say it with comics

this is a common occurance in the spring...

and I get this a lot in the winter.

keeping the taint on it's toes

It is my theory that you need to keep the taint on it's toes. Similar to a weight lifter hitting a muscle group from a slightly different angle to maximize growth and strength gains you need to change things up on your scrotal region to keep it from getting apathetic. For this reason, I like to keep multiple chamois creams on hand to shake things up. On any given day I can typically reach for Greyhound Juice, Assos or Bag Balm.






That was, at least, until recently when I drained the Juice and Assos tubs dry and am now left with the Bag Balm which I keep at the office. Yesterday, before my commute I was forced to scavenge for another substance to use to keep the ass happy. Jelly is too sticky, we only have chunky peanut butter (which seems wrong in many, many ways) and the KY is reserved for special occasions :) but I finally remembered I had this:



It's not exactly chamois cream per se but I did keep the taint happy for my sub 1 hr commute. As an extra bonus, it smells so good, the ladies will want to nuzzle your cheeks!

wash it!

What purpose do kids serve? Sure, they make your life complete, continue your legacy yada, yada, yada but more importantly, if properly trained, they can function as perfectly good pit crews. I figure that at 2 1/2 years old, B is well on her way to being my full time mechanic. She already loves to wash my bike and she can identify many key components including: pedals, wheels, handlebars, seat & chain. By the time she's three, I expect her to be able to totally strip and rebuild the frame.

yesterday

Yesterday's training plan called for a pant load of intervals. Ironic since on my way over to change I had to make an emergency potty run for a major evacuation. Considering the intestinal distress I was unsure how the session would go but I would soon find out.

When I went inside to change we had overcast skies (as we had all day but no rain) but, of course, when I emerged all kitted up it had started to rain lightly. F! Of course, I wasn't going to let a bit 'o rain dampen my ride (ouch, bad joke) so I headed out for my warm-up. Thankfully, things initially seemed to be ok and I felt fairly spanky. My first 3 min interval went well with me hitting my highest HR so far this pre-season but from there it all kind of went downhill. Through the next 6 or 7 intervals, my stomach started to cramp and I occasionally felt like I might vomit (from some extreme heartburn). The cramping was bad enough that I started running the scenarios through my head of what the emergency procedure might be if I had to answer the call. Making an emergency stop in the summer when you have leaves around is bad but tolerable but the prospect of using a pine cone didn't seem appealing. After some soul searching I realized it was probably better to take a quicker route home since all other options involved a very uncomfortable ride home in a less that sanitary chamois.

Somehow, I made it through the workout without turning into a double ended party favor and made it home without downloading in my pants. Oh and I found time to change the cable and housing on the road steed to that I won't have to worry about endoing every time the chain skips. Yay for me.

In less disgusting news, I am confirmed to race in this weekend's crit training race down in Portland. It'll be a good test of the early season fitness.

yeah baby

Even though ma nature has been giving us north eastern folks the high hard one so far this spring it looks like we've got a couple of decent days ahead of us. Today we may even see temps reach into the low 60's! To celebrate I plan on heading out for a nice ride after work this afternoon. We may get a little rain this afternoon but if the temps hold near 60 I'll still by happy. Hopefully my legs will be ready for the onslaught of intervals waiting for them tonight. They've been feeling a bit peekid the last couple of days after the slow week last week. Maybe the warm temps will help them too.

With the race season just around the corner I'm feeling a bit unprepared. Training is going fine so physically I should be ok but I'm not sure if I've made the mental switch necessary to get really fired up and ready to rip. Maybe, just maybe, if some of this warm weather sticks around and I get to actually ride on dirt that will change. The way things look now I may only get a few real mountain bike rides in before my first race of the season in May. Then again, everybody else here in Maine is in the same boat (and maybe even less likely to get our and train in this crappy weather) so I'm probably ok there. The bikes are another matter.

Last weekend I pulled the Dos down from the garage rafter hooks to get it prepped for the early season. The bike was still sporting the Bradbury 12 number plate (and some of the mud) from last September, the last time I rode the bike. I had meant to get it to the shop this winter but my cheapness and procrastination won out and now I'm left with a bike in desperate need of some tlc. Of course, this is the worst time of year to bring a bike to your local shop since every other meathead is having the same thoughts so I'll probably just hack away myself. I only really new cables and grips installed so it's obviously doable but if I were to do everything that should be done, the list would be much longer (like overhauling the fork, bottom bracket, headset etc). Maybe I'll wait until after the muddy races to get that stuff done since the first muddy race will probably toast a new bottom bracket anyway. Long story short, it's time to start utcing around with the bike again.

