Father's Day Weekend

For father's day weekend this year, we decided to camp at Bradbury State Park for two nights with a small group of friends and a pile of kids.  The "plan" originally was to get to the park on Friday, go for a mountain bike ride, camp Friday night, ride Saturday and then get up at the butt crack of dawn Sunday and make the trek to New Hampster for the Pinnacle.  The Pinnacle is a super fun race, and one I've sworn to do every year but, with our camping trip and my "issues" last week with the King Kahuna, I decided I'd just lay low and hang with the fam all weekend instead and I'm glad I did.  Without the stress of a race and super early departure on Sunday, I was able to do and drink as I'd like all day Saturday.  That'll cure your missing a race blues right quick.

One thing that I was able to do was get out for a wee little run with my father's day present, a Garmin 110 gps watch.  Saturday I planned a quick 45 minute run just after breakfast but when I got to the trail there was a group of ultra marathoners getting ready to do the second part of their trail run for the day (a couple were planning a 15 mile day) so I hopped on with them for a bit planning to peel off after a little while but once they got talking about where they were going I just had to go along.  Their plan was to head over to the Tryon Mountain area, an area I haven't really dabbled in, so I figured this would be as good a time as any to give it a shot.

One of the new bridges on the Tryon trail

Photo by BenjaminMWilliamson

I ended up with 1.5 hours of running and some extremely sore legs from the approx 2500' of vertical.

This new section of trail opens up lots of possibilities and potentially some linkage to the Yarmouth and Falmouth trail systems but it will take some splorin' to figure it out.

The run was followed by B getting out on her bike for the first time in weeks.  More importantly, she was riding on unpaved surfaces, up and down small hills for the first time ever.  And then, THEN, she hit her first trail ride.  It was short but I was super proud as she rode over rocks and roots.  Now we just have to work on her steering and braking!

Eureka! 

It was rainy and shitty last night so the test ride on the Kahuna had to be delayed so, instead, I cleaned my messy ass basement and looked at the stable of bikes. Currently our basement houses 9 1/2 bikes. Marcy has three, a Salsa Dos Niner, Salsa Mukluk and a trek road bike. Brynna has her Kona Makena and I have my Kona King Kahuna, Salsa Selma, Salsa El Mariachi, Salsa Mukluk and a Salsa Dos Niner frame that is half built (thus the 1/2 bike) and my Trek road bike. I'm building the Dos Niner up for sale and it should be gone next week. I had planned on selling the El Mariachi as well but the initial sale fell through and now it sits in my basement again.

This morning, while on a run with pooch, I had an aha! moment and realized what I really should do is sell the Selma instead. I LOVE the Selma but the El Mariachi is a much more versatile bike, it can run gears or SS (which, to be honest, the selma can do as well) has fender mounts (and I have a set of fenders for it for winter commuting) and it's steel and we all know that steel is real.  Anybody in the market for a large Selma frame with a brand new rigid carbon fork and king headset?

The El

My lovely Selma

It just occurred to me that I don't have a photo like this of the Kahuna.  I'll have to rectify that.

Rolling Again 

Yesterday, I took my poor Kahuna to the shop so that I could have them look at it as well as get some other things taken care of. After a bit of inspection, KillBill suggested that the bike was "fine". Not exactly perfect but the damaged area is likely of little concern so there probably wouldn't be much point in spending hundreds of dollars fixing it. I figured I had nothing to lose so I decided to to build her back up and see how it goes.

Sadly, what I thought was an ok rear derailleur was shot with a twisted cage but, thankfully, I had purchased a 10 speed derailleur on the cheap last season so I just happened to have one sitting around (love when that happens) so I went about setting it up. Sadly, some (most) days, my mechanical skills are a bit sub par and an hour later I was frustrated and pissed trying to get the shifting to work so I called it a night and tried again this morning. As is usually the case with me, after stepping away, the problem became clear. I hadn't fully adjusted the limit screws. (like I said, sub-par skills). 5 minutes of fiddling later and it appears to be shifting like a dream again. I'll hold off on celebrating until after a test ride this evening.

