Rough Start

Sunday, I kicked off the killer training week with 6 hours riding the MTB (mostly) on the road. It was hot. I’m not one to complain about heat, and, well, I’m still not complaining, I’m just making the general statement that, during the course of my ride, it went from  “hot” to “really fucking hot.”

There was nothing special about the route- I rode through Arlington, Gallaway, Lambert, Oakland, once around Herb Parson’s Lake, and then back home through Germantown. Sometime before hour 3, I realized that I was overheating, and the EFS powder in my camelbak was not sitting well. I stopped at a church and tried diluting it more and hosing myself down, but it never really improved. I’d thought before that I’d just mixed it too strong, but I’ve come to realize that it just doesn’t agree with me.

I also realized at the Herb Parson’s Lake trail that riding a rigid fork over the root beds after 3.5 hours of road riding sucks pretty bad and spent most of the lap dreaming about my first ride on the RDO. Before hitting the road again, I hosed myself down once more and was off to finish the last hour & a half of the ride. I knew soon after that I was pretty far past being able to cool off, and that my only hope was a dark rain cloud in front of me, but I seemed to be tailing it by a few minutes.

The last hour was pretty brutal. My brain was boiling inside my skull, so I was feeling incredibly loopy. I thought about calling for a ride home, but wasn’t about to admit defeat. Looking back, I’m surprised I was able to find my way home. I did, though. When I walked through the door, I immediately went to take a cold shower. Me = 1, Heat = 0… I think.

I felt bad the rest of the day. I felt bad most of Monday. I’m also stoked that I gutted it out. Whatever doesn’t kill you & whatnot…

The remainder of the day was spent mostly laying around in compression tights drinking ice water, eating the lasagna that Ryan made, and taking photos with random large objects brought over by one of Ryan’s teammates who is getting ready to move to Germany. He took the gun back, but left us with an interesting object he’d found on the side of the road during a ride…

 

 

Next on the schedule?

Monday- recovery/chiropractor
Tuesday- short intervals
Wednesday- long intervals

 

 

Training Rabbit Hole

After botching ORAMM, I was tempted to disappear into the woods of Pisgah NF with my bike, live off of insects and berries, and not emerge until I was the most fierce off-road cyclist in existence- somewhat like Beatrix Kiddo shipping off to train with Pai Mei in Kill Bill. Seeing that I don’t like the taste of insects, and I’m not sure whether or not a Kung Fu master of any sort lives in the forest, I resolved myself to driving home and discussing my lofty training wishes with my coach. After a few recovery days, he finally sent me the message, “Your Dojo is ready ;-)”

So, starting with 6 hours tomorrow, my next 8 days in Training Peaks totals up to 26 hours of riding.

I’ve churned out some tough weeks this season- including some 14-16-18 sets of 3, and everything has generally gone well. This will be a test, but I’m confident it’s one I can ace with plenty of food, rest, and maybe a trip to Lake Sylvia for some forest roads next weekend.

 

 

RDO Update

I’m accumulating a large number of parts at the shop, and, as of Tuesday, the only thing I lack is a headset, which I’d ordered a couple of weeks ago from Chris King through their employee purchase program. Sometimes manufacturers sit on EP orders a little while, so I haven’t been in too much of a rush for parts since my frame currently looks like this:

However, I figured yesterday that I should call and check in on it just to make sure the fax didn’t get lost or rolled into a large joint and smoked by the employees of the King company. Turns out, they didn’t have the shop address I’d put on my form listed as an Outdoors, Inc location (we have a main warehouse, which they did have on file), so they just didn’t process it. No call, email, or other attempt to contact…

It’s straight now. My headset should be shipping today.

Other than being severely over budget, this is going to be the most awesome build I’ve done to date.

 

 

ORAMM Race(ish) Report

I arrived in Black Mountain, checked in, and immediately went out to pre-ride some of the 8 hour drive out of my legs. Since I wasn’t very familiar with the area, I went to Curtis Creek- the forest road climb where we camped last year. I’ve always felt like I could nail forest road climbs, so I was feeling confident. I rode about 4 miles up then turned around & rode down while I was still feeling like I wanted more.