In other ride/racing news, I heard from Mad Mike today and he told me that the weekly crit series down in Portland starts this Sunday. I'm not a huge fan of crits but they are a good way to get in some serious training early in the season to get the legs firing on all cylinders. I guess I'll have to see if I can carve out a few Sundays to get down there so I can almost screw up Mike's breakaways again, just like last year. FYI, you can talk me into doing just about anything in a road race because I am such a newb. Tell me to go to the front and chase down my friend's breakaway and I'm your man. I'm a douche and road racers have a fine tuned ability for psychological warfare.

woof, what a week

Phew, glad that week is over. On Wednesday we got a call from our realtor asking us to show our house on Saturday, a full month before we were going to be ready to show it because of various projects we were trying to tie up around the house. We didn't want to miss a potential buyer though so I took Thursday and Friday off from work and put in 13-14 hours each day working on all of our projects. I expected to be able to squeeze in a short-ish ride (1:30) each day but that soooooo didn't happen. Saturday afternoon I did get a ride in but after the stress of the week I just couldn't get myself into an interval workout so I decided to just cruise and enjoy the nice weather. This week was supposed to be my rest week so I decided to switch the two weeks and do last weeks workouts this week. This might not be exactly what Lynda had in mind but I've got to roll with the punches if we hope to sell the place.

That's it for now. Time to get back to work and my regular ride routine!

sunday, sunday, sunday!

Home today watching the spud. Another mystery fever. So I'm "working" from home today as much as possible and getting some quality time in with the fruit of my loins.

Anyway, yesterday I was blessed (thanks Marcy!) with a few hour window to get in a hilly road ride. I headed out just after lunch and was greeted with 35 degree temps (not bad this time of year), sunny skies and 30 mph gusts. Very enjoyable conditions when the wind was quiet. I proceeded to head towards the best hills we have in the area. They're not exactly nut busters but they'll do.

About 2 hrs into the ride I started to feel a bit peakid. Not a full on bonk but energy reserves were getting low so I headed to the nearest store (down a mile long hill) and nearly wept in despair when I discovered that they closed early because it was Easter. I would have given anything for a Coke. So I was looking at another 1.5-ish hours with nothing but water (I finished my perpetuem and clif bar earlier). I managed to slog my way back home but that last 20 miles really sucked the average speed of my ride down from a respectible 18 mph to a somewhat dismal 16 mph. If I had known the store would be closed I would have carried more with me. Oh well, live and learn I guess. It was still nice to get 3:35 in the books to finish off the week with a touch over 9 hours and some tired, worked over legs.

Rolling with the full-on Bikeman whore kit. Right down to the bikeman underoos.


I call this one "Bike geek and silos".

Windswept tundra. Immediately after taking this pic I had to hold on for dear life as a huge wind hit me from the side.

Speaking of underoos, I had a coworker buzz me at work on Friday to help the peeps downstairs settle an argument. They were trying to decide if I rode commando under my spandex! Thankfully, I'm a pretty open guy and will talk about ANYTHING so I wasn't too disturbed about the question and at least two of the people debating were women so it wasn't all bad.

the new house takes shape

not much to write about riding wise right now, just following Lynda's training regimen as closely as possible but because of a marketing onslaught I have been able to use some of the office's resources to push the design of the new house. Here is an early rendering. I'm sure much will change but it's a start.

who knew or how the weather man screwed me

Who knew that you need to warm up well before starting a serious interval session? I've only been racing for 5-6 years so you'd think that I would know that I need more than a 15 minute warmup the day after a hard time trial effort before starting a series of 9 intervals ranging from 1-3 minutes in lenght. Well, guess what, I didn't know any better yesterday. I launched into my intervals and wondered why my legs felt like lead pipes. I was even dumb enough to actually think that I might already be overtrained. What an idiot. After I thought about it for a few minutes I realized that I simply wasn't warmed up properly so I dialed it back for a bit and then hit it big time. It ended up being a great workout and I ended up barely being able to finish the last interval. Totally toast. Good times.

My only real problem on the ride was that before heading out for my morning commute yesterday I had thrown my leg warmers into my pack for the ride home (and intervals) but at the last second took them out since the weather dude said that the temps wouldn't get above 37 all day and it was likely to be close to freezing by quitting time. Wouldn't you know it, when I left the office it was 49 degrees. 49 frickin degrees. Normally I would be psyched to have those temps but when you have heavy gloves and most importantly, heavy tights on with a scheduled interval session those warmer temps are death. I was a messy sweaty pig when I got home. Stupid weather people suck. I can't wait til summer when you can wear the same thing every day and not think about it. Good times.

hypothetically speaking

If one were to be heading out for a hypothetical mountain bike ride with his hypothetical dog who just had a huge growth removed from his hypothetical ass and while backing out of his hypothetical garage he hypothetically forgot to look behind him and hypothetically backed into his hypothetic wife's hypothetic car, how would one tell his hypothetic wife? One could, hypothetically of course, come right out and tell her or one could take the wimps way out and post it here.

