Bicycle maintenance.

With the weather being crappy Sunday I figured it was finally time to install the new super awesome Push bushings in the Turner.  Of course this leads to doing all sorts of other bike maintenance I'd been meaning to do but was to busy riding to actually do.  Five hours of chilling in the garage greasing things, replacing cables and cleaning parts.  Since doing all this I've managed to get in one ride on the newly redone bike. I can't say I can tell a difference in the bushings but the bike is quite. Well worth the work now if I could just get around to doing the same with my other four bikes.

Half a bike

The mess that is my work bench

Where is spring?

This week,on Monday, I came down with a terrible stomach flu, putting me off the bike until Friday. This would also be my first attempt at riding since hurting my ribs while racing. Fortunately, Friday night was my club's (Greater Lynchburg Off-road Cyclist) first social ride of the season.  It's great ride to get back into the swing of things, a split between riding and chatting. It was a good ride, but the ribs still aren't up to par and every bump made me remember they were injured.

 

The crew getting ready.

Saturday, I had planned on a road ride with some friends, but they had to bail. I decided to go do something at little different that I had been meaning to do. The High Bridge State Park trail is only about 20 mins east of my house but I had never gone. It's a 31 mile long "rails to trail" with the highlight being the High Bridge, which is 125ft above the Appomattox River. I went and parked at the start of the trail in Pamplin not really knowing of far I would ride.

The start of the trail

Cruising along the flat smooth tail I made it to mile 25 and the high bridge in no time. The trail doesn't get a lot of travel except for around the bridge itself.  I took a nice break and enjoyed the view and then decided to press on and go all the way to the end of the trail.  I regretted that later when I bonked since I had only brought one pack of shot blocks for food.  By the end of the day I put in 63miles in 4.5hrs. It felt good to get a nice long ride in, even if it was on flat gravel.

The Epic  chillin on the bridge

Sunday SNOW!! Looks like up to 6 inches as it's still coming down. I'm ready for winter to be over last year it was already 70 degrees by this time.

View from the front porch

Being all roadie

The new park on the James river

 River road by dan4jeepin

Every since my crash last week my ribs haven't felt up to mountain biking so I've been forced to all road.  Fortunately for me the weather actually warmed up for a couple days making for some nice road riding conditions.  Friday after work I hit the usual river road ride which runs along the James river right across from downtime Lynchburg.  Then I started adding some other loops and exploring a little and ended up with almost a 2hr ride.  Even stopped off to check out the new boat ramp and park that was built. 

 Parkway north by dan4jeepin      Saturday the weather was still looking rainy in the morning but the forecast called for a short break in the middle of the day with temps climbing to almost 70!  I decided I would head to the parkway and hope the rain cleared. Things turned out beautiful even  though the roads were still wet and I was actually overdressed for the temperatures. 

Even found some snow for a bike holder.

My plan was to ride out for about an hour to the north from 130 but the weather was so nice I ended up continuing on up.  This might have been a mistake since I didn't bring much food and started to feel like I was bonking on the way back.  It also didn't help that I couldn't stand and pedal for more then a few seconds without my ribs forcing me to stop.  Fortunately for me its more downhill then up on the way back south to the car.

Great day with plenty for climbing which hopefully will pay off training wise. This week my club's (GLOC) group rides start back! Let's hope those ribs get better by Wednesday so I can get back in the woods. 

The shootout! Danville VA

     This was the first race of the 2013 XC season for me. At first, I didn't think I was going to get to race because of work. I didn't really do much training, thinking I had another month before my first race. At the last minute that changed and I tried to sign up.  This was a USAC sanctioned race and even though I had been told you could race expert with a one day, I was wrong! After some poking at the race director, by me and some of my teammates who wanted to race, they gave in and created an open expert category for expert racers like me that weren't interested in qualifying for nationals. Even though this race was the first of the year it was also the VA State Championship.  This makes no sense to me but it's the USAC, which I've learned makes very little sense.  What it did mean was that we would be racing some of the best riders around, including pro riders.
      Sunday morning my wife and I met my teammate, and shop owner, and rode together down to Danville. It was a beautiful day with temperatures hitting almost 70 degrees, major change from the 40s that I had been used to riding in.

