still no time

still no frickin time to do a decent race report so here's the abridged but slightly better version.

1. Race start, I've been working a bit on this and I'm getting much better as I entered the woods third wheel.
2. By the end of the first climb I briefly moved up to second place before being passed by pro Andrew Frye.
3. On the looooooooong very tech downhill Andrew moved over and let me pass so I could open up with the big wheels and managed by the end of the lap to open an itty bitty gap to Andrew and Wheels.
4. On the second climb both Andrew and Wheels passed me. I dug in to hold their wheels during the 20 minute ascent. At the top of the climb Andrew had bike problems so it was just me and Wheels to try to catch the first place guy.
5. At the begining of the descent Wheels let me pass knowing I was faster on the downhill. I graciously accepted and quickly tried to put some time between myself and him knowing full well that he'd blow my doors off on the next climb.
6. I was pulling away when I noticed my front end get very noddly.
7. Pull over to find a 1 inch cut in my sidewall. Not clean through but enough that the stans was having a hard time sealing up. Spend a couple of minutes trying to get it sealed. Wheels rolls by and asks if I need help. Good guy.
8. Finally get tire sealed and haven't lost any more places.
9. Continue to start/finish to find the tire going down again.
10. Stop at the car (parked next to the tape) and spend a couple more minutes. Get passed by 5 or so experts in the process.
11. Dig deep to catch Big Al and Andrew (back in the race after a flat tire) on the 3rd climb and move back into 4th overall/2nd expert II.
12. Get passed by Brad Perley. Damn guy played it smart and kept a solid pace the whole race.
13. Fly down descent seeing no other experts but pass lots of sport/beginners.
14. Suffer mightily on final climb walking some sections I should still be able to ride. Definitely suffering from trying to bridge back from the flat tire.
15. Feel cramps start to build.
16. Triceps in extreme agony during descent.
17. Left leg cramps from low calf to groin. Worry seriously about being able to finish.
18. Cramp goes away enough to suffer through to finish. 5th overall, 2nd expert II
19. Drop bike.
20. Crawl into hole.

Daddy time pre-race.

Lapping through sometime during the suffering.

this blog brought to you by the letter "f"

...as in no f'ing time to blog.

soon

A race report will be coming soon but here's the skinny.Started strong and was holding second overall over halfway in the second of 4 laps but cut the sidewall of my front tire on a sharp rock. After close to a total of 5 minutes of fixing (on two occasions) I had dropped to 7th (the first three of us had a big gap to the rest of the field). I chased back on the final major climb of the day and picked of two guys but I'd suffer mightily for the effort and go into damage control for the rest of the lap finishing a somewhat disappointing 5th overall/2nd in my age group.

Here is a photo to sum up the suffering for the day. Its of a friend of our's, Leslie, who competed in the sport race. She had three laps to do. She came into the finish area with close to four hours under her belt and her saddle hanging from the seat bag. Damn, that must have been a tough last lap!
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test for mapmyride.com

give a little

Marcy sent me a link to a good (but short) article about the trails at Bradbury Mountain State Park and how the mountain bike community has really turned things around there. For those of you who don't know, the park was pretty much a forgotten wasteland with very few visitors before mountain bikes were allowed. Since bikes have been accepted they've not only seen the usage go up but volunteering and donations have skyrocketed as well. The same can be said at the Camden Snow Bowl, without mountain bikers using, maintaining and building the trails there would be nothing there for the public to use in the non-winter months. Keep it up mountain bikers!

Bradbury story HERE.

Speaking of mountain bikers giving back, myself and five others did just that yesterday at the Camden Snow Bowl. I changed my riding plans when I found out there would be a trail work session there yesterday afternoon. Instead of doing a couple of laps and then heading to the group road ride, I instead did my laps, changed and then did trail work for 1.5 hours. In the end I was only able to work on one very small section of trail but its one that will make a huge improvement once its completed and will finally make a beginner loop possible in a place that is notoriously beginner un-friendly.

As far as the pre-ride went all I can say is "what a difference a week can make." Last weekend, when I was there, I was able to ride 100% of the trail with little difficulty because everything was dry. Yesterday was a totally different story. I found myself struggling in almost every section of trail, especially the climb, because of the rain we've received over the last several days. The trail really wasn't muddy but those rocks and roots were super slick and tough to negotiate. If the weather stays this way for the weekend it'll make for an interesting and longer race. I heard from Wheels this morning (who rode there yesterday afternoon as well) and he said that he kept falling on the UPHILL section of the trail! We'll see what happens this weekend.