Note: I hope to never type hypothetic ever again.

enough of the bad juju

Phew, as Marcy told me yesterday, my posts from last week were really depressing and I have to admit, I was in kind of a funk but I woke up this morning feeling good and ready to attack the week! Too bad B is still sick. I won't let that stop me from being more positive though.

One good thing about being stuck in the house over the weekend was that I was able to finally finish the work on the downstairs "bike" room. It's been fixed up enough now that I'm not allowed to work on my bikes in there but it is a much better environment for the trainer and for B to master her artistic abilities.

From this:

To this:

I'll miss that 60's fake wood paneling though. (note: that is Marcy's bike on the trainer in both photos)

Last weeks training plan ended up in the shitter towards the end of the week so this week I'm going to concentrate on quality, quality, quality. Nothing but good stuff for me this week.

ride (and everything else) aborted

Well, this weekend is shaping up to be a real kick to the junk. For starters, we're getting yet more snow. Not a ton but enough to mess the roads up yet again and delay the onset of spring one more miserable day. Despite the crap-ass weather I decided to go ahead and go for the ride with the pooch as planned. So, I got geared up, loaded the mutt, drove to the trail head, realized there was no place to park because of giant snow banks, continued down the dirt, unplowed road, found a place to pull off, took this pick;

found out snowmobiles hadn't been out on the trails recently, slogged along for 10 minutes, turned around, back at the car 10 mintues later and drove home. I was bummed about turning back but I had to walk most of the 20 minutes I had been out on the "ride" so I figured it wasn't much of a loss anyway, plus, I figured the whole fam could go out snowshoeing in the afternoon. WRONG! Around lunch time Brynna started vomiting every few minutes and I started to feel sick myself. Drat! So not only were my ride/snowshoe plans aborted but I also made the call to cancel the ski plans for tomorrow.

Damn, life is good.

musings

I'm sitting here thinking about many things for the upcoming season. For once, I feel like I have a handle on my training for the season (thanky Lynda!). It may not be a perfectly tailored plan but so far it seems pretty spot on for me, plus it's pretty flexible. Unfortunately, while I feel my training will finally be focused enough to train right I think my professional and personal life will be trowing giant wrenches into the whole plan. I shouldn't say "unfortunately" really because its all good. Who can complain when they have a wife who loves you and more importantly, puts up with your crap (and I fling lots of crap), a great kid who is a blast to be around and spend time with, the opportunity to design and build a house exactly the way you want it (within our meager budget at least) and a career that it moving along nicely? Somebody should really flog me for being such a winey little bitch but it's the American way to bitch about everything so I'm waving the flag high and proud!

Anyway, I'm looking ahead to the upcoming race season and realizing some changes need to be made. First of all, I think I'm going to have to nix any race further than New Hampster for this year. Mostly because I can't afford to be away as much this year with all that is going on but also because of these stinking gas prices. Typically, I go out of my way to try not to be a wasteful consumer and traveling 16 hours each way for a 9-10 hour race seems a bit wasteful when there are other good alternatives so much closer. As a result, I'm officially taking the W101 off my schedule. I have another race the same weekend that is 45 minutes from my house on some kick ass trails so that turns out to be a pretty easy decision in the end. It is a bummer to skip that race though since it's my one chance to meet up with some of my blogging buddies. (Ick, I can't believe I just said that!) So, with having to keep things close to home this year it means that I'll be focusing more on xc type races instead of the enduro format like last year. I still have a 6 hr and 12 hr race on the schedule but that's about it.

The dollars are going to be tight this year as well. I suspect that once we start to build the new house things are going to get really tight money wise. I had very small plans for new purchases this year to begin with (1 new set of pedals, 1 handlebar for the dos and a set of tires) but I'll probably nix all but the tires since there is no way I'll get through the season on my worn Ignitors. I just hope nothing breaks!

Ok, enough bummer talk. The weekend is looking good, I'm going skiing for the first (and probably only) time this year on Sunday and now that Chance has healed from his ass surgery, we might try to sneak out for some dirt/snow time tomorrow while the wee one naps. If I do make it out tomorrow it'll be my first time out for a mountain bike ride in a couple of weeks. Where does the time go?