This Kinda Blows 

Sunday I had grand plans. Spend all day working on a new GInormous chicken run for the new peeps and then hit up the Camden Snow Bowl for 2 hours or VERY hilly riding followed immediately by 1.5 hours of heinous trail running on the course of the upcoming Ragged Mountain Run Around .  Essentially good training for my upcoming races at the Pinnacle and at the Bowl as well as early preparation for the Great Adventure Challenge where I have to kayak, mountain bike and then run up and down Pleasant Mountain.

I met up with the Run Around promoter for the ride on Sunday afternoon and the wheels started to come off 5 minutes into our ride.  My right pedal was squealing like a mofo.  I had no idea what was going on but it didn't take long to find out when the pedal body released from the spindle.  F'er.

It's hard to ride 2+ hours of hilly and technical terrain with your foot sliding all over the place.  I've seen this happen on Egg Beaters tons of times but this is the first time I've had a Time pedal do this and I've got 8 pairs some of them about 10 years old.  After messing with it and deciding the pedal was shot, we rode over to Stephen's house and swapped my pedals for a set of his Shimano spd's and I put on his winter shoes (since my cleats wouldn't work) which were 2-3 sizes too small.  Super uncomfortable but at least I'd be able to ride.

So we roll along and are having a good time when I hear that god awful sound of a stick lodging in your wheel and ripping your rear derailleur off.  Sadly, that was not all that happened.  When the stick flipped the derailleur and hanger up, they smashed into the top of the drop out and CRUSHED the carbon.  The day was in the shitter something quick.

The only good news is that I've been told that it can be fixed, the real questions are, how much will it cost and how long will it take?  I've got feelers out and my fingers crossed.

40+30 

A hard 40 mile group road ride last evening plus a 30 mile ride this morning has me feeling just a bit shelled. One chink in my fitness armor is becoming abundantly clear. I used to excel in the hills. It's kind of a weird thing for a guy my size to be good at climbing but, for some reason, I always have been. Until this year at least. It seems like every group ride that I do has me struggling on the climbs. I can hold my own elsewhere but those damn hills are the current bane of my existence. That's really great news with two very hilly races coming up (The Pinnacle and The Maine Sport Run-Off). I'm not sure if two weeks is enough time to prepare for The Pinnacle but I'm sure gonna try by hopefully getting in a bunch of climbing this weekend. The Run-Off is a bit over a month away so hopefully I'll be a climbing machine again by then. Fingers crossed.

 Below, you'll find photos from the B&B we stayed in this past weekend for the Domnarski race. It was essentially the house of an elderly couple that they've opened up to make a few extra bucks so not your typical B&B set up. It's sort of like staying at your grandparents place. Pretty comfy but weird at the same time. Especially when you notice all of the stuff, piles and piles of stuff all over the place. Some of it creapy, some of it cool, some of it just plain weird. Here are a few.

need hats?  this is but a small selection

or a square rolling pins.  things have advanced 

greatly and we now have ROUND rolling pins.

creepy dolls anyone?

beer stein collection.  I was tempted to dust one of these off.

Domnarski Farm 2012 

I've never been accused of being the smartest guy.  Especially when it comes to sporting endeavors.  I knew I wasn't in proper shape to throw down in the Pro/open class for the NORBA stop at Domnarski Farm but I like a good story and I figured I'd prefer to get my ass kicked in the pro class rather than the expert class so I convinced Alby to join me in the fun with the big boys.

B brought her stuffed horse to meet 

the other horses at the farm

The fam and I did the B&B thing the night before to avoid a 4 hour drive day of race.  The hope was to get a pre-ride in but with tons of rain on Saturday I figured it would be best to just figure it out during the race.  Lucky for us, come Sunday morning it was sunny and warm and  MOSTLY just greasy in the woods.

the parking lot was full

Wisely, I lined up in the back row for the Pro/open start.  There were lots of faster guys in the group so there was no need for me to muck things up for others in the fast start.  Plus, I figured if I had any chance of doing well, it was going to be in the last half of the race when my usual endurance legs kick in.

