A Good Idea at the Time

Saturday brought the Rain... The KnoxieCross series began with fitting cross weather, as 40 degree temps and pouring rain made for an epic day. I was not wearing anywhere close to warm enough gloves, and after a lap or so, my hands were so stiff that they were more claw than hand... Shifting and braking were painful, and my lap times slowed horribly as I was thinking in my head how many fingers were worth losing to finish the race. I managed to finish, and spent the next half hour in the car with the heat on full trying to convince my appendages to circulate blood again.

Looking back, 2008 was a pretty good year to be on the bike. I started January off by getting a Soho S to commute around on and run errands. It turned into one of my favorite bikes, and ended the year with nearly 2000 miles of commuting and greenway riding on it. If you don't have a cheaper bike to just commute around on, get one! You will not regret it! Road riding was good as well, with tons of miles, and lots of new routes explored around Knoxville.

Getting new bikes is always fun, and I couldn't be happier with my Rig and Superfly. Singlespeed was something I always wanted to do as something different, but I was surprised with how much I enjoyed it. After waiting 5 months for a Superfly, I was enjoying the SS so much that the long awaited geared machine certainly felt neglected. The Rig has been a wonderful ride, and I can only imagine what joys await me when the Rig is converted to shiny carbon and horizontal dropouts flavor. Despite the greatness of the Rig, there are those days and races where you need gears, and the lightweight ride of the Superfly can't be beat. The big wheels are the real deal, and I can't imagine ever riding anything else.

My mountain bike season started off well with a win at the Dancing Bear 6 Hour race on New Year's day. A shame they didn't have the race this year. [Although, I can't say I miss the experience of riding all day with a 33 degree high and then trying to change clothes in the freezing dark afterwards...] I got my first taste of the NUE series with a good singlespeed ride in the Cohutta 100. I then proceeded to nearly burn myself out by racing a 100 miler, two 12 Hours, and a 24 Hour race within a 35 day period. I really enjoyed the NUEs, and more of those will definitely be on tap for 09...

Alot of near misses this year, with a 4th place in the SS at Dirt Sweat and Gears, 5th at the Burn 24 Hour, and 2nd at the Cowbell SS, Black Bear Rampage SS, and Tsali 12 Hour. Those days are just motivation to work harder, and a win at the Night Train 12 Hour was a nice reward.

A big thanks to all my sponsors for 2008. There's nothing better to roll on than big wheels from Gary Fisher, and best in class Bontrager bits and goodies complete the ride. Infinit Nutrition has definitely elevated my riding with customizeable nutrition products to keep the energy coming for everything from hour long XC races to 24 hour suffer fests. Thanks again, and I'm looking forward to another great year in 2009.

After some initial slacking, I finally got around to beginning the arduous task of converting the SuperFly to cross mode.  This pretty much consisted of swapping my fat and grippy 2.25 acx tires for some skinny 35c cross tires and congratulating myself on another job well done. Although, I'm not really sure what to call it.  CrossFly? SuperCross?  Take the easy way out and just add "CX" to the end of it?  Meh, who knows...

Looking down at the skinnies felt sort of odd at first, but I soon got used to it.  I headed up to Bristol, TN for the Mud, Sweat, and Gears cross series last weekend for some fun and painful times.  Cross weather came and went, with most races involving a random combination of super-gusting winds, pouring rain, and bright sunshine, with a relatively constant temp of around 40 degrees. Being mostly an endurance guy, cross racing is always a shock to my system the first race or so, but it was fun day out on the bike. Congrats to area trek rep Jeff Haase for a close 2nd in the Masters race.

The 29er is definitely sufficient for a cross bike, at least for what I do...  At 22ish lb, it's def a bit heavier than most cross bikes, but in the tradeoff you get much much better brakes, as well as the ability to leave some travel in the fork for rough courses.  Not enough of a tradeoff to make me get a cross bike yet... Although, that Presidio looks pretty sweet... Hmmm...

Oh, and even Lance knows that 29ers are where it's at...

With two beautiful Sundays in a row, long road rides have made a come back. Who would have thought that it would be 75 degrees in November?

