life of bob

Slower and Faster

2010-07-16T07:53:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what 3 weeks off of a road bike can do to your conditioning I've learned. My troubles began when I saw I had a cracked rim between two spokes on my cross/road bike. I said, well I can ride the fixed gear commuter/beater around for a while till the wheel is fixed. Nope! Turns out after extensive abuse in polo one of the spokes keeps shaking loose at the nipple, despite holding tension, it pops each one of my tubes systematically from the rim side. :(

As all of the people I normally ride with were racing and winning at the track last week I decided to go and punish myself a bit. Last year I went to Blankets on the 4th of July and did 2 laps of the whole thing, including warmup and cooldown, about 28-30 miles. I was planning a similar attack for Sunday. I did not take into account 1)I've not been riding as much 2)It was fucking hot (95+ in the shade)

Needless to say after limping through the last 2 miles of the first lap, I called it quits at about mile 15. I felt like crap. I had hit a tree, taken a stupid fall on a switchback and was tired as sin. I had plenty of water, but not enough foodstuffs. The first half of the ride I battled "Barfcon 1" signals being thrown at my brain, and the 2nd half I felt I couldn't get enough water into me, despite staying up on my electrolyte tablets. So after 2.5 hours of wailing and mashing and sitting on the side of trails slowly crying to myself I limped back to my car got naked and put up my bike. I was sore the next day, I'm rarely sore from a workout on a bike these days.

So it seems the summer has taken its toll and I've gotten significantly slower, or I feel slower. I have been working too much and not spending enough time riding bikes or exercising and its a bummer, but it is what it is.

As fast as I felt in March I feel 4x as slow now. I don't know why I let it bother me, but I do. I feel like another year has gone by and I feel I'm starting to actually get older.

Good news is that I got a new fixed rear wheel, and will have my 9speed rear road wheel fixed today so hopefully I'll get in some road riding this weekend which will calm my nerves. I did my first real ride on the road in about 3 weeks last night and I felt pretty good about it. No ape-n just some riding and man I forgot how much fun riding in the city can be when you aren't trying to lug a 30lb mountain bike with too low of a gear around. :)

Been a minute

2010-06-09T17:35:00.001-07:00

Felt like I should write about this:

I did an adventure race last weekend. If you don't know what an adventure race is don't be ashamed, neither did I. I always knew they were a bit crazy and involved running through the woods, but not quite like this. My best analogy for an adventure race would be an alleycat in the woods where you have lots more rules than an alleycat. Instead of going to street intersection or addresses in the fastest order on bicycle you have to run through the woods or bike down trails to find checkpoints. You'd think they'd put the checkpoints in relatively easy spots on the trail so you could see them, but no they hide them on purpose cause they like to see blood come out of your legs.

There were a lot of people there. I don't know how many teams total, but at least 40 or so. We had a team of 3, me, Jim and Laura. Turns out the Co-ed team category is the most competitive as the best team had 27 checkpoints to our 13. Wahoo 13! The start consisted of running to a point where you team mate swam to. We met up with Jim and continued our run back to the start where we were to decide if we were going to Run or Bike. We chose bike. There were lots of bikes. We went down the trail in the direction which seemed fit and were making pretty good time and then 40+ bikes were just stopped on the trail and people were running around in the woods. We asked "what is going on?" Most people did not answer cause they took the race too seriously and wouldn't want to assist a noob team (we got a lot of that through out the day it seems). Turns out they were looking for the checkpoint. I didn't even know what it looked like. I figured it would be a dude signing manifests in the woods, like an alleycat. I was wrong. It was an orange and white box much like in Mario Brothers, hanging from a tree, with a stamp on it that punched your card. We carried on and tried to avoid the TERRIBLE riders that were stopping every 20 ft in the MIDDLE of the trail.

Soon we came upon the Orienteering course. This was an optional course, but we decided to give it a go. I was put in charge as I could read maps and play with a compass rather well. Turns out I'm pretty good with a compass, but terrible at finding the easiest path around thick brush. After walking briskly through thorns, creeks, mud, and brush we continued on our bikes. There were less people biking now as most people had spread out. The heat of the day began to set in and I began to feel terrible. I had gotten shit for sleep 4 nights leading up to the race and was really running on empty after spending 12 hours in a Fuel Farm in 100+F heat the day before in Miami and only getting 4 hours of "sleep" before the race. I was getting noticeably cranky and annoyed with each request of "where are we?" and "which way do we go?" The map did not have many of the dirt paths we needed to travel on to get to each checkpoint. We were not allowed to ride through the woods on our bikes but only run. We were also not allowed to backtrack on the bicycles on any trail or be DQed. The last 3 checkpoints we tried to find got increasingly more annoying. We got lucky and saw a few people who found some nearby but soon were all alone. The asking of people "did you find B7?" usually was met with silence. I did not get a good feeling from the other racers. It lacked a togetherness feel. Its was obvious we were struggling but not many people offered any help, and this was adding to my frustration. I gave up my map duties and offered insight, but felt it was hopeless. Soon the team agreed and we just decided riding bikes fast would be more fun.

After we spent over 4 hours of biking and doing an orienteering course, in cycling shoes, we pretty much called it quits and made a beeline for the end in hopes to get in a treking(running) checkpoint. I had a slow leak I had been fighting all day which turned into a big leak and I was riding on the rim in short time before I knew it. We were still 2+ miles from the end. I had to change a flat on the fly with no CO2 and a very crappy hand pump. My teammates had left me in the woods as they did not hear my "FLAT!" cries. I knew they'd come back. They did, just in time for me to ride back with them. I dropped a chain within 1/4 mile after that and had to stop. Then my wheel was set wrong and was rubbing the frame, so I had to set that. I was getting more and more and more frustrated and I knew I was nearing the end of my water supply as I did not plan to be out for so long without making it back to our transition area.