At the gun, we took off and we quickly got bottled up at the very first steep climb about 30 seconds into the race forcing most to run.  Once that was sorted out, we entered the first section of singletrack.  I was feeling pretty good at this point.  I had Alby just ahead, Colin and Nathaniel just behind and the prospect of a long climb ahead to pick a few more spots up if possible. 

Alby got a good start, about mid-pack

I came through shortly thereafter near the back of the pack

When we got to the climb, most of the pack was long gone but I still had several guys in my sights and we slowly pulled a few of them in by the top of the first climb.  It was around then that Colin cranked past me never to be seen again.

Most of the rest of the first lap was uneventful with me setting the pace and lines for Nathaniel as we maneuvered through the multitude of DEEP water holes on the dirt road sections (my bike may never be the same again!) and the really fast baby head (and sometimes whole baby body) strewn downhills.

Starting lap two, Nathaniel and I caught (yet again) the guy we had been yo-yoing with all of the first lap.  We'd catch and pass him on the climbs and he'd freaking bomb past us on the downhills.  Up until this point I had felt OK on the bike but hadn't felt all that racy.  During the opening climb on lap two, the wheels completely came off.  Nathaniel graciously offered to set the tempo for a while which I happily accepted right up until he pulled around and rode away from me.  Not because he attacked but because my legs just had nothing.  It was at this point that I knew I was in trouble.  An hour of "racing" left to go and nobody pathetic enough to pace with me.

For the rest of the lap I tried to keep the motivation up as waves of expert riders and a few pro's who flatted earlier in the race flew by me like I was racing in the sport class.  I'll admit, it was a bit demoralizing but there wasn't much I could do but put me head down, grit my teeth and try to control the hemorrhaging.

Mercifully, a few minutes past 2 hours into the race I managed to cross the finish line the dead last finisher in the Pro/open but at least I had beat a few quitters who don't like to race on taco'd wheels and other broken stuff.

I wasn't able to push any sort of pace during the race and generally felt flat.  Two days later I have to wonder if something was going on with my body.  Usually, I'd be super sore with lead filled legs today but I have absolutely no soreness and not the fatigue that one would expect.  Hopefully I just had a funk in the system that will rectify itself.  I guess I'll know in two weeks when I tow the line for the Pinnacle.  If I stink there as well it might just be because I stink at racing...

The trip wasn't a complete waste though since the farm had a killer 

swimming pond with lots of critters for B to catch

 The Maine Mayhem!

Part 2

Ok, it's now obvious that a proper race report just isn't going to happen so it's abridged report time. When the bike portion of the race rolled around, I took an assessment of the folks at the line and decided that my teammate Anders, Steve and a couple of college age looking kids (see how old I am now? college KIDS???) were my most likely competition so the best strategy was to try to get out to an early lead and hold onto it. I THOUGHT I had only a 14 second deficit to Anders and roughly 2:00 to Steve so this shouldn't be too bad. Maybe, with luck on my side, I'll pull off the overall.

the annual berm shot

At the start I gunned it and took the holeshot going into the woods (usually very important here since the single track is so tight and it's hard to pass) and quickly took a 10-15 second lead. At that point I couldn't help but think that this was going to be easy. Those thoughts were erased when the lead feeling crept into my legs and Anders easily bridged up after passing one of the young-ins. Anders and I rode together for the first two laps and I got nervous because he didn't seem to be having any trouble staying on my wheel and his full suspension was definitely an advantage on the really rooty sections of the course.

my brother, out of retirement, on the berm

 my buddy Tim did his first ever race.  He won his age

 category but lost in the number attachment category.

Going into the third of four laps, I decided it was time to see if I could get away so as soon as we lapped through I drilled it for about 5 minutes and was awarded a 30-ish second lead over Anders. From there I just tried to keep the pace up and eventually finished around 1:30 up on Anders and 10 minutes on Steve (haven't seen the actual results posted yet) and thought I had the overall in the bag.