After that, I stopped by registration where I found Dicky, who was laying around sunbathing while he waited for some late-arriving friends Tim and Rob. I ended up letting him use my air conditioning once he realized that they wouldn’t be around anytime soon. Later, we all had some delicious Mexican food and Tim & Rob took me to a nearby grocery store with a huge beer selection so I could stock up on some of the local stuff (though they also had Breckenridge Brewery Vanilla Porter there- one of my all-time favorites). After getting the cooler re-arranged so that my beer wouldn’t boil all day Sunday, I headed back to the B&B and settled in to bed. I’d cranked the AC down in my room, so I prettymuch hibernated all night until my 5:30am alarm went off.

Since I was boringly well-prepped for this race, I’ll skip all the “race morning” filler about parking, port-o-potties, and drop bags and get to the important part.

I raced on my singlespeed in the open women’s category. I figured I had a good shot at placing high since I generally climb better on my SS than I do on my geared bike. Brenda Simril was there with her husband Lee, so I knew that if I were anywhere in sight of them on one of the non-singletrack sections of race course that he’d be on the big ring and pulling her away at high rates of speed. I didn’t know any of the other women on the start list, but Zeke Lilly pointed out plenty that he said I should “watch for.”

From the gun, the race goes fast. It’s generally rolling on asphalt for the first few miles, and I was left spinning in the back while the leaders hammered away. I tried to comfort myself by imagining what everyone would look like in their granny gears on the Curtis Creek climb halfway through the race. We finally hit the first climb of the day (an easy asphalt hiking/walking trail) and I settled in to a wonderful “don’t blow yourself up” rhythm.

Just about the time you’re getting tired of an easy paved climb, you reach a gate that puts you back out on the short section of road before Kitsuma- the somewhat infamous first singletrack climb of the day. It was there that I sustained my only injury of the race when a really obnoxious, thorny vine grabbed some skin off of the top of my right arm. I knew that I had a lot of ground to make up, but didn’t panic, settled down, and ate some gel.

Within minutes, I was rolling up the rooty trail that would eventually pitch upwards and start switchbacking steeply up the mountain. It’s a tough climb.

Brief Tangent- Last year, the switchbacks were pocked with rocks and roots. You not only had to navigate repeaded steep, nearly-180 deg switchbacks, you’d usually have to navigate a rock step or two as well. At some point over the winter, some trail work was done, and the ledges smoothed out. A lot of people were mad about it. I can see why. It’s not nearly as technical as it was before. If I were a local with time to figure out the lines and ride it without being in a race-induced conga-line, I’d probably enjoy the challenge it presented. On the other hand, before, you had an excuse to walk. Now, you don’t have an excuse other than a lack of general fitness rather than “I suck at switchbacks that combine a high degree of fitness and technical skill into one repetitive package.”
The descent was once equally as difficult. It had drops, steeps, random logs on the steeps, and off-camber “surprise” turns that would repeatedly pucker your butthole up into your brain. Now, it’s still steep, but the “danger factor” is somewhat removed. The turns are more banked, some of the rocks are gone, and it’s generally been smoothed into what rides like a downhill pump track. I’m not gonna even pretend as if I enjoyed the “old version” better- it’s about the most fun descent I’ve been on since the Downhill course in Winter Park last year.

Trail politics aside- like I said, Kitsuma is difficult. Pacing thrown out the window, my heart rate was pegged somewhere in the 180s as I rode/pushed for nearly 20 minutes. Eventually, I made it up and over and was back on the road trying to settle down, eat, drink, and prepare for the next similar but shorter climb up Star Gap. It was there that I started to feel the effects of being previously redlined for a moderate amount of time. Going up even the more “rideable” parts of Star Gap, I couldn’t get on top of my gear. At the top, a woman who I’d been back & forth with caught up to me and exclaimed that she was having derailleur problems. I replied back- “Yeah, me too.”

After that, the trail turns into a less steep/switchbacked overgrown closed off forest road. Being more of a “comfort zone” for me, I started getting into a rhythm on the climbs and trying to float down the descents without wrecking/dislocating a thumb like I did in the same spot last year. I made it to aid 2 at the bottom of Curtis Creek feeling a little rough, but hopeful that I’d pull some ladies back on the way up the forest road.