After we finally made it back. I felt destroyed. I was tired. I felt I had let the team down with my lack of navigation perfection. Riding on a bearing on a trail that moves around and isn't on a map vs running through the woods are 2 totally different animals I learned. We had 33 minutes till the time cutoff. I really didn't want a DNF so I opted to not try and get the treking check point incase we got lost getting the one checkpoint. Soon after this Laura jumped into the lake followed shortly by me and Jim as it was too damn hot. We ate a pizza and some chikfila and went home. I slept like a log.

Adventure racing is not my speed. I'm just not a big fan of racing that sort of length in an open format I guess. I'll stick to alleycats, short cyclocross races, and the occasional loop around the track when I'm around.

Level Up

2010-04-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while its nice to relish in the fact that I'm improving as a cyclist and athlete every day. I was checking my records. I have only been mountain biking seriously for just under 2 years now. I got the Karate Monkey in June of 2008. I plan on taking it on a 2 year anniversary ride sometime that month someplace fun.

I'll never forget that first ride on that thing. I had been mountain biking twice before then. I owned a crappy GT bike and tried to make it rideable but it just wasn't working out. I didn't have the know how I have now in bike repairs or part placement. Anyways it was stolen and I figured it was a good reason to buy a nicer bike. So after lots of research I figured my reason with why I was so bad at mountain biking was the design of the smaller 26" wheels. The 29" wheel allowed for easier rollover on roots and rocks, which always seemed like a hindrance to me. I tried to find a good low price frame that wouldn't break or fall apart or be flexy like a noodle. I had read a lot of good things about Surly had a few friends who rode steamrollers who loved em. Why not? It's an American company who outsources their frame building, but at least it wasn't a Next or Schwinn. I decided on keeping it simple as I didn't know what kind of gears to get or how well I'd be at shifting gears and just go single speed. What a great way to start riding a mountain bike. It's like learning to drive in an manual as opposed to an automatic. However I did learn a few habits that have been hard to break, but overhall haven't hurt me that bad. So for the first 7 months of the Karate Monkey's life it was a Rigid Single Speed geared at 52".

The first ride on that tank was epic. I went to Blankets Creek in Woodstock and proceeded to make it about a mile down the trail before I hit a log ramp without under weighting the front and went over the bars, hard. I hit my knee on a bolt that was hanging off my brake clamp and split it open pretty good. I was about 1.5 miles into mountain biking and had already gone over the bars once (a feat I've only ever done once since kind of). I got up from my fall and was beat up, tired, hungover, hot and miserable. "Welcome to Mountain biking" my friend says to me. Jerk. I really began to wonder if I had wasted my money on such a contraption. What had I done? This wasn't fun. We trudged on through the day and did Dwelling loop in over an hour and more or less the same on South Loop. I hurt bad. Everything was sore. I hadn't even gone 10 miles and I was thinking, this is a lot harder than riding around on a fixed gear in the city.

I look back on that ride and its nice to see how far I've come in just under 2 years of mountain biking. It's really kind of neat. I hope I get to ride some silly awesome trails for a long time.

Oh I also had a kickass road ride last night. 17.6mph avg over 1800ft of climbing in 25 miles of roads. Wahoo!

Athens Twilight Wake n Ride

2010-04-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

So last weekend in a continuation of my previous posting about the fun stuff that happened. We woke up early and drove to Athens to go punish our bodies. 5k run in the morning went faster than I thought despite the painful rain and stupid hills.

About an hour after this even was done we suited up and began our assualt on the 100k bike ride. I'm not much for long road rides. I usually like to dilly dally and just take my time. None of this pace lining and attacking business. I'm still a rookie when it comes to group rides, but I feel this even kind of helped me ease into some better road riding habits.

We missed the official start of the ride, but had already gotten our first cards of the Gambler ride. A poker run, where at each checkpoint one gets a card from a deck and the best hand wins a prize, supposedly. So I get mixed in with some other riders off the front as I'm feeling stiff from the run. I keep my team mates in sight, but soon they charge on ahead. I'm drafting slower riders and I'm trying to bridge the gap, but each time I pull to bridge a gap to the bigger group, no one follows so I'm out on my own. There was also a monster headwind. I did a lot of back and forth with some guys and ladies who didn't seem interested in helping get into the pack. I accepted my fate, and rolled back with the slower group and figured I'll ride with these 2 or 3 guys and if they want me to pull for a while I'll do it. They never do, so I ride a wheel for the first 5-10 miles to the first checkpoint. The checkpoint has cookies, hammer gels, bananas, heed, sandwiches and granola bars. I eat about 5 nutter butters and fill up my bottles. My team mates are there waiting on me. This time they leave with me.

I get into the pack. I have not done much organized road riding. I felt like I was at about 60-70% for the first third of the race. I let the stronger riders pull and once the head wind died down I took a short pull of about a mile or so. I am not much for a puller as I have a terrible sense of my own speed and have a tendency to burn myself out quickly. Luckily the wind had died down a good bit by this time and I made it up a fairly long hill while keeping pace with the 2nd guy pulling in the 2 line group. It felt good. We stopped and ate some more food and took some photos on a bridge. I had never really been across a wooden bridge and it was nice.

