Fall Cleaning

I’m not sure if I’m trying to distract myself from an impending feeling of overwhelming burnout or if I’m just “nesting” for the winter, but lately, I’ve been scrubbing the house down, one room at a time. It started with the bedroom- I uncluttered every corner, picked up no fewer than 100 safety pins off of the floor and any other horizontal surface in the room (any of you who race road and/or CX know what I’m taking about), dusted all of the furniture with Pledge, picked out a bundle of t-shirts for the grease rag bin, and bagged up (for Goodwill) all of the sweaters and work clothes that I’d accumulated during my few years teaching at U of M.

I can’t tell you how much I despise sweaters. I hate them more than I hate low-tpi tires and the section of I-55 between Memphis and Jackson. They make me feel instantly round and dumpy, no matter how well they fit. My shoulders get claustrophobic in anything that isn’t 4-way stretch, too.  It felt good shove them all in a bag, and it felt even better to have the extra hangers for my skinsuits and long sleeve cycling jerseys (I’ve taken to a policy of not buying any more clothes hangers. If there aren’t enough, it’s time to get rid of some stuff.)

I digress.

My cleaning moved on to the half bathroom, which I refer to as the “cat room,” because it’s where the litterbox lives and the cats eat. It gets a daily sprinkling of litter and cat food crumbs, so I scrubbed the floor, baseboards, cabinets, toilet, and counter tops. A few days later (prompted by Marley the Terrier head-butting a full cup of coffee off of my computer desk), I gave the same treatment to the computer room. I realized in cleaning the wood floors that they’re in desperate need for some sort of extra care above and beyond cleaning, so I’m going to look at Whole Foods today for a floor polish that isn’t toxic to small animals. Because let’s face it…

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Yeah, Indy scarfed down a half of a baby bok choy. He’s just f*cking adorable.

Once I find a suitable polish, I’m moving on to the kitchen and living room.

The impending feeling of doom/burnout is a real possibility. I haven’t taken a real off-season break in I don’t know how long. It may have been as long ago as the time following 2012 CX Worlds. I’m not sure. I’ve had a few “couple of weeks easy” times, but no times when it’s just been, “GTFO and do something other than ride your bike.”  I’ve basically done it to myself by getting nutso and telling my coach something along the lines of, “I’M SO FIT NOW, I DON’T WANT TO STOP AND LOSE IT!!!” So now I find myself dreaming of the end of my CX season in ~3 weeks when I go to Chattanooga for the State Championship race. Post-season activities will include at least 1 horseback riding lesson, finding a cave, and fishing. I don’t even know if the fish bite in the winter, but I’ll probably go fishing anyway.

For now, I’m just doing what I need to to stay where I am. My fitness is actually pretty boss right now. As long as I maintain it between now and then, I’ll be satisfied with however I finish at the State Championship race, and I’ll promptly run off into the Ozarks once I’m home and re-packed. ‘Til then…

brass

 

Fall Non-Adventure Riding

Last I posted, I was about to tackle Fall Adventure Ride #3. However, Thursday morning rolled around, and I wasn’t feeling it. So, I took the dogs for a long walk at the dog park instead.

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Walking the three of them at the same time isn’t too bad- Indy likes to gallop next to Marley the whole time. Or, at least until he gets tired and has to trot. So, the most difficult part of the leash circus is actually timing the walk so that we’re near the car when Old Man Indy starts to lag behind. I made some phone video of “excited Indy gallop” versus “tired Indy trot” and uploaded it to Instagram.

They’re all nice and tired once we’re home

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I did go out for a long-ish ride on Saturday and did Stank & Back light to meet up with videographer Ryan Goble to do some more shooting for a project he’s working on. The whole ride was pretty low-key except for the “haul ass one more time” parts of the shooting process.

Sunday it poured rain for a while, so Matt and I rode to a nearby city park and scouted out some cyclocross ideas. We also played on the playground.

