Happy Halloween!

I will never let this picture die... Happy Halloween!!

2007 Tour de France

The route is announced. I wonder how they will hype up next year. 7 years with Lance, this year was "see what happens without lance". Next year, I fear only the die hard cycling fans will be paying attention. It's too bad, I really believe all the hype over the past 7/8 years was good for the overall awareness that cycling is real to the non cycling public.


http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2007/tour07/?id=/news/2006/oct06/oct26news3

We need to find a way to get the general population to accept cycling as a good, honest, hard working sport. A sport where everyone can feel like they are a part of it, can get close to it and can enjoy it just like the pro's do.

Time for Winter "TRAINING"

I've been using the same trainer for 4 years now, so this year I'm getting a new one.




Riding indoors is not what I would call "fun". But its very benificial. Collecting data is what I use for motiviation. Since I have a power meter installed on my road bike, I can collect, power, speed, distance, HR and more. This way I can plan for some structured workouts and actually watch progress. Hopefully I will actually see progress.

All of this leads to having even more fun when I do get out with my friends. Knowing i have the fitness to keep up or just to be able to ride longer and farther. Will it make me win races, doubtful, but it will make racing that much more fun.

saturday
beautiful weather
perfect for riding
my body hurts
but i really just wish i could ride

Brushy Hollow = Ouch

Had a great weekend at Douthat. Got to spend some time with my son Andrew and with some great friends. It was cold, very cold and windy all weekend. But we were able to stay warm and have a good time.

I decided to go on a ride with Joe, Mike and Stoner on saturday. We rode up to Mountain Top, down and up Beards Gap and on to Brushy Hollow. The Brushy Hollow downhill is one of my favorites. Since I was riding a new bike, second ride on it, I told the other three i would be taking it easy on the downhill... honestly, they are all faster riders than I am anyway, so I had no problem taking up the rear. Maybe a half a mile, maybe a mile away from the end of the trail, something went terribly wrong. I don't know what happened, but I do know I was suddenly laying on the trail, I remember this horrible sound then everything went black. I believe it was only seconds, but I was out. I woke up, assessed myself and the bike and started on finishing the ride. I met up with the others shortly after and told them what happened. Thanks to my good friends for pacing me back to camp and keeping an eye on me.

End result... Concussion, multiple bruised/fractured ribs and a deeply bruised hip. Got some good pain meds and muscle relaxers today, so I'm feeling ok right now.

Big lesson learned, always focus on the trail ahead. I was on a trail I know and feel very comfortable going fast on. I would never have thought I would crash. Yet, checking my computer I hit the ground at about 25mph. Stay focused, even on the most familiar trails.

Douthat Camping Trip

Farley can't wait for Douthat...

Broken Frame

The reason for the new Explosif. Awaiting word from Mountain Cycle for a replacement.

Built up a new Kona Explosif.

SM100

I woke up at 5am after a good night’s sleep in the Element. Made some oatmeal, had a little coffee, Gatorade and various other foods. I had prepared everything the night before, so my bike, camelback and clothes were ready to go. I got dressed, hopped on the bike and headed down to the start finish. Imagine 400 Mountain Bikers, screaming and yelling with excitement for the start. I set up next to a few teammates toward the middle of the pack. The gun sounds and we are off, the sun is barely peaking over the horizon. Next we stuff 400 riders into a one car wide park road, lots of bottle necking over the next few minutes but it soon opened up as we hit the back roads of Stokesville. Everyone is chatting, smiling and getting on with the day at hand. A few miles of roads and we turn onto the first climb of the day. I gradual fire road climb. I’ll estimate it was about a 3 mile climb. I took it easy, I mean wayyy easy on this climb. I thought maybe I was going too easy, but then it thought about the 98 miles ahead of me and just stayed with my plan. No sweating or breathing hard this early. We get to the top and finally get to the first riding in the woods. Typical east coast rocky ridgeline riding. This part of the trail was also a little bit wet. So rocks with mud on them equal slippery. I was riding behind someone who was definitely struggling on the rocks. I thought to myself, hang back, let him do his thing, it’s a long day and these rocks are tough. The problem is, I didn’t have enough momentum to get through. I slipped on the rocks and was kind of thrown to the side of the trail, I see my tree, I think immediately to put my hand out and brace myself on this tree so I can stay clipped in and keep going. The 4” round tree didn’t like that idea and decided to fall right over sending me to the ground. I hit my right knee square on the rocks. I stand up, bleeding, not much but bleeding and the pain was intense. But I was ok, everything is attached and I think I can pedal still. Throw my legs back over the bike and start to move and notice my rear derailleur is bend into my wheel. AT this point I’m about to cry, 10 or so miles into this 100 mile race and I’m going to have to stop because of a broken bike? Not happy, I notice it’s the hanger that is bent… great. I am able to straighten it by hand after a few attempts. I try to test the shifting, ride a little, adjust a little, repeat until I realize I just can’t get it into my 3 easiest gears. Well, this sucks, but I’ll just fix it at the 1st aid station. It is supposed to be all downhill to there anyway. So I start heading downhill, having fun and passing some people and getting some confidence back. The knee was hurting, bad. Kept going, caught up to a group of about 10 or so riders back on a fireroad downhill and just let it rip. We turn a corner onto a road with some people standing there cheering, and I think: Hey this is fun! Keep riding the road for a while and chatting with a guy I said something about getting to AS1, he pointed out that those cheering people on the side of the road was AS1. OH!....