After the wooden bridge the rain started to pick up again. It had been sprinkling on and off all day, but it started to come down pretty good. The problem with riding in the rain is the fact that when you take a pull you end up with a face full of water from the rooster tail on the guy from behind you. Not to mention the skunk trail it leaves going down your back from your own rear wheel. Riding in the rain sucks. Luckily this was just a quick shower and did not last too long. This was around mile 20 or so. The next rest station seemed like forever away. I think it was around mile 40 or so, I can't really recall. Taking a break and eating some food helped lift my spirits. Our pack was pretty much down to 5 of us as people would leave aid stations slower or faster than us.

So me, Dan, Chris, Jim, and Jason all head out. We keep a moderate pace, which is nice. I don't have a real big ring so I can't hammer my face off on the downhills like some people like to do. It's not really a road bike anyways. I ride a cross bike with road tires. The geometry is super comfortable for long rides though. My saddle started to wear on my after about 40 miles tho. I felt my tail bones were getting a bit sore, but nothing too too bad. I trudge on through. I feel like I'm only putting out about half effort and soon I fall off the back. Chris comes with me. We take turns taking short pulls up and down hills; trying to work together in the crosswinds. Eventually we catch up to the group which has slowed to allow us to get on back. Dan and I did the same thing on a hill climb earlier that day. Dan is a helluva rider and did this whole thing on a tandem mountain bike carrying his son all day, who didn't really pull his weight.

At the last checkpoint I ended up with a Full House, 7's and 3's for my hand. It wasn't a great full house, but a full house nonetheless. So we carry on and hear distant thunder. We only have about 5 miles to go, or so someone tells me. I had a feeling this is where it was going to really start hurting. It did. The roads became much more populated and keeping pace lines together were difficult while dodging cars and pot holes. Soon we made it back to the edges of Athens and were slow rolling in possibly the worst rain I've ever ridden in in my life. To give you an idea of how much rain had fallen. I went through a few puddles where my shoe was totally submerged on a pedal stroke. It was crazy. Thunder, lightning, wind, and rain were beating our tired tired souls. I felt like stopping a few times cause I couldn't see very well, but stayed in my paceline with hopes the guy up front would slow up and call out things as he saw em. Eventually we made it within about 2 miles of the finish. We were weaving through a neighborhood and the rain was still coming down pretty good although the worst of the storm had passed. After a rolly industrial park we pulled into Terrapin brewery.

We all got our last card and signed in. I ended up with a 4 of a kind 7 high with a 3 as my hand. They said it was the only 4 of a kind so far that day. It as looking pretty good that I might win a prize. I gave them a number to contact me at. They told me "we'll call you sometime this week." Still no call. :(

Nonetheless though I completed the fastest mile since I was about 12 years old, the fasted 5k, and certainly the fastest 100k all in one day and in the rain. I felt pretty accomplished. It's good to know what you are capable of. I certainly don't have time to train for something or really get into a work out regimen, but I'm still a fairly fit and capable body. Next year I'll plan on doing the same thing. Maybe I'll get a sub 23 min 5k and a sub 3 hour 100k? Who knows. It was an awesome day.

Later that night after a tasty burrito and much beer we watched dudes who were much faster than us ride bikes in a circle around town. Then some girls, then some dudes in hand cycles then dudes again. It was neat. We left though in the pro race as more than 3/5 the field was eliminated with more than 40 laps to go. Only 30 something finished down from 150 and change. The conditions were horrendous. Rain and cold made us quit for the day, after being up for over 19 hours we called it a day went back to the hotel. We ordered a pizza and it was practically teleported to our door as they showed up 12 minutes after I called with it. Ate some pizza and passed out on the floor. I slept pretty well, but longed for more sleep but was hindered by sleeping on the floor and fucking sun. Bah... No hangover ftw though. Sore sore sore sore sore though.

It's now wed and I finally feel about 95% back to normal. Sunday and Monday were difficult to go up and down stairs, but I blame the run for that. Running might stick with me, but I really like riding bikes more(big surprise right?)

How not to ride your bike

2010-04-26T17:05:00.000-07:00

So let me begin by saying this. I've been riding bikes seriously for a while. Not as long as most, but I'd like to consider myself a fairly well rounded rider as the only aspect of bikes I havn't really tried yet involves 45lb+ bikes and 10' drops off of cliffs. So, I guess you could say I'm a bike snob, not like Bikesnobnyc. I'm just a dude who likes bikes a lot.

So on Sunday I went to the Beltline group ride. It was $20 and the money went to Atlanta Bike Coalition. Atlanta Bike Coalition is doing a ton of awesome stuff to promote riding in the city. I'm glad they are making waves and putting together stuff like this. So me and Jim went to see what was up. We had spent the previous day riding our face off in the rain and running around Athens with Chris. So we show up and there are tons of people. I'd say 2-300ish roughly. So we pay our monies and get to our corral to get goin. Someone starts talking after everyone registers and talks and talks and talks. No one can hear them, inside jokes are said, a few people chuckle. Someone finally screams "less talking more riding." This man did not listen and kept talking. I'm glad he's keeping everyone informed, but most of the people there you can bet read the website and are up to date, else they wouldn't have heard of the event. Eventually this guy wraps it up and we begin to ride.

I realize very quickly. This was going to be like a dentist visit. My legs were fairly blasted from the previous days activities, but we weren't riding hard or fast. It wasn't even moderate. I spent more time riding the brakes than pedaling, even on climbs. So we eventually get to a stopping point, after riding an average of 10mph, to the other side of Atlantic station by the water reservoir. We waited about 20 minutes to let everyone catch up. I kid you not, 20 minutes. There were about 120+ riders in this group, which was the "long ride" set to a distance of 28 miles. After the next leg I take Jim's advice and get to the front. I quickly get cut off by someone on a downhill as he gets in front of me and proceeds to slam the brakes. I was annoyed.