In more exciting news, the titanium tubes and small parts for my road bike have arrived to Cysco Cycles. It looks like I should be rocking the “TWSS”-stiff beast by sometime in early December. The big one is the downtube… rowr

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We’ll talk about it a little bit tonight on Just Riding Along. Which, by the way, is moving from 8pm central time to 7:30. Also, here are two more photos that just don’t fit in, but are worth posting anyway…

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Fall Adventure Ride #2

Yeah, so this happened last week, but I’ve had enough other stuff to post about (along with doing a bunch of traveling & whatnot Thursday-Sunday) that I never had a chance to write about it.

Right now, as I am working to maintain my CX fitness for the State Championship race in about a month (notice I said “maintain” and not “build”), my coach is trying to keep training fun so that I’m less burnt out by the time the race is over and I take a real, extended break. So, I’ve got the following ride description on my Training Peaks calendar: “Go have fun and ride crazy fun shit.. single track/dirt road/pavement/grass/jeep road mostly in Z2,” some of the days include the pre-ride instruction, “It is ok to start hungover today.”

In theory, sounds like a good time. However, this is Memphis. There’s not an obvious 5 hours worth of gravel and adventure right out the front door. What we do have is a large dose of ghetto, a lot of nearby private farmland, and one State Park (Shelby Forest) on the west side of the county. Deer season just opened, also, and large portions of that park are WMA where hunting is allowed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. My first ride to Mud Island was nice, but, at 3.5 hours, it was easy to plan. I was stressing on where I was going to go for 5 hours, and I started to curse the City of Memphis. Unlike all of my friends in far off places Out West (or even closer places like Central and NW Arkansas), I wanted to blame my city for my inability to plan 5 hours of adventure ride.

This is going to sound crazy at first, but I reminded myself of something Justin Timberlake (who grew up in Millington, a suburb on the north side of the city) say in an interview a few months ago, and it’s something that I channel every time I start to feel like my location is a holdup to my progress towards cycling greatness:

On Memphis, Timberlake said, “I grew up in a small town, and I definitely felt like I was an individual, always.” He continued, “But the way that you’re brought up in small-ville Mid-South, USA, you’re taught more about how you’re similar to your neighbor.”

“There’s a lot of pride, but there’s also – but don’t take this the wrong way, Memphis – but there’s also a little bit of a defeatist attitude like you feel like you’re not good enough for the big lights, per se.” He added, “The world is becoming more connected, now.”

That interview was on TV in Memphis news at one of the times when I was lusting over how “easy” it’d be to pursue a pro cycling career if I lived someplace “nice.” We don’t have the landscape, the huge community of riders, the Big Name Races and riders… it’s easy to say, “If I didn’t live in Memphis, I’d make it.” When I’m feeling down about it, I play that interview back in my head.

Your city isn’t a excuse, so shut up and make it work.

I devised a creative way to get to the south Shelby Forest WMA (being Tuesday, it wasn’t open to hunting) utilizing Google Maps “Bicycling” function. Turns out, a lot of the bike lanes that have recently been marked in the city go through rough areas. I figured I’d feel them out, and, if it seemed like too much risk, I’d turn around and stick to a more familiar route. I also saw that, in one of said areas, there was a path marked as the Cypress Creek Greenline (I’d later find it to be defunct, grown over, and covered in old tires/trash). I set out with a rough plan and ended up having a good time (as seen on Strava), despite not having the luxury of an expansive wilderness…

Riding through Overton Park:

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Cypress Creek/Frayser:

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Shelby Forest south-end WMA:

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Outdoors, Inc. Cyclocross Race

After my exciting start to the weekend in Arkansas, I drove back to Memphis Saturday afternoon so I could race Sunday morning. As usual, the weather for the Outdoors CX race was amazing (I’m sure it’s seen some bad weather in the past, but it hasn’t at least as long as I’ve been racing it). It was upper 50s and sunny, with a little north wind.

