Akron Cyclist

The End is Nigh

2011-11-20T20:57:00.003-05:00

Well another season has ended. Which of course means the bittersweet feelings of completion of another year and also the relief of being done with it. I'm very happy to be able to take a break and rest and do other things than ride a bike, and my body needs some R&R time. On the other hand, there's a routine you have and it's feels weird to not have to do it. I feel the same after the Tour De France finishes. For three weeks I follow the tour, and all the stories and it becomes a big part of my life. But the day after I wake up, and flip on the computer and I'm sad that I don't have that in my life. The end of the seasons is kinda like that. You get used to seeing people at each race and having a routine, you have a purpose, everything is geared towards one common goal. Now that that goal is gone, it takes a little bit to get used to. I'm not a bike racer anymore but just a civilian.

Looking back on this year, I can at least say it has been a good year for me. At the beginning of the year there were a lot of unknowns. I had joined a new team, and I had come off a pretty big injury. I knew I wanted to ride again, mainly because I got on my bike even against doctors orders, but I didn't know if I'd ever want to be competitive again. Well let me rephrase that, I knew I'd be competitive, but I didn't know if my injury would keep me from doing that. Those first few months on the bike were scary. My mind wouldn't let me take risks I normally would. Plus racing in a pack scared the crap out of me. It didn't help that it seemed that every race I entered I barely escaped someone else's crash. It really fried my nerves. It took me a while to mentally prepare myself to race again. In doing so I got out of shape and started skipping races to try and train more to get in shape. Which, of course, didn't work. In August I officially ended my road and mtb (one race) season and start prepping for cross.

Cyclocross was a breath of fresh air for me. I started actually following my training plan, and doing weekly skill practice and though my first race was a DNF I knew from that race that I was progressing and besides not being able to finish I was racing right and doing well. Then the second race I had a good race and actually felt racy again. I was fighting for position with George Gantner for a couple laps and having a blast and ended up coming in 10th. I knew I probably wouldn't be fighting for wins, I would have loved to but I knew this wasn't going to be that year. This would be a building year. After that I placed 18th in my third race and after that, the lowest position I got was 10th at states. I had a good streak of top tens, and I completed my goal of finishing in the top ten of my category, got a medal at states. So I can't say this wasn't a great year. And the icing on the cake, this was the first year I completed an entire season without a major injury!!!! So really can't complain about that.

Now I'll take a couple weeks, take a cruise down to Mexico and start planning for next year. The most important thing I need to do is enjoy taking a rest.

NEOCX #4 Stark Velo

2011-09-24T20:13:00.003-04:00

Well another race is in the books. Didn't go as planned, actually it went exactly how I envisioned it, but didn't go as I planned. The course was located at the Kent State Stark campus. I had ridden there with my group I do cross practice the week before and know somewhat of how the course would go. I know that it was going to be generally flat, with a couple technical places, and only one hill to really contend with. I knew this may not be the course for me. This was a course suited for the powerful riders I had one hope, and it looked plausible leading up to the week before the race. My last hope was mud and rain. If the conditions were bad, then I might have a chance to make up time with my bike handling skills.

Friday morning I woke up to clouds and rain. Good, it had rained a couple days this week, and I had gotten my one ride this week in wet conditions, purposely leaving dry weather tires to get used to sliding in mud. Then it turned worse, it got sunny!! And it stayed sunny all day Friday and I woke up to sun on Saturday. Well, this wasn't going to go well for me.

Lined up on the outside of the start line knowing I would be to the inside on the first turn. The race started and I had a killer start, up to second place and closing on the leader. That's when things started to unravel for me. I just didn't have the legs for the long straights with no recovery time. Each lap took more and more out of me and I slid from 2nd to 18th by the time the race ended. I had a slow training week as I only had one day on the bike due to some last minute changes in schedule. Not happy wit how I finished but that's life. I'll get back on the bike and ride hard this week to be ready for the Brooklyn rec race that my team is putting on.

Why I love Cyclocross

2011-09-08T22:37:00.003-04:00

First and foremost. It is by far the most difficult racing I have done. Sure, I've probably put more effort into a mountain bike racers, and suffered more during a road race. But there's just so much more involved in cyclocross. It's the pure fact that everyone is packed into a smaller course, during a much shorter course. It all comes at you so fast, and you have no time to recover.

Second, it's a whole hell of a lot of fun. If you step back and look at the sport, you can see the absurdity of the whole thing. Let's take road bikes with slightly knobby tires, make a arbitrary course in a park somewhere and make them ride around in the mud, jump over plywood and watch as they trundle up hills. All during a time when most our hanging up their bikes. Unlike road racing or mountain bike racing where you go from point a to point b, there's no destination. It just looks like a bunch of road cyclist got lost in a field and can't find their way out. I love that, and it takes some of the pressure of me as a racer. I can just enjoy myself, and truthfully, that's when I do best.

The fellowship, we are a close knit group of masochists who enjoy the suffering.

The gear! There's not sport where it's normal to show up with two bikes, and panoply of wheels. Along with a ton of different clothes to match the weather. I'm a gear nerd and love perfecting my bike, and my tire selection. Playing around with tire pressure.

It gives me something to do after a long season. I'm surrounded by roadies and mountain bikers who are all sad because their seasons have ended or are close to ending. I on the other hand have something to look forward to and I can get excited about. Something that's similar but different enough to keep me interested, after doing the same routine since January.

Lastly, and for me this year most importanly, it gives me a second chance. If you've not met the goals for your road or mountain bike season, you get a second chance at redemption. There were 2-3 weeks between the last road race and the first cyclocross race which gives you a couple days of recovery and then you can start from scratch and reinvent yourself.

Cyclocross Season has arrived

2011-09-03T21:12:00.004-04:00

Today marked my return to cyclocross after taking a year off last year due to injury. Today was an important day because it would tell me where I was in my fitness and how much I loved the sport. I had been gearing up for cross for about a month now of actual workouts geared towards cross, although truthfully, I had viewed everything I had done this summer geared towards cross. I had been excited for it last year, but my broken collarbone took me out a week before the first race. So my main goal for this year was simply to make it to cross and enjoy it.

Well despite some scares, I made it to the first race in perfect health. So I went into today with realistic hopes, but fear bit of apprehension. I haven't done this in a year, I had no clue how I'd react. I banked my whole season on these races, not only for doing well, but for completing my races for the year. So I had better enjoy it, because I had signed myself up for the entire season.

Two races went off before me, and between each race I was able to do a warm up lap of the course. It definitely was a good course. From what I heard a lot more singletrack, which was fine by me since part of my training has been riding my cross bike on the mtb trails in the area. The course has a couple obstacles to deal with, a sand pit, 3 log crossings on the singletrack (two you could hope, the third you had to dismount) and then two barriers before the end. I picked my tires, figured out their pressure and got ready to race.

The race started well for me, I got a great start and had finally successfully placed myself towards the front of the race. I lost a couple positions in a gravel turn as I got pinched on the inside in the loose gravel. But held my place up until the trip down the sand pit. After that point I started ever heating and couldn't get cooled down again. As my core temperature rose i lost more and more of my power until the third lap when I came undone. My mom luckily was there handing me bottles each lap and each lap I would take in as much water as I could and toss the bottle. On the third lap I had to stop because I was getting dizzy and was about to throw up. I composed myself and carried on hoping to finish the race. Coming into the stadium section of the start area I blacked out on the top of the climb just barely composing myself before I went off course. At that point I decided my race was done and there would be another race to fight for. So I pulled off.

Truthfully, even though it was a pretty poor race for me, bordering horrible. I feel really good after this race. Everything I had control over went perfectly. My dismounts and remounts were good, tire choice and pressure was perfect. My cornering was good, I was holding enough speed that I was on the course tape coming out of each turn. I had some fun in the sand pit, I still think that if I had not been so out of it because of the weather I could ridden that section, as that's the kind of thing I'm good at. The only thing that went wrong was something out of my control, and that was record high heat. So everything I could control was perfect and my race was undone by something out of control, and something that won't come up again this season. So it's time to get ready for next week.

A Thief Would Like Your Bike.

2011-05-28T14:17:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Micheal Bloomhuff for this one.

More Doping News

2011-05-19T23:11:00.004-04:00

Tyler Hamilton is set appear on 60 minutes this Sunday where it is said that he admits to doping and also says that he witnessed Lance Armstrong dope. This is the second high profile rider to go on record as saying he witnessed Lance dope. Now only two have officially came out and said so much, the first was Floyd Landis, who after years of denial and spending his fans money on denying her doped came out roughly this time last year. Now, Hamilton, does the same, on the day that Lance's ex-teammate Chris Horner takes over the race lead at the tour of California.

Lance's publicist has of course denied the that he is a credible source, but lends no claims other than "He's was the most tested athlete" and that Mr. Hamilton is only doing this to gain publicity for his book. Now this is what we call in the Philosophy world as a Red Herring and a personal attack. Neither one of these refutes the claim and is only a way to distract the listener from the fact that there's really no claim being made.

Now, I will lay out I do believe at one point in his career lance took a banned substance. I don't know when it was or how long or in what context. Though, I do believe that an important step forward is to accept that the sport has a problem and then learn from it. If for no other reason than to give hope to individuals who are trying to make it into the pro ranks now. The first step to cleaning the peloton is airing out it's "dirty laundry" so that we can start to solve the problem in it's entirety. Make it transparent, we don't have to know everyones Biological Passport and their test results, but knowing what the doping agencies are doing to combat this horrible scourge of the peloton would be a good start. The problem has to be attacked head on, and I'm sure a lot of Pro's and team members will be hurt and lose their job, but it will be in no way even close to how much they've already hurt the sport.

What the UCI dope list means?

2011-05-13T23:01:00.003-04:00

Today, Le Equipe published a list, ranking every rider from last year's Tour De France on how likely they were to be doping based on their Biological Passport. That Biological Passport is a health record of every pro rider, chronicling their blood values over their career, the idea behind it is that if levels change in a dramatic and erratic fashion it can point to someone who is doping. What does this list mean then, well each rider is placed in a number from 0 (no suspicion of doping) to 10 (high suspicion or evidence of doping) with anything under 5 being unlikely to have doped. This list was supposed to be used as a tool to guide testers on who to test during the tour. It should be noted that none of this proves that someone has or hasn't doped. There's no proof in this evidence at all, and the numbers can be swayed by a large amount of factors (illness, crashes, even a rider who is completely clean can have a higher than normal reading because of getting into shape.)

So what does this mean? Well, first and foremost, it means they are actually using the biological passport. We haven't heard much from the UCI and WADA in regards to actually being able to catch someone in the act. So it's good news for all of us fans to know that they are using this information to clean up the sport of cycling.

Second, that most of the peloton was in under level 5. Out of 198 riders, only 42 riders where above the upper limits, meaning 156 riders were below the upper limits. That's a good majority in the lower half, or safe zone. Even ten years ago, if they had this the numbers would surely have been swapped. Even the highest zone 10 only had two riders, Carlos Barredo (Quick Step), and Yarasloz Popovych (Radioshack.) In fact if you put all the members of the team together. The top three times most likely to dope are HTC, Astana, and Radioshack. All 4 french teams were the least likely to dope, followed by Garmin and Cervelo.

Overall, I think this is good news for cycling fans and the majority of the peloton, and can only hope bad news for anyone in the upper 5.

The greatest Tribute.

2011-05-10T21:48:00.005-04:00

Today we remembered Wouter Weylandt in the most fitting way. As I watched today's coverage I was touched by the rolling memorial. Each team taking 10 kilometers to show their respect to Wouter. Each team silently on the front paying their respects to a man that gave his life to a sport he loved. Finally, at the end Leopold Trek taking the front, lined up in race order with Tyler Farrar, Wouter's best friend taking his positions in the line. Watching them come towards the line brought me to tears as you can see the sadness behind their sunglasses and helmets, and see some of the toughest athletes showing their grief at the loss of one of the friends.

David Millar showed pure class in orchestrating the memorial. He talked to the team and asked if they wanted him to wear the leaders jersey, and what they wanted to do. When they decided on the rolling memorial, he went around to all the teams and made it happen. He's a true patron of the peloton. Watching over them and being the voice of reason. Since his return he has greatly impressed me, and I have even further respect for him now.

The most stirring moment had to be when Tyler, out of respect for the team moved back to let Wouter's teammates cross the line together. The team, however, slowed and pulled him forward and the two closest members put their arms around him as he visibly broke down into tears. Wouter's 8 remaining teammates and his best friend crossed the line together as one, showing their respect for their fallen brethren. With Tyler being hugged as he crossed the line broken down.

It will forever be the a day that will be etched into my mind. Not only for the sadness, and reminder of the danger I face every day I get on a bike. More so, the class and respect that was displayed by each rider. Each rider put their own goals and ambitions on hold, and instead showed the greatest respect for one of their competitors. I don't know many sports that have this level of class. It was a moment that transcended sport and showed compassion, today all 206 riders weren't teammates or rivals, they were family. No moment of silence will ever compare to the 216km rolling tribute and the emotional end.

Follow this link to watch the emotional end. Fast forward to about 20 minutes in.

Rip Wouter Weylandt

2011-05-09T19:17:00.003-04:00

I'm sure all the follow professional cycling are feeling the same thing that I'm feeling. A deep sadness and emptiness after hearing of the tragic crash of Wouter Weylandt. It's a stark reminder of the dangers that we face every day we sling our legs over our top tube. Yes we take our precautions and we ride as safely as we can. But everyday we take our lives into our hands, and it's days like these that remind us how lucky we are.

My heart goes out to his family, teammates and friends. I'm sure their hearts are heavy with the lose of a loved one. I can only fathom what they must feel, along with the entire peloton, who must get on their bikes tomorrow and ride again. He will be remembered for his kind heart, and his sacrifices for his teammates. Today, was a dark day for professional cycling and may he rest in peace.

The Buildup

2011-04-29T22:04:00.002-04:00

Ahh Fuck. That's what's going through my mind right now. I wish I was one of those confident people, man that would be awesome. No, I'm neurotic. I've hidden it since my first race, you don't want your competition see your weakness, they are a ruthless and cutthroat lot. You show them where you don't feel good and they will eat you and shat you out the back, (pun semi intended.) So you put on a stoic face, and soldier on keeping the pain inside, that is unless you're Jens Voight, because then you'll just slaughter your competition into dust. That's not in my skill set though. My skill set is hold on till I can't anymore and then attack.

So what? Here I sit, in that nervous state that precedes any race. It will only grow from here, I'll toss and turn all night and wake up groggy. Then as the race gets closer it will reach a feverish pitch of overwhelming dread. Then the starter lets us go and within one pedal stroke everything changes. In a matter of seconds nothing else matters, except for the wheel in front of mine, the gap that's opening up. Should I move up? Yes, I should definitely move up. Should I push the pace, or should I just let it stay slow. No, if I'm resting so is everyone else. Off the front I go.

Did I breakaway? I can't see past the rider behind me! I'm either doing something good, or I'm pulling the field. Oh well, either way I'm sure making someone hurt. The next turn I can see that I'm pulling the pack. I flick my elbow out and pull off to sit in the back. I've done my part to liven up the race. Should I go for the primes? My legs do feel good. I won't go for the money (everyone goes for those), I'll go for the lesser ones. They are much easier and less effort.

Ok one lap to go. Get to the front. I don't know if I have the energy to do this, ok if I finish strong I can have a whole pizza and that gelato. I must, I'm much to close. I made it to the front, I'm committed, I'm here I have to give it a go. 500 meters to go, 400, wait for it, 300, way to early, 250, Please no one jump, 200, GO!!!!

Dusty Spokes is Back!!

2011-02-13T20:16:00.004-05:00

Well, I'm back. Did you miss me? After too long I'm back at it. For those that haven't heard I did go into surgery. I spent an entire month in bed, because it hurt to sit up. I stayed off the bike all the way through the new year, well I'm come clean. I did have some rides during that time. Just don't tell my doctor. Most were short, a lot of them I turned around because it hurt too much. But on Christmas eve eve, I got the ok from the doctor to start riding again. On New Years Day I returned and now after a month of taking it easy to cage how I would ride, I started training again! So hopefully this year I'll update more regularly.