The cold

can bite me! I know I always preach about how much I like winter riding, how fun and challenging it can be and yada, yada, yada but I'm officially sick of it. This morning's commute was fairly cold at 20 degrees but not even remotely as cold as it has been on occasion this winter but I still felt like I was freezing to death. I know that it was 99% psychological though since I didn't really get cold (my hands and feet stayed fairly warm) but apparently my brain has had enough. Usually by mid-March I'd be enjoying rides in the 40's and 50's. Ma Nature can kiss my chaffed taint right now. To top it off, the cold weather is already messing with my training plan which is less that one week old at this point. I had hoped to be able to switch over to my road bike by now so that I'd have better control of my efforts on rides but with the crappy road conditions and the fact that my road shifters don't engage well in the cold (this has happened to me on two bikes now. they work fine when warm but don't engage when its cold) I guess because they're getting worn or something.

Got this graphic from Marcy this morning. Notice the amount of snow we have here in Maine still! The Syracuse area of New York which is notorious for getting dumped on by lake effect snow has next to nothing while we still have tons here. Even on the coast, where we are (on our new property at least) there is still a solid foot of snow. Frig.

Bring on the spring!

ouchie

As I mentioned yesterday, yesterday was my first day of my build/peak/race program from Lynda and I completed my interval sessions on my commute home. It was a bit tough to do on a single speed since it's hard to find sections around here where you can go all out for 3 minutes straight multiple times without spinning out but with a little creativity I was able to complete all of the intervals and only felt like vomiting a couple of times. Good stuff. Hopefully the weather and roads improve soon so that I'll be able to rock the road rig for these sessions since it will make it easier to keep in the specified zones.

There is no question in my mind that this plan will make me faster this summer. How much faster I don't know but this is definitely the type of stuff I've been missing for the last few years. When I lived in Camden I was surrounded by like minded folks and had no trouble finding frisky road and mountain bike rides where I got more than my share of intervals and hard efforts so real focused training wasn't necessary for me then. Fast forward a few year, job change, child and no riding buddies living nearby and focus is just a wee bit more important.

Saw this pic the other day from a dude near Portland who made toe warmers for his bike shoes out of old tubes. Pretty clever. Not sure about his stitching though.

begin week 1

Today is the start of my "pre-planned" training program from LWCoaching. I went with the time crunched expert plan since I'm a time crunched expert level racer. It wasn't a big mental task figuring out which plan to work with. I have to admit though, even Lynda's time crunched plan is pushing it hours wise for me. I should be able to get it to work though. If nothing else, I'll be able to use the specific workouts she prescribes and cut down on the total duration if needed but keep all of the quality stuff. I know life will still be throwing me lots of roadblocks along the way but at least the plan will give me some focus for once and focus is one thing I've been sorely lacking. Yesterday, to kick things off right, I did the lactate threshold test to set me heart rate zones and I have to admit, I've got a lot of work to do. Thankfully I still have two months to get into race shape before my first race.

One of the great things about Lynda's packaged programs is that while you aren't paying for a real one-on-one coach she is really good about helping you alter your plan via her on-line forum so if something comes up to throw you off schedule she can get you back on track. Pretty sweet if you ask me. Plus, if you're an idiot (like me) and screw up you plan on training peaks while trying to shift things around she'll come to your rescue. I had the plan for a total of 3 days and I had already totally screwed up the format. I e-mailed Lynda and within an hour she had me straighted out! How's that for service?

It's ours!

We finally signed all the paperwork and handed over a fat check so that we can now call 17.5 acres of beautiful, varied terrain ours. Marcy has already gone about setting some rules on what I can and can't do with the property. First and foremost is that I can have one loop trail and one connector. I told her we'd have to discuss this issue further. To prepare for the discussion I did a couple of diagrams. Option 1 is what Marcy wants. Option 2 is what I want. I don't think we're too far apart here.

Option 1.

Option 2.

Holy shit!

You'd better look quick because it probably won't last long but somehow I've got the #1 bike blog post on Bikingcircle.com right now. Check it. I'm so proud. Kind of makes you wonder how bad all the other stuff is out there today when I'm #1. Fat Cyclist and Bikesnob NYC must be taking the day off.

Winter XC 30 miler report

Ok. I'm finally going to sit down for a few minutes to get this sucker written before every last memory twitters away and you're left with "I raced in snow and finished." It may not be well written but at least this monkey will be off my back!

First, since it's been about 15 weeks since my day 1 post, it is probably best if you read the first two installments. Day 1, Day 2.

