Friday, June 4, 2010

Spectator friendly

Bump and Grind is this weekend....and I am not racing.

I have no idea if I could even pull it off after Burn last weekend and the ever increasing entry fees for short races is not exactly a motivating factor to bring me to the start line. Mostly I am just stoked to hike up to the top of the mountain and watch everyone else race this year.

I am back to feeling normal after the 24. Well, my hands still feel all geriatric but other than that I'm good. The day after sucked, I felt like I had a fever all day and got really tired taking the dogs for a walk. A flat walk.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Burn 24 Hour Race Report

This race could easily be summed up in 3 words for the ADD folks reading this...hard as shit.

I got it in my head to try a 24 hour solo race after finally doing well at a solo 12 (Dirty Spokes Unicoi) last year and went ahead and signed up for the Burn 24 Hour Challenge wayyyy back in January. I knew having already paid my money would serve as motivation to do the long cold rides in the winter, which I suffered through gladly hoping I would have enough miles in the bank come May 29.

The logistics that go into getting to one of these things is insane....the travel time, the money, the preparation. It is hard to imagine doing more than one or two of these in a year.I asked off work in a 4 day block for this Memorial Day weekend to give time to get up there and a day to recover once back home. I went over to Tyree's place Friday AM and we began to pack up the new Honda Element (thanks Cahaba Cycles). We hit the road around nine or so and I looked out the back window and was greeted by two bikes swaying WAY more than I was comfortable with on the hitch rack. After a call to the hitch place confirming that yes, this thing actually could hold an entire fifty pounds of bikes, I still did not trust it. I climbed under the car, shook the rack around some and decided it was time to hit the road. I spent the next eight hours terrified that one big bump in the road was going to send the whole deal crashing down onto I85 N. Rain was forecast for the weekend and about 400 miles into our 450 mile drive the bottom fell out. The campground for the race in Wilkesboro, NC looked like an EZ Up graveyard.
We busted ass to set up camp and soon realized we had both forgotten any sort of clothing appropriate for cold, wet weather. Oh well, bound to forget something. A couple beers and a sandwich later it was time for bed. I didn't trust my Dick's Sporting Goods tent so I slept in the back of the Element which was surprisingly comfortable. I woke up at about six the morning of the race greeted by some of the thickest fog I have ever seen, a beautiful sight. After an espresso and some breakfast I headed out to take a look at the course to see if I would need mud tires on the spare bike I brought...ehhhh, probably not. We met up with Lee (also racing solo SS) and nabbed one of the last good pit areas near the start finish.

Noon brought the dreaded LeMans start, a run all the way around the campground. I say run-I mostly trotted and tried not to cleat anyone around me. With 430 racers in attendance thinning the crowd was a must so the promoter had us do a parade lap. About half of us did a SECOND parade lap....still not sure how this happened and it wasted a good bit of time. Meh. My plan for the first part of the race was to keep my heart rate down and figure out which climbs I could use without burning all my gas before nightfall. Plan failed. I am still not sure why but I just simply rode too hard the first six hours...I knew better, the heart monitor told me not to....check for my first learning experience in a solo 24. I felt good despite going out too hard and rode consistent laps around the 7.5 mile course until nightfall. The Dark Mountain trails up there were awesome. Good steady climbs, fun downhills, and roots....more roots than I have ever seen on a trail. Every last one of them was slick from the high humidity at the race and proved very challenging to ride. Right around dusk I came into the first downhill of the course and saw a female rider down in the trail. I had no time for a good reaction so I made a horrible one and steered directly into a tree throwing myself directly onto my ribcage. Shit...not the right move with 18 hours to go. I didn't look at the damage because I really did not want to know if or how much I was bleeding (turned out to be mostly bruising).

8 PM saw a quick light installation, some chicken broth, Wheat Thins and I was off again. I clipped an Ipod to my helmet with the buds sort of hanging from it to try and keep sane during the night laps. The temperature dropped some and I immediately felt strong again. I knew my best laps would be at night and I was right. I rode all night with no stops at all and just focused on laying down steady times. Around midnight I had a really hard time mentally and have no idea why.

One minute I was happy and cruising along and then really sad I was not at home with Melissa which I had convinced myself would be better than riding at the moment. After spending ten minutes talking myself out of sitting down to cry (it seemed totally reasonable and possibly even productive) I regained some focus and got in a good groove on the tech sections out there. The hallucination began a couple hours after this and I was convinced there were people popping out from behind trees out on the course. It was around this time I realized Snickers and Mountain Dew were the absolute best race food I had at the pit...screw the clif bars, I needed some gas station eats.