In the time off I got a call from Snakebite Racing, actually it was a Facebook message but that sounds a lot less professional. It was the first month off and I was sitting at home, I had barricaded myself from the cycling world because it was way to depressing. I had spent the week of the Big Valley Race being asked where I was. It had gotten to much so I had just walled myself in. The message was asking me to join the team. I had thought about switching up teams for a while, but it seemed like now was a good time.

Now, that is not to allude that I wasn't happy at CAMBA. Truth be told, I was rather happy at CAMBA, everyone was awesome and very helpful. They were always there to answer questions and I must give thanks to them as they helped me progress as a rider. It came down to two things; my desire to get more into road racing, and me wanting to push myself further. With those two things on my mind, I accepted the spot on SnakeBite Racing.

The other thing that happened was me really come into my own at work. I had just picked up the Head Mechanic position when I got hurt, and after coming back I made sure the make my mark on the shop. I have already impressed my manager, District Manager and Corporate. So much so that I have been featured in the company blog (blog.performance.com), the FYI that goes out to each store and an e-mail sent out to our stores mailing list. Below is the e-mail.

In other news, I have moved to just outside the Cuyahoga Valley so I'll be right down the road, and when I say right down the road I mean just a downhill to the Valley. So hopefully, I'll be getting in a lot of a good training in. Well this post was supposed to be about why I love the early season training, but I got of on a tangent. So I'll be back with why I love early season training. That is, if I remember why I love it tomorrow.

The end of my season

2010-08-27T11:52:00.002-04:00

If you've been around me enough you know there's a saying I always say each year. I'll admit it's a rather grim prediction but one that I know has a good possibility of happening. I say each year I will have one major injury a year. For the amount of time I spend on the bike, I've always been aware that injuries are bound to happen.

So lat night while practicing for cyclocross with Micheal Bloomhuff, my luck caught up with. We had just gotten done practice dismounts and had moved onto cornering practice. We had set up a figure 8 course and I was going around and hit a hole as I was entering a turn and my front wheel hit a hole and the next thing I knew I was on the ground and I immediately knew my collarbone was broken. Micheal asked if I was ok and I simply said "I broke my collarbone." Micheal tended to me and then went to get hi car as I laid in the middle of the field, clutching my left arm, helmet still on and my bike still at my feet. We slowly get me into the car and as soon as I sit down, my version goes blurry and I'm about to pass out. One thing I'm good at is dealing with pain and being aware enough to communicate with whoever is helping what they need to do to get me through. I had Micheal blast to cool me down as I was overheating.

Luckily, Cleveland Clinic had a satellite hospital right around the corner. We got there and I was wheeled in in a wheelchair. We had to sit in the waiting room for what seemed like forever but was probably only five minutes. I finally got wheeled into a room and was given a tetnus shot and a morphine shot, the morphine shot made it bearable. Now, I sat there alone waiting for the x-ray of a bone that was clearly broken in half. My head dropped and I closed my eyes and these two sentences ran through my head over and over: "I broke my collarbone. My season is over." I sat there having those lines repeated over and over again, on the verge of tears. All that hard work and just these past two weeks if feeling on the bike and getting my form back, and all the races I was ready for and in those moments I knew my season was over.

Well after the x-ray, which involved me vomiting, i got slinged up and my prescription. I was sent home. Now I'm o go to the doctor to see if i need surgery. Wish me luck.

West Lake Crit: Continuing to Improve.

2010-08-24T22:28:00.004-04:00

Tonight's race at Westlake was kinda fucked up. I generally like Westlake because I usually fell real safe there. I've really not had a big problem with erratic riders and just plain bad riding. Well, it was a little different tonight. I don't know if it was placing, I was further back in the field than normal as there were plenty of people willing to pull, or if there were more dangerous riders. Needless to say, there were numerous instances where if I could be scared on a bike I would have been.

Ok, I guess I must clarify that last statement. I've been scared on a bike numerous times. Usually for a split second, and then I realize I somehow made it through, or I'm "picking up the pieces." But I found in crit racing your best option is not to be scared. If you are scared and you are thinking about being scared, your not paying attention to whats around you, and that's when bad things happen.

So back to my story. After a lackluster season so far, I decided last week to turn that around. So I did a killer week with a ton of intensity and as much riding as I could put in. This week it seemed to work as I came into the race with my legs feeling good. So I talked to my pseudo teammate Weston and we decide that he's going to lead me out for the early money prime so I can collect a prize for my work for him last week. The lap comes up and I jump on his back wheel, and to his credit, he does a perfect leadout. He pulls me up through the field as the lap goes through and as we pull onto the front stretch we are on the sharp end of the peleton. He does an amazing pull all the way to 200 meters out where I'm fully protected and no one comes around us. In hindsight, I had perfect position and we were controlling the sprint that I could have sat on his back wheel for a tiny bit longer and I could have easily won the sprint. If I would have gone at 175 or 150 out I would have had it. So I sprint from 200 out and I'm doing well, but I start to fade and I see a wheel creeping up the inside. I have pinched in between me and the curb so I hold my line making him ride in the gutter hoping it will spook him and he'll let up for a second. To my dismay he gets around me and I come in a close second.

Now the really sketchy stuff happens, a couple laps later while taking the first turn, I'm on the outside with another rider on the inside. He's riding a Scattante, which doesn't make him dangerous, and they are good bikes, as I have one and recently traded up the other one. But add on the fact of a flapping jersey and baggies instead of bibs and I should have known this cyclist is not up to the official rules of the euro cyclist, and should be feared. Midway through the turn, for reasons unknown, said riders decides to go straight, and turns directly into me. We bump shoulder and I hear the ping, ping, ping of his pedals hitting the spokes of my front wheel. I should have gone down, but I didn't. Which I can only say is through the skills I learned through mtb and cross. I yell at him, nothing profane, but he needs to know he did something wrong and to let everyone else know to stay away and be wary. The next lap I spend looking down at my wheel fully expecting a broken spoke or at minimum it to be out of true. But to their credit my Forte Apollo's show no damage at all!

The turn in question (but on a different lap)

I have more stories about sketchiness but they all come down to two things and two things most crits riders have come across, people not holding their lines and random braking. So I'll leave it at that.

Me coming down for the final sprint

Finally, the final sprint. I'm feeling good and I've been learning a lot from my mistakes at other races, so I'm feeling confident for the sprint. The final two laps are spent trying to conserve energy, and move up positions. I'm still feeling good and in the top ten positions coming into the second half of the last lap. Jumping wheels to find the best position, while dodging riders as they drop back after they've done their pull. All is going well until about 400 meters out I get boxed in between two riders. I push my way through and try and do my best. I ended up finishing 6th or 7th and I was catching up to everyone at the end. I topped out at 35mph and easily could have placed better if I had better position. Well, there's alway next week and I'm sure I'll learn from my mistakes.

The final outcome, 3rd-6th, only a bikes off of 3rd!

My Summer Report

2010-08-19T11:15:00.004-04:00

It is said that the difference between winning and coming in second is mental toughness. To tell you the truth this summer I have severely lacked that toughness. My head was just not in the right frame. Some people can show up to races and no matter what's going on in their life they can leave it all behind and get the job done. I, on the other hand, am completely opposite, for me to do well everything must be in place so I can focus on the job at hand. If things are going well, it's fucking brilliant but if something is unresolved, I'm rubbish. Last summer was incredible for me, I had nothing on my plate and everything was taking care of. In the time I wasn't working I could be on the bike and training. This year has been a different story, time off work has been a constant struggle making sure things get done. My mileage has been halved to what it was last year.

Add on to the fact of a nasty break up and my mental state has been horrible this summer and it's been very hard to be motivated to do what I needed to do to be the best I could. The usual training rides that would be all out and pushing the pace last year, have turned into contemplative sojourns to figure out what is going on in my life. It's hard to bury yourself, when you already feel buried.

This isn't to say there haven't been sparks of brilliance and improvements. There have been improvements but it never seems to translate into race finishes. It's not that I doubt I can do well or that I am not physically able to, because I know I can, but it just hasn't happened this year. My sprinting in road cycling has drastically improved more than I could ever planned. When I first started cycling, I always fancied myself a sprinter. I clearly don't have the build of a traditional sprinter, i.e. muscular. I have the frame of a pure blood climber. I'm lean, which if you know me is an understatement, and have less to carry up the hill. I'm good at climbing but not epic long climbs, I'm best suited for short punchy climbs, classic type climbs, short but very steep. Last year, in my second year, I started playing around with sprints. I didn't really have anyone really to sprint against. I would sprint with my rides but hardly ever against anyone. I would normally hit 28mph and on the really good days I could hit 30. Not good at all.

It all changed last year near the end of the season. Sara and I were riding with the Summit Freewheelers. We had gone off the back deciding whether to ride to the car or ride back with them. I pulled at the front for a good 5 miles as fast as I could, pulling back Needless to say, when I got back to the bunch the sprint came and I missed it because I didn't have anything left. It was near the end of the season so I didn't get back to contest that sprint again. So I stewed on the near miss for all winter.

Fast forward to the beginning to this year. I'm back with the Summit Freewheelers and in the pack a we come up to the sprint. All I can think is this is my chance to get redemption for myself. I somehow am put in the perfect position second place coming into the town sign sprint. At this point instincts kicked in. I knew when I had to go, and I waited, waiting to pounce, still waiting. Is no one going to go? I catch a wheel coming on my left and that's all I need, I jump on his wheel for a brief second and then I opened up my sprint. I look back just as I crossed the line to see where my competition was and he was a good bike length back. I had finally won my first sprint! I sat up, and congratulated the person I had out-jumped in the sprint. I had hit 32mph which I had only hit once before in a sprint, and it sparked something in me to get better and better.

I soon had started a regular sprint interval workout. In no time at all, I had upped my top speed from 30mph consistently and 32 in my best form, to 34mph consistently and 35mph as my top speed. With more work and a new bike I can now hit 35mph consistently and hitting a 37mph top speed on a pretty regular basis. So this is all to say that this summer hasn't been a total waste. I'll eventually get there and it may take me till next year to get that elusive win I've been striving for all summer. But then again I have the rest of the NEO Powerseries, a couple more Westkae Crits, Rubber City Meltdown and the NEOCX cyclocross series. Who knows what may happen the rest of the season and finally my mind is starting to get in the right place and things should be turning around.

Blue Knob Trip 2010

2010-06-09T21:57:00.006-04:00

So I'm sitting here watching British TV and trying to forget the pain in my legs. I've been in a training block with 12 rides in 12 days, (I did have one day of rest but I did a double day.) Tomorrow I get a rest day and then it restarts again.

The highlight has to be CAMBA's annual campout at Blue Knob State park in Pennsylvania. If you haven't gone, I can't recommend it enough. The beauty of this is it's free. That's right you get yourself there and then after that it's all taking care of (besides food, which if you sign up for the Saturday dinner plan is $5). What you get is rustic cabins, beautiful scenery, and great riding. It's really the weekend I look forward to each year.

But before I take you to Blue Knob using my wonderful prose, I must make a side trip, to my side trip to the Allegripis Trail system. It's located outside of Altoona and is about an hour away from Blue Knob, so if you can get off work the Friday before the camp out I would put this on the list. These trails have gotten a lot of bad press from some riders, the two most popular complaints is the tread is to wide and the trails are monotonous. Well the complaint about the tread being to wide, is now a non-issue, with a year of use under it's belt, the tread is coming in nicely. Now about being boring, well I guess that's is personal preference. My riding partner Mike and I had perma-grin's the entire time. We left at about 8 on Friday and arrived at the trail at noon. We started the trail by climbing up to the lake side of the trail. Once we got to the top we started the downhill, and most importantly the whoops and dips. A skilled rider can pump the whoops like a pump track and fly through the downhills and it's set up that you can pump the uphills and hardly have to pedal. I was instantly in love with this trail and was flying down the downhills and jumping some of the whoops. We ended up doing 19+ miles in under 2 hour. Could have gone further but we got smart and cut out before we killed ourselves. Highlights where the Hydro loop, which was a fast flowy 2 mile trail where you didn't hit the brakes once, nor did you really have to pedal. Then my highlight was the switchback climb. For some reason when I hit a switchback I just feel the urge to attack, so I really opened up my legs on that. After we got back we showered and headed over to Blue Knob State Park.

Friday night was chill, and we greeted everyone coming in, and went to bed pretty early. Woke up Saturday early got a quick breakfast gathered our gear and headed up for the ride. I would be in charge of the fast intermediate ride (AKA A ride). It would follow about the same route as last year, so I had a good clue where we'd go. The day started with a scorching downhill that shot you out right into a rock garden. Once you got to the bottom, you had to climb back out. That climb was a killer, in the wet condition almost everyone had to walk this climb, including me, even though I had my granny gear this year. Though this year I held down my breakfast unlike last year. Once at the top, we stopped at a road and while waiting for the stragglers we saw a big black bear cross the road about 100 meters from us. we looped back around to the campsite and started climbing clickity clack which is one of the favorite trails of all the riders. It follows a ridge line up the side of the mountain and is lined with flat rocks the when you ride over make a rhythmic clacking sound. From there we climbed 500 vertical feet to the top of the ski resort which is over 3000 feet above sea level. We were greeted at the top by some of the hardest rock gardens I've ever ridden and the picturesque overlook that you will see from so many pictures taken on the trip. From there we took a new trail to me, down the side of the mountain which included some tight and steep switchbacks. Then it was the race back to camp, which I came in second behind Brian Lowe after I overcooked the last turn. As soon as we got back, it started raining and Mike and I sat on the porch of our cabin and relaxed after a great day of riding.

Saturday night was all about socializing. Everyone cooked dinner and then we mingled around the mess hall, eating smores and telling stories. It was great seeing everyone again and making new friends...and I didn't wake up with any lingering effects from the "festivities."

Sunday Mike and I choose to do the short easy paced ride. We road the road up to ski resort and dropped into the resort side trails. On this ride thre wasn't a local to lead us, and I vaguely remembered the trails so I took over finding the trails. Only one misadventure down the ski slope and we had found the trails. Truthfully, we only missed the trail by 100 feet. We did about about 9 miles on the last day and headed back, flying down the infamous roller coaster trail, where all you can do is grab the brakes, and ride it out. We headed down clickity clack and about half a mile the skies opened up and down-poured on us. Overall, looking at the weather report coming into the weekend, half a mile of rain isn't to shabby.

Overall it was a great weekend, did about 50 miles in three days on some fast flowing to rocky and super-technical single track. Over the weekend we climbed 4,000 feet. Even though the trails were awesome the highlight definitely was the people. CAMBA has some of the nicest, most welcoming and most fun people to hang out with and to share a ride with. I can't praise these people enough and I'm happy to be a part of it. If you haven't done so yet, I can't recommend enough going on a group ride, outing, trail day, or camp out. There has yet to be a day with the CAMBA folk I haven't enjoyed.

See you at the next event.

WestLake Crit: Learning to Sprint

2010-05-18T22:22:00.006-04:00

Tonight I finally made it out to a Westlake Crit training race. I had always wanted to go but found stupid reasons not to go before. I have to admit, my confidence in racing was really low. I'm doing real road races and also moving up a class in Mountain Biking. I should be ramping up my fitness and I should be feeling good, I've done everything right, but my first two races ended in complete failure. I got dropped from the field on the first couple laps each time, leaving me with nothing to show for it. So there were a couple weeks where I couldn't bring myself to go race. It tore me apart to do this and I hated that I had got to this point. I had glimpses of greatness on some of my training rides, won a bunch sprint with the Summit Freewheelers and had some good moments but when it came to race day, I had nothing.

So today I decided to hell with it, I'm going. I packed up and on the way there my wheel flies off my roof rack and bounces down rush hour traffic on 77 north. Luckily it bounces into the median and not into traffic, wheel is ok and the wheel carriers will be used no more. I arrive at the race and just as I'm signing in, a familiar white car pulls in. Now I'm freaking out, I haven't seen this person since spring break and there's still bad feelings. I decide to not let this person ruin my race, I was going to ride my race.

My main goal is to finish this race. I just wanted to ride smart and be at the finish with the group. It's also a mixed field of the lowest three categories (I'm in the lowest) so I know there will be some fast people in it. We start off and I make my way to the front, safest place to be, and easiest to react to moves by other riders. My big problem has always been cornering, I have never felt confident in my cornering but today with new tires on, it was a huge difference. I didn't have to brake going into the corner and I was pushing hard in each corner and came nowhere near pushing the tires past their grip threshold. With that problem solved I was able to stay near the front the entire race, only going to the back once to rest after a sprint.

