L'Canada? Oui s'il vous plaît

So this past weekend I had the pleasure of attending a bachelor party in Quebec. Ben is one of the early birds in the Zoo family to get hitched and his bach'fest has set an extremely high standard. I almost don't even really know where to begin but I think this post will focus more on the biking aspect of the trip, seeing as that is the primary focus of this blog and that most of the other things that happen at bachelor parties are not 'G' rated. Hi Mom!

We rented a "slopeside" condo at Mont St. Anne (about 30mins northeast of Quebec City) for the weekend to catch the World Cup MTB events and to get some riding in of our own. I had never been to a world cup or up that north into Canada so I was pretty pumped.

Watching the best downhillers in the world was pretty humbling. Those guys go stupid fast into extremely gnarly blind lines. Very fun to watch and I was actually able to snag a few decent shots with my walmart special pink camera. Never saw any crashes up close and personal though, oh well.

l'fast

The whole group was able to snag a ride on the cross country trails surrounding the mountain on Saturday and Dustin and I were the only troopers able to muster another ride on Sunday. To be honest I wasn't too impressed with their XC terrain. I was expecting a lot more but it seems like the resort focuses all their effort on their World Cup courses and I suppose I can't blame them. That is where all the money is for them. At best their XC is 80% double track and 20% single and in reality its probably more like 95% double and 5% single at least from what I could tell by the trails we rode.

But to their credit they really maxed out the available real estate and you can get very 'removed' on a ride and really get a cool adventure feel. Partially lost, partial exploration...nothing wrong with that but I was just expecting a bit more singletrack goodness. And dont get me wrong just because its double track does not mean it was all easy. Lots of climbing and some interesting steep/fast descending with loose rocks and some washout.

no earthly way of knowing...

derrrrr

l'huge

no one will hear you l'scream

it was hilarious how out in the middle of nowhere this hut was

We got a solid 14 miles or so on Saturday with aobut 4000ft of climbing

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/9941464

and Dustin and I followed that up with another 14-15 on Sunday with another 4500ft of climbing

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/9941451

And for an interesting cross reference those two rides combined is almost exactly the distance and amount of climbing that I did in 6hrs at Pat's Peak this year.

So to sum it all up I can't think of the last time I jammed that many activities into an extended weekend. Very little sleep and all kinds of action. World Cup racing, big rides, big raves, historic cities with Euro appeal, epic clubs, and did I mention no sleep? L'Awesome.

Au Revoir!

Pat's Peak 6hr Solo '09

I have mixed feelings about my first foray into endurance racing. Some things went pretty well and some things went pretty poorly, but I guess that's probably the first lesson of the endurance game. Its never going to go perfect so you better be ready for it when things go south.

I got all my nutrition stuff figured out a day or two before and packed up a cooler full of goodies to stash at the race for me to hit in between laps. This brings me to the first thing that wasnt all that awesome. Pats Peak charged $15 for a 'tech tent area' in the start/finish and technically you weren't allowed to put anything in that area without paying. That was probably my only gripe with the organization of the event. Everything else was very well put together. I think a lot of the 6hr crowd was pretty pissed about the setup because really all most 6hr riders had was a cooler at most...not a tent / stand like a lot of the 12/24 racers.

bike race...not an eating contest

I was pretty pleased with how I handled my nutrition, especially not having any kind of frame of reference as to how my body was going to react to a longer effort. Never really cramped or had any bonks of any kind so that was one of the things that went well. I ended up bringing WAY too much food and fluid but I guess thats the way to do it. Certain foods worked and some I had trouble eating consistently. Things taste / go down different when you are in the pain cave.