With the UCI-level race in Louisville the same weekend, the Outdoors race has taken a hit on people coming from Nashville to Memphis. However, we still get a few TBRA points chasers as well as a lot of locals and some people from Arkansas. Two other women lined up with me at the start. In the past, the ladies have started behind all of the B race- including the “B” masters men, who are generally on the slow side. While no one has ever given me a hard time about passing, it’s still a good number of people to work through. This year, Joe Royer (Outdoors, Inc. owner/Race Director) was kind enough to slot us in behind the Cat 4/5  and Singlespeed men and ahead of the Beginner Masters men (makes sense- our race is a TBRA points race, and the masters group isn’t). He also gave us the benefit of a mass start instead of leaving time gaps.

When the race started, it was a hammerfest. Guys who know they’ve got no chance in holding their ridiculous initial pace go all out like it’s a single lap race. I hammered my way through the scrum and took to picking them off as they blew up. I ended up catching a guy who I didn’t know. He was on a slightly dated bike and wearing an orange Trek jersey (seen in both photos, below). He stuck on my wheel for a lap, then I backed off a tiny bit and stuck on his wheel a lap. With the wind out of the north, the headwind was worst in the heaviest of the grass. So, after resting on his wheel for a lap, I attacked soon after we went back through that section.

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I got away well, but could tell he was trying to fight back, so I had to keep the hammer down as best I could for the last couple of laps. It worked out, and I finished first woman and somewhere around 5th or 6th overall. If I’d wanted a better overall finish, it would have taken a much better warmup and start than what I did (my only self-criticism for the day).

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Joe has always been a big supporter of women’s racing, and, along those lines, no matter the size of the women’s field, it’s always an equal payout race. In addition to that, I won a slick Deuter hydration pack:

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(All photos stolen directly from the Outdoors, Inc. Facebook Page)

As strong as I’m feeling, I can tell I might be on a little bit of a plateau. It’s working for me right now, but my post-season break after the State Championship in December is looking like a good time to kick back and let myself get slower for a minute before I start prepping hard for next season.

 

Fall CX Tour- Day 2

I’d like to say that the time change on Saturday night was a relief since it allowed me to sleep an extra hour before the 5am alarm I’d set so that I could make the 2 hour drive to Cullman, AL to race at 9am. However, I instead had time change-related nightmares all night and kept waking up thinking that I was doing something wrong.

Despite that, I was up in enough time to stop for gas and a large coffee and still make it to the park before registration was officially open.

I registered for both the Women’s A Race and the Singlespeed Race. Once the bikes were ready and the numbers were pinned, I went out for a couple of preride laps. After riding around on both my A bike (Cannondale SuperX) and B bike (Scott Addict CX), I decided I’d go with the B bike for the race. The course had a metric crap-ton of 180 degree turns, and the B bike has alloy rims, and the braking power is more predictable than on the carbon rims. I also like the slow-speed handling of the B-bike a little better. Even though it’s about 2 pounds heavier (between frame and wheels), the combination of brakes and handling felt faster for that particular course.

The women’s race started just behind the two groups of Master’s Men. I’ve always hated that, because it means that I’ll be passing the tail of the master’s group within the first half of the course. Usually, they’re very courteous, and, realizing that they’re not in contention for a podium spot in their own race, will give a little space for the women’s race to come through. That wasn’t the case on Sunday, though. I caught the last place guy during a series of about 10 turns up/down/back/forth on a hill early in the course. The other women were only  a turn or two back from me, and, even though I told him repeatedly that I needed to get by because of our race, he wouldn’t budge. So, I took an opportunity to pass when he swung extra wide/slow going into a 180. I dove inside, and, as I passed him, he accelerated and ran into me shoulder to shoulder (more like ribs to shoulder… he was a big man). He ran into the course tape, also, and yelled, “next time you do that, I’m going to knock you over.” I said something back to him along the lines of, “I’m leading my race, and you’re in LAST PLACE.” Then, I dropped him and didn’t look back.

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(After my race was over, I told the guys in change at the finish line about the incident, and let them know that if he put a finger on me, I was calling the police)

I went as fast as I could without totally draining my tank for the singlespeed race immediately after the first one. All the while, spectators were yelling at the men to not let me catch them. Sure, they make a nice carrot to motivate you to keep pace, but honestly, I’m not out there to catch guys who I’m not technically racing. I’m out there to win the women’s race, and I was happy to be successful in that.

