Day 2 recap…. Click image to jump to the XXCMag site.
TSE audio recap – day 1 on XXCMag.com
Andrea is away riding the Trans-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic and is too busy to update her blog…
I am going to post up some links from her daily recaps with Ben.
Pre Trans-Sylvania Rundown
I’ve been pretty quiet here since Syllamo because I’m trying to NOT wait until the last minute to have everything ready to leave for Trans-Sylvania. I’ve been pretty successful so far, getting both the Air9 RDO and the Jet9 prepped for action and even managing to squeeze in a 3 hour ride to check out some flooding in north Shelby County…
(Post-ride recovery brought to you by Podium Legs Cold. Easier than an ice bath, and less expensive than moving to a house near a snowmelt-fed stream)
While I was out on my ride, I made a decision on something I’d been pondering for the previous 24 hours. I bought a Specialized Command Post dropper seatpost for the Jet9. Because of the kink in the Jet9 seattube, I traditionally need to trim a longer seatpost down to achieve a proper seat height. The dropper post, at 280mm, was a hair too long. Literally- I could ride it by scooting my seat forward a few millimeters, but it was going to bug the hell out of me, and maybe give me weird “you changed something” feelings in my joints. Upon closer inspection, I realized that there was at least a centimeter and a half of bare post at the bottom end of the mech. So, I made a 2mm modification…
Good news and bad news, though. The good news? It fits PERFECTLY now. The bad news? I got metal shavings in my beer, and the amount you see in the picture below had to be poured down the drain.
So, things are falling into place. I’m excited, scared, anxious, and a little hopeful, all at once. Along with some posts here, you can expect a myriad of stuff on social media, as well as through XXC Magazine and Mountain Bike Radio.
Syllamo’s Revenge Race Report
I’m just going to get my mostly crappy race report out of the way before I talk Infamy.
I felt awesome, had a great start, and was totally rocking the lead. I had a rear flat super early, but didn’t sweat it too hard since it was 15 minutes in to a 5-6 hour day. However, getting back into a race on a narrow, technical bench trail is super hard and ends up being physically and mentally exhausting because you have to yell and beg and punch your way around a couple of hundred people in conga-line groups of 3-10 at a time. I’d worked my way through about 3/4 (I think) of the field and was settling back in to a good rhythm when I flatted my front tire and ended up at the back of the pack again. I fixed it and bailed at the next trailhead, making the decision to cut my losses based on the proximity of TSE and how hard I would have chased & destroyed myself trying to get back to a podium spot. Additionally, having a bunch of air in my front tire was super sketchy because the rocks & roots were already wet & muddy, which makes them a type of slick that you just have to experience to really appreciate.
I hate quitting a race more than almost everything, but my legs feel great (for you wattage nerds out there, I averaged 301 watts for 8 minutes going up the first climb, and wasn’t blown up at the top), and I didn’t want to screw it up by turning myself inside out or having a dumb wreck.
Still, the feeling of a DNF decision is on my top 5 list of things I hate, just under “death or illness of a loved one” and “getting attacked by a swarm of Africanized honey bees.” I still feel regrets about dropping out of Rouge Roubaix after getting hit by a car.
So, that’s it. The highlight of my day was watching Poolboy Matt finish his race in 5 hours, 10 minutes- good enough for 12th overall and 5th in singlespeed. He’s come a long way- doing well at Syllamo’s Revenge is a combination of having the best fitness, skill, and luck.
At least I didn’t get hit by a car.
“Infamous” Trail Designation
Some trails are technical and can be hard on people who arrive unprepared, either mechanically, physically, and/or mentally. They aren’t all too uncommon, and they dot the map all over the U.S. Lots of people refer to them as “Epic,” and they often become popular tourist destinations. However, I can only think of two trail systems- Syllamo and Pisgah- that go above and beyond techy/difficult/epic to achieve Infamy. These are trails that can chew up and spit out even the most well-prepared rider and equipment. If you can ride there, you can ride anywhere.
The name “Syllamo” comes as a tribute to a troublesome Creek Indian who inhabited the Sylamore Creek area in the early 1800s. It’s said that he used to steal horses an support raids of settlers’ homesteads, and, while he was eventually shot, it’s rumored that he still haunts his territory to this day. If there’s ever a legend that I’ll believe, it’s this one.
When people come to the Syllamo trails for the first time, they’re often not prepared for what’s there. It’s 50 miles of the most remote, rocky, and beautiful singletrack that I’ve come across in my relatively few years of riding off-road. The terrain includes steep stuff, flowy stuff, and lots of rock gardens. The shale that makes up the rock gardens is unique to the area and is a challenge in and of itself in two ways: 1) It’s sharp as all getout and will rip holes in even the toughest sidewalls, and 2) when it gets wet, it’s quite possibly one of the slickest surfaces known to man. It’s impossible to go to the Syllamo trails and ride “easy,” because it’s a constant challenge in some way, shape, or form.