After riding for 12 hours last Saturday, I was looking forward to a nice relaxing Sunday. I had an offer for a road ride, and figured it would be a great way to stretch the legs out and get a good recovery ride in. The duration of the ride was never specified, so I somehow assumed it would be around 1.5 hours, maybe 2. Twenty minutes in, we met up with the rest of the group, and it was decided we should ride for 3 hours. I wasn’t too thrilled with that prospect, since I was already suffering on little rollers and falling off the back. I was able to stick it out though, and it turned out to be a good ride. Nobody was in much of a hurry, so everyone could enjoy the ride and chat while I was in the back glued to the wheel in front of me and not talking to anyone. I also had some pretty sweet slow motion scenes giving it everything I had climbing and watching the single digit speeds mock me on my computer. Survival was the theme of the day. But in the end we had a nice 3.5 hours of sunny roads, so I couldn’t really complain.

Yesterday was another fantastic day, with highs on the day hitting 76 degrees. After a productive morning of extra DST sleep and getting things accomplished, E and I headed out to take advantage of the beautiful day. Even though we didn’t have a cue sheet and weren’t completely sure of the route, we decided to attempt a really nice loop towards Sevier County and then back through Walland and South Knoxville. This is the 4th of July route for the SCO club, and we had ridden it on the 4th the last 2 years, but that was it. Our memory was surprisingly good, and we only had one missed turn.

About 32 or so miles in, we were beginning to think about how that DST hour that was so nice in the morning was going to affect the time it would get dark. 40 miles in, we stopped at a gas station in Pigeon Forge (Or Sevierville? Neither? Who knows…) which we always stop at during the 4th of July ride. By this point we were guessing we had maybe 2 hours of light left. After a phone call to see if there was a quicker route back (there wasn’t), we headed onwards as planned. After seeing a sign saying “7.5 miles to the Homestead,” I did the math to find out we had 39-40 miles to cover in less than two hours. Hmmm… (As a side note, I have since been told to keep such revelations to myself if we are in that situation again.)

I guess this is a good time to mention that we were decked out in summer wear only, with no extra clothes or blinky lights of any kind. East Miller’s Cove was free_ing cold at 23-24 mph the whole way, but we were definitely at the point of trading warmth for time. We hit Old Walland Highway with right around an hour of daylight left. We were hoping to at least reach the city outskirts and lighted streets, but I had to lose the glasses soon after we hit Martin Mill, and we were in complete darkness by the time we came over the bigger climb on Martin Mill. Luckily a car caught us right before we went down, so I was less concerned about being run down and could concentrate on descending into the black. On the last section of Martin Mill, we thankfully got some help from a car who paced behind us with the high beams on. Thanks silver kinda smallish SUVish car with bike racks on top. You Rock. It was then smooth sailing after hitting the lighted part of the city.

Our adventure ended with 4.5 hours and 80 miles on the day. Good Times…

The Haw Ridge race turned out to once again be a fun day on the bike.  Even though it rained all day friday, the course was only mildly wet and slick.  I decided to race the singlespeed to start it off.  To know why, you only need to look up above at the title of my blog. You know, riding in circles is just way too exciting, and I didn't want to be distracted by the clickies.  Maybe.  

The 12 Hours of the Hill of Truth is finally upon us.  This is always a great race to end the season with.  It's always exciting to be able to do a 12 hour race and still sleep in your own bed the night before and after the race. Well... Without driving all night and getting home at 4 or 5 in the morning anyways.

Hopefully this year's race will go a bit better than the last one.  I got on a plane in Hawaii feeling fantastic the wednesday before the race. A few hours later saw me feeling sick in the stomach and shivering uncontrollably in an airport with a fleece jacket and 2 blankets on me.  I felt a little better over the next few days, but not 100%. I had already pre-registered, so I did the race anyways.  My first 2 laps were sort of mediocre, but ok if I had kept that pace all day.  My third lap was awful, and I dropped alot of time.  By the end of my 4th lap, I had dropped 15 or 20 minutes off my first lap and had stopped 3 or 4 times to share the contents of my stomach with the side of the trail.  After that, I called it a day...

