riding, the grizzly, being silly

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

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.

More Morgan Hill. Tuesday night ride.

i'm mainly going to put pictures for this post, since i took a ton and became known as the tourist guy. i hope you all enjoy. oh, and i'm posting a small tidbit about the second
Boone Bike Tuesday Night Ride of the year. It was my first, as i was in Cali for the first one. I'm glad to be back in NC and glad to be back with my girlfriend Darcy. We are both traveling a lot right now, for work and for pleasure, ie. bike racing, spring break, family affairs, etc. So its good to be able to hang out. Alright, pictures now...

Sights in the rockies:


Ned Overend. I find it hard to believe he succeeded at riding since his first name can be rearranged to spell End Overend...


Some dork in the redwood forest:


Hanging around on our mountain bike ride near Santa Cruz:


Matt, punished for his cell phone ring with the "Condor Helmet."


A paceline rolls out on thursday, watch out for mountain lions, and even worse, cougars.


Random scenery to the right of the Tour of California TT climb "Willow."


The Innovate or Die hurst (spelling?)


Lana (like atlanta without the at) sporting a horn. Does that mean she's horny?


Lana and Garth on our second road ride of the day.


Nothing is as fun as ripping across gravel on Tarmac SL's with 23C tires at 120psi... check out the mountain lion attack on Matt's leg. Or maybe its a cougar attack...


Andrew, our instructor, after a Condor Helmet offense of his own.


To any of you that may be reading this that I met in Cali, it was great to hang out with and ride with you guys, and girls. I'm sure we'll never see each other again, but I feel priveledged to have met you all. If you're ever in Boone, come to the bike shop and say hi. I'll give you some good routes for the road bike. Later!!

Morgan Hill, California.

I left Boone at 4:30am ET. Got to Charlotte at 7:00am. Snuck to the front of the security checkpoint line and convinced two old people to let me in, and then ran to the plane with only minutes to spare. Oops.

I got some awesome pictures of the Rocky Mountains and Nevada and maybe one or two of the rolling green California hills. We landed, I found my bag on the conveyor belt. Then headed to the shuttle van. The driver must have been going 90mph on the interstate.

Our hotel sort of sucks. Its in this part of town with a big shopping area across from it. But all the stores are like run down or closed or whatever. Anyways. We went over to Target and got some snacks and water. Now I'm sitting at the hotel. I talked to Darcy a few times. That was nice. I miss her.

jg

Riding. Cold, Not so cold.

The weather in boone can be the wierdest thing. Sunday morning I went out for a mountain bike ride in the snow. It was 17 degrees. Monday night I went snowboarding. Wednesday I went for a bike ride and it was between 40 and 50 degrees the whole time!! Nice and warm.

Sunday I was hoping to drive off the mountain and get in a hour and a half in the national forest which is much warmer than in boone. Well, I got to Blowing Rock and none of the roads had been scraped, and I didn't feel like sliding off the road into a 100 feet deep canyon. So I parked in town and settled on riding down, and then back up the steepest gravel road in North Carolina. It's called Globe Rd. Its about 5 miles long and drops roughly 2000 feet. I only descended as long as my feet could handle; its cold at 35 mph in 17 degrees! Turning around and climbing just for a mile and a half, I gained about 950 feet. The average grade climbing was 16%. The maximum was 25%. Needless to say, I just spun in my granny gear and kept the heart rate low, with an average of 139 for my short ride. Some pictures as proof that I went out:





If anyone is interested in more details, check it out here.

Moving onto the much more interesting ride... Wednesday is almost always my day off so when the local weather guy forcasted 51 degrees and sunny, the 30% chance of rain did not bother me a bit. I am trying to get in 8 hours on my bike this week, i got 6 last week (10 next week, 12 the next, restart). So I wanted a big ride. I opted to go for a similar start as my last big road ride, and added a descent into another valley, and followed it with two very incredible climbs. I changed up the beginning of the ride, per the suggestion of Megan Carmody (eat Black Cat!!) and rode out the parkway and Brownwood road to get to the railroad grade rd. Got a refill of water at the friendly Todd Mercantile:

On the way up Three Top Rd. I stopped for this view:








Then i followed a route similar to last week to get to us-421, and climbed it back into North Carolina (from Tennesee)

and descended old 421. This is a very welcome 35 mph coast for the most part, except for the great dane that was waiting half way. Following the usual route, I crossed us-321 and turned and climbed Mast Gap Rd. Crossing Mast Gap and descending into Valle Crucis I took a break and got a Diet Cheerwine (on credit, forgot my wallet!) and chatted it up with the women working. We discussed our mutual distaste for out-of-towners and the Jersey accent. Rolling down Broadstone, riding the worst road in the high country (Hwy 105) and turning onto Old Shull's Mill Rd got me to the best point on my ride: Shull's Mill Rd. It snakes up the side of a hill, all the way from Hwy 105 (elev. 2700) to us-221 and the parkway in Blowing Rock (elev. 3900). I snagged a picture of the twisty road ahead:


Reaching the top of Shull's Mill, I did the dumbest thing for the day (aside from forgetting my wallet) and turned on Flannery Fork Rd. Its an awesome dirt and gravel road that gets you quickly back to Boone, but not the best idea after snow has melted. I cruised down the pavement that follows, and got back to boone bike around 5 o clock. Just about 6 hours after I started. With a ride time of 5:30 that means I only rested 30 minutes during the day. I'm okay with that. Just a couple more pictures, my bike and my Garmin Edge showing numbers and the elevation:

For more details click here.

Well, if anyone actually reads this, I'll be amazed. Thanks, if you are reading it. More next time. Hoping for a big mountain ride sunday, maybe some good pictures.

Joseph

bike riding. brr. cold. yep. mm huh.

so the final short track event in charlotte was yesterday but in lieu of my bike breaking, my legs feeling the 9 hours of riding from just a few days before, and well, general excitement about having a new road bike, i decided to stay in boone and test out the road bike and its sram shifting!!

my new road bike (still gotta pay for it though) is a 07 specialized roubaix expert with sram. its got the rival ie cheaper version, but its supposed to work as well as the force just without the fancy carbon and lighter weight. its got ksryium elite wheels. i would like to do something unique in the wheel department, i just haven't figured out what yet.

so, my route consisted of leaving boone on 321 to deerfield to the steady climb known as wilson ridge road. i turned left on bamboo and then crossed 421 to get on brookshire rd. after navigating the gravelly crossbike friendly section of brookshire i turned right on 194 then right on castleford. this was my first experience with the famous castleford rd and i liked it. nice and rolly, not too hard, but nothing like the road following it. finishing castleford let me out onto railroad grade road and that was a relief, though it was windy. oh yeah, and between 20 and 45 degrees the whole day. it may not have even made it into the 40's. dont know exactly. so railroad grade in the drops moving right along found me stopping at the store across from the floridiot owned todd general store. the lady there was a local and wasn't afraid to have her store open during the colder winter months. i stayed there way too long, but the crackers and diet coke and new supply of reeses and salted peanuts was keeping me there. we talked about possible routes to get back to boone. i was planning on using 194 to get me back into boone at 421, but i realized that would only be about a two hour ride. i wanted four hours.

remembering a ride we'd done in the summer that continued on three top rd and then some highway 88 i verifired with the nice lady, owner of the todd mercantile, that my mental map was correct and headed out on three top rd. after just a short rolly section i crested "the divide" as the lady called it, and it got much colder. i wore my fleecy windproof bib tights, matching jacket, fleecy long sleeve jersey and ridiculous almost snow-worthy cycling gloves. i was still cold on this stretch. once i reached nc-88 i felt much better as i was in and out of the shade, not consistently in it. i stopped and peed in some person's yard on 88 because there were no wooded sections to hide in. this was the scariest point on the ride. second only to descending into tennessee and facing crosswinds from hell. speaking of tennessee, the climb to the state line was only really the second or third climb to deal with. and an easy grade. thanks for 34 teeth. compact wussy. anyways, reaching 421 and turning uphill, i mean left, was the only thing left and i would be home. i marveled in mabel at the view of beech mountain, AND sugar mountain AND sugar top. and grandfather mountain. and the hawks bill down in the linville gorge. seeing things in plain view that are twenty to thirty miles away reminded me why we are so lucky to ride in the high country.

blah blah blah. i sound like a tourist. so 421 wasn't entirely uphill like i thought. i'd never been on the stretch between old 421 and the tater hill area, at one point i was in my 50-11t spinning, i imagine thats around the 40mph mark, for probably a mile. that was a relief. and then into vilas and back to the other end of my gearing. 34-26t back up to the 105 bypass, then left on 105 and left on 321 found me back at boone bike. i forgot to take my camera for pictures, but i did steal and modify a map from Google Maps:


that's all for now. i'm excited about training and getting fit and faster. hopefully i can score some top tens and maybe a top five at a SERC race this year. i'd like to be consistent enough to be forced to upgrade to expert, but if it takes another year for that, well, so be it.

