Blankets Creek

I have a special place in my heart for Blankets Creek. That trail was the first real trail I rode my Karate Monkey on. I went out there in May of 2008 on a balmy spring morning ready to rip up some dirt on my new bike. I hadn't been on a mountain bike in probably 2 years, much less had I ever ridden more than 5 miles offroad. So I was totally amped. I had invested all this money in this awesome single speed bike and was planning on upgrading it as the money came in and it was going to be great.

I get on the trail and the first thing I notice is everything hurts. My arms are rattling around, my back is sore, my shoulders are getting a serious shake and I can barely keep pedaling. I don't go more than 1 mile before I get too overconfident and I try to go over a poorly stacked log pile in the trail and endo, hard. I went over the handlebars in less than 10 minutes of breaking in that bike. My knee caught the threads from my brake screw and got cut wide open. It wasn't a deep cut, but one of those that paints your leg a different hue of red. I was hot, hungover as shit, tired and I had just spent a sizable sum on an activity I knew I would enjoy, but HATED at that moment. I wanted to throw my bike into the lake. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to cry. I was so spun and dehydrated I didn't even know what to do. Luckily my friend gave me a Pro-Bar and forced me to sit down and drink some water. This calmed me down. I couldn't shake that nagging sensation that I had just wasted a lot of my money and time into something I despise.

This was my first exposure to mountain biking. After approximately 1 hour of slogging, heavy braking, 0-mph clipless fall overs, I emerged from Dwelling loop. ~4 miles of mountain bike hell. I looked like hell, was wearing a crappy old polyester cycling jersey, old navy nylon shorts with no chamois and was covered in sweat in the 85 degree sun. I hated life. So after I gathered my thoughts was pumped full of water we decided to tackle South Loop. How hard could it be on a rigid 32x18 SS with no previous experience. 1.5 hours later and a lot of walking, hiking, pushing we emerged from there and felt victorious. I had not fallen over the handlebars and I called that a victory. I then realized mountain biking isn't about how fast you go or how well you do its just about completing a challenge. Who cares if it took you an hour to do something some people do sub 20 minutes? No one. I felt better. I felt like I had made a step in the right direction with this decision. I felt rewarded and man was I high on endorphins. Runners high? Psh... Mountain biking high is better.

So I pondered all of this yesterday as I tore through Blankets Creek nailing Dwelling loop in just under 26 minutes without hardly losing my breathe. Sure now I have gears and a fancy fork, but those don't make me much faster. I'm sure most people who have ridden with me on both say I'm about even going SS or geared. I get lazy with gears on climbs, but it makes me faster on flats and downhills where I'd normally spin out. Whereas on a SS I tear up climbs so they are over sooner and try to manage every bit of momentum out of downhills and flats after I spin out. I probably could have gone much faster but it wasn't really my goal. I just wanted to see where an moderate pace ride would land me.

Blankets trails were recently pretty wrecked by all the rain we've had. Most of the trails were underwater. So a few spots looked and felt different, which was nice. They aren't the best trails around, but they are what they are a great place to get introduced into mountain biking.

So as I progress into the realm of pushing myself a little further this week I will be taking on Snake Gap Time Trial. I am opting for the 34 mile option this year. Hoping that I will finish. Slow and steady wins the race? If by winning you mean finishes, then yes. My only goal is to finish. I think it's very doable, I just have to pace myself. Last year I went into the first race with the mentality of push as hard as I can for as long as I can and deal with it. I started the first climb and began to hammer up it for about 3/4 mile before my legs were screaming with pain. I still had 16 more miles to go and I was already hurting. I would walk it off a bit and carry on. On the donwhills I was very sloppy and could not keep the bike in good contact with the trail. A lot of that had to do with the mist that coated my glasses/gloves/face which made visibility difficult. The 3rd attempt though I had a different strategy. Rather than race the race, just ride for fun and take my time. Don't kill myself on the climbs, just roll up em and get off and walk if need be. I was only racing a clock and knew I was in no contention to get top 3 or 5 or even 10. I took my time and even shouldered my bike through a lot of the technical rocky parts but smiled the whole way and would even jog a bit when I felt my HR slip. I knocked 25 minutes off my first time by adopting this new strategy. My mantra then became "race your race." It all goes back to "who cares?" No one is gonna give you shit if it took you 15 minutes longer than the guy in front of you. You did it and they can't take that away from you.

So I plan on "racing my race" come January 2nd. See you guys at the finish line with a bowl of chili and a tasty brew.