The venue itself was pretty cool, defenitely had the festival feel.

start/finish tent with obligatory Red Bull inflata-banner

They set up a nice S turny thing down the slope to the finish. got pretty greasy by the end, very fun.

interesting crowd, the DHers were on hand as well preriding the course for tomorrow

The race started with a leMans start, which is pretty typical for an event like this. Basically bikes go across a field, and everyone runs to get their bike then mounts and takes off. Started off fine got in line about mid pack and got to the days business. Traffic was kind of annoying on the first lap, but there isnt much avoiding that. Much easier to just mass start in a timed event like this. About 15mins into the first lap things got 'hilarious'. I feel a sting/bite on my upper arm and look down to see a bee stuck in my flesh. AWESOME. I flick it off and keep on keepin on. Then on lap 2 at almost the same spot STUNG AGAIN. This time on my leg. What am I Dustin?? Completely ridiculous. Luckily I'm not allergic but I'm sure that didn't help my race physiology much.

Then we got to the climbs...oh the climbs. Ouch. I think I can speak for anyone without a granny ring up front at this race that those things sucked. First one was worse...way too steep even for my 9 speed, second lap I was already walking it, couldnt really get any decent power going in the heat. Did I mention these climbs were on exposed ski slopes in direct sunlight? Yeah, I'm not used to heat yet cause its been raining since May. Second one was more gradual and I could get a rhythm going. A ski resort is a tough place to do any kind of endurance racing without a full gear set. Anyone who pulls it off is badass in my book (myself included...kinda).

So of course I have some mechanical issue stories, I think that is probably also a staple of the endurance scene, unless you get really lucky I guess. End of my second lap I was heading down the descent at a pretty good clip (I passed a lot of riders on the main descent, all day really, but more so early when people were close together, pretty pumped about that.) and my best guess is that my low limit screw on my derailleur was set a bit lax and the vibration sent it behind the cassette just enough to get it jammed and when I went to downshift, all hell broke loose. luckily nothing snapped or broke but it was never the same after that. I unjammed it but I think the cabled stretched a bit and threw the indexing all out of whack. Long story short, my 9 speed was now a 3-4 speed off and on depending on terrain and mud as of lap 3. JOY.

Now to lap 4 but still on the descending topic. I was feeling good on the descent all day. Making passes and picking decent lines, smoothness was abundant. Unfortunately certain portions of certain lines were getting progressively more greasy the more riders hit the descent. I found out one portion had gone terminally greasy the hard way. Slightly off camper turn with some roots but nothing that couldn't be handled by just keeping the bike more upright, straightening out your line a tad just for a second and on your way. At least for laps 1-3. Lap 4 that scenario turned into wheels hit roots and immediately are out from under me. They slipped just enough to throw my center of gravity / balance way off but not enough to take me down right there. My wheels eventually caught in the trough of the turn and when they finally hooked up the force was too great for me to handle and by that point I was pointing directly at a tree.

For those keeping score, yes I rammed my bad shoulder right into a tree.

So needless to say descending after lap 4 was substantially slower due both to the mental impact of the crash and the fact that my shoulder was pretty sore and all those jarring impacts were not fun. It kind of eventually numbed itself out and I was able to keep truckin but I'll probably pay tomorrow morning. Only time will tell.

So yeah that was basically it, I managed to snag 3 more laps after my crash for a total of 7. My original goal had been 8-9 so I fell a tad short but I think it being my first time trying this format and the fact that I had a few issues here and there, I'm happy with the result. I didn't give up when I had plenty of pretty legitimate outs. And funny enough when I pulled in on my last lap mentally I was still okay, I probably could have kept going even though I was walking a lot of the course and physically breaking down. I guess that is a good sign? We'll see how the NH 100 goes in a month or so. I think I will like that format a bit better than this.

The Hard Data:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/8572213

As for results, they will probably be posted soon. I don't imagine I placed very well. There were quite a few very fast individuals taking a crack at the 6hr format...Pro's and Semi-Pro's all over the place. Oh well, I would be psyched if I got top half of the field but I'm not even sure if that is likely...my later lap times were pretty slow, I would imagine the average rider could snag 8 laps on that course. Especially if they have all their gears. I'll post results when Pat's puts them up.