Unfortunately, as Anders and I were chatting we realized that we didn't know how they were tabulating the overall. I thought it was based on overall time, he thought it was based on finishing positions but, in reality, it was based on your run time + your average lap time from teh bike race! Some quick math in the head lead us to believe that the overall would be very close between the three of us. In the (anticlimactic here but very exciting there) I nabbed the overall by 1.5 seconds and scored myself all sorts of bragging rights and a sweet Columbia waterproof jacket valued (so the tag says) at $350. Not bad for a $16 entry fee!

Steve waiting for the final results.  

I offered to settle it with an arm wrestling competition.  

(glad he didn't take me up on it)

Anders being all stoic.  He'd look even

more stoic in a nice new jacket...

Maine Mayhem! 

Part 1

The Maine Sport Maine Mayhem! was my first race of 2012. Usually, at this point, I've got at least a couple of races under my belt but that just wasn't in the cards this year.  Thankfully though, the Mayhem! is a perfect first race since it's a low key event that is close to home. This year, I decided to give the trail run/mountain bike race a try.  Last year a pair of running shoes was up for grabs for whoever had the fasted combined time of the two races.  I've been running a bit more this year so I figured I might as well give it a shot and because stupidity runs deep in my family, I was able to convince my brother to come up from Boston to take part as well. 

As soon as the 3-ish mile run started I knew I was going to be in for a hard race.  Initially, I was able to come close to the leaders pace but it was a pace I knew was unsustainable.  It was easily 1.5x my normal running pace and I didn't have the excuse of waiting for the dog to pee to explain stopping for a breather so I sucked it up as much as possible knowing that the race would likely be over in 20 minutes.  By about a mile in, most of the sorting had taken place with my brother and 6 others ahead of me on the trail.  This was also the point that I grabbed my GoPro camera from my mother and video'd the remainder of the race.  My vanity wouldn't allow me to wear the camera on the start line so, sadly, I missed most of the action at the beginning of the race but still captured most of the EXCITEMENT! of a trail running race.  Don't believe me?  See for yourself in Monday's post.

Rus coming in for second.

me trudging in for the finish with GoPro

dork band on my head.

By the halfway point of the race, it was way more than clear that I wasn't touching the front of the race.  My brother and Steve Wagner (the leader) were now out of site but I did have a couple of carrots in front of me; one of them being Ander Larson a bikeman teammate.  Try as I might, I just couldn't close the gap.  After one surge (which had me hitting a long time high of 181 bpm) I was able to close to within a couple of seconds of Anders but I just didn't have the legs for that final 10 feet.  I definitely need to work on my speed work with running because top end speed was nowhere in sight but at least I could maintain a pretty solid pace.

Finally, mercifully, I came into the final stretch and tried to give it a finishing kick and maybe finally close the gap to Anders but I had drained my ridiculously small storage of speed long before and ended up simply trudging across the line in 7th place instead just over 2 minutes down on Steve Wagner.  Steve is a strong rider but as I found out before the mountain bike race, he'd only been on his bike a few times this year so I figured that gap should be pretty easy to erase in the mountain bike race.

Joke's On You 

I know I promised a race report today but I decided to go on a 28 mile road ride this morning instead. Suck it!

Hopefully I'll get the report done tonight but I'm mountain biking tonight (hopefully) as well so that isn't likely either.  I'm just going to go ahead and tell you not to hold your breath.  It'll come soon and it'll be worth the wait.  Promise!

Maine Mayhem!

Yesterday was the annual Maine Mayhem! xc trail race.  Starting last year, they added a trail running race prior to the mountain bike race.  If one is so inclined, he/she could do one race or both.  Last year I chickened out on the running race since I was afraid it would completely blow my legs for the mtb.  This year I decided to throw caution to the wind and pull the double.  Partly because of the extra challenge (it's a small race with few expert/elite competitors in the mtb) and partly because there is extra schwag for the fastest run/mtb time.

I've run out of time for a full write-up today so I'll just drop a slightly edited video of the running portion of the race.  I didn't want to be the douche wearing a camera at the start so I grabbed it from my mom part way into the lap.

