some slow guy's writings. mostly about bikes

Long, Slow, Lap around Linville Gorge...

2012-01-27T08:19:00.002-05:00

So I'd hoped to go mountain biking with friends on my day off this week, but with unsure weather and people's busy lives I ended up riding alone. "I guess I'll just ride alone."

Studying various weather websites I realized I should head southeast - so I decided to ride the Linville Gorge Loop listed in one of the books we sell at work. Problem is, I'm still running 36/46 x 11/26 gearing from CX racing. Oh well, a 34/50 x 11/28 would have made more sense...

An eerie old, moldy sign greeted me as I rolled out:

My route for the day:

linville gorge lap - 1/26/12

Find more Cycling Routes / Bike Rides in Newland, NC

It took a little over 4 hours of riding to cover the 52 miles, and nearly 5 hours start to finish including 10+ stops to check the map. I left my handwritten cue sheet at the car. Oops. It was a fun day, and I'd like to go back and try riding up Tablerock Mtn Rd sometime instead of 'Simpson Creek Rd' or whatever it turns into. As usual, thanks for reading. JG

january 22nd CX ride

2012-01-22T21:27:00.002-05:00

so today darcy and i went out to old cove creek school and rode our CX bikes for a couple hours. our route:

old 421, left onto north fork rd, left onto beaver dam rd, left onto georges gap rd, left to old cove creek school.

darcy got loaded up, i swapped out bottles and began my ride home. i headed over mast gap rd, 194n, bairds creek rd, dewitt barnett rd, moore mtn rd, willow mtn rd, laurel fork rd, greer ln, then long st back to our house.

we were really excited to check out north fork rd since neither of us had ridden it before and i was glad to find/connect moore mtn rd to willow mtn rd - we stayed in a cabin off willow mtn rd w/ friends before our wedding. it was neat to stop there and see it again 3.5 years later.

okay, okay, some photos:

cyclocross time?

2011-10-11T20:34:00.004-04:00

so summer ended. i did the fontana SERC race then quit bike riding for a while. after being lazy for a while i built my Specialized CRUX - it's pink - and got back on the bike. i've done a couple stackhouse races but got down to asheville CX in black mountain, NC 10/9/11 and i raced myhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif cyclocross bike sunday - boy that was fun.

after replacing my broken pedal (10mins before the start), starting in the last row (of 70 people), and dealing with my seat sliding down 3cm i was quite happy with 28th out of 66 people. it was a great race and made me feel good about how things are coming together.

i went out early this a.m. for a bike ride. and this helped me get out in the 50deg rain:

so i did some intervals (blah) and checked out the trees and rain and had these thoughts about it:

fall trees colors bright
cross, tabata intervals
leaves don't notice me

MSG cyclocross has races saturday and sunday coming up - we'll see how it goes. AND darcy and i are working on a creeper trail trip this weekend. it will be awesome! thanks for reading. jg

may, june, july. slack

2011-07-13T21:36:00.002-04:00

so since i actually wrote a real blog post in may, i:

missed the SERC race in ducktown in favor of a 5hr pisgah ride instead
spectated the burn24 in wilkes (and announced my return in 2012)
kind of got it together for massanuttan HOO-HA! not pro

From summer 2011

had a few weeks of inactivity/lack of motivation/rain/etc
rode some prototype tires

From summer 2011

got some landscaping done - thanks matt H & darcy

From summer 2011

got it together for the AMBC magic cycles race at beech mtn

From summer 2011

cheered for darcy - she won. everything she's done this year... teacher of the year, valdese Tri, westside Y tri, sevierville Tri, you get the idea

From summer 2011

then it rained and got muddy and i was slow

From summer 2011

and had our 3yr anniversary =)
so we kayaked on the new river. thanks Rivergirl

From summer 2011

then july 4th weekend we camped with friends (and dogs)

From summer 2011

didn't ride bikes. then started again. this week i
did a 4hrs ride previewing ~35mi of the iron MTN 100k course
and a tuesday night ride, no not reid's route
along with an easy rocky knob mtb ride. haiku here:

morning rocky knob
laps. super sweet flow and rocks
together as one.

that brings me to tonight. darcy is away with her girl friends at the beach, and i'm 'watching/listening' to le Tour. looking forward to sunday 'racing' the iron Mtn 100k but more importantly excited about taking darcy to crested butte in one week - hopefully riding the 401 trail:

thanks for reading. jg

rainy day deck hill

2011-05-27T20:25:00.002-04:00

repeats on deck hill
mountain bike with single ring
cut short by cold rain

slumming. random photos.

2011-05-08T09:30:00.002-04:00

so i haven't been riding/blogging/being cool for a while - the weather has been questionable - a few days when there was NO chance of rain it ended up thunderstorming... thankfully i wrote the columbia, SC Harbison XC race on my calendar with pencil so i could erase it and just ride with the max camp instead. a lack of motivation and carpool partners uninspired me instead. i'm trying to get it together for the SERC race at ducktown, TN a week from today. for the meantime check out rad photos i found on my phone from the last week point five. as usual - thanks for reading. jg

photos from hiking:

jada the dog after climbing a ladder. yes. i thought i was going to have to carry her:

photos from bike ride with stackhouse (he was so fast i couldn't keep up to get photos) on thursday ride/workout after doing 5min intervals on sims pond hill on the blue ridge parkway:

rad hip kool!

tnr + beech mtb

2011-04-23T09:27:00.009-04:00

so after a busy weekend traveling and kicking it with darcy, daniel and jada the dog i got out tuesday night for the (in)famous tuesday night ride - also known as TNR, tuesday night world championships, etc.

jacob florence decided to go up flannery fork (which was graded last week) resulting in a few flats. regrouping at sandy flats we roll down 221 to holloway mtn rd then jacob keeps the pace going on holloway. either everyone else couldn't keep up - more likely they didn't see us - but we pushed the pace alone the entirety of holloway mtn rd to the BRP on-ramp. we regrouped there and talked about our various power numbers and the best programs for analyzing the data... trainingPeaks, poweragent, goldencheetah. dorks yes.

rolling BRP north we allowed gene fowler and zion to escape then jacob turned the switch on and we caught, passed, regrouped the break and passing the red barn i had to sit up - my earlier efforts (and racing sunday) proved to crush me. good thing though, i was fortunate to see an amazing crash - i feel okay talking/joking about it because stack and gene were both fine and laughing as it occured. basically gene dropped his chain (campy 11, d/ace srm, and rotor rings must not shift so great) and was off his bike in the lane perpendicular to the flow of the peloton. no trouble though, only two people had to make it by him. well stack was staring at the ground and plowed into gene full speed. thankfully for gene, stack's full speed was only like 12mph, but nonetheless it looked like:

anyways. some poweragent images:

then i got out on thursday with mike anderson to beech mtn for some mountain biking. their trails are great and surprisingly flat/fun for being on a huge mountain.

we got in about 3hrs of riding and now its time for easter weekend hanging out with doug/diane, dana, and marshall. good breakfast at melanie's this morning, now time to work. thanks for reading. jg

(nearly) perfect weekend - asheville + stumpjump XC

2011-04-18T07:47:00.002-04:00

so friday 6:00 ended my work week. darcy and i had big plans for the weekend: valdese triathlon (saturday), asheville hanging out (saturday afternoon/evening), and stumpjump XC (sunday). friday night we got our bags packed, then:

we woke up saturday morning - and had not packed the car yet - to torrential downpours. the triathlon sent out an email about the weather, but it hadn't been canceled. load up the car, wet dog, where are our extra towels?? rolling by 6:30am saturday.

get to the venue - unload car - in the rain - darcy goes to registration - wet dog - pumping up tires in the rain. walking towards registration (a second time) - some old man: "its been canceled." ugh. rescheduled for june 25 or so. at least we tried.

driving to asheville we find ourselves at our good friend daniel's house around 10:30am. we decide the best way to move on with the day is with a trip to clingman cafe. yum!!! we walked around and got i took some photos of things we saw:

the afternoon/evening was super fun - included a trip to mamacita's, and soon it was sunday morning. drive to spartanburg, SC. race the stumpjump - debut for the new boone bike kit:

jada the dog hung out with darcy while i warmed up, raced, and rode around aimlessly afterwards. i had a good-ish start, sunk a few spots, and clawed my way back up at least a spot or two during the 2nd and 3rd lap. near the end i caught on of the really fast almost pro cat1 kids that twisted his chain and we fought it out the last 2 miles. granted he was pedaling a non-functioning bike and i was still sucking. it reminded me of:

results:

jealous:

so then we drove back. saw this guy's setup:

we stopped in saluda - i'm not sure i took any photos there. anyways, it was cooool!!! we got back, and now its back to the real world, but on the way home i looked over at darcy, looked to the back seat at jada - and thought to myself: "i'm living the life. i'm on top of the world. i have a house, a great job, a beautiful wife, and a sweet puppy (1.5yrs...). i have a family."

thanks for reading. jg

2011-04-12T21:15:00.002-04:00

grandfather mountain with my mom, dad and grandma - AND - jada the dog!!

and bike riding with darcy in our new awesome boone bike kit:

tsali SERC #2 - asheville sunday. fun!

2011-04-04T22:13:00.003-04:00

So…. After going to Banff and hanging out with great friends Friday/Saturday we loaded up and headed west. Staying the night with Matt/Kinsay was fun and we headed out Sunday morning towards Tsali.

For some reason, I began getting dressed THEN headed up to registration/packet pick-up. Seeing the line of 25+ people I was reminded why I decided I would always head directly from the parking lot to pick-up… I had just enough time to run back down to the car and then make my way to the start line….

After a lackluster warm-up consisting of two sprints up the gravel road and an EVEN worse start I found myself riding around 20th of 26 people. After eventually warming up, settling in and passing a few people – moving into the genuine middle of the pack, climbing surprisingly well, and feeling good I hear “Swish……. Swish…… swish…..”

Stan’s sealant squirting out the right side of my front tire and I know whats going on - PUNCTURE!!! Lean to the side, hope the sealant works – wait – nothing. Stop, lean the bike over, puncture to the lowest point, gravity will surely take over and the sealant will do its job. PERFECT, jump back on the bike roll. A few people passed, no problem. Get back into it, ride for 5 minutes or so. Soft front tire. Pull over off the trail – Should I just put in a tube?! NO – it will waste too much time!! Blast a CO2 and shake the front tire. Wheel back on the bike.

Now riding along – gaining a place or two back. Riding blue jersey guy’s wheel for a bit – pass him. Gosh, as expected, my right knee starts to hurt. No problem – I took some advil a few hours ago and brought emergency advil in my pocket. When should I stop to dig those out?? Ahhh, now seems look a good idea: soft front tire again!!! This being the third stop to deal with my front tire knowing I only have two cartridges left I opt to be grumpy, and fix my flat (tubeless filled with sealant) with a new tube (ie deflate the tire completely, pop the bead off the shoulder of the rim, take out the tubeless valve, now seems like a good time to pop the advil, tire lever, ugh – sealant everywhere – unhook tube from under saddle, unscrew empty CO2, thread in new CO2, tube into the tire – did the wind really just blow a leaf into the puddle of stan’s in my tire. Yes. Toss the leaf to the side. Tube into the tire, tire bead back on – by hand – no lever needed!! Blast a CO2 – wow it still feels squishy, maybe 18psi, good thing I had another cartridge. Who carries three cartridges?? Tire feels firm at least 27psi, bead hasn’t popped up yet everywhere, no worry – wheel back on bike). Shovel the trash heap into my back pockets and go go go! Unfortunately I lost count of the people who passed me. At least four or five minutes has gone by and I know i'm in DFL. Dead freaking last.

Thankfully this stop proved to give my legs, right knee, and lungs a break. Back on the bike – pedal time – finish my first lap. Wow – only an hour and fifteen minute first lap – 15 miles?? I guess I stood on the side of the trail. Roll into the feed zone – Darcy, focused, is ready to quickly hand off a bottle and chase my empties. Unclip – foot out. Sit on toptube. Be grumpy some more. She hands my bottle and I explain my first lap. She says I was worried your knee quit working. “I took my advil while fixing my flat tire.” She cheers me on as I begin my second lap and I’m off. Rolling up the gravel road toward singletrack I had three things go through my head:

1. Nine Ball Diaries – Richard Fries – Tim Johnson rolls a tubular tire in a UCI Grand Prix cyclocross race. Losing 50+ spots but jumping back on to catch back up to 12th place – “Tim can really fight when the chips are down.” Then speaking of my all-important regional expert race… “Grimes can really get up off the mat.” I haven’t even met Richard Fries – how did he know I was having a bad race?

2. Chopper Reid – being played by Matt Herdklotz with a thick australian accent – is making fun of me and other random people on the street. “Oh, you spent more on your hair product than you did on your show-winning poodle?!? Harden… UP!!! “Oh, your right knee feels like someone is driving a knife into it and twisting?? You had to stop three times and use all your CO2 and a tube on your front wheel?? Harden… UP!!!

3. Honey Badger – “So what – you had bad warmup, flat tire and now you’re in last place?? Honey Badger don’t care – he don’t give a (insert here).”

Then the entire Honey Badger youtube clip played in my head and cheered me up. Entering the singletrack I decided to make the most of the day and the race. I got a bad warmup, I got a flat tire, my knee hurts real bad. Well on the bright side, all these bad things happened on the same day. I can’t help that but I can put the hammer down and catch as many people as possible.

Well – I passed at least fifteen people, most were 30+, 40+ or women pro category, but three were my cat1 19-29 category. Turn the last corner, zip-up my jersey for the media – hey, Velonews might be there – and cross the line with a wheelie and a ring of my bell.
So I not only made up my “DFL by three or more minutes situation” but managed to work back into 23rd of 26. I think my second lap only took an hour, maybe an hour ten. Pretty good for a 15 mile lap. Overall not really a great day, but certainly better than DNF or just being grumpy and getting mad like a fifth grader and sitting up and not trying. results here

After the race, I drank my recovery drink and dug out my leftover Puerto Nuevo taco – yup, the cooler did its job. Definitely safe to eat. What a great snack!!

Back at the car I emptied my pockets out and decided to document everything used and the trash heap for all of you. Well, three empty CO2 cartridges, a ziplock (containing two advil earlier), a tire lever (glad I had it), Kyle Velcro strap (originally held a tube under seat), and multi-tool and chain tool proved good to have today.

Change, take a look at the results page, load up and head to west Asheville for Universal Joint bugers, a quick stop at david’s bridal, a couple brewery visits, and Tupelo Honey – breakfast for dinner. I’m glad we got to see Matt/Kinsay, our friend Daniel, and even meet some new Asheville bike racer dorks too. Quite a good weekend – now I’m putting my feet up, taking a week off from ‘training’, doing my civic duty (jury duty), and hanging out with my parents. Next up is Stumpjump April 17th or as Jay-Z would say, "On the next one... with my flip-flops, white louie boat shoes...” Thanks for reading. jg

thursday off work - pot rack!

2011-03-31T19:53:00.004-04:00

thirty three degrees
rain today? must ride forest
for three 'easy' hours

today drew and i rode mtb's. we both wanted to go pretty easy - TNR apparently worked him a bit and well, he's debuting a new bike sunday at the dragon's tale. i on the other hand, just wanted to go slow but his slow and my slow are well, somewhat different. thankfully we left out climbing woodruff.

we cruised some gravel, some more gravel, some trail, some classic trail (nearly cleanly -one darn wet root- riding the wet rooty rhodo-tunnel that can't be done (clearly)), crossing a road, dropping leaf covered steep, MORE gravel road, and ripping back to a tree farm. a quick pavement spin and we discuss our plans for the afternoon after three hours of 'easy' riding.

drew agreed to help install a super rad custom pot rack in the kitchen and so up globe rd we went back to the house. a few recovery drinks later and a couple extra holes in the ceiling and voila:

drop drew back to rocky creek - head to stickboy and meet my lovely wife. we pick up some foccacia (late lunch for me), some dirty hot chocolate (hot chocolate + espresso shot) and naan for our homemade pizza dinner:

now i'm reading pro bike racer diaries on velonews.com since proorbust.com still just has one post.... just finished ben king's about classica sarda and i'm on to the next one. banff film festival tomorrow - plenty of great friends headed to town, and tsali bike racing on sunday. i hope my knee holds up. ::finger's crossed:: jg

tuesday night - mtb ride?

2011-03-29T21:59:00.003-04:00

so i rode alone
iPod, intervals, pin it!
ready for sunday?

a short haiku for everyone and a photo of the day:

tsali from long ago...

oh, and i found this RAD NEW BLOG - but i think its still really new. thanks for reading. jg

more layers than a cake. hwy90.

2011-03-27T18:05:00.003-04:00

so last night mark newton hosted an alpine ski center employee party at his place. it was a good time. the 2010-2011 'snow hard' movie poster was revealed:

and people played oversized jenga - it was custom built by mark himself:

i left his place a little late and as a result slept in until like 9:23a. and today i wanted to ride bikes. darcy had friends in town so after brunch i got my bike stuff together. the forecast for boone was 34deg and a chance of rain. that wasn't too bad but it was really foggy and i couldn't think of a good route that wouldn't hit this type of fog bank:

so i headed down to patterson and started from the blinky light gas station. i pulled on more layers than a cake:

and rolled out warrior rd to setzer creek rd to collettsville rd. i started up the efforts just after adako rd and did 3x 5mins with 5mins RBI. those went well, avg wattage 257,250, and 237, and i turned around at some point (after the second old johns river rd) and headed back. instead of turning onto setzer creek i rolled collettsville rd to valway rd then realized i was riding us321n for a minute then warrior rd got me off the highway and led me back towards the blinky light gas station. i got 31.9mi - 45mi would have been better but at least i got out.

thanks for reading. jg

pasta! 5hr mtn bike ride!

2011-03-24T22:08:00.005-04:00

so wednesday night darcy and i got rained out from riding - so instead we made pasta. it was awesome!!! spicy olive oil, red pepper, pancetta, green peppers, and yummy harris teeter brand sauce.

as usual - we managed to make enough for leftovers so i get salad and pasta again for lunch friday!!! woohooo!

almost as exciting as that - i was off work today but i went by this morning to use the compressor and swap some tires out on both bikes/wheelsets. gosh i can't wait until we get a compressor here in the basement... so i had a set of captain 2.2 tires in the basement for a few months and decided today's route required these tires. i pulled the captain 2.0's off my sj fsr and installed the set of 2.2's. and i've also determined that i'm not a good enough bike handler (surprise) to use the micro knobby renegades on the hardtail - especially since one is a pre-production tires with <1mm high middle knobs. anyways, for the hardtail, i swapped the front (production version) renegade 1.95 to the back and put a fast trak LK tire on the front. i'm excited to try this combo next week and i think it will work well for tsali on april 3rd.

so many choices...

i met up with brad blackwell and we headed out to the forest. my poor bike had no idea what was going on - i think it thought it was being kidnapped:

we started at the white church. when rolling back up pineola to the car we hypothesized our ride was going to be 3:52. boy we're we wrong!!! we rode for 5 hours!!! it was a great day in the NC school of tech. i rode some lines that i haven't before and cleaned more than this lady:

which isn't much because she's a cartoon. it was a good day but a little cold considering we had 15 creek crossings over the duration. thankfully i had my trusty wool socks and a long climb to the car to keep warm.

afterwards i headed home, grabbed hiking boots, stopped at stickboy for nourishment, and headed to rockyknob. i got there late but got in almost 2 hours of trailwork. a lot of the guys were doing some rock armouring for sections that stay wet. i felt fortunate to do some corridor cleaning on the first few hundred feet of phase two. it should be rad.

a not-so-quick-trip grocery shopping

then home and i'm thinking about cleaning, eating something, and having people over for the weekend. hopefully the weather will cooperate and i can roll around somewhere tomorrow. thanks for reading. jg

first TNR. 80's music??

