That is actually what it was called.  My first cross races.  Good times.  I had lots of advice on what to race here.  Some friends said I should do the 3/4 race, some said I should jump right in to the Elite 1/2/3 race.  Since the 3/4 race was first, I ended up taking all their advice and doing both

In the 3/4 race was first I took it easy off the line (okay, who am I kidding.  I start about as fast as a slug so barely-hanging-on was about as fast as I could go).  By the end of the first lap I had moved into third and as we started the second lap I was able to move into first and hold on for the win.  The barriers were, well, horrendous.  I was literally having to walk-step over them.  They were so high!  The set of doubles came fully up just above my knees (and it was tough to leap over them carrying a 23 lb -!- Cro-Moly bike).  As Jason so kindly put it, “You looked worse than my Grandmother who is 6 feet under, over those barriers.”  Why thank you.

The 1/2/3 race was about an hour and a half after the 3/4 race finished so I just chugged some water and pedalled around ’til we started again.  Of course the 1/2/3 race started a lot faster and I got gapped pretty quickly by a pretty big group.  I got stuck behind some women who were struggling through a tricky corner and descent near the start and once I got around them, I spent the rest of the race alone.  By that point I was too stubborn to do the runup.  It wasn’t that steep but there was a barrier right at the bottom so most people were running up it.  I ran it during the 3/4 race and the first couple times around during the second race but then I was done with it.  With my very limited remount skillz I had to fully stop, throw a leg over, clip in and verrrrry slowly get moving again.  But honestly, that was probably still faster than me running up it.  On one fast corner I got a little too comfortable and hit the ground.  Good grief - if you go down on a cross bike it_happens_fast.  Luckily I didn’t hit the ground that hard.  Round and round, stumble over the barriers, repeat.  I managed 10th of 18.

First cross races - done and done!  Must improve barrier technique.  Or grow at least six inches taller.

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One on, one out, ninth inning, tie game and he knocks one over the wall.  *Sigh…*  I’m still slap-happy this morning.  And yes, I’m fully aware that it’s only game two.  (I don’t want to jinx anything).

In a related story…the ‘Jonathan Papelbon Staredown’ continues to be my favorite part of Sox games.  Goosebumps.  I plan to line up at all future races with that face for my competition.  That should go over well.

Tomorrow is my first cross race.  Let’s see…My grace and agility over the barriers are unparalleled.  My top-end speed is unmatched.  I hope the sarcasm I’m laying on here is coming through loud and clear.  This should be good

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My first long ride here in Hesperia…done and done!  We’ve been going up to Big Bear and doing all the long rides up there.  So Carolyn took me on my first long ride down here in the desert.  You know it’s gonna be a good one when everyone keeps referring to it as the ‘death ride.’  I’ve been hearing about it since I got here (and the mighty river crossing where Carolyn almost got swept away).  It did not disappoint.

The first bit was nearly an hour on the road in the blazing heat, followed by an hour long climb on a dirt road.  BRUTAL.  Barely moving in my granny gear, boiling in the heat and watching Carolyn ride away from me.  Hey…come back here!  Pedal…s l o w e r.  Here I am somewhere near the top.

Finally we turned right and descended swoopy doubletrack for a while, then rolling doubletrack followed by one of the coolest singletrack descents EVERRRR.  The trail hugged the edge of a canyon wall and we were descending to the bottom of the canyon to a river.  Way cool.  I even had the restraint to hit the brakes to take a picture.  I waited until I could see Carolyn on the singletrack way below me - possibly the coolest photo ever…at which point my camera promptly freaked out and revolted.  So there is no photo.  We descended all the way to the bottom to the raging river crossing that I had been warned so much about.  Turns out the water was a little higher the last time they did this ride in March.  On Sunday it was more like a trickle.

After the raging river, we were on another trail - uninterrupted singletrack for nearly two hours!  The whole time it was more riding high up on singletrack above a river far below in a canyon.  Pretty epic.  You can see the trail we came on.

We even passed a hotsprings with lots of naked people.  Um, no photos of that spectacular view.  But here are some frogs we saw at another stream crossing. 

Singletrack all the way back to the road, by which point we were both out of water and completely dehydtrated (not to mention, totally thrashed).  Did I mention it was about a million degrees out?  We managed to bum some water from a convenience store and rolled back home.  Whew.  Six hours, one crash (me) and one bee sting (again, me).

Now I’m on the couch watching the Sox vs. the Angels…It’s October, baby!

