.  Mike is after the Belknap Range patch and needs to tag all 12.  After my jaunt a few years ago I am actually fairly close to getting all 12 as well.  I wasn't expecting much from these peaks but it was actually a really cool day.  The Quarry Trail was much more maintained than I was expecting and the terrain was interesting and there were still some really good views even though the summits weren't exactly really exposed.  I'm sure Mike will post a very thorough account so I will link that once it exists.  For now here is the raw data:

Weeping Willow EFTA NECS 2012 #1

Always look forward to this race since the Riverside boys moved it over from Fort Rock a few years ago.  Great venue and always tough competition and a great scene.  This year was touch and go leading into the race.  This past Wednesday I felt the beginnings of a scratchy throat coming on and sure enough Thursday a cold bug was taking hold.  I was committed to leading our CNH Thursday ride that evening which I did (on cold meds) and after that I could feel that I was gonna get temporarily knocked out.

The knock out came the next morning when I woke up thrashed.  I called in to work hoping two super lazy days on the couch with a ton of rest could get me over the hump in time for race day.  My strategy worked for the most part.  I made a ton of progress Fri and luckily I never really got too congested.  Saturday I was feeling good enough to head down to Naro's place for a cookout and a place to crash 20mins from Willowdale.  Good company does wonders to take your mind of sub par health.  I surprisingly got a decent nights sleep on the couch and woke up feeling about as good as I could have hoped considering two days prior I was running a 100 degree fever.

I got to Ipswitch early to avoid parking hassles and to see our Novice and Sport riders off.  We had a huge contingent from the team racing and it was great to have such a crowded tent all day.  It was like grand central station.  The temps were climbing constantly through the morning and I was starting to dread the time I was going to have.  I was worried the heat would sap the truncated strength I might have had after fighting off my cold.  Plus heat and me just don't really mesh...at all.  It was interesting trying to gauge nutrition heading into a 12pm start.  Never really had to do that before, but I guess it ended up going ok.  I guess it was nice being able to see our Sport/Novice racers start and finish but part of me always likes to still have part of my Sunday when all is said and done, this ended up being a pretty solid full day affair.

stolen from Mark

The singlespeeders got lined up behind the Elites with a decent sized field of 24ish? (24 pre-reg only 18 names on the results sheet when I left though...)  Things are so crazy at the start its pretty hard to tell what the hell is going on.  Things actually got off to a somewhat civil start compared to some races, I think everyone knew we were in for a long hot one.  I was about where I usually end up, towards the front of the 'second group' as we headed towards the first small singletrack section.  I got passed a bit it the first few miles but also did some passing so I was starting to loose track of where exactly I was in the field.  I knew I was mid pack which I was fine with.  No expectations for today considering I had no idea how my energy would hold up.

I got to blowing serious snot rockets pretty constantly.  I probably spent a good portion of the race covered in snot.  I kinda wish I could just do that normally when I have a cold...way easier and less kleenex waste.  My energy was holding up though and I was breathing fine once the snot was outta there so I got to business and the course was super fun this year.  I think it was my favorite iteration of the past few years.  I thought it was a pretty solid mix of doubletrack with huge sections of sustained singletrack that was all a great mix of terrain that was super fast but still required your undivided attention.

Lap 1 went ok, no issues and my pace felt ok.  Lap 2 I made the mistake of grabbing Expert wheels as they went by.  I like trying to do that usually because it tends to get me to ride harder than I would if I was isolated in spurts that I can usually manage but I think I did this one too many times and ended up getting a tad burnt out by the tail end of that lap.  I felt like I was fading pretty bad on the first doubletrack section of lap 3.  And it showed because I was passed by a SSer I had gotten by on lap 2 and shortly after that I was also caught by Brad B who I have been perpetually yo-yo'ing with over the past few years at every race we both show up at.  Sometimes he gets me, sometimes I get him.  I love when he comes out though because he tends to bring out the best in me.  Hes strong and I know he might be able to beat me but I know I might be able to beat him and I always dig deep when hes around to make sure it tips in my favor that time around.

I was able to get back by him and I tried to keep my pace not necessarily blistering (not like I could have anyway) but I focused on consistent clean lines...just keep moving forward and don't forget those fluids.  I also remembered to take a 'no-cramp' pill at a very opportune time as well which I think did wonders.  No cramp issues and I heard all kinds of horror stories from other riders at the finish.  Things were starting to get a little loose in the last few miles and I kept thinking I was hearing Brad breathing down my neck so I was getting a bit frantic just wanting to be done.

