A Good Idea at the Time

Although I haven't been posting about it, the "Better Know a Knoxville Bike Route" quest has continued. After this weekend, I have finished 29 of the 40 routes, for 1390 miles and over 90,000 ft of elevation gain. Getting closer!

This weekend's dose of pain was 5 routes for a total of 220 miles. Started out with a nice 60 mile ride on friday on the North knox rollers. I felt pretty good, and made good time and what such. Saturday was the big day, with plans to ride a little over 100 miles. The starting location for the Coulter's Bridge routes is about a 35 min drive for me, so I'm trying to do several routes at a time when I go out there. Elizabeth came out and rode the front 68 miles with me.

We started out with a nice and flat 33 mile route that went down old walland, out to townsend, and then did the tuckaleechee loop. It was an easy ride, but my legs were already not feeling so great... The next loop we did was the toughest one, as it went straight up butterfly gap. This is a super heinous climb, and I was reduced to singlespeeding the steep/rough sections in my 39x26. The rest of the climb was steep, but manageable. We climbed an extra bit to get to the campground at the top of foothills. It was definitely worth it to dump cold water all over myself...

After some descending and flats, Elizabeth headed back home, and I was on my own for the last 32 miles. I refueled at the car, and headed on out to finish it up. My legs were hating me, and the little rollers were no fun at all. I got back to the car at 96 miles, and had to go do some bonus miles to finish off the 100.

Sunday was not as restful as expected, as 9:00 am saw me back on the road again, this time out in west knoxville for another 60 miles. It turned out pretty nice, even though my legs hated me. Afterwards we had a nice cookout and hung out at the lake. A great way to relax after a long weekend.

2SWET4U

2-SWE-T-4-U

Too Sweaty For You

I guess that kind of sucks for the passenger...

Another 100 Miler in the books. Ed and Gary from TeamEd made the trip up to Ohio with me for some more pain. The Mohican is a pretty sweet course, with 40 or so miles of singletrack, followed by mostly pavement, doubletrack, and fireroad for the remainder. The singletrack was quite nice, with lots of rolling, twisty, and flowing sections, sprinkled with rocks and tech sections. The first 20 or so miles of singletrack is almost non-stop except for 2 or 3 road crossings.

My lack of riding my mountain bike showed on the singletrack, as I was bouncing everywhere and I wasn't making very good time. I managed to wreck and bust my bad knee with the top tube early in, which didn't help. I felt much faster on the road sections, as they were mostly up/down, and had some surprisingly steep climbs on them. One fireroad climb around mile 82 had me weaving paper boy style to stay on the bike in a 32x20. I guess there are hills in Ohio... I finished up in 9:12, and Gary (ss) rolled in at 9:23, and Ed finished up in 10:30ish.

Nutrition went great, and I felt strong with just 7 bottles of Infinit and 10 clif bloks. It's still amazing to me how the infinit almost completely replaces solid food and gels. Good to see such huge 29er crew turnout as well. There were probably at least 10 or 15 team riders rockin it.

Next up is putting on the Disc Burner 6/12 Hour Race tomorrow, and then heading north to the Lumberjack 100.

Heading out tomorrow for the Mohican 100 to see if I can improve upon the 8th place SS from the Cohutta... We'll see... I haven't exactly been on my mountain bike lately, but hopefully road fitness will reign supreme.

I don't do too much road racing, but it's fun to do one every now and then. I decided to enter the local Omnium (TT, Crit, Road Race), minus the TT because it started an hour away at 7am... Way too early. I upgraded to Cat 4 last year, but hadn't done any races as one yet.

Having never done a Crit, I was sort of nervous, but all the corners were safe and it was actually quite fun. We even got a little teamwork in, as we had a rider in a two-person break, and formed up with 4 at the front to try and slow the pack down a bit. The break got swallowed up in the last 100-200 meters, but one of the SCO teammates won the sprint. As for me, I had decent position going into the last lap, but had to bridge a small gap, and lost a lot of places, gained them back, and found myself 20 ft off the back of the lead group going into the slightly downhill sprint (~.2 mi). I went hard, but didn't make it to it, and got passed by about 20 people, and just sat up to finish in 30th or so. Survived with no injuries, so that's a victory, and it was a good time.

The road race the next day looked to be a better course for me, with 2 major climbs, with 20 miles of rollers in between, and 13 miles of downhill to the finish from the last climb. It started well, with good position in the front during the first climb, but my legs hated me, and I was gapped about 30 sec off the lead group of 6... The chase group that formed was super-unorganized, and was going nowhere... Our team kind of killed it, as we had 3 out of 6 in the break. But the other 8 or 9 guys along with us did not cooperate at all. One or two guys would pull for a bit, and everyone else would sit. The break said they averaged 24 between the climbs... I would estimate the "chase" at 18.

