Thursday, August 27, 2009

The week so far

Sunday, was the Pittsburgh-Roubaix, otherwise known as the worlds hardest alleycat race. It ended up being about 46 miles, with 4600 feet of climbing... on effing cobbles! Check it out: http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Pittsburgh-Roubaix-2009-w-Capital

Finished in just about 3 hours flat somehow. It really, really hurt. The Dirty Dozen is hard, but at least you get a break after every hill. This was just nonstop, and I thought that I might puke a couple of times. Buena Vista in the North Side may be the worst hill ever. I ended up with 4th place. Unfortunately, I couldn't stick around for the after party, because I had to go to work all night. It was a good time nonetheless.

Tuesday was looking to be a beautiful day, so I thought that it would be a good day to put in some long miles to get ready for the Shenandoah 100 in a couple of weeks. Found a route called The Thrift Drug Classic 200k. Pretty sick route. Five miles into the ride you have to climb up Sycamore. Ended up in the middle of nowhere on the way to West Virginia, dipping into Ohio for a few miles before heading back into PA. Route 68 pretty much sucks from Ohio to Evans City. Got back in time to hang out at the oval, and watched the women's race, before heading home for dinner. Managed to get 130 miles on the day. Sweet!

Wednesday was the last points race at the oval for the season, and it just so happened that we were going to be racing the P course. The last time that I tried it, I got dropped from the lead group pretty quickly, and got lapped fairly soon after, so I was hoping for a decent result this time.

Started out super fast as usual, and managed to hang on pretty well, despite being really sore from my long day in the saddle on Tuesday. Eric was working for me and Ted, as he could no longer score points in the B race, so that seemed to be working out helping me stay with the lead group when I had to take a little breather for a few seconds. Did pretty well, until with about 15 laps to go, Ted had his second unfortunate crash, right in front of me, and by the time that I caught back up, I was blown up. Hung back for a while, until a pack of guys who had been lapped caught up to me, and then I sat in with them for the remaider of the race. Very fun course, and one hell of a workout.

This weekend takes us to Charleston, WV, to hang out with Brad, and to do the Black Bear race. Hopefully I'll remember to take my climbing legs with me. Should be a pretty good time either way.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Epic ride?

What defines an Epic Ride? Stupid long distance? Overcoming mechanical difficulties? Getting lost? Bonking? Torrential downpours? Bridges out, with unknown detours?? Yea, that sounds about right.

A couple of weeks ago I found in my email a fun sounding training ride, called "The Laurel Ridge Pain Fest." I've been itching to try it out ever sice I read about it. Looked to be around 120 miles from my house, topping out at Laurel Mountain, and then heading back. The plan was to head out around 8, and hopefully beat the weather. It seemed like a good idea at the time anyways.

Managed to get on the road at about 10:30, and made it into Greensburg before my first near-life experience. Just before crossing route 30, on the other side of town, a van cuts me off while he was taking the off ramp to get onto 30, which I happened to be blocking, since I was traveling straight on route 130, but whatever. I guess he was pissed because maybe he thought that all traffic should be going his way?? Oh well, he slid, I slid, and I lived to tell about it, although I was really pissed for a while. Shortly thereafter, we came to the first detour. We could have possibly made it through the construction, but maybe the detour would be nice. Oops, now we're on route 30. Oh well, guess we'll just follow this for a bit. Ended up not being too bad. I never realized how much of a shoulder there is on it. Find the turn for the detour, and then it was time for the big "rollers."

Back on the route, had a couple of mean climbs, with some fun downhills afterwards. Found another bridge out, but this one was easy to get over, just had to jump a couple of jersey barriers. This is about when we started noticing the big dark clouds off to our right. Huh. That can't be good. When the rain did start, it actually felt really good. In the middle of another endless climb, trying to concentrate on getting to the top, thinking, "well, at least there's no lightning." CRACK. Ok, now there's lightning. Finally get to the top of this climb, then downhill with no brakes, pop out in a really cool little field, and the sun decided to rejoin us. Awesome.

Finally make it to Linn Run, refill bottles from the spring, and make the decision to abandon the rest of the route, and try to figure out the quickest way back, as it was starting to get late. Decide to take Route 30 the whole way back to Greensburg. Wasn't a terrible ride, and after a quick flat change made it almost home before getting caught in another quick downpour, sans lightning.

Ended up with 114 miles on the day, not a bad little endurance training ride. Hoping to do one a bit bigger than that next week, to prepare for the Shenandoah 100 in a couple of weeks. Also looking forward to the Pittsburgh Roubaix, in just a hair under 12 hours now.

If only I could get out of this work crap tonight, I could be racing the mountain bike tomorrow. Unfortunately, not this weekend.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Restin'

This weekend pretty much ended up being a rest weekend. The original plan was to head out for a little 120 ish mile ride on Sunday, but I suppose that it just wasn't meant to be.