2011-03-22T21:12:00.003-04:00

so while riding my first TNR of the year - i realized i know the perfect soundtrack.

anyways, we cruised up winkler's creek to russ cornett (the attacks began 9 minutes in. so much for a warm-up - some of us worked until 6pm boohoo) to poplar grove up shulls mill then BRP to the 321 to aho rd then down BRP to bamboo then back on deerfield. i was a little confused that our peloton slow rolled (well, most people accelerated actually) the three-way stopsign at bamboo deerfield to setup their sprinters for the prestigious town line sprint:

still - i think we should 'stop' a little better at the stop-sign. anyways - the ride was fast, good, but fast. my avg speed was 16.97mph (including a small ring booty loop). avg power was 173w. i set 11 new peak power records including 1min at 391w... kind of dorky, but cool if you're a power user too. if not, well, point your fingers and laugh. sure i deserve it. charts/numbers that may or may not mean anything to you:

yummy veggie pizza for dinner. off to bed. mtb tomorrow. thanks for reading. jg

hobby park xc. report i guess.

2011-03-21T18:51:00.006-04:00

so i 'raced' at hobby park. knowing our cat 1 19-29 guys get combined with pro, and that i would be happy 'just hanging on' i entered the weekend happy to have saturday off, pre-ride the course with darcy on saturday, hang out in greensboro (the cars are different there)

and did some last minute adjustments.

sunday came around and well so did 'racing.' i picked up my packet and got my first ever single digit race number.

it seemed cool, but i knew i'd have a tough time living up to it. after taking photos of the sport race:

i warmed up a bunch and toed the line with charlie storm, alex ryan, scott frederick, robert fish, and other fast people. i knew i'd be content with making it up the soap box derby hill and to the singletrack with the group.

lofty goals...

i managed that, in fact somehow i entered the singletrack in 7th or 8th position (of 15) - so that was cool. i hung for a while, a few people passed, then hung in 10th or so for most of the 1st lap. a couple guys passed and slowly the gap to them grew. i'm not sure why... i'm faulting my engine for not being powerful enough

and my tire selection may not have helped either. anyways, i was content to stay in front of a guy that went to belgium with the usa nats team (he must have had an off day or broken his bike or something), and not get passed by the fast 30+, 40+ guys until the third lap. it was definitely a training race and learning experience, i have lots of work to do, and now i'm looking forward to tsali april 3rd. results here. thanks for reading. jg

commute + singletrack = great thursday

2011-03-17T21:03:00.003-04:00

so earlier this week i decided i would ride my bike to work today, work, then ride home. well i certainly didn't just pick the shortest point from A to B. A= my house. B = boone bike.

this morning i took hodges gap to the college apartments, poplar grove up to bodenheimer road, and hopped on the old-skool hiking/running trails behind the broyhill. i was pleasantly surprised, as i always am once a year when i decide to head up there, by the condition of the trails and the size of the smile on my face. i pedaled around until the clock told me head to work. cut through campus, coffee stop, bike shop:

work.

after work, i pedaled up winkler's creek to flannery fork to check out the condition of the gravel in case i want to ride road bikes on it anytime soon. took russ cornett back to diamond ranch to poplar grove.

off russ cornett

cut through the college apartments again, then suffered up our driveway. it was a great day - darcy had a great day too which made me even happier. she's been busy lately with school, grad school, and being teacher of the year. all the newspaper, magazine, and website interviews have kept her busy... =) anyways, breakfast for dinner:

oatmeal, blueberries, yogurt, sweet potatoes, and eggs with leftover sirloin steak. yum.

we're headed to pre-ride, hang out with evan, and race bikes on sunday at hobby park xc. race report soon. thanks for reading. jg

weekend. evan/greensboro/tyler. danville angler's ridge XC

2011-03-14T07:54:00.003-04:00

hello all-

the end of the week was good, friday went quickly and felt productive for a change. we made pasta friday night - paired with pinot noir. leftovers were good saturday at work. pasta - not the wine. as usual, sam got stuck with working on my bike (and darcy's this time) at the last minute. after work we loaded up and headed to greensboro to stay with our good buddy evan mcintosh. we took turns filling up bottles, catching up on the latest news, and went to bed, prepping to wake up an hour 'early.'

sunday we wake up, tyler made eggs, coffee and waffles for us. wooohooo! load up the car - drive to danville. packet pickup. change. start warming up.... the 6hour race was supposed to start at 9:30 and our race was scheduled for 10:01 (cat1 19-29) and darcy was 10:15 (cat3 w's). eventually we got started around 10:55 or something and i'm not sure when darcy finally rolled.

for the first race of the season (and since june 20th last summer) once i got on the line most of my nerves calmed down. 3, 2, 1 -GO! 5 pedal strokes. CRASH!!

someone went down, grab your brakes, go to the left, through the rocks, head down, hammer. twisty windy singletrack. great. a few pro's pass me that got caught in the mess. no problem - have fun guys. go go go.

their trail in danville is very fun. for a 'race course' its actually somewhat difficult. there are a few roots running diagonally in off camber corners, a very few muddy spots, and a handful of very steep hills. i was surprised at how well the 34t chainring worked for me. i made it up all of the steep hills. for two laps. until my legs started cramping...

my plan for food involved sports drink while warming up, sportlegs and a gu at 10:00, then two gels on the bike and plain water. that proved to be a bad idea. with the extra time spent warming up/riding in circles the sports drink must have worn off, and by the time james wittwer passed me (early 2nd lap i think) and i was feeling leg cramps i was disappointed, but well, he's young and fit, and has a cool looking new bike. chase dickens caught on and we rode together for a while - giving each other a much need push over the top of a couple hills. he was apparently having mechanical issues, that explains why he was back riding at my pace for a while. he eventually turned the afterburners on and left me. i slowed for the heed/water stop on the 2nd and 3rd lap hoping to replenish some much needed electrolytes. it helped a little, on my third lap i was able to grab a bottle going through, then i caught on with some 30+ guys and we took turns passing each other as leg cramps allowed.

i don't think any 19-29 riders passed me on the third lap, and i'm not sure when andrew devierscott passed. maybe he was in front from the line/crash/start. the entire 2nd/3rd lap, while suffering i kept thinking to myself that zeb might be catching up, he was wearing appstate NOT magic cycles, but imagining him in the magic cycles kit kept my legs turning. i did not want that pass to happen. the third lap went by and i was happy to cross the line. finished. most of the 3rd lap i spent looking for gels, bottles, bloks - anything other racers might have dropped that included cramp-fighting electrolytes. after the race some other people admitted they'd been doing the same. makes me feel less sketchy. results. they use a result system like at massanuttan (george willets i think).

i guess i finished 11th. thankfully there were more than 11 racers - but i did not stay to see official results. after the race, i sought after cold water and endurox, dry fresh clothes, and food.

thankfully the checkered pig BBQ was one of the big sponsors and darcy and i got our lunches and went to work. we hung out for a while with james, andrew, and zeb then over to see evan, tyler, and dan hemp who were all competing in the 6hour race. after some goodbye's we headed to wilkes - arriving in perfect time to have some La Fortuna #8:

arguably the best part of the weekend. i have leftover tacos for lunch and a few days to get ready for hobby park XC coming sunday march 20th. thanks for reading. more photos next time. jg

thursday: 70% chance of rain, then turning cold/windy and snowy. bike ride?? yes

2011-03-10T16:06:00.003-05:00

so i woke up to a gloomy forecast. 70% chance of rain, high of 45, windy then snow. searching forecasts for every direction within a 1hr radius i determined collettsville would be my starting spot. head to work, build a wheel, hit the road.

get to work, with sam's expert guidance i built a front wheel for my road bike. selling my chris king/open pros to FLO allowed me to acquire a silver chris king front hub, thankfully it will match the powertap aesthetically and with another black mavic open pro and 32 spokes i was at work! spoke prep, gerd schraner, daft punk on pandora. magically, i got to a complete, tensioned, trued wheel in a little less than two hours. i'm happy with that. load up the car, destination collettsville. WAIT. its sunny. and warm, well 40+ degrees. bike ride!! so i walked back in the shop - to sam, shaw, and sarah's dismay ("we thought he was gone for the day!") and get changed. waterproof jacket - check. fender - check. embrocation - check. extra gloves - check. i managed to perfectly time it and get done before the rainsnow.

bundled up:

shades over helmet straps. rule #37. always:

red shoe covers!!

thanks for reading. feel free to comment. even if its just: wskgjhreklherjkghrejkghdrjklfgh. jg

thats that gourmet... cheese? yum.

2011-03-09T21:09:00.003-05:00

so today was a good wednesday - it was 34degrees and rained non-stop reminding us it is actually winter - as if that's not enough, we have a chance of a dusting to 1" tonight. the bike shop was busy enough to cruise through the day, but not so busy we were pulling our hair out or anything. we got a special visit today from noah - and emerson, ray, and newton also darkened the doors.

so after our 'plat du frommage' saturday night we decided we'd DIY our own version. thankfully harris teeter and earthfare have plenty of gourmet cheeses and other supplies. see below:

we have: soppressata, proscuitto, fig preserves, apricots, cranberries, pistachios, walnuts, marcona almonds. cheese (from back): manchego, smoked gouda, brie, and jarlsberg. on our plates: sesame seed water crackers, olive oil saltines, green apples and canteloupe. simply yum.

now to check the weather for my day off. gotta pedal somewhere. thanks for reading. jg

2011 stumpjumper evo R 29. race ready?

2011-03-08T22:54:00.004-05:00

so today was great: i got some finishing touches on the hardtail, proper xx shifter, white housing, brakes adjusted, sam approved. race weight with pedals/cages/computer mount is 21.0lbs.

work went well, it went by quickly, i got in a 1.6hr mtb ride out to the greenway to get last minute riding in. easy, fun, rolling around. we planned out doing two rides, tuesday and thursday.

well wednesday and thursday look dreary so tonight might be it. the bike worked well, wheels feel great, tires are perfect, brake pads/rotors settled in nicely, shifting is dialed, and it looks great. so the bike is ready - am i??

thanks goes to:
sam h - boone bike, for double checking my work.
matt shanly - best specialized rep boone bike's had. since kent at least
chris wyatt - specialized tire genius
jake/jacob - industry nine
kathy - highway two (fizik)
darcy - (teacher of the year!)for putting up with me and my bicycles

thanks for reading. jg

WC thursday, fun weekend, monday!

2011-03-07T19:21:00.004-05:00

so thursday was fun. todd henne and i got down to warrior creek. we knocked out one good warmup lap then crushed a one hour lap. well, neither of us had cycling computers, or watches, or sundials but we were rolling!! we briefly ran into kristian jackson, jay womack and jim horton photoshoot-ing and kristian got some RAD photos (as usual). i am no smart enough to embed his photos on here, but check out his website, and buy some photos too: http://kristianjacksonphoto.com/enter

we followed up our meal with a quick trip to La Fortuna #8:

its quite possibly the best mexican food anywhere, but make sure to take cash $$. they don't take no stinking credit cards!

friday we did the art crawl thing, saw cool stuff at the turchin center, saw our friend jenny and her friend warren (kevin pogoloff's son). hung out at glug for a while then headed to the boone saloon for dinner. i went for nachos, darcy wisely picked beans/rice and grilled veggies. but the nachos were SOOOOOOOO good!!

saturday was cool, work was work. i got proper wheels/tires mounted to my hardtail and realized it will be about 21lbs race day. thats pretty exciting, but i've also been checking the registered riders link for danville this weekend and i'm shaking in my boots!! at least i'm convinced i'll look good fighting at the back of the race. saturday night we headed to banner elk to check out the louisiana purchase and had the best meal in a while. the 'plat du frommage' is reason enough to drive out there.

sunday it decided to rain snow most of the day. we managed to make a yummy breakfast: eggs, fake sausage, toast/waffles, almond butter. went for grocery shopping, secured our Banff Film festival tickets and snagged some olive oil from 'Art of Oil' in downtown boone. after getting home we setup bikes and rode trainers in the basement though to cancel out our glorious eating. hmm maybe i was the only one overeating... thankfully we had Glee on the laptop (not pictured) to make the hour go by quicker:

this morning i woke up, had some cereal and coffee and went straight to my workout. max and i decided i'd do a 20mins warmup, 2x tabata protocol and 5mins cooldown. tabata protocol is 8x 20sec MAX and 10sec recovery. so two of those 4mins pain caves and i'm in a daze trying to remember how many intervals have gone by and failing at simple math in my head. well anyways my joule documented the suffering:

after remembering my way to the stairs i went on for more breakfast and a shower, then off to stickboy and work. we setup a rad taco lunch today. thanks to chuck luddeke with sledgehammer charlies, sam, patrick and shaw for bringing together all the proper ingredients for wonderful mexican style pork (and brisket - one meat option would never be enough) tacos. patrick even brought authentic mexican soda pops!! what a great start to the week. hopefully i'll get it together, figure out proper eating again and get recovered in time for danville this weekend. updates soon. thanks for reading. jg

wednesday. blah. spinach salad! yay

2011-03-02T21:43:00.003-05:00

so wednesday was busy - i got to work early, mounted tires up and got rotors on the new wheels. the workday was filled with excitement/phonecalls/busy-ness. its nice that spring is here, business is good, and well, 6pm comes even quicker!!

after work i replaced my saddle (stock one had a loose rail/shell interface) with a new fizik tundra2:

needless to say i'm excited.

a quick earthfare trip for cereal, ginger and FREE APPLES!!! and i'm home cooking up spinach salad. its not quite boone saloon spinach salad, but rather, umm, better. spinach, thick sliced bacon, chopped red pepper, minced ginger, chopped red onion, ground cumin, baked sweet potatoes, orange juice (freshly squeezed from an orange), salt/pepper, olive oil. thanks mark bittman for the recipe/inspiration. yum:

thankfully, as with our dinner last night, there are plenty of leftovers for lunch. =) i'll hopefully get some warrior creek laps tomorrow. thanks for reading. jg

10x 1mins + stir-fry!

2011-03-01T21:36:00.004-05:00

so after a great day sunday and a chill monday - no ski-shop monday night - i went for a big workout this morning. max and i settled on 20mins warmup, 10 x 1min PI 1min RBI, cool down. a short workout - straight to the point. i did a usual 20mins warmup with some fastpedals and a couple PI's. getting into the intervals i felt good at first, and instantly began deteriorating as the 1min intervals ticked by. eventually i told myself quit being a baby, i want to stand on the podium this year and managed to crank out a couple more good efforts. the #'s looked like this:

interval 1 - avg power 356watts
interval 2 - avg 338w
interval 3 - avg 313w
interval 4 - avg 322w
interval 5 - avg 305w
interval 6 - avg 328w
interval 7 - avg 322w
interval 8 - avg 342w
interval 9 - avg 295w
interval10- avg327w

danville, VA shootout XC is coming up - i'll be racing there for the third year in a row, although this year it opens up the southern classic mtb series and NC bike racing in general. it is a great race and fun trail and i'm hoping the last 6 weeks of 'training' will pay off and i can stand on the podium, even if i have to sneak on when nobody is looking - maybe after these guys are done:

work at the bike shop went well today, i got in some earthfare grocery shopping before work and a harris teeter trip after work. i got home and found out more about the awesomest thing in a while: darcy, my wife, got teacher of the year for bethel elementary school. i cannot explain how proud i am, knowing she generally works harder than anyone could imagine and puts the kids education first and will try any new interesting technological lesson if it might help the kids figure it out. currently she's in grad school for technology in classrooms (i can't remember the proper name) and just finished coaching basketball and has cranked up her running club again for the spring. basically, she is AWESOME and i am so proud!!!

insert silly animated smily face here

we'd decided to make stir-fry tonight and well, it got started late but was quite worth it:

local chicken breast, steak, broccoli (stalks too), green onions, snow peas, shiitake mushrooms, ginger, garlic, almonds, szechuan sauce. rice is barely visible on the left.

cooking. peanut oil, sesame oil, and white wine come in handy.

yum for dinner!! leftovers too...

so that wraps it up for today - now watching biggest loser and parenthood. thanks for reading. jg

rainy days - sunday ride - rollers

2011-02-28T08:46:00.006-05:00

so it rained on my day off last week. boo hoo!! i'd planned on going down to wilkesboro for some mtb fun but instead hung around the house, did laundry, napped, grocery shopping, etc. a view of the day:

so that was a day. friday night after work darcy and i went to spectate pee-wee basketball. you get the idea:

saturday night we had a party for charles 30th birthday - it ran well into the night and was awesome. waking up sunday morning for mtn bike riding was slightly more difficult, but well worth it. darcy and i got in our lap at warrior creek and after switching bags/clothes out for my carpool home (thanks Chuck!) i was back out looking for marland, paul, brent, and stack. they were riding the trail backwards and i met up with them about 1/3 of the way through. we headed back towards the cars (the trail is weird backwards btw) and then after a short water stop, drop paul off to his car, and pick up greg seiz we were back at it. marland kept pushing the pace and well, i tried to hang on:

we got about halfway through the lap (normal direction) and i peeled off to head back to the car. rolling up to chuck's truck my computer says 3:59:something ride time. granted some of that was standing around but i'm happy with 3+ hours with some quick bits thrown in. pizza for dinner was made even better after some driveway/gravel work in the rain.

this morning after a bowl of cereal i jumped on the rollers for a quick easy spin. it was quite fun and i managed to unzip my jacket (basement is cold sometimes!) and also pedal up to 115rpm at one point. unfortunately i could not pat myself on the back or take cool photos/video while riding:

then i had a tough time fitting my head through the door upstairs afterwards. not sure what is going on:

thanks for reading. comments are welcome. jg

photo of the day.

2011-02-23T22:40:00.004-05:00

i could get used to this. photo of the day makes consistent posting quite a bit easier. photos from a recent 4.5 hour solo ride:

65 miles, 3 x 30min intervals, sunshine, & recess visit with darcy!

2011-02-17T15:57:00.003-05:00

i had a great bike ride today. probably the best 'training' ride in a long time. i rolled from george wilson rd to hodges gap, oak grove, old bristol, us321 to sugar grove. i finished my 60mins warm-up rolling up old421 with a few fastpedal and a few PI's. along the way i discovered Kern's Bakery - it doesn't look open today:

so returning to the 321 end of old421 i started 30 minutes of tempo headed toward trade. after finishing with a short loop i took a minute to stand/stretch/recompose myself and then started up 30mins of 'steady state' headed back towards sugar grove. unfortunately i went too fast, had to make a u-turn roll back to sherwood rd or so then recovered for 10 or 12 minutes including shedding a layer (long sleeve jersey and glove switch) since my next 30minutes was going up georges gap rd:

well i got to the top (beautiful view):

again, i misjudged where to start my interval so i got to the top in 21 or 22 minutes. i re-installed my long sleeve jersey and rolled/coasted to bethel elementary school playground to kick it with mrs grimes during recess =)

after some lance crackers:

i headed out rush branch rd to 321 south to rominger rd then watauga river rd:

some of watauga river rd was in perfect shape for the road bike:

some of it was not:

i managed to ride up nc194 forgetting the bridge was out:

so i walked over a 2x8 bridge then did the standard bairds creek, dewitt barnett, laurel fork. passed some mailboxes:

to nc105-bypass:

i finished up with an easy spin back down to george wilson rd and thought to myself this was a great way to spend 5 hours while getting in my workout. this is roughly my route (mapmyride.com didn't save it):

A ride mapped on 02/16/2011
Find more Bike Rides in Boone, North Carolina

thanks max for the workout - thanks to everyone else (thousands of ppl) for reading. jg

STOP - trainer time?