How not to ride your bike in a group:
-If you don't ride in the city, and don't know how to change lanes or check over both shoulders, then don't ride in the city.
-If you haven't shower don't keep trying to get in front of me
-Don't ride two abreast next to me and steer me right into a sewer grate and curb
-Don't hammer on a downhill then get in front of me and coast/brake after you cut me off
-Don't ride painfully slow
-Don't complain that riding in the city is for "crazies"
-Try your best to hold a line even on super flat and wide open roads
-Don't be an unpredictable climber who thrash their bikes back and forth like flag semaphore
-After I call out potholes don't yell "thanks for calling the pothole out!" in total sarcasm as you plow through it (for the record there are infinite pot holes in Atlanta)

Before the ride started the guy who kept talking was giving rules of the road and just things you should do. I guess a lot of people just never do group rides and don't know how to deal. After riding the whole day before with a very well formed group where I got pulled all day I felt spoiled and forgot that not everyone does ridiculous stuff like that or knows how to handle their bikes. It was only last year that I did my first group ride and I still get dropped on every single one I go on, but at least I have some experience and know general manners. I guess everyone has to learn sometime. I'm glad I joined a team and have done things I have.

Anyways, I don't want to do another one of those rides. It was a glorified Critical Mass. They might as well have had police escorts. I understand this wasn't supposed to be some fast roadie ride. I get that, but the size was just too much to deal with. I am just amazed at how many people out there that are totally clueless. No wonder cars hate cyclists. I ended up leaving the ride somewhere around mile 10. I couldn't take it.

I'm Bob and I'm a bike snob. Ride hard, ride smart, ride confident.

/end rant.

This is probably the most disjointed blog. I can never focus enough to make everything outline properly. So if this seems like an 11 year old with ADD writing, you're probably right.

Gambler/Twilight weekend

2010-04-25T20:12:00.000-07:00

So this weekend was the Athens Twilight race. A bunch of super fast pro's on bikes get together and race in circles around the city for hours. It's fun as hell to watch, but they put on events for the average Joe's who are watching the race too.

I left my humble abode at about 5:30am on Saturday. I drove to pickup my race mates and we went to Athens, bagel and coke in hand. The weather was bad. Really bad. Rain with manageable temperatures. So we arrived and proceeded to sign in and get our stuff. The first event for the day, for us, was a 5k. I had been told by my comrades I was to run this event in a sub 25 minute time. I have run 5 times total this year, the race being my 6th run. My cardio is in good shape, but my running legs, just aren't there yet. So I begin this run, as does the rain. It rains off and on during the race, a few times really really hard. At mile one I'm starting to feel a good burn and turned in a PR of a 6:40 split at which point I say "this is ridiculous." I plan on hanging on as long as I can with my teammates and keep a pace after I start to fall apart. Around mile 1.5 I really fall apart. I feel like I'm barely climbing this stupid hill and eventually I see the 2 mile sign. Someone yells in the pack 14:40 split. I've somehow managed to eek out an 8 minute mile after that ridiculous first mile. I run numbers in my head and start to think how slow I can go and still manage a sub 25 race. The rain picked up, a lot. My shirt was soaked and it felt like a lead vest from the dentist bouncing up and down with ever stride. I keep telling myself mile 3 is just around the next corner. I find myself in downtown Athens and no mile 3 sign in sight. I try to remember the race course from the map I saw, but my brain was too fried to even try to figure out which way I was pointing. A long slow climb starts and I really fall apart. People are passing me like I'm standing still. I try to catch a draft, but that doesn't work in running. So I move to the side and get about 100ft from the top of the hill and I just shut down. I walk to the crest and get my breathing and legs back into shape. Just after the crest I see the 3 mile sign. I'm about .2 mile from the finish. I have no idea what my time was but I figure there was no way I was sub 25' after this piss poor hill climb. I run around the corner and pick up the pace knowing I can burn it pretty good with only about .15 miles left to go. I come around the last corner to another hill climb and I see the clock. It says 23:__. I flip out. I can't make out the last 2 numbers but I kick it into 3rd gear then 4th and soon I'm doing sprint length strides and everything burns. I see it roll over to 24:00. I realize I'm going to make it in time and I'm totally psyched. I really kick it into drive and pass about 10 people on the last 100 yards and roll into the finish at 24:12 or 13 I didn't see exactly. I was so amped.

I did it. My first 5k since in 11 years. I completed it in 8 minutes faster than than my previous. So after the race I'm totally spun. I am hurting bad. I can't see a damn thing cause my glasses were so fogged up and covered in water. I mozy into the finish area with all the other people who are signing their cards. I sign mine put it in the box, eat a donut, drink some water and go get high fives. It was a win.

Later that day I did a 100k ride in the rain. I'm tired, so I'll write about it later. In short I finished it too. It was the worst weather I've ever biked through in my life.

update from the craziest week of the year

2010-04-10T08:44:00.000-07:00

So let me preface this blog with the fact that I am spending a 10 hour layover in Miami airport today. Why a 10 hour layover you ask? Well when I booked my flights for last week I purposefully put in a long layover in Miami because my company has a job that's on going here and would need some help installing some material. Turns out the guys don't work on Saturday. So I got in at 9:30a and won't leave till 7:10p. Yay.

I'm sure most of you are wonder why I don't update much. I have this tendency to rant a lot on blogs and that is boring. No one wants to read my angsty noise. They could just hum around livejournal for a while and get plenty of that. I tried to break that habit. I still havn't quite totally cleared that hurdle.