I was insistent before the race I did not want to know what place I was in til 6 AM. Tyree had told me a coupe times I was doing well during the night but I did not press for any info. I came though the pit around 4 AM and noticed a singlespeed in a 29erCrew jersey (ended up being Fisher rider Dave Holmes) pass me. I heard someone yell, " Go get him! You just lost second place!" I really didn't feel like hammering to catch someone after riding this long so put in a consistent lap to find out how much faster Dave was than me....two minutes. Not bad. I went out around five in the morning to catch him and leave him for good. I passed him about halfway through this lap and hammered both big climbs on the course to try and put time on him. He passed me again and we rode together through one of the more technical sections and came to a dead stop against a root and just sort of stared at each other in a daze...not the best way to sneak away from your competition. This effort shattered my legs, which had felt like iron up until this. My hands were also on fire from the constant pounding of the roots, all I wanted/needed was to hold onto my podium position.

Around dawn, I saw Lee back at the pit and found out he was in fourth place BUT a lap back on me. I was comforted some by this and went into survival mode the rest of the race. The last few laps hurt. I was totally drained, felt like my legs were about to cramp, just generally getting my ass kicked by this trail. I rode lap 22 with Lee and we got back to the timing area with an hour and a half or so left til noon. From the results it looked like second through fourth was pretty locked in so we tossed our timing chips in. Dave came through a while later and found him so he wouldn't have to go back out for no reason. After collapsing for a few minutes I went to check final results. 3rd place singlespeed and hanging out in the top ten of all solo riders with 165 miles completed! I still have not wrapped my head around this but I am more than happy with how my first 24 solo played out. Called my mom and Melissa to let them know I was alive and headed back to Birmingham watching the bikes bounce the whole way back. I learned a ton at this race.

1)Bring more food than you think you need. Its hard to eat crackers with a totally dry mouth.
2)Ipods rule at night
3)Go way way easier than seems prudent the first six hours
3)Have a good pit guy if possible. Tyree was awesome.
4)WTB Vigo was a perfect saddle, no ass issues at all.
5)Hands really hurt the last few hours. Not sure what to do about this. Hate the Ergons I have tried and am not sure what gloves I should try next. Riser bar seems like a good idea.
6)Caught off guard by how pitiful I felt when I was done, it was ridiculous
7)Advil, Snickers, and soda...yes, please
8)I might have a heat rash...or poison oak. Pretty sure I didn't get scabies out there

Oh yeah, I need a wheel sponsor. Mine are wobblin

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Stuff I should already know.

Lets see if this work....just figured out I could drag and drop photos on here...yes, just like anything else on a computer that has ever happened.

Okay, seems I need an ACTUAL picture location to copy but it will not let me take one from Facebook. Whatever...

This has to be from the first lap at Fort Yargo a couple weeks ago seeing as I am not covered in a mixture of sweat, gritty sand, and leftover food yet.
Dirt, Sweat, and Gears was yesterday and I decided to skip it this year in favor of a lazy weekend at home. I am 60% sure I made the right decision on this one but they sure do have some good prizes (1st place singlespeed got a new Misfit Dissent frame). Next year maybe? I was able to build up the Scandal frame yesterday since I was home with spare parts galore so now I have a back up bike for Burn. This means I do not have to borrow a bike I didn't build! I also recently acquired a Trek 5200 frameset which is just BARELY too big for me. I have no idea what I am going to do with this thing. Not the worst problem to have, I suppose.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Good for nothing

My legs are useless right now and it sucks. It is 75 and sunny and I cannot ride due to some of the worst soreness in my legs I have every encountered. Here is the worst part-this did not occur from doing a long ride or anything else that would justify this in my mind.

The culprit was about 30 deadlifts with 20 pound dumbbells....yes....TWENTY. I was thinking posterior chain strength was lacking and causing some lower back fatigue on longer rides. Ohhhh, how right I was. The good part of this is I know exactly what gym work I need to in the next couple weeks. I am also glad this did not occur the week before a race. My hamstrings are on fire right now and the 20 mile ride home from work last night was a total bitch, granny gear and all. Looks like this weekend will be cleaning house and maybe prepping my new frame.

Scandal

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Dirty Spokes Fort Yargo 12 Hour report

Here we go again...another race with rain predicted. The second stop of the Chainbuster Racing 6/12 Hour Endurance series was this past weekend at Ft. Yargo state park in Winder, GA. I skipped this race last year (which was a mudfest from what I hear) for the disaster that was DSG 2009 up in Tennesee. I decided to go for it this year mostly because I could not come up with a reason not to. Additionally, the Burn 24 Hour is in less than one month and I felt I needed one long ride under my belt....and there is no way in hell I am doing a 12 hour ride by myself at some local trail.

