24 Hours of Big Bear

I did my first 24 hours MTB race this past weekend as part of a relay team. The Highland Pirates were Danny Welsch, Steve Green, Rich Raesly, Sara Lampo and myself. We started out well and were holding down 3rd and were pretty close to 2nd. I was on my lap when things started to go awry. I was plowing thru the course and feeling pretty good. Just when I felt like I was at the height of my hero status, I flatted for only the 2nd time in 3 years of MTB racing. Damn, I was just at the part where the downhill was really starting and to lose my pace there really hurt. After getting it fixed, it took me a bit to feel the flow again and I didn't really get it back til I was almost all the way down the hill. That was the first time cost for us on the day. As the night settled in, our second rider Steve took a few tumbles and gashed his knee. Our third rider Rich lost both of his lights and had to follow a junior rider in. I lost one of mine about 30 minutes out. I also had to learn how to ride in the dark. It took me half of the lap to realize that it's best to have the handlebar light positioned right in front of the bike and to use the helmet light to scan ahead. That probably cost me about 10 minutes alone as I was sliding off the trail and bumping around into things that I shouldn't have been. One benefit of the dark though was I wasn't thinking like a single-speeder. I wasn't getting off the bike before I felt I had to and therefore got up some of the bigger hills that I'd walked earlier in the day. It helped that I'd geared down for the night run though. I wound up feeling like I'd gone at least 10 minutes slower than I'd hoped. The girl on our team Sara, unfortunately had issues that were hurting her pedaling and she really had a time of it getting back in on her night run. After the first riders came up for the 3rd round, we were about 17 minutes down and in 4th place. We lost about 4 more then we started a comeback. Steve and Rich got us to 11 minutes down and I began what wound up being our final lap. I did an all or nothing lap. I went out hard and just kept the pressure up being careful not to send myself anerobic. I'm not sure if I lost my bottle or it was yanked from the cage, but I found myself without water for the first 3 miles which later would hurt me. I found a discarded bottle on one of the bumpier sections and stopped to snag it up. That saved me as the day was definitely getting warmer. Unfortunately, the gas was running low and towards the end of the lap, I got into the very technical rock garden and on the climb out, I began to cramp up and popped completely. i did recover but the legs were hurting and i knew that i'd come up short in the attempt to get one more rider out on course. In the end, we wound up 5th overall. Without the miscues and injuries we had, we could have easily been 40 minutes faster. Well, next time, the Pirates will do better.

Making old man noises.

Today, I've spent the morning making old man noises anytime I've moved out of the desk chair. Yesterday's race was a tough one made tougher by the mud on the course, the mud in my eye, the many crashes because of the mud in the eye, no water on the course and the many crashes because of the mud in they eye. Did I mention I crashed a lot yesteday? I was a bit pissed with the race organizers who failed to have an aid station along the course. The reason given was 'well it was cool in the shade when I was up along the trail'. Ummmm, guess what dude.... There were plenty of parts where there was sun on the course and also, it's just a bit different when you're on the bike than when you're just standing watching. I wound up catching a clop of mud in the eye about an hour into the race. It made it completely impossible to ride with any speed as the eye would tear up as soon as I'd get any speed. I stopped at least a dozen times to try to get the dirt out. If they'd just had the water jug out on the course, I could've irrigated it and been on my way. So I had to fight a nasty muddy course without being able see out of one eye and constantly stopping. I was completely unable to open things up on the sections of the course where my bike typically flies. In the end, I wound up wrecking about 6 times. I would figure I added on at least 20 minutes onto my time. I wouldn't have won but I would've been top 3 or 4. Oh well. I guess nothing works out great all the time.

First notch on the helmet for the year.

I finally picked up a win this year. I did a short track mountain bike race in West Virginia as part of the WVMBA series. Most of the other riders were treating the race as a mountain bike short track. I looked at it as a cross race. I was one of 2 riders who were on a cross bike and right from the gun, I punched it hard. We started in a barn and coming out I took the short line through the deeper grass and shot away from the pack. I then maintained the pace til I got to a short road section. It was packed enough that I was able to get a good head of steam up and heading back into the trail slung the bike through the sharp turn in. This jumped the gap another 15 or 20 yards. Coming out of the back side of the course, I had a good gap and there were 3 riders working to bring me back. After another short section of road, I accelerated hard down a twisting trail and carried the speed through the mud section. At the end of the first lap I had a couple hundred yard lead. I put it in cruise control at that point. I only punched it when it seemed the riders behind started closing. At the end of the 4th lap, one of them got to within 20 seconds. I did one last hard punch and after slinging myself off the road at a really fast pace which also involved nearly sliding out once on the trail, the gap went way back up as his effort must've been an all-out effort to catch me. Once I disappeared on him, he let up. I came through on the bell lap and was able to cruise it in for the win. It wasn't a big win, but it was a good intensity type ride. I'll do 2 more of the 3 remaining short tracks. I think I'll go after this series to get myself ready for cross this year. After today, we get the XC for the weekend. I'll be back on the single speed so I won't have as much of an easy time though there is alot of rideable but technical single track so maybe I'll have a crack at a high placing. I'm hoping my last week of long stupid miles pays off.