TOOL

Still not much to say today. I do have a couple laps on this weekend's race course followed by the group road ride planned for tonight. Coming off of the illness and with the race this weekend I figured it wouldn't be wise to try to pull off a 4+ hour ride today so this 3-3.5 hour jaunt will hopefully be more suitable.

On Friday, Marcy, myself and my two brothers are heading down to Portland to see Tool in concert. If they're anything like Disturbed was live than it'll be a kick ass time. The White Stripes are also coming to town and I'm considering getting tickets for them as well but that would make three concerts in less than 8 months which is totally out of character for me. We'll see.

I've got nothin

I haven't ridden much recently with the illness and other things so I'm reaching back into my bag of tricks of some photos I took a few weeks ago on a mountain bike commute. On that day I saw two porcupines, one in the Schmid Preserve and one in the Zak Preserve, and multiple Lady Slippers (a nutsack look-alike endangered flower) and it made me realize how nice it can be to commute to work by bike. You simply don't see things like that while whipping along in a car at 60 mph, if you're lucky you get to see (and smell) some roadkill. Its not quite the same in my book.

Kicked it...almost. This dang cold or whatever it is that has felt like somebody is taking a welding torch to the back of my throat finally seems to be weakening its bony grip on me. On Thursday last week I began to feel like crap and after sleeping until 10am on Friday (a good 5 1/2 hrs later than usual) I decided to take the day off and try to kick the pig. It didn't really work since the sore throat was still with me through Sunday and now it feels more like a head cold that is finally draining. It did ease up enough to go for a spin with a couple of Bikeman teammates on Saturday. I met up with team manager (and totally married to a woman) Big Gay Al on his spanky Mamasita and Buzz on his single speed. The cool thing about single speeds is that there is almost nothing to go wrong mechanically with the bike but the un-cool thing is that when something does go wrong it often means the end of your day and that was Buzz's luck in the first 5 minutes of the ride with his rear hub totally self destructing throwing skewer and tugnut pieces everywhere and leaving him with a very unsatisfying walk back to the parking lot. Buzz will need to try a 29'er now because I'm sure that never would have happened on a 9'er. :)

Anyway, Al and I were left to tear up the trails alone and that we did hitting probably 90% of the trails in the upcoming Bradbury Enduro. Al, it seems, is totally on form right now despite not training specifically for mountain bike racing since he prefers cross. He was nailing every section on his totally riding Mama, often leaving me on the fast, rough descents. Damn him and his skills. We ended up with a solid 2:30 on some of Maine's finest single track. Good times.

During the ride I was really wishing I had some Ergon grips on the Dos. After talking to Jeff K. from Ergon I have found out I can cut down the P1's I currently have on the El Mariachi to work with my twistie shifters but I just can't bring myself to do it for a couple of reasons. Reason 1: what would I do for grips on the El? I definitely can't put the old grips back on, my hands won't stand for it. Reason 2: when the GX grips become available in the fall they'll go straight on the Dos and I'd be left with the cut down P1's and no place to use them which is very sad. So, for the time being I'm leaving things as is.

Witness to brilliance

July 5, four straight days of good rides and now I'm coming down with a freakin cold. Sweet. Everybody in this joint has been getting sick so I guess it was just a matter of time but I sure did hope to dodge the bullet. No dice. Thankfully, its going to be rainy and nasty for the next couple of days so a little r&r won't seem so bad.

Tuesday, on my ride home from work, ominous clounds began to form ahead and it became clear that I would most likely be caught in a quick summer rain storm. Having my Ipod and cell phone in my back pocket made me a bit nervous about them getting drenched so I did some quick thinking got all MacGyver and fashioned waterproof-ish housings for both from some very large leaves I found next to the road. Thankfully I only ended up getting sprinkled on but I bet it would have worked quite well for a quick storm.

Clifford Park matty d style

Matty D (he who never blogs) did a pretty good write up from the Clifford Park race. I mostly like it because he mentions me several times though I supposed it would still be good reading even without yours truly gracing its pages.

Check it HERE!

Also, here are some pics from the Camden race course for next weekend courtesy of the Garmin Edge 305.