We got the same hotel as in March when we went up to the Heritage Park race. The one difference was the most poorly designed handicap shower I have seen....no slant for the thing to drain, curtain bowed out but the tub did not. Just horrible- flooded most of the bathroom after the race. Back to bikes. I felt good coming up to this race, got in a hundred miler on my fixed gear the Sunday before the race with way more climbing than should have been on a ride of that sort. Took the rest of last week off and hoped for the legs to come around by race day.

After about 2 hours of fitful sleep we got over to Fort Yargo to get everything set up. I caught a couple glances of the trail driving in which would be a good preview of the rest of the race- super fast, buff singletrack with just enough nasty roots to keep you on your toes. I met up with Lee who we shared a pit with and he asked how many laps I was shooting for. Ummmmm. Not real sure so I threw out 9 as a number. The course measured out at 11.7 miles with 1600 feet of climbing (whoah). Lap 1 was super fast (over in 56 minutes) with tons of jumps and swoopy fast singletrack in and out of the woods. I had a local guy riding behind me giving me a veritable play by play on every trail feature coming my way. This would normally agitate me but he knew this thing inside and out, thanks Slo Mo whatever your real name might be. Lap 2 had me bumping up on 170 on my heart rate monitor again on most every climb. I felt fine at that point but knew I was digging a deep, deep hole for the next 10 hours.

The next lap I focused on just riding steady and not wasting energy and turned out a 1:07 which felt a little more doable. It was around this point where I fell into a groove where I was going just hard enough to not worry about how much time I had left to ride. Before I left Birmingham I grabbed a couple "just in case" gels that I doubted I would need. Turns out Ft Yargo had just enough roots to loosen the gel flask in my bag on the handlebars. Five ounces of Karo syrup, sea salt, and chocolate can and will get on everything given about ten minutes- this was disgusting and left me wondering how the hell a flask can unscrew itself. I had no idea what place I was in and on Lap 6 another singlespeeder caught up to me. This guy (Helmet Mirror Man) has beaten me in a few other races and I figured it was a matter of minutes before he rode away from me. We rode together most of that lap then he stopped in the pit. I would not see him again until the end of the race. After this lap the calculation began. Crunching lap times from the first half of the race to figure out how many laps was doable- ten seemed like a good guess so I ran with it and really hoped I would not have time to go out for an eleventh.

I came by the pit after Lap 8 to put on my lights and Melissa told me I was in first. I wasted no time and got back on the trail staring over my shoulder at every opening in the woods. My legs felt good but my hands were getting pounded by the roots and one of my toenails felt like it was slowly detatching itself from the rest of my foot. As I went out for my last lap the trail was getting quite deserted, I only saw a couple team riders still out there. They were easy to tell from the Solo guys- MUCH happier and cleaner. Every time I saw a light I tried to put a little more through the pedals but I was paying the price for not walking any climbs earlier in the day. My quads started the twitches that inevitably develop into cramps given enough time. I came up on another solo rider who said he was in second place in the Expert field. As I passed him the thought of winning this thing became a real possibility. I hammered the rest of this lap through the dark woods and came out into the clearing for the timing area in a little over eleven hours. No way to get another lap but it didn't matter a bit because I was the first singlespeed across and second place was over thirty minutes back at this point.

Ended the day (and night I guess) as 1st place Singlespeed and 2nd Overall with 117 miles and 16,000 feet of climbing. Lee ended up in 4th riding a rigid ss, dude has to have arms of steel! Super stoked to have finally won a long race like this and felt quite good the last few laps. Gives me some hope for the upcoming 24. We'll see.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

I gave in

New frame will be here next week...

It is green.
It is 2pounds lighter than the Inbred.
Can't wait.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

The thing that should not be

100 miles on a fixed gear- there are more reasons I should not do this than I care to list but none of them trump the fact that it will be way too wet to ride six hours of trail tomorrow as planned. I'm going to get going around eight or so in the AM then meet up with whoever wants to at noon from Homewood Cycles to round out my misery. I have been wanting/dreading doing this since I got my old Trek for $75 last year so here we go...

Also, Dirty Spokes 12 Hour at Ft. Yargo is paid for next weekend and I am going along with the girl and the beagle for support. I found a GPS of the course and it is 12 miles with 1600 feet of climbing per lap. The elevation profile looks more like this ^^^^^^ than one big mountain. This will be good if it is rideable and bad if I have to walk like five times a lap or something stupid like that. Report on this one up sometime next week.