So, this week. The week of April the 5th. We have this clients that are in the Caribbean for work. They have tank farms and I check them to make sure the bottoms aren't corroding to shit, as they tend to do in the Caribbean because of the salt water and what have you. So I get to go on a journey to the Caribbean.

Everyone says "Yay you must love it." I don't hate it, but its far from loving it. Let me run down my itinerary and you'll see why its not much fun. Monday 8am ATL->MIA, 12p MIA-SNJ(San Juan PR), 6p SNJ->GND(Grenada). I arrive in Grenada at about 8:45 pm. 15 minute cab ride and my first 14 hour day comes to a close around 9:30p. 3 flights in the bag. Many more to go. So in Grendada I do my survey and everything is fine, takes about 4 hours. Then I go back to the hotel just after lunch and hang out but I go to bed early because Wed looks like this: 6:30a GND->SNJ, 10a SNJ->DOM. Now that's not so bad. Only two flights, but I had to be to the airport by 5:30am, which means getting up at 4:30 to catch a late cab at 5am. Sleep is waning. The fun has only just begun though. Grenada is cake compared to the next leg of my trip.

Now that I'm in Dominica I get off the plane and guess what? My bags did not come with me. I ran from security to get to the gate in time as I did not plan enough time to go through US Customs which you must do everytime you pass through San Juan as its America Jr. or something like that. So I get to the gate and they are holding the plane for me, its 10 minutes till departure, but everyone is on board but me. I have a moment of clarity before boarding I ask "are my bags going to make it in time I just dropped them off 20 minutes ago at security?" She assures me they will get them on the plane. Liar! So I walk through customs as I have no bags except my one carry on which I thankfully packed a pair of underwear and a change of socks and shirt. I've never had a bag lost by an airline. I have waited 3 hours at the carousel for one, but never lost. I guess my number was up. I get to the outside and I'm looking high and low for a shuttle. There are none. There are two taxis. The taxi drivers in Dominica are clever and have gotten together and agreed that if you are to drive solo from the airport to Roseau, the place I'm staying and capital of Dominica, they charge you 70US. I asked 2 cabbies, same price. Just as a test when I got a ride back I asked a few, they all said the same thing. 70 US to take a 1.5 hour cab ride across this island. It's a trip getting across the island. Let me show you a map.

The airport is near Marigot and the town I was staying in is Roseau. Why they put the airport on that side I'll never understand. I guess since the Island is so mountainous or something. Back to my story though. So these cabbies got me by the balls and they know it. 6 people came on my plane. 5 of them had rides. I did not. After I get my bags straightened out they tell me they will come to my hotel tonight as there is later flight coming in. I think awesome, this will work out.

So I get in a cab. We talk most of the way and he is giving me the tourist trip with all the info about the island and the people and the geography, its kinda nice. I get to the hotel and thank him. He is super amped cause chances are he woudln't have gotten a fair all day had I not used him. I check in to the room and proceed to go find some food as its about 3pm by now. I am ravenous as I havn't eaten all day and I've been up since before 5 mind you. I get a sandwich and some Kabuli (the local brew, which is beyond amazingly good). Then I retire to rest after staying up till about 9pm hoping my bags were on the last plane. They weren't. I get up in the morning, no bags. I work on some reports and get some other things in order around lunch I check, no bags. I check online, they still havn't found them. I need the things in my bag in order to complete the survey that I was sent there for. I start to wonder now how long it will take to get my bags or did someone steal them or did they send them to my apt in the US by accident thinking I had gone home. Finally something shows up online that they are being fwd-ed to DOM and should be on the ground by 2 and a parcel service will get them. I breathe again. 2pm rolls around. I start to squirm waiting to get my bags. I realize now that I might not have enough time to complete the survey. I figure if they aren't here by morning I'll call and reschedule. 8:15pm, after dinner, I get a call from the front desk. My bags, 32 hours after my arrival have arrived! I go to sleep thinking about how I am going to make my escape on Friday.

I get up Friday and hammer down breakfast get everything in the right order and take a cab to the tank site. I show up with all my bags the manager there thinks I am crazy, but I don't care. I get the survey done and there are problems so I begin to troubleshoot and after 2 calls back to the US finally figure out what it was. A loose connection on a pipeline was disabling the cathodic protection. It was in a valve pit where gas vapor commonly accumulates during transfer of gas. This loose connection was sparking when I was there. Its a miracle that whole thing didn't go up. I do a temporary fix to finish my survey and explain very clearly to multiple people there the situation they have at hand and how they can fix it. I don't have the appropriate tools, as a 1.5" wrench is not something I generally bring to a job site.

My cab comes on time and I venture back to through the hills of the rain forest. The driver is super nice and actually works with a lot of the people who work at that terminal who go in and out. Having a population of 72,000 dropping a few names of people you have met around the Caribbean gives you some cred and this guy knew a lot of the people I had met. Dude still charges me 70 US to get to the airport. :( Oh well. I get on my plane after having both bags searched twice and patted down 3 times. I think a lot of that has to do with wearing the caffeine molecule shirt as seen here.

So from Dominica to San Juan. I arrive in San Juan around 6pm and wonder if I can make it to Miami that night. I make it through the customs gauntlet where the agent was asking me way to specific of questions and made me nervous. Just doing his job I presume. I look at my itinerary and realize I booked my connecting flight to MIA for the next morning. Fail. I go ask an agent. He says it'll cost $150 and that if I was to get to Miami that all the flights on Saturday are booked till the one I got at 7;10 anyways. Mega fail. I resign after a difficult day of a survey, crazy taxi ride, crowded plane ride to a hotel. They have a Best Western in the airport. I check in and get some zzz's.