Full write-up tomorrow.

Almost Race Time 

The first race in my MTB calendar is quickly approaching so I've been busy making final preps.  This race is generally super fun with tight, fast trails, lots of little technical sections, berms etc etc but if it's wet, all bets are off.  It's still fun but it is a total gear destroyer.  A few years back lots of folks found that out.  As a result, I've now prepped my single speed to be ready to race.  I haven't ridden this bike as a single (or any SS really) in well over a year so I'm taking a bit of a chance racing it on Sunday but I'd rather chance a lackluster race than chance doing hundreds of dollars of damage to my new bike.  That said, we've got three sunny and warm days before the race so things should be stellar but I know if I don't get the bike ready, I'll wish I had.

Step one: find box of ss shit and find enough spacers and gears to fill up the free hub.

 

I can't for the life of me remember what gearing I used to use so I threw

three cogs on so I can test them out tomorrow on my pre-ride.

 

Step two: I've grown very used to the W-I-D-E bars on the Kona so the skinnier

bars on the Salsa had to go.  In order to do that, I had to steal the bars from the Mukluk.

Sorry girl.

Skinnies be gone!

Poor, sad, decapitated Mukluk.

Don't worry, you'll ride again.

Tah dah!  Large and in charge. 

Now I just have to bring a hand saw with me for the pre-ride 

so I can chop down the one choker on course that these will

be too wide for.

Finished.  Now it's time to clean the basement from the looks of it.

Tool and shit EVERYWHERE!

This Ride Is For The Birds 

Saturday was beautiful and sunny. No, that doesn't express it well enough. Saturday was BEAUTIFUL AND SUNNY!!!!! What was even better was that I was given the green light for a nice road ride in the morning while Marcy and B heading to a fund raising yard sale at B's school.  Score!  That is, until I got on the road and realized I felt like a turn souffle that had been slightly overcooked (nobody likes an overcooked turn souffle).  I did a quick calculation and decided that trying to push through the ick would likely leave me in the hole while getting home early and getting shit on the Honey-Do list done would leave me sitty pretty with the spousal unit so I decided to bail on the ride and head home. 

but first, I snapped this lurvly picture (exactly 1 mile from my house...)

upon getting home, I was swarmed by my adoring fans

stupid chickens love to roost and shit on my bikes although,

to be honest, this bike deserves to be shat upon

This coming Sunday is my first race of the season, the Maine Sport Mayhem! It conflicts with Weeping Willow which is an awesome race, but I like to support the local events (and drive 4 less hours) so the Mayhem it is. 

The interesting thing about the Mayhem is that, in addition to the bike race, they also do a trail running race just prior to the XC with bragging rights and extra prizes (a pair or running shoes last year) to the person who has the fastest combined time.  I've decided to throw down this year.  The running race is only 5k so hopefully it won't tax me too much before the XC race but that's all part of the fun anyway.  There are at least 3 dudes who I expect to be there who can trounce me in a running race (I know, because they all did at the HVNC race last fall) but I SHOULD be able to nab them on the bike.  Question is, by how much and are there any ringers out there just waiting to make me miserable?  I guess we'll find out on Sunday.

What A Difference A Day Makes

Yesterday I did something I never do - talk about how much I've been riding.  Well, today I wake up and feel like a lazy turd because I didn't do a lick of exercise yesterday and I likely won't today given that it's a Friday and there is beer to be drunk and guacamole to be eaten tonight.  I'm not sure when Friday night rides became verboten but they have in my mind so I'll live it up (as much as any middle aged husband and father can do) tonight and hope for some good rides this weekend so I can keep my slowly increasing fitness and ever so slowly decreasing weight in line.

I have news that would make most middle aged husbands/fathers foaming at the mouth.  There are now six chicks living with us.  No, I haven't become a Mormon, we've added some new chickens to our flock (currently down to two after weasel, fox and hawk predation).

We decided to change things up a bit this time and get four egg layers and two meat birds.