Results:

http://www.patspeak.com/PatsPeak24126Hours2009.pdf

Did a bit better in the standings than I had anticipated. Ended up 17th of 30 (originally thought it was 14th but Pat's Peak printed the numbers wrong saying there was a 4 way tie for 11th, but there wasn't really) almost a mid field placing. And I was only a minute behind 16th and a lot of the riders who finished up with 8 laps were only about a half lap ahead of me and if things had gone differently for me I think I could have been right in there with 8-9 laps.

Wrenching is Fun!

It's been awhile since I've had a decent bike maintenance session, I haven't renovated a dumpster bike for a while (no time!) and luckily my stable of bikes has been running just fine so there really hasn't been a need.

If you've been in New England lately you are well aware that it has been WET. But I still gotta ride my bike and with Pat's Peak on the horizon I have to try and snag as many miles as I can to get myself ready. Monday night's group ride was a wet one indeed; rained hard at first but then let off and then poured at the end. 14 miles in the pouring rain and mud will take a nicely running bike and turn it into a pile of crap pretty fast.

What I thought was going to be a normal boring hour or so in the area, cleaning and dialing things back in got real interesting and ended with me having to take my X7 trigger shifter completely apart.

FYI if you need to get BB5 disc brakes lined up real nice this article is the easiest most succinct I have found. I have had my doubts about disc brakes lately because I could never get the feel I wanted. Part of this is probably due to me being so used to V and being semi resistant to change. I also think that I never really had the discs set up right. After getting the rotors properly aligned things feel a lot stronger...granted I haven't ridden it yet but I think I might start to like them better now.

Got the drivetrain cleaned up and I was ahead of schedule (I have to try and set a time that I am going to work in the manarea otherwise I end up in there for waaaay too long) so I decided I wanted to slide my rear wheel back a tad. My Kona has sliding dropouts so you can set it up as SS or geared. When I set the bike up geared I put the dropouts in the middle of its slide range figuring that made the most sense. I also ride a Redline Monocog and now that I have been riding both bikes for a while I have noticed that I really prefer the Redline's longer wheelbase. So might as well slide those dropouts back as far as they go to lengthen the Kona's wheelbase right? Easy enough, I had an extra derailleur cable and housing in case the distance of the slide was too much for the current cable (it was). So I slid things back, recabled and went to test the shifting. And all hell broke loose. Shifter was completely thrashed, made it half way through its range and then just locked up, levers froze, nothing.

This is getting wordy so I'll skip to the end...I had to completely take the shifter apart and get into the guts. I was pretty worried at this point that I was screwed. When I popped the casing off a spring flew out and I thought for sure that was it. Too many gear mechs, springs and moving parts for me to figure out. Then I remembered that I have two advanced degrees. Played with it for a bit got the ins and outs figured out and came to the conclusion that the thing that was screwed up was the little gear indicator that shows you which gear you are currently in. Weird huh?



All that thing is is a little piece of thin plastic that extendeds down into the ratcheting system in the body of the shifter. There are 'teeth' on the plastic of the indicator that also engage with the teeth of the shifter so that when you shift the teeth on the indicator move with the teeth of the shifter and the little orange piece of the indicator moves down a notch. Turns out that little piece of plastic was getting jammed up about halfway through for some reason and preventing it from actually shifting. Remove the indicator, problem solved (I never look at that thing anyway). And now I know how trigger shifters work (X7's at least, but I would imagine the principle is similar for all).

Not sure how it happened...whether it was caused by moisture in there somehow warping the plastic or if I screwed something up when I recabled it but it was a learning experience and fun in a way.

Pre-Ride from Hell

I think I should have read my biking horoscope for today. I think it probably would have told me that my stars were very much not in line.

The day started off okay, some work I had intended to do around the house was better tackled with two people so I left that and got an early start on the ride portion of my day. I went down to Concord, stopped in the city to get a tux fitting for Jake and Tara's wedding. Got in and out fairly quick everything was running smoothly. Get to Pat's Peak with plenty of time to do two laps or so and still get home before Gina gets home from work...perfect. Until I actually got on my bike.