Caught up on some much needed sleep, and decided that a 60-70 mile ride would be a better idea... until I went outside! Starting a long ride at 1pm in august is probably not the best idea that I had ever come up with. It was probably 90 when we left, and 20 miles in, I knew that we wouldn't be making our planned route. A quick turn, changed it into 35 miles, which ended up being plenty.

Hit up the C race last night, and paid my $10 donation to the guys that like to sprint in that cluster fuck. Ugh, I don't know why I bother with that race sometimes, scares the crap out of me usually. Really looking forward to the P course tonight. I'm hoping that I can get out of work in time so I don't have to be too rushed. Shouldn't be a major problem. Ride home from work, change clothes and bikes, and roll down the hill. My goal tonight is to not get lapped. I'll just get out there and try to have some fun. If it ends up raining, not even sure if I'll go tonight, but probably will. Have to use my season pass, the race season at the oval is almost over.

Planning on doing a crazy EPIC ride tomorrow. From home to the top of Laurel Mountain and back. Have to look up the route at some point today. I can't wait to bomb down Route 30!! Should be fun. As will the bike-in movie tomorrow night, Rad! Totally psyched!

Hopefully I'll have a ride report tomorrow....

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Day off, week off??

Well, I suppose that it had to happen sometime. I am tired. Just worn out. I didn't say burned out, just in need of a little break. Between Chrissy moving, work being back to normal with me trying to suck up a few overtime days, and spending a bunch of time going to races, I just haven't been able to catch up.

Yesterday, I had a day off. I figured that since I had a day to myself, I had some business that I should take care of. The radiator in my car has been giving me some crap lately, or more specifically, not doing it's job of keeping the coolant in the car, and it was about time to take care of this.

I had been looking around on the interwebs for a few days, trying to see exactly how to go about changing the radiator on the Jetta. Thought that I pretty much had it figured out, and about 4 hours later ended up with this:



Oh man. I hoped that I could get this thing back together. I had piles of bolts everywhere. It turned out, that it ended up being much easier getting it back together, and I only had one screw left over! Mission accomplished, I hope.

As far as riding goes, I got out on the road bike for a quick 20 miles or so this afternoon, as it had been feeling neglected lately. I don't think that I have ridden it for about 3 weeks. Felt pretty good once I got moving, and it was nice to get a little bit of time in on the fast bike. I'm kinda missing racing at the oval a little bit. Looking forward to the P course next week.

No racing this weekend. Thinking about heading out for a really long ride on Sunday, maybe 120 or so miles, up to Laurel Mountain and back. If not there, maybe something headed north. We'll see how everyhing turns out.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Big Bear Ultra

After the Wilderness 101 last weekend, and no sleep all week, I figured that it would be a fine idea to head out to the Big Bear Ultra. After all, it's only 47 miles, right?

After some late evening shenanigans from the Night Club, who were apparrently trying to burn down tents and blow up pets with fireworks, I ended up getting a solid nights sleep.

Up at 6, stuffed my face, while enjoying more fireworks set to a stirring soundtrack comprised mostly of Pantera. At 6 am. I love West Virginia.

On the line, being told to stay off the road here; on this side of the fence there; be careful on this particular trail, because someone lost 3 teeth there last week, etc. I wasn't really paying attention.

Off we go. Do a little loop around that round building in the front parking lot, then into the woods. First section wasn't too bad. I spun out for a second and almost took out Don, when he ran into me. Pretty sure that he found one of the few mud bogs on the course, and had to put a foot down in it. Cruising along for awhile, across a field, and then into a trail labeled with a sign that read, "VooDoo Rocks, Night Club approved." Uh oh, that probably isn't a good sign. There must have been a ton of bad voodoo there, because I couldn't for the life of me keep my feet on my pedals. I was smashing off of rocks left and right, and just could not find a rhythm at all. I think it was about 8 miles in that I had decided to quit if the course continued like that for much longer. It was probably the toughest section of trail that I can ever remember riding.

Thankfully, before too long, it smoothed out into some double track kinda grass roads, but now we had to climb a little bit. Nothing too bad that I remember, and then oh, look at that, we're in the pines going backwards. Awesome! From the pines, across the airfield, to the next dirt road were a ton of fun, and really lifted my spirits. I caught up with someone, so I wasn't even riding by myself anymore.

Popping out at the next double track, the arrows point right. Is there a trail?? Oh, that might be it there. Yea, um sort of. Needless to say, I was once again pissed off, being on another trail that I could not get any momentum on whatsoever. Climb back up to the top, at the store, and follow trail back to the start area. Rolling in, I see Chris McGill sitting there, I guess he had an even worse day than I did. Fill up water, Don was at his truck, not his day either. Stick rolled past me as I was getting water, so I figured I should go and chase him down.