The map. Thankfully the climbing is 90% in the woods and you only cross the ski trails. Nothing like Mt. Snow.

Climbing from the gun. Only about 800' per lap but its all in the first 20 mins. Also in the works today, I found out from Big Gay "Fully Rigid" Al that he should have my rear Hope P2 hub working smoothly again by Friday. As you may remember I totally destroyed a bearing in it recently so I decided to replace them all while I (he) have the hub apart. I had the option of going with standard bearings at $3 a pop or ceramics at $15 per. The ceramics are slightly lighter and will last much longer but with five sets per hub I couldn't stomach the cost for my training wheel set. Al is going to spruce them up by pulling the bearings apart and putting in some better, waterproof grease to keep them rolling smoother longer. It'll sure be nice to get that wheel back and rolling smoothly again.

Last, but not least, I found out my failed Sidi's are being warrantied and a new set is on its way to me. What to do, what to do. Do I trade them in for some narrows and see how they fit me and then use them as a race only shoe or do I trade them for some of last years Lake 430's (carbon goodness) to use as race only kicks or trade them in for some other stuff I need. Ponder, ponder.

Cross training

Last week Marcy and I became the proud new parents of a tandem kayak from Old Town. Its a pretty sweet (beginner) rig that will allow us to do more active stuff as a family and give us something nice to do on the seriously stanky summer days to come. There is nothing better than heading out on the water when the mercury climbs. Over the weekend we got out for two paddles. Both short so we could get B used to the idea of sitting still for an extended period but still great fun. As a bonus, it gives me a chance to work my upper body muscles for a change and get some cardio work while resting the legs plus maybe I'll be able to even out the massive farmers tan I've been fighting all spring with spf 50. Good times.

On Sunday I also got out to the Camden Snow Bowl for a couple of pre-ride laps on the course for next weekend's race. I find it tough to stick strictly to the race course since there is so much sweet stuff there but I know that to do well I'll need to have the course dialed so that is what I do. After the first lap I had officially lost the pooch since the heat and his flabby ass just couldn't keep up but I set out for my second lap assuming he'd be there waiting for me when I was done. While near the top of the mountain I began to hear lots of dogs barking down near the parking and swimming area and got a bit worried that he would get into it with another dog. When I got back to the bottom I saw no less than 10 dogs, 5 at the base of the mountain and 5 in the water playing but Chance, being the good boy that he is, was waiting at the car within 200' of all 10 dogs. Thats a good pooch.

official results

The official results are up from this weekend's race, 8th out of 46 experts/elites. I'm fairly content with that considering I pushed it as hard as I could on a super tech course against lots of fast guys. Unfortunately I also found out that I did not, in fact, beat Matt Boobar. I forgot he started in a wave 1 minute behind mine so he actually beat me by about 45 seconds. Frig! Damn you Boobar, damn you!

In other sport news, our new tandem kayak is being delivered today. We're totally geeked (Marcy especially) since it will give us something to do on these hot as stank days. With its pending arrival I've been considering ways of transport. The obvious and probably most used method will of course be throwing it on top of one of the dinosaur burners but for days when we take it down to the river (little over 1/4 mile away) or to the town landing (1 mile) I'd really like to have a more environmentally friendly way of hauling it. This got me thinking about hauling it behind a bike and I wondered if that was possible. Turns out it is, while blog surfing I found a link to this site called Tony's Trailers where you can buy multiple types of bike trailers including kayak haulers.

Of course, at $600 I won't be buying one anytime soon but at least I know it can be done and it might make a fun winter project for me to complete sometime around 2020.

edgy stuff

Last week after complaining that my Garmin Edge 305 wasn’t getting very good battery life I decided to call Garmin and see what could be done. Well, it turns out the main problem was that it was running on outdated programming so after some noodling around on their site I found the necessary updates, downloaded them and voila! all is better. Well, not totally but my run times now seem to be up in the 7-ish hour range as opposed to the 4-ish range from before. This is a step in the right direction but ideally I’d still prefer to be getting 10-12 hrs since that is what they advertise it as plus it would have been really nice of them to tell you somewhere in the manual that periodic updates would be available on-line. Oh well, we’ll see what’s happening.