So, we rolled out Saturday morning shortly after 8 am. I was running one of only a handful of single speeds so I was quickly shuffled to mid pack on the quick parking lot loop around the VFW (the home base for the race festivities). Once we hit the first snow section, about two minutes in, I quickly picked most of those spots back up as people floundered in the mealy snow. It was no cake walk for me but with my snow experience and the combination of 29'er wheels with 2.35 Panaracer Rampages I was able to maintain a fairly straight line and pick off a few folks. It was at this point though that it became apparent that fat tire bikes (like the Pugsley's and Steve's Carver) and ski bikes were going to have a huge advantage because the snow conditions, at least at the begining, were not good.

The first snow section was soon followed by a two mile stretch over Lake Memphrenmagog (once again, not joking). A very fast section that the race organizers had plowed the night before. During the first mile of the ice stretch I managed to dangle near the back of the lead pack of about 8 riders but being the only single speed in the group, I was quickly spinning like mad and maxxing out my heart rate. Wisely, I decided it was too early to cook myself so I dialed it back, let them go and hoped I would reel them back in once back on the snow. By the end of the ice the leaders had a sizeable gap, at least a few minutes, on me.

Once back on trail I tried to slowly bring back the guys and one woman (a trek pro) who had passed me on the lake. Once back on the trail though it became apparent that my gear choice was wrong, the 19t was just too difficult to push given the conditions. The snow was so meally that you needed lots of finesse to pick your way through, much more than I was able to atain with a steep-ish gear (for the conditions at least). Of course, instead of pulling over and changing to my 20t right there, I held out hope that the trail surface would improve (the race director warned us that the first few miles would likely be the worst conditions) so I stuck with the 19t and hoped things would get better.

Time to take a step back. During some long races last season I learned some tough lessons about not drinking/eating enough early in races and suffering mightily for it during the later hours. So my plan for this race was to start eating/drinking right from the start.

By the first aid station I had picked off another 3 or 4 riders and was now sitting somewhere around 5th or 6th. I skipped the first stop knowing I had a full insulated bottle of coffee/hot chocolate and a bladder in my Ergon BD1 pack full of Perpetuem but soon found I was in a bit of trouble. I had planned on keeping the bladder tube from freezing by blowing air back into the bladder each time after drinking to be sure all the liquid stayed in the slightly warmer pack but at some point some liquid had stayed in the tube and frozen solid. At first I thought I was totally screwed and destined for a day of eating snow and fighting off cramps but thankfully I was able to thaw the head by keeping it in my mouth for a few minutes (no jokes please!) which is really hard to do mid-race and then tucking it into my jacket after each drink.

Soon after leaving the first aid station I started to wonder if I should change my gear ratio, the snow wasn't improving and I was struggling to maintain enough momentum to keep plowing through the snow. Unfortunately, I found myself in a yo-yo struggle with two other riders with us regularly swapping the 3rd, 4th and 5th place spots and I was afraid that if I stopped to make the change I would never make contact again. It was a stupid thought process because I knew that it was better to make the change early giving me plenty of opportunity to make up the time but regardless, it kept me from making the gear change.

Over the next hour or so, we continued to yo-yo back and forth, me falling behind at the aid stations (since I would stay and stuff my face for a few minutes, remember I was hell bent on staying properly fueled) and catching back up on the trail only to fall behind again at the next aid station. Finally, after one hard struggle (probably about 2:30-3:00 into the race) where I caught up to the 3rd place rider I decided (finally!) to change my gear since I was no longer to climb any hills in the 19t. After a few minutes of fumbling around changing the chain length and adjusting the bb I was off and feeling better.

After the gear change I was able to catch back up to 3rd and 4th place fairly quickly (hmmm, maybe I should have made the change soon...) and we got back to our yo-yoing.

After the final aid station myself and the guy who had spend most of the day in 3rd were able to pull away. He was on a 29'er ski bike, a ski up front and a fatty 29'er tire in the rear, and was definitely able to negotiate the soft conditions better than I. I struggled to stay with him as my front tire would continually wash out and finally, in one particularly nasty section, watched him ride away.

From there to the finish I went into damage control. My legs were tired, I knew I wouldn't be able to bridge back up to 3rd and I had a sizeable gap back to the 5th place rider so I eased up a bit and tried to enjoy the last few miles of the race.

Finally, after about 4:15 on the trail I was back on Lake M. and in the final 2-ish miles of the race. When I first hit the lake I thought I'd be happy because it meant nice firm conditions and easy pedaling but after a long day in the saddle (for me this time of year at least) spinning 100+ rpm for the lake stretch really took its toll and I started to cramp. At this point all that I could imagine was me, less than two miles from the finish, being passed as I struggled to stay moving. Thankfully, I had enough of a gap that I was able to get across the lake unchallenged, struggled up the final wall of a climb and roll across the finish line. Boy was I glad to be done.