2011-02-16T09:10:00.002-05:00

so i'm riding my trainer this morning with my phone playing pandora. i put it on the fatboy slim station - good stuff plays throughout my workout and nearing the end of a 30minute (rather challenging) interval i hear "duh dunnah dunt, duhdunt duhdunt" and i think i kind of smiled a bit - here i am suffering and superfreak comes on!!! i'm reminded of Little Miss Sunshine - YES!!!!

another few notes go by and "YOU CAN'T TOUCH THIS!!!" my kind of smile turned into laughing and i happily finished my workout to MC HAMMER. for your viewing pleasure:

thanks for reading - comments are cool too.

resting

2011-02-10T10:45:00.003-05:00

so i'd been following a pretty solid training schedule for the last three weeks - hitting target power for 5mins, 10mins, 22mins, etc

and setting peak power records, doing 3+ hour mtn rides on weekends and days off - starting to feel somewhat fit - like this guy:

and then i catch the plague.

okay, not that kind of plague, maybe not even the flu, but a cold that has my ears popping, nose running, chills and coughing as a bonus. so i go home early from work, do a 1/4 day yesterday, and on my 'day off' (i actually would like to go in - i feel so slack!) i'm sitting at home, drinking emergenC, hot tea honey and whiskey,

and covering up to my nose with my blankey.

this morning i took advantage of my fatigue, feet up,

ability to surf the interweb and type to update my 2011 'racing schedule'. if you want to see all the races i'll be fighting for DFL then look to the right hand side of the screen. yup - right there--------->

so i'm excited about this year, i've got a new 2011 specialized stumpjumper EVO R 29er

at least i will look fast when performing reverse attacks. i can tell at this point that my HR (heart rate for those of you who don't know) is getting a little high suggesting to me that i am typing a bit much so i'm going back to putting my feet up and fluids. this year will be a turning point for sure - the blog will actually get updated, i will get faster (2nd to last place instead of DFL), and people will actually want to check this out. thanks for reading. jg

2011 -

2011-01-27T22:36:00.003-05:00

hmm

where did 2010 go?? must have spent too much time riding mtn bikes. or maybe it was buying a house?? i did some racing - got a few top 5's, almost on the podium...

i'm looking forward to the 2011 season - lots of xc races, no 24hr solo stuff this year, maybe one 100k and one 100miler. i hope to get in on the boone binge and also the fall tour in GA. otherwise i want to hit up some southern classic races and SERC races too.

this seems to be a good re-introduction to the blogging world - with that i'm off to get a good 7 hours of sleep, wake up early and go XC skiing before work. thanks for checking this out. jg

bikes beer boys weekend 2k9 - asheville

2009-11-17T22:34:00.005-05:00

blue skies - all weekend!

hanging in asheville/fletcher/pisgah with evan daniel and matt (and kinsay. thanks for letting us invade your house!) - super fun

food before:

food after:

SQUIRREL - start

matt - squirrel gap

evan - crossing cantrell creek

cantrell creek (cool camera water setting):

me on fs-5018:

black mtn i think:

daniel - horse cove

matt - the smile sums up the day:

pisgah - ranger district - SQUIRREL!

gps after:

all of my pictures are HERE.

NCCX #5 - salisbury photos

2009-11-09T22:02:00.005-05:00

so i raced in salisbury sunday. after a lackluster start (racing last place for half a lap) i managed to pass a few other super slow people (like myself). anyways... photos (by a lovely darcy):

nccx #5

nccx #2 - raleigh cx 3 recap

2009-10-25T22:36:00.006-04:00

well. today i woke up at 5am. drove to raleigh and raced my bike in circles. for my first CX3 race i was quite satisfied with 22nd of 39 especially after starting on the last row. jesse pipes and andrew stackhouse also raced cx3 behind/with the barrage from LMC university. i can only assume their guys won since i never saw them after the whistle. rachel vandenendende and alison forkner also were there in the wmn's pro/1/2 field. i was also quite happy to hold off the 1-2 punch from two inland-BTD guys who took turns attacking. i don't understand these 'tactics' other than trying to go fast and build a big gap through the trees, sidehills, and barriers. anywho.... photos:

dropping charles kutz:

from the series i call 'passing':

stackhouse domination:

rachel v @ barriers:

p.s. photo credits go to darcy grimes. THANKS SO MUCH for loving me and going to the race and cheering for me and taking awesome pictures!!!

my new fisher roscoe

2009-10-24T18:36:00.003-04:00

my 2010 gary fisher roscoe 1. mostly stock + conti mtn king & rubber queen (1100gr!) tires. weighs in at 30lbs 15oz. not bad for 140mm all around and 15QR front fork/wheel. i'm excited

sabatoge

2009-10-21T09:01:00.001-04:00

So all of you don't have to sing "blah blah blah blah blah its sabatoge!!" at the bar anymore:

I Can't Stand It, I Know You Planned It
Ima Set It Straight, This Watergate
I Can't Stand Rockin' When I'm In Here
'Cause Your Crystal Ball Ain't So Crystal Clear
So, While You Sit Back And Wonder Why
I Got This Fucking Thorn In My Side
Oh My God, It's A Mirage
I'm Tellin' Y'all It's Sabotage

So,So,So, So Listen Up 'Cause You Can't Say Nothin'
You Shut Me Down With A Push Of Your Button
But yo, I'm Out And I'm Gone
I'll Tell You Now I Keep It On And On

'Cause What You See You Might Not Get
And We Can Bet, So Don't You Get Souped Yet
Scheming On A Thing That's A Mirage
I'm Tryin' To Tell You Now It's Sabotage

Why; Our Backs Are Now Against The Wall
Listen All Of Y'all This Is Sabotage
Listen All Of Y'all This Is Sabotage
Listen All Of Y'all This Is Sabotage
Listen All of Y'all This Is Sabotage

I Can't Stand It, I Know You Planned It
I'ma Set It Straight This Watergate
I Can't Stand Rockin' When I'm In This Place
Because I Feel Disgrace Because You're All In My Face
But Make No Mistakes And Switch Up My Channel
I'm Buddy Rich When I Fly Off The Handle
What Could It Be, It's A Mirage
You're Scheming On A Thing That's Sabotage

recovery drink experiment - silk

2009-09-24T07:26:00.003-04:00

so i've seen beth frye drink slim-fast after bike races, i've read online and in runner's magazines about chocolate milk and i've also noticed that most chocolate milks contain high fructose corn syrup AND about 400% of your daily sugar requirements. this leads me to my experiment with SILK chocolate light soymilk:

i figured cyclocross training racing would be a good time to experiment with recovery drinks before the real racing begins in another month or so. i think it will work out well -OR- i'll be running to the trees to throw up.

we'll see

Shenandoah Mountain 100 & 2009 bridge to bridge

2009-09-21T08:12:00.002-04:00

well. the SM100 happened. i took over an hour and a half off my previous time finishing 10hrs 35mins.

moving along...

after deciding to partake in the 2009 bridge to bridge incredible century bike RIDE on monday i had few days to train and even fewer to start making up excuses...

jonathan lubkeman and I worked (like top 10) the first 35-40 miles. it seemed like 6-8 people were and when we got back into the bunch speed slowed to 18-19mph. i realized this was not the smart thing to do about 2 hours in. oh well, i felt it on 181/221. this year it was 55 miles to 181 instead of 49.something.

181 went by okay. got bottles from jimmy gragg twice. the brp from 181 to BR was a second wind and i descended to price park with little braking. first cramps came at sims pond. great. 221 was super foggy at first, catching cars that had previously passed us. getting past holloway was a relief and soon i had 100 miles on my ticker. good thing we had six more to go. getting inside the gate was helpful but it seemed steeper than two years ago...

once inside, only mark smith passed me. he started at 11... one guy that i caught kept unclipping, walking, then climbing back on to sprint. confused by his ways i let him go but other than mark i think i kept it moving then. the last straight came quickly and i expected more switchbacks but every few seconds a roar of applause, etc would come from the small crowd. then turn right. done.

oh, the start was dry. it only began raining ~1 hour in. thankfully the next 5.5 hours were consistent rain, although the exposed sections of GM had tremendous winds. like get blown around on the bike going 3mph. brakes worked mostly the whole time although i had to open the rear brake qr for standing climbing because the wheel would scrub the pads. gears began to deteriorate ~75 miles in on the BRP near roseboro rd. that became annoying. my time ~6hrs 45mins or something.

thanks a bunch to jim gragg for his ticket and driving and bottle fills, trevor critcher for safety pins, ray reid for yelling something at me on 181, and darcy for standing in the rain for hours at the top of a cold foggy place.

utah business trip

2009-07-31T22:40:00.006-04:00

so i've been on summer hiatus. no excuses. racing a little. i was kinda disgruntled after the worst race i've ever participated in, i mean the cowbell xc challenge... a much better/more fun race on july 12th iron mtn 100k was AWESOME and i rolled it in 6hr 49mins for 19th place in men's open class. the next day i boarded a plane and traveled to snowbird utah for a business trip. pictures:

sworks sl3 with di2 electronic dura-ace

super cool rad gnar!! epic marathon 29er feat. SRAM XX 2x10 wowsers!!

2009-06-28T19:23:00.002-04:00

tomorrow marks mine and darcy's one year wedding anniversary. we decided to celebrate it saturday night with dinner at gadabouts (our caterer last year) and the lazy bear lodge (our lodging last year) and then followed it up with hiking down hunt fish falls trail in wilson creek pisgah. pictures:

a view upstream on lost cove creek:

someslowguy and his wifey. she was swimming:

happy couple with crazy florons or boy scouts or something in background:

an ant carrying some of our picnic lunch away:

happy anniversary darcy. =)

p,s, we get to eat our frozen chris bennett cake in a couple days. yum

Massanuttan Hoo-Ha. more disturbing facts

2009-06-16T23:27:00.003-04:00

a week ago i made the trip to harrisonburg, Va saturday night after work for a midnight arrival to the fawley estate. thanks ryan. bike racers in the harrisonburg area awoke to clear skies, really warm temps, and a pretty fun day of bike racing.

my race was only one lap so i tried to make my way to the front of our pack before we got on the tight twisty stuff and basically rode a good solid 12.5 mile race without much to write about. it was really really rocky, muddy in spots, and downright dangerous in a couple spots. the ridge was good and it dumped out and after a couple short climbs and some ripping fireroad we're doing this crazy sidehill chute to the finish. i roll across the line, they tear off our bib number and staple it to a wooden board. pretty high tech. i got 3rd. i'm not unhappy with 3rd or anything, but i really would like a 2nd place, or better yet, the win. for now i'll settle for 3rd and look to the cowbell XC with my eyes set on the top step.

in other news i stumbled upon some disturbing facts:

Mens Cat 2 (19-29) Cross Country Rankings in NORTH CAROLINA
(right-click to bookmark these settings)

2009 Name License
Rank Points Results
1 120 2 Charlie Ledford 290837
2 95 2 Christopher Hoina 267918
2 95 2 Kell Bond 292854
4 87 3 Mark Ryan 274564
5 60 1 Daniel Sapp 190986
6 50 1 Joseph Grimes 242647
7 45 1 Jarrett Ficker 249334
8 11 1 Andrew Martin 284342

oh well, if any of the races i do would submit results i'll be way high up that list. BFH

things to come.

2009-06-04T07:34:00.005-04:00

Shoot-Out at Angler's Ridge - Danville, VA - 3rd place

2009-05-31T21:02:00.002-04:00

boone bike (and appstate's thatcher's hurt) dominated the xc shootout at angler's ridge today in danville, va. beth, megan and andy (collectively known as the winner's carpool) won their events: women's pro, women's sport 30+?, singlespeed (respectively). in the men's sport category thatcher finished 2nd. joseph finished way behind thatcher in 3rd place. kim marland finished 2nd in women's sport 30+ and eric was killing it until he had some unfortunate mechanicals and a torn sidewall. the marland little guys did a great job as usual though i did not hear their placing.

thatcher and i lined up with a few other guys for our race and i managed to clip in and get off the line really well and was first around the sharp left-hand corner and first into the woods. the beginning of the 'short loop' was not very fun. it was classic city trail. cram as much mileage into a few acres type riding. the course began to flow a bit more and i could not hold my pace so some greensboro sandbagger eric jackson and thatcher both came around me and i did not see them again until the finish line. i completed the short loop and was beginning to feel better as i started my second lap. i was passed by a few 30+ sport men but each time they got near i tried to pick up the pace a bit and ride with them until i'd fade. i finally caught another sport 19-29 racer and was in 3rd place at that point. i kept the pace high and never saw that guy again. whew! i continued on the long loop and had to bunny hop a black snake. crazy! the rest of the long loop was fun and i stood on as many climbs as i could. my legs were threatening to cramp but i managed and could hear the band playing at the finish line so i hammered and switchbacked and voila! pavement. stand up, sprint, look back, cross the line. andy tells me thatcher got 3rd. i'm 4th. no. andy is wrong. i'm 3rd. podium. sweet. i tell the guy that won our category i did a 24 hour solo race a week ago. he shakes in his boots... podium pic:

in other news drew scharns continued his return to xc racing with a 3rd place finish in the men's expert 19-29 category at the bump n' grind KENDA CUP event in alabama. semi-local ryan fawley was riding a great race drafting off scharns until a a flat and an ejected seatbag ended his run.

high country racers essentially destroyed the competition at mountain bike races across the southeast. i'm sure dean lyons beat up on a men's 40+ criterium somewhere as well. congrats to all.

burn 24 hour: 6th place. 23 laps. 170 miles. jetson's rocket car feet...

2009-05-27T08:06:00.004-04:00

so may 23-24 marked the 9th annual burn 24 hour mtb race. it was held at the dark mtn trails at the kerr scott reservoir in wilkesboro, nc. sam, megan, and i met friday morning to stake our claim to a pit area for our RV/tent city. it was quite nice. friday night darcy and i prepped food, ate pizza, and stayed at the hutchens estate to avoid driving as much saturday morning.

saturday morning flew by. we're prepping clothes, lights, batteries, food, shoes, bikes, minds, and all of a sudden its like 11:56 so i make my way over to start/finish to do the run. blah running in bike shoes with stuff in my pockets. not fun. basically the next few hours involved riding my cannondale f29'er then realizing i started out too hard again (like last year) -AND- a hardtail is not the ultimate 24 hour racing machine. so i got something like 4 laps in 3 hours, at a bit too much food, and my hands/arms hurt. so i switched early to my trek fuel ex and it was kinda odd at first, being back on circus wheels... i just kept riding my bike. trying to make quick pits and getting back out there for the next few hours and soon it was nighttime so i did a clothing change and got my helmet with lights installed on my head. ready to go.

it was quite nice to have a change from the oh-so-sweet-fake foods that we all know and love. i went with hammer sustained energy, hammer heed, and clif shot electrolyte apple drinks. i kinda slowed my intake of these and switched to plain water and small cups of chicken, along with almonds (i'd been eating these since 1pm). i got kinda beat down and began cramping a lot so instead of stopping to stretch i realized you can grit your teeth, go to the small chainring, and keep pedaling through leg cramps. thankfully i had no arm/hand cramps although they were fatigued. our local massage folks muscle works advised me to stretch my hands/arms while riding and so of course, i listened. after a few slow laps with 22-34 as my primary gear we got the coffee going so i was feeling alot better mentally and physically. my legs cramps were quickly gone. yes. coffee (espresso strength. thanks donovan) is an ergogenic aid. my wonderful wife darcy was there helping sam with feeding me and just in general trying to keep me happy. soon we got into a decent groove with nighttime food stops including chicken, coffee, and soup. i kept riding through the night, saw shaw, sarah, chelly, dan w, paul e, and others. seeing my friends from boone was quite nice and gave me a boost.

midnight seemed to come quickly and eric marland turned out a fast lap for his birthday. i just kept on trucking and soon 3am was here. these night laps were hard and i resorted to thinking about silly things to keep a smile on my face. i thought a little about my honeymoon trip to ireland, although soon my real positive thinking turned to positive hallucinations or something. i had a thought about my feet involving small fairy like creatures that were flying along helping to push my feet in cirlces. soon this morphed into small jetson's style rocket cars existing attached to my pedals instead of feet. these rocket boosters definitely helped get me through the night. the night laps were fun and it was nice to know i'd ridden through the 3-5am hours which i slept through at last year's burn.

at some point it rained and made the trails a bit more difficult as there are lots of small roots peeking through the trail as a result of erosion and the huge numbers of riders this trail sees. i know the rain started and i thought this is nice. its cooling things off. then i hit a root section and thought twice... soon morning came and boy it was a relief to look up through the trees and see blue sky peeking through. i did another clothing change at some point in the morning, and climbed back on the bike determined to stay in my middle ring a bit more, like i did my last few night laps. it seemed easier to go faster in the middle ring even though my legs barely worked anymore. soon there were just over 2 hours left and i thought maybe i can sneak back through the start finish at like 11:58 and have time for another lap.

nope. my brain and my legs and my ischial tuberosity did not want to do any more laps. i told sam as i came through around 9:55am that 'i think i have time for two more laps.' sam and darcy both gave their approval and i could tell they were glad i was still thinking positively. after my 22nd lap it was around 11:05a i thought i have to go out for one more. i should surely can finish it before 1pm and so off i went. it was very hard to ride some of the steeps on the fish dam creek trail although somehow i made it. the climb up the entrance trail on the frontside was hard too, but i kept telling myself this is my last lap, step up. do it!! i cruised through the snake switchbacks, which i had been cleaning all day, night and day and found myself at the lowest point. i went to my granny ring and began climbing the snake trail to the checkpoint and i had to get off and walk my bike. i did this last year as well and i did not feel ashamed either time. people passing (through the night AND morning) would realize who the solo racers were and tell me great job solo -or- keep it up, last lap!!! and this stuff combined with the words of encouragement from our boone bike team and the betty project and other locals made for a very motivating last lap. after passing the teeter totter i realized the hardest part of the lap was over, then climbing out of the lake loop was tough, but i knew every pedal stroke got me closer to being finished, and seeing my wife and friends for hugs and high fives. erik nielson caught me and i quickly realized he was the winner (finishing his 29th lap), we talked for a moment, congratulated each other and made our way down the fireroad and through the DH course. coming out of the trees the last lap is something that is indescribable.

hearing cheers from BMCC tent, magic cycles, middle ring mafia, other random team tents, then from our tent city gave me the boost needed to stand up and sprint even though it was unnecessary. i tossed my bottle down to get rid of excess weight and stood up and gave it all i had through the straightaway and around the grassy twisty stuff for the last time. as i could hear the announcers they called out rider 133 another solo rider is finishing up its joseph grimes. i again heard cheers, applause, and at the same time silence. nothing at all. i zipped my boone bike jersey, crossed the line. and slowed to put my head on my handlebars. i don't really remember everything at this point except that plenty of people i knew and didn't know continued to tell me great job. i drank my recovery drink and tried to spin around easily enough to get back to the tent without completely falling over. i soon learned i got 6th place out of 38 solo riders. 63rd place overall out of ~120 teams/solos/duos. that our boone bike boys got 2nd to inland construction a team made of pro racers while successfully dethroning the middle ring mafia. i heard it came down to 40 seconds. wheew!! the betty project seemed disappointed to finish 2nd, although i was very proud of them and grateful for their positive words through the night and morning. i found a chair, sat in tent city, and drank and ate. i think i did a better job eating than last year as i weigh the same now (a few days later) as i did before. maybe the burgers and chips and ice cream was a bad idea monday... anyways.

thanks to all. having smiling faces and encouragement lap after lap through the night and morning hours kept my legs moving. shaw pointed out 'Sun May 24, 2009 1:00 pm Replacement middle rings are in stock at Boone Bike and Touring...' sam, darcy, christie, brown, mrs brown, eric, kim, fawley for push-offs, dj thatcher, matty, andy, megan, eric, beth, caroline, kathleen, melanie, chuck, dc, matt, evan, kinsay, daniel, wendy, jason, martin and anyone i may be forgetting... thanks for being there and making this year's burn great.