Unfortunately, my blow-up had taken away the nice “flying” feeling I’d had the day before. I still managed to get a nice pace going, though I was forced to walk a couple of steep spots around the halfway point. Then, it started to downpour. It felt really nice, and being cooled off a bit made my calves feel less twitchy. I was about 8 miles up and almost looking forward to the 2nd half of the race when I stood up to grind out another switchback and SNAP… I was sitting on my top tube and rolling backwards.

I broke my chain. It was an almost new chain, and as far as I could tell the night before when I was checking everything over, had nothing wrong with it. I had a chain tool, but (even though I carry it with me on 1 hr rides from my house) no chain parts to use for repair. I couldn’t shorten the chain to remove the damage, either. I was SOL. After stewing for a few minutes, I zipped my jersey up and made the “chainless coast of shame” back down to aid 2.

Game over.

In retospect, I was in bad shape at that point. Not that I wasn’t going to finish… I was just going to suffer a lot in doing so. My coach asked if I felt like I should have run a lower gear, and I told him that I don’t want a lower gear, I want stronger legs.

I hate ORAMM so much now that I’ve resolved myself to winning it if it kills me.

Jet9 RDO

I heard that frames were shipping out, but never received any specific notice on mine. No complaints, though, it was a nice surprise…

 

This won’t be the speediest build I’ve had- I’ve been planning some fun customization, so between that and parts still arriving daily, it’ll be a week or two before it’s all together.

I used to read Brickhouseracing, but…

…what?

I hear it in post-race conversation all the time. “I used to read ‘x’ blog, but then ‘x’ happened and I got tired of it and stopped.”

Lately, I’ve been noticing a falling off for page visits to this site. Maybe it’s the lull in posting as of late? Is it my breath? My hair? Maybe I should comment more often on Dicky’s blog so that a few of his 11ty billion readers wander over here. When I asked him back around Southern Cross time how to gain more readership, his advice to me  was to “start a blog in 2006,” or something like that.

I’m guessing it’s a general lack of excitement and adventure that my previous posts once had. So, in sort of a “raise your hand if you’re not here” fashion, I’m open to suggestions- both from the loyal few that stick around here, as well as some of you that wander in by accident, read this post, and decide you’re probably never coming back.

P.S. “Tits or GTFO” is not a valid suggestion.

 

 

Eureka Springs Fat Tire Festival- Day #3

Spoiler Alert… What will now be referred to as the “downward spiral of suck” continued on Sunday.

The Cross Country race lined up at 9am on Sunday. Despite the downer of a Saturday, I was feeling like a boss. The race started, and I was still feeling like a boss. It begins by winding through the streets and back alleys of Eureka Springs, including some awesomely steep, short climbs. In the first few miles before we hit the main trail, Rachel, one other woman (not an omnium competitor) and myself had pulled away from the pack.

Did I mention that I felt great?

The non-omnium gal dropped back on a road section just before the main trail. I stayed just a few seconds off of  Rachel’s wheel as we entered the singletrack together. Soon enough, I took the chance to pass when she bobbled a steep, slippery pitch of one of the climbs. Then, it was her turn to do the same to me. No matter what, she stayed about 15-30 seconds back from me. I hoped to rely on my innate endurance to hold her off by maintaining a steady pace.

Somewhat suddenly, my legs started to feel bad. Really bad. Like, “hey, you’re bonking, and, oh yeah…  we’re going to cramp soon.” I was trying to drink some EFS drink mix from my camelbak, but it suddenly tasted/felt like it was too strong to digest. The calories I was taking in weren’t getting to where they needed to be. At just over an hour into the race, I felt impending doom closing in on me. Then, at the next climb, I went to gun it up a steep, rocky spot, and immediately my inner quads tried to turn themselves inside out. The lockup was hard enough that I almost fell over because I nearly couldn’t get a foot out of my pedal.

So began the hour of death march to the finish.