I finished 4th on the day behind two Pugsley's and the ski-bike dude but because one of the Pugsley dudes didn't race the Friday night crit I ended up 3rd overall for the weekend. Not bad considering I had no clue what I was getting into and that I'm an idiot for running too hard of a gear for so long. In hindsight, even riding the single speed was probably a mistake because there were many sections that I could have ridden if I had been able to shift to a lower gear to finess the nasty snow. That being said, when I go back next year, I'll probably still go ss but run a wiser gear and also see about running some even wider tires.

enough already

Not to sound like a broken record but I've been stinking busy lately. The good news is that while I haven't had much time to write, I have been able to work much, spend family time, squeeze some riding in, work on the design of our new house and finalize the deal to make the land ours. Stressful but good times.

Future house site, view from the living/dining to ledge outcropping.

View from living room to the south.

from the mouths of babes

While watching Big George win Stage 7 of the Amgen Tour of California.

Brynna "Last night George held me and talked to me"

Mommy "I'd let George hold me and talk to me"

Sunday spin

I promise that I'm working on my Winter XC race report. I really am, I've been running it through my head multiple times but the problem is that I have a ton to write about the race and little time to actually write. Hence the installments. I still need another day or so to pull it together so here's a quickie from my ride yesterday (much rather ride than write I guess).

Hit the local snowmobile trails yesterday for 2:45 of touch and go mushy riding. It's pretty amazing, before the Winter XC I would have never finished this ride on the trails because they were tough to ride but when you've spent 4:23 on the nightmare conditions that were the Winter XC, these conditions seemed trivial. In the end I was only able to pull off 20 miles in that time which included probably 1/2 hour of road at various points. Slow going indeed.


The only time I could take pics was when walking because the going was so sketchy. Take your hands off the bar and you'd end up face first in the snow.

Almost looks like I'm riding...

Powder on top of smooth as glass ice. If I had my studs this would have been no prob but I was running the Rampages for extra float. Despite being uber careful I still ended up doing snow angles a couple of times. To the delight of all the ice fisherman of course. Awkward!

This trail was actually a short bit of paradise since it was a slight downhill most of the way meaning I could let the bike find its way and I was just along for the ride.

ugh

I just saw on the Ultimate XC site that they have a couple pics of me from the Winter XC ice crit. My fav is on the last page. I'm looking like I'm loving life right there. It was immediately after the race and I was trying to warm my frozen appendages.

check the gallery

Winter Challenge Day 2

After wrapping up Friday night's ice crit Steve and I took a gander at the back of the Element (where we were planning on camping for the evening) and what must have been the location of a suitcase bomb explosion considering the amount of bike clothes/parts strewn about the back. Surveying the carnage we decided it would probably be for the best to get a room at the lovely Newport Motel. In the end it was a good move because it gave me a chance to clean up the ice rash on my left hip and I was able to dry some damp base layers (still didn't sleep well though, pre-race jitters I guess).

Saturday morning arrived and I set about re-gearing the El Mariachi for the day's race. For some reason I couldn't get the chain length to work with the two gears I expected to need for the day. As I mentioned before, I had to cut the chain for Friday night's cobble so I had a decision to make. Go with the safe 20t cog and risk spinning out a lot or risk the 19t and hope for good, hard trail conditions to allow me to turn the harder gear. In the end I decided on the the 19t but had a short piece of chain with a SRAM power link at the ready to make a fairly quick gear change on the trail if necessary. (foreshadow, forshadow) (For you purist SS folks, there is no SS class for the race so I feel no guilt for setting myself up to change gears mid-race). It was pretty stupid of me to do this 2 hours before race time but what can I say? I'm stupid. Plus, Steve and I were throwing back a few brews with some riding buddies until lights out so we were too busy for such things. In the morning I also loaded up the Ergon BD1 pack with a water bladder with a Perpetum mix, all of the required safety gear (lighter, fire starter, duct tape, tools, tube etc etc) hand and foot warmers, some food and a lighter set of gloves (in case my heavy mittens proved to be too much) and a few other odds and ends. It was a sizeable amount of crap so I was really glad to have the BD1 since any other pack that I have used would have been miserable with all that junk.


When race time rolled around all 40-ish of us lined up at the start line and I was able to check out the competition (it was too dark Friday night to really scope people out) and was pleased to see that there were only a handful of Pugsley's in the field and one bike with a ski up front. For those of you who don't ride on snow, conditions can vary wildly from day to day, morning to afternoon, foot by foot and can quickly go from being so firm it's like riding on the road to so soft and mushy that it's unrideable. If conditions got nasty the Pugsley's (and ski bike) would have a huge advantage. Since I was on a 29'er with fairly wide 2.35 tires I sat sort of mid ground float wise. Definitely better than the 26" 2.1's I saw but definitely worse off than the fat Pugs'. On the plus side, if conditions turned out to be firm the whole way the advantage would shift my way since this Pugs' fat, 4" wide tires are heavy and slow.