**RESULTS ARE UP**

burn 24 hour. training and stuff

2009-05-17T21:17:00.003-04:00

so the burn 24 hour race is coming up this weekend. i am excited about it and will be racing again in the solo category. last year i got 21 laps and came in 12th place. this year i plan to get at least 24 laps (more laps is ok too) and finish in the top 7. top 7 is an arbitrary number i just decided top 5 was maybe a bit toooo overzealous and top 10 was not a big enough goal. so anyways... i've been studying the 2008 results and have figured out i just need to do 55 minute laps. if i can do every lap under an hour then i'll get at least 24 laps. maybe even 25 or 26. that would be excellent.

while searching 2008 burn results/pictures/etc darcy found this awesome photo from last year:

so hopefully this year i'll get some good pictures and have a good write-up in one week. wish me luck. i'll need it

serc #5/Kenda Cup East ducktown, tn 6th place. yawn

2009-05-04T07:43:00.003-04:00

so we got a late start driving from boone since i hadn't really packed or anything before work. thankfully the car ride to maryville, TN was pleasant and i was wearing my goofy SWIFTWICK socks so circulation in my legs/feet was like never before. after decorating for my mother-in-laws 50th birthday i got to bed early at 1am.

nws.noaa.gov told me there was a 80% chance of rain and thunderstorms. darcy and her folks decided to hang out in maryville instead of attending the ocoee white water center/tanasi trail venue and cheering for me. they did however ring the cowbell at random at home all morning. i rolled in, got signed in, got my number, paid parking fee, changed, talked with drew and fennell, and finally started warming up at 9:20am. what time does our race start?!? 9:30!! at least i'm a slow sport xc-2 racer so i had 5 groups start before me. schweet. 9:50am start. after an excellent lukewarm-up i made my way to the start line.

we had a neutral rollout across the narrow bridge and up the gravel/sidewalk then the moto pulled out of the way and i was sitting 2nd. nobody seemed to want to come around so i mosied my way into the singletrack. at this point three guys decided my pace was too slow and my legs agreed so i dropped to 5th, then a couple other guys came by and i'm sitting like 8th or so. climbing the singletrack to the first fireroad is quite fun even with rivers of water gushing through. i tried to follow jeff welch's advice and ride through the middle of the trail to keep my tires clean. it worked. i used a conti 2.2 mtn king front and conti 2.2 race king rear and they worked (almost) flawlessly. if only their wet/mossy/deadly bridge traction was a bit better...

so more singletrack climbing and a bit more singletrack climbing interspersed with fireroad rollers and i'm turning onto the super fun downhill to the river, then its highway sidewalk to the start/finish. i did my best donovan carroll impression and timetrialed up to some guys in my category. we rode together through the previously neutral (still was in their minds, did they get the memo?) and i began looking for our domestique john fennell for my feed. even with slowing down and taking big gulps i entered the singletrack climb, looked back, and nobody was there. they probably flatted, because i know i didn't drop them.

so its mucky gushy singletrack climbing, fireroad climb, singletrack super mud tech (i cleared it both times) and i passed some other xc-2 guys and managed to hang onto nick waite's wheel for a bit on downhill gravel. i think my extra mass helped... after he took off i entered the superfun last downhill trail, passed two women expert xc-1 folks, then cautiously crossed the first bridge... my momentum briefly equalled zero and with my weight shifting left, my right pedal unclipped i ejected myself down an embankment to a creek below. after remembering wasting precious seconds i scrambled back up only to see the two women look at each other and question why they let me pass... i hopped back on the bike, caught a singlespeeder with no brakes (his method of dragging his right foot sent lots of projectiles into the middle of the trail. at least afterwards he apologized-something about trying to let me pass, but not being able to stop), passed him on the gravel, and went back into DC impression timetrialing. if only i had my aerobars.

so i worked pretty damn hard, passed some people (other categories i think), drafted a pro guys wheel, nearly caught another rider....oops..... its an expert woman (or the 5th place guy??) so i sat up and coasted across the line. one hour twenty minutes. two laps. ~18 miles. covered in mud. super fun time. i find domestique fennell and he tells me drew was in 2nd or 3rd at worst. he was trying to tell me this during the race but our race radios didn't work. something about too much mud/rain...

so i'm spinning around, sipping recovery drink, and drew comes by, zips up his jersey, puts his hands to the air and holds up two fingers signifying his finish. okay, maybe he just coasted across the line, jersey unzipped, not knowing what place he was in. fennell asked me how i thought i did and i said either 4th or 8th. something like that. turns out i guessed right. after two hours of waiting, taking a dip in the ocoee, changing, getting rained on, drinking PBR, results confirmed i was as mediocre as i expected. at least i think... yep RESULTS HERE i know i wasn't top 5 and 6th looked like my number (names weren't on the results sheet) so i handed mr. 2nd place my boone bike jacket for his trip to the podium, and headed to my car. aahhh. cross country racing.

trying to ketchup. training ride

2009-04-09T21:48:00.004-04:00

so it has been brought to my attention that my blogging is basically sucking as bad as my bike riding. well, its not as bad as jacob florence's blog. the worst blog in all of the internets... but basically noah is up on me by:

where r = number of days off noah has this month / number of blog posts -and- t = number of times jacob florence has used the word belgium since last september. it is quite a delicate operation, but working this out reveals that noah has roughly 24357843325837 x e^3.14159... more blog posts than i do. tisk tisk.

so in an effort to catch up (get it? ketchup. like in my favorite movie) i'm posting lots of kool pictures from tonight's training ride:

sam, katherine, and my shoulder

more

someslowguy himself

sam and snow

mountains. sugar, beech, and the sun

someslowguy and the remains of appalachian ski mountain

my workout consisted of cruising to the top of russ cornett/poplar grove intersection with sam. he peeled off to head back to boone after taking a big mtb ride/fall yesterday. it was nice to start off with someone, and obviously we ran into katherine for a bit. after we headed our separate ways i cruised up shulls mill doing some 2minute on/off efforts until i reached the brp. i went up towards the manor house and put in another 1min effort there. recovering on the long descent to 321/flat-top i determined i would do 30sec on/off intervals up flat-top and that settled into 8x 30sec/30sec recov until i snapped the shot at app ski mtn. i topped out on deck hill, then ripped down the fun side into town. said hello to robert jameson, andy steele, and tyler c and spun it out back to the bike shop. after a dinner of a turkey sandwich and M&M's i found my camera cable and some motivation to type. so here i am. back in action. on the bike AND the blog.

hobby park XC racing. podium kind of. cooper river 10k

2009-04-07T14:17:00.008-04:00

any questions??:

someslowguy racing:

zippity do-da:

so i did my first cross country race since may 2008 and had decent results. after getting the whole shot and entering the woods in 3rd or 4th place i just kinda went along, passed a guy that lost it in a corner, and rode on my own to a 3rd place finish.
beginning the sprint to the finish:

this was my best finish since i've started bike racing so i was stoked and waited around for results to get posted and awards only to get a maxxis ust tire and a handshake.

no podium picture, not even a podium!?! i was a bit disappointed by this, but nonetheless its a step toward upgrading to cat1-expert. so its another result for boone velo. i'll try to keep em coming. at least i got in a great race with the boys:

the bike race was march 22nd and i've just been slack about getting a blog post going. this past weekend darcy and i made the trip down to charleson, SC for the cooper river bridge run 10k. it was quite exciting although we forgot to take a camera so i'll be waiting for julie howe to put pictures on facebook. then i'll steal some and put them up here. darcy and i ran together BUT i used a secret method of delaying my chip on my shoe from crossing the line and then finishing with that foot forward to gain a whole second on her. 58:04 and 58:05.

yum hot dogs

2009-02-17T20:24:00.000-05:00

what else can you say??

short track #4 report

2009-02-10T21:18:00.005-05:00

darcy and i made the trip early to charlotte for #4. it was quite the time. mrs. grimes:

had a great time although she was sick and couldn't really breathe. she raced her 2nd bike racer EVER and she finished 4th. she told me she considered quitting, so factoring that in, i feel like she was a winner after all.

my race started blah blah blah and then some loser comes flying up not announcing his pass while i have one hand on my bars drinking and we're about to enter the singletrack. READ THIS: super narrow two lines converging into one through concrete parking lot bumper stopper things. so this guy comes in elbows out and basically attempts to put me into a tree. i was not having it so i let him take the 7th wheel and i rode his wheel through the singletrack and once we come out on the grassy climb he rubs wheels with someone else and i say 'watch that guy he is sketchy he almost knocked me off my bike already too.' so that must make him mad as the pace gets super lifted and i found myself again

in NO-MAN's LAND!!!

so i blah blah blah and lap after lap after lap i just sort of mosey along and sometimes forget that i'm bike racing because i never saw anyone behind me or in front of me. occasionally a 40+ racer would come along but for the most part i'd suck their wheel through the dirt/pavement and pass them into the singletrack.

with "two to go two to go two to go" i managed to catch back up with loser elbow orange superfly guy and rode his wheel through the start/finish and he looked down in the parking lot just before single -AND- i decide to be a master tactician and pass while he was looking at his toes or something. i basically kept telling myself i'm racing i'm racing i'm racing don't slow down and kept it in the big ring through the single. he closed in a bit on the dirt road flat section and then i stand and kill the grassy climb, look back, he's there. stand some more. pavement 20 feet. 10 feet. sit up turn around and give him the look:

oops. got my pictures mixed up. anyways thats basically the main idea. i look back. a little attitude, and cross the line. tour de france battle for yellow... charlotte short track men's sport race battle for 7th place. same thing. so that was it. i settled for 7th. three weeks 7th, 6th, 7th. schweet

unfortunately Noah and Fawley's race was another hour wait and our fan club needed to eat so we headed to jason's deli. i have lost motivation to go back this weekend. i think sam, shaw and sapp are the only reasons i have to go back down there. after my first long pisgah ride in months, i have focused my crosshairs on wilson creek rather than pavement and dirt roads. i'm going back into base 1 phase and i'm just going to kick it for a while. blog posts will be scarce and entirely random. holla kool

winter short track #3 race recap.

2009-02-03T11:37:00.004-05:00

so sunday marked an important day for my wife, and fellow mountain bike racer, darcy. she raced her first ever mountain bike race at the charlotte winter short track #3. someslowguy was super proud of her as he ran around the course with camera in hand documenting the action. photos will follow soon... he could tell darcy wasn't super happy on the first two laps. riding in 6th place. the determination on her face and the desire to move up in the peleton was clear. a couple more laps and she dropped two riders like flies:

the pace was high and the top 3 riders seemed like they were, well:

but she continued and never let up. thankfully she DID stop racing after her last lap. she was quite worried she'd ignore the race announcer's "you're done. you're done!!!" she settled for 4th, and seemed very happy to have finished her first bike race. after it was all said and done she cooled down and someslowguy tracked her down for the congratulations and hugs and then sped off to warm up for his race.

this week was a bit warmer than last and the trail conditions were nearly perfect, slick in spots, but perfect tacky, just dried out enough soil and warmer temps combined to offer the sport men's 19-39 field a day filled with fun and adventure. off the line and down the sidewalk someslowguy had already stirred up emotions after commenting on austin joyner 'some giordana clif-bar mother... that thinks he can keep warming up then just roll up to the line. get in the back like the rest of 'em.' the boy's neighbor turned out to be next to someslowguy as they rolled down the sidewalk off the start and elbows began to fly!!!

after passing an appstate guy (dustin i think), someslowguy came out of the woods sitting in 6th place or so. climbing the grassy hill he heard a crashing mangling tangle of bike and body, glanced over his shoulder and only slightly comprehended the mess that was happening. this allowed a small gap to form behind, and well, a gap was forming in front. he realized this was no-man's land. don't let anyone catch up, and try to work and find the leaders' group.

as the laps ticked by, two 40+ leader's caught up and he drafted them going into the woods. he let them race their own thing. following them through the woods and using their pace to judge his own, someslowguy settled into a good rhythm. a guy in a 29er crew vest must have taken a spill. he stood up and caught after the gravel road/grassy hill section. someslowguy tucked in behind and then grabbed some gears and went around just before the singletrack. this process took place for a few laps, until the 29er crew vest wearer was off the back, no where to be seen. lapped traffic and the occasional 40+ challenger were all that someslowguy had to contend with and with 'one to go one to go one to go' he made sure to stay in the big ring. feeling well trained and well rested he silently thanked the maximizer (max shute) and laid it all out.

into the single. through the berms. stand up. power. no brakes. who needs to slow down?? pump it through the jumps, creek bed, and turns. stand up and give it on the climb. up and over the rock. check over the shoulder. the 29er crew vest wearer is back there. quite a ways... no time to think. drop him. stand. burn. lactic acid. chatter bumps. locked out fork. forearms?!? efficiency. grassy hill climb. a racer in front of him to be caught... sprinting. passing. crossing the line. oh, it was just a lapped rider. oh well. it could've been 5th place...

someslowguy was happy to have finished 6th. he moved up a spot from the previous week, and he knew he couldn't have given any more to the racecourse. he was congratulated by his mountain bike racer wife, he sipped on some recovery drink, and chomped away at pasta. off to jason's deli for lunch with friends and then zoom zoom zoom back home for a super bowl party. all in all the weekend was perfect. bike racing. sunny weather. and smiles. the end.

charlotte short track #2 - race report

2009-01-25T20:54:00.003-05:00

hello loyal blog readers

so today marked my first bike race in months. its also my first race under a new team: BOONE VELO. charlotte short track. event #2 of 5 in the series. last night darcy, lindsey and i rolled out to rock hill, SC. we stayed at darsey lingle's house. thanks again!!! so we got to the race course this morning around 10am and i got registered, got my number plate installed, and i got changed. darcy, lindsey, and darsey (my cheering section) found a table to hang out at and i got to warming up. i got two laps on the course and tried to get my heart rate way up high and get my legs to burn and then i spun around until they called our class to the line. we sat around long enough to make another trip to the boys room... a trip that i could have used. and then its all about racing:

riders ready.

go.

the punk kid in front of me (the same one that won sport mens 19-29 serc last may) missed clipping into his pedal and by the time we got moving some other guy was trying to elbow me into the fence at the end of the sidewalk. bull-schniekies!! so a hard right and its sprinting for position entering the woods. i got in about 7th place and we're cruising through and i'm thinking gosh i have to work on my warm-up since i never seemed 'warmed up' and then there's a little crash involving philicia marion. yes, this IS the MEN's sport 19-39 race and well, maybe.... you never know...

and so anyways... i don't really remember what happened, but after the crash i got into 4th or 5th position. we make our way through the wooded section, up the rock step-up, and then onto the gravel and up the grassy hill toward the sidewalk and start/finish area.

lap 1. the pain has already started... so cruising down the sidewalk, through the parking area and i'm sitting in like, 4th. we enter the woods and i'm feeling good and the lap goes by and i'm going through the start finish again. lap 2. more pain. so this time through the parking lot the three guys in front of me all sort of sit up and i dart to the right to miss a rear wheel and there's still enough space before the singletrack. shift two gears. stand. i'm in the lead. what?!?

the guys behind me say:

'who is this guy? do you know him?'

i reply

'i'm just some slow guy.'
'people who wear skinsuits aren't slow'
'oh, no. i just forgot my shorts and had to borrow this.'
laughter abides.
heads down.

i lead through the singletrack. through the berms. through the old creek crossing that is now dry. along the newly fresh bench cut. over a rickety sideways wooden bridge. BIG RING. i stand, climb. cross the rock step-up. gravel road time. ouch. it hurts.

so i'm still in my big ring. legs are on fire. my pedals don't want to turn. the three guys i've been riding with come around me and i can't stick anyone's wheel. i look back and there's no one. we gapped them?!? maybe my pace was too high. oh well. so through the start/finish and i hear 'these riders have been racing for 15 minutes...' and i'm like, there is no way to keep it red-lined for 30 more minutes. i watch the group of three roll away. i kept about a 10 second gap for a few laps and then some Kenda-KMC girl (not philicia. another one) showed up in my rear view mirror and i worked to stay in front. after another lap or so she came around on the gravel and i fell into 5th or so.

i held 5th position for a while and soon we all caught lapped traffic. i decided to pass todd wells and JHK just before entering the woods to leave some work for the Kenda-KMC lady:

that made things a bit more interesting and passing other riders in the woods was quite fun. a columbian fellow from greenville came around while we were on the gravel again and i was in my middle ring. what? my big ring stopped working.

somewhere in all of this another guy (or two, although i think he had a flat and we lapped him but he got counted on OUR same lap) managed to pass me and i finished up in 8th place. RESULTS HERE

it was a fun race. i got a crappy start, made my way to the lead group. THEN to the FRONT. then slowly faded back to 8th. i think if i would have sat in 4th instead of going around the guys that maybe i could have finished in the top 5. or at least top 7... before the race i told myself i wanted a top 5 but i would be happy with top 10 and well, i got it. BOONE VELO represent. we got some noodles from NOTHING BUT NOODLES (title sponsor) and then headed back to rock hill, SC for some peanut butter sandwiches and coffee.

after all the racing was said and done we stopped at the trail for darcy and lindsey to do some laps and decide if they wanted to race next week. Darcy's lap times were impressive and she wants to do her first MTB race. updates to follow. wish us luck.

trainer riding. the big red S & stan's. quick days

2009-01-08T22:31:00.002-05:00

today went by quickly. first thing 10:00am, dirk brown walks in and sam and i look at each other and call/email shaw to let him know we're in the process of getting dirked (wikipedia explanation here). 11:29am rolls around and dirk leaves. i start checking out my to-do list and putting UPC labels on things and doing other exciting tasks and soon its 1:30pm and i'm eating yummy yummy yummy chick-fil-a grilled chicken sandwich and waffle fries. yum fried food. you have to have it once in a while...

okay, so now its 4:00pm. official stick-boy time. come back to work. eat some free treats (pecan bars and red velvet cake) and sip some coffee. now its 6:00pm. closing the doors and now its time to ride the trainer:

that's me, to the left side of the photo...

so i do
5min warmup
10min just below LT
3x 1min power interval 1min recov
5min zone 3
3x 1min power interval 1min recov
5min cool-down

and go home for some soup. then comes perhaps the most exciting part of my day, other than watching BACK-to-BACK grey's anatomy and private practice, i find dan.gerous's blog post about specialized getting sued:

"...I hope Stan wins but I also hope he knows what he got into, Specialized take their name because there are two things they do very well, they are specialized in marketing and legal court bullshiting. That could end up in a few different scenarios:

1: Specialized do what they've done in the past: buying Notubes to shut them up and steal their ideas and technologies.