No matter how strong, skilled, and lucky you are, the Syllamo Trails can crush you and/or your equipment. That’s why I love them more than any trails I’ve ever visited. I get the same vibe from the Pisgah-loving people out East. It’s a mix of respect (for the trail and its ability to destroy) and an undercurrent of the self-confidence gained from successfully riding trails that cause a disproportionately large percentage of the people who visit to swear they’ll never come back.
Even though the trail won out this weekend, there were hints of awesome in my very short time racing. I don’t think it’s possible to be more ready for Trans-Sylvania than I am now.
Cautious Optimism
As I mentioned in last week’s posts (as well as in TSE Journal #2 that I wrote for XXCMag), I successfully completed a sold block of training. It’s something I haven’t done much because of either A) work or B) some unforeseen issue like injury or feeling overly-fatigued. (glad to have eliminated option “A”) This time, however, I did it. Every minute of all of it. Perfectly.
Following that last big ride on Wednesday, my legs hurt like hell. I was supposed to do a 1hr recovery ride on Thursday, but all I could muster was a painfully slow ride to/from Outdoors (20 minutes round-trip) to give some love to the rear brake on my Air9 RDO. Apparently, some sort of reverse hydro brake jesus has been working his mojo on my bike, because the mineral oil inside had mystically been turned into black swamp water…
After flushing at least 4 syringes full of mineral oil into it and tapping it all over with a screwdriver to chase the bubbles out, it’s as good as new.
Aside from some pretty kickass yoga classes, I otherwise took it easy until yesterday, when I had a “half” training ride on the schedule. After making a Mother’s Day brunch that even Gordon Ramsey would be proud of, I went out to my favorite pain cave spot in Shelby Farms and proceeded to destroy my two prescribed intervals. They almost felt too good to be true.
Almost.
So, I get one more of the same abbreviated interval workouts between now and Syllamo’s Revenge on Saturday. I don’t ever like to get my hopes up about a race and the possibility to feel awesome, because there are soooo many other factors that go in to having a good race- especially at Syllamo, where the potential for outside killers like inclement weather and mechanicals is probably greater than any other race I’ll go to this season. It’s kinda like getting my hopes up for my birthday on Wednesday- all I can do is turn 32 as best as I can, but the quality of the birthday party is reliant on outside factors that I have little control over. Philosophy of “hope for the best, expect the worst” is implemented.
aaaaaaand, Done.
Yesterday I put the wraps on my aforementioned training block by going out and riding 100 miles. Typically, I’d connect a couple of my longer routes with some gravel out on the eastern ends of each loop. However, this time, I was recon-ing for the “Poolboy Matt’s 2013 Gentleman’s Ride,” and had a “no gravel” stipulation on the route choice. At first, I was a little disappointed, but it turned out really well because I found some gorgeous, rolling farmland and hardly any traffic. I’ve found that once you get out past a certain point, the traffic that you do encounter gives you the three finger country wave from the steering wheel (not to be confused with the one finger wave that you get closer to town).
The way I do long rides is to carry all the food I need then stop at various churches (or volunteer fire dept.) along my route to refill my bottles:
Side note: For those of you wondering how I have a “working” EVO frame- it’s not. It’s one of the out-of-spec frames with a PF30 to English adapter and the GXP Quarq off of my cyclocross bike. I’m not sure when the new warranty frame will be available.
90 miles in:
Salty:
I needed a “snack” after I cleaned up, so I went for the (grass-fed/nitrate & antibiotic free) bacon cheese burger:
I generally felt good for the entire ride, which was great considering the training I’ve done over the past few days. If you’re actually interested in what I do, you can take a look at Strava. If you don’t really care about training, but you want to see random photos (and you aren’t already inundated with social media), you can look at Instagram instead.
Now it’s mostly recovery until Syllamo and TSE where hopefully the hours of saddle time invested turn in to successful racing dividends.
Doing the work…
I haven’t had much opportunity to sit around and be disappointed that I wasn’t as fast as I wanted to be at the Whiskey 50. That’s due, in part, to starting in on my last hard training block before Trans-Sylvania Epic. In 4 days of riding (May 5-8), I’ m slated to put in 16 hours worth of riding, all of which includes some sort of intervals. So far, so good- I’m halfway through, and I’m feeling better than I would have expected (I’ve got another 4 hours on tap for today, so we’ll see if I’m saying the same thing this afternoon). After these 4 days, I’ve got a couple of more reasonably spaced hard rides, Syllamo’s Revenge 50 (May 18th), and lots of recovery rides.