thanks for reading.

jg

updates. me and racing. snow. sports.

alrighty, i'm back to my posting once a month if that often pattern. at the request of someone with no life, i'm putting new stuff.

i've been running a little bit. got a membership to the wellness center aka too fancy gym for the cool people in boone to hang out and for a very few people to work out at. i got a little routine for weights and some running and some work on the abs (currently in hiding). its been frigidly cold outside. yesterday was the coldest day in recent history. we have highs sometimes below 20 deg. and lows in the upper single digits or low teens. snow hasn't really made a showing like in past years, some say its el nino, some say its all the expeditions and tahoe's and escalades and hummers.... but thats debatable, oh wait, no its not. the UN just declared global warming is because of humans... oh well. i should get back to interesting stuff. umm..

things are going well between my girlfriend (darcy) and i. she got a really nice set of skis and boots and the like a few weeks ago. we've only been out together once since she got that stuff. i've gone out once since then with the mechanic from boone bike. andy is pretty much a freak of nature. he hasn't been snowboarding in five years, but he does like two runs and is flawless after that. i'm doing okay with snowboarding. its fun. i'm still not going super fast, but i can put together multiple runs from the top of sugar mountain to the bottom without falling and with a little bit of grace. darcy is better than i am still. although she won't admit it. anyways... we're going on 8 months together in a week or so. its been a very enjoyable 8 months. hopefully there will be many more.

so bicycling... steve murray told me i finished the year very high ranked in men's xc sport 19-24. i don't remember the exact number, but top 10 i think. i just checked usacycling.org. currently i'm ranked #16 in the nation for men's sport xc 19-29. i'm listed #2 for men's sport xc 19-29 in north carolina. i guess thats good. i've done two events this year that haven't shown up yet on usacycling. short track series in charlotte, nc. did january 27th or whatever day that sunday was. 10th out of 15. raced on feb 3rd and got 8th of 10. not super duper results, but its re-assuring knowing i can post em like that without riding or training other than running and gym stuff. i want to get in some spin classes. that should help. but basically all of the people are from the charlotte area or south carolina. yep, they are training year round. i'm looking at snow on the ground.





ASU is doing a cycling study which i'm taking part in. they have been giving us a special gatorade with a supplement called beta glucan. i heard that we're the first group of humans to ever be studied with this supplement. hopefully we won't die. basically, other than drinking that stuff, we have given blood, ridden two days (so far) on the trainer at 57% and 50% of our maximum wattage. tomorrow i'll be back in for another day at 57%. it hurt really bad. but they're paying us, so thats nice.

otherwise, things are great. just working, running, riding a little, racing again this weekend. i'm trying to plan my year as well. i hope to just start doing long slow rides soon, and logging lots of base miles. my next race is probably going to be:
april 1 - tsali (SERC)
april 15 - athens, ga (SERC)
may 6 - ocoee white water center (ducktown, tn) (SERC)
may 19 - 12 hours of tsali (okay, maybe just the 6 hours)
may 27 - dauset (SERC)
june 17 - fontana dam (SERC)
june 24 - good ole columbus, ga. (SERC make-up)
july 1 - clemson, sc (SERC) (maybe)
july 15 - anniston, al (SERC finale) (maybe)
july 28 - banner elk, nc (NORBA nationals)
sept 22 - 12 hours of dauset

alrighty. i don't know what else i might do. i want to fit in a hiking trip in august. then come back and train for the 12 hour race at dauset. thanks for reading if anyone actually does. later!!

snow sports. and me

so i live in boone now and i'm picking up the hobby/sport of snowboarding. i am not super good yet, but i can put together a few fall-free runs. barring wrist injuries and other bodily harm i should be able to use this as a winter time off-season sport, along with running, to keep myself in shape and athletic in general while its snowing outside.

i've been running quite a bit. i don't have all my total totals from www.entryworks.com yet from 2006, but i definitely ran and rode more than i ever have before. updates to come!!

me after snowboarding and a day in the kitchen... drinking through an imaginary straw.

i feel free

i just deleted my facebook and myspace accounts. i don't really know why, but it feels really really, really great. i realized i spent so much time on there and that it was such a waste really. so. i will be back at it on here posting and being more consistent. yep.