Seattle

So I went to Seattle last week. I'll put up a few pictures that I took later. The thing that everyone says about Seattle is that it rains all the time and the weather is crappy, but the city makes up for it, as well as the awesome summer weather. The weather ranged from 15 to 38. It got over freezing before I left, but for the most part it was sub freezing temperatures. The sun was out though! So when its 25 and sunny it feels a lot warmer. Plus there was no wind, which was a big plus and a change from most big cities, like NYC, Chicago, Boston, and even Atlanta where the wind can get unruly quickly.

So what did I do you ask? Let me make a list.
1. Saw where my sister works.
2. Walked to Pike Market, a few times, saw fish, first starbucks and all other Pike Market stuff.
3. Went to the Space needle
4. Walked a lot, like ~10 miles a day
5. Saw the I-5 Collenade Mountain bike Park (http://evergreenmtb.org/colonnade/) Did not have a bike to test it out, wished I was into freeride
6. Hung out in Freemont
7. Hung out in Raveena, played bike polo with total strangers, scored a goal and showed that ATL can play polo despite I fell a lot
8. Rode 17 miles across town on a 13.5" mountain bike (wahoo bunny hops!)
9. Went to the Seattle Art Museum
10. Went to Seattle Public Library (amazing!)
11. Walked around downtown
12. Saw Bellvue
13. Saw West Seattle
14. Kerry Park (best view of the city)
15. Canal Locks (feats of engineering!)

The rest was mostly small stuff while walking. I walked a lot. My ankles were sore and reminded me of why I'm not a rummer type. It was an awesome trip. I could seriously see myself living there, but the cost of living is a bit higher mostly cause of the housing, but perhaps someday after I get some nerve and pick up to move out of my favorite city Atlanta. Well maybe not in the world, but so far its still one of my favs.

All in all a great trip. Jet lag is a bitch. I'm waiting in another airport today going to Jamaica. I need to get a bike ride in something serious, but I won't be able to until Friday at the earliest it looks like.

Possible plans for NYE week are looking like an epic journey through Pisgah, 20 mile loops at a time. I'll see what shakes down and if the weather isn't MEGA freezing. I don't mind cold, but super cold, like die if you have a problem is not my idea of fun.

That's all for now folks.

Cyclocross & 2010

So the season has come to an end. I figure I'll go over some of the highlights this year for me as a brief overview.

For those of you who read this, all 3 of you, and you are wondering what cyclocross is. Its a bike race that consists of riding a modified road bike offroad in the dirt/grass/mud. There are obstacles and hill climbs that one must run over/up/down in order to complete the circuit. Each race is timed and will only last a 30 minutes to an hour. The courses range from 1-2 miles or so and are usually pretty fast in nature.

So this year's GA cyclocross series started out in Macon GA. I was totally amped cause I had a new bike I was very familiar with riding and had just gotten. It was a 2005 LeMond Poprad. I love this bike. It's my first real road bike. It's a Reynolds 853 steel frame with 105/ultegra components and some beater wheels. I got it in April of this year off of Ebay. So since I had the bike I figured I might as well race in C's. So I did. It was my 2nd C race, and I did pretty good. I felt good on the bike and it handled like a champ around corners. Its very very easy to tell when you are going to loose grip and its very forgiving in its corrections. So this was the start. It was a fun race. I did SS and C's. I tried to keep this up most of the season. I ended up doing 3 SS races and 6 C races in 6 races overall. One of the races didn't have a SS cat and the C's was where I raced my SS.

Noteable races certainly include Psychocross. I dressed up as Elliot from ET with a doll and basket. We whipped around the velodrome and turned the whole thing into a giant mud pit. It was awesomely painful and fun.

I really enjoyed Augusta's race. That course had just about everything. The run up was good, the hills were good, the flats were awesome. I hope they can keep hosting it there it was a really really good race.

Dahlonega wins the worst race of the season. Jim and I both agreed that this was a punishing course. It felt like 80% climb for 20% of really not fun or fast downhill. The climbs were so rocky/techy/bumpy and there was this ridgeline climb where if you slipped off a line about 8" wide you would slide down a giant hill with very little chance of recovery. It was also very very cold to start the day, but warmed up a lot. The course was on a hillside so half of it was in the shade and the other half in the sun. This made for a terrible chilling/heating race. I totally overdressed, but then felt underdressed. It was horrible. This race knocked Jim out of the series. He did not race until the final.