I had to back way off of my previous “like a boss” pace. Another woman passed me. My legs were still cramping, and my stomach felt like I’d swallowed a brick. I passed through the start/finish area for the 2nd of 3 times to start the last climb on the short lap before the finish. I saw a cooler on the side of the trail. I stopped and looked inside. There were 3 water bottles, and 3.5 bottled waters. I took the half bottle and chugged it.  As the climb started,  I cramped more, walked some, but my stomach started to feel much better. I then accidentally dropped my big air/inflator on the trail. Luckily, it was near a cat 3 guy who was hopelessly stranded with a flat tire, and he brought it back to me after the race.

Eventually, I made it to the finish line in 3rd place.

The drive home was long. Six hours later, I arrived home to Ryan and Matt getting dinner ready. As I unpacked the car, I happened to notice that my bike looked funny. Thirty seconds and a 4mm allen wrench later, I realized that my seatpost had slipped down just short of 2 inches during the course of the race. Cramp city, population 2 legs.

P.S. The Jet 9 RDO has charged to my credit card. The fork will be here Friday. ORAMM is next weekend. Much more exciting than my crappy weekend in Arkansas…

Eureka Springs Fat Tire Festival- Day #2

Bike racing is a world of highs and lows.

Saturday morning, I had a kickass breakfast a the Pancake Shop and headed to Lake Leatherwood for the downhill competition. After registration, I had a couple more good practice runs. The race was supposed to start at 10:00, and I (along with the other 15 or so omnium competitors) was informed at approximately 9:15 that we could not race without a full-face helmet. That left a handful of about 10 of us frustrated and scrambling to borrow one. Luckily, one of the other women had an extra in her truck. Other competitors were told that they’d have to wait and possibly only take one run if they couldn’t work out a borrow/run/shuttle helmet situation with another competitor.

I digress…

I was having a kickass first run. The course was slippery with loose rocks, but I was keeping generally smooth and just fast enough to feel like I wasn’t about to die. Then, about 3/4 of the way down, for reasons I can’t explain, I lost it coming down a small rock drop and went ass-over-tea-kettle. I knew as I came to a stop that I was fine, but at the same time, I watched my bike sail over my head. When I picked it up, the bars were crooked. With no way to fix it, I decided I’d ride it in like that. As I started to roll, I heard a distinctive “vrrrrrrp” noise coming from my front wheel. My tire was rubbing the fork. Crap.

My run a wash with extra fall time, I rolled in and went to the race mechanic to see if we could beat out some of the warp. He wailed it on the ground a few times, tightened a few spokes, and I made it back to the parking area in time with just in time to catch the next shuttle to the top of the hill. At that point I realized that I needed a clean run on my second try in order to retain a high placing in the omnium. Brian Fawley (pro from Orbea) was racing the omnium as well, and since he was in a category with some serious downhill guys, placing well in my category would allow me to get ahead of him in omnium points.

At that point, I also psyched myself out pretty bad thinking about not wrecking.

My second run prettymuch sucked. I didn’t have that awesome “edge of control” feeling from the first run because I was all over the brakes. I didn’t wreck, but my time was 3 seconds slower than Rachel’s (the gal that was 2nd in ST the night before). Crap.

The DH race ran really late. The trials competition was supposed to be starting at 3:00, and I didn’t leave the DH area until about 2:00. There was an awards ceremony at a nearby resort, but I figured the way everything else had been going, that I’d be incredibly late to trials if I stuck around for it. Instead, I went back to the motel, changed, ate, and cooled off a little.

Trials riding is pretty damn cool. There was a Czech dude in the cat I competition that looked as if he was defying the laws of physics. All of the omnium competitors competed in the cat III (beginner) class (no split for gender). Basically, the way it goes is that you and a small group of other people are placed with a judge. One at a time, each person in the group rides through a marked course. You get a point any time you put a foot down, and, if you put both feet down or an axle of one of your wheels passes over the marked course on the ground, you automatically have 5 points, which is the lowest score possible. There are 4 courses that you complete, you do each one 3 times, and your score is cumulative.

Essentially, it’s like golf for bikes.