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The singlespeed race lined up soon after the women’s race. It was the first time in a long time that I raced the newly-rebuilt CrossCheck. First lap impression? Id forgotten how much toe overlap that thing has. When we were given the signal to go, I could tell in the first few turns that I was going to get out-handled big time if I didn’t pull my head outta my backside and stay off the brakes a little more. Dealing with toe overlap is a combination of ratchet-pedaling, timing, and ignoring the noise your foot makes on your tire in less severe instances.

From the gun, two guys took off ahead of me. I let them go, and entered the techy 10-turn section with them a few seconds up, and a group of guys on my wheel. Somewhere on that lap, I think a couple passed me, but I ended up reeling them back in on the second lap. With two to go (we raced 4 laps), one of the guys who’d taken off initially looked like he imploded and was going backwards. I made the move to catch him, and was probably within about 15 seconds or so, but he composed himself and pulled away on the last lap.

Side note- unfortunately, during the SS race, I heard people using the “C” word*. STOP USING THAT WORD. IT’S DEMEANING AND DISRESPECTFUL TO WOMEN WHO WORK REALLY HARD TO BE REALLY FAST.

So, I stuck a solid 3rd place singlespeed. Looking back at the lap times, I went anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 minute faster per lap during that race. It boiled down to a combination of less braking, harder hammering, and being “in” the field of competitors rather than ahead of it.

The riding over the weekend has me re-visiting my thoughts on brakes. For wide-open, fast courses (like CrossVegas or the Outdoors, Inc. race this upcoming Sunday, a good set of cantilever brakes (like the Shorty Ultimates) on carbon rims feels totally fine. However, I definitely felt faster on the narrow/tech sections when using those same brakes on alloy rims. I’m not one to avoid changing my point of view on bike technology, and, I can now see the draw to using disc brakes with carbon rims as opposed to cantilevers. I am going to try a set of TRP CX 8.4 V-Brakes. They’ll be in today, and I’ve got an interval workout tomorrow, so I’ll report back soon.

The next few days should bring a little excitement- tomorrow after I interval and go to a Structural Integration session, I’m going to pack up and drive to Mountain View. Friday morning, I’ll be meeting up with some of the other Syllamo advocates as well as with an IMBA rep and a USFS rep. We’re going to talk about what can be done to A)keep the trail more clear of overgrowth and deadfall, and B)Stop the logging of the trail area (logging both damages the tread AND takes away the shade that prevents summer overgrowth). I’m sure I’ll get in a couple of nice rides on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning as well.

 

 

*chicked

Fall Photo Tour- Downtown and Back

This fall, since I’m not vying for a cyclocross world championship, my coach has me taking a different approach to training with long “fun” rides… the first of which was Tuesday this week. I decided to ride the 3 greenlines in town  with a stop downtown at Mud Island to take a picture or two of the Mississippi River.

It started with the Shelby Farms Greenline…

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Which was fun, because at 10am on a weekday, there’s almost no one out there.

I then cut through some sketchy neighborhoods to Overton Park, where I rode on a lot of the trails, though I have no idea which ones, because it’s a relatively small area, they all look the same, and there are next to no markings out there. They’re very suited to a cyclocross bike, though, so it was a good time. (Click HERE for an Overton Park map)

I stopped and refilled my bottles, then found my way out to the Vollentine-Evergreen Greenline…

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…also deserted at that time of day.

Once I was at the end of that, it was mostly bike lane until I reached Downtown and crossed the bridge to Mud Island, where I rolled around like a tourist and took some photos before crossing back over and riding down Main Street.

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We got trolleys and shit.

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There’s no way out of the south side of Downtown that isn’t through a ghetto. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good ride…

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I rode back on a slightly southern route through the University of Memphis and up Shady Grove road to the Germantown Greenline. I was hungry by then, so no stopping to take photos.