2: Specialized drag the court process for so long and multiply the legal fees to the point NoTubes are out of money and are forced to shut down.

3: NoTubes wins, get a chunk of cash, start giving away wheelsets to racers in need and a movie is made about the thing with a 'from the heart' message: even the small guys can win against the big bad evil. Sinyard will be played by Jack Nicholson... or maybe Malcolm McDowell.

4: The rest of the cycling industry secretly finance Stan's defense to make sure Specialized get a well deserved lesson.

5: Specialized lose the case, pay up, then sue NoTubes because they use red and white on their decals, getting back all the money they paid and then some..."

for the whole post, please see the dan.gerous.net post here

so that was my day. currently we're looking forward to seeing our friend frank from georgia. he was one of my groomsmen. he's coming up for the weekend. yep. charlotte short track in two point five weeks...

2009 goals.

2009-01-05T23:56:00.003-05:00

i've seen that its popular in the blog world of appstate-ers to talk about goals for 2009. so. well. i'm old and not a cool appstate cycling team member or anything but i thought i can try to be cool like them so i'll list out some goals(cycling and other):

1. race consistently on the xc cat 2 (makes sport sound like we're fast or something) circuit and get some top 5's.

2. using said race results and some bribing usa cycling officials to get my CAT 1 (expert) upgrade. or at least keep my top spot as North Carolina Sport MTB 19-29 rankings leader

3. do a 180 on my snowboard. fakie stalefish

4. consistently write blog posts. basically, make sure to always have n + 1 posts where n = # on noah niwinski's blog.

5. use the word 'belgium' more times than J-Flo

6. finish top 7 at the BURN24 hour SOLO race. yes. top 7. top 10 seems too broad. top 5, well, they're all pro guys

7. beat shaw brown at any mountain bike races he does this year

8. be a good husband and continue taking out the trash.

9. beat sam hutchens at any and all, yes all, races we do together this year. unless he's my pit crew, then we'll finish top 7 (see goal # 6)

10. dream up some cool training plans and actually stick with em. like with intervals and zone 3 tempo and zone 5 vo2 and... you get the idea. and blog about EACH and EVERY training session with graphs and charts from my powertap. well, if i had a powertap... =(

so. those are my goals. you have problems with them?? well, write your own blog and leave some comment here and i will come over to your blog and well, talk trash about your goals. or lack thereof. welp, thanks for reading and go ride your bike

old 421, drakes creek, bulldog, mtn dale, georges gap.

2009-01-04T18:29:00.002-05:00

today i awoke to rain and clouds. determined to go for a bike ride i suited up for the 45 degree rainy slop and texted andy to let him know i was headed to old cove creek school. he agreed to meet me there for ~2 hours and off i went. too bad when i arrived in sugar grove it was 55 degrees and sunny and... NOT RAINING. here's our route:

bulldog, mtn dale, georges gap.
Find more Bike Rides in Sugar Grove, Nc, North Carolina

our route was 27 miles rather than 25.something. we took 1hour 56minutes total time. andy had to wait for me at the top of all the hills, and there was a little time stopped to hydrate. drakes creek was a nice addition to my library of known roads, and it was nice to be on mountain dale road again. now... on to exploring locust gap rd. thanks for reading.

F29er 1 super rad 23.1 pounds racing bike since i'm so fast...

2008-12-30T22:09:00.006-05:00

perhaps the worst picture of the coolest bike ever:

and one from our nightride around the park:

09 cannondale caad9 + DURA-ACE 7900 review

2008-12-28T22:04:00.003-05:00

here you will find a review of my 09 cannondale caad9 featuring the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain... okay, so i have sram rival otherwise but the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain is pretty awesome. i also really really really really really really really like being on the road bike again with sram rival. i like the new lever shape a lot. it reminds me of the sram red that i had on my supersix last year but well, actually i think its the exact same but it cost a lot less. so basically the bike is:

2009 cannondale caad9 56cm frame
sram rival shifters
sram rival front derailleur
sram rival rear derailleur
fsa slk light 34/50 crank
shimano 105 11-25 cassette
shimano NEW DURA ACE 7900 chain
tektro junk brakes
c3 junk handlebars and c4 stem. the stem is actually okay, but the bars will be replaced soon
thomson masterpiece post
bontrager inform rl saddle
king cages
conti grand prix 4SEASON 700x25 tyres
chris king/mavic open pro wheels (custom built by me) with spoke washers. yes, spoke washers. if you haven't heard of them, you're probably not classy enough to have them. so thats it. oh, and no you can't put spoke washers on your mavic ksyrium. good try though

so, the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain is pretty awesome and well, it only took 10 minutes to put the chain together using a sm-cn79 quick link. i've gotten two rides in so far totaling about 45 miles and i'm really enjoying the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain. i love love love my sram shifters and stuff and while i really really like sram's pc-991 hollow chain on my mountain bikes, i found that their pc-1090 chain wasn't so good. it seemed to work about as good as a shimano 7speed chain on a 9speed drivetrain. with the chain cut too short. and rusted fraying shift cables. however the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain seemed to work super wicked super awesome good on the 105 11-25 cassette. it silently glides from cog to cog and chainring to chainring without effort. i think shimano does a good job of making chains and cassettes. however, their new DURA-ACE 7900 shifters are well, about as exciting as sram's pc-1090 chain... and their new derailleurs look, well, like XTR. boring. oh well. thankfully we have both sram and SHIMANO to choose our parts from. so my bike is really awesome and weighs 17.1 pounds which isn't so bad for a alloy bike with junk heavy brakes, alloy bar, and heavy winter 700x25 tyres. i think it will be 16.5 pounds with some nice sram rival brakes, bontrager xxx lite bars, and conti gp4000s tyres. alright, i'm off to work on reading jacob florence's blog. it is the most boringest blog in all the internets you know??

saturday morning ride. commute

2008-12-13T09:31:00.004-05:00

mid-day edit: you must click this. yes, you have to.

after sleeping in until 7am i woke and realized i would not be riding my planned route over rich mtn and down the front side but rather using an old friend, much shorter route up jordan v cook and throwing in a snowy lap on rocky creek before stopping at stick boy. i was out the door at 8am and crossed 105 at 9:06am. by then it had warmed considerably to 31deg F from the 20deg F when i started. okie dokie, here's the proof:

comments are welcome by the way. feel free to tell me i'm wasting my time. or that stopping at stick boy won't help me win the biggest loser v2.0 contest. or that i'm awesome. really, write whatever you want. unless you're J-Flo

trainer riding. checklists. noah.

2008-12-11T22:28:00.003-05:00

to start things off:

way to go noah. first loser at cyclocross nationals!!! woooo hooooo.

results here

moving on...

since noah sailed away on his boat, boone continued getting rain. about 178" of rain fell in the last 24 hours. well sam and i decided to ride trainers after work. sam managed to get everything on his trainer riding checklist

[ ] bike
[ ] shoes
[ ] heart rate monitor
[ ] base layer
[ ] post-ride snack
[ ] helmet

but like this guy:

he forgot his bib shorts. i told him if he didn't want to ride the trainer he could have just said so. dragging his trainer, shoes, helmet, bike, etc to boone JUST to intentionally 'forget' his bibs because he didn't want to ride with me wasn't necessary.

anyways i rode the trainer on my own even though its about as fun as a root canal. i went with max's suggestion of a 10 minute warmup, 10 minutes around 168-170 bpm, 5 minutes around 120bpm, then 3x 3minutes at 170+ doing the hardest work i could sustain for three minutes. it was quite difficult. i haven't done much interval type stuff this year although i can tell i need to. i hope to race the charlotte short track series (at least three of four events) so i think this interval sillyness may be a good idea.

welp, gray's anatomy was a re-run so i had some time to blog tonight in between conti tire researching and cooking veggie stir-fry. whew, busy schedule. thanks for reading. oh, i should be blogging again next week with a report from the megan carmody cocktail party. oh, you didn't hear about it?? yep, you're not invited

blogging off season. entering base 1

2008-12-09T19:05:00.006-05:00

okay. if you haven't noticed. i haven't been blogging lately. and for good reason...

after a long hard season of racing, i mean blogging, i knew i needed a break. i've needed to put my feet up

give my legs and typing fingers a break from all the work. long hours on the saddle, and blogging take a toll on us all. and so i entered my off season back around september. i also stopped bike racing around october. i got into a race with no results (IRON MTN BIKE RACE)and finished fourth overall, and a cx race at hawksnest (scroll down, i promise its there!!!) and finished one spot behind victory. i mean one spot behind megan. oh well. at least i beat sam hutchens:

CONGRATS GOES OUT TO SHAW BROWN

for winning the NC CYCLOCROSS CX4 CHAMPIONSHIP.

you may better recognize him with his STATE CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY:

anyways, realizing i didn't have any state championships coming up for my own, i moved deeper into my off season. riding some. no heart rate monitor. no gps. no data. it was quite difficult, but even more though, i had to take a break from my blogging!!! so after a quick teambuilding training camp this november

i've gotten back into the swing of things. i've even begun planning my 2009 season and started planning which events i plan to 'peak' around and how to structure my blog posts for the coming year:
April 5th - Dragon's Back XXC??
April 19th - GSC #2 Columbus??
April 25th - Cohutta 100
May 3rd - SERC #4 Ducktown, TN
May 10th - Stumpjump Spartanburg
May 23/24th - BURN 24hr SOLO??
June 7th - SERC #6 Clemson
June 14th - SERC #7 Athens
August 1st - Wilderness 101
September 6th - Shenandoah 100
September 19th - 12 Hours of Dauset

my goals for the year are to have at least 189 blog posts, 276 pictures posted from races, average 378 words per post, top 5 at the BURN 24hr SOLO, get on the podium at least three times (XC races), upgrade to cat 1 (expert), and win a sport xc race.

lastly, i need to wish my boys good luck (they are headed to the usa cycling cyclocross national championships in kansas city):
NOAH

J-FLO

RYAN FAWLEY

blogging will continue rather slowly for the next few months as i progress through BASE 1, before moving into BUILD 1. so thanks for reading, and knowing i won't post again for a month or two, happy new year

moses cone. lunch. calloway peak

2008-10-20T08:44:00.004-04:00

darcy and i started our sunday running at moses cone trails. we ran around the lake, up the maze, down from the apple barn, then an extra lap around the lake for a total of 4.8 miles. we ran about 10 minute miles. not bad since we haven't gone running in weeks.

we came home, ate soup for lunch, then headed to the boone fork parking area on the BRP. we hiked up the tanawha trail past nuwati trail to the daniel boone scout trail. turning uphill for 2.7 miles brought us past beautiful rocks, trees, and even some icicles hanging in the shade. the views from the top were quite amazing, and made me happy to live in the high country and be able to see this stuff any day i want. now for the photos:

shenandoah 100 tomorrow

2008-08-30T19:42:00.002-04:00

wish me luck tomorrow. my first shenandoah 100 is coming up and the weatherman says blue skies, sun, and warm temps. i'm excited about it but i know my time will fall somewhere in the 'i just came to have a good time' category. either there or with the 70+ age group...

ORAMM 2008: off road assault on mt mitchell

2008-07-28T08:20:00.005-04:00

yesterday was my second oramm. the route was slightly different than in 2007 when we turned on the blue ridge parkway instead of crossing it. the route wasn't much longer but it did include a 10 minute downhill followed by another hour long climb.

View Larger Map

we got rolling around 8am and i tried to keep in front of the huge mass of slow people. old us 70 was an interesting way to get up to kitsuma as it was truly an old road getting reclaimed by the forest. i'm convinced that unless you're the first five riders to reach kitsuma it becomes a virtually impossible climb.

i was able to climb all of the switchbacks on kitsuma except the last two. it seems like that effort may have put me in a bad place later in the day. cresting the top i shifted and unlocked my shock and soon enough we're pausing for the first short steep climb. another few short steep climbs and its time for one of the best downhills around. i ride a few switchbacks, passing some people in these corners, then take the low road when the trail split and passed a few more people. i followed amos ivey and we talked briefly about actually riding switchbacks instead of walking them...

we start pedaling up mill creek road and turn onto singletrack. after a short hikeabike theres more technical climbing (i made most of it) its time for grassy forest service road. this is where my right knee began getting shooting sharp pains. i kept trying to eat and take my tylenol and soft pedal my way to aid station #2. once i got there i took some advil, got my bottles, refilled my camelbak and got ready for curtis creek rd (mile 26 to mile 36):

curtis creek rd. people who have ridden oramm know all about it. 9.2 miles. 2572 feet climbing. gravel gravel gravel. i stopped once we reached dirt, took off my helmet and attached it to my camelbak. my gloves were hanging on my shifters to dry out.

all i did was pedal, curse my knee, drink water, eat, and take endurolytes (not enough!!). i kept telling myself negative thoughts about the climb ie 'two more hours of this road!!!' but soon enough a walker told us there was only another mile. reaching the aid station #3 we were told they are out of water. i get like a 1/2 liter of water from a guy from biowheels. i was told this was the second year in a row that aid #3 ran out of water. oh well, should have gotten there quicker. i tried not to sit around and got back on the bike. descended the forest road and caught some asheville guys and tried to hang with them on the climb to the parkway. i popped my red bull with about a mile until pavement. i got a full let me repeat full camelbak refill at aid #4 and then made my way to the hikeabike up to heartbreak ridge. after that i made my way to the front of the few people about to roll and hit it. heartbreak ridge is really an amazing thing, except that my hands, arms, and legs were all cramping. i'd love to ride heartbreak ridge on its own one day...

i had a couple scary spots where my fingers cramped and couldn't pull the brake levers. oh well, who needs to slow down... so i made a wrong turn once we reached the trail from earlier in the day and ended up at private property signs. ooops. backtracking got me to an orange flag that i didn't see and back to the star gap trail or whatever its called. aid station #5 brought some more water and a banana and hope. the pedaling up the random forest svc road was tough. it was hot and not shady very often. i met up with kip clyburn and his BMCC jersey and it took a second to realize we knew each other and had ridden about 5 laps together at the BURN 24 race in may. we were done talking and caught some other guys then had to walk up to the railroad crossing bridge thing. some more granny ring pedaling got me to kitsuma. i walked the first few switchbacks and actually managed to ride some of the others. i had to walk a bit of the flat spots because the roots sent cramps through my legs when trying to pedal and reaching the final stretch of downhill was pleasant. i caught the asheville guy i rode with earlier and we paced each other back to town. he told me i could take the stage win but i was hoping for a sprint finish. oh well. crossing in 8 hours 14 minutes didn't really warrant a sprint finish. at least i beat my 2007 time by an hour and it was a tougher course...

hopping in the creek and laying in icy cold water was great. i reflected on my last 8 hours 14 minutes 14 seconds, 62.02 miles, 10,581 feet of elevation gained, innumerable leg, arm, finger, and jaw (yes, jaw while trying to drink from the camelbak) cramps, and the pasta i was about to eat. yum

burn 24 solo 2008

2008-06-03T19:35:00.002-04:00

so i did the burn 24 hour solo race last week. it was pretty fun. i think the whole experience is summed up by the following picture:

i'll type more soon

burn24 rapidly approaching, this guy

2008-05-20T07:40:00.003-04:00

so two things are of note and interesting enough to discuss:

1. the burn 24 hour race is going to be here in four days and 4 hours... i rode some laps sunday at the venue: 5 laps in 4 hours. i figure if i can do AT LEAST a lap PER hour minus sleep time (ie 2 hours total??) then i can bust out at least 22 laps. granted, thats counting on NOT having a mental breakdown, stroke, heart attack, delusions telling me to jump in the lake, nausea, out of body experiences and/or falling asleep while riding. my goal is 18-22 laps. i really want a top 10. we'll see.

2. this guy (matt hadley):

and this guy (daniel sessford):

just finished 8th and 10th respectively at the 1st stop of the canada cup mtb series. way to go guys. they also stayed on my floor and hung out, trained, and cooked a rad dinner for me and darcy while they stayed in boone, nc recently. they're friends of friends that race bikes and we met up at the serc #4. they got 1st and 3rd there, but the canada cup had some bigger fish racing. great job guys, eh!?

rainy sunday trail running...

2008-05-14T08:06:00.003-04:00

54 miles. 6hours 25minutes. thousands of feet of elevation gain. the burn24 is coming quick!