After we made 1 round of the 4 courses, I realized something. I was not doing so hot. My usual approach to something technical is to pedal as hard as possible and blow through it with momentum. This required finesse. It was fun, and I definitely need to ride like that more often, but I wasn’t going to improve my omnium score with my performance, and I was looking at at least 2 more hours of standing around in the afternoon heat. So, I left and went back to the hotel. The judge of my group gave me a little grief about it, but I was at about this point…

 

I cooled off, relaxed, and looked at the internet before going to the XC registration & pool party. I don’t care who calls me a quitter… I’ve probably finished more races than them with more dislocated joints.

 

Eureka Springs Fat Tire Festival- Day #1

After spending Thursday night in Mountain View to cut the 6 hour trip to Eureka Springs in half, I slept in ’til nearly 7 Friday then hit up the Rainbow cafe on my way out of town. When I arrived in Eureka, I figured I’d settle in, eat lunch, then head up to Lake Leatherwood for a preride of the XC course before the shuttle started running for the downhill practice at 2pm.

I rode from where I am staying, which is about halfway between the Lake and downtown Eureka Springs. I found the beginning of the XC loop and made my way up the first little climb and along a ridge before descending back down to lake level. At that point, I’d only ridden a few miles, and the course had been well-marked. However, I reached an intersection where the course arrows pointed down both trails. Uh…

I chose “left,” which I guess was the course for the beginners, because I was back at the parking lot within a mile or two. At that time, it was 1:20. I met some other riders in the parking lot that were getting ready to ride the course. I briefly thought about going with them, but with the short track registration and TT starting at 4:00, I didn’t want to miss the first shuttle for DH practice. So, I chose to stay in the parking area and hang out with some of the people who had come to town just for the DH race.

2:00 came and went with no shuttle. Around 2:50, someone showed up with a dying truck and flatbed. I made a couple of runs and had to call it quits so I could get ready for short track.

The short track course was pretty boss. It had some sweepy, full speed turns, a couple of gravelly, greasy turns, and a hump to 180 to steep pitch just before the finish line straightaway. I nearly missed the qualifying TT because registration was painfully slow, but made it just in time to take a hot lap with no warmup or pre-ride. Somehow, my lap landed me a spot in the lineup 1 row ahead of the other women (women were run as an “open” category with the cat II men). I like MTB racing from the front, so this was good for me.

With 18 minutes on the countdown clock, we were given the signal to go. I hammered and from the start and fought for position through the first few turns in hopes that the other women would get caught up in traffic. After the first few laps, I could no longer hear spectators cheering for my competitors as I passed, so I knew they’d dropped off of my wheel. Not thinking, I settled my pace down a notch. After a couple of laps, I noticed that one of the other women was gaining some ground back. Then, I remembered that in an 18 minute race, there is no settling down… duh. I put the hammer down and tried to look at the start/finish timer, but it was malfunctioning. According to conversation overheard following the race, that clock has malfunctioned for the past two years before this race as well.

Nevertheless, I won the race. Later that night, I picked up my women’s award of a pint glass, water bottle, and a pair of gloves (cat 1 men received cash and those things, but since the women were combined with cat II men, for our race, we were awarded the same as the cat II men) . More importantly, I picked up some good points for the omnium competition.

Off to a good start. Saturday, however…

MTB Whizard

I’ve got 11ty other things to do right now as I’m preparing to leave for the Fat Tire Fest weekend after work, but instead I’d rather write a blog post full of interesting things. And by “things,” I mean stuff like this…

This little gem of technological innovation allows women to urinate whist standing up. “Being hydrophobic, the Whiz repels all liquid- just flick to dry!”   No one wanted to purchase this from Outdoors, so, of course, the logical choice for who to give it to was me. Now I just have to figure out what camelback pocket it fits best into… probably the large mesh one…  I’ve yet to use it, and, well, when I do, I most likely will not post pics. Sorry to disappoint. Here’s an illustration for you, though:

 

In other “cool stuff” news, I should soon see a shipping notice for something big, black, and carbon on its way to Memphis from Niner Bikes in California. The only problem is that I have yet to get an update from Fox as to when they plan on shipping me something long, black, and squishy that I ordered more than a week ago. Unlike previous bikes, this one won’t be an immediate build/ride since I’m doing something fun and awesome with the red anodized bits that hold the rear triangle on the frame. It looks like it should happen before the end of the month, though, and it will be totally worth the wait…