I wake up all night but for real at 4:30am to get to my plane which is leaving at 7a and boarding at 6:20a. Just for those of you who don't know you have to have your bag inspected by some giant x-ray outside the airport by the USDA from San Juan. Who knew? I certainly didn't, no one told me. After putting my bag in the giant x-ray I get my boarding pass and get to the gate. I saw my little sister online and I wondered if she was still up. She was. It was now 6a, so about 2am where she is. Weird how that works... Just starting my day, she's ending hers. I miss being able to stay up that late consistently. Uneventful flight to MIA.

I got here and its busy. I mean MIA is packed. I been through this airport a lot, but today is unreal. Spring break travel and everyone is flying it seems. I caved and bought an Admiral pass so I don't have to deal with the droves of people. So here I sit. I still have 7 hours till my next flight but at least I can think and hopefully get some work done.

I say that... and now there is a dog up here barking, wtf.

I'm almost home! I just realized this post is very Dominica heavy. Maybe I'll write about Grenada sometime. Grenada is a lot nicer that Dominica in my opinion. Dominica has a long way to go, but Dominica is way way way prettier as far as geography and landscape.

So when people ask me why I don't want to travel the Caribbean? Look at that joker on the plane without the umbrella cocktail writing furiously on his laptop at 20,000ft and say oh wait I guess people actually work here too. Give me the woods over the beach any day. Hiking through Dominica might be a different story, but I have yet to have the time to do that. So in summary.

ATL-MIA-SNJ-GND
GND-SNJ-DOM
DOM-SNJ-MIA-ATL

More time in airports than anything else this week. Wheee!
Hope this wasn't too ranty, good for you if you made it this far.
-bob

Field life

2010-03-04T05:17:00.000-08:00

The past week of my life has been one of the more difficult ones I've ever had in the field. I'll fill you in later on the details, but trust me when I say its been ridiculous. On top of it all the transmission died in our truck yesterday.

I feel a little bit cursed at the moment I won't lie.

When it all goes bad

2010-02-10T07:39:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it all comes back.

So yesterday I was having one of those days where I was 3 steps behind myself and I couldn't seem to catch up. Let me begin with how my morning started. I got into work early, a rare thing to happen. I am diligently doing what I do in the office when it begins to rain that cold nasty wet rain we had yesterday and I thought to myself... I sure am glad I'm inside today and not working in the field. Just as I complete this thought I get a page from our admin. Someone wants me to do an Underground Storage Tank Survey this afternoon. I try to reason with the man citing the ridiculous cold and weather that would certainly hinder my progress. He does not listen.

So I get together all my equipment and stroll on to downtown Atlanta. I get to site and its luckily under a building on the sidewalk so I am shielded from the rain, but not the cold. Luckily it was not as cold yesterday as it is today (wind chill in low 20's wtf?). So I get to doing my survey and 4 hours later I complete it. I gather all my equipment but during these surveys you must place a probe rod at the bottom of the tank to make an electrical connection. This rod is sitting in about 4' of Diesel in a tank with a 3" wide hole at the top. It's about 10' deep total. Now carrying around a 10' pole would be silly. So we use a painters pole and just collapse it when we are done so we can transport the thing. So I pull up the pole and its separates. That's right, we now have a 5' chunk of aluminum pole sitting in a tank with a 3" wide hole at the top. This qualifies as bad. You don't want extra metal in your metal tank, much less one that will eventually corrode based on the galvanic system.

So that's all for now. The day only got worse. I broke and lost a few more items. Luckily I recovered most of them, like my $350 voltmeter, thank god.

I do other stuff than ride bikes believe it or not. Speaking of bikes, Tribble Mill is the shit. It was fun riding there on Sunday. Wish it was a bit dryer, mud makes me anxious when I slip in a front wheel skid.

Here is a short Video CK made

A NEW CAR!

2010-02-01T20:34:00.000-08:00

I was humming the theme song for the "Price is Right" in my head all day Friday. I bought a new to me car. It's a 2007 Honda Civic. No I don't have any pics of it cause I havn't photographed it yet. It's a car. Gas Brake Steering wheel. Wheeee...

Change.

Experiments in Cycling.

2010-01-24T17:33:00.001-08:00

So every so often I try to make something happen on a bike that really shouldn't happen. I don't do some crazy trick or jump off a cliff I rebuild something to make it work in a way it wasn't designed for. So my latest experiment was to create a polo bicycle without completely destroying my fixed gear bicycle. I seen it successfully done by others so I figured how hard could it be.

When I bought my wheel set for my fixed gear bike it has 2 different kinds of possibilities for cogs. There is a fixed side for track cogs so you can ride a fixed gear and a freewheel side so you can hook up a freewheel which is different from a cassette (like a geared bike). A freewheel is slightly different as it has the pawls and mechanism all within it so you don't need a hyperglide style hub like you see on a road or mountain bike hub. It's also only designed for one gear. So I now have the option to flip the direction of my wheel and change gears in a matter of minutes. The gearing goes from a 44x16 fixed (74.25 gear inches) and the single speed side has a gearing of 44x22 (54 gear inches). So a nice fairly stout road gearing for riding around town, but a nice easy simple low gearing for rolling back home or playing a round of polo.