View Larger Map

SERC # 4 Ducktown, TN XC

2008-05-09T08:03:00.003-04:00

at the serc #4 ducktown, tn race:

yes the 2nd place kid is 13 and the 1st is 18 but they're future u23 national team.... it didn't bother me too much. i haven't really been training for xc races so i was very happy with a 5th place finish.

now its a 7 hour training ride sunday getting ready for the burn

jg

4.22.08 maiden voyage

2008-04-23T21:13:00.004-04:00

my fly new bike:

three top road, view towards todd, nc:

me on three top rd:

the peak, ashe county, nc:

me climbing snake mountain (from nc-88), nc (2000 feet, 6 miles, 44 minutes):

snake mountain, nc:

boone pave, umm.... gravel:

raysweather.com photo of the day april 25th, 2008:

2008 cohutta 100 mtb race

2008-04-21T07:55:00.003-04:00

so my cohutta 100 began with a busy friday afternoon and a new saris bike rack arriving in a box for my car. my carpool buddy, ryan fawley, put together the bike rack and we got the car loaded and rolling around 5:45pm. we had some delicious quizno's and then made a stop for gas/potty break then arrived at the ocoee white water center around 11:00pm. we set up our renegade campsite behind some trees just out of the parking lot and went to sleep. we were very glad to see our friend rebecca t's car that had our race numbers/registration. thanks rebecca!!!

the bike race began with chilly temperatures, but warm enough that a jacket would be overkill. so i settled into the middle of the pack at the start line, unfortunately not being able to see floyd landis, chris eatough, harlan price, or any of the other pro's. the start reminded me of well, atlanta traffic. we stood up to pedal, clip-in, and then almost run into the person in front of us. blah, 300+ people starting a 100 mile race in a single lane of pavement was no good.

after a few miles of rolling two/three lane highway we turn hard right into the forest and onto singletrack. the singletrack was fun, but muddy due to the storms the night before. i began thinking negative thoughts about my choice of semi-slick tires but after a few miles of singletrack and a short steep that allowed us to pass a half dozen racers, i got settled with the traction that was provided. they hooked up a lot more than i thought!!! after nearly an hour we reached a creek crossing with large boulders set in it to make a sort of natural bridge. just before reaching this three fast guys (pro's who were late for the start??) passed and then managed to find themselves soaking in the creek and well, i rode right past them!! there were some spectators standing around and i'm pretty sure thats the only reason i had the skills to pay the bills. crossing the ocoee river and turning uphill led us on more amazing singletrack and to the first of many forest roads.

step 1: climb a big hill
step 2: descend a big hill
step 3: repeat for 60 miles

the only things to mention during this stage of the race are the rest stops, #2 and #3 had ziplock bags full of goodies for me!!! and i met a guy named mark from OMBA near macon, ga. we rode together for a majority of the race. the mechanic at rest area #3 was awesome. he lubed/cleaned my chain and sent me on my way with a smile. somewhere along the route i noticed a sign for jacks river trail and it reminded me of my boys (bobby, frank, jd, james) and their high school hiking trip to north georgia. it turns out that was the SAME jacks river trail/falls. i love those guys. after aid #3 we descended the long descent that is visible in the course profile:

after a long pavement/gravel/hot/dusty stretch i met up with mark again and we pacelined until i had to pull off to the side and pee. thankfully the inconvenience meant i was drinking enough (unlike my first endurance race, 07 ORAMM) so i didn't mind stopping. my nutrition plan was to eat two packages of shot bloks and drink a bottle of 2 scoops sustained enery/1 scoop heed and drink as much water as i could make myself every two hours. i was thankful for the two extra strength tylenol i took with me as well. i hit those around the 4 hour and 8 hour marks.

after all the gravel roads i managed to move a bit farther forward in the pack (from the last 1% to the last 3% or so) and rode with a nice guy with a twinsix bag for a while. he said he was from memphis and now lived in chattanooga. anyways, if you read this chattanooga guy it was nice riding with you. he bid me adieu after i kept shifting to my big ring (even at 9 hours with 20 miles to go i figured there's some way to finish sub-10 (my goal)).

entering the singletrack i tried to act happy and excited (there was an aid station with lots of people looking at me) and then caught some guy in a blue kit on a gary fisher (i think it was a fisher) and he told me to pass. i didn't really want to but i did and after a couple doubletrack style switchbacks i looked back and he was a few hundred feet back. i kept pushing and only managed to catch a few of the women on the last bit of singletrack (incredible by the way, have i mentioned the quality of the trail yet??) some kid along the way said 8 miles to go and its mostly downhill. i think someone told him that line because it made me feel better and smile but i am pretty sure i did a lot of climbing still beyond that point. cruising down some amazing stuff i rode last may (SERC race) i dumped out on gravel and some spectators told a car to wait so i could make the turn without coming to a complete stop (thanks!!) and i got into the big ring and started hammering. i'm sure all the paddlers that were driving by thought gosh those bike guys are idiots, and well, they are right.

anyways, i caught a guy with a number plate and his girlfriend/wife (who didn't have a number, maybe she was pacing him to the finish??) and then saw one more racer far ahead. i quick check of the right side rear wheel revealed we were in the same category, men's open 100, so i continued charging. nearing the bridge i had to scrub off some speed to not go over the handrail into the ocoee river below, and i knew the other racer could hear me now. i stood up and sprinted across the bridge, legs telling me to sit down, mind telling me to keep pushing and he almost cut me off!!!! i was about to pass on the inside and he nearly got me into the bridge hand railing!!! (rubbin's racing right dean??) and across the last hundred feet i was standing and sprinting and i passed the guy. i never got to tell him good job afterwards, but i did get a cool 'finisher's mug' and met up with ryan f. he grabbed me a soda and i got some BBQ chicken and rice. bliss at last, sitting on the ground, 10 hours 30 minutes after we started.

we watched the awards for some of our friends, dejay birtch 2nd singlespeed, rebecca t 5th woman (first woman singlespeed rigid), and honorable mention goes out to ryan f. he got 11th on the singlespeed. first time racing singlespeed since last summer!!! drew finished ahead of me, though not as quickly as he'd hoped, but he was fighting stomach problems and puking. so i think finishing at all was pretty dope.

i've got to thank columbus bike racing team for helping me get to events and KENDA for giving me awesome tires that turned out to work great (despite my first evaluation one hour into the race), my pseudo-coach max shute, shaw and sarah brown at boone bike for letting me have saturday off to race, my future in-laws doug and diane alexander for letting us crash saturday night at their place and supplying pizza and breakfast, and new leaf adventures for putting on a super-cool event. i will be back next year for sure. for now its a week of rest and then xc racing back at the ocoee white water center for the SERC #4. then a few weeks of preparation and long rides to get ready for the BURN 24 SOLO.

2008 cohutta 100 results (if they ever post them)

as always, if you've made it this far, thanks for reading and hopefully you're not too bored.

2008 dragon's back xxc mtb race

2008-04-07T21:30:00.009-04:00

so its time to write about the dragon's back xxc mtb race. to start, the xxc part just means its an extra long xc race. er, it is supposed to take twice as long, er is 34 miles instead of 18 miles. does that describe what's going on?

the trip started picking ryan fawley up from ASU and hitting espresso news for some coffee. we stopped at exit 72 in VA for subway, and found a little caesar's next to subway. so we got subs, then got a hot'n'ready little caesar's pizza. the subway made for a great breakfast... so we roll into the camp area after drifting through plenty of turns on this peanut butter forest service road. sleeping proved difficult as rain dripped through the tent and kept me awake most of the night.

morning was a welcome sight. ryan had gone to sleep in the car as he didn't have a sleeping pad. after subway, some coffee (thanks aran) and registration i suited up for the next six hours...

the start was pretty unofficial. there was no gun, no whistle, people just started riding. so off i go. the road seemed to go by quickly. once we reached singletrack i could tell i my current gearing was not going to work, so i drop into my 22-34 and granny gear as far as i could. i rode a lot of the uphill that most people were walking, though i walked almost all the switchbacks, and passed probably 6 or 8 people before reaching the ridge. we'd just climbed from 1500' to 2800'. blah. i stopped and took off my jacket and made my way east on the ridge. this part is basically a blur of fog, wet leaves, roots, rocks and hallucinations. along the way i hopped off and walked some stretches that would normally be rideable, but knowing i had at least three hours to go i opted for walking (aka resting and fueling). i was popping bloks, bars, gels, and hammer HEED at random during my ride along the ridge. i wanted to make sure i didn't bonk later in the ride due to lack of food.

earlier at the start line i'd met brent jim and brad from paceline bicycles in winston. i rode with brent for a while. he'd said that they were sticking together and riding for fun, but it still made me happy when i dropped him. i think it was at this point when i noticed the dragon's scaly vertebrae remains showing through the dirt. essentially we'd been riding on what we thought was slate rocks just strewn every which way, then some were sticking vertically out of the ground and i realized it was some of the dragon's scales, well, maybe it was just rocks but either way it was OUR version of the cobbles. then i rode with chris davis from mountaingoatepics.com. his partners put on the off road assault on mt mitchell. we rode together for a while, but he left me on one of the climbs. at one point the ridge teased us with a wicked downhill that convinced me it was the descent to the road. it wasn't, and my time in my 44t was short lived. after the 18th climb the ridge had to offer, the trail opened up and it was time to descend for a while. we dropped from 3000' to 1400' in about 5 miles. that was the funnest part of the day.

the next 5 miles seemed to take longer than the previous 10 miles on singletrack. the surface of the road was either newly laid apple sized gravel, knee deep creeks, or jif extra creamy peanut butter. it really sucked. on a dry race day this part would be time to get with other riders and institute road tactics and pacelines and what-not. oh, speaking of paceline... i had not seen anything of those guys since my 'attack' on one of the ridge sections... we actually were forced to cross the same knee deep creek (ie hubs and bottom bracket deep) five times!!!! i knew my BB was toast before starting the event.... now it sounds like rice crispies when you first put milk on them. oh well.

i stopped at our campsite for water refilling and to look for my banana that i brought and forgot to eat for breakfast. my legs kept requesting that i eat a banana but i couldn't find one along the trail and THEN when i finally got to my car i lacked the motivation to find my keys and unlock my car. oh well. i hopped back on my bike and two guys standing around drinking beer who'd presumedly raced some xc category (started after we xxc started and had finished before we'd finished) set their beers down to clap for me and cheer me on. they could tell who was xxc because we had a number plate type thing on our bars that simply said XX. our race numbers were on our camelbaks... as i rolled past the start/finish many other xc racers who'd finished their event and were loading up to leave paused and clapped or at least gave some encouraging words. its silly how just a nice word or smile can make you hurt less and convince you its all worth it. anyways

i neared a xxc racer on the road and we entered the second singletrack climb together. i quickly passed this person (fully suited in dirt rag apparel. i wanted to ask if he worked there?!?) and soon found a 29'er full suspension guy with an awesome fender. i rode with this fellow for a bit and eventually passed on a section i was pedaling and he was walking. i also passed a xc girl which wasn't as nice since that didn't move me higher in the placing. it was nice to know she'd slow down the others when it was their turn to pass though!!!!! =) i passed at least one or two more people before reaching the ridge, i think they were both xc racers who were questioning their existence and current location on a 3000' ridge and the impending 1500' descent. i stopped and chatted with two event organizers at the T with the ridge trail and discussed the smiley face and sad face drawn on my grips. they wanted me to smile. all i wanted to do was catch the singlespeed XXC guy that was just a few hundred feet ahead.

i tried to force myself to ride some of the small climbs that my legs wanted to walk up, though my two feet took over on a few of them still. lactic acid is not your friend. passing another xc rider, he asked if the ridge was almost over. i told him yes, though i knew there was at least a mile to go until the downhill. the singlespeed XXC guy had held me off and i was worried that on the descent his 29er wheels may give him the advantage so i let it all hang out on super narrow super exposed trail. i also had to worry about the 29er full suspension fender guy. i did not want anyone to pass me, especially since the last passer was chris davis (mtngoatepics.com guy) before descending the ridge earlier. coming into a wet leafy rocky poorly constructed 'jump' i opted to walk and found the SS guy on the ground recovering from his attempted jump. i asked if he was okay and quickly remounted my bike and flew down the last few switchbacks and remaining trail. it was over before i knew it and i was crossing the road for the ring of mud, er fire, er mud.

this section seemed out of place for the xxc course. maybe it helped split up the xc guys a bit but after the quality of what we'd just ridden, climbing out of a mudhole on slow singletrack only to be followed by a slow muddy road was not what i had in mind. oh well, BFH.

i overtook another xc racer while trying my hardest to catch another XXC. i couldn't catch anyone and when i pulled into the finishing area i could see someone fifty feet ahead and i knew it was too late. oh well. i hit stop on my garmin and it said 5:44 total time, i beat my goal of 6 hours. there were tons of people standing around eating, listening to music, drinking beer. harlan price was one of them. i heard he won the pro xc category. congrats harlan.

the boone bike contingency was strong in the XXC... darrell prillaman got 2nd (behind a semi pro), drew scharns got 3rd, smart tom got something like 6th, ryan fawley (appstate guy) got 9th, and aran cacciola got 11th. i don't think any of those guys were happy with their results but they all should be. i later found out i was 28th out of 48. although i later heard there were over 50 starters... that made me feel good. my first XXC race ever. my first mtb race of the year (since sept 22nd 2007).

gps info here

we rode 33.9 miles. climbed somewhere around 6500 feet. ascended from 1500' to 3000' at least twice. my average HR was 156bpm. descended one five mile (yes i said five mile) downhill. four gels, two clif bars, ten shot bloks, one bottle of sustained energy and heed, one camelbak, one camelbak refill. oh, and sadly, still, no bananas. i wish i'd taken some enduroltyes. at the end of my day i could feel me stomach churning trying to trick me into throwing up, but my legs still wanted electrolytes. oh well.

it was quite the experience and quite the place to fly the columbus bike racing colors. i'm glad i could do so and finish with a (somewhat) respectable finish. now its off to NUE stop #1 cohutta 100 then getting ready for my first solo 24 effort at the BURN 24. then its wedding time june 29th with my incredible fiance. =) for now its time to sleep...

china sucks

2008-04-01T20:36:00.003-04:00

http://www.savetibet.org/index.php

this is such a mess. i hope the olympic games opening ceremony and torch running is a disaster. blah. thinking aloud...

31.08 miles 6:13:53 5200 feet climbing

2008-03-11T20:03:00.010-04:00

so drew and i hop in the car and drive out 221 and park on the side. we descend/hike a bike for a while and start heading down yancey's ridge. after the third downhill (on the long loop) we turn onto the 'goatpath.' we take that down some killer switchbacks and take our shoes/socks off and walk across the wilson's creek. we looked around for a while for tr 257 but couldn't find it so we climbed the "rocky road bed." it wasn't very fun and i walked probably 20% of it. oh blah. so we sit on the ground and enjoy some wonderful clif bar products. mmm.

head over to 21 jumps/schoolhouse to crocker exit. my lefty starts making a clankity clank clank. guess i shouldn't have ridden the creek crossing that was two feet deep... my little toes were cold too and white by the end of the ride. so my submerged fork still seemed to work okay, but i had to ride part of the ride with it locked out. oh well. so climbing back up edgemont rd was okay except drew was being strong and sprinted and was waiting when we got back to the 21 jumps start area. we bomb down walnut bottom (watching for the tree that has taken me and matt shanly off our bikes) and popped out on anthony's creek rd. this is basically the end of the fun part of our ride...

we're about 22 miles in and about 1300 feet elevation. our car is somewhere around 4000 feet. so the next 11 miles held something like 2500 feet of climbing. i ran out of water before finishing my last clif bar. that made eating the last half of it quite difficult and i think led to the nauseu that i felt near the end of our ride. edgemont rd was in great shape and we switched from sitting to standing a few times and i put it in the big ring and some cog with probably 19 teeth or so and stood up and gave it all i had. we could see my car and well, drew was still strong and dropped me. its fine. i'm used to being off the back.

enjoy the pictures. so afterwards, i headed to mountain jewelers in newland to check out some wedding rings for darcy and me. no pictures of those yet... thanks for reading this.

superfreak cant touch this

2008-03-02T20:51:00.000-05:00

superfreak cant touch this

you can imagine my excitement when i saw this.

2008 bicycle racing umm "schedule"

2008-02-23T23:01:00.003-05:00

hello faithful readers... and by that i mean the people that actually look at this because they're bored and velonews.com and drunkcyclist.com didn't have enough to keep them entertained... anyways, you know who you are. and well.

this is my 2008 'schedule'

6-Apr SERC 2 Tsali, NC
13-Apr GSC 2 Columbus, GA
19-Apr Cohutta 100 Ducktown, TN
4-May SERC 4 Ducktown, TN
23-May BURN 24hr Wilkesboro, NC
15-Jun SERC 6 Clemson, SC

29-Jun Grimes/Alexander Wedding

27-Jul ORAMM (100km) Old Fort, NC
16-Aug Fool's Gold 100 Dahlonega, GA
31-Aug Shenandoah 100 Harrisonburg, VA
20-Sep 12 Hours @ Dauset Jackson, GA

i'll go ahead and shout out to Sam Hutchens for agreeing to mechanic/support/feed/cook/stay up all night/etc at the burn 24 for me. i'm also shouting out to kenda for hooking up the Columbus Bike Racing Team with tires. i can't wait to mount up some new rubber on my new cannondale rush. the coolest cannondale rep in the southeast got me hooked up with a new rush carbon and got some trick parts hung on it. pictures will come soon...

in sad news i must say and pause to remember Scott Matty who was killed recently near Columbus, GA when a car collided with he and another rider. the other rider, jeff davis, is in critical condition. these things make me worry about riding on the road but i'm reminded that getting out on a bike is one of the best things there is, and as good as the roads are, we're taking a risk every time. i'll say i think its worth it

we're looking for a good long mtb ride tomorrow in the wilson creek area. hopefully i'll have some sort of report and maybe even pictures... i gotta get back on updating this thing for all the inquiring minds. enjoy.

yo gabba gabba

2007-11-16T21:43:00.000-05:00

boone cross racing

2007-11-08T18:49:00.000-05:00

Lenoir Cyclocross 2007:

Note the rad crash, yours truly, andy riding with no seat, and numerous riders running/riding the run-up.

Parking Lot Parkway, Ron Fitzwater = idiot.

2007-11-02T16:12:00.000-04:00

Here’s My Point: Bikes turn parkway into parking Lot
By Ron Fitzwater

Here’s my point; no one else will say it so I will, bicyclists
ridding on the Blue Ridge Parkway or any other narrow, non-bike
path equipped road are a serious danger to themselves and the
driving public.

How many times have you been driving along enjoying the
wonderful feeling of being on one of the scenic rural roads in the
High Country when you come around a curve and HOLY CRAP
there they are, a pack of cyclists not two feet in front of you and
moving a whole lot slower. Your heart stutters and your throat
tightens as you slam on your brakes and hope you stop in time and
that no one behind you knocks you into the riders. In most cases
the automobile driver is able to avoid killing a cyclist who usually
continues to pedal on as if nothing had happened, oblivious or too
good to acknowledge what they just caused.

Look, I’m all for getting out and enjoying Mother Nature
and if someone wants to get their exercise on a bike so be it, but
things have gotten out of hand. At times there are so many bicycles
clogging up the roads that traffic is slowed to a crawl and backed
up for what seems like miles when you’re the last car in line, and I
usually am.

What I see as the main problem is that someone forgot to
tell all these energetic riders some basic facts about automobiles
and their impact on the cycling hobby. First of all bicycles can’t go
as fast as cars; this is important to remember because they will be
coming up behind you at a rather considerable speed. They also
don’t stop as quickly as most drivers would like them to, even
with new brake technologies, of course barring the chance that the
driver is a trained psychic, when meeting bicycles in a blind curve
brakes are moot anyway. This brings up another important point—
cars are heavy and do a lot of damage when they traverse over
bicycles and their riders.

I am sorry that there are not more scenic roads with bike
paths or trails that go cross country, but the lack of available paths
should not mean that the public’s safety should be put at risk. It is
beyond my ability to comprehend how any enjoyment can be
gleaned from creeping your way up a hill with a line of angry
motorists behind you cursing you with every breath and waiting
for the tiniest extra space to squeeze between the bike and oncoming
traffic, only to be ridiculed and showered with gravel and exhaust
fumes. Really, I’m just trying to save you the trouble.

So here is an idea; why not trade in your bikes and get some
hiking gear. There are many fantastic hiking trails in the area and
the best part about it is there is not one exhaust belching, fast
moving car with bad brakes on any one of them. You could actually
see nature that way instead of staring at your front wheel, and best
of all it will get you out of my way.

Roads are made for cars and are not safe for bikes, these are
facts that are not debatable and it is time cyclists came to grips
with them. And all kidding aside the dangers are very, very real. In
what can only be seen as tragic irony, while writing this piece,
news came in that 43-year-old Lee Anne Barry, who was riding a
bicycle across the country to raise awareness for brain injuries
caused from bicycle accidents, was one of two people killed during
the final leg of the trip into South Carolina. Barry died after she
was hit by a van on rural US Highway 521. Also killed was Barry’s
riding partner, 49-year-old Thomas Hoskins, of Columbia, SC.
The pair was on the last part of a two-month tour when they were
struck by a van around 2:15 p.m. Monday.

Three more quick facts from the most recent available data
from the NTHSA; Total bicyclist deaths in 2005, 784—Up 26
percent from 2003; 92 percent of bicycle fatalities are caused by
motor vehicles, 720 in 2005, and finally, 45,000 cyclists were
injured by motor vehicles in 2005, up 9.8 percent from 2003.