After the second climb, I was in a group of 3 making it over first, then forming up with 3 others at the bottom, and tried to stay away for the downhill stretch. We got caught though, and there were probably 15 or 20 guys in the group now. At this point, no one was working, and we coasted/soft pedaled down. One of my teammates, Phillipe, pulled for a while around 22 (on a road you could hammer down in the low 30s easily), and then I pulled beside him and we dropped to 18. No one else came up. After the 1k to go, people finally started jumping around to sprint for 7th. I missed a jump, and got swallowed up, and finished 19th.

The road race was fun though, with nice climbs and fast twisty descents. I still can't believe I missed the group on the climb, but oh well... It is what it is. I need to get a lot better at jumping on wheels when people go. It's amazing how a split second delay in jumping or being in the wrong gear/cadence is the difference in 15 places in a race. Something to learn from. I won't be hanging up my fat tires and endurance legs anytime soon, but the road races are definitely an entertaining diversion.

I really don't have too much more to say about DSG. It was miserable, and probably the dumbest thing I've ever done... I got a cyclingnews.com pic though while I was still riding the first lap...

Since then, I've pretty much been falling apart. My random knee pain has continued since the Cohutta, but is at least getting better. For a while it was the stabbing pain every pedal stroke on the road bike after around 40 miles or so...

The day after DSG, while I was messing around with the water hose, I managed to put a nail through my foot thanks to a section of fence that had fallen down. It turns out that Sanuks with flipie flopie bottoms are not puncture resistant... I should write a strongly worded letter. Anyway, that took me off the bike for nearly a week, but is at about 90% now.

After finally being able to ride again mostly pain free, I managed to find some gravel on a road ride and went down... I came out pretty lucky on the crash, with relatively minor injuries of scrapes on the forearm and shins, a big chunk out of my knee, and some holes in my hands. Bike survived with only a small scratch on the right shifter...

Maybe I should just try and go a week without hurting myself.

Short Version:

Worst race ever... I can't say I've ever experienced such misery.

Long Version:

After a week of non-stop rain, Elizabeth and I arrived in Fayetteville to a dry field, and set up our gear in hopes that it would stay that way. After all the normal prep of getting bikes, bottles, and lights all set up, I dropped my bike off for the le mans start. As the director said we had 10 minutes til the start, the skies opened up and it started pouring rain. Muddy clay was spraying everywhere as I was going through the field. After hitting the singletrack, I immediately regretted my choice of dry condition tires, as I was spinning out on everything and sliding around. The ACXs wouold have been a better choice, but only for a little while. The rain kept coming down, and the mud spraying up made for some interesting descents after it shot up into my eyes.

The first lap, although horribly bad by most standards, went by pretty quickly, and I rolled into the pit to switch water bottles and get some new glasses. Going through the field was a little slicker, but the first singletrack sections felt the same. I hiked it up the first 2 bigger climbs, and headed down a longer descent that was 4 inch deep slop. I managed to slide out, come unclipped, and somersault down the hill. After collecting my belongings, I headed up the next little roller and started back into the singletrack. At this point I didn't realize that I wouldn't be riding my bike anymore for the race.

I pushed up a bit of the slicker sections, and the wheels began to collect mud and start to clog up. Within 15 or 20 ft, the wheels were so full of mud, that neither wheel would spin, and I had to stop and pull handfuls of mud off to clear it out. I started pushing again, and the wheels stopped again 20 ft later. I tried to pick up my bike, but it was way too heavy. I'm guessing it weighed somewhere in the 80-100 lb range with all the mud. It was amazing to be trying to push the bike downhill, and both wheels would clog up so bad that it would stop. Pushing uphill was much worse, as you had the same problem, but you were trying to push it uphill with about as much traction as you would expect to have standing in 4 inches of sticky and slick mud.

Elizabeth's bike shows the conditions pretty well...

I wasted almost 3 hours trying to push, carry, and drag my bike around the course, but only made it roughly 5 or 6 miles into the second lap. I finally found a cut out back off the course, and gladly took it back to the field to clean my bike and drink beer. What an amazing waste of time and effort to go try and race this thing. This race has been an awesome event the last 2 years, but I will never ever go back if there is a chance of rain... a shame.

As Ed said, "that was the stupidist thing I've ever done in my entire life."

I made the last minute decision this week to head out to Charlotte for the 6 Hour Grind on the Greenway race. With monsoons coming through on friday night, I was expecting a little mud. Luckily, the trails dried quickly, and aside from a few mud pits, the course was perfect after 2 or 3 laps. I chose to race the SS in the open class, and had an ok day. The course was pretty flat, with some short moderate climbs that were well suited to the 32x18 I was running. After having some stomach issues the first few laps, I was able to settle in and finish up the day with 65 miles in 6:15ish, and 4th place in the open solo division. Not bad for a 6 hour, and I really needed to get some racing in before the Cohutta. It's kind of hard to complain much about spending a day on the bike.

The day itself ended up being super long since we drove down that morning... 8.5 hours in the car and almost 6.5 on the bike meant that I slept great saturday night.

My bike didn't look so hot afterwards... 

But, after way too much cleaning on Sunday it was back to normal...