It looks like there’s going to be some killer cyclocross racing this weekend in Nashville. I plan on making a road trip out of it and race the Keep Calm race on Saturday, spend the night in Nashville, then a Bamacross race on Sunday. It’ll be a nice break from the Memphis cyclocross frustrations. Also, I’ll get to race the singlespeed CX bike for the first time since I re-built it.

I am excite. Now, it’s time to get out and do some soggy intervals.

 

“The John Daly of…”

Other than some cyclocross intervals in the rain this morning, things have been pretty low-key around the house. I’ve made the executive decision that, while I will race the regional CX stuff this fall/winter, I’m going to focus slightly more on mountain biking- both for fun and for 2014 preparation. The training for Worlds over the last two winters was very good, but, on the other hand, I feel like I missed out on some prime southeastern singletrack adventures in the process. So, it’ll be a year off from serious CX, and I’ll re-evaluate next year when Nationals will be a quick 10 hours away in Austin.

So, in lieu of anything else important, I present to you my favorite timekiller from back when I was in high school and rode horses:
My friends and I would always laugh at one guy who could turn a killer round in the Grand Prix area in spite of how he and his horses were notoriously dumpy and ungroomed, and how he was highly likely drunk at any time of day. I coined the phrase, “The John Daly of Grand Prix.” Since then, I’ve carried the game of  “X is the John Daly of Y” to any and every sport or hobby in which I’ve participated.  Now you can play along at home. Pick your favorite sport, then pick the participant who is most likely to be fat, drunk, and unruly while still kicking everyone ass in the process. Enjoy.

Tennessee Adventure Challenge

I made the “quick” (by my road trip standards) 5.5 hour drive to Knoxville on Friday afternoon. Observation of the drive? Driving in and around Nashville is quickly becoming like driving around Atlanta, except more pretentious and with no good rap music to listen to on the local radio.  I still made pretty good time, though, and I tracked down the race HQ location (literally, tracked it down, because the TNAC website just listed it as “Outdoor Knoxville” and gave this link: http://www.outdoorknoxville.com/) I figured out that it was the Outdoor Knoxville Adventure Center by looking at the information for the bigger 30-hour Adventure Race Championship that was being held concurrently with the smaller “Challenge” race.

After confirming that it was, indeed where the race would start, I headed over to the Urban Wilderness trails to spin my legs and get a lay of the land. I rode some trails around the Mead’s Quarry area (if you’re inclined to look at the map). It’s a pretty sweet trail system- a good variety of rocky, flowy, and well-built trails. Once I was finished, I found my way over to FullFace Kenny’s parents’ house. They were nice enough to let me stay in their basement (and, by “basement,” I mean, “lowest floor of the house that’s actually the same size as the main floor of my house, but with a lakeside porch/view on the downhill side”). They’re super sweet people, and their dog is adorable.

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Saturday morning, I woke up, packed, and went downtown to get breakfast and hang around ’til start time. When check-in opened, we were given n Urban Wilderness trail map and instructions (which turned out to only show half of the checkpoints, so we received full-sized maps about 10 minutes before the race start).  Map (terrier added for scale… checkpoints- red for land/blue for paddling, start, and finish- green & yellow, approximated with MSPaint):

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Then, we were off! The fun thing about adventure racing is that you can gather checkpoints in almost any order you want (for this one, the river paddling section was  last, because one of the paddling checkpoints was listed on the instructions as the “final” one). So, sticking with what I knew best, I decided to go to the easternmost area where I’d ridden the day before. It looked like a couple of other teams had the same idea (all of the other entries were either teams or male solo. I was the only solo female).

I quickly found the first two, but overshot the third one by at least half a mile. Once I backtracked and found it, I navigated my way to the forth, then the road, and hammered to the nearby quarry for the standup paddle board and running checkpoints. One of the two teams that had gone in my direction seemed to be a little ahead of me, and the other was generally moving at about the same speed (I may have been physically faster, but they knew the area much better, so they didn’t need to stop and study their map to figure out where to go next). Once I paddled and ran, it was off into unfamiliar territory to look for the next 3 at Fort Dickerson park and the final 2 that looked like a bluff and an overlook along the river.