Coming through a little chicane section I slightly misjudged and reacted too late and ended up pinballing off one small tree into another at pretty high speed.  Then dumping the bike I planted my right hand as I went down and something awesome happened to my middle finger.  All happened too fast to be certain but I think its probably the most likely that I popped it out of socket for a second jamming it on a root as I planted my hand.  It felt very weird when it happened and the way it felt I was fully expecting to see a gross crooked finger when I picked my hand up.  Luckily that was not the case and the finger still worked when I went to grab the bars again so I got back at it knowing full well I probably had about 10mins before the adrenaline wore off and it started to hurt real bad.  It worked out and I was not that far from the finish and I immediately got to the tent for some ice.

FINALLY got my top ten at Willowdale with an 8th place on the day.  I'm really happy with that considering my health at the time.  I think if I was 100% I might have not gotten passed late and maybe I could have been a place or two higher. Hard tellin' but I'm pumped.  Hopefully I finish off kicking this cold in the nuts and my finger heals efficiently so I can continue this hot streak I'm on.

Singlespeed-a-palooza 2012

single speeeeeeeeeds!!!

OFFICIAL RESULTS

Yeah racin bikes! 2012 is under way and I couldn't have asked for a better day, course or conditions to get things rolling.  Shaun and I carpooled out to Dbone city to set up base camp before heading down for the 4th Annual Singlespeed-a-palooza.  I have heard great things about the venue, organizers and the scene/race in general over the last few years so we figured we'd have a look-see this year.

Saturday was perfect race prep.  Dbone got us straight to his 11yr old nephews birthday party where we ate as many hamburgers, hot dogs and pasta salad as possible.  Then we watched Keith climb a tree.  After that we continued the food binge with a huge pasta dinner and some wine that made us go crazy and we ended up coining the term 'Visual Pervert'.

Up early Sunday morning to haul down to Montgomery, NY.  Nice area, never really been down that way.  Stewart State Forest is set up quite nice to host races and Darkhorse Cycles knows their stuff.  Don't take good race organization for granted, you won't miss it until it's gone.  We got situated, stashed bottles, did our warmup and then immediately violated our plan by getting to the start way too late and having to file into basically the back of our enormous group.  Hashtag dammit.

Now this was a longer race coming in at 28mi so I'll recall this as best I can....

Air horn goes off and we've got work to do.  There is about 90 people we have to pass and everyone is off like a bat out of hell trying to get as far up as possible during the 'prologue', a 2mi section of access rode followed by a short stint on singletrack back through to the lap point and into the first full lap.  I get boxed in a tad early on but I found a way out to the left edge of the group and punch it at 150rpm to try and get through some of the slower guys who are content to hang back while the hammerheads get after it.

The bunch had split into two main groups the main 'fast group' of about maybe 30-40 (hard to tell with all the dust) was up the road and I had made it to the front of the second group and was trying to bridge up...unsuccessfully.  A few others joined my attempt and we were able to get up to the back end of things as the faster group started to fracture a bit right before heading into the singletrack portion of the prologue.

Now this is where things get AWESOME.  Were single file with basically nowhere to pass but moving along decently so I decide to just sit on and wait for my chances later.  Then about 5 minutes later our paceline is hauling down a slight hill and coming up to a slight bend apparently someone saw a little bit of mud and decided to stop and perform an environmental impact study or something because all of a sudden I realize everyone in front of me is stopping.  I was like "No way this is a race I'm not stopping" so I rammed the guy in front of me.  Pretty hard.  Full on explosion, my handlebars made sweet love to his rear wheel, right brake lever bumped out of place, the whole deal.  And remember that mud I mentioned?  I got in that a bunch.  We finally got our bikes separated and got back to riding single file at high speeds.  We quickly started catching back up to some riders who I really wanted to pass because I had lost all that time.  So I inform a nice lady that I will be coming by on her right, which I do, but as I'm completing my pass my right hand catches something on the side of the trail which pulls my hand/handlebar back T'ing my wheel and I explode/endo right in front of her and stop our paceline dead.  Everybody take 5!  Great work!

Good news?  Right brake lever has now been bumped back into the correct position.  Sooooo now that I've got all my 'silly' out I got down to actually riding my bike a bit.  The course and trails at Stewart are incredible.  Very fast but not boring by any means, plenty of sharp rocks to keep you on your toes and your brain picking smooth lines.  I'm very glad I stuck with the 32-19.  The course wasn't so much flat and fast as it was punchy and fast.  The 19 kept my cadence up and I was able to power over most everything and keep the leg speed up in the more technical stuff.  I was passing people back pretty consistently early in the lap so I felt like I was doing what I should but I had completely lost track of where I was in the pack.