Memorial Day followup

I completed the weekend efforts on Monday with another day of 2 rides. These were much lower key than the ones in the mountains. I kept to local roads and managed about 50 miles. I did get a bit annoyed when a rider on a hybrid bike time trialed to catch up to me when I was noodling around in the industrial park and then sat on my wheel for for a quarter lap. Then finally pulled up along side and then wanted to chat. I know I'm not a pro or even anything that special of a rider, but I always thought that to invite yourself into someone else's draft without announcing yourself was a bit rude. Then finally he says hi. I did reply but let him know I wasn't much for conversation at that point since I had my own thoughts going in the head at that point.

Tuesday, I was supposed to be heading to Westlake, OH. The weather got in the way of that one. My teammate that was to be going with me and I looked at the weather report and opted out of the 2 hour trip to race in the rain. So I stayed in the Pittsburgh area and marshalled the races in Pittsburgh. I wound up doing a total of about 90 laps last nite and that coupled with a 10+ miler in the morning got me to about 325 miles for the 4 day stretch. This was now the biggest mile week I've done in quit a few years and I have tonites race in Pittsburgh as well as Thursday and Friday to go. I figure I'll have hit about 420 miles total for the 7 days. Not a bad total. I'm hoping to be able to manage about 225-250 a week for the rest of the summer with another couple big stupid weekends like this past one to follow up.

One fun thing about marshalling the races for the beginners and women, is sitting in the back and helping the younger riders understand how the game is played. There was one girl who seemed to be about 15 years old and was having trouble sitting in the pack. I showed her on the fly how to anticipate the moves to minimize the effort needed to stay with them. She hung in well the rest of the race and actually sprinted fairly well at the end. All she has to do is to learn how to move up the line and through the riders as the sprint is going without hitting the wind and she'll do quite well. There were 2 other youngsters who'd fallen off the back and after swapping places with one of the other marshals, I got them working both together and against one another particularly late in the race. In the last 5 laps, they were attacking and winding each other back. It was a lot of fun to watch. Unfortunately, the younger one ran out of gas late in the race. For being on a 24" bike with questionable wheels versus the other on a 700c wheeled bike where the bearings were definitely better, young Lincoln definitely did a great effort. I always make a point of talking with them after the race to let them know things they did well and a few tips to help them get better. After all, if you're not enjoying the racing, you usually don't stay in the sport very long. I think if these two youngsters can get past the car thing when they get their licenses at 16, they could do very well.

Day 2 - Memorial Day Weekend.

I managed to get up this morning. That was a lot considering I'd done 118 miles yesterday. When I got home, I then went to the fireworks for the local community days. I wound up having to walk about a mile and a half to get into the park and then back out to the car. I didn't feel too good when I got home. I got out on the bike about 9AM and did the morning 20. The legs didn't feel too bad but I could tell, I wasn't going to be climbing as easily as I was yesterday. After lunch and a nap, I struggled to get going after starting to watch the Coke 600 race. I forced myself to break away from it and got out. I didn't have as ambitious of a day planned as yesterday. I still did manage 3 ridge crossings and got back into the Latrobe starting point with about 73 miles in the legs. I did almost come to grief when blasting down a hill, I nearly smacked into a large blackbird. That was just not the kind of thing I needed. I'm now about to sit in an icewater bath now. The legs are screaming right now and I need to take care of them. I'm a bit over 210 miles for the weekend now. I only need 40 to break what I set out to ride. Thankfully, tomorrow will be much easier.

Long stupid miles!

I'm taking the weekend off from racing. Last weekends results told me it was time. So, I'm just going to get out there and ride some long stupid miles. Each morning will start off with a 20 miler at the Yoop(a 2 mile flat road that I use for light spinning). Then after a good breakfast/lunch, I intend to hit the mountains. On Saturday, the plan is to do 4 major ridge crossings. The route I have takes me up to the 7Springs resort where Nationals was held a couple years ago, then back down, then up the ridge again on the next crossing over to the Hidden Valley resort. I'll have already done Chestnut ridge with a 4 mile crossing. Then after crossing the mini ridge in between the 2 big ones again, I go back up Laurel via the Linn Run Climb. Then I'll do the run back into my launch point in Latrobe. This first day should be a bit more than 100 miles. I'll lop off the 7Springs climb on Sunday which should still give me an 80 mile day. Then Monday, I'll tone it down and do some smaller climbs near home. Welcome to Western Pennsylvania. One bitching climb after another.

Just got back from day one. Morning ride - 20 miles. Afternoon ride, I had to cut the final climb short since I got out a bit late in the afternoon. I road almost 100(96, I just could finish those last few miles) miles but trimmed the final 2 (out of 7) off the Linn Run climb. Damn. My goal was to be 250 miles this weekend, I think I'll pull it off and then some.

New VP bunker location

"Biden exposes location of VP Bunker."

After opening his yap one too many times, it's been reported that VP Joe Biden will get a new double secret bunker for times of national emergency. It will be located at the 7-Eleven at 3530 Conneticut Ave NW in Washington, DC. This decision was made after the Vice-President announced to the press the location of the previous bunker. When necessary, the VP will be transported under the protection of the secret service, to the bunker where he will serve Slurpies to the customers til the emergency has passed.