Luckily, the route I took to Ft. Dickerson led me directly to an overlook where I collected the first of those checkpoints. Then, I rode up the park road to try and find the trail with the next checkpoint. It was a dead end (and the team I was back & forth with was trying to figure it out, too), but I noticed on the map where I’d gone wrong, and saw that there should be a gas line field that’d lead me straight down (steep! Woohoo!) to the other 2 points. Luckily, it’d been recently cut, and I balled down it, Enduro™ style to the quarry-lake at the bottom, where there was a guy with a clipboard and a checkpoint punch on his belt. He said that all I had to do to get the checkpoint was to jump in the water.

P.S. The water is about 30 feet below where the guy is standing. Here’s a link to a video of the area… I think where we jumped is the first “main” one that he shows at about 1:20 in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR0k-90L5KU

I took my shoes, socks, helmet, and backpack off then hurled myself, flailing my arms & legs like a chicken, off the cliff. Once I climbed out, I re-dressed, and set out to find the final Ft. Dickerson checkpoint (slightly hidden in a bend in the trail) before going to the last, westernmost 2. I had a good lead on the guys I’d been around for most of the day (they’d overshot the trail checkpoint), but they caught up to me when I was trying to figure out how to get to the spot that looked like it was right along the river that the instructions simply called “cave.” The three of us wound up riding circles in a parking lot for an apartment complex when I noticed that there were tire tracks straight into the kudzu on the west side. I pointed it out, and we eventually found a trail that took us to a riverside cave entrance, where there was another person with a clipboard and a checkpoint punch. She said to go in the cave, find the pumpkin, and bring back a piece of candy to get the checkpoint.

The three of us went into the cave at the same time, but I realized very quickly that I needed a light. Apparently, that was added last-minute to the mandatory equipment list, but I wasn’t getting pre-race emails, so I didn’t know. Luckily, one of the guys let me use his, and I used my roadie negotiating skills- if I use your light and ride with you guys to the paddling transition area (local knowledge of roads would make it a lot faster), I’ll shimmy through the ~12″ wide, 8ft long gap in the cave walls and bring out enough candy for both of us. Boom!

Once we left the cave, there was a quick climb to the nearby overlook for the final checkpoint before we went back across the river to finish with the paddling portion of the race. We arrived to the put-in spot to find one other team already there, looking flustered. There were several canoes and PFDs by the water, but no kayaks (for solo racers) and, the bigger problem… no paddles. The 5 of us just stood around with the lady who was in charge of that area, who was also at a loss. Eventually, one of the head race guys showed up, cursing into his phone, and trying to figure out if he could get some paddles to that spot.

He couldn’t, and he ended up cancelling the paddling section and calling the race as we’d arrived at that point. We rode up to the finish line and collected our finishers awards, and I booked it back to Memphis. Disappointing? Yeah, a little. However, the rest of the race was a ton of fun. The cliff jumping and caving was really exciting, and the whole “choose your own adventure” format of collecting checkpoints is really fun. The people who put the race on are planning on doing more of them next year, and the shorter, less-competitive, less gear-requiring, less orienteering-based, “challenge” race is an excellent way to get into the fun of adventure racing without the money spent and sleep deprivation.
My only criticism for the whole thing is that running any sort of event concurrently with a 30-hour adventure race seems like waaaaay too much for the race crew to handle. They were obviously sleep-deprived (the 30-hour race had started early the previous morning) and stressed from issues that’d occurred within that race. Totally understandable, given the race format. If they had a whole extra set of volunteers/director for the extra event, it’d likely work out fine, but asking the same people who’ve been awake for >24hrs to run a separate event at the same time as the bigger one seems like biting off more than they can chew.

Hopefully it works out well for them next year- they made mention of the series expanding and even coming to Memphis, which would be a fun time. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and would definitely make it an off-season habit if more of that type of low-stress event were offered in my general vicinity.