I got isolated a bit here and there but I was just about always 'racing' with somebody at all times which was nice.  I was catching small groups of 2,3,4 riders here and there through the first lap and I was able to rest and ride away from just about all of them.  I still felt really strong heading into the second lap and I was still catching and passing people so I tried to just keep the pace as high as possible.  I eventually somewhat settled in with a kid who was riding about 30yds ahead of me that I couldn't quite reel in for much of the second lap.  We were fairly evenly matched and I just couldn't quite close the gap.  I did start to notice that I was closing distance on harder parts of the course, climbs, false flats, etc. so I was fairly certain he was slowly running out of gas where as I felt like I would be good to push decently hard to the finish.

I knew there was a longer false flat access road section coming up towards the end of the lap so I decided I would keep him close and make my move to grab him then.  My plan worked and the gap started shrinking as soon as the road tilted up.  I realized that just a bit past him there was also another rider so I thought if things went really well we could collaborate and catch him and maybe I could pass two people in the last few miles.  I caught my rabbit just as the hill was topping off and kept the pace on to try and drop him and get the next guy.  The next guy was also fading and I caught him as we turned onto the last singletrack section of the course.  I sat on his wheel for a bit of a recovery knowing there was a false flat and two little climbs still to come.  As luck would have it we started gaining on two more riders also fading fast.  I was able to make my first pass at the top of the first little climb and I used the next climb to get past the next two guys as well.

I kept the pressure on so they wouldn't be tempted to try and bury themselves to get back by and I ended up passing 4 people in the last 3-4mi for 10th place(!) in the NY and North class.  Initially thought it was 11th but took a picture of the results sheet and didn't even realize that they had made a correction moving me up one spot.  Not sure on the actual head count in our class but I'm 90% sure there were 97 pre-reg'd.

I am super pumped with that result considering where I started in the pack and how things went for me early.  I was also really pleased with my staying power, I think my training has really helped me continue to put out power at my threshold apparently well into longer events as well.  Hopefully I can stay healthy and keep this ball rolling.

High School Reunion Ride

I had a strange ride last night.  One of those rides where you find your head clear and thinking about a lot of things as you shred along.  Like why in the hell don't I ride these trails more often? and Am I really this much stronger than when I rode these trails everyday years ago? and Holy crap how are my tires hooking up on these wet roots?!

For some reason I have neglected the trails in and around Plymouth lately probably due to my increased involvement with CNH NEMBA and their presence being a bit farther South.  I don't think I rode trails in Plymouth once last year and maybe only once the year before that.  Not sure why, things just played out that way.  I had the good fortune of hooking up with Paul Y. who has ridden in this area for many years and has a good present (as well as historical) knowledge of these trails.  This ride with him was just what I needed to get these trails mind mapped again and ready to go.

Things have changed a bit over the past 10 years but the trails are in great shape and really fun.  It felt like a reunion of sorts.  All the lines coming back to me, memories of rides past flashing into my head as we cruised along.  We spent a lot of time in those woods and it was cool to relive some of that stuff while re-exploring things.


There is some free-ride stuff in there now.  Built on the side of a hill that is lap-able with a few lines available and some decent features built.  Many of the old trails still exist very close to their original form with maybe a reroute here and there.  Other trails have faded with time.  It was cool to find out that the trail we used to just call the 'Monkey Bridge Loop' was actually called 'Sponge' unfortunately that is one of the trails that has faded a bit since some of the features were damaged and never rebuilt. (perhaps I shall bring it back?).  Our 'Training Loop' is actually 'Twin Towers'.  Its funny remembering how that trail used to whup us fairly well (hence training loop) and now its barely a blip and I'm hammering a much larger gear than I ever was in the past.  We also got on Schweddy Balls, Lazy Boy, Sitter and Crosstown.  I was also informed that some of the trails across Texas Hill Rd are back as well as some new trail work going on over there.  Very much looking forward to exploring over there again.

Oh and Maxxis Ignitors at 20psi grab wet roots like its their job.  Couldn't believe it.  The rain actually worked out to our advantage.  It was looking pretty miserable at 5:15 but by 5:30 when we hit the trail the rain had stopped.  Things were slick but manageable and the rain knocked the bugs down and we actually had a really enjoyable ride.  Things were so dry up here a lot of this moisture lately has been getting sucked up quickly and there was hardly any standing water or mud bogs anywhere.

I'm thinking quick lunch rides up there this summer is going to be a must as well as cherry picking some after work rides and maybe bringing our Thurs ride up this way more often.