Cool Trails | 1 Comment »

After the trip to Vegas, nothing seemed more appropriate than getting away to the most opposite place around so Carolyn and I headed up to Big Bear.  Again.  The morning was all business and intervals but the afternoon was more lift runs

The view of our feet off the chairlift.

The mountain was super crowded, which was good and bad.  Good because every other time we’ve been up there this year, we’ve barely seen anyone else and it’s way cool to see that many people and that many bicycles.  And that many people riding bicycles.  Bad because we don’t have the trails all to ourselves.

Check back for updates on the next 12 Hours in Bootleg Canyon.  Remember how much fun the others were?

Unfortunately a running race was able to get the permits in for the Canyon for our proposed date of October 25th so the race has been postponed to a yet undetermined date.  We’ll get it sorted out soon and details will follow.

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I didn’t take any photos (but I did swipe one so there is some color below) and I can’t really comment on some of the really cool bikes that I rode (because I would never admit that any of them could be cooler than my Titus).  I did get to ride some really fun bikes though.  XC-wise, not much compared to my Racer-X…*sigh* - in fact, riding other bikes just reinforced what I already knew about how well that bike handles.  Even though I spent most of the time riding XC bikes, I did get to ride a couple big bikes

Since I know the reason anyone tunes into this website is for downhill bike reviews…

I rode a Canfield Brothers Jedi, which was like riding a couch - in a really good way :)  

I only took it for a quick loop and obviously I have no basis for reviewing downhill bikes except to say that it was really fun, pedalled surprisingly well, felt super stable (even though my slippy XC shoes kept sliding off the flat pedals) and felt shockingly small enough to *possibly* fit me.  Exhaustive review, I know.

I also rode a Knolly Delirium-T.  This one I actually pedalled all the way up the road and all the way back down so I got a better feel for it.  It was an xs and pedalled pretty well up the road (suffice to say that road has never felt longer or steeper).  The ride all the way down was really fun too, motoring over all the rock gardens instead of picking my way through them.  Still, I did feel a little like the bike was riding me - I could not make that thing get around corners.  (And, yes, I’m fully aware that that is more likely because I don’t know the first thing about riding a DH bike, so much that I probably should have been riding with training wheels but I will say, I didn’t have that problem on the Canfield).

So that’s the DH review - short and sweet.  Like me.  Okay…just short.

I did one day at the indoor show and had had enough.  I was completely glazed over after a few hours and just wandered around aimlessly.  Besides which, I am a full on senior citizen at this point and I cannot stay on my feet for more than a few hours without my sciatica bothering me.  I did manage to see a couple cool things but I gotta run so I’ll have to post about that later.

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I spent last weekend experiencing 24hr racing from a new perspective.  I did support for my coach, Lynda, and Dave Harris, both racing 24 solo at the Payson Stampede.  Dave and Lynda are pretty much the 24hr power couple and crewing for them meant getting to spy on their trade secrets.  Dave and Lynda getting psyched before the race.

Payson is going to be the site for the 2009 and 2010 24 Hour Nationals so this was also a recon mission to check out the course.  Verdict?  It’s a little tough.  The word on the course for next year?  More climbing.  Ouch.  It’s a fun descent to the bottom though :)  Although, I’ve gotta complain…there is not one inch of singletrack to be found on the entire course :(  Kind of a drag.  But most of the fireroad/doubletrack is rocky and torn up enough to keep things interesting and simulate singletrack.  If not totally fun.

Lynda and Dave both put down great races.  Lynda rode very consistently until early morning when stomach issues took her off her bike for too long to continue to hope for a win.  Congratulations to Rebecca Rusch who rode an amazing race for the win.  Lynda battled her stomach valiantly and the next thing I knew she was going out for a couple more laps around dawn.  Dave rode an absolutely superhuman race and putting down the most consistent splits I could ever imagine.  He’d moved himself into second and was chasing down Nat Ross in first when he started to suffer just after dawn.  It was just after this time that Nat strolled down to our pit and offered a pact to Dave and Ernesto Marenchin, who rode really strong to third place, that they called it quits then and there so they’d all preserve their current placings.  Done deal.  Dave and Lynda’s reports are at their site linked above and here.

We were pitted right next door to Danielle, who also rode a ridiculously consistent race for the win in the 12hr solo.  It was fun to watch Danielle race - without having to chase her around the whole time :)  She and Scott have their pits dialed.  It was really cool to watch them work.  They’re like clockwork.  She and Lynda and I had fun preriding the course together on Friday.  The master and her students.