A couple laps in the primes started. For those who don't know, primes are races within the race. Every couple laps the bell is rung and a prize is displayed. Whoever crosses the line first on the next lap wins the prize. There were no breakaways in the race today so every prime was a sprint. The perfect chance for me to work on my sprinting. I decided to have some fun and go for every prime. In total I sprinted for 7 primes today. I won one, and finished in second in 3 or four. One I lost by only a wheel length at the line. Each one I was topped out at 30 mph, and my fastest was 34.6 mph which is a new personal best for me. Overall, I was very pleased with my showing. At one point the pace was slowing and I was feeling good, and I decided to try for a break, so off the front I went, it didn't last long, but it was worth a shot. Then a couple laps later, that unnamed person took a chance and went for a breakaway. If it stuck I wasn't going to let them get away with it, so I quickly jumped on their wheel and followed them till we got reeled back in.

After having to add another lap because a car slowed us down right before the start finish line, we came around for the final sprint. At this point I had burnt all my matches and there was no way I was going to be able to sprint for the win. I ended up midpack but I'm ok with that. I finished in the pack and that was my goal. I also did a lot of sprint practice and I think I really animated the race. I got a lot of comments on my race and the big one was that I was a sprinter. Who thought the skinny climber could hold his own in a sprint. I had an inkling but I'm glad I got to test my legs. The important part is I had a ton of fun. I'll be there next week.

Thanks for Bike Authority, Camba, Rudy Project, Kenda Tires, Crank Brothers, and Ritchey products for supporting me in my racing.

How to Win the Polka Dot Jersey

2010-05-13T22:03:00.004-04:00

So I've been thinking about how I climb recently. Last year I mainly climbed standing up. It cam from riding a lot of short steep hills, and also poor fit. I was to far back so I wasn't over the pedals, blah blah blah, Doesn't matter the specifics but needless to say the proper fit has changed my riding style so that I can do things I couldn't before. Thanks to Mike at Performance in Green for that.

Well, this year I've been trying out new things and watching races on tv and youtube seeing how I can better myself. Trying to figure out how they got away. I've come to three different versions of winning a Polka Dot Jersey.

1) The Contador (aka uphill sprint)
The first one is best exemplified by Alberto Contador, and Armstrong (in his heyday). For those keeping track that is the first time I mentioned Armstrong in a blog post. What this consists of is waiting till the last moment and standing up and sprinting to the top of the climb, much like a final sprint. The goal is to get enough of a gap on the followers and then either keep lengthening that gap or just not letting it close. The benefit of this style is you can surprise the other riders and if they aren't watching it can be easy to close that gap. It's best to do this when you see your other competitors tiring and won't be able to respond. The downside of this tactic is you go past your anaerobic very quickly and if you can't get away it gives the other riders a chance to attack while you recover. This is probably my used tactic and does work if you can get going fast. Here's Alberto Contador attacking on Verbier. It's a textbook example.

2)The Spartacus (upping the cadence)
This one is a little more sly. All it involves is upping the cadence, thus upping your speed until you pull away from the other rider. The beauty of this one, unlike the uphill sprint, is that you don't show your cards before hand. Stay seated pick an easy lower gear than normal, wait for your moment and just spin up. I've done it where the other rider didn't even know I attacked, the next thing he know I was 50 feet up the hill and by then I was gone. The beauty of this one is that you stay aerobic so if it doesn't work you aren't in the red zone as bad. Fabian Cancellara used this tactic to win this years Tour of Flanders on the Kappelmur. Watch the video below about 1:14 in they hit the climb and watch the gap he gets in a short amount of time.

3) The Cadel (uphill grind)
Ok so this one isn't an attack, per se. All it is is just keeping the pace high enough so that your competitors drop off the back. It's that simple. No videos of this because there's really nothing much to watch on this one.

Hope you enjoyed reading this. Up next is a review of the Cannondale Cross bike I wont from OMBC, and the transformation of my ratty white Fixed gear into something I want to ride.

Sorry for the delay in postings but no one reads this anyway

2010-04-29T23:10:00.002-04:00

Well I've been very lazy with updating my blog. It's been a crazy couple of months. A lot has kept me from the blog but likely in the last month it hasn't been personal reasons but an abundance of training. I've been riding a lot lately and for the first part of the month I was not progressing well, but finally my form has finally been coming back. I've done two races so far but neither went my way. I'm immersing myself in the roadie scene and it's been paying dividends in my form in general. It's just a different style of racing. I'm using road riding as a good training tool for the power series in the fall and then cross season and I hope all the miles I do know will pay off in the end. I knew I needed to peak later in the season so I've been taking a slow buildup this year and it seems to be working. Well that's all for now, I have more ideas to write about but I'm tired and I have a ride at Medina in the morning then an 8 hour work day and then after that I'm going to see Neesayer with my dad. So I need to go to bed.

My trip to the National Bike Summit in Washington DC

2010-03-21T23:32:00.001-04:00

Last week I was lucky to attend the National Bike Summit (NBS) in Washington D.C. as a representative of CAMBA and IMBA. It was an amazing opportunity to be a part of the cycling movement on the national stage. First, I should explain what the National Bike Summit is. For three days people who believe in the importance of the bicycle converged on the nation’s capitol to lobby for more bicycle friendly laws and initiatives. Everyone from advocacy representatives (like me), bike store owners, and industry representatives from all across the country came together for one goal, to promote cycling.
The first day was just a precursor to what was to come ahead. The main highlight of the day was the first timers meeting. Being my first time at the summit I attended this meeting which was an introduction to what was to come. With a brief primer on how to talk to the representatives to best get your message across. The goal for the first two days was to prep us for the third day where we would meet with senators and congressmen from our own state. I must admit it was overwhelming on the first day, though I knew that my love of the sport of mountain biking would make it easy to get my message across.
The second day started with a large opening ceremony where, Google announced its new biking directions on its map tool. After the meeting we broke off into the first of three break-out sessions. I choose to follow the IMBA path and take the three seminars. The first was titled, Best Practices in Youth Cycling. It was an introduction to how to best get youth involved in cycling. It covered topics on Youth Races, how to introduce kids in the sport of mountain biking and how to foster the love of the sport. It was informative because to help grow this sport and keep this sport going we have to introduce youth into the sport.
The second course was Growing Mountain Bike Participation. This session was the most informative as it was aimed at an introduction about how IMBA and local clubs can work together to grow the sport. It was nice to hear about the options that IMBA provides the help local clubs to make it easier on the local clubs. After this session we broke for lunch where I was able to meet Gary Fisher and talk to him shortly, I got a chance to tell him my story of how I got into the sport, he was very gracious and it was nice to meet such a legend in our sport. The third session was Cycling Tracks to Pump Tracks. This discussed linking cycling paths (towpaths, bike lanes) and mountain biking trails so that a seamless system exists. It was interesting to hear of plans of cities across the country linking a biking community into one system.
The last day was the big day, a full day on Capitol Hill. I arrived briskly at 7 in the morning on the hill, grabbed a quick breakfast and stepped into my first meeting at 8:30 with Senator Sherrod Brown. Over the course of the day I met with six different members of congress, some out of our area as backups for their constitutes but most were from our district where I was able to push our agenda and make sure congress knew how important our cause is. Overall, it was a great experience and I learned a lot and I can’t wait to go back next year.

Kicking the Bucket...uhh list? Colorado Ride!

2010-02-24T22:15:00.008-05:00

I got to finally check off one of my goals in my bicycling bucket list. I when I say bucket list, I have not idea what I'm actually talking about, because I never really wanted to watch two old men courting in a movie. One of the things that I have been dreaming about for the longest time is to get onto a climb of epic proportions. The valley has some good climbs, but they always seem to make up for being so short that they go straight up. I wanted to climb a grade that seemed to go on forever.

Well on a recent trip to Colorado I finally got to mark that off the list. I flew out there for Valentines Day to see Sara and before our valentines dinner we did what only a cycling couple could enjoy and decided to go for a bike ride. She had her bike there, with all her new presents from me, and I rented a Trek 1.2 from University Cycles in Boulder. Our route was a simple one, mainly two roads, the start of the ride was beautiful, 40 degrees and sunny, but with a heavy headwind. I pulled from the start and allowed Sara to save same energy. The climb started immediately but at first is was quite shallow. We climbed about three miles until we hit Sugerloaf road and that's where the fun began, it steepened up to stretches of 10% grade and a ton of switchbacks. After about half a mile it leveled out and Sara I climbed another 12 miles to above the tree line where it was cold and snowy. In all we climbed 3500+ feet over 15 miles. I gotta say I felt good and was pleasantly surprised. I wasn't sure how I would handle altitude and not riding outside on a bike for a month before this but I felt really good.

The descent on the other hand was not as fun. The bike I was riding had a horrible speed wobble where anytime when I got up to speed the bike shook beneath me. Add that to the fact that I was not properly dressed for the descent, which made me freeze enough to stop every two miles or so to warm up. Luckily, towards the bottom the road straightened out and I warmed up enough to really open up and get some good speeds going. With a straight road, slight downhill and a tailwind, Sara and I were cruising along at about 30 mph. We ended up back at University Cycles, turned in my bike and then grab a sub. Really happy with the ride and the weekend. I'm so lucky to have had this opportunity and Sara in my life.

Winter Training and Scheduling

2010-01-27T20:55:00.003-05:00

Not much exciting has been going on. A lot of indoor training work outs. I have been working on my 2010 race schedule. I figured this year going in with a clear cut schedule of where I'm going to race and what races I want to peak for is going to help my training a lot. There's still wiggle room on some of the training races. I'm sure there will be races that will pop up that I didn't plan on racing but I will just be in the mood or I'll find out about it during the season. There will also be races that I can't make whether it be prior commitments or just overworked. It appears that march through July will be spent mainly on the road bike, then in August I will switch over my focus to mountain bike for the power series in september and then after that I will transition over to cyclocross.

The other news is I get a bike fitting this week, it was much needed because I was going by feel and now I'm properly tuned into the bike. I can already feel the difference in the amount of power I can put down. The bad news on this is I went to move the fit from my road bike to my mountain bike and it clearly was to small for me. The seatpost was an inch over the max seatpost point. So it looks like to race on a hardtail I'll be buying a new frame. Though I'll probably hold back on this until later in the season as the my full suspension bike fits into the new fit.

Well that's it for now I'm sure the updates will be coming soon.

Couple Products

2010-01-06T21:55:00.003-05:00

Well Sara left for Colorado this morning, so while I bide my time waiting for my trip out to see her in a month I'm going to have a good amount of free time on my hands. It's truly an awesome opportunity for her and I'm so happy for her but on the same token I'm going to miss her. But if you want to hit up a ride with me let me know. It will help me keep my mind occupied.

I did want to bring up two products that I feel need mentioning. They both are great products that I have found no faults and have worked flawlessly. The first is RoadID's. I got myself and Sara one as a Christmas presents this year. It's a great present not only for them but for your piece of mind. Knowing that your loved one will get proper medical attention and you will be notified will save you a lot of grief when your loved one is out on the trail. And since Sara will be in a new state it makes me feel better that there's still a connection to home when she's out riding. You can tell a lot of though went into the design with a watch-like clasp, which a 5 dollar bill can be folded and slid into so if you ever have to buy extra water, food so you can make it home after a bonk or a bribe for a farmer so you can borrow their tools to get your bike working again. I picked the red band for both of us, as it would be most visible, but a nice neutral color like black and you could wear the id all the time, so your always protected. A product I think every cyclist should wear if not for their own safety but for the piece of mind of their loved ones.

The second product is DZ Nuts. This is a Chamois cream which is made by David Zabriske of Team Garmin Transitions. Mid summer during the heaviest of my training and riding I developed a saddle sore. No other products or anything I did stopped it. I switched over to DZ nuts and in a week it had subsided. It's European styled so it has the cooling effect of Vapor Rub, but after some getting used to you won't want to put anything else on your nether regions. Since I switched I haven't had another saddle sore. Another selling point is everything is made from natural materials.I highly recommend this product, as it's made by one of my favorite riders, but also because it works. With news stories coming out that there will be a womens version, embrocation and leg shaving cream I'll be looking forward to check out the new products. Remember David Z only wants the best and so do I. Make sure you check out the video section on the website

Well it's official.

2009-12-18T10:20:00.002-05:00

I will taking over the presidency of the Cleveland Area Mountain Bike Association (CAMBA) on January 1st. So make sure to come down the the CAMBA Poker run to celebrate the new year and my first day as president. Click here for the details.

Boughton Farm Cyclocross

2009-12-07T18:29:00.010-05:00

This last Sunday was the last race of the Team Lake Effect Cyclocross series. It was held at Boughton Farm in Copley on a flat and muddy course. I had though Willoughby was the hardest thing I've done. I know have changed my mind and put this race as the hardest.

Sara and I arrived shortly before 11 to get ready for the race. We got our stuff together and finished putting on our leg warmers and shoes in the car. When we arrived the temp was well below freezing and the sun was behind the clouds. After we signed in we headed out for our warm-up lap.

Not even a third into our warm-up lap my rear derailluer binds with mud and is pulled towards the wheel. I stop look down and start trying to right the wrong. I can clearly see the hanger is bent. I tell Sara to go finish her lap and I run back to the car to find a pair of pliers to right the wrong. I spend about 10-15 minutes with a crescent wrench trying to straighten it out. In the end I don't even get it close but enough to get it shifting and away from my spokes.

During Sara's race I set up her awesome trainer, it's rim resistance unit makes it perfect for cross and mountain biking because you don't have to switch wheels. I know I'll be picking one up soon. I spent about 30 minutes warming up on the trainer getting ready for the race. I really prefer this method to warming up riding around. I was able to control my efforts more and warm up right to the moment the race started.

I lined up towards the back in the skinny start area and the race soon started. I felt really good off the start, passing a couple people, up until the start of the single track where there was a bottleneck. I'll tell you what, getting into the single track is a lot harder in a cross race. No offense but I've never had that much problem in a mountain bike race. We mountain bike racers are more aware of it and plan for it while roadies seem to not think about it and when the bottle neck happens stand around not sure what to do. I was stuck behind a person who had gotten totally off his bike and ran the whole first section holding me and everyone else up.

Out of the single track I was still part of the large chase group, a little behind the leaders. I was still feeling good and still slowly picking off people. Until the first mud section hit, until the mud started to pile up on my bike. I had to stop and clear out the mud and the leaves from my tires to even get my bike to move. This stop let my legs get cold and the pack get away from me. From there on stopping and cleaning out the mud was a ritual I would do each lap atleast two to three times, Even pulling off my front tire once to get the mud out. At that point I rode my race, and focusing on trying to enjoy myself in these miserable conditions. I started carrying my bike over the mud sections to try and curtail the mud buildup in vain. Really didn't work but it didn't get my feet wet which made them freeze.

I finished the race a lap down in 20th place and went straight to the car to take off my shoes and warm my feet which had started to turn a deep shade of purple. Sara was kind enough to come and help in the warm process by warming my feet in a towel.

I was happy to finish my first season after a lot of races. I will probably do a race or two of the winter cyclocross series and I'll keep training. I'm happy to be down though, and I'm sure my dwindling bank account will be happy too.

Thanks for Bike Authority, Camba, Rudy Project, Ritchey Products, and Cranks Brothers for making this a great season.

Back to Basics

2009-12-01T22:16:00.010-05:00

Base miles have always been a favorite part of the season for me. It seems like a grueling concept, after not doing anything all winter you go out while it's still cold and ride your bike for as long as you can. For me it gives me a chance to try new roads and to see new scenery. During the season I have already found my routes and go on certain routes that tailor what I need work on. Base miles, however, are also my time to venture out and find new routes to ride.

Today, Sara and I ventured out on a adventure to find new roads. I had replaced the cross tires on my cyclocross bike with a road tire to see how it would work over the winter. It's a set up I had thought about when I bought the bike and I think it will prove fruitful over the winter. I also decided to retire my road bike for the season and use it's wheelset for my back up cross wheels, and after Christmas I'll spring for an upgrade of Easton EA90's for my road bike. For now I'll make the second set my pit wheels and when the season ends I'll put some road tires back on. That way I'll have the road tires for the winter but when the snow's out I can swap out the wheels and run cross tires in the snow.