Ok, enough nonsense, lets get to the race.

Pre-race euphoria (photo courtesy of Bike 29)

The course.

......tomorrow. suckers

why I haven't been blogging

well, lets start with the good ole standbye. work is killing me, I have an 18 month project that I'm expected to pull out of my ass in about 9 months. Good fun. Then, add on the fact that we've been figuring out financing, contracts etc etc on the land we're buying for the last couple of weeks. Last but not least, I've added hours to my work schedule (as if I wasn't stressed enough) to help pay for said land acquisition. This is a suckfest in some regards but it's nice to have a way to pay for the land without bankrupting the family and in the long run it'll be best for the whole family even if it stinks rotten road apples right now.

So, quick post right now and if I get a chance for a lunch break today I'll write my Winter Challenge report.

Last three days in 64 words.

Saturday: 2:30 studded ss road grindage with tempo intervals
Sunday: aborted snowshoe, pilates, 1:10 trainer, cyclo-core, stretch, start getting training plan together for 08, get ok from wifey to buy one of Lynda's training plans.
Monday: commute in the rain. Test the Ergon BD1's rain cover buy stuffing a roll of architectural drawings underneath it. 1 hour in mist/rain and the drawings are bone dry.

this just in...

I'm too busy (and important really) to blog. Try to cope.

brokeback mountain biking

I don't have time for a full race report for the 30 miler today so you get this instead.

If you've been reading this blog recently, you know that my plan was to do the Friday night crit, sleep in the back of the Element and then get up and do the 30 miler on Saturday morning. When I originally hatched that plan I was going over on my own so the car camping seemed like a good way to save money. When Steve was brought into the mix it still seemed doable. Right up until we got ready for the Friday night race. After the freezing shimmy into our kits and getting the bikes ready the back of the element looked like a dirty bomb had gone off in the back. There was no freakin way we could fit all of our junk and ourselves in the back of that rig. We quickly decided that it would be best to just split a room and put the whole Brokeback issue to rest.

Ultimat XC Winter Challenge Day 1

This year's Winter Challenge consisted of two stages, a Friday night crit and the Saturday 30 miler.

The toaster all loaded up and ready to leave Bikeman.com's parking lot.

Friday, Steve and I loaded up the toaster and made the trek up to northern Vermont from coastal Maine. After only getting lost once (you can't get there from here apparently) we rolled into Newport at 4:30 pm. The first thing we did was check out the race course for Friday night. The ice crit was held on Memphrenmagog (seriously) Lake in Newport Vermont. Initially conceived as a 1/2 mile x 20 lap race it was changed day of race (because of unsafe ice conditions) to a loop of just under 1/2 mile and 25 laps. Oh, and it would be a figure 8. Upon seeing the course I quickly realized that my 32x17 gearing was going to be waaaaaaayyyyyy too slow. Thankfully, I had a 12t cog that I was using as a spacer on one of my wheelsets so I was able to cobble together a 32x12 which I figured would be just about perfect.

With 2 hours to kill before race time Steve and I decided to stomp over to the bar next door and get some food and drink. A couple of beers later we emerged, kitted up (ever get dressed for a race, outside in 15 degree temps? I hadn't either until Friday night) and headed down to the lake for a warm-up.

The gearing proved to be good and I hammered out my warm-up. Near the end though, while doing a final sprint my chain popped off and I hit the deck and slid across the start/finish line with a nice audience. Good way to start the night! (I would later find that I had a nice bit of road rash on my left hip from the textured ice)

Waiting for the start.

Steve Mitchell photo

Go time!

Steve Mitchell photo

The race started and I quickly found a nice place in the middle of the lead group. My goal for the evening was to sit in (take no wind) for most of the race and then in the last few laps try to make a move and that was exactly how it played out. During the first 18-ish laps we basically cruised around in lazy figure 8's, picked our way around the tricky corners (ever taken corners on ice at speed?) tried not to hit anyone at the 8's crossing and waited for any attacks to happen. I marked a couple of attacks myself to keep anyone from getting clear and kept the group at about 8 or 9 riders. With 5 laps to go, I found myself in good position to make a move on the leader coming out of corner 2. I immediately launched an attack for about 1 1/2 laps but quickly realized that it was nearly impossible to break away so I sat back up and slid back to 3rd wheel. We would now have to rely on the final 200 ft sprint out of the final corner.