This afternoon was supposed to be the weekly road death march but with the 90 degree swass (sweaty ass) conditions predicted it looks like the group will be pretty slim, maybe even just me. As a result I’ve decided to scuttle the road plans, stop home, grab the Dos-n-dog and head to the Camden Snow Bowl to get in multiple laps on next weekends race course. It’s a brutal one with a 20 minute opening climb followed by some nasty cross eyed descending on some sweet technical single track. After this past weekend’s race the snow bowl’s trails, while technical in their own rite, will probably now feel like groomed cart paths. The added bonus of a snow bowl ride is that there is a sweet swimming spot right where the car will be parked so the pooch and I will be able to take a post ride dip.

Wheels, when are you pre-riding the course? Maybe we can hook up and you can pass on some of your good ju-ju so next weekend I can hold your wheel!

one in shoe is worth two in the flush

Being the parent of a toddler is a very fulfilling experience. Sure there is the love and adoration , the firsts that you’ll never forget yada yada yada but the story I’m about to tell you is the stuff of legend. This story will DEFINITELY be brought up the first time Brynna brings a boy home. She’ll be mortified and we’ll be happy.

Anyway, on to the story. The other day while I was out mowing the lawn, Marcy was putting things away in our bedroom and Brynna was enjoying some naked time while she was playing with Marcy’s mountain biking shoes. Putting them on, taking them off, shuffling around in them etc. Generally being content in her own little world. Of course it’s when B is quiet and content that you really have to worry. That’s when Marcy heard the tell tale utterings we’ve grown accustomed to when B is having naked time. "Uh-oh". Marcy turned around to discover that B had somehow, while wearing the shoes, managed to pinch a nice steaming loaf into the back of Marcy’s shoes.

Its times like these that I’m glad I’m a father, oh, and that for once MY SHOES were put away.

See pic below. I warn you, its disturbing, gross and absolutely hilarious all at the same time.

I sort of wonder if this was Brynna's way of telling mommy that she rides like shit.

What did YOU do the morning?

My early morning was very productive. Up at 3:30 (with 3-ish hours of sleep -ick-), eat breakfast, ride 1:05 into Boothbay Harbor to help set up for a charity breakfast which takes 2 hours, ride to the office, shower and sit down to work by 7:30. Beat that!

Clifford Park short version

Race number two is complete. No time for a full recount now so here’s a brief rundown.

Hella stacked field with a bunch of supa fast regional pros. Finished fourth in age group, 2nd non-pro (3rd non-pro overall I think). For once I felt like I had a handle on the course so that was VERY nice. Probably the best racing I’ve ever been in. Traded spots back and forth with several people including three teammates, MattyD, Big Gay Al, and Kirk Turner. We’d go back and forth on the super technical course each trying to gap the others when they’d bone it in a touch section (of which there were very many). Wheels blew by me on the third lap on his way to wining Vet 1. In the end, MattyD would win that battle with me a few seconds behind. In the final stretch, in sight of the finish line, I also passed Matt Boobar (he who I never beat). I guess he had some sort of pedal issue but he seemed fine as I passed him and I’ll take any victory I can get.

Finished the race strong but toasted, definitely the hardest I’ve gone in a race in a while. This was, no doubt, a result of the jockeying of positions.

In god’s way of punishing me for being me, Boobar got a prize for finishing third in his age group while I got squat for finishing fourth despite finally beating him. Next time Boobar, next time! (This is all in good fun, Boobar seems like a nice guy I’m just tired of getting spanked by him, he beats me sometimes racing too. ha ha)

Oh yeah, did I mention that Matt Boobar is the reigning age group nationional champion in Xterra.

Racin Rick goes international.

Yesterday's post has ended up on a South American message board (with my permission). It seems like whenever I do something stupid and document it I get way more hits than usual. Maybe I need to get all Jerry Springer on a daily basis.

On tomorrow's episode:
"My bike is sleeping with my sister's daughter's bike while I'm taking care of two little tubes."

Here we go!