So back to the ride. Sara and I decided to do a ride today, since we haven't done a long ride for quite some time, and I had always wanted to show her my favorite crappy roads of portage county ride. We hit some favorites Lynn Road, and Sunnybrook road. But added a little double track around Mogadore Reservoir which led to us finding some singletrack, which I did on 700c x23 tires pumped to 100 PSI with no problem. We spend some time admiring the reservoir and taking some photos. It was one of the rides that allured me to get into road biking. No destination, and just enjoying the ride. The pace was brisk but not pushing it. I smiled the entire time. Afterwards, we came back, ate an entire pizza and large antipasto salad and then chilled. I still can't belive how lucky I am to find some like Sara, who enjoys doing stuff like this. I'm sure it would have been an an enjoyable ride solo, but this ride was made even more special by her.

Pigskin Classic 5k/ Kirtland Park Cross

2009-11-25T17:44:00.005-05:00

This weekend was a crazy but fun weekend. I swear I was in Cleveland more than Akron. Saturday I competed in my first 5k. I know a lot of the cyclist who follow my blog, I know I kid myself thinking people follow my blog, have given my some crap about getting into running. I gotta be truthful I like running. It's not better, sorry Sara, and it's not worse. It's just different. I like challenges, that's my nature. Truthfully, I got into cycling not because it was fun, though it is. I did it because it was hard. Watching tv is fun, but it's not something I tend to do on a regular basis. I want to be outside pushing myself to my limit and then past that. I was to get better at what I do. It will just give me something so I don't get burnt out.

Sara and I drove up from Akron in the morning and arrived at the race. I was amazed by the amount of people that attended. There were 500+ men there. Sara and I warmed up before the race and met up with some of her Grunt Girl team mates. I'm really glad she got on the team as all the girls are really nice women. Before the race, Sara moved up to the front as she wanted to actually compete and the other Grunt girls and I lined up about mid pack. I thought I'd be around them and run a steady pace. The race started I took the first turn and wanted to go. So I went, pushing myself to run a little faster than I had on my other training runs. While running, a girl turned around and told the guy I was running next to "I'll see you later." I turned to him and told him, we could be the guys with girlfriends who are faster than us. I soon dropped him too. The course ended by going around the block. I had secretly wished to do a sub 25 minute 5k. Didn't think it was possible, since the fastest I had run that distance was 28 minutes. When I turned the corner, I saw the clock and it read 23 minutes. I ended up coming in at 24:11 with a 7:55 minute/mile pace. Didn't think that would happen.

Kirtland Cross

Sunday was the Kirtland Park Cross race. Sarah and I arrived at 10:30, well before the noon start. So we were able to walk to course, then do a slow ride to pick out lines, a faster ride to see if the lines would work. Then I took Robert Sroka on a lap to help him out on the lines as well. After signing up we still had almost a half hour to warm up some more. By the time the race started I had a good grasp of the course.

Sara's race was first and she kicked ass. She ended up 13th overall and the first woman by a large margin. She looked strong and was riding really well. I would like to think I've helped her to become a better cross racer, by teaching her some of the skills and showing her lines and how to pace herself, but in truth she's a beast and will kick most people in whatever she puts her mind to.

My race started next, I lined up on the second row. This led to a not so good start for me as the bottle neck lost me some positions. I had planned to be to the inside of the climb on the non-preferred line, to my dismay I got stuck on the preferred line and got bottlenecked and had to walk up the hill. From there on I started picking off positions on the climbs and descents. The first lap I passed someone going down a hill by continuing to pedal. I flew up the climbs but then lost positions on the long flat. It was a great course with lots of climbing and technical descents. The highlight had to be the amphitheater, thanks Robert and Johnny P for putting that in the course.

I ended up finishing in 21st, one place behind my top 20 I had hoped. Over all I had fun. Big Props to Robert Sroka, for his 2nd in B's, Johnny 8th in A's and Sara for her 13th.

Thanks Camba, Bike Authority, Rudy Project, Ritchey products, Kenda and Crank Brothers for helping me race.

2009-11-18T15:18:00.003-05:00

This is going to be a quick one as I have to leave for work soon, but I have been running a lot more often now. To all my cycling friends don't worry, I won't be hanging up the bike for good or switching over to running. For me it's going to be a nice compliment to my biking. I doubt it will make me a faster rider, but it will give me something to do to break up being on the bike and still being active. That way I can end the season and not be as burnt out as I was this year.

Last week end I did my first practice 5k, ended up with a around and 8:30 pace and completed it in 28 minutes. Not to shabby for my first attempt and not even pushing that hard. Sara was impressed by this, which made me more confident. So yesterday I had planned to ride the Kent cyclocross course which I had missed because of work last week. After work I'm driving home about to get my gear and head over when I get a text from Sara asking if I wanted to ride the course with her. Perfect! I'm throwing on my gear and she calls and asks if afterward I wanted to do a trail run, I say to myself why not and throw my shoes into a bag and I head off.

We are on a time constraint because we have to be in Hudson by 4:30 for the trail run and I left my house at 3:20 to bike over to Kent. I do my best time trial effort with a headwind and a large bag to bike the 7 miles as quick I can. I show up and we do two quick rides around the course, which after the Cross my Heart course was a blast. I will definitely be at this one next year. The two run ups were a blast and the spiral was fun and tricky. After riding back to here car I did 9.5 miles. We load our bikes to the back and we head towards the valley.

After meeting up with some of her Grunt Girl Teammates we make it to Pine Hill trail head at about 5. We run a good paced three miles until we get to the badly rooted part of the trail. It's well past sunset now and our lights aren't bright enough so we turn around and run as far as we can until our lights don't give us enough light to see the routes and decided to walk back out to the cars instead of hurting ourselves. We probably did 3.5 miles of demanding trails running.

Back at the cars, her teammate Andrea asks me if I plan to do the 5k that Sara is entering this weekend. She said my pace was fine and that I'm ready. After some badgering we leave and me and Sara decide I should do it this weekend. So now I'm doing a 5k Saturday and then the Kirtland Park CX race on Sunday. Should be a fun interesting weekend. Check back monday for a recap of my races.

A whole lot of nothing.

2009-11-11T21:54:00.002-05:00

So after the OMBC championship race I took a much needed vacation off the bike. It's been a hell of a season but by far an amazing one. I have been spending my time resting and eating whatever I wanted to.It's been nice, but truthfully I never really rested. I've done a couple bike rides, and started running. I didn't think I'd like it but Sara has been a huge help. Learning why I cramp up when I do, what shoes I need and all that stuff is all the little things that Sara helped me out with. She was impressed with my first run with her and I'm really enjoy. So the plan is to do some sort of run on Thanksgiving morning with Sara, my brother Travis and my sister Valerie. It should be fun.

I'm missing a cyclocross race this weekend because I'm working, it's all fair because I worked for him last week. Hopefully, I can hit up the Grunt Girls trail run Sunday morning depending on my schedule with work. Then I'm confirmed for the last two cross races. Then in December the Ray's indoor Mountain Bike Time trial starts so I'll be doing that. The second sessions starts in January. So I won't be starting anytime soon.

Mohican Wilderness OMBC Championship

2009-10-26T18:54:00.007-04:00

I don't have much to say about this race. I didn't do well, in truth I wasn't in last place for the simple fact that my friend and fellow racer took the sport/expert section and added on half a mile of trail. Otherwise I would have been dead last. This placing come down to a lack of training in hills. I felt good and lead the race off the start. Had a good lead on the first place overall in the series, but then as soon as the trail went up my legs turned to mud. The last time I'd climbed a hill was in August and I was ill prepared for the toughest climb in Ohio.

So I resigned myself to enjoying the scenery and enjoying probably my last good weather and good condition mountain bike race/ride for the season. I ended up taking second overall and not disappointed with that. I figure if I have a decent off season my jump up to sport won't be bad. Truthfully, next year I probably won't be fighting for position every race, but I'm ok with that. I still have a lot of races to do and I'm taking my improvements realistically. I know eventually I'll be fighting for the wins again but it may take a season to get my legs up to that.

The big thing I take away from this season is getting out and actually racing and doing well, something only a select few choose to do. I've met a ton of great people and enjoyed it greatly and I'm looking forward to another great year after a little break from Mountain Biking, (still will be on a bike). My teammates have been great, supportive, kind and inspiring. There's something about watching a teammate do well that even on your bad days you come back feeling good because of them. Looking forward to the return of Nancy and Brian from injury and I wish them a speedy recovery this off-season. Mainly, I'm glad it's over but I'm already looking forward to next year.

I gotta say a big thanks to Sara, my wonderful, beautiful supportive girlfriend who drove almost two hours (including a detour for construction) to the race and took pictures and supported me. I'm truly blessed to have found her. Each day I wake up and think how lucky I am to have her in my life.

I would say goodbye till next year but I'm nowhere near done yet. I still have three cyclocross races and Rays Indoor Mountain Bike Time Trial series. So I'm not going anywhere, anytime soon.

Thanks Camba, Bike Authority, Crank Brother, Rudy Project, Ritchey products and Kenda for making it one of the best summers I can remember.

More Pictures from Hope to Die

2009-10-23T23:36:00.005-04:00

Thank you Nancy for the pics!

Best Weekend ever

2009-10-19T23:34:00.002-04:00

So this week end was insanely crazy for me. Friday I worked 9-4 at the shop and immediately then headed up to Rays Indoor Mountain Bike Park. Each year CAMBA puts on a preview night where you can get into Rays a day before it actually opens and ride the park for free. If you haven't checked out Ray's you must if are a mountain biker. A lot of new features this year. The cross country loop has been given new lines to take, though it hasn't been lengthened. This should make the indoor time trials more interesting. I got to talk to Ray a little bit and he confirmed that there was going to be an indoor tt series.

The rhythm room looked amazing and the pump tracks addition to make it a complete loop was nice. The sport and expert sections stayed about the same, and the beginner rooms flow has been improved so it's a little safer when the XC loop dumps into the room. Overall, I love the changes and it was nice to be back there and see a lot of my riding friends.

Saturday I woke up early and Sara and I headed up to the "Cross your heart and hope to die" cyclocross race. Trust, me each lap as I enter the "Spiral of Death" I was hoping to do. I was worrying about the sled hill climb "Todd Hill" but it was the baseball field spiral that killed your legs and your spirit. Overall, the bike performed perfectly and my Hutchison Bulldog tired shed mud and gripped great. my one regret was the 42t chainring. I took Johnny P's advice on the size. But I forgot that my strengths and tendencies means a smaller chainring that I can spin up works better for me. My road bike uses a compact crank and my mountain uses a 40t big ring instead of the usual 44. It's just the nature of my small size. Most of the course I was wishing for a lower gear. Luckily I had an extra 39t ring laying around. So that's all ready to go.

Sunday I worked open to close at work and decided to "help" our sales for the day I picked up a new Sram Rival drive train. When I got home I cleaned and tuned Sara's cyclocross bike so I could return it to her in time for her commute to class today. Cleaned and tuned my Cyclocross bike then installed the new drivetrain on my road bike. I haven't gotten to do a true test ride yet, but I can say it was an easy install and was easily tuned. The shifting system seems ingenious and something that I could get used to and like better than Shimano shifters. Look for me to have all my bikes converted to Sram next year. Test ride tomorrow morning.

The spiral of death, AKA Willoughby Cyclocross

2009-10-19T01:10:00.006-04:00

Saturday I did my first cyclocross race. Tons of fun, and I learned a lot. Didn't do well (24th) but I did move up a class to what I normally raced. So Overall not a bad weekend. I'll give a full report later but I worked 8 hours today, Cleaned and tuned sara's bike, installed a Rival drivetrain on my road bike and put a new chainring on my cross bike. To hold you over here's a couple pics.

What I've learned

2009-10-14T22:00:00.014-04:00

So the year is slowly winding to a close. The leaves are starting to fall, old men are selling apple cider around the Tallmadge circle and I haven't shaved my legs, face or head for over a month. For me it signals the end of the summer and the racing season, October 25th will be my last competitive race. It's sad and I'm glad at the same time. I'm going to miss all the riding and the good weather, but the training has taking it's toll on me. I'm ready to take a vacation from cycling and enjoy some of my other interests. I plan to keep riding, of course, but slower paced and shorter rides mainly to enjoy being on a bike. I'm hoping to get into running and doing some trail running around the metro parks and the valley. Wouldn't mind getting into rock climbing again. Who knows. I still have 3 Cyclocross races so I won't be totally off the bike.

It has got my thinking about how my life has changed over the summer. First off what this year has done to me personally has been great. I'm feeling the best I have ever physically or mentally. I'm generally happy with my life. I've met some great people in the process. My CAMBA bro's Brian Lennon, Brian Jay, Brett Zink, Micheal Farley, Bill Braum, Esther Gates, Micheal Ryba, Tim Rhodes, Glynis, Micheal Bloomhuff, and too many more to list. A ton of people I've met at races: Roger Sommers, Even Krekeler, Steven Mieskoski, Dirk, Ted Rauh, The Spisak brothers, can't pass up my main bro Johnny P. Can't forget the Srokas. Most importantly I can't miss Sara. A random chance meeting in a parking lot after a ride has lead so much more and I'm lucky to have met her.

Then there's the accomplishments, so far I've done 2391 miles this year on 166 different rides, up 1563 miles from last year. I've competed in 13 races. Finished 12, top 10 in 10 of those races, Stood on the podium at 7, and won 5. I finished 2nd overall in the NEO Powerseries, I have podiumed in two different disciplines (Mountain and Road.) Truthfully not a bad year.

These pictures are some of my favorite of the year.

West Branch, and CX practice

2009-09-30T23:00:00.004-04:00

So I admit I have been really bad at updating this. Settling into the new job and the new schedule has been a little difficult. I'm slowly weaning myself off the late night routine. But you don't care about that so onto the important bit.

Last Sunday was the OMBC West Branch race. It was a nice change of place having a race less then 15 minutes from my house. I enjoyed sleeping in and lazily making my way to the race. It was also a nice to see so many familiar faces. I get to see most of the racers at each race but it's nice to see the locals. It seemed everyone was there. I was happy to meet Dave Ruller, the city manager of Kent. Someone I have been talking to in trying to get a trail built in Kent.

The day before it rained pretty hard all day, and I was looking forward to another muddy ride. I was let down to see the trail holding up well, (from a race standpoint, but I gotta give credit to CAMBA's trail crew who have put in a lot of work to make this trail sustainable.) However, the roots and rocks were slick as ice. As always I got the hole-shot onto the single track. I had built up a decent lead and was feeling good until I noticed my front quick release was loose. I had to stop and fix it and let second place pass, while 2nd and 3rd fell in behind me. We stayed together in a pack until second place slipped on a uphill and I took the lead again.

It seemed like a yo-yo was attached to me at the point. As one of the other 3 riders would catch me and I would either be able to pull away or I would here them go down behind me. This played out for most of the race. Near the end I slipped on an uphill and the second place rider bridged the gap. I was now sitting behind a rider from another class. I knew if I could stay in front of him I could hopefully hold him off till the end. I followed the other rider until the last hill, where I said "Passing on your left" and started sprinting up the hill. I had used the rider as a block and him having to find a place to pass gave me enough time to reopen the gap and get the win.

The other big news was I got to get in some cyclocross practice today with Johhny P and Robert Sroka. I took their collective knowledge and learned as much as I could. Thanks guys for helping me out. It was last minute for me so I showed up a little late and opted to go in instead of warming up first, since daylight was slipping. This was a mistake. We did a couple sprint starts, dismounts/remounts and cornering. I now have a couple drills to work on when I practice so I should be ready for my first race. Which I'm really looking forward to.

Medina Reagan Park Time Trial

2009-09-20T23:16:00.011-04:00

Today was one of my favorite races, the Reagan Park Time Trial. The main reason I love this race is it's my home course. It may not be the closest but being a group rider for the Wednesday night rides here I know the trail better than any other. It also holds something special as last years race was the first that I completed without a mechanical (Manatoc had the broken chain last year) and I ended up placing fourth. This lit the fire for me and now I'm here... So the calm before the storm...