Caught up to him pretty quick, and we were back and forth for a bit until again, I was by myself. I was finally starting to ride ok, and was waking up a little bit, starting to get a little flow. Managed to catch another singlespeed racer, and one other guy at an unmanned water station. Hit a pretty cool new trail behind the trials area at the airport, which will be amazing once it is ridden in a bit. Cross the airstrip, into the first half of the 24 hour course. Super fast, and riding really well, I pass Rob Loehr, who looks totally dead. Hit the last checkpoint for a fig, and ask how many people had been through, and he said 12. I jumped back on the bike, and started hammering. Bombed the downhill, passing Schultz at the bottom of it. No water in the creek, are you serious!! Had a decent climb, keepin it rolling. Getting back into the final stretch of single track, I could see someone else about 1/4 mile ahead of me, and I told myself that I was going to catch him. Finally got him right at the lake, probably 1 mile from the finish. Cruised on the wide trail, feeling pretty good, and rolled into the finish.

Ended up finishing 4th singlespeed in 4:41, I think. Was only 30 seconds behind Benji, and 1 minute out of 3rd ss. Travis crushed it with a 4:17, and won by about 10 mins. He finished at the same time a woman finished up the 22 mile first lap, and she promptly dropped out of the race.

Afterwards, it took about 2 hours for them to start feeding us, which sucked, but at least the food was good, as was the free beer. Really happy with the result, but I need to work on not getting as frustrated in the beginning of the race.

Wilderness 101

This year was to be my second attempt at the Wilderness 101, in Coburn, PA. Two years ago, I attempted this race as my first 100 mile race, and it was no fun at all. I think that I just made myself sick by being overly nervous, and ended up with a finishing time somewhere around 12 and a half hours. Ouch. This time, I wanted to get around 10 hours. Still on my single speed, and a lot stronger this year, I didn't think that it would be too much of a problem.

Got there late Friday afternoon, set up camp, and went out for a little spin with Jake, Brad, and Steevo. Just about a 40 min out and back on the rail trail to get the blood flowing a bit. Touhed a little of the last section of single track, Which was pretty slick, and turned back pretty quickly. Spun my ass off keeping up with the guys that have gears, and had a little scare when I almost hit a vw head on while riding on the wrong side of the dirt road. Got back to camp for dinner and a few beers, and off to bed at about midnight. Ugh.

Of course, I couldn't sleep. Woke at about 3:00, and that was it, I was up. Oh well, sleep is overrated anyways.

Lined up, and ended up getting a pretty good starting position, due to a last second bathroom stop. Thankfully we had a nice, controlled neutral start with a pretty decent pace. Even at the first turn, nobody really wanted to take off right away. Some people apparrently thought that we were still in a neutral rollout during the first climb. It started spreading out by about halfway up, when Brad passed me, giving me a tap on the shoulder on his way, looking like he was in the zone.

The first 40 miles or so is pretty much fireroad and double track, and goes by pretty fast. I was able to hang on to a couple of pacelines off and on, to help me pick up a little extra speed, and it definately helped me conserve some energy. Jake passed me a couple of miles before station 1, riding with a little group that was flying. See ya later dude...

Skipped station 1, and passed a good dozen people or more that were trying to suck down some water going up the first climb. I just kept hammering along up the climb, until there was nobody behind me. Once again, it looks like I'm riding by myself today.

From here until station 3 is pretty much a blur. Tried riding the climb out of 3, and ran into a little traffic. Got past them, and it got a little steeper than it was worth. Pushed off and on for a bit, until there was finally I couldn't go up anymore.

Pull into station 4, and it looked like they weren't even set up yet. Oh well, top off the water, couple fig newtons, and up the last really bad climb. Walked about the first half, just to take a breather, as I had been going pretty hard for most of the race. Got onto the second part, and a guy was riding up the climb with his kid in a trailer. Well, if he is riding it, I had better ride too. Back on the bike, up, up, up, ok, now we're there. This part of the trail is superfast, mostly flat and downhill, and a ton of fun from what I remember. For the most part it was. Then, wait a minute, where did that fence come from???? And steep little hike a bikes??? Wow, that sucks. Ok, back to the fun stuff. Roll into station 5, handfull of pringles, water is enough for the last 12 miles, we're off.

Ride through the park daydreaming a little, getting hungry for real food, cruising down the little hill, and onto the rail trail. Wait, is this right?? Isn't there supposed to be a tunnel here. Dead end at the river. Crap, missed a turn somehow. Turn around, ride the half mile or so back, and there is a jeep parked in front of the turn arrow. Great. Ok, looks better now. Pass a Mennonite family with 3 women on bikes, and a trailer full of kids being pulled by a pony. They kept yelling at it to move over. It was pretty funny. Out the trail, up the last climb, bomb down the hill, into the last singletrack section. Suddenly, I can't ride my bike, but still pass 2 guys that can ride their bikes even less than me. Crap, they have gears. They'll probably catch me on the rail trail. They didn't, but they did catch me on the road about 1/4 mile from the finish. Ended up with a 9:17, which I am really thrilled with. Good enough for 16th place single speed. I'm getting there. Maybe I'll have to start training.

Finally....

Well, I finally got around to making the blog. Have an incredibly boring day at work, so this should occupy me for a bit. This will be primarily a place to post race reports and riding adventures. I've got a little bit of a backlog of races that I wanted to write about for some time now, so things may be a bit mixed up for a while, but I'll get there.