Next stop Vegas, baby.

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I’m going to try it this year.  For real this time.  Carolyn has even been teaching me how to tackle the dismounting, remounting and barriers - and for the record, it is way harder than it looks.  Good grief.  I’ve already accumulated several large bruises from some of my poorer attempts at getting on and off my bicycle.  But all in all, I’m getting the hang of it.  And it’s really fun :)  I know a cyclocross race is pretty much the polar opposite of a 24hr race - and I think right now, that’s kind of the point.  I’m wicked excited to try something so new.  I’ll be racing on my Surly Cross-Check (read: commuter bike turned cross bike) outfitted with the highest end parts available (read: garbage I scavenged from shops or discarded from other bikes).

Aside from hopping on and off my bike and over barriers, I’ve been doing some proper mountain biking too.  Here’s Rom on some flowy Hesperia Moto doubletrack.  Weee.

We went up to Big Bear again for the weekend and did a couple long rides in the cooler temps and thinner oxygen.  One long ride on a certain unnamed extended bit of singletrack and another day stringing together some long lift runs

Cool Trails | 1 Comment »

Actually…my off-season is coming to an end.  I’ve taken some good time off of training and racing since Nationals and I’m trying to get back into that whole pedalling thing again now that I’ve had a little break.  (In a related story, I was set on getting right back into racing…Brian Head, Tahoe/Sierra…I was set on both of them.  But I can’t even imagine racing right now.  I keep hearing about the women I raced at Natz and how they’re out there racing already and I wanna know what they’re on.  When I ride now, my legs feel like molasses.  Race!?!   Good grief, no).  Turns out I managed to develop sciatica over the course of this season.  What?  Yup, evidently this is not only a symptom of senior citizens (or I’ve missed like 60 birthdays).  I’ve been doing a lot of driving and riding (and a lot of riding, getting in the car sans any kind of stretching, cooling down, etc. and driving) over the last couple/few months and apparently it all added up to some sciatica.  I noticed it a few weeks ago and at first it was just when I tried to stretch my left hamstring or IT band and my foot got all tingly and numb.  Then my foot would get numb when I sat for too long.  Then my foot and leg would get numb while I was riding so it was just hanging there useless when I tried to pedal.  I got on the yoga, stretching and rehab program stat and it seems to be coming around now.  Still there for sure but much less than before.

Since I didn’t have any photos when I first posted about Hesperia…here’s a few.

The view from the street in front of the house the first evening when I got here.

Carolyn rocking the cross bike on our way to the trails.

We went up to Big Bear for some cooler temps over the weekend.  Carolyn and Christie before we hit the trails.

The view of the Hesperia/Apple Valley/Victorville Valley from along the ‘Powerline’ climb.

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My new home.  I’m back in the desert and I’m coming to terms with the fact that even though I grew up in the humidity and moisture of New England, I_love_the_desert.  I feel guilty admitting it but it’s true.

San Francisco was great - got to see lots of friends and family and do some fun rides.  I even took pictures of some of those fun rides but my computer isn’t working right now so I can’t upload them.  Hey, what else is new?  Big thanks to Paule and Julie who put me up in grand style and took fantastic care of me while I was there. Sending them both healing, positive thoughts as they are both on the mend from various injuries - and other crap life has thrown at them recently…  Also big thanks to Chris who let me come back and work at the Mouse for a couple weeks and relive my glory days (wait, what glory days?  Nevermind).

I made it down here to Hesperia yesterday and moved in with Carolyn and Romolo.   Today I got out and pedalled around a little on some of their local dirt.  The outskirts of Hesperia is just a moto playground which equals lots of swoopy, banked trails.  So far so good

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What do you do for a vacation when you’re a part-time working, homeless, bike racing bum?  Well, you quit riding your bike and work full-time.  That’s exactly what I’m doing.  What better way to spend my down-time recovering from the 24 hour?

I’m working at Roaring Mouse, the first shop I worked at and whose owner took me on my first mountain bike ride just about four years ago.  Good times. 

I took the exam to become a California subsitute teacher, which is my latest scheme to fund this ridiculous racing campaign.  Fingers crossed.

I’ve gone riding a couple times on some of the killer trails in Marin but it’s nice to have some time to just chill, ride for fun and not think about training.  (Not that I don’t absolutely love it.  It’s still nice to have a break).

Travel | 2 Comments »