Once again I had a small fan club of my parents and the wonderful Sara, add onto all the people I've befriended this year, there was plenty of hobnobbing to be done before the race. At around noon we had the processional over to Reagan Park for the start. Being a novice ready I had to sit around at the start for an hour for my time to go. I cheer on my friends and teammates while I wait. An hour after arriving at the start my number is called and I set up at the start line. Quickly down a Gu and clip in. The countdown ends and I'm off. One pedal stroke in I pull out of my pedal and lose a couple seconds, which only drives me on faster. I enter the singletrack flying, I'm back in the zone and feeling good, until I wash out on the loose dirt on a switchback and go down, giving me some nasty "road rash" and knocks my saddle to the left. I get up and try knocking my seat back but it won't budge. I do get it moved over enough so that I can pedal.

After that I started to pick off riders left and right, swerving around them as I haul through the trail. By the time I reach Reagan Parkway I've passed about 10 riders and I'm feeling good. In the connector trail I'm able to open up and gain some time as I didn't catch anyone. Coming up onto Weymouth road catch two riders. I'm on the second riders tail when I pass Sara who was helping out and taking pictures. I latch onto his wheel and draft him through the gravel double track. After the first climb at Huffman he relents and pulls off and lets me pass. I'm now behind a single speed rider, he sprints hard up the hill and pulls a gap and I re catch him on the downhill. We fight like this for a while until he can't make it up a steep uphill and I pass him. I enjoy the fast flowing last part of the trail and finish strong. I wait around for my time. I'm one of the first in my age group to come across, and the times sheets showed me in first, but with only one other rider in. I wait for a while until it's confirmed I got another win.

It was a strong showing for the CAMBA race team and CAMBA Members.

CAMBA Race Team:

Andrew Miller- 1st Novice

Jeff Cochran- 2nd Expert

Micheal Ryba- 3rd Sport

Darren Spence- 5th Sport

Brian Lennon- 9th expert

CAMBA Members-

Micheal Bloomhuff- 2nd Sport

Frank Dessoffy- 2nd sport

Brian Jay- 7th sport

Good job to all the CAMBA race team and CAMBA members for their strong showing. Thanks to Bike Authority, Kenda, Crank Brothers, Ritchey Products, and Rudy Project for helping us race.

Starting a new Job

2009-09-18T14:05:00.002-04:00

I was recently told that I wasn't going to be giving off for every race anymore at the restaurant where I work. Or as my boss put it "Requesting off every other weekend is not going to happen anymore." Luckily I had already lined up an interview at an LBS the next day. Well I got the job and I start Monday at my new job as a bike Mechanic. So tonight is my last day at Bricco. I'll be glad to get away from the stress, long nights and generally a not nice place to work.

In other news I'm excited to started my cyclocross season.

26 Hardtail is dead?

2009-09-10T11:49:00.005-04:00

Velonews.com's Matt Pacocha has been experimenting with different wheel sizes and different platforms this summer. It all started in his article on the National Championships where in the top 5 a 26 ht wasn't represented. A 26 hardtail wasn't represented until 6th place. Interesting fact, out of the top five in the mens category three were Gary Fisher Superflys. His conclusion that technology had progressed in suspension design and in the design of 29ers that it would only be time until the 26 hardtail was dead.

The most interesting part of the article was this paragraph that ended the article,

"Is the 26-inch hardtail dead? Yes, I think so. Of course, you’ll continue to see the traditionalists and Europeans using them. And you’ll also some of the world’s most talented riders, like Orbea’s Julien Absalon, on them. But I would suspect that if these racers aren’t careful they’ll eventually be caught out. Maybe then, if the manufacturers can keep the steep technological development curve going, it’ll mean our U.S. racers who are willing to accept 29-inch wheels and full suspension will have the upper hand they need to win some big races."

Now there's a couple things that this paragraph entails:

1) The current US riders are using inadequete bikes, and that with more technological development the 29er and full suspension bikes will eventually be the better bike.

2)Europeans appearantly are staunch tradiontionalist and won't switch over away from 26 ht's and if they do it will be too late.

3)And most importantly an American will only win when they have bike that gives them an advantage.

His second article which was titled "Despiste the world's results, Velonew's Matt Pacocha says tests show 29-inch wheels are faster." In this article he did a test to see which one platform was fastest. The 26 hardtail, 26 full-suspension or 29 hardtail. Here's him describing the test:

"Over the course of 14 days I rode a full-suspension bike and hardtail bike 28 times on our 3.1-mile test course. Both bikes were built from aluminum and the position of the bikes was matched. The weight of the bikes differed by roughly one pound. The same wheelset was used on both bikes and tire pressure was kept the same. The bikes also used the same gearing. They were ridden in the same smooth-pedaling manner; riding out of the saddle created power spikes and was therefore avoided. Data was gathered using Garmin’s 705 GPS unit and a PowerTap Disc hub."

Now I give him the benefit of the doubt for trying to make the test as scientific as possible, however, his real world tests weren’t real world. Well let’s be serious it’s the real world that defeats any test of a bike. The most blatant and hard thing to control is the human factor, each riders size, style and skill will determine what bike will be best for them. He doesn’t give us any information on what the human factors. We also don’t know what bike’s he was riding. He states that “positions” of the bikes are the same. That is all well and good, but it doesn’t say the dimensions where the same. A different head angle, shorter wheelbase all lead to a different ride. If we really want to know what’s faster in wheel size, then the test should be the same dimensions with the only difference being the wheel size.

I also feel that taking away standing skews the results because that is the main reason why I chose my 26 hardtail as my race bike, I spend a lot of my time when I climb out of the saddle, I also sprint a lot more and it’s those features that make a 26 hardtail what it is.

Now the course description:

“The test course consisted of just under a mile of rolling, lightly technical terrain, a half-mile climb gaining 50 feet in elevation, 1.2 miles of non-technical but bumpy flat double track and a half-mile of twisty, fast-descending singletrack with three moderately technical sections.”

Roughly 3 miles of riding? I understand wanting to make it a smaller course to keep rider mistake out of the equation, but how often do most riders do a three miles loop? The other thing is 50 feet of climbing in half a mile is not a climb. That’s a 1% grade. Which isn’t enough to test the climbing prowess of each bike.

So, the conclusion of the test was that the 29er was a minute faster than any other bike and the Full suspension bike was second. Hence, the 26 hardtail was dead. Now I’m a numbers person on the bike, I keep all my information from my Garmin. Now on my 3.6 mile loop I’ve found the fastest times have been on my 26 inch fully rigid single speed. Now on other trails, my Full suspension is faster (think West Branch). Even on different days a different bike may be faster because of my fatigue level and line choice.

I think instead of arguing which one is faster, cause no matter what bike your choose it’s your legs that are powering it, instead lets focus on the good. Now we have an excuse to have another bike. No matter what bike you choose it’s going to be the rider who makes it faster. So stop the fighting, ride what you brought and have fun!

Lingering Injuries

2009-09-10T01:39:00.003-04:00

As most athletes know, in the heat of competition and injury and it's pain is suppressed through adrenaline. If you ask almost any athlete if this has ever happened to them, you'll hear stories of bad injuries that they didn't notice till after the race. Depending the severity it could be from the second they cross the line to hours later.

In the case of my injury at the Manatoc race it didn't show up for hours later. In my report of The Mantoc Experience I mentioned a crash early in the race. What I didn't realize was that during the crash the brunt of force had been taking by my arm which then connected with my ribs. Me being the skinny person I am and having bony elbows i ended up hurting my ribs. It didn't hurt till later that day but became much worse the next morning. So for the past week and a half I have been in a fair amount of pain and every morning I must roll on my side to get up because it hurt to much to sit up.

I'm not one to stop riding because of a little soreness or a little blood shed so I did the a couple rides last week and handled my own. Truthfully, as long as I didn't hurt it again I would have been fine. So today I went out the the CAMBA group ride to lead the group. Last week even with the injury I lead the "A" group and held an average Mph of 9.9. Today's I was feeling the pain again, and a little worse and I was being careful as my steering was a little slower and I could turn my body and I was climbing seated to minimize the pain. All was going well until I hit the river trail and picked up a little to much speed on a downhill, couldn't make a slight jog to the right in time and barrelled into a tree with the full force on my injured left side. Made it through annex an about a quarter mile through Reagan before the pain was to much and I broke off the group and road the road back to the car. Under 5 miles done of the 10-12 that we normally ride on the group ride.

I came home and took a shower and iced my side and downed the Advil and as of right now I'm feeling fine. Sara was sweet enough to bring me Raspberry sorbet and blackberries which made it so much better.

So the next week I'll be focused on recovering and not reaggrivating the injury so I'll be riding the road bike alot and hopefully next week I'll be able to hit the trails on a full suspension bike. I'll be missing the Vultures Knob race this week end along with the Bike Authority Cyclocross race. And hopefully by next Sunday I'll be back up enough to race the Medina Time Trial.

On another note CAMBA race team member Nancy is also recuperating from a back injury after the manatoc race. She crashed into a tree, injuring herself and still came across the line first. Reports are that she is able to go to work again and is able to walk. Hopefully, she'll be back on the road bike again soon. Best wishes to her and wishing her a speedy recovery.

The Manatoc Experience

2009-08-30T20:14:00.006-04:00

The Big Valley Race was a race I had circled on my calendar since it was first announced. For a little background, I was as a scout when I was a wee little one. I got my eagle and spent 8 years at Camp Manatoc. So this a very special place for me. I remember walking the trails of Camp Manatoc as a scout thinking these trails would be awesome to bike on. So last year when I started Mountain Biking and found out their was a race at Manatoc, I made it a goal to race that race. I ended up breaking a chain and finished second to last. So I had a settle to score.

I showed up and parked and met a very nice couple who drove down for this race from New York. They said they got their bikes this month and found the race today. Good for them. Lined up and got ready. I was questioning my tire choice as I picked my Small Block 8's, hoping it would be dry enough. Unfourtanitly, I could have really used my knobby Karma's. Live and learn I guess.

At the start my goal was to get to the front, and not wear myself out. So at the start I slotted in behind the first rider and stayed on his back wheel. I got a nice draft and saved a lot of energy doing so. The two of us slowly started to pull a gap on the field pretty soon and it was long before we had a 30 second gap on the field. When I knew our break was going to stick, I asked him what age class he was in suspecting he was in age group above me, that way if he was we could work together. He was in the next class up but any hopes of working together went down the drain when I washed out and fell hard, throwing my bottle and gel packs flying. Picked up my bike and got back on. I looked back and saw the third place rider and pushed myself to get my gap back. A short two miles later I came down a gravel road hill and started climbing up to see my mother and the beautiful sara cheering me on. This picked up my spirits and I picked up the pace once again.

I soon crested the hill behind the flagpool and knew it was all over, I never got passed the entire course and crested the hill and rolled down to the finish line knowing that I had completed what I had dreamed of doing for a year. It was a great feeling to hear people cheering for me and yelling my name as I came down that hill. I crossed the line giving CAMBA President Brett a high five and being surronded by Sara and my mother. I had completed the course in 48 minutes (a lot better than the hour and a half than last year), with a 10 mph average. It was a great moment for me and it was great getting another win after not winning since April.

Thanks CAMBA, Bike Authority, Crank Brothers, Ritchey Products and Kenda for letting me fullfill my dream of winning this race.

DC Vacation

2009-08-26T11:00:00.004-04:00

This summer has been incredibly busy and hard on the body and mind. I have been putting in a lot of hard efforts on the bike and working alot. I decided to take a much needed vacation to Washington D.C. to visit my sister and my brother. I hadn't seen them for a long time and I haven't done much of anything besides work and ride.

So I packed up the bike I'm trading to my brother and headed down to DC on saturday. I had sold him a fixed gear bike at the beggining of summer and that proved to be a little to much for the summer heat and his location. They aren't big hills by any means but after a long day of work or visiting attractions those hills become gruelling on a fixed gear. I can't blame him a couple times I was struggling to get up those hills. However, this switch also allowed me to have a bike while I was in the city. I parked my car when I arrived and since then it only moved once, and that's when I transfered everything from my brothers apartment to my sisters. In total I think we did about 50 miles for the week, Monday we did 30 miles around town.

DC is really a bike friendly place to live, and it's really the best way to get around. Bike racks are located in convient places so you never have to worry about finding a parking spot. Bike lanes are plentiful and if you ever get tired you can bring your bike on the metro or on a bus. This trip made me really want to move down here.

Another Motivational Poster

2009-08-12T23:21:00.000-04:00

Rubber City Meltdown

2009-08-01T20:29:00.003-04:00

Today was the first Rubber City Meltdown, which included a criterium held in downtown Akron. Along with the Crit there were rides along the towpath and other offerings. So any biker of any level could partake, and if the urban mountain bike challenges happens next year it will be truly an all encompassing event. This race is definitly on my calendar for next year.

I arrived early and got my number and as I was returning to the car I saw a familar vehicle. I should have known this but fellow teammate Nancy Desmond was there repping for CAMBA along with myself. I soon met up with Frank from Solon racing and new I was in for a good ride. Soon enough my good friend Sarah pulls up and now I have four "allys" in the race.

The course started on top of a hill slightly down the road from Luigis restuarant, took us down furnace hill into a blazing fast and wide open turn. A long slightly uphill straight leads into a hairpin up a sharp grade to a s turn under a bridge, followed by a short stretch of 2% grade to the flat finish line. It was a challenging course with the climbs but I felt a safe course as the fast turns were wide and you could really rail your bike around them without fear of crashing.

The four of us warmed up together and wait around to ride the course once before our race. The race starts out faster than a lot of us anticipated, two riders in baggie shorts and t-shirts took off. I made my way towards the front and jump into the slipstream. We took the hairpin turn up a steep grade and five riders, including myself broke away. I was shocked to make it into the lead group truthfully. The next lap starts and one of the riders in the t-shirts explodes and is soon off the back. This left us with two under 40 riders and two over forties. At this point I'm pretty certain that I can atleast clinch second in my age group and hoping the same fate will fall on the other t-shirted rider. I take a short pull on the front, which would be my only pull of the day. I wasn't planning to pull much and my dimiutive size doesn't help the other riders so I never went to the front again. Coming to 3 laps to go my legs gave out finally, and I slowley watched the three riders pull away. I take my losses and use the downhill to really recover and started pushing again. I didn't want to lose my place and most importantly I wanted to be in position if the other rider lost touch with the lead riders. So I transitioned to the drops, where I should have been the majority of the time, since I cornered better, and started to solo timetrail. Coming down the hill a lapped rider took a hard fall at the bottom of the hill, laying his bike down and sliding on his butt to the side of the road. I didn't see it happen but came across him just as he had stopped sliding. A real trooper who finished the race even after siding on his butt doing 30 mph. Two laps to go I see Sarah in the distance and race up to her. As I got close I yelled, "You got anything else?" Hoping see had a little bit of energy to help me bridge the gap. She didn't hear me and I soon came rushing past her.

The last lap I saw a rider in the distance who I think was the other rider in my age group and catch up to him right before the end. Unfourtanitly it wasn't the same rider and I ended up taking 2nd in my age group and 4th overall. Nancy ended up 3rd overall in the her age class. Another strong showing for CAMBA on some skinny tires!

Thanks to CAMBA, Bike Authority, Kenda, CrankBrothers and Ritchey products for helping me race.

Does trail sustainabiltie equal easy trails?

2009-07-27T21:30:00.002-04:00

Disclaimer: This post is not meant as a dig at anyone or claiming anyone isn't doing a good job at trail building. I whole heartily respect and I am at awe at what our trail builders accomplish. The spend countless thankless hours building and maintaining trails. This post is solely my opinion to provide my viewpoint. So please no one take offense and hopefully a good clean discussion can be had from this...

Last summer I ventured into mountain biking for the first time. I started out on a Walmart Mongoose bike and through searching on the camba.us found Quails Hollow state park. The first time out I remembered how difficult it was. The hill climbs seemed huge and difficult, the rock gardens seemed to be 100 feet long and scared the crap out of me. It probably took me an hour to finish the 3 1/2 mile loop, and I was beat after it. For some reason I was drawn back, even after the pain and difficulty I still went back out the next day to suffer, and I enjoyed it. Soon I was up to two laps and finally three and by the end of summer I was lapping at around 20 minutes a lap with ease.

I soon ventured to Reagan park in Medina. This was an eye opener. This trail was much more difficult. It seemed every time I would go there I would end up falling down a ravine somehow. The other thing that drew me to this trail was two difficult climbs, they were steep and took a lot to clear. A lot of riders couldn't make it up them. I was, however, determined to make those climbs. It was my goal to clear those climbs by the end of summer. A couple group rides later and I completed the entire trail without a dab and making it up those "impossible" hills.