It’s been a little cold and really rainy since I came home from Whiskey. I’ve managed to get rained a little (and a lot) during all of my rides up until today (forecast is for 70 and sunny, so that’ll be a pleasant change). However, as I mentioned yesterday on my Facebook page (link is on the right sidebar if you’re not already on there), my desire to get faster has completely overridden my want for personal comfort. The only thing that I’m disappointed with right now is that the trails are so soaked that it’ll be this weekend before anyone should touch tires to them again.
As a side project/torture test, I applied some ProGold Xtreme lube to the chain on my road bike on Thursday before heading out for 3.5 hours in the rain, and I’m waiting to see how long it is before my chain starts making tweety bird noises. If you’re like me, you’ve probably noticed a lot of people plugging ProGold lately on their blogs/facebook/wherever. It’s not just because Bruce Dickman is a nice guy who hands out a bunch of lube- it’s because, as a whole, it’s been stupid rainy here in the Southeast, and ProGold makes a lot of stuff that will very effectively clean/lubricate the parts on your bike.
(I didn’t really mean to shill for the sponsors for two posts in a row, it’s just that mentioning how much rain riding I’ve done lately reminded me of my lube experiment)
Somewhere in the mix of training, raining, and recovery, I’ll be turning 32 on May 15th. In light of the slowly growing number of scars and dents on my body from various & sundry wrecks, as well as my recent run-in with a motor vehicle, I’m coming to realize the reality of this quote from Hunter S. Thompson:
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
A safe, pretty-bodied life seems way too boring. When I look at a scar or a bruise, I don’t think that it’s made my body less attractive, but that it’s a reminder of the fun and/or adventure I was having at the time of its installation.
Photos & Great Sponsors!
This weekend was a reminder (from my road racing days) that, if you race with the big-name pros of your sport and don’t hang with them, then NO PHOTOS FOR YOU!
My one exception was a listener of the Just Riding Along radio show- Benjamin Wendorf. He took photos and video of Friday night’s crit and sent them to me Thursday (including a good nosebleed shot that’s now my photo on the Brickhouse Facebook Page)…
DAMN that kit looks good! (thanks to Micheal at Second to Nuun for the design) If you’re interested in purchasing one, my plan is to get a Nimblewear shop set up soon for orders. It will likely be a slightly modified version of what you see here- the same black/purple houndstooth w/pink accents, but without the sponsor roll-call down the front & back (not sure on that yet- feedback from YOU would help me out there). Hit me back on the comments below, or on Facebook/Twitter if you would purchase one- I’d really like to get a feel for reader interest so I know if I’d hit minimums or not.
Here’s another photo of the leaders that includes a good view of the crest of the first hill/crowds…
Take notice of the Giant GuEnergy Gel. Having Gu (who sponsors me) sponsoring a race is pretty awesome, because I get to meet all the people I’ve emailed with the past few months, and they’ve got all my favorite stuff at the booth/aid stations. I’ve also never seen any other nutrition companies send a giant gel mascot into the crowd.
In general, I’ve got a great bunch of sponsors this year.
Everyone from bystanders to the pros I lined up with were stoked on the bling-ness of the I9 Trail 24 wheels. Surprisingly, a lot of people have never seen Industry 9 wheels in person, so I have a good time telling them how not only do they look awesome, they kick ass as well.
On the same “awesome” list is ProGold. If you’ve only used the lube (something I’ve been doing long before I knew Bruce Dickman, ProGold rep extraordinaire and Brickhouse Racing superfan), I highly recommend trying the rest of their line of stuff. I got some of the bike polish (and some other stuff to try out and report on later) from Bruce over the weekend, and it made my beat-up Air9RDO look new again. Plus, Bruce gave me a call-up at the start of Sunday’s race as well as a kickass pair of ProGold Swiftwick 7s
If you go back to my post about Friday’s race, you’ll see the Maxxlite 29s that I raced in the crit. Maxxis has a very diverse mountain tire selection (I saw other ladies riding hybrid tires. They fared fine, but personally- and you know how picky I am- given the high-speed nature of the downhill turns on course, I’d rather have something a little more performance-oriented rather than commuter/cruiser oriented). Sunday, I rode an Ardent 2.25 front (favorite all-around front tire, ever) and the Ikon 2.35 rear. The Ikon 2.35 is available now. If you live in Memphis, Outdoors Inc in Cordova should have some in stock. As I’ve said in the past- a fat, fast-rolling rear tire on a hardtail makes a lot of sense.