Next climb called Linns trail. When I got to it I could see up the side of the mountain a long string of riders pushing their bikes. I rode as far as possible and then followed in the walking. However long later we finally reach the top and I’m again very discouraged. I don’t do a lot of hiking or exercise on my feet so I was suffering bad and was passed by a lot of people on this climb. We start riding what I think is called Wolfs Ridge. Again typical east coast rocky riding. But I was feeling a little better this time and was riding pretty well, back down the mountain I passed quite a few riders who had walked by me on the climb. This downhill was over really fast, and spit us back out onto a gravel road. Gravel/paved road for the next 8 miles or so. Some of it was climbing and some of it was fast 30+ downhill. Finally I get to AS2. The help there was incredible. I come through and they are practically taking the camelback off me and filling it, they fixed my drink mix in my bottle and gave me food. I took advantage at this time to finally fix my shifting for the next climb. It took me a while to figure out I had to move my limit screws in order to get my shifting back, probably 20 minutes of frustration then DUH! So in a mad rush at this point, I get out of there thinking I had spent wayyy too much time there. Oh well, keep going, only 14 miles to the next Aid Station.


So again I start climbing, I’m alone at this point. This climb is a double track climb winding up and around the mountain. I was feeling pretty good and was even able to push the pace a little at the bottom. What I didn’t know was the length of this climb or how steep it was about to get. 4 miles or so into it, I was still feeling ok, but my legs were twitching a little. I kept drinking, Endurolytes eating all the good stuff. I would walk a little and stretch and just figured I could work through any small cramps until I reach the top then I’ll spin them out. The climb then got hard. Steeper, more technical and just kept on going for another mile or more. Again I’m discouraged, but then comes Dowels Draft, I see the sign and I remember hearing this is one of the best downhill’s around. Famous even. So I take a minute, get my breath, eat some food and drink some water, because I know the next 20 minutes or more are going to be on the edge of control. Boy was I right, about 6 miles of rocky, technical, fast, off camber, downhill. I was able to pass a few riders again on this downhill, one guy jumping out of the way and screaming, GO! GO! GO!. That was fun, we were having fun again, YES! AS3 – by this time I know I’m way behind and I might not make it to the end of the race. I was 45 miles in, of course feeling a little tired and it was 2:30 already. Almost 8 hours in, but I knew there was a 20 mile road section coming and even though its uphill it’ll be faster than the really technical uphills. What I didn’t know was that before I got to that road section which is between AS4 and AS5 I had to do a 5 mile road climb to another hard technical hike a bike climb. Sections of this climb were not bad and I was able to ride, some sections I would ride no problem on a normal day, but today I seemed to have to walk the whole thing. It took forever it felt, I didn’t think it was ever going to end. I get to the top finally, without anything fun or exciting happening. Now it is time to descend to AS4, and it’s about 3:45. At this point I’m remembering the cut off rules at AS5, if you leave there after 4:20 you will have to have lights and if you don’t arrive at 5 before 6:30, then you don’t leave 5 by bike, you are done! I know Braleys is another famous, awesome, killer downhill so I brace myself to have a blast down this hill knowing the end of my race might be near. So I let it go, flying down the side of the mountain, yes, having a blast. The trail is so this at spots it seems to disappear under me, I felt like I was just riding along on the slope hoping to stay upright and not start sliding down. Some how during the top part of this downhill I get unclipped and hit my shin on the handle bar and land on my face on the side of the mountain. Luckily it was soft dirt, but my shin did not fair so well, big knot instantly and pain, again with the pain, now both legs hurt, come on! At first it hurt bad enough for me to wonder if it was broken, its not, I was just being a wimp. I got back on after about a minute and still was able to let it go the rest of the way down. I had a headache, both legs were hurting but I was not about to not enjoy this downhill. The bottom was smooth with lots of waterbars, had to watch out not to get too much air down here at 20+ mph. Finally through a field and AS4. I arrive at 4:15ish. I knew the people at this stop as it was being run by the Pedal Shop. Next up was to be the 20 (19.5 to be exact) mile climb up to AS5. We chatted about could I make it to 5 in 2 hours. On a normal day, no problem, but after 57 brutal miles, I’m not sure.






I think I could have made it very close to the 6:30 cut off, but I got very concerned about making it, continuing to do more climbing after that and then attempting another technical downhill during the dark hours. I knew realistically I had another 5 to 6 hours on the bike if I were to try to finish. I decided at this point I had fun so far, I could leave not hurting too badly, and it would be a smarter safer decision to stop at this point. Some other agreed, even though they also said they would support my decision to continue if I wanted.






So I stopped, reluctant to give up, but feeling good about it. It was a tough day. Not a day I thought I would have, but I did learn a lot. I want and will do it again with even better preparation. I was one of 64 people to officially DNF. The camping and atmosphere were great, it was an awesome event. Who’s in for next year? J