Attack of the Crappy Hard Tail

While on break from the road season I have dusted off ol knobby, my gary fisher big sure thats been collecting dust in my garage buried behind all my road bikes waiting for its time to see actual daylight. I live near Gambrill which is where a lot of dc area riders come to play. I was reading all the reviews about it online from mtbr.com and everyone seemed to complain that it was too rocky and they had to hike their bike up some of the trails which I thought was funny. I was vrey happy to tag along on a ride yesterday with some co workers and friends of co workers out into George Washington National Forest in Virginia and west virginia. Lots of steep fire roads and technical up and downhill single track.

Now most all of my monetary assets have gone into my road bikes. While I had the big sur in colorado I upgraded most of the parts on it from nice hand me down xtr stuff. Its only v brakes and the crank has been "fixed" many times by beating it back into alignment with my hammer. Its a midlevel bike for 2002 and def old by todays standards I am well aware but....meh... I kinda like rockin out on it.

It rained al of sat night so the trails were very soggy with lots of wet rocks. Trying to ride a line on wet rocks is like riding a bare rimmed bike on ice and trying to make it go the direction you want....it never happens. So sometimes the line you chose ends up pointing you directly into a giant tree which I oh so gracefully missed and chose to go over the handle bars instead as my buddy witnessed. After some more steep fire roads we started up another really rocky and mostly unrideable single track (not dc rider friendly!) with lots of hike a bike. Yea it sucks at times but the descent was quite worth it. This trail that goes along the ridge doesn't get that much use. The bryers and brush were creeping in on the sides which made for a unique experience since your preview of the trail up ahead was limited to about 30 feet. So when you start rocking it surprises can come up pretty quick. I took out a couple of dead branches which in turn took me out too. The best was turning a corner to find a huge dead pine tree laying diagonally across the trail. Its funny how you can hit some of the toughest tech spots only to endo on a big water bar. My buddy and I were rollin pretty fast and I hopped the first water bar, I halfway tried to hop the second one resulting in a giant nose wheely. I see tire, dirt, sky, then rock to the face and shoulder. It didn't help that I hit my right shoulder hard earlier in the ride. Check my collarbone- not broken- okay good. My awesome tattered wtb seat is caved in on one side and my der hanger is bent. Horay for bike mechanics to the rescue! The best part was we thought the trail was still rolling on but only 100 feet later we were spit out on the fire road back to the lot.

Yep, awesome ride. Now I am going to explore Greenbriar and Green Ridge trails next. I also herd theres some stuff at Sugar loaf mtn too.

Meanwhile I will enjoy my breakfast of black coffee and a bottle of aspirin...

A Gap of a Whole Season

I still really haven't got the hang of this yet and its been more than a year. Last post was what, in Feb? Wow that's pretty bad. Well the 2009 cycling season has ended but it was definitely my best yet out of my total four even though I had some major setbacks. I broke my thumb in an early season race at tour of Walkersville and had to get thumb surgery. They had to reattach a major tendon that connects to my thumb bone and to do that they put two 4 inch rods into my hand- 3 inches in and one inch just hanging out. Needless to say it sucked but the worst part was not being able to ride outside. So I borrowed a computrainer and rode in the garage and continued my routine of plyometrics. I came out with some pretty good form an was able to hang at the front of some local races. My hour of pain and power on the trainer gave me great intensity for any race under two hours but over that I would start to cramp (which was a huge problem for me this season an cost me at least one first place). So with that I went to Fitchburg and raced the Cat 2's. I did ok in the time trial but I decided that I wanted to Green Jersey. First stage a break went up the road and I bridged up the major hill through the S/F area and the break stuck. I collected about all of the points available that stage and had a comfortable lead and ended the day in third. Lost the jersey in the road race, guys got away and were never seen again. I took back the jersey in the crit but it wasn't easy. The guy had teammates who were not going to give it up easy. I crossed the line with a second green jersey to take home.

The next weekend I placed third at Mt Nebo and the next day I won a little road race way out just north of Pittsburgh in a town called Butler. A great course and I hope that more people will come out for next year. The grand prize was a nigh time plane ride for 4 people but you had to win the kom AND the overall, I only got 2nd in the KOM, Dang! After that I did some more local races and placed well but the heat and humidity started to get to me. I will never forget the misery of the Page Valley RR, it was over 100 degrees and I suffered. I made the break that won but couldn't even keep the pace which wasn't that fast....frustrating. Ah well lessons for the future.

At this time I was approved for my cat 1 upgrade which was the goal of the season and I was very happy to get it. I was worried from my broken hand that I wouldn't be able to.

The last big race was Green Mtn where it was Pro/Cat1. This was my first race in just cat 1's and it was super tough. I could feel that my peak was waning a bit but thats ok because at that point I had accomplished all my goals for the season and then some. I suffered in the TT, crashed in the second stage but just a small one and had only one little scratch on me, (I was forced to run over a dudes bike in front of me when he went down). The road race was awesome! Dirt roads and a huge climb at the end. A finishing wall of 20%!!! The crit was super fast, one of the fastest ones I have ever done. I always stayed in tghe front third but just couldn't get up to the front to try for a preem but I stayed upright so I was happy.

While I was there I noticed that some of the Johan Bruneel Cycling Academy riders were there. I had been trying to get in contact with the cycling center for a couple of weeks since I wanted to apply for a chance to train and race in Belgium for next year. I talked to one of their seasoned riders Peter Horn who was very nice and forwarded my contact info to the Director...

That was the best outcome of the race for me, gaining that contact was pretty crucial.

So all in all it was a very good season. At this point I have only ridden about 4 times in the past two weeks and I have been enjoying it. Season five starts in November and I am already looking forward to it. I know that everyone says at this time of the year that this is it, this is the year. Well....it is! If I can include the huge miles I rode in Colorado with the intensity of this year- I think ti would make a good combination.