Now the first problem I had with arranging this gearing was if I could this gearing on my bike without having to re linking my chain to a different length. So at first the chain lenght was too long, then too short. So I had to either re pick a gearing on the SS or fix side to make it work. I tried something haphazardly and I got a half link and magically I could run both. A chain normally has links that have to be taken out and put back in 2 links at a time, that adds up to 1". A half link allows 2 links to be taken out and 1 link to be placed in its position. These things fix a lot of chain tension problems on a single speed or fixed gear and they are totally awesome. So a difference of 6T, roughly 3/4" of movement in the drop and it just fit like a glove.

Now since I was going to be running a single speed I needed a new brake. I learned that a vintage frame has a weird rear brake mount. I got lucky and placed a vintage look-a-like rear brake on the bike, but the lever I had sucked. I did not know that this was the problem. I tried another rear brake and learned that the newer bikes have different rear brake mounts. This recessed bolt was not long enough to fit through the rear mount. So I had to abandon that brake. I got a tricky double mount brake lever that I could pull both the front and rear brake at the same time. This lever sucked. I got different set of brake levers, some Avid 5 long pull brakes. Turns out they sucked also. I began to do some research and realized taht the problem was not the levers, but the style. There are long and short pull levers and brakes. Most road style brakes are short or normal pull. The levers I have are long pull. If you mix long levers with short pull brakes it turns out you have to pull twice as hard to get the force required from the appropriate brake. So... I am currently waiting on my short pull levers to arrive in the mail and hopefully will resolve this braking issue I've been having.

So after some fucking around hopefully I will have my polo/fixed gear machine under wraps. All my bicycles serve dual purpose. This will just be an addition to the list. I need to order a few more parts but I think once my brakes show up things will get to rolling in the right direction and I will be able to stop on a dime.

I must say though after riding bikes seriously for about 5 years now I am still learning new things all the time. Sheldon Brown is still the man, RIP.

Holy Crap you Biked here!?

2010-01-23T00:13:00.000-08:00

This was the response I heard a lot tonight. I kind of like that response. I got a lot of "In a suit!?" or "In this cold/fog/weather?"

These are the kinds of things that start conversations I can talk for hours on. This makes a night with some friends I don't see to often far less awkward at first.

A friend of mine got married. I biked to his wedding. By the end of the night you would have thought I shown up in a helicopter. I'm officially "that guy," to most of them. Most of them live in the suburbs and don't get that this is a perfectly viable transportation option. Yes sometimes I do get cold. Yes I get wet. Yes I sweat, but these are all minuscule hindrances in the long run of doing what I love.

I am officially obsessed.

USA Cycling

2010-01-20T08:54:00.001-08:00

http://usacycling.org/news/user/story.php?id=4560

This annoys me. I am not a big fan of organized races but its a necessary evil to have an entity watching over all of us and make sure everyone is obeying the rules. This year they handed down a rule to all the cyclocross racers that feeding will not be allowed.

This means no more beer, poptarts, honeybun, hand ups or downs. So I guess this means I just carry my own beer and no one give it to me right? I'm sure this won't be heavily enforced in GA-CX much less in the C's or SS race where its pretty laid back and the field is so varied no one really cares much of their placement, except for the few up front I suppose. It'll be interesting to see how other racers take this.

That is all for now.

Taste of Spring (started on 1-15-10)

2010-01-18T09:51:00.000-08:00

So yesterday the temp got up to 56. A balmy sunny 56. I, of course, got on my bike and tore off into the city. It's been a while since I have done battle with traffic as I've been in hermit mode a bit, but it was fun. I dragged my old roomie along who has a single speed which is geared way too high for him. We ambled about and took our time and did a slow 12-13 mile loop around the city. I really kind of wanted to do a solid burn of about 45 minutes, but we stopped a lot to just take in the sights and sounds and stop off in a few places.

I usually embrace winter. I have had trouble this year though as its been far colder than normal. It was good to finally take the cross tires off my LeMond and make it go fast on asphalt though. I really enjoy that bike. It was a bit of a headache when I first got it, but now its pretty much butter. A solid steel frame wrapped up nice and neat with some 105/Ultegra components. It's not the fastest bike or most aggressive but it certainly is fun and very easy to ride with its relaxed geometry. I got it for Cyclocross and it serves a dual purpose as a road bike. It's probably my 2nd favorite bike after the Karate Monkey.

I really want to get better at riding on the road. I mean I am quick, but I can't sustain speed for very long. I have poor habits developed from years of riding a fixed gear and single speeding in mountain biking. I push too big of a gear too long and burn my legs out quick. Then I feel like I don't shift into a high enough gear as I'm used to spinning like a mad man, but slowly fall off the back of the pack. I hope this year I can hang a whole ride on the FM loop in town. I should start riding it once it gets a bit warmer.

I started writing this Friday morning and now its Monday so I totally lost my train of thought so I'm just going to end this beast.

Snow/Cold

2010-01-09T16:12:00.000-08:00

So let me preface this blog post with I'm tired of making the excuse its too cold to do something. Today it got up to a balmy 31 despite the weather saying it was only going to get to 23. The sun really warmed things up but the wind... cut through you like a dagger. So I decided I'd try my hands at riding a bike today.

It snowed in Atlanta on Thursday night. It left some awesome ice patches on the roads that don't get any sun and man it sucks. So I wanted to see how hard it was to ride a bike in said ice. Ice sucks. I ate it hard on my way home trying to stop. I decided to skid a little just to slide across the ice and I went down hard. This was a minor setback as I had bigger plans for the day.