Next is West Branch, truthfully, I'm growing to enjoy this trail more and more. The south side of the trails are where things get difficult. There is of course the rock gardens and then the climb out of the rock gorge. I couldn't make this climb last year, I tried my hardest every time, and could never quite get it. And then the rock gardens, Last year I could only clear the final one on the rock gorge trail, and even that was a moment for me. This year after some hesitation I returned and made it my goal to clear more and more sections of the south side of West Branch. This year I'm proud to say I've made it up the rock gorge climb and I've cleared all but one of the rock gardens on the same trail. Now my goal is to clear a new section each time out. It's hard to put into words the feeling you get after accomplishing something that you've tried so many times but couldn't. That's what draws me to this sport, the little hurdles and getting over those. I could easily get the fitness from riding my bike down the towpath, but I chose mountain biking because it's difficult, because it's has something to strive for.

So what is this post about? This year I've noticed a lot of trails getting easier, and not because of my skill level. Those climbs that I strived so hard to clear at Reagan Park, both are now no longer there, one has been rerouted around to a more gradual route, the other, which was on a trail that you rode in both directions is now only a downhill. The first one I'm sad to see go, and I understand the latter, as the downhill had a poor line of sight that could lead to an accident. An uphill rooted section at West Branch has recently been rerouted around, albeit because of a washout, but now is a gradual smooth uphill. Most of these were done because of sustainability issues, but recently a cinder block land bridge was taken out, the reasoning boiled down to it will be easier to ride.

Now I understand that some reroutes are inevitable because of either sustainability or because of saftery reasons. It just appears that the reroutes are taking easier lines. I understand some places need to be made easier because of being classified as easier trails so beginning mountain bikers need a place to learn, i.e. Quails Hollow and the Huffman side of the Medina system. I just hope that some new techincal features can be included to challenge us once again, or just simply keeping more of the technical features in the trails that already have them. I just don't want to turn the trails into "bike and hike trails through the woods." I guess I'll always have Vultures Knob.

More Cavendish

2009-07-15T11:37:00.000-04:00

Tell ya sistas!

2009-07-15T09:06:00.000-04:00

S&S OMBC Race

2009-07-12T22:40:00.009-04:00

Today was OMBC's S&S race. Located outside of Zanesville Ohio on Chris Skinner's personal training ground. He was nice enough to open it up for us and was a great host. I understand why he's such a strong rider having such a wonderful trail system in his backyard, I'm talking literally in his back yard.

I got there an hour early and had enough time to do a complete lap of the single track. Immediatly I loved the trails. Fun downhills which all ended in a tight turn preceeded by either roots or rocks, so you could open up but you had to be sure to brake before you got to the bottom.

The race started with a Le mans style start. You set down your bikes and lined up, the gun sounded and you ran 100 yards around a sign and back to your bikes. This was meant as a way to spread out the field when you dove directly into the singletrack. Some races it did some races it ended up with everyone getting to their bikes at the same time. What this did for me was give me cramps. I would fight these the entire first lap, along with never being able to recover. I spent almost the entire first lap above 180 bpm. My legs felt fine but I coul never get my heart rate and breathing to calm down.

During the first lap I heard someone yell "Go Andrew! Your looking good!" or something along those lines. At this point I was suffering and didn't recognize the voice. I knew it wasn't a racer because it was loud and wasn't winded. I chalked it up to one of the family members of the CAMBA racing team. About another mile down the trail during a short steep climb where I'm putting all my effort into getting a good place I hear the voice again and it's closer. "Go Andrew, why so serious?" I look up and to my amazment it's Bob Myers. Our local Trek representative, friend of CAMBA and a riding buddy from last year. I hadn't seen him since Ray's in January for the Tri-Flow Time Trial. He had come out to take pictures of his Trek and Gary Fisher riders and took a couple shots of me.

The race was grueling with no time to recover, even the field sections had tire size dips that killed your speed and made it so you had to keep pushing. I average 174 bpm for the entire race. I completed the 10.6 mile course in an hour 13 (with a couple seconds from not stopping the garmin at the finish.) With an average speed of 8.7mph and 1,500 feet of climbing. The first lap myself and two riders traded the lead multiple times. Entering the single track I was placed third and feeling confident. I passed the second placer rider on the first uphill, and took first when the leader took a turn to fast and had to slow down. I passed him to the inside and he quickly grabbed my wheel. I lost the two places I had gained when my chain popped off the chainring right at the bottom of a hill. I lost a lot of time putting it back on and getting up to speed going up the hill. I regained 2nd before the end of the first lap (I think) and we swapped it back and forth once or twice more. The second half of the second lap I started to feel good again and there was a lot of climbing the second half, so I was able to really gap the other rider. I could see the other rider but didn't have enough time to reel him in. The last part of the course was a open field with a short gravel road section. I kept looking back and the third place rider was far back enough that I could sit up the last part and enjoy the finish. Overall A decent finish, and gives me 4 podiums this year, one short of the 5 I aimed for with a lot of racing yet to do.

Congrats to Dirk, Mike Fletcher, and Roger Sommers for winning their races. And big props to Johnny P who finished second with a broken handlebar. Truly epic!

Thanks to CAMBA, Bike Authority, Kenda, Crank Brothers, Rudy Project and Ritchey for helping me race.

Garmin Data

Some Happenings.

2009-07-11T00:49:00.002-04:00

This week was a pretty eventful week for me. Between watching the tour every morning, My brother being in town and still trying to average 8 hours of riding a week, pluss working, I've been quite busy. Sunday I did a recovery ride at Quails Hollow on my 29 singlespeed. Two laps of just easy riding and having fun on some of the obstacles there. Monday I went to the CAMBA Monthly meeting at OECR and did some laps there. I was on Brett's wheel most of the ride and really pushed myself. I was riding my 26 singlespeed and was right around lactate threshold for most of the ride.

Tuesday I did a 30 mile road ride around the roads of Brimfield and Suffield. The roads where pretty crappy chipseal but the scenery was great. I happened upon a little traveled road that took me back from the hartville area that was lined with small family farms. Wednesday was the CAMBA group ride. It was a good morale boost as the first lap I was so fast only one person was able to hold my wheel and he said that he only did so by a thread. This should bode well for this weekends race. Thursday I took my brother out for his first mountain bike ride at Reagan Park. We did all but Bohedes trail and I was really impressed with him. He only fell once when at the start when he was getting used to the bike. By the end of the ride he was a pro on the bike. we would have finished all the trails except we had to get back to Bbq with the family.

Today I took a short 10 mile recovery ride around Tallmadge including motorpacing around the circle Around mile 8 a spider bit my forhead, appearantly he had ridden for a while inside the helmet.

Tomorrow either will be a rainy road ride or mountain biking with Jen and Mike. Let's see what the weather brings me.

Medina Twin Sizzler

2009-07-04T22:43:00.002-04:00

Pics to come tomorrow.

This fourth I did my first road race. I picked the Medina Twin Sizzler as it was easily accessible and seemed fun. I had planned to do this race since the first of the year. I had originally planned to peak for this event and make it a big race. As the season progressed, and as I accumulated points in the OMBC series it became less of a priority. So I didn't request off the night before and ended up getting less than four hours of sleep.

Race day I woke up at the ungodly hour at 5, made sure I had everything and set out. Got there parked and started to head towards the registration and as I came to the corner I see my good friend Sarah pull up. We signed up and started our warm up.

The race started a little after eight and my group 25-29 citizen started off. The pace was fine at first and I made sure my pace was around 100 rpm. I did my pull at the front pushing the pace up a little bit and hung back to the back. Went through the rotation and right as we hit the one major hill, at around mile 10 another rider about 3 back decided to go off the front. I was not confident enough to go with him this early and decided to pull him back when the front rider pulled off I decided to start the chase. I pulled as hard as I could and we started to pull him back. I was averageing about 25-26 mph off the front. This would have worked but I pulled off at the wrong time, a slight uphill, my weakpoint, and totally spent. When I got past the last rider I left a little to much space and soon lost the draft. From there on I was out of the draft. A mistake caused by my hubris. From there on out I was off the back.

I finished the race solo, I'm told only a minute behind the leaders. Overall, it was a good ride and fun time. I might do another road race but I think I'm going to keep focusing on OMBC and mountain biking. Thanks to CAMBA, Kenda, Crank Brothers, Rudy Project, and Ritchey for helping me race.

First Metric Century

2009-06-22T18:30:00.002-04:00

I was sitting at home wanting to go out to West Branch yesterday. I knew it was going to be too wet to ride, so I went out into the garage and started to do some work on my bikes. Working out in the garage I realized that one year ago yesterday was my first ride at West Branch. Before that I had taking my Walmart Mongoose out to Quails Hollow many times before. Those laid down the foundation for me, but I was just lazily going around a flat course. No Offense to Quail Hollow, love that place, but you can be lazy and slow on that course. West Branch kicked my butt. I struggled to get up the first hill out of the ravine, doing it in my granny gear and not making it up without getting off. I remember that day as being very painful. I sweated like a pig and almost throw up. I ended up heading back to the trail early (made a wrong turn and ended back to path back to the car). That was humbling day for me to say the least. I knew then I had no fitness what so ever. It was the first time where I had been defeated and I vowed that day to conquer that course. Needless to say, I conquered later that season and many times after. This year I'm able to ride that course in the big chainring no problem. I still have a couple rock gardens to clear but I'll be back to conquer those sections. It's just a reminder of where I've come in one year. From a guy on a mongoose struggling to ride, to a much stronger rider this year.

Today I decided to work on my endurance so I'm a little ready for the Wayne Ultra this week end. I had wanted to do an Imperial century (100 miles) but with my road buddies off doing other rides (sara at Goba, and John doing a recovery from his ride yesterday). I decided to shoot for a metric century. I headed up the Metro Parks MUP towards the valley and rode into the valley on Truxell. I then did a 30 mile loop around the valley including three major climbs. I took the MUP back home and was cooked by the end.

Total Mileage- 64.3

Avg speed- 16.6

Time-3 hours 53 minutes.

Elevation Gain-2800 feet

Feeling Good

2009-06-19T14:09:00.002-04:00

This past month I've been feeling pretty good. I'm getting my bike where I want it and my legs have felt really good. Kinda wish there was a race sometime soon so I could get out there. Turthfully, I feel there is a little redemption for the last two races. Neither race was a good race for me. I worked the night before and I felt it during the race. So now I know not to work the night before. There's still that unfinished bussiness of having two bad races before a long break.

I currently got Off Road to Athens. If you haven't seen this movie and race mountain bikes I suggest you go and get it right now. Here's a clip from my favorite scene.

A perfect bike?

2009-06-14T18:31:00.003-04:00

Today I headed out to my favorite trail, Medina's Reagan Park, with my good friend Mike. We both pulled into the parking lot at the same time and saw a sea of cars. Apparently Reagan Park was holding a huge soccer tournament. We somehow found parking next to each other and got ready. After suiting up we headed over to check out a certain manufacture demo tent. They were at West Branch yesterday and were at Reagan today. We had planned this ahead of time, and planned on doing two laps and then demoing some bikes. When we approached the tent we learned that they had arrived earlier today at the prescribe location at Reagan Park couldn't find the trail head and no one was around so they decided to set up over at Huffman Park. Since it was already packed because of the tournament they were asked to move back to where they were giving permission to set up their tents. The representative was a little salty and was packing up things and generally complaining. I was put off by this attitude, since they had decided to set up in a spot they were not giving permission to do so. They decided to pack up and head home, instead of letting potential customers demo their bikes. I was also off put by the position they put me in, since I was in my CAMBA uniform. I was stopped and asked multiple times where the specialized demo was. It made us look bad because a demo was posted at one of our trails and was cut short. Generally, this situation left me feeling uneasy about the brand.

It also made me realize how great a representative we have with Bob Myers from Trek/Gary Fisher. Bob Myers is very professional, and nice. His demos are well planned and go off without a hitch. If you ever talk to Bob, you'll quickly see that it isn't about anything other than a true love of cycling.

OK now onto the ride. I decided to bring two bikes out today. I planned to start on my new Nashbar 29er and if my legs didn't feel good I brought along my Gary Fisher Piranha hard tail to switch to on the second lap. Two factors made me make this decision. First was I was unsure of the gearing on the single speed. I'm running 32x18 with heavy wheels, second was this was the 8th day straight of a hard training week.

The first lap was a medium paced ride. Immediately from the start the heavy tires showed their weakness, add on wide risers and the cornering could only be described as cumbersome. Every change in direction happened slowly. I would turn the handlebars and it would take a second for the bike to change directions. Climbing was also labored as it was hard to get the heavy tires to spin up. The wet conditions and v-brakes meant braking wasn't crisp.It wasn't a horrible ride but it was missing something. The only excitement came when on a steep muddy downhill my front tire lost traction and I went over the bars.

We went back to the car and I switched to my Piranha. I immediately felt a difference in the two bikes. The Piranha was light and stiff. The feeling I got can only be described as being on a bike but not having a bike under you. It almost felt like I was running and not on a bike. With this I became more aware of what I love about this bike. First was it's handling. Turn the handlebars and the bike whips to your input. There were times where I swear just thinking about turning made the bike turn. When I pedaled there wasn't resistance from the pedals or wheels. Getting the wheels spun up to speed was effortless. Climbing was easy, easily staying in the big cog up all the climbs. The brakes would slow you down with the slightest pull and the fork soaked up the bumps without letting you know it was working. Gear shifts were smooth and seamless even uphill out of the saddle without even a hesitation. This got me thinking, what makes this bike so enjoyable to ride? It took me a while but I think I finally figured it out. I love this bike because I don't notice it. It's not about the bike when I'm on this bike, it's about the rider. It's the rider not the bike that makes you fast or slow.

That whole second lap I was smiling and thoroughly enjoying myself. Can't wait to get back there tomorrow.

Here she is.

2009-06-11T22:55:00.007-04:00

Since the Camba group ride got cancelled today I'm going to unviel it on my blog. Factory Rider Robert got a sneak peak at it today, and sorry Bob but it's not a Fisher. I wholeheartedly support the Gary Fisher brand and love their bikes, I own three, and those three Fishers will be my main bikes. This was definitaly a splurge, whim purchase. Don't worry Bob I haven't strayed far at all from the brand. But I will say you did have a part in this purchase.

So enough of this longwindeness, so what was in the box. Well here's what it looked like coming out of the box.

So this is my fourth mountain bike, and it's a rigid single speed 29er. I picked this particular bike because it's what my bank account could afford.I had been looking at the Fisher Mamba, and dreaming of a procaliber but knew I couldn't afford either of those for a while. I also wanted a rigid ss because I had a hardtail and full suspension 26er's already in my stable to handle all the race courses around the area. This bikes purpose is fun. All my other bikes beg to be ridden fast. I've set them up this way and each time I get on them I just want to go as fast as possible. This bike will be for the days where I just want to enjoy a ride through the single track and not worry about my training plan. To get back to my first few months of riding, before the racing bug bit me, where it was about the bike and the trail. No suspension settings or lockout, no gear changes, just myself pushing the pedals with a smile on my face.

The first thing I noticed about the 29er platform is how stable it is. Take your hands off and ride no handed and the bike feels like your hands are still on the bars. It's that effortless. Of course, it's harder to get the tires to spin up and doesn't have the snap getting up to speed, but once it's up to speed it's much easier to keep the pace. I feel more confident descending with the bigger wheels, higher handlebars and widers bars. Ascending is a small bit harder. If you have momentum the bike carries you up the hill, but if you lose momentum it's a lot harder to get the tires moving again.

Now to the actual bike, it's a little on the heavy side out of the box, at 25 pounds. A lot of this is in the wheels and fork. The wheels are definitly the weakest link of the bike. They are heavy, non disk (even though the bike comes with disk tabs) and the hubs are not that good. I may have another set lined up which will be much better. The fork is just heavy and I'll be looking to upgrade to a new fork. Maybe the Bontrager carbon rigid fork.

The good points, first disk tabs, other bikes in this price point don't come with those so it was a nice feature. It's also ready for gears so if I ever want to take it for an epic climbing ride I can add some shifters, gears and a read derailleur and I have a 1x9 pretty easily, for all those epic climbing rides. The frame looks nice and the welds seem nice. It's nothing special but it's going to do it's job of letting me enjoy the trails. It definitly won't be used the most but it will get it's fair share. Hopefully, I'll be out at West Branch tomorrow taking it for a test ride.