I'm not sure how keen I am on killing and plucking a chicken but I know that if I tap out, Marcy should be able to finish the job since, in the past, she's taken a dead, rotten seal and boiled and skinned it for soup - er - research. 

T-I-R-E-D

You might want to sit down for a minute before I tell you what I'm about to tell you. 

Are you seated?  No?  Well, what are you waiting for?

All set?  OK.  Here comes the bombshell.  My legs are tired because I've actually been riding and running a lot (for me at least) for the last couple of weeks.  There are always curve balls thrown in the way on occasion but I think (I hope!) that I've finally found a way to make it work this summer.  Three days in a row of solid rides and runs have my legs more shot than they've been in a while.  Yay!  I'm still a bit concerned about my endurance but the speed is coming along nicely and I don't have any long races for a while anyway so color me happy.

On Tuesday night the legs were shot enough that I actually busted out the rollers to massage the muscles a bit so that I wouldn't be a lactic acid bloated turd on the Wednesday night Cyclemainia mountain bike ride.

To be even more readyer, I showed up to the ride location a half hour early to get a decent warm-up in before the suffering began.  Unfortunately, just as I was about to leave, instigator number one, Sebastian, showed up to warm up for his own ride.  As a result, my warm up ended up being a suffer up with me chasing him around but at least the legs were ready when the group showed up!

Thankfully, all of this worked (mostly) and I was almost able to hang with Sebastian on the hilly somewhat mud fest.  The dude used to race elite downhill and it shows.  The faster, nastier, more technical things get, the faster he gets.  I was downright scared TRYING to hold his wheel (which I never really did) on some of the downhills (and uphills and flataways for that matter).

Now I hurt and my bike is a wreck so it's time for a day or two off while I fix things up a bit and get ready for the stellar weekend ahead.

We Have a Weiner! 

Right before the end of yesterday's polling of "what's new on my bike", Tim snuck in the winning answer and is now the proud new owner of absolutely nothing but a little more self respect (which he can use lots of) and pride in a job well done. Tim correctly guessed that I had new rims on the bike. More specifically, I have a whole new wheelset on the bike. Some fancy, schmancy Carver carbon rims mated to DT 240s hubs. My heart is all a twitter.

For their maiden voyage (and probably the first race next weekend) I mounted them up with a set of new Panaracer Rampages I had hanging in the bike closet. The rampages + some stans juice + bontrager rim strips = instant tubeless success. The tires/rims immediately held air and required the least amount of shaking/spinning to finish the job of any tubeless setup I've ever done. Four days and three hours of riding later and they don't seem to have lost any psi's. Golden.

Before getting the rims, I was afraid that I'd have constant concern about dinging the rims but I'm happy to say that not once while I was blasting through rock gardens yesterday was I even the least bit concerned and their stiffness, tubelessness and slight weight reduction from my other wheelset were welcome. It's too early to give a real report just yet but, so far, I'm happy.

Take A Guess 

Props to the first person who guesses what is new on my bike (there are actually a couple of things but I'm looking for one specific answer) as it rests against the chicken coop and the hastily built chicken run that I conceived and built yesterday so that we can stop keeping the local fox family so healthy.

And, also for your viewing pleasure is a second installment of Brynna singing. This is a shorter clip but she makes up for it with an extreme close up.

I wish I had more to write aboot (that's for my canadian fans) but things just aint too exciting these days. The quality of my training rides seems to be improving of late but weather  keeps giving me the high hard one.  After such a beautiful early spring, I guess we had this coming.  take this week for example, I had a hard morning road ride and an afternoon mountain bike ride planned for tomorrow so, of course, we're going to have 30's and rain all day. Joy! And then on Wednesday I planned to have another go at the uber fast Cape E. mountain bike ride I wrote and video'd about last week but that's looking like rain as well. I can be a tough guy and ride in the rain but rain + cold temps = sheer misery. Maybe I'll toughen up enough to do one of the rides.  Maybe.

My Wife Is A Nag 

But, at least she isn't asking for a diamond necklace.  I also like that she clearly notes that it is for her so I don't accidentally think that I wrote it to myself.  Bottom bracket shopping I go!