Awareness by drivers and respect by cyclists for the drivers
they are sharing the road with could lower those numbers but only
by so much. So here’s an idea when cars are coming, get off the
road. After all, having to stop and start over again is better than
getting a real close look at the undercarriage of a Cherokee.

That’s my point.

To whom it may concern:

"Q: Is bicycling allowed on the Parkway?
A: Yes..." [http://www.blueridgeparkway.org/faq.htm]

I am writing in response to Mr. Ron Fitzwater's commentary about "bicycling turning the parkway into a parking lot." First of all, he states "How many times have you been driving along enjoying the wonderful feeling of being on one of the scenic rural roads in the High Country when you come around a curve and HOLY CRAP there they are, a pack of cyclists not two feet in front of you and moving a whole lot slower. Your heart stutters and your throat tightens as you slam on your brakes and hope you stop in time and that no one behind you knocks you into the riders. In most cases the automobile driver is able to avoid killing a cyclist who usually continues to pedal on as if nothing had happened, oblivious or too good to acknowledge what they just caused." I would like to respond by saying that bicycles are vehicles under North Carolina Law (the state we live in) and that Mr. Fitzwater must certainly understand that: if he were "driving along enjoying the
wonderful feeling of being on one of the scenic rural roads in the High Country" and came upon a slower moving car (also a vehicle), tractor (also a vehicle) or slow moving farm truck (also a vehicle) that he would need to slow down appropriately and then pass such vehicle when it is safe (ie, when double yellow lines don't exist and/or away from the crest of a hill) and that if he was traveling so fast that "[his] heart stutters and [his] throat tightens as [he] slam[s] on [his] brakes and hope[s] [he] stop[s] in time" that he is clearly at fault for driving too quickly and not paying attention. If he were to come around a corner and collide with another vehicle, or perhaps i'll use the word car since he doesn't seem to understand that car ARE vehicles, that he would be at fault. Yes, scenic roads are scenic, but they are still roads, and if Mr. Fitzwater is so interested in enjoying the scenery perhaps he should slow down; I would also suggest that he doesn't photograph images while driving.

It should be noted that in many instances (especially in the high country) bicycles can "go as fast as cars." So Mr. Fitzwater, when we're descending the parkway (or other narrow scenic roads with 35-45mph speed limits) at 35-45 miles per hour, please do not pass us. I'm sure you are smart enough to not pass a CAR going 35 mph on the parkway since it would require breaking the speed limit. Please remember, as noted before, that bicycles are VEHICLES too.

"Travel on the Parkway forces us to slow down and examine a sublime nature, allowing us to drop our day-to-day cares and experience the glory around us that can appear as an unspoiled pastoral nature where cows munch bucolically near the road or as a ferocious assault from a sudden thunderstorm on a high wind-swept peak when the world disappears completely from view.
Don't even think about getting on the Parkway if you're in a hurry."
-NCNatural.com [Tim Treadwell]

Mr. Fitzwater states "Roads are made for cars and are not safe for bikes, these are facts that are not debatable and it is time cyclists came to grips with them." I would like to know where Mr. Fitzwater found his 'facts.' Last time I looked up 'road' it seemed it was something like an "an open way for vehicles, persons, and animals." [http://webster.com/dictionary/road] Mr. Fitzwater, I'm sure as a reputable writer you have sources for your facts... Would you care to share those sources of your "FACTS that are not debatable"???

I feel that Mr. Fitzwater crossed the line by writing about (using their full names) bicyclists who were killed recently and the sarcastic phrase "...cars are heavy and do a lot of damage when they traverse over bicycles and their riders." I do not care to go on regarding this subject as it is difficult for me to imagine unintentionally inflicting more pain on the families of these cyclists he mentioned. I do feel Mr. Fitzwater should apologize to these families and resist referencing such tragedies in any of his future writing.

I'd like to invite Mr. Fitzwater to come ride bikes with me in the beautiful high country of Watauga County; I'll even provide the bicycle and a helmet. I'm sure we both have narrow scenic roads to cycle. I would like to assure Mr. Fitzwater that he would have a enjoyable time riding a bike and that I will even wait on him if it is necessary. I would also like to say Mr Fitzwater's "point" is not very well received by anyone i know.

Lastly I would like to suggest that the editor of the Mountain Times Ashe County Edition publishes opinions in the editorials section and saves the rest of his newspaper for articles based on facts. Thanks for your time.

Joseph Grimes
Boone Resident & Road Cyclist

I included some extra reading in case people haven't picked up their driver safety handbooks recently:

"Bicycles
Bicycle riding is an important means of transportation, particularly for traveling to and from work and school. Because bicycles are vehicles, bicyclists must obey the same traffic laws as other drivers. Bicyclists usually ride on the right side of the lane, but are entitled to the use of a full lane.

Pass With Care
A bicyclist staying to the right in their lane is accommodating the following drivers by making it easier to see when it is safe to pass, and easier to execute the pass. Drivers wishing to pass a bicyclist may do so only when there is abundant clearance and no oncoming traffic is in the opposing lane. When passing a bicyclist, always remember the bicyclist is entitled to the use of the full lane...
Think Bike
Bicyclists can be expected on all roads except where expressly prohibited. Bicycles are narrow and typically operate at the right of the lane, so may be obscured and difficult to detect. Avoid the Left Cross, Drive Out, and Right Hook types of potential collisions shown below." [http://www.ncdot.org/dmv/driver_services/drivershandbook/chapter6/bicycles.html]

"20-150. Limitations on privilege of overtaking and passing.

(a) The driver of a vehicle shall not drive to the left side of the center of a highway, in overtaking and passing another vehicle proceeding in the same direction, unless such left side is clearly visible and is free of oncoming traffic for a sufficient distance ahead to permit such overtaking and passing to be made in safety.

(b) The driver of a vehicle shall not overtake and pass another vehicle proceeding in the same direction upon the crest of a grade or upon a curve in the highway where the driver's view along the highway is obstructed within a distance of 500 feet.

(c) The driver of a vehicle shall not overtake and pass any other vehicle proceeding in the same direction at any railway grade crossing nor at any intersection of highway unless permitted so to do by a traffic or police officer. For the purposes of this section the words "intersection of highway" shall be defined and limited to intersections designated and marked by the Department of Transportation by appropriate signs, and street intersections in cities and towns.

(d) The driver of a vehicle shall not drive to the left side of the centerline of a highway upon the crest of a grade or upon a curve in the highway where such centerline has been placed upon such highway by the Department of Transportation, and is visible.

(e) The driver of a vehicle shall not overtake and pass another on any portion of the highway which is marked by signs, markers or markings placed by the Department of Transportation stating or clearly indicating that passing should not be attempted.

(f) The foregoing limitations shall not apply upon a one-way street nor to the driver of a vehicle turning left in or from an alley, private road, or driveway." [http://www.ncdot.org/transit/bicycle/laws/laws_bikelaws.html]

12 hours of dauset: round and round and round...

2007-09-24T07:49:00.000-04:00

so saturday, with the charity of boone bike giving me saturday off work, i participated in my first 12 hour solo mountain bike race. things started on friday, getting my stuff, darcy's stuff and then darrell's stuff loaded into my car and hitting the road. we started with a stop at BP giving some money to big oil companies and then to THE MAN at back yard burger. anyways, the burger was good. 6 hours later we were in jackson, ga. on the way we stopped at a gas station that was closed inside, but had a slot to put money through and get drinks/smokes/snacks through. it reminded me of why i love boone. i dropped darrell off at his hotel and proceeded to the trail/park area. we set up our tent/sleeping bags with the help of paul hein and ed hamilton. we both fell asleep quickly.

before sun was up we were loading our tents/gear/clothes/selves into our cars and moving our stuff down to the pit area. paul and ed scored a great spot right on the trail before it re-entered the woods.

we set up two of our KENDA tents and chairs and coolers and super cool cardboard box with homemade handles and bikes and more. after a quick (for me, but not most people) registration and a couple bagels, we were lining up for a lemans start.

i forgot to turn on my garmin gps computer so when i got to my bike i turned it on and waited hoping to get a quick signal. to my dismay and three minutes later, it was still searching, so i started riding (after the entire field was gone) and set it to work with gps OFF. things were still good, it told me my time, heart rate and elevation all day long. it's hard to describe what happened for the next few hours. i passed a bunch of "just doing it for fun" type riders and finally found some 12hr solo guys. i rode with a handful of different people trying to keep a slow and steady pace and not chase after each 12hr team racer that passed us. i rode with a guy named travis from douglasville for a while. he seemed to be a very formidable competitor. we took turns setting pace and passing each other for our first three or four laps. each lap is between 10-11 miles.

my first few pit stops were good. quick and efficient, though i stopped for 10-15 minutes once to change shoes and eat beef jerky. i was gulping down hammer sustained energy and heed for a while, getting a new sustained energy every three laps and a new heed bottle every lap. i was knocking out a few endurolyte tablets every other lap or so. i basically stuck to my plan of liquid diet with the exception of beef jerky. my mom kept offering chips/trail mix/granola/etc but i was like NO!!!! i'm sticking to my plan. the beef jerky was tasty because of the salt, and the taste stayed with me for most of the lap, and nutritionally i knew i needed some sodium and protein.

the only cool thing to mention during the first 6 laps was that i almost laid it down coming into the start/finish area full speed big ring pedalling across gravel with people everywhere and my pride ready to crawl into a deep dark cave and stand back up and scrape gravel from my skin and lower extremities, but i somehow kept the bike upright, sliding, but upright and unclipped my left foot and sort of moto-slid and scrubbed off speed thanks to my handy avid juicy ultimate brakes.

aside from that, its worth mentioning at the start, my goal for day the was to get 7 laps. i thought 7 laps would be good, but would allow for some stretching time and sitting around time. i kept moving things along, strapping lights on my helmet at the beginning of my 7th lap, which was surely to be during dusk. as 7pm rolled around and i finished my 7th lap, i realized i needed to set a new goal. and i also thought briely, well i got my goal of 7laps, time to stop. hahaha. that didn't happen.

as i coasted into the pit area after my 7th lap i said "two more." so i went out and rode two more laps, stopping only to get a fresh bottle of HEED between laps. as i was out on my 8th lap i started thinking about times, could i make it back to the start/finish before the cut-off time to go for another lap?? after i passed three 12hr solo riders i really got juiced up. and i started thinking about chopper reid and what he says. somewhere in my head i got thinking i had to be finished before 10pm with my last lap, but i don't think that is actually the rule. anyways, i rolled in after my 9th lap and looked at my buddies: Paul, Adam, Darcy, Mom/Dad, Cartec (Charlie) and said, i'm doing one more. i could feel myself moving up the rankings as i rolled out for the last lap and my parents worrying about the lighting situation. well, they were right!! as i was riding one of the last doubletracks i noticed my handlebar light was fading so i turned it off. usually they'll turn back on for a while after a brief rest, so then my helmet light was fading, turn it off turn on handlebar light. after a few more iterations of this process i was riding with no lights as matt hargrove and another racer pulled up behind me. i didn't know matt was there until he announced it, and the other guy had HID so i rode in his beam for about three miles. he pulled ahead and i convinced myself that riding his wheel was safe as long as he didn't go down. as we entered the moonshine section for the last time it opened up, the HID guy pulled away and matt was a little ways behind. i rode in the moonlight and matt's far off beam until he caught up, and we rolled into the finish together. i could hear bruce as usual... saying "we've got more racers coming in... one of them doesn't have any lights. i shrugged my shoulders as i passed him and finished my 10th lap and was essentially applauded and laughed at all at the same time. i rolled down to our pit area and laid on the ground.

afterwards we were worried about charlie, but he's okay i think. okay enough to type a long blog post on sunday, two days before i finished mine!!! congrats to ursula sandefur and nicki sutherland who 1-2'd the wmn's solo 6 hour race. also congrats to darrell's team "mean bean" who won the team 12 hour race. so anyways, i finished 14th out of 39 people or so. i am very happy with my ranking saturday and very happy that i continued to re-evaluate my goals as the day went on. i see more 12 hour solo events and 100 mile races in my future and maybe, maybe maybe a 24 solo next year at the BURN in wilkesboro. for now, thanks to:

my beautiful fiancee darcy, my mom and dad, frank and lingo for coming down from ATL, paul, adam, perry, matt, tom, ed, cartec (charlie), my pseudo CTS coach max shute, andy for letting me borrow lights and a spare bike even if the lights cut off!!!! dave terri and austin and joe for putting the race on, bruce for talking all day, carl mesta for taking incredible photos, kenda tires for hoooking us up!!!!!! shaw and sarah brown for letting me have the weekend off and the Columbus Bike Racing Team for supporting me even though i've moved away.

2007 bridge to bridge century ride

2007-09-18T07:36:00.000-04:00

the 2007 bridge to bridge century traveled from lenoir, nc to nc-181, a 12 mile climb and then followed the blue ridge parkway for at least 10 miles, then turned back on us-221 towards grandfather mountain then went up. not just up, straight up. by the end of the ride we were a mile high and on top of the world. or so it seemed. it was my first century ride and well, with how i fared, i may try for more in the future. but 12 hour solo mountain bike racing is on my schedule for this weekend. i'll probably get some pictures posted monday or tuesday. for now, all you get is this:

wondering how many more switchbacks?!? thankfully, the last one was about 40 feet ahead with a short downhill twenty feet to the finish. wheww.

6 hours 12 minutes 100 miles 9275 vertical feet 8 enervit tablets, etc... haha
212th of 499 finishers. blah.
jg

labour day 2007

2007-09-04T08:16:00.000-04:00

before you give me shit about typing labour with a u lets remember: this is my blog. on your blog, spell labour with no u: labor.

okay, now thats out of the way.

check it out: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3852539

later.

HELP THE BMCC BOYS!!!

2007-08-30T07:22:00.000-04:00

please, even if you've never ridden there, say some good words about the trails at dark mountain and OVT. the bmcc guys are trying to lobby for a grant to buy a trail building machine, and if you appreciate mountain biking, please go to this website and help them!!!!!!

http://www.myhometownhelper.com/ViewProject.aspx?tell=2&id=29233

Dark Mountain 8 hour sesh. & water bottles. lunacy new bike

2007-08-29T07:31:00.000-04:00

so tuesday august 28th included an alarm clock going off at 5:59 am. working for 45 minutes at boone bike in the 7:00 hour. a delectable bagel from mountain bagels. and a 45 minute drive to wilkesboro. i got suited up, got a wheel on my 'new' bike, and got rolling.

i should amend, the 'new' bike is little more than a new frame with my old tired parts and fork and wheels. but it has a nicer shock and cranks, so its 'new' in my mind.

here's the motionabased gps map & more

i won't type much more, just let the pictures do the talking:

i don't have a picture of my gps afterwards. i was pretty wrecked at that point... it would say:
7:54:08 ride time
50.5 miles
6.something average speed
26.9 mph max speed
140 bpm avg hr
168 max hr
7000~feet of climbing

i'm okay with that. the hardest part of the day:

cleaning these things!!!

thanks for reading.
jg

bike. riding 321 181 brp RV's nissan altima, etc.

2007-08-26T17:04:00.000-04:00

so i've been slack and not riding. oh wait, i mean not writing about my riding. i've been doing a good bit of riding. i had to start running after the ORAMM to mentally take a break from bike riding. blah blah.

so i've gotten back on the bike a few good times. i did a 6hour mtn bike sesh at wilkes:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3771936

and two days later, tuesday, i did this:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3771939

and then i ran on wednesday.

no pictures for that one.

and then i did this on sunday:

a href=http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3771938

the ride was great. DC, ray, and wendy and i had a good time. 1 hour 15 minute ascent of 181 for me and wendy. DC and ray killed us by a few minutes, but i don't mind. welp. thats about it for now.

thanks for reading.

joseph

off road assault: apparitions on heartbreak

2007-07-23T07:51:00.000-04:00

This is the elevation profile that haunted the deepest parts of my mind sunday. Here's the race report. As always, thanks for reading.

ORAMM RACE REPORT JULY 22 2007

My Sunday started at 5:00am driving to Matt Shanly’s house. Already, we’re questioning what the hell we’re getting ourselves into. Nearing Marion we receive an inspirational voicemail from Smart Tom: “Get ready, we’re racing bitches!!!”

After the confusion of signing in, finding out the rest stops will not be as I expected, and trying to repack my feed drop bags, I start pedaling around. It’s not like you really need a warm-up though. So we line up to Bruce’s word of encouragement almost start the entire field with a dog in the road, and then take off around 8:15am. The first few miles are chill. Drafting ensued, hand close together, head low. We turn onto a Mill Creek Rd. It quickly turns to gravel. Dusty, dry, chattery gravel. Soon it’s the most heinous hike a bike ever and the entire field is standing. My ankles start to develop blisters. I knew I should have bought some cheaper, more hiking friendly shoes. Left onto some cool singletrack, and we dump out on the upper end of Mill Creek Rd. Some pavement brings us to the famous Kitsuma. It would have been a fun challenge of switchbacks, but again, the field comes to a dead standstill. I’m on my bike most of the climb to avoid growth of my blisters, granny gear, trackstanding, leaning on trees. The top of the climb brings false joy as we begin to descend, then stop and wait more. After the famous ripping descent we are on Mill Creek Rd. Again.

Climbing some pavement finally brings us to singletrackish stuff on our right. This is the most switchback laiden section of trail I’ve ever ridden. It was more fun to ride later in the day though, when people weren’t in the way. I rode a lot of uphill log crossing to the amazement of the people walking behind me constantly scrubbing my tires with theirs. Thanks guys. I’m pretty sure at one point shortly thereafter that I was on Raspberry Ridge, then Headquarters. The trail seemed to mimic some of my favorite local routes so well. Except after the descending there was more climbing. Riding this grassy roadbed was fun and chill until I feel the sting of a bee or ant or some other creature inside my jersey. I stopped to try to deal with this, and was passed by twenty people or so. Oh well.

The end of this road led us to the second feed area. I’m a little worried at this point, as the distance to the first rest area disrupted my scientific plan of eating/drinking. I should have been eating salt tablets and drinking more and taken at Hammer Gel from the first rest stop, but I pretty much forgot. I stretched for a bit, removed my helmet, and prepared for a few hours of uphill. My garmin died at this point. Thanks guys.

A short pedal on gravel brought us to the infamous Curtis Creek Rd. I don’t really know how to describe it, except to say it was like Roseboro Rd gradient, with Edgemont Rd length. Although it seemed a bit more like 18 mile rd… around every corner seemed a corner I’d just ridden past. The lower section didn’t hurt me. Near the top I ran out of water and could barely choke down a Clif Bar. This was the point I’d wondered about: total breakdown. It didn’t really surprise me, though I still had thirty five miles to go. Near the top of Curtis Creek I began cramping. First it was just my left leg, then both, then my hands. Fingers straightened. Others curled uncontrollably. A woman rolled by me on a bike and said blah blah blah. My iPod earphone in one ear and the other facing away from her seemed to tell me she said something .3 miles to the feed area. Then my wandering mind asked if she said three miles?!?!? I kept the pace chill, not that I could really do anything more, and rolled into the rest stop with joy. I ate some Endurolytes (Salt tablets), some Hammer Gel (espresso with caffeine, mmmm), and refilled my water bottles and camelbak. As I walked toward my bike to lube the chain I was forced to remove a pair of shorts from my handlebars. A volunteer from Bio-wheels apologized and assured me they were his and they were clean. It was still a bit odd. With a lubed chain I started what was one of the easiest sections of the ride. The Blue Ridge Parkway.