Right from the get go I could tell my energy levels were off. My heart spiked pretty early into the ride and I had a real hard time getting things regulated. The trails were still very wet from all the rain we've been having. I decided I would just ride the course slowly to avoid causing any damage just to get a feel for the terrain and then head out. For some reason riding slowly and me dont mix at all. I completely lose the ability to ride correctly. Tipped over a few times, got extremely muddy, every time the trail tilted up my heart rate would spike and take far too long to come back down. Not sure if it was the humidity or the sequence of things I had eaten for my last few meals or what, but my engine was not firing on all cylinders.

My troubles quickly spread to my brain and I was unable to follow the course, basically at all. I went off track at least 3-4 times. It's not excellently marked but I was definitely missing some obvious turns. Almost killed myself on a waterbar on the decent, for some reason I didn't even realize it was there until the last second and was barely able to absorb it. After the decent I lost the course again and ended up getting back on track on a previous portion of the course heading back the way I had come somehow. At this point I was so confused/frustrated that I just pointed the bike down the neareast ski slope and got back to the base area and packed it in.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/8481733

I lasted about 30 minutes, didnt even make it 3 miles. Quite the waste. Didn't get a workout and didn't even get to see the whole course. But what I did see has assured me that this race is going to be tough and more than likely leave me quite battered after 6hrs.

Pinnacle X NECS '09 #3

Apparently I love riding in slick conditions.

I almost called it when I woke up Sunday morning listening to a downpour come down on the skylight in the bedroom. Turns out it was raining much harder at home than it was in Newport and things were looking okay at the venue. Course was wet enough to be real slick but not wet enough to be really muddy and I can deal with that...more than deal actually, flat out ENJOY.

Things started off with a mass start, all experts at once, which I used to think I hated but I am starting to think I like mass starts better because the traffic issues that they create actually allow me to get warmed up a bit slower and I am able to keep pace better but at the same time there are tons of traffic issues and technically there were some spots where I was getting held up. I did manage to make 4-5 hilarious passes all at once though which was fun. I have ridden this course a few times and I have raced SS long enough now to know that there is no shame in running sometimes. There was a headwall of sorts on the first portion of the 1st lap where there is almost always a bottleneck and especially so with a mass start. I knew it was there and knew I wouldnt be able to sit and spin it and with no room to get up and hammer I planned on jumping off and running up the 'bad line'. Worked great, and I ran right past 4-5 guys spinning their grannys. I think one guy even got a little mad, like I was breaking the rules or something.

Sticking with the theme from last race...I am 90% sure I am the sliver of helmet and shoe behind the second guy in the pink jersey. Slipstream! Shake and Bake!

The singletrack was actually riding kinda nice. The roots and rocks were very slick but the dirt was actually a bit tacky. The rest of the climbing was how it usually is, leg breaking and slow especially with things as slick as they were. I was forced to try and stay in the saddle to keep weight over my rear wheel turning most of the climbs into the equivalent of a hardcore session of squats in the gym. Suffice it to say, there were a few times that my GPS unit thought I wasn't moving. I did manage to 'ride' most everything though minus a few techy spots on some climbs and the suffering was all worth it. I've said it before and I'll say it again...I would climb 15 miles straight up just to be able to ride the down at the Pinnacle. SO MUCH FUN. And I think I might even like it better when its slick.

1st time down kinda sucked because I had some less confident riders in front of me but laps 2 and 3 were perfect, no one immediately in front of me I had the lines pretty much figured out and the slickness added just enough to make it really interesting. Didn't crash once although I lost count of all the hail mary's.

Here is the hard data:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/8449220

And results:

http://www.efta.com/PDF/results/2009/2009%20pinnacle.pdf

As you can see this is my first 'real' podium in the SS Class. In the past I have pulled some top 3's but that was usually due to there only being 3 people racing. This time around I actually put up a pretty strong time and was only 2 minutes out of 2nd place. I snagged a sweet bronze medal for my efforts as well that will be hanging in the manarea. I am pretty proud of how far I have progressed in about 3 years time and I'm looking forward to my coming endurance races. New challenges...