My wife, Karoline, and teammates Davy and Allen

   We got to the race with plenty of time and watched the end of the SS/sport race. The race director came by and told us they were going to extend the expert race to 4 laps since one of the pros claimed an easy lap only took 23min. Not sure where he got that lap time, but there was no way anyone turned an easy 23min lap.  After some confusion with when the open experts were supposed to go, we were off.  I went ahead and fell to the back of the line knowing these were some crazy fast rider and usually start slow in races. 
   Lap 1 went well other then having to run up a muddy hill after spinning out. The course was fairly easy except for the number of tight turns. Lap 2 started off well and I even caught and passed a couple people. Then about three quarters of the way through the lap it all went wrong.  There was a small log that had rotted away, something that shouldn't have given any trouble at all to anyone, but I had to go and screw it up by trying to keep pedaling without slowing. My pedal hit something, and before I could react, I was flying into a log, chest first. After slamming into it I knew I hurt my ribs pretty bad. I regained my breath after a minute on the ground and dusted myself off. I noticed my GPS was missing and took a couple more minutes searching for it in the leaves. I was hurting but thought I was okay enough to finish the race, so I got back to pedaling.
   By lap 3 I could tell I was hurting and pulling on the bars did not feel good at all. A couple people caught back up to me, but I was determined to at least finish.  About half way through the lap, the crash caught back up to me and I suddenly couldn't breath or focus. I knew the race was over for me so I found the shortest route back to the finish line and called it.  That night and the next day I felt like I had been hit by a truck with my ribs, neck and back killing me. Now 4 days later things are being to feel better again, but mountain biking is still out of the question. 

Me post crash, I believe, but still rolling.

Next event??

2013 Beford Mountain Cross Series

Mountain cross has come and gone for this year so I figured I would group all the races into one blog. Usually I'm not big on racing when its cold outside since my legs/lungs don't seem to want to work, but the Bedford series is so cheap and you get free food so it's hard to pass up. In the MTX series all classes are racing against each other with beginners/sport just getting a head start. I registered as an expert meaning I had to wait 19min after the race started to go. Also, for some reason I figured I'd handicap myself some more and ride my 30lb steel rigid single speed.

Strava MTX #1
     The weather was nice but the trails were muddy for the kickoff race of the MTX series. Postal rules apply to these races so they go on rain/snow/mud no matter the conditions. I had been sick all week and was just starting to feel better but figured why not go give it a try anyway. The course started out with a quick rocky descent down an ATV width trail then ducked out into a field and back up some a single track ascent.  First few laps went well even though the fast rocky descent was beating me up on a rigid. Every time I would hit the slight downhill field I was regretting the single speed as I started to run out of gearing. As the laps went by, the mud on the course started to get churned up more and more and slower riders started having problems on the single track, making it hard to keep momentum. I had a few minor slide outs and started to take my time on the last laps as the mud drained my motivation.  Final results was 17th out of 37 racers, not bad all things considered.

The team hanging out on the tandem.

                                                                                                                    
MTX  #2

    Race two was advertised as fast and suitable for a CX bike, so I strayed from the SS plan and went with my Specialized epic. I just couldn't see myself having fun spinning like a hamster on all those fast sections. This would turn out to be a mistake as I had made one of the classic mistakes of doing bike maintenance without testing right before a race. Just as I took off from the start I felt my seat shift to one side. Crap, I knew that I hadn't tightened the seat post bolt down good enough, but now hoped the seat would stay put. Nope, that wasn't happening and each lap it would start to drop a little bit further down. After 4 laps of trying to stand and pedal the whole time, I made the decision to stop at the start/finish and try to fix the seat. Of course, these races are short and I never think about bringing any supplies with me, so I didn't even have a tool to tighten it. After throwing everything around my truck hoping that somewhere I had left a multi tool, a nice spectator asked what I needed and loaned me an Allen wrench. I was back on track, but all this had wasted more than 5 minutes, which equaled almost an entire lap. Off I went, hoping to get in two more laps to try in make up the time lost. Coming around to the finish line, the clock read 60:09 meaning my race was over.  I came in 24 out of 29 riders, a pretty bad showing, but with such short races even minor mechanical issues put you at the back of the pack.

MTX #3
    The third installment of MTX racing was Saturday night, adding a little more fun and cold.  I went back to the simple rigid single speed for this race. I'm much slower on it, but since the races are setup so that a junior or beginner rider will get on the podium, it didn't really matter. This course started off with a fast single track descent, then tight switch backs with roots, followed by a mild grassy uphill to more single track, and finally a road segment to finish off the loop.  Only some minor mud, most likely because everything was frozen. After the practice lap, I figured I would be in trouble on the road since my max speed is only around 14mph on the SS (I'm to lazy to ever change the gearing from my standard 32X20).  Once the race started, I found I was actually passing a fair number or riders on the road, but I was holding back on the first descent. I hadn't ridden rigid on real single track much and the skinny 2.0 Fast Trak tires didn't give me much confidence. Overall, it was a fun and uneventful race placed 11 out of 27 riders.