Guess What's in the Box

2009-06-10T16:07:00.001-04:00

My new toy came today, anyone want to venture a guess to what it is? Come out to the Camba group ride at West Branch state park Thursday at 6 to see it. Here's the box...

CAMBA Blue Knob Camp Out

2009-06-08T20:26:00.010-04:00

This last Friday I left for Blue Knob State Park with some hesitation. I was heading towards CAMBA's Summer camp out. It was first camp out on a new trail system. I made the long drive out there and I was rewarded with a weekend of fun.

Friday night we checked in and got settled in to our respective cabins. The camp provided ample sleeping quarters with cabins of all sizes. Some larger cabins with electricity that slept 8 or so, down to two person primitive cabins. After dropping off our gear we convened in the dining hall and sat around the fireplace, caught up with old friends and heard of adventures on the trail this year. It was a great bonding experience sitting down and talking to all the people I've met over the past year I've been with CAMBA, people I've ridden with, but haven't really gotten to meet, and people I've never met before, because our paths never crossed.

We all returned to bed early to get ready for the next day. I woke up early to a beautiful sunrise over the mountains of Blue Knob state park. I took a second out on my porch and took in the beautiful scenery. Visited another cabin and watched a baby bird take flight for the first time. What an amazing area. Helped cook the opt-in breakfast, and went and got ready for the ride.

We all assembled outside the Dining Hall and had a short meeting describing the ride. The local club ,LHORBA, came out and planned our rides and led us. They planned for every skill level and had a ride for everyone, from riders who've only been out on the trail a couple times, kids, intermediate riders who want to practice their skills and the seasoned racer. There was apprehension to go into the Expert and soon the intermediate advance group was formed with the expert group. I won't go into much detail of the actual ride, since each was different. The trail was fun to say the least, we a lot of descending and even more climbing. The paths took us up to a beautiful outlook over the entire valley and to the top of the ski hill. There were plentiful rock gardens to test your skills. Even hills that made you lose your lunch, and I'm not talking about downhills. I guess I should explain. The first climb of the day took us up a grueling hill climb. I really pushed myself hard up that hill and half way up had to stop and lost part of my breakfast.

We came back around 5ish and took a shower and ate our dinner. We all sat around for a while and old of tales of our rides. Later a roaring campfire was built and we sat around and made smores. We all slowly made our ways back to our cabins and I fell hard and slept like a log. I had done around 16 miles and 3,000 feet of climbing.

The next morning we woke up ate breakfast, which I went a little easier on, and headed out for another ride. The next day we broke into smaller groups as some riders had to head home early. My group consisted of Brett Z, Mike Farley, Neil M and our rider leader. It was a good matching as we all proceeded about the same pace. We completed a loop of the "race course" which is one of the most extremely rocky courses I've have ever encountered. It was a day of friendly trash talking, pushing each other to push harder. We ended out day with another grueling hill climb. Mike F started climbing fast up the hill, and I soon caught up, wanting to relive Tour De France history he gave me "the look" I let him roll for this for a little bit keeping him right in my sights until the climb started to get steeper and I Knew we were near the top. This is where I attacked, closed the gap and crested the climb first. We rode back up to the look out, and rode down a stair step rock garden which was a blast. We ended the day with a blazingly fast downhill that topped 27mph back into camp. Showered, finished packing, said our goodbyes and headed home.

Overall, it was a great weekend, I made many new friends and had a great time. Bill Braum did an amazing job at putting this together and it's truly appreciated. Big thanks to Brian Jay for putting together the menu and cooking and finally a thanks to LHORBA who did an awesome job of leading us around the mountain. Make sure you mark your calendars because it's a week end you don't want to miss.

Lost Garmin Edge

2009-06-02T22:21:00.003-04:00

I call on you my humble followers to help me locate my Garmin Edge 305. I took it off my bike at Quails Hollow today (6-2)around 8ish and returned home and it wasn't in my bag. I fear I had left it on my trunk. If you locate it let me know, Lap seven on todays ride was 17 minutes of 48 seconds if you need something to confirm it was mine.

On a side note the 205 is still missing but I know that's somewhere hidden in my house...

Back to the Wilderness

2009-05-31T16:58:00.004-04:00

First off I want to give a shout out to Roger who has just started his own blog Dirt and Gears make sure to check it out. Secondly, I gotta start remembering to take pictures. It's just hard to remember to take pictures on a training ride. It's just so hard to break the flow to stage a photo.

Friday, I woke up late and my plans to hit Reagan park were foiled right off the back. I wanted to get something in so I jumped on my road bike with my trusty garmin in hand and set off to do a quick interval set. If you haven't used a garmin or haven't found this feature yet, the programmable interval work outs are a nice feature to have. It comes with a bunch that are more tailored for running but with some simple tweaks, like changing some of the intervals and lengthen some. Most are usable right out of the box. All you have to do is pick the one you want to do and little pop up windows pop up to tell you what to do. Anyway, Friday I decided to try out a new one I had programmed in, the Dirty Thirty. There's many variations but the idea is max effort for short periods of time and short recoveries, back to back. I choose to do 10 second max effort, 10 rest, 15 second max, 15 rest, 30 second max then 30 seconds rest, with a couple 2 minute recoveries thrown in. I did this set six times. The 10 and 15 second efforts I did as full on sprints in a hard gear, while the 30 second one I sprinted for the first 10-15 seconds and then kept up the effort seated. The idea is to simulate mountain bike race pace with hard efforts with little time to recover. It should help my racing pace if I keep doing it.

Saturday I met my friend Mike (Bionic Knee) for a ride at Vultures Knob. I felt in good form and my new fork and rear Derailleur finally made my Full suspension Pro-caliber not feel like a sluggish off. The new fork took at least two pounds off the bike which made a huge difference in it's corner. This and my good form made for a good ride for me, hitting all the technical sections with ease. It wasn't a horribly fast session but it was still a blast. It was also a big step for me since Mike was the rider I chased all last season, barely hanging onto his wheel and this year I was leading with ease and pulling away at times.

Sunday I met my friend Roger (mentioned above, have you checked his blog yet? No? Well go check it out and then finish reading mine!) met up at Mohican Wilderness. We did two whole laps with 2500 feet of pure off road climbing and my legs are begging for mercy. Bike worked perfectly again, but I remember it being a lot smoother the last time around. My hard tail gave me a beating on some of the fast descents. Roger is a strong rider and put me through my paces today. It was a good ride, I completed all the climbs and all the rock gardens. Thanks Rays indoor mountain bike park for the that!

This week is still up in the air. Either Monday or Tuesday will be a recovery day (depending on which day it's going to rain) and Wednesday hopefully the weather will hold out for another CAMBA group ride. Thursday will be a day off then it's off the Blue Knob State Park for the CAMBA summer campout, three days of riding. I'll be in heaven. I'll promise to take pictures on that one.

My little experiment (Vultures Knob Race)

2009-05-23T22:28:00.003-04:00

I was lucky enough to have today off for a "training race" at Vultures Knob. Since it wasn't a ombc race I decided to have a go at the next class up, Sport. Since no series points where at stake I had nothing to lose.

I was really excited to step up and see what I could do in the sport class. Off the line I grabbed the holeshot. They had changed the prologue to a more flat section that stayed away from the twisty technical section that gave everyone so much trouble last time. This was a welcome change as it strung out the field much better. I got out in front and let into the single track, I looked over my shoulder to see where everyone was and heard a familiar voice, "Don't worry, we got a good gap on them." It was my good friend Roger. Knowing that I was pacing a friend up front made me push even harder. I peaked above 180 4 times in the mile and a half. This took it's toll on me and the chase group finally caught up to me and passed me. Roger kept going on and ended his day with a second place, congrats to him as he rode a great race.

Soon, the second chase group caught me and passed me. I just couldn't go any faster, my heart rate was pegged above 170 for the first two miles and I finally couldn't push harder. I settled into my own pace and just hung on off the back of the pack. I was still pushing hard and when I hit the gravity jump I went full speed and had my entire body compress because of the G-force. My chin almost touched the bars I fell so low. I trudged on until mile seven where I clipped a tree with my handlebar at about 15 mph. I flew over the bars, dislodging my seatpost and handlebars and ripping the helmet from my head. I don't remember much of it.I remember hitting the tree and then moaning to the rider, Julie Sroka, behind me as she asked if I was ok. It must have been a sight to see from her vantage point, and it took me a while to move out from under my bike. Surveyed the damage, my bike looked fine, but the retention system on my helmet was done. So I decided that I was done. Rode back out to the start and dnf'ed for the first time.

Overall, I'm glad I went up a class. I know I'm a strong novice rider and now I know that I'm not quite ready for sport. This is a learning year for me, and I learned a lot today. By the end of the summer I'm sure I'll be able to hang with the sport riders but I'm not quite there yet. I also learned that my Kenda Karma's, while good in damp to muddy/wet, don't handle as well in dry conditions. The deep and far apart knobs just didn't grip in the dry and loose conditions but a pair of Kenda Small Block 8's would have been perfect, which I will be picking up soon. I now have some time off between races to get back into training and come back stronger.

Group ride and other things.

2009-05-21T21:18:00.002-04:00

Sorry for no pictures.

This week marked the opening of West Branch and Medina and also the start of the summer group ride schedule. So it's been a pretty busy week for me on the bike. Before I worked the dinner shift at work on Monday I went through and overhauled my drivetrain. Got xt derailleurs (front and rear) and shifter and all new cables. It was a longer task than I expected mainly because while everything was off the bike I figured it was the perfect time to give the bike a thorough cleaning. Monday was the official opening of West Branch so I had to go out there Tuesday.

I have very mixed feelings about West Branch. It's the closest longer trail to my house and it's a decent trail, but for some reason I don't get excited about it. It has roots and rocks and hills and descents and some tricky technical stuff but I never come away excited about the ride like I do at other trails. I also tend to hurt myself on that trail. So I went out there Tuesday to give it another go, maybe with my endurance and skills progressing over the winter I might enjoy it more.

I get out there and within a half mile I misjudge a descent and end up in a tree. This gives me an incredible Charley horse on the inside of my thigh. I finish lakeside and I'm feeling good so I head over to Rock Gorge. I'm doing well and clearing stuff I didn't clear last year, still can't get up the hill after the river crossing but still feeling good about it. I'm cruising along a flat section and clip a tree with my handlebars which sends me over the bars. I get up and soldier on. Still feeling good I head over to Bit O' Honey. Why I don't know. Last year towards the end of August I fell on this trail and hurt myself pretty badly. Today was no different, in fact where I fell is where I had fallen on that ride last year. Once again I banged up my knee which I've been icing since then and is healing nicely.

Wednesday was the return of my favorite group ride. CAMBA holds a group ride every Wednesday at Reagan Park. Almost always a good turnout and it's a great course. Last year I was a solid mid-to front of the B group. I had debated what ride to do before hand because of the knee injury so I arrived early and did a lap of the Huffman Park Trail. I felt great, no knee pain and I had energy. So I decided on the A group. Nancy Desmond led the A group and played sweeper and I took the front to set the pace. I set out a little below race pace, I wasn't sure of the tempo so I figured a little below would work. Hit the first climb at Huffman and looked behind me and no one was there.I had gapped the A group, the group on the one ride that I was off the back of and barely held on last year, and today I was pulling away from them, this would be how the entire evening went.

I kept having to set up and cool my tempo. I'm not saying I was faster than the people in the A group, because I know there are fast riders in there, Johnny P, Robert Shroka, Mike Farley, Nancy Desmond, all riders who are fast and quick. It was just that day I was feeling great. I know the course better than any course, my bike was in the best condition and lightest it's been. I don't know what it was but I just never tired and did the entire 10 miles in the big ring.

Today I went to West Branch for another CAMBA group ride. And boy did I not feel good. Three days of hard riding had down it's damage. I hung onto the A group for the entire Lake Side loop. Towards the end I ran into my team mate Mike and we rode the Lake Side loop backwards. He was flying and my tired legs felt like lead.

This weekend I will be doing the Vultures Knob race, and either Mohican State Park or The Valley Death Ride.

West Branch Group Ride

2009-05-18T16:20:00.001-04:00

West Branch is finally open so I will be out there Sunday to ride the trail. Meet me at ten o'clock at the trail head. I'll be in my CAMBA Jersey.

The Wild. OMBC race #4

2009-05-17T19:13:00.003-04:00

Well today the cycling gods did not have me in their favor. I shouldn't have raced today and all week I had switched back and forth about going or not. I had two hard efforts in my legs right before the race and had to work the day before so I never got a chance to recover.I don't regret going to the race today, and I'm not mad or let down. I'm neutral over the whole affair. I know bad days will happen and the hands of god will dictate when a part will decide to go, and when planning my race schedule I added extra races for days like these. Truthfully, I've been somewhat lucky, two of the first three races were done in extreme conditions with lots of mud. Everything worked perfectly and I got two wins in bad conditions.

But what can I say, today was not to be. Off the line I slotted into second position. I had burned a few matches and I was happy to sit there until I got my second wind. About 4 guys slotted in behind me. One rider said after the race that he had done so to pace himself as he figured I would have been near the front. I only got two miles in and my head was clogged, I felt like I was about to puke. I guess I have a slight cold which was made worse by my hard effort so I let the four riders go by, no reason to kill myself. I knew I was working hard because my heart rate was pegged close to 190. I settled down to a decent pace and tried to not lose any more places. My legs felt fine but my body had no energy to give. Because I was not feeling good it was hard to stay focused and I made some stupid mistakes and have a couple scrapes to show for it.

I was soon swallowed up by the expert class riders, and shortly after by the sport riders. My friend John Proppe came through and we chatted for a brief second as I explained how my body was rebelling against me. Right after John came my teammate Mike and finally Rusty. Both were pushing hard and looking good.

Right after they went by, and around halfway my derailleur hanger got bent, sucking my derailleur towards my spokes. The deraileur looked fine but I will be getting a new one later this week. I knew it was to far to bend back so I took it off and tried to make it a single speed, wrapping the now defunct cable around my top tube. This is easier said then done when you mind is cloudy and you are on an adrenaline rush. I thought it got it onto a reasonable gear setting to make it back but I was soon proved wrong as a pin in my chain gave. Went down to a smaller cog in the back and redid it and I was off again. Low and behold the chain broke again. I had used my two connector pins I had with me and by this time the chain had grown so small that going single speed again wouldn't work. I had no choice but to push my bike the last 2 miles of the course. I finished the race nonetheless feet before another novice rider who had also come to the same fate. After the race I went straight to the car and sat down, John was kind enough to bring over some pasta and I sat there for a good bit getting my wits about me.

I want to thank Bike Authority, Kenda, Crank Brothers and Rudy Project for their support. All of their products performed flawlessly. Finally, a thanks to my teammates who gave kind words and helped me out today.

Back to Medina and 1,000 miles

2009-05-15T21:59:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I happened to get called off because a big party canceled, and since it was so beautiful out I decided to go for a ride. I hadn't been on my road bike for a long time and I decided I needed to return to valley and get some hill climbs in. I had also checked my total mileage for the year and I thought I had 50 to go to hit 1,000 miles, so that was my goal for yesterday. I went out and did a revised version of the big boy route. I added on Boston Mills east and Truxell road climbs on to the end. I did my ride and had 10 miles to go so I called my mom and told her to meet me out to eat in Hudson and finished my last ten miles around Hudson and Stow. When I got home I plugged in the Garmin and checked my total miles for the year and I was three short! Below is the map of the route
2009/05/14 Import
Find more Bike Rides in Hudson, Ohio

Finally, today I missed the Trek Demo because of work but was able to get a lap in at the Reagan Park trails. I got 12 miles in today and my legs felt dead from yesterdays ride so I wasn't pushing to hard. The new reroutes and mud kept my speed down since I didn't know what was coming around each corner. I ran into Emily who I had met at a trail day in January. She is back from school and is pretty fast. It was great to see her again. So his week I reached my goal and I'm planning on racing the wilds this week end so hopefully I can have another post of another race win on Sunday.

