HELP THE BMCC BOYS!!!

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.