I got my trusty mountain bike and headed for the woods to a secluded trail nearby. There was tons of powder still fresh in the woods. The sunny parts were all melted, but the shady parts were totally covered in snow. A few bike tires had spelled out the best lines for me luckily as this is a mighty rooty trail. A steel bike behaves differently when its sub freezing temperatures I felt like. I couldn't ever get up to speed as I normally would have, but I felt a bit over cautious. My brakes had shifted and my front was rubbing really bad on the disc, but I could not hear it as the constant sound of snow crushing under my tires drowned out most of the subtle noises I normally hear that would indicate a bike needs a little tuning. So I had a really good time. Tree roots are a bitch when its this temp, they act like very long icicles and are more slipper than when they are wet. I had a few instances where a normal roll over resulted in a total loss of front tire contact and bad bad sliding. I had a few small falls, but normally caught myself. So I got to ride in the snow. Something I've never been able to say I've done before. It was fun. It was a lot slower as the snow was on top of a layer of already moist pine straw. It was certainly not optimal biking conditions but how often can you go mountain biking in the snow in Atlanta? If ever?(except now)

So one of my goals was to see what it takes to stay warm in these riding conditions. First thing I learned is that a wind breaking layer on my legs (even shorts) is critical. I wore a pair of cycling shorts under some underarmor long underwear but it wasn't enough. I could never fully get warm legs, but mostly cause I wasn't pushing very hard. My feet were perfect thanks to my Smartwool socks in combo with some Pearl Izumi toe warmers. Those guys make some amazing socks. I finally got to try out my new Pearl Izumi Attack II shoes. This is my first real pair of cycling shoes. I like em. The sole is super stiff, but man they suck for walking in, unlike my Shimano MT41's which are great for walking/hiking/running in. I decided to try the arm warmer thing after seeing a bunch of people use them and I don't know how I ever got by without these things. I am hooked. Smartwool made the ones I am using now and I can ride without a jacket on and still feel great. I have been using my merino wool cycling jersey as a base under another jersey and that is perfect. Occasionally a gap opens up and skin is exposed, but depending on the wind/sun it doesn't phase me too much.

I left the trail early cause I forgot my multitool (knew it would be a short ride and wasn't far from the car ever). I had a chain break. I have never had a chain break on any bike I own so it was due time. I normally do the single speed thing but I have a 1x9 setup now so I can climb a bit more efficiently in the mountains, but I never really felt confident on the 1x9 setup. Today was a perfect example of why. If I had a chain tool I would have gone on my way, but I didn't. So I hiked it out. I wasn't even pushing hard at all. I was in fact going very slowly when it broke. I went to the bike shop to get a quick link for next time it breaks right after.

Random Story

2010-01-03T20:34:00.000-08:00

Gather round blog readers, all 3 of you. I have a story to share.

So, this was in 2008, in April, in Tampa Florida. We were doing a survey on a pipeline under a state highway and had to shut down 2 lanes of traffic. In order to get the permit to do this, we had to work from 9pm to 5am. It was weird. I got used to it pretty quick tho. So there was a lot of random things you see staying up this late for 2 weeks on end.

One night we were eating dinner before 9pm and I was talking about Clockwork Orange, and how awesome it would be to have a pimp cane that had a sword in it. You could just pull that thing out and people wouldn't fuck with you at all. Then do your pimp strut and walk away. Conversations get silly when you are that kind of flip schedule. So we are doing our thing and about 2am rolls around and I see something on the side of the road in the gutter. I walk over with my Petzl light and I see a cane. This cane was short and looked weird. I go to pick it up. It was a pimp cane, with a sword in it. I picked it up and was like, no way. NO FUCKING WAY! So I'm beside myself cause I felt I had some sort of premonition. I run over to my coworkers from dinner and they were beside themselves. I never had anything that coincidental happen to me. I ended up leaving the pimp cane in the road. I was afraid that it might have been a murder weapon, which of course had about 4 workers prints all over it. I really didn't want a pimp cane and it was one more thing to carry the rest of the night. So somewhere in a suburb of Tampa Florida there is probably still a pimp cane floating around waiting for its rightful owner. It wasn't me. I'm not cut out for pimpin.

SGTT #1

2010-01-02T15:38:00.000-08:00

The race/TT that wasn't meant to be.

I won't lie. Part of me was super nervous about the weather conditions. Spending 5+ hours on a bike in sub freezing temperatures on some very very remote trails is not my idea of a good time. At the same time though, that was part of the appeal. I was totally psyched to do this little ride.

Roll in the new year. I woke up with an ear ache from hell and a subtle hangover. No big surprise there. I figure I didn't get enough sleep. I drink some water, eat some toast, go back to sleep. I wake up with an even bigger stomach ache and a more notable ear ache that has gone from annoying to debilitating. I try to take a shower and relax take some OTC drugs to lessen the pressure. Nothing is working, and more importantly, nothing is staying down. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were all rejected by my broken system. At 9pm after having some chicken noodle soup hoping it would stay within me and give me some much needed calories to my already dehydrated and depleted resources it too was rejected. I gave up and went to bed. Sipped on sprite all night and managed to keep it down.

Woke up 13 hours later after sleeping most of the New Years day. Debated getting on my bike and riding 17 in the cold, but I had NOTHING in the reserves. I was totally drained. So I slept some more and wished I was doing the one thing I love. I went for a walk got some food and feel much better now, but when I get sick I do it proper and quickly apparently. I had a subtle fever, threw up countless times, and couldn't stand from the ear ache messing with my balance. Good entry to 2010.

Next month I'll do it tho, hopefully.
Till next time.

Blankets Creek

2009-12-28T19:57:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-15T03:19:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-06T17:15:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-02T19:42:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

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

2009-05-30T18:04:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-05-25T17:51:00.000-07:00

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

Condo

2009-05-24T10:11:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

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.