Lapping through, notice the ice on the balaclava.

Steve Mitchell photos

Still third wheel going into the final set of corners, I took a wide line to allow for an earlier sprint start. Unfortunately, I started my sprint a tick too early and ended up doing a 90 degree turn right in front of the rest of the lead group. I quickly righted myself and sprinted my ass off narrowly holding onto third place for the evening.

Steve finished up a couple of mintues later a bit demoralized with how his legs felt only to find out later that his front brake had been dragging significantly the whole time!

30 miler report tomorrow (hopefully!)

Winter XC short recap

Today is the short version. MAYBE tomorrow I'll have the real recap.

Fri night ice crit:
Course: figure 8
Result: Set up well in third place coming out of final corner but did a near 180 coming out of corner because I got on the gas too soon and had to lay down a mean sprint to salvage 3rd.

Saturday race:
Course: 30 loop on "groomed" snowmobile trails.
Result: Trails were groomed Friday night but by Saturday morning they were chewed up severly by snomobiles making riding downright brutal. From the start it was clear that the snowbikes had a major upper hand with the added floatation of 4" wide tires (or a ski in front in one case). I fought, stumbled, walked and finessed my way to 4th place on the day (after two pugsley's and a ski bike) and 3rd place overall for the weekend (first ss but they didn't have an ss class so that is more a matter of pride than anything else).

today is the day

Of my first race of 08. Tonight, the Winter XC kicks off with a 20 lap ice crit on a lake in upstate Vermont. According to the promoter, the ice has too much traction right now so he's decided to flood the race surface with water to try to get a smooth, super slick surface for us to race on tonight. F'ing sick bastard. Hopefully my Nokian studdies are up to the challenge if not, maybe I should pack some knee and elbow pads for the inevitable smackdown. Maybe yesterday's fall was good training. (on that note, things seem to be ok for the most part. my ass is seriously bruised, my forearm hurts and my back is sore but all things considered it seems to be ok).

After the crit, I'll be hunkering down in the toaster for the night. Steve (bikeman dude and gas sharer) will either opt for the toaster or a tent. Sick son of a bitch. I thought sleeping in the car in Vermont in early February the night before a big race was a little crazy but to do that in a tent is certifiable.

Anyway, Saturday brings the 30 miler on snowmobile trails. Earlier in the week it looked like we were going to be blessed with nice, hard riding conditions because a rain band was supposed to roll through last night. Now, at least based on Maine's current weather, it looks like we'll be dealing with some fresh snow. If that is the case, that 4 hour race time could easily turn into 6+ hours of total suffering. This is going to be epic!

snow day

It snowed last night and there was about 1" of snow on the ground this morning so the wussy school administrators called school for the day so B and I are enjoying a snow day. More accurately, I should say that B is enjoying the day because I'm allowing about 1000% more tv today so that I can get work done while she rots her brain. I'm sure I'll be voted 2008 parent of the year...

The good news is that since I head out tomorrow for Vermont and the Winter XC this snow day gives me some time with the spud (even if we do our own thing most of the day) before I head out for a couple of days. Plus, when I get sick of working, I can get the rest of my crap together for the trip. Me, being the procrastinator that I am, put off getting most of my stuff together until last night. Overall it was to big of a deal except I ran into some problems with the bike last night. I did eventually get everything working but it looks like my rear hub on my chi-chi wheelset is going to need a new part (right at the end of the axle) but it does seem to be working for now. Fingers crossed.

Overall, I'm feeling pretty good for this weekend's races. I'm not in great shape right now but I should at least be able to FINISH Saturday's 30 miler. The promotor is expecting the leaders to finish in about 4 hours so if I beat the 5 hour mark I should be doing pretty well. I probably won't win but it should be fun regardless. On a bad note, this morning, while joging with the pooch, I slipped on a piece of snow covered ice and hit the ground HARD taking a serious blow to my ass cheek, right forearm and big ass Mag-Lite smacked me in the forehead. My head and arm should be fine but my ass hurts bad and it through my hip and back out. Not the movie "I can't stand up straight" out but an uncomfortable out. Hopefully all will be ok for the race. The 5 hour drive over and back will be the true test.

Well, time to get back to work. I probably won't be checking in again until Sunday or Monday so have a good weekend everyone.

pop quiz

What is this device below:

 

A. the world's most uncomfortable bra.
B. midevil torture device
C. a marital aid
D. neck stretcher/strengthener





Answer:

A. no
B. no, but it looks like one when strapped in
C. no, but it looks like one when strapped in
D. yes, but nobody would believe us