I couldn’t do it without them. My advice to you is to look at who makes your favorite bike stuff and see who they sponsor. See what shops in town sponsor riders in your area (I know it sounds cliche, but I couldn’t do this without the help of Outdoors, Inc.) Let those companies know that not only do you like their products, but that you also like that they help people in the cycling community. It reinforces their decision to help out racers like me.
Whiskey Off Road Race Report
This might quite possibly be the most boring race report I’ve ever written. I generally had a great race, but the results were not very impressive.
As I mentioned before- Saturday I took as a very relaxing recovery day. I had a good night’s sleep Saturday night and woke up in plenty of time to eat, pack up the hotel room, and get to downtown Prescott before the crowds took all of the good parking spots. I changed and started rolling around to get a good warmup.
The awesome thing about racing the Pro category (other than getting to meet some of my favorite MTB heros on the start line) is that the 44 of us entered were privileged to our own start. Anyone who has ever raced an NUE race (or the Whiskey 50-proof amateur race the day before) can attest to the misery of traffic jams that result when huge numbers of riders of all shapes/sizes/abilities (whether real or perceived) all take off at the same time. Instead of arriving at the start 15 minutes early to elbow my way up to a good spot on the line, I meandered my way over once I heard the men’s race start 10 minutes ahead of us.
The race began with a gunshot fired by an old guy in old-time western costume. The course starts with a long climb out of town. It’s eerily quiet with the exception of the pockets of crowds that had gathered to cheer us along. At first, the pace remained easier than I thought it would as we negotiated the last of the city streets. However, once the road went to gravel and pitched up steeply, the leaders kicked it up, and the group strung out with me about 3/4 of the way back. I knew the pace I could maintain, and I knew that some of the women ahead of me were going harder than what they should, so I stuck with my effort and soon started to reel them in one at a time.
“Reeling them in” is a relative term here. Yes, I passed ladies who generally never passed me back. However, I wasn’t passing the women who were using my same strategy, but had all-around better fitness than me.
The only difficulty I suffered during the race was coming up the long dirt road climb out of Skull Valley. I was doing a great job of “singlespeeding it” by picking a really comfortable gear and standing/using my bodyweight to go faster than I could seated for the same amount of effort (it’s a learned skill- if you’ve never done much singlespeed climbing, you’ll find that until you figure it out otherwise, you’ll use more energy standing than you do when you sit). Example- if I stand and climb at a heart rate of ~170bpm, I’m going 9mph, whereas, if I sit and spin at ~170bpm, I’m only doing 8 mph.
Anyways… I got a terrible case of hot foot (I think?) My outer two toes on both feet felt like someone was clamping them into a vice and they were about to explode off of the end of my foot. I was forced to sit. I’d been hanging with Li’l Karen Jarchow for a while, but when the toe thing screwed up my singlespeeder mojo, she dropped me like the 105 pounds of stone cold killer that she is. I still passed a couple more ladies on my way to the top, but I wasn’t a happy camper.
Once I was up to the overlook where I’d taken photos on Friday, I made the right hand turn and started the descent back down to town. The descending out there was a ton of fun, though once I nearly made contact with a prickly pear cactus bush the size of a smartcar. I stayed on the gas the whole way in to make sure that no one caught up to me.
My finish time was 4 hours, 10 minutes. 27th place. Meh-pic!
Don’t get me wrong- given the all-star nature of the field, I wasn’t expecting a top 10 (or even necessarily top 15) finish. I was, however, hoping to be at least in the top half of the finishers. I’ve come to the following conclusions: A) Fitness is the obvious improvement. That’s a work in progress, as always, but this just provides a little extra something in the back of my head next time I don’t think I have the extra 5 watts at the end of an interval. B) The altitude had a little bit to do with it. It was day #3 at ~5300ft, so it would explain why I’d felt like a rockstar on Friday but maybe a little blunted on Sunday. C)I have to go downhill faster. That’s a tough one to work on in Memphis because the hills here are short. Descending at 20mph is what feels “normal” to me. When I get to where the descents are longer and faster, it feels crazy- I’m just not accustomed to the speed. It’s kinda like when you go from a state where the speed limit is 70mph to one where it’s 75mph. When you make that 5mph jump on the cruise control, it feels like you’re flying at first, but by the time you’re at the next state where it goes back to down, 70 feels like you’re standing still. I realized at Breck Epic last year that I can adapt to the speed pretty quickly with a little practice. It’s just finding a way to practice less brake and more shred. Maybe I need to learn to ride a moto… though that could become a “habit” in and of itself.