MTX #4
     The final race of the season weather was great with temperatures in the 50s and the trails were dry. The course was a good mix of tight single track and wide open field sections. Overall, not much to say about this race. I did well for a rigid single speed, coming in 13th out of 29 riders.

 
Next up will be The Shootout in Danville on March 10th. It should be a pretty big field of riders making it a good test.

2012 shenandoah 100

Me and my friends agreed as long as it wasn't raining at the start it wouldn't be to bad so we at least got that. This was my first 100miler with only a couple XC races and one XXC under my belt. Based on my pre riding I thought 11hrs could be possible but all I really wanted to do was finish. I lined up with the 10hr group thinking I would probably be much slower then that but wanting to get to the single track before it became a hike a bike. The first few miles went well passing a few on the fire road leading to the single track. Unfortunately by the time I hit the single track the crowed was already there and any small rock meant everyone was walking(grumble grumble). Had an uneventful ride down to the fireroad and fell in with a group on up to Lynn.

I stuck with my Lynn plan riding the bottom half and walking the top to save energy. Didn't take long to get to the top and fly downhill. I felt bad for the guy with the broken arm(or maybe leg?) that had apparently passed out. I heard from some friends that swept that it took a long time to get him off the mountain. Quick water fill at AS2 and I was off.

At this point it started to rain a little but nothing bad just enough to cool you off. I was thinking it wouldn't be bad if the weather stayed that way. First half of Hankey wasn't bad but after the turn to the camp it started to get a little muddier. I felt good and did the whole climb except one of the steepest pitches. I was worried about the rocky rooty section at the top with it being wet but I rode it without a issue and on down to AS3 only feeling like I was losing a little time for the wet trails as it started to rain harder.

Blew thru AS3 without even stopping and hit the road. Unfortunately I was alone for most of the road ride but managed to catch up with one person and work a little with them. Started going up Braleys when the brunt of the storm hit making the climb even harder. By the time I got to the downhill the trail had become a river and I was having trouble seeing where I was going. I was taking it super slow and felt like I was going even slower then when I was riding up hill. I made it down to the bottom and told one rider that a good time was out the window and all I was trying to do was survive at this point.

AS4 I had my drop bag and my wonderful wife waiting and took the time to eat a little more and had my chain lubed. The rain started to let up and I hit the road over to the death climb feeling good and excited. By the time I got to the turn to head up the death climb the sun was out and the temperature started to rise a little. Was cruising up the death climb and passing people until the turn and the pitch kicked up. Then the death climb started to live up to its name and was making me feel like death but I kept moving thinking I just needed to get to AS5.

AS5 stopped and got some pizza and chips and waited in line to get my chain lubed. I felt like I wasted time on the chain lube after plowing into the 4ft deep mud puddle a few minutes later. At this point my legs were feeling tired and the trails were nothing but mud so there was a fair amount of walking. Finally I hit the single track of chestnut ridge. Then I realized that my brakes barely worked making for one heck of any exciting downhill run with one stop to let the brakes cool a little and give my hands a rest.

Stopped off at AS6 and got my chain lubed and topped off water at around 9hr 45min mark. One of the first times I had really stopped to look at the time. I realized that I could probably make the campground in an hour coming in under 11hrs well before what I thought I would do especially with the weather. This gave me some energy and I was off making good time to hankey and up to the turn. I had forgotten that once you got to the turn you weren't done climbing. I didn't have the drive to pedal up anymore so I tired to get off the bike and walk a little. That's when the leg cramps hit my right leg like a train. All day I had slight cramps in my legs but had just worked thru them but this time my leg wouldn't move at all. Pissed thinking that I had blown coming in under 11hr I sat down on the trail and dug thru my pack for my emergency mustard packet and drank some water. I had never tired the mustard trick but it seemed to work after probably less than a minute I was able to at least walk at little and get back to pedaling. I started trying to pedal hard again but refused to look down at my garmin to see what my time was. The fireroad to the final descent to the campground seemed to go on forever but finally I saw it and knew it was all downhill from there. I kicked it into the big gear and flew down into the campground still not knowing what my time was.

Sprinting across the line I saw my final time 10hr 41min. I couldn't have been happier with my first 100miler.

I did learn some lesson and will be back next year hoping for better weather so I can set an even better time.
Lesson:
-I only drank about 3 bottles worth of water and about 1 can of coke for the entire race. Next time I need to be sure to drink more as I think this could have been my cramping problem.
-I carried to much stuff and didn't need anything in my only drop bag at AS4. I carried a rain jacket all day knowing that I would never put it on with the temperature. I also picked up my lights at AS4 even though I didn't need them because at the time the rain was so bad. Next time I think I won't drop anything some infini mix,shot blocks with food from the aid stations is plenty.