Well, another work week just about wrapped up. Race number two is on Sunday and I’m determined to do well at this one this year. The last two seasons this race has chewed me up and spit me out. I’m not exactly sure why I don’t do well there but I think its because I can never get into a good flow and if you aint got flow its hard to go fast. To try to combat my anti-flow I pre-rode the course last weekend or should I say I tried to pre-ride the course. My buddy Kev and I went down to ride but since it hadn’t been marked out yet we spent an hour noodling around trying in vain to find the right route but simply couldn’t put all of the meandering trails together. Despite that though, I felt like I was starting to understand the course a bit more and actually enjoyed riding it. It looks like I might be able to get a couple of pre-ride laps in again tomorrow so hopefully I’ll be as dialed in as I can. I may even take both the dos and the el with me to see which one is right for the course. I know the El Mariachi was perfect for the last race but I'm guessing the extra cush of the Dos Niner will be right this weekend but you never know until you try.

I guess I can’t do much worse than the last couple of years anyway so I’ve got little to lose and hopefully late Sunday morning I won’t be on the ground suckling on the course’s sweaty, hairy nipple. Plus, this is the first of five races for me in the next two months and it would be really nice to get off to a good start.

In not so good starts, last night I pulled last year’s Hope P2 rear hub apart because of some weird clicking I had been hearing while free-wheeling recently. I had expected the problem to be a sticky pawl that wasn’t engaging properly but I was wrong. After taking the hub apart (which is amazingly, almost scarily easy to do) I noticed some teeny, tiny half spheres falling out which upon further inspection we ball bearings sheared in half. Nice, the entire bearing was ripped to shreds and there were pieces of plastic and metal all through the hub.

All those little black dots are actually sheared ball bearings!

Hopefully once I get it all cleaned up it will be an easy repair. Since I was apparently born without opposable thumbs I have a hard time doing most bike repairs but hopefully this is one I can actually tackle. I’ll know more after I give Big Gay Al over at Bikeman a jingle.

How to wax like a man.

Last year I posted the highly informative and not at all inappropriate article titled "How to shave like a man!". It was a great success and brought me worldwide renown. I think 4 or 5 people actually read it based on the hate mail.

Anyway, over the course of the summer it became apparent that shaving just wasn't the way for me. It takes forever to do, I always miss spots and to be quite honest I'm too lazy to commit to the regimen involved. I ended up walking around all summer looking like a stubbly haired goat (scrawny legs and all) with the mange. Its not a look that's popular with the ladies.

This season after letting the fur regain its territory I decided to try waxing. How hard could it be I thought. Hoo-boy was I in for it.

Below is a step by step account of the process.

1. Buy waxing strips at store. I decided to also pick up some tampons at the same time so the clerk would assume I was simply being a good husband and not some sort of perverted, leg waxing freak. I decided on a product called "Nads" simply because I liked the name and thought it would be fitting for a dude to use.

Note: despite its name, you are NOT supposed to use the strips on your nads. See photo below. I feel gypped.

2. Get photo of yourself licking your nads. Just because.



3. Get yourself drunk. This is very important so that it doesn't hurt so much. I tried to man things up a bit here and went with a white wine spritzer over my normal zinfandel. Very manly, I feel better now.

4. Apply strips to leg as directed.

5. Take several deep breaths.

6. Pull strip off quickly.

7. Wake up finding yourself in the fetal position on the floor.

8. Look at shiny patch of bare skin. Only 20-ish more to go...per leg.



9. Complete job.

10. Marvel at how many scars that were once covered by hair are now clearly and painfully visible.

Yikes, thems some ugly legs!

11. Gain new respect for women.

12. Wait several days for missed hairs to grow long enough to try again. Yippee!

Its too soon to tell how long the hair will be gone for, from what I've heard, the more you do it, the less often you need to. Time will tell, I'll keep you posted.

Getting creative.

How do you work riding into your schedule when your wife is heading off for work for a couple of days and you're left with all childcare responsibilities? You get creative and very flexible. Yesterday I drove to work (needed to logistically) but got the greenlight to ride home (a very nice close to 2hr mtn/road ride) but that meant my car would be left at work but I had to drop B off at daycare this morning. What to do? Thankfully, Marcy's car was still at the house so I had that at my disposal. In order to get some riding in I left the car at daycare and tt'd it from there to my office, a 15 min. mostly uphill jaunt. Short by anybody's standards but still a good effort and enough to remind the body whats up. Of course, there will also be the downhill ride back this afternoon. If the weather permits I'll do the same tomorrow. Of course I'll have to ride back in from home Wednesday evening or Thursday morning to get my car which will still be at the office but you don't hear me complaining about that! Mix in my morning jog/stretching/pilates/abs sessions and things don't look so bad.