So, it was a good race to see both my strengths (I did a great job with pacing and nutrition), and my weaknesses (listed above). Trans-Transylvania is on the horizon, and it’s slated to be another stellar field of women. Along the way there, some hard training, a birthday, and Syllamo’s Revenge. Commence to hard work…
Fat Tire Criterium- Whiskey Off-Road #2
Friday morning, I packed some riding stuff in the car and headed to downtown Prescott to pre-ride some of Sunday’s 50 mile course. There was a 15 mile “fun ride” Friday afternoon that used the first and last climbs of the race course, so I figured that was the easiest way to see the good parts of the course and not get lost in the process.
My pre-ride was nice. The sections I got to see were a nice mix of flowy and rowdy, and were a good sample of the rest of the 50 mile course. Since I was taking it kinda easy, I stopped for some photos at the overlook that you pass just before dropping back down to the city (some other riders were stopped & taking photos, too, so we traded cameras)…
After I arrived back downtown, I cleaned up, grabbed lunch from a local place on the square, and headed to the Pro Race meeting. Highlight of the meeting? The women’s lead moto guy telling the men something along the lines of, “I will catch some of you. Move out of the way and don’t make me force the issue, because I’ve got an x00 pound bike with a motor, and I can force the issue.” (the women’s race started 10 minutes after the men’s race)
Following the meeting, I stopped at a local shop- High Gear Bicycle Shop– to clean my bike up and swap tires for the Friday night fat tire crit. I picked the Maxxis Maxxlite 29. It’s ~250g, and has a very minimal tread. They make no bones about it- it’s a race-only, no sharp-stuff tire. It turned out to be an excellent choice for the crit (I’m kinda stoked to have a set to try in other random race situations, too. I’m thinking Clear Creek in Oxford and maybe Stanky Creek for the TN State Championships). I put a super light 650b tube in them just for ease of setup, but they popped onto the rim like they’d work tubeless.
By the time I’d done all that, I had to hustle back to the hotel, eat a snack, relax a few minutes, and get packed to come back to the 5:15 crit. Here’s the deal with the crit- the only “prize” for the crit, other than some nice cash primes, is that the top 5 finishers get a call-up for Sunday’s race. However, the nature of the start of Sunday’s race doesn’t really make a call-up that beneficial. So, since all of the racers are required to toe the line and start, and riders in contention to be lapped are pulled by officials, a bunch of racers end up just riding a few laps then pulling out. It sucks a little that more don’t stay in the race, but, given the course and the pace, I understand the pursuit of self preservation.
The course is pretty brutal. For you stats junkies out there, here’s the Training Peaks graph of the first lap:
For those of you who are familiar with “Crybaby Hill” on the Tulsa Tough criterium course, this was essentially two of those (crowds/hecklers/onlookers included!), with the first one being a steeper (~11%) grade than the second. On the flipside, it made me giggle a little to watch some of the best women I’ve seen on a MTB get a little freaked out by the 30-something mph turn on the bottom side of the hill.
When the race started, I didn’t hold back. I stuck in the tail end of the lead group. A couple of laps later, and I’m in a pack of really strong chasers, still watching some of the most awesome women in mountain biking just seconds ahead of me. I was literally looking at the awesome riders next to me and thinking, “WTF am I doing here, and how am I going this fast?!?”
In the second half of the race, things blew apart some more. I gained/lost/gained/lost a few spots. I couldn’t see straight, and it seemed like there was so much lactic acid in my blood that it was leaking out into my ears and mouth. I couldn’t help but love it, and I couldn’t have made myself quit at that point. I kept wiping what I thought was snot and drool off of my face, only to find out after the race that my nose had started bleeding…
Gnarly.
I ended up 13th place out of 46 starters. Sounds really impressive, given the field, but, given the fact that a lot of the fast women quit in the name of self-preservation, not quite as awesome as it would be if everyone was out there giving 100%. I didn’t care- it was probably the most agonizing and awesome race of my life, and I had a blast doing it.
After I caught my breath and rinsed my nose/face off (thanks to the Prescott firefighters for the saline and gauze), I walked back up the hill to cheer the men’s race a little, and meet some JRA fans who had been cheering me on earlier. Ben gave me a shot of Scotch, and it made my legs feel better. I think he should have some action shots as well, and I’ll post them if he does.
The fun thing about the Whiskey Off-Road is that you race Friday night, then again on Sunday. So, you’ve got all day to lay around and recover on Saturday. I stopped by the bike shop to put my regular tires back on, then found the greenway, the pumptrack, and a great massage… prettymuch my definition of the most perfect recovery day possible.