The final was this weekend at Conyers. We helped setup the course and a few people on our team along with Sorella put most of it together. Big shout out to Kari Linder and Eric Nicoletti for all their hard work. You guys rock. It was a fun race, but I was not feeling the love. After taking a 2 week cyclocross break I lost a lot of my edge and speed. I hadn't done any road rides at all or much mountain biking. I just wasn't up to snuff. So I accepted my bottom 10 finish and had a lot of beers to make up for it. Beer+long climbs=good times.

Dallas race is one of my favorite courses. I know most people aren't crazy about it, but something about the creek crossing and the mud and the STAIRS makes it all totally feel like a cross race. My parents, girlfriend, sister, brother-in-law, and aunt all showed up to cheer me on. It was amazing having them there. It was very strange having my dad yell at me to keep me motivated on the sidelines. It felt like I was at a soccer game when I was a kid and he'd cheer me on, cause he'd always be the one to take me (thanks for that dad). It was a really good race. I did C's and SS and fell apart in the SS, but still managed a finish despite the unrelenting climbs that just soaked up all my energy, but the downhills there let you get some SERIOUS speed and it all balances out. It was a fun day. My sister took me out to lunch too. Kickass. A great family outing watching a member wreck themselves on a steel wheeled instrument of torture for an hour and change. :-)

I didn't get into the series this much this year. The slow guys on our team didn't take as much of an interest as last year. A few guys tried it out and ended up being super fast and moved up in the ranks. A few new people tried it out and liked it. The thing I like about it is the format allows for more crowd interaction than XC racing. In XC you see the start, then its 7 miles through the woods and you see the start again. In cross its every 100 yards someone is cheering you on or at least looking at you and it really motivates you to push a bit harder. Today that did not seem to work for me, but that's how it goes sometimes.

I really need to work on my layout of these blog entries. Will I race next year? Probably yes. I can't seem to shake the hope that one day I'll focus on my training and get faster and do better. I mean I trained for FM24 and I saw results. I saw 2-4 minutes come off my fastest lap times. That's results in less than a month of training, but riding 3-5 nights a week in 12 mile intervals as fast as you can seriously burns you out. I was so done with bikes after that race I took almost a month off, and that was a mistake cause I was not ready for cross and it was too cold to really get any good training in (with my schedule...).

So 2010 my cycling goals shall include but not be limited to:
Complete 34 mile SGTT (just finish, without bonking or hating myself to no end)
Race a few GSC/SERC events
Race 1 6 hour race (team or solo)
1 Dirty Duathalon
1 5k
1 10k
1 half marathon?? (doubtful, but we'll see)
Race GA-CX series

Hopefully focusing on running also with give me a bit of an edge in the department of cross training. I miss running kind of. I used to be halfway decent at it years ago so I know I have it in me. Its just hard to get motivated to start something. We'll see if I can make it happen.

Alleycats

Alleycats are always a toss up of how hard do I want to ride and how badly do I care? My first real alleycat was completed just under about a year ago. It was the Toys for Tots charity race. The idea being we go and pick up toys of people/shops that had them in their store and race them to a central location. This did not pan out as there were not enough toys and too many racers. A checkpoint alleycat ensued. All of the checkpoints... were spots I hit all the time and was VERY familiar with the route to choose.

So the race starts and Jim and I partner up. We both race with Faster Mustache so it seemed like a logical choice. The start of the race was a Le Mans run across a small park to the sidewalk and the race was off. The first intersection was a red light with cars moving through. 80% of the racers dodged and ducked their way through. Jim and I waited casually saying, we'll catch up and not be dead in the process. I like this. I run redlights from time to time, but not like a fool who has no will to live.

So we keep rolling along and this race is much longer than you'd think. Turns out it was about 22 miles. A nice distance cause it weeds out a lot of slower riders and thins out the checkpoints quick. Jim and I aren't fast. Well let me rephrase that. I'm not fast. Jim pulled me a lot and I tried to keep up. Each checkpoint the volunteers kept saying we were in 4th. Cool. Then we were in 5th. Then we were in 3rd. Whatever. Its all gravy. So the final checkpoint was about 5 miles away from the finish a long haul down a hilly bitch of a road Spring St(the one that goes south). After cursing and taking our time we roll into the finish. There are 2 guys there already, "no big," I think to myself "I'm sure there are more inside." There are no bikes around. I find the organizer. He says we got 2nd. Wait what? A casual-ish stroll through the city landed us 2nd? Sweet. We got a prize, too.

So this was my introduction. Easy, do what I normally do. Ride hard, route smart, don't get killed. I've probably ridden 6 or 7 more alleycats since around Atlanta. I have not gotten 2nd again. I did however get DFL a few weeks ago. My prize for DFL included a stack of note cards that had notes from the racers to the last place guy. It was one of the checkpoint missions.