Simmer Down

Since returning from Interbike, I’ve given myself a little bit of leeway to act more like a normal person who rides bikes than a full-time bike racer. In the past couple of years, I’ve gone to either extreme- either taking a full-on break from the bike for a week-ish, or, in the last year, since I did a good job of pacing my schedule, didn’t feel the need to take much of a break at all. Though I am “training” for the Tennessee Adventure Challenge race, it’s basically a fun thing that gives me a laid-back, low-expectation “goal” to keep me from going nuts while I take a rest from being hyper-focused on my usual races.

How’s that different? Well, Sunday, I had a 4.5 hour tempo ride on my training schedule. I wanted to do a specific ride on my mountain bike, but then it rained. So, instead of doing the ride on my road bike, in the rain, I just blew it off and went for a run/yoga class. I’m also doing other fun stuff, like stopping to take photos:

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Wearing baggy shorts:

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And meeting up with the Ladies Only ride last weekend:

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Part of my aversion to the 4 hours of road riding last Sunday was my lack of a road bike. I finally sent all of the defective Cannondale frames back and asked for a refund of my money. The final tally? 5 frames in the last year- every single one of them with the same defective bottom bracket shell. Number 5 was actually promised to be a 2014 bike from the new mold (the only reason why I rode a defective one with an adapter for months), but all that waiting, and they just sent me another one of the 2013 defective ones. They’ve got the bikes, and I’m still waiting for them to get their shit together and give me my money back so I can buy something else.

In the meantime, I’ve got my Scott CX bike overhauled and set back up as a road bike:

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In non-bike goings-on, I decided to try an Aerial Yoga class. It’s a ton of fun:

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Also, here’s a random photo of Indy, getting a bath:

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I know that my “less serious riding” time is serving its purpose, because I’m already starting to look at early season races to get on the schedule so my fall/winter training has a tangible goal. For now, I’m excited about trying some new-ish stuff and relaxing a little.

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Interbike #2: The Hustle

Crossvegas was just something thrown into my trip for an extra challenge. It’s like the spur of hike-a-bike to an overlook that you add to your long ride just because it’s worth the view. The real reason I went to Interbike was to visit with sponsors and potential sponsors. Couldn’t all that be done through the magic of the internet? Well, maybe… I can let someone know what I need and what I’m willing/able to do for them, but the impersonal setting doesn’t suit me nearly as well as meeting face-to-face.

I’ve been told that I’m very “marketable.”

Last year, I approached the show with very little focus. I swept across the show floor going into any booth that looked cool, and probably handed out about 100 business cards in the process. It was a successful trip in many respects, but I got pretty lucky along the way. This year, my approach was more calculated. I made contact ahead of time and found out when I should stop by to talk to the right person to hand out a packet full of race resume and other pertinent info.

The process of turning myself up to “11” and selling people on my ability to persuade the masses is both incredibly fun and incredibly exhausting. I took breaks often to hang out at the Ergon booth with my friends in there. As Sonya Looney put it… it’s a “safe” place where you can sit down and switch off for a few minutes. Plus, they had a kickass happy hour on Thursday afternoon. I generally played it cool on the post-show parties, though. It’s hard to do my job if I get further sucked in to the money pit/hangover that is Vegas. There’s a great article along the same vein over on BikeMag: Interbike Survival Guide

With the exception of not being able to track down a marketing guy at SRAM, I was successful in meeting with everyone who needed to be met with.
Fun side story- I did have a fun moment at the SRAM booth when I stopped by their info desk. The nice girl behind the desk said she had the same shirt as I was wearing. I asked if she’d taken advantage of Target’s “2 for $10″ deal as I had, and, turns out, she did, and her other shirt was the same as I’d bought.
Like I said, I would rather meet in person, but the info desk couple was very nice and encouraged me to take a ‘MTB Sponsorship” card and email them after the show.

As for everyone else, the meetings were positive. Nimblewear, Gu Energy, ProGold, and Industry Nine are all a go for doing it again next year. As far as potential new sponsors, I can’t really talk about who and what just yet, because it’ll be different than the who and what this year. More on that sometime (hopefully) early in November.