I’m used to riding on the BRP so I selected 32-32 for my gearing and trudged along. Riding through a tunnel was really cool. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. A fifty mile per hour (seemed like it) descent led us to the hike a bike steepness of a wall on our left that led to heartbreak ridge. Someone assured us that after the 300 yard hike it was “all downhill.” Well. Heartbreak was great. Although I think I saw a small black bear walking towards me near the top and I shrugged it off. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t real and my mind was totally gone. My legs began thoroughly cramping on the descent, which lasted at least 15 minutes, and getting off my bike to step over a two foot tall log put both legs into total cramp mode. I made it down the rest of the singletrack and to rest stop five with relative ease, refilled my water bottles, but not my camelbak (idiot) and asked how much farther. TJ from Liberty said well, you just have to ride Kitsuma again, so however long that’ll take. This was possibly the low point of the whole day. I’m hoping to big ring it downhill on pavement to the car and I’m faced with another brutal climb/hike with cramped legs and developing blisters. I wanted to punch the guy in the face that said “all downhill.”

Riding up Mill Creek Rd towards Kitsuma was brutal. A lady from Raleigh pulled up next to me and I realized we were both dead but still pedaling and that I could hang with her as inspiration to stay in my middle ring. We got to Kitsuma together and she pulled away on the into and then on the switchbacks. Every time I mounted and dismounted I had total cramping of both legs. I kept doing this though as it kept my feet from experiencing US military style torture.
The rest of Kitsuma was fun. Full speed descending followed by leg torture hike a bikes. Finding myself in the parking lot at the bottom was perhaps the best part of the day. From here it was a simple descent on the road, mostly big ring riding. I put the hammer down as hard as I could. I was thinking I don’t know what hour mark I’m gunning for, but maybe I have a chance. Well, I rolled in somewhere around 9 hours 15 minutes. Maybe a little less. I found Matt at his car, he’d ridden it in 7 hours 15 minutes and had to wait around for me. We hopped in the car and had a chill ride home. Windows down, no music on. Matt says once, “I could’ve saved 80 dollars and stayed home and rode the forest, and had just as much fun.” I see his point, but I think it was worth it. No faked mechanicals to slow me down. Pushing through cramping legs. And a time I can hopefully improve upon next year. For me, it was a great ride.

clemson. 13th blah long. rides wedding planning

2007-07-11T15:16:00.000-04:00

so i've been racing a bunch of weekends in a row and i think it finally caught up to me all the way. i had a good time but it was hot hot hot and humid so i didn't feel like i did so well. 13th place though and got to 4th in the overall series so i'm happy with that. right before the finish i took a digger going around a turn too too too fast and thought i was about to plow into a bunch of kids and grabbed the brakes and pedaled and slid and fell and popped up and dropped my chain and ran and hopped on the bike and didn't know the chain was dropped but some guy yelled chain is off and so i just coasted and when the downhill stopped i kept running and well if you don't believe so then here:

that was the race and i didn't lose any spots by falling and i wouldn't have gained any had i not fallen. it was just a bit scary i was worried i broke my carbon bar or brake lever. wheew.

so its been just normal had a weekend in town and celebrated my roommate matt's birthday friday and darcy went out of town and we went to an italian restaurant owned by some italian mafia mob guy. scarrrryyy!!! yep

so sunday david forkner and tom forkner and me rode bikes in the wilson creek area and we rode for 4.5 hours and barely rode 25 miles but it was good ORAMM thats off road assault on mt mitchell training. of course oramm is 65 miles so we didn't even ride half of it but still sitting on the bike that long is good.

wedding stuff got a monkey wrench thrown in by crestwood. sneaky folks tried to add in extra charges and well, i think we are going to shop around but don't worry. i've got a few new places in the research mode of my mind. yep. i'm interested in the shady grove gardens near creston, nc. http://www.shady-grove-gardens.com/

so in closing here's a picture of darcy and i that i absolutely love. we were playing frisbee golf around the ASU campus and paused for a moment for some very professional style photography:

thanks for reading and/or looking.

jg

Columbus GSC Race

2007-06-28T08:13:00.000-04:00

off the line i was fourth into the woods. i held this spot, staying in the big ring, through the entire wooded section and out into the short track area. i passed a guy, third now. then someone passed me. fourth again. about halfway through this lap i realized i only had half a water bottle left from my warm up. i never switched bottles!!! continuing around the lake and on new trail i thought to myself, this place looks great. i'm sorry i wasn't able to help with the new trail. i crossed the rock section boldly, as the guy behind me sort of rattled his way across it. into the woods and back to the final straightaway i dropped down to about 7th or 8th place. as i came charging through the feed zone with a guy on my wheel i reached for a cold new full water bottle and only managed to slap it out of darcy's hand. the water bottle flies to the ground, screeching halt, trackstand, she picks it up and hands it to me. two riders pass by. i sort of do my own thing and recover a bit throught the early tight twisty trail. my second trip through the uphill rock garden was better than my first, i dismounted (think cyclocross) and ran all the way to the open trail again and hopped back up to my pedals. i passed one rider here. i began hydrating every second i could and found myself on the wheel of a pro woman rider. i did my best to stay on her wheel through the end of the lap. this kept me moving faster. i pretty much followed her and traded places a couple times with the pro woman through the rest of the lap.

climbing through "my trail" as barry called it was a very humbling experience. when i reached the final straightaway all i could do was pass a 30-39 rider. no 19-29 sport guys were in the way, or i would have surely passed them. big ringing it along the way i felt the great satisfaction of racing on a great trail in my hometown. i'd been cheered on by roadies and mountain bikers, old friends of mine, and been cheered with "go columbus!!" i crossed the line in 7th. about 6 spots lower than i'd been hoping for. but i had water bottle tragedies and general inexperience riding in the 106 degree heat (i'm used to upper 70's lower 80's... come ride in boone!!!) as a weak excuse. i'm happy, though, with my finish, and very happy about the day.

fontana dam jam

2007-06-20T18:51:00.000-04:00

for the first time since i've been to fontana village, this past weekend it was dry as a bone. and that meant fast, fast, fast singletrack. as usual, they started us straight up the road with heat beating off the pavement reminiscent of the hill on wildcat rd. left turn onto singletrack, i'm probably #14 into the woods. great... only 4 people behind me. pass a couple guys on a technical uphill turn. 12th place. after the mostly downhill, somewhat technical, too narrow to pass singletrack we spill out onto a very steep fast loose gravel downhill. a guy i'm familiar with, joseph irwin from ocala, florida, comes screaming by on the far left. he loses traction as we try to turn right onto some uphill singletrack, overcorrects, tires bite, he flies off the left side of the trail, over corrects again and slides along on his left side to a standstill, i yell rider down and ask if he's okay as i'm passing. he's fine, just out of the race with a broken derailleur. well, i passed one more guy... 11th place. i'm not exactly happy to have passed him via a crash, but he shouldn't have been going so fast.

blah blah blah, we spill out onto the loop trail uphill and i'm big ringing it along and turn left onto the nasty singletrack downhill. a floridian guy rides behind me and announces "we don't have this stuff in florida!! i am thinking "wow, blatant announcement of the obvious?!?" after a couple steep climbs we dump out on some pavement and he passes me as i'm drinking water. i wanted to yell to him, we don't have 90 degree heat in boone, as my excuse for getting passed but well, i don't think i felt like talking then. back into 12th. little ring climb up and shift to the big ring following the figure 8 trail intersection and middle ring climb it back up to the downhill trail. i am confident to say i didn't lose any time to anyone on this portion, as i only began braking as i neared another rider.

exit onto the main road and drink an enervitene and finish off a bottle. my fiance and her family cheer me on and feed me, then its a turn onto the softball field and a very insane cyclocross steep run-up style thing. i rode it no problem. one lap down. one to go. i'll spare the description of this lap only to say i climbed the big paved road at my pace, middle ring the whole way and rode most of the singletrack on my own. i passed a 19-29 sport rider at the point the florida guy passed me on the first lap. back into 11th. the rider i passed was looking around asking everyone for water. genius, it's 90 degrees bring your own water!!!

i don't think i was passed by anyone on the second half of the lap except for ryan woodall and another pro rider hot on his wheels. after the downhill, passing a female rider i hammered up the main road to the softball hill climb. mostly out of the saddle telling my right leg it would not be successful in cramping, which it was trying to do every second i was out of the saddle. i finished in 11th. i'm happy with my finish since its a climber's course (racking up 2400 feet of climbing on my two laps), and at 174 lbs even though i live in the mountains, i'm nowhere near what you'd call a climber. my finish kept my in 8th place on the SERC points standings and moved me into 1st place for north carolina sport category with usacycling.org. so i feel good about that.

i am looking forward to the relatively flat race at flat rock park coming up. see you all there.

darcy and i are planning our wedding. we are pretty much set on 6.29.08. we are planning to have it at crestwood inn.

its in blowing rock. we're both very excited. welp, thats all for now. jg

Engagement/Ducktown/Snake Mountain

2007-05-13T18:17:00.000-04:00

So, i've got great news. A week ago, I asked Darcy Lynn Alexander to marry me. I got down on one knee and held out a diamond ring, and she took a minute to answer... but she finally kissed me and said yes. It was one of the scariest and best moments of my life. We were in Maryville at her parents house, and she ran upstairs and told her sister, then ran down stairs and told her parents, i mean, woke them up and then told them. They already knew because i asked them if it was okay on friday. They took a vote, and Doug, Diane, Dana, and their dog all voted yes: that i could ask darcy. So the next day we headed down to Ducktown, TN to the Ocoee White Water Center.

the ocoee whitewater center is now officially one of my favorite mountain bike venues. the trail system starts just across the river from a large parking area. starting the race from a very cramped start area, we speed down a concrete path, twist, turn uphill. big ring out of the saddle. fork locked out, lactate threshold. i'm 5th or 6th into the woods. so, for the first time since i've started racing bicycles, we climbed for probably 10 minutes on singletrack. climb climb climb. i passed a couple people on technical sections that had more than one line through them and was 4th into the first downhill. i felt very very good at this point and rode for quite a while in 4th. our field had spread out pretty quickly. i looked back and did not see another rider at all. after a very fun, fast downhill with multiple chances for plenty of air i managed to stay on the ground and kept pedaling. the trail basically ran along the left side of a ridge for a few miles. we switchbacked under some power lines and began climbing, but it was very powerful climbing. still middle and big rings. by this time a few people had passed me, but as far as i could tell, it was just the leaders of the 30-39 class. i got out of the saddle on most of the rolling uphills and chilled on the forest road downhills and still managed to pass people (mainly the women experts). after a bit more climbing we began a very phenix city-esque technical descent. i felt very good on this and caught up to a group of four. kayla whitaker was in front of me going over a wooden bridge and took a very nasty fall. i asked if she was okay (from the speed of her fall i can barely imagine that she WASN'T hurt) but she said just go don't worry and i shouldered my bike (cross style) and hopped over her, landing my shoes on the same muddy mossy wet slick wooden bridge that took her down. i shuffled my way across it and proceeded to catch a few 30-39's near the highway. we did a very nice paceline allowing me to rest and still accelerate to 18mph as we rolled near the start/finish. as i finished my pull i went off the front rather than to the back of our line. i rode most of the second lap on my own, another guy in my class passed me as my legs started burning. i was okay with this because i have taken the past two weeks away from serious training. i certainly planned on racing at ducktown, but i want to aim my fitness towards dauset and fontana. as i reached the long gravel road downhill i shifted to 44-12 or so and kicked it. my heart rate felt like it had a good rest and i went into ex-downhiller mode as i descended the technical singletrack. i saw a photographer ahead of me and recognized the bit of trail and aired over the rock garden that had taken some of my speed on the first lap, as i reached my highest point of flight i heard the shutter snap and i hope that photographer posts his pictures. anyways, i passed the sport guy that had passed me earlier on the lap. got into a wicked tuck and used some of my roadie skills to kick it through the parking area and to the finish line. i was hungry. if there was anyone in front of me i was going to pass them. there wasn't but i was ready anyways. i crossed the finish line and hurried to my car. i had more important things to deal with than waiting for the results to be posted. i had to get back to a engagement celebration dinner with my fiancee's family. yes, i said fiancee. i'll see you guys at dauset.

i finished 7th at ducktown. i'm sitting in the top 10 for the series. i'm not sure exactly what place... i guess i could look. or not. umm. so that was racing. this is a random picture i took while on top of beech mountain a few sundays ago. i zoomed in to take a picture of banner elk, then a self portrait and forgot to zoom out. not too bad though. sorta artsy.

i've been slack last week and today was the jump-start my training needed. we went out for a 55 mile ride. when i rolled into my apartment parking lot my garmin showed 73 miles.

the highlights really involve the gentleman's pace set up three top and then down to 88. max and i were off the back cruising down the gap and had to work hard to get back with the group. finally, we got on and all took turns pulling. we were moving fast. i looked at my speed while i was pulling and it was 31mph. the other guys were were working even harder. on the flats down to peak rd we had a couple guys go off the front. ST and aran were among the break. DG, max and ray all worked hard to bring them back. at some point i closed the gap and cruised to the stop on aran's wheel. the others arrived shortly. so much for gentleman's pace...

our paceline on hwy 88 was awesome. very pro. taking turns, smooth transitions. ahh, then left onto sutherland vally road. real estate talk ensued, and then a max, ray and donovan went off the front. some of the others were holding back, taking a break, and so i tried to hang with DC. max and ray were gone, i think max was the first to the top. i kept donovan in and out of sight, but was fourth to pottertown gap. snake mountain was fun. especially with a group. i've only climbed it once before, in my granny gear. solo. today i went up it mainly in my 34-23. most of my out of the saddle climbing was done in 34-21. that made me feel good. coming down the front i proceeded to hit 53mph while DC and others were going 56mph or so. after climbing snake, some of the sane guys went back via nc194 and some of the others went back via big hill rd, railroad grade and castleford. i sort of blew up on castleford road, but i don't mind. i just cruised along at my own pace. rode with the other guys the rest of the way on 194. so... enough talking. pictures and garmin info remain:

Garmin Stuff, can you tell which one is Snake Mtn??

Shaw Brown's bike laying on the ground:

DC and DG as we're rolling out of Todd:

The crew just before Snake Mountain:

#1 and #2 climber guys:

DG Stretching:

Brown, DC and Aran:

Slow Guy:

riding, the grizzly, being silly

2007-04-23T08:12:00.000-04:00

since my last post i've raced in athens, georgia, ridden a few really good training days, gone to a fit clinic, and did a huge climbing day with the boone bike boys. oh, and i sat in the yard with darcy and stared at beautiful skies and relaxed. its been great.

Check it out: Athens SERC GPS Info

the weather here has been interesting. i raced in athens, placing 11th of 25 or something in sport men's xc 19-29. i was happy with that finish. here's a couple pictures. you can't really tell, but its cold and windy.

Frank handing off a bottle:

Darcy and Ryan waiting for me to come around:

Making sure i still had the gap on 12th place guy:

so driving back from athens, darcy and i found snow still falling in boone. now, a week later, its 70's and clear skies every direction. a perfect day to scout a route for "the grizzly." a ride to be featured in the highland games this summer. so the boone bike crew met at linville post office. we rolled through eceola resort area and then down 221 to crossnore. we did a loop on a road with 'squirrel' in the name. followed US-19E north to elk park and then right on 194. turned left onto old beech mtn rd. we climbed for the next 17 hours. okay maybe just two hours, but it felt like 17. we did 3.5 miles of gravel at 3500' elevation, then proceeded to climb over 1500 feet in the next 3 or 4 miles. beech mountain. fred's store. potato chips. diet coke. more water. heaven. the decent down beech was quite incredible. it was my first time on beech mountain so i didn't push it, plus my legs were torn up. we rolled past lee's mcrae, newton posed for a great picture... passed chris, robin, dave and beth. hickory nut gap road, legs barely holding on, donovan off the front, crack. easy gear spinning, no now its easy gear mashing. am i really barely turning a 34-26?!? crest the hill and start the descent. fat guys go fast here. stuck behind a pickup. sharp curves, not stuck behind the pickup anymore. find the group. ride with them for a few feet, crack. both legs cramp. keep pedaling. there's the cars. laying on hot concret.e

paceline, we are so pro:

more paceline(sort of):

ray (of sunshine):

our special guest, MAX:

off the front, briefly:

for danny:

roan mtn:

a stop on buckeye rd:

fred's mercantile:

more fred's mercantile:

newton (is newton really in this picture??):

thats all folks. the ride was probably 62 miles. 6000 feet of climbing. the real ride this summer will finish in mcrae meadows at elevation 4600 feet or so. thats another 1000 feet in 2 or 3 miles. yep. pain. we don't call it the grizzly for nothing!!

darcy and i in the yard:

thanks for reading this.

Racing and stuff

2007-04-04T08:34:00.000-04:00

As the weeks have gone by i've put in my fair share of structured training on the bike and this weekend, it seemed to show. I raced at Tsali near Bryson City, NC and saw my buddy Paul Hein for the first time in a few months. We were there with his son Noah representing our Columbus Bike Racing team. So... for the race report:

Tsali was great. It was raining off and on all morning during the beginner rides and as Paul and I were warming up. My race was good. To put it shortly, I was in the top 5 or 10, moving along, and flatted. I repaired it and got back in it, I ran a lot, as I've learned to do from watching CycleCross and general NC riding, and passed some people on muddy climbs. I climbed my way all the way up the 2nd muddiest steepest hill and passed a few more people. Coming through the feed-zone I did the smartest thing of the race... got off my bike, stopped totally, and lubed my chain. I'd put grease and wet lube on it to start the day, but it was all gone and metal on metal squeaky. Then the 2nd smartest thing was dumping water from my bottles onto my forehead to wash away some dirt/mud from my eyes. My gloves were too dirty to do that task!! The last four miles or so, I could see, and I had a nicely lubed chain. I passed every rider except one that I could get my eyes on, regardless of their age group. I felt good near the end. I finished 16th out of 25, which wasn't so bad. My goal was to get a top 15 and I was really hoping for a top 10, but with the flat I am happy with 16th.

I survived the course for the most part. It was really tough. Anyone who was at Dauset trails last May should know full well how muddy this event was. It may even have been worse!! I basically made away with dirt in my eyes and a few little scrapes on my arms from thorns and the like. One older fellow went down on a muddy switchback and though I don't actually know what he suffered, it looked and sounded like a broken collarbone. Anyways, I felt good. My KENDA tires suited me well, karma 2.0's... The tires really did work well though, a lot of people were going soooooo slow through corners and I was hitting most with no brakes. It was a good time. I'm happy with my placing, I've corresponded with my "coach," a CTS guy that is friends with Boone Bike, and I'm looking forward to Athens, GA.

Proof that i was there... on the line, in the rain

Post ride, mud-fest. Still cleaning dirt out of my ears.

My roommate Matt and our buddy Evan:

Paul Hein, early, before the carnage:

I've been living it really, in Boone and loving it. My girlie is winding down her school year and traveling a lot still, so we miss each other, but its all good. She did a 10-k in Charleston, SC this past weekend and will be heading to the beach for spring break next week. :( Oh well...

I'll try to edit this post and get my garmin info posted a.s.a.p. It will be funny to see my HR and where i flatted and got to take a break. Alrighty... more later. thanks for reading.