I plan to ride in as many alleycats as I can. If nothing else its fun to meet people and ride around. I never plan on winning. I do however enjoy getting shots or free beer at checkpoints and that will keep me coming out to do more.

Pisgah

So I havn't updated this in forever and I figured I need to be better about that. I rode Pisgah National Forrest on Friday. It was amazing. Lots of hike-a-bike, but totally worth the downhill runs that followed. Taking a 29er SS rigid setup through pisgah was somewhat of a cathartic experience. The pain of climbing followed by the rattling of the downhill really jarred me, but it was really really really fun. I have a whole new found love for my rigid fork. Using Ergon grips helped immensely. I did Daniel Ridge and Sycamore Cove. I tired to do another cove, but got lost and ended back up on Daniel Ridge connector. The trails there just go everywhere. I was in awe of the whole place.

I recall going there when I was younger and I went to Sliding rock, but I had no idea of all the amazing fun that existed in so many remote spots and the challenges that lie before me. I plan on going back, probably after Winter, circa March or so for probably a weekend of riding.

You don't get a lot of "real" mountain biking around Atlanta I'm learning and I've also learned to be a "real" mountain biker I really need to improve on some of my skill sets, such as very long sustained climbing and knowing how to be better at that. So for 2010 I plan on doing some more challenging adventures, such as the 34 mile option on Snake Gap Time Trial, and perhaps the 50 in 2011. I'll certainly think about doing Fools Gold, but will probably opt to volunteer again. As far as racing goes. I don't plan on setting any real goals other than to attend and have fun. I'll never be a podium finisher in most races. I'm just not that fast, but I'm ok with that and I really have no desire to improve my speed. I just want to have a good time, and I do.

Rides upon rides today

So today I got up this morning around 8 am. I promptly began calling would be sleepers to motivate people to ride with me. I then tore out and went to Decatur and proceeded to do a bike scavenger hunt for 4 hours. We kicked ass and got 3rd out of about 14 teams. It was fun. I rode some pretty tough routes and did some silly traffic maneuvering, but I really love that stuff sometimes.

When that wound down I rode home. Total miles on the bike, ~30ish. I then proceeded to rehydrate eat some, and gear up the mountain bike. I hit Conyers today. That trail... is epic. It was just really really really hard. I mean I like technical and I like climbs, but... this was simply beyond my skill set. It certainly will be a placce I will visit again and tear into some dirt singletrack. Total miles on the bike ~38.

38 mile bike ride day. I'd consider Conyers double miles so 46ish. Not a bad day. I'm wiped out, and I just took a small nap so I'm off to hit the down and re-carb my body.
Adios
-bob

Journey to Florida

First off.
Logged about 30 miles on the fix this weekend. After not doing any distance for almost a month my legs are sore in weird spots. Fun.

Going to Orlando for the week. Hopefully be back by Saturday for more festivities in town. ::fingers crossed::

More updates from the road to come.

A sign.

First thing I stumble upon arriving home. I was going to do laundry. Beer helps with that. Good weekend. Very good.

Condo

So I'm buying a condo. Whats up with that? I'm officially old. That's whats up. I am seriously anxious about this whole thing. I mean that whole 30 year fixed rate nonsense and all this hooplah of closing costs and bullshit. It's just frustrating. Soon it will be over and hopefully I'll be a better man because of it and build some equity. I guess it beats paying rent. Which brings me to my next point.

If I'm not in town ever what is the point of even owning a place? I should just couch surf and live in a storage unit when its convenient. That would be seriously economical.

I'm off for a short bike ride to go watch the Red Sox play some baseball and to drop off this loan nonsense. Hopefully it will all come together.

In other news I dropped off my cross bike. They said it looked hopeful to be something simple. I hope they are right. I think whoever sold me that bike had no idea how to maintain it. There was a 9 speed cassette on a hub designed for a 7 max. I suppose its all the same, but I don't really know. I know I'll probably end up buying a different set of wheels for that. CL always has deals on cheapo wheelsets. Yay CL. I hate dropping my bike off at the bike shop. It makes me feel weak and stupid. I enjoy working on my bike and making it work on my own terms. Boo paying someone else.

Bike Misadventures

In the past 3 weeks. I've managed to blow out 4 tubes. blow out a Reba Race 29er fork, explode a shimano 105 sti shifter. Bike fail. I'm wondering why I have the touch of death lately with bikes.