With 100% chance of rain today with one inch of rainfall expected, it's gonna get messy for sure. Looks like I'll be starting on the SS. Actually I'll probably just ride it all day. Gotta keep it interesting...

Over the past few days it seems like fall has finally arrived.  After sweating on my commute in 80 degree weather a few days ago, I'm now breaking out the winter clothing and learning how to shiver again.  I guess right under 40 degrees isn't that bad, but I'll probably still complain and whine for a few weeks about it.  

Although I've been carrying my camera with me everywhere, I haven't been finding many good pictures on my commute. So far, this is about the only good one I've been able to find.

Because I'm pretty sure it's not really love until you write your names on a rusted out industrial sized trash dumpster. I would have loved to have seen the moment this happened...  Maybe they were huffing markers and there was something magical about how the moonlight glinted on the dumpster. Something profound about the shadows from a streetlight?  Who knows... Godspeed Johanna and Wesley...Godspeed...  

The 2008 Black Bear Rampage down at the Ocoee whitewater center turned out to be another great time on and off the bike.  Tanasi is one of my favorite trail systems in the southeast, so its always great to get down there and race.  

I had decided to rock the singlespeed, and got a little excited at the start as I jumped away a little too hard on the road climb.  But I settled back in, and thought I hit the singletrack in first. But I had apparently been watching the wrong guy, as I found out at the end of the race that one guy had slipped by on the doubletrack and I hadn't noticed.  Where were you on that one eyes?  

But the rest of the race went without incident.  My form isn't quite what it was earlier in the spring, but I felt good and had a consistent race.  The 32x20 was close for most sections, but a 19 would probably have been better.  There are quite a few long flat/rolling sections that I was pretty much spun out on.  I finished up the race in 19th overall, and 2nd in the SS.

I think this year's BBR was a definite improvement in most aspects. Adding the road climb was a great way to start, and basing the event at the WWC is much better than the overflow lot.  And the inflatable kid's slide was more fun than it probably should have been.  My one complaint would be having to wait 3-3.5 hours for food, and that there was nothing to drink at all besides monster energy drink... Well, that and the god-awful retina burningly ugly shirt.  But overall, the BBR was definitely good times.

I managed to snag a few clicks from the Shenandoah race last weekend.  I ended up rocking the glasses in the helmet for probably 70% of the race, which is odd, as I'm normally the guy that wears them in the dark, in the rain, whatever... I never take those things off.

The Shenandoah 100 ending up being one of the roughest days I've had on the bike all season. With a tough course with tons of climbing and rocky technical descents, it was not so much a place that tolerated mediocre legs.

The race started off decently, and I was making up quite a few places on the initial rolling climb. However, I started to fade to the back of the group I was with on the first major climb. I still felt decent, and didn't do too badly on the first rocky singletrack section. However, coming down a descent 15-20 miles in, I heard a loud pop and hiss as a sharp rock punctured the rear tire. I got the wheel off and found the hole, but it was too large for the sealant to get. As I was getting a tube in, 2 or 3 other people came down and punctured in the same place.

I got rolling again, and hit a long steep singletrack climb, where you could see 50 people ahead of you walking up the mountain. The walk seemed to take forever up to the top. Another fast descent full of rock gardens and off camber roots saw me down to the aid station at mile 45. I was a bit undernourished, as I had decided to roll with 3 bottles only for the first 45 miles, not expecting it to take me well over 4 hours to get there. As the race wore on, I was getting more and more frustrated as my legs would come and go and as the rocks continued to destroy my hands. I could make time on the climbs, and then immediately lose it all trying to come back down with my fingers feeling like they were breaking apart with every bump in the trail.

The last 30 or 35 miles turned into a painful slogging up and down the course to just get it done. I can't remember the last time I did a race where I was just completely over it mentally. After tons of mashing up climbs and bouncing down the rocky descents, I ended up finishing in 10:11, and couldn't have been happier to be done with it. Not really an ideal day, but you've got to take the bad with the good. At least the race had a great atmosphere and tons of food to smooth everything over. Maybe next year...