Reclaimng OECR

2009-05-12T21:46:00.014-04:00

Yesterday I had the day off and decided to drive up to the CAMBA Monthly meeting. It was a neat experience and it was good to be part of the behind the scenes action. A nice bit was when Brian was asked for a report on our race team. Brain answered "where racing" which was about true. Brett (el presidente) commented that we seemed to have a lot of podiums at the races, to which Brian said "Yep, and we are going to have a state champion" while nodding at me. After the meeting, we all went out to ride around the OECR (Ohio and Erie Canal Reservation) trail. Which John aptly described as a more intense Quails Hollow. We splintered pretty quickly as some where just leisurely riding and others where going fast. I fell towards the faster category. Truthfully, I didn't feel it was a good ride for me, but when I looked back at my numbers from my Garmin I realized I had kept a steady pace and a steady heartrate. I was pushing hard but wasn't over doing it.

Today was supposed to be a ride with Johnny P at Mohican State Park. I got to his house and he remembered he had left his shoes at his moms house in North Royalton, a 40 minute drive in the opposite direction. Kinda bummed but his moms house happened to be a mere 12 miles from OECR so we decided to go there again.

We arrived there about 2ish and set out after getting ready. The first lap I led to point out some trouble spots, those pesky blind decreasing radius turns that can shoot you towards a pretty nasty slope. He seemed to like the course so the second lap we stopped and took some photos, which are posted here.

After this we decided to do four laps at race pace. I wanted to see where I stood against him and it would be good training. I led off the line trying to burn some of his energy, I had gears so I know that the lead up on the parking lot would be my best chance to get ahead and maybe put some hurt into him. If I could lead into the single track I was hoping to push the pace on the climbs to wear him down. To my dismay on a short double track section right before the start of the trail he got around me. I kept him in my sights for the majority of the lap. During the lap I noticed my chain skipping. Towards the bottom of the ravine there's switch back with two lines, one carves to the inside of a small tree, the other to the outside. The inside line is safer but slower, the outside lane is faster but puts you in between a tree and a log on the outside. To be fast you have to stay to the inside of the outside and get as close to the tree as you can. The last two days I had done this, the lap before I leaned in and caught my shoulder on the tree. Not enough to do damage but enough to remind me it was there. This lap I forgot, and my hip barreled into the tree at full speed, hitting right on my pelvic bone. I stayed on the bike but was in immense pain, after analyzing the situation and making sure nothing was broke, I pedaled lightly back to the car. I fixed my chain and got bored waiting for John so I set out on another lap.

I kept an easy pace and turned an easy gear. Since nothing was broken I knew that the pain was from my muscles tightening and the best thing to do is stretch it out. John caught me towards the end of the trail and we rode out to the car together. I urged him to finish last lap as I would sit this one out and gain my wits about me. A little accident in a training ride can really take the drive out of you. There's no adrenaline rush you get at a race to mask the pain, so it's best to sit out the lap and regroup.

John finished his last lap and went over the bars and hurt his shoulder so both of us knew the end of the ride had come. So we were tooling around in the parking lot. John popping some mad wheelies and I practicing my skinny riding skills on the berms of the parking lot. Did about two until my front wheel slid into a gap between the curb and the grass, as my rear wheel slid off the curb in the opposite direction. My front wheel was stuck and my weight was leaning towards the pavement which is where I ended up landing on the same hip I had just injured, DOH! That officially ended my ride.

Over all it was a fun ride, good pace and good practice at cornering and learning where I need to be to be competitive as a sport racer. Tomorrow, is either Quails Hollow or a road ride depending on how the hip feels.

I'm back

2009-05-09T13:34:00.002-04:00

This week I took a semi planned week off from riding. I had expected a couple days off and some light rides but my body and mind told me I needed a break. So I took it's advice and enjoyed some much needed rest.

Today I did my normal house route, a little over 9 miles and it took my body a while to get back into things, plus I had a killer headwind for the first half. But the second half my legs opened up and I started to feel good again. Monday, I'm attending the CAMBA meeting and group ride, and Tuesday I have off so I will probably heading to Vultures Knob. My new Bontrager Race lite wheels for my Piranha are at the shop getting Stans sealant put in to go tubeless, so I will be interested in getting those back and seeing the benefits of tubeless. So it should turn out to be a good week.

While it was sunny here...

2009-05-03T20:08:00.007-04:00

it was wet and rainy in West Virginia. I never planned to be in West Virginia for this race. Mainly it was a monetary reason. Two hour drive plus entry fee and the cash starts flying out of my pockets. Luckily, Brian Lennon e-mailed me the week before and was trying to get carpooling together. I thought, "Well since we can spread the gas around I can afford to go down. So I requested off work and changed my training plan to be ready for the race.

Brian had to back out at the last minute, and I can't blame him as I too debated whether it was worth the drive. Luckily, Johnny P called me right after saying that he wanted to go. So that was that and I was going to Mountwood.

As we got closer the rain become heavier and we know that we'd be in for another mud Fest. Got down there with enough to warm up but not enough to pre-ride the course. I knew nothing off the course other than it's known for being muddy and that a hardtail would be adequate. Lined up for the start along the left side feeling pretty good.

We started last and I got the hole shot on the half mile road up to the single track. The trail immediately started to climb and my legs really started to hurt. I lost some places, I think I dropped to fifth place. The first 5-8 riders stayed close together, wheel to wheel, with the leader never being out of my sight. I started slowly picking off riders on the climbs until I was back up to second place. I was happy to follow him for a little bit and rest my legs from the hard effort to get back up to him. I stayed on his tail for a mile and half or so until on a short uphill he spun his tire on a root and had to put a foot down. I knew this was my time to attack and go off the front. I passed him as he was putting his foot down and crested to hill and put it in the big ring and went off the front. No one answered this move and no one could match my pace for the remaining miles. My Kenda Karmas worked perfectly for these conditions, I barely slipped on the uphills and they stuck in the turns and my Crank Brother Eggbeaters shed mud perfectly and always clipped in perfectly. I crossed the finish line first of any rider feeling good.

Camba had another good day on the trail with Mike coming in first in Sport class and Rusty coming in 4th in Open Vet. It was also good for Northeast Ohio as Johnny P. finished second in the sport class (1st sport senior). It was looking good for a 1-2-3 in the sport class for Northeast with Darren in third for the first 4 miles but a mechanical ended his race early. Off the line it was John, Mike and Darren leading the pack into the first turn. Great Job to all the CAMBA riders that showed up.

Thanks to Bike Authority, Crank Brothers, Kenda, and Rudy Project for the support.

New tires!

2009-05-01T02:13:00.002-04:00

I got in a set of Kenda Karmas today. Can't wait to try them out this weekend at the Mountwood Challenge. From the looks of them they should grip well and our similar enough to my last tire of choice that they should be easy to get used to.

Did two laps at Quails Hollow before rain stopped me today. I am impressed at the conditions so far this year. Even with the rain, Quail has held up nicely. Mad Props to the CAMBA Trail crew! Today's ride my legs finally felt good for the first time in a while. Hopefully I can get out on the trail tomorrow if not I'll do a road ride to keep the legs fresh and then it's of to West Virginia for a mud fest. Should be fun.

Mohican Group Ride

2009-04-27T22:50:00.002-04:00

Sunday I got to finally go and ride the entirety of the Mohican State Park. 25 miles of pure single track fun. The original group was to consist of Mike (BionicKnee), Scott (Salsaman) Johnny P, Roger, Dirk and myself. Johnny P or Dirk couldn't make it and Roger showed up but because cell phones don't work in Mohican State Park I couldn't tell him that we were running late. Once again sorry about this Roger, though word is he did run into Brian Lennon from the CAMBA race team while he was out there.

I won't bore you with the details of the course but will hit some of the highlights we had. The first of three mechanicals happened to my bike. I had installed my cranks wrong and the cranks shifted to the left. Making my smallest, aka granny gear, out of range of my front derailluer, which left me under geared for most of the climbs. I, however, didn't walk a single one. Another two miles down the trail Scott broke his chain. Nothing broke for the next 15 or so miles.

I must admit that it wasn't my best day of riding. I went down twice mostly due to washing out on fast turns. Nothing serious or anything but I was pushing harder on the ride and took my tires past there grip level.

We reached the second parking lot at the top of the hill and went in search of water. The horse trailer though busy didn't have any water. We got excited when we found a water spicket at a campground which wasn't turned out. So we rode down the road in search of anything. At this point I had drinking the two bottles of water in my camelback plus a water bottle full of gatorade, and we still had ten miles to go! We found two houses, the first didn't answer their door but the second one a kind lady let us grab water from her faucet. The one thing I should have done on this break was eat and that would come back to hurt me later.

At mile 17 my chain started to skip real bad, and I knew that could only be one thing, a broken chain. I had a feeling that I would break one since I had to grind up every 3000 feet of climbing. Lo and Behold, a pin had pulled out. Fixed that and we were on our way again.

Another 3 miles down the road I started to feel hunger pains. Another mile and I was in full on bonk mode. Even though I had eaten earlier and drank the entire ride I was dehydrated and out of fuel. This all happened during a technical downhill rock garden section. My vision started blurring and my legs felt like jelly. It wasn't long before I was down again. Luckily I fell on soft pine needles and no damage was done. I got up and made my way down the trail and hit an uphill and I couldn't go an further. I knew I had to stop and get some food and water. I shoved an entire powerbar into my mouth and chugged as much water as I could. It took me a couple miles but after a while my legs came back and I finished strong.

At the end I could barely walk and I was on empty again. I barely could change out of my sweat stroke riding clothes and slumped into my car. It was a hard tough ride home where I fought wanting to fall asleep. I gotta admit I was proud of myself and enjoyed every second of it. Thanks Mike and Scott for a great ride. It was a big moral booster to look back and see how far I've come over the last year. Last year at this time I didn't own a bike and now I'm doing MSP in under 3 hours. Can't wait to get back and do it again! Now to taper for The Mountwood challenge. I'm hooked on racing and I look forward to more miles this season.

A Beautiful Day to Ride

2009-04-24T23:28:00.003-04:00

Today was a beautiful day outside. I couldn't believe it truthfully, over the winter I wasn't sure the sun would ever rise again. So I worked my morning shift got my car from the repair shop and heading back to my favorite area to road ride, the Valley. On the way in I stopped into my local LBS to pick up two Camelback podium water bottles. I've only heard good things about them and I've thrown out almost my entire collection of water bottles because they were grungy. While there I grabbed the last Bontrager Race light lux mtb saddle they had for half price. I've been looking all over for this saddle and I couldn't beat the price.

I got out to the Valley later than anticipated but it turned out to be perfect. The sun was starting to set so the temp was perfect, hot enough so I could finally wear my summer jersey with no warmers but not to cold. I did the Bib Boy route from the Century Cycles page and I have to say I felt good the entire time. My Garmin said I did 27 miles with 1350 feet of climbing at an average speed of 17.5 mph. All my averages where right where I wanted them to be.

Tomorrow I will be at Quail Hollow before work to take my Full suspension Gary Fisher Procaliber out for a test ride before Sundays ride at Mohican State Park. Hopefully, all goes well. One last thing, I had planned to do the Races at The Lake Series Saturday but will skip instead to hit up the OMBC Mountwood race next Sunday.

My Goals for the next month

2009-04-19T20:49:00.003-04:00

I went out and rode Quail Hollow today and even though I was a little tired and sore I did a lap of 18 minutes and 17 seconds on my single speed full rigid bike. So I now I have two training goals set up.

The first is sub 18 minute laps on my rigid single speed. Shouldn't be hard. Once I reach this I'll take another 30 seconds off that and work towards that.

The second is sub 30 minute laps of my house loop time trail on my road bike. The best time so far is 30 minutes and 49 seconds for 9.7 miles.

Well there you go that's my goals for this month and hopefully I can hit those.

I've got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell!

2009-04-19T10:46:00.004-04:00

I'm sitting here watching the live dutch feed of the Amstel Gold race on my computer and recovering from yesterday. I got up early and did rode down to the Race at the Lake series race to watch Sara race her race. She put in a good effort and I was really proud of her. The womens category was 8 strong and she was up against a past national crit champion. She got dropped early but gave a great effort. Because of the weather I ended up getting a nasty burn. Watching the race excited me and I'm planning on doing my first crit race next Saturday in cat 5 for the second RATL series.

I got home and cleaned my bike and ate and I was off to the Vultures Knob OMBC race. This year they added a prologue to the start of the race to hopefully thin out the group before we hit single track. Well this didn't really work because they didn't separate the classes with enough time and after about a quarter mile we were dumped off in a pretty technical section. My group immediately cut the group that was started out a minute before. I was caught up and the a couple of the riders got away from me. Luckily there was a climb up a field during the prologue and I was able to get past the slower sport riders and started to make up ground on the other riders. Halfway through the lap at the split I found out I was the 3rd novice to go through. So I started to push harder. Towards the end one rider got by me but I ended up with a nice third place finish.

After the race it was a party atmosphere and it was nice to see everyone from last year. My friend Roger was presented his custom bike from last year. During the awards presentation I was the only rider still present so I was anointed with Wild Turkey and giving my prize, a Vultures Knob cowbell. One or two drops actually made it in my mouth while the rest was splattered over my sunburned face. A pretty fun race!

Race Weekend and the rough roads of Kent

2009-04-17T23:50:00.006-04:00

I'm sitting here waiting for tomorrow to come. It looks to be a fun day with watching Sarah at the Races at the Lake Series in the morning and in the evening I'll be doing the Vultures Knob OMBC in the evening. I do want to mention two confidence inspiring rides I had this week. The first was Monday the 13th, I took a trip out to Quails Hollow and did three laps all under 20 minutes on my singles speed full rigid Gary Fisher Advance. It felt good to hammer on my favorite course and full pace. The second was my 10 mile time trail course around my house. I had set up a course on my Garmin and I'm able to race my last time. First lap I did it in 34 minutes and 10 seconds. Second time out I did it in 31 minutes and 10 seconds. Thursday I completed it in 30 minutes and 49 seconds with an average speed of 18.8 mph. Next week I will try and complete it in under 30 minutes.

I also wanted to post some pics of the rough roads of Kent. The first is the brick section near downtown kent. A short quarter mile section it's a fun road to hammer through in the big ring.

The second is really 200 meters long and is a narrow one lane rough road, reminds me of the roads of Europe and it's ends with a 90 degree turn with a slight downgrade.
Finally is the a half mile gravel road. This one gets a little more techinical because you have to follow the tire tracks to stay out of the big gravel and there's a slight uphill. Still fun to barrell down at 20 mph.

I can't wait till Cyclocross season!

Rainy day ride.

2009-04-11T10:37:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I wanted to ride. I had missed a group ride on Thursday and hadn't gotten very many miles this week, my longest ride was 11 miles! Snow and time where a major factor in this. So when I was done with work at two I decided hell or high water I'm going riding.

The problem was it was raining. Well, I built up a rain bike for this reason so I hooked up the Garmin and a blinkie and headed off. Didn't really go anywhere specific nor did I follow any route I had done before. The one thing I wanted to do was to ride past where I usually turn on Lynn Road and ride down the gravel portion. I had a blast, it kept me on my toes and added a little bit of spark to the ride. I had so much fun I decide to hit as many "bad roads". I hit four in total Lynn Rd (Gravel), Crystal st (one lane dirt), Franklin Ave (Brick) and SunnyBrook rd (Potholes). It was a fun ride, going no where in particular but when I got close to something of interest I would head over that way. Spent 2 hours out in the rain for 33 miles and I had a great time. I added a graph of the information from my garmin:

Trek Factory Demo (Reagan Park)

2009-04-08T23:41:00.005-04:00

Bob Myers and Trek are bringing the Demo Truck back to Northeast Ohio. Last years was a blast with a full line of bikes to choose from. Try out that 29er that you've been dreaming of, or sick of waiting for the rain to dry, try out a Madone on the road. This is a great oppurtunity to test a wide aray of different bikes. I know I'm looking forward to the Roscoe and theTop Fuel. If it's anything like last year, there will be plenty of swag to go around!

Where: Medina Reagan Park, Tent located at Soccer Fields in Huffman Park of Rt 3

When: May 15th 10-4

Why: I just told you! Read above

Bikes:Madone, Top Fuel, Fuel EX, Roscoe, Superfly, and more!

Put on with Help From CAMBA!

Ride Schedule

2009-04-07T16:08:00.004-04:00

If anyone wants to join me for a ride here's when I'll be riding.

Thurs- Summit Freewheeler group ride, Botzum trailhead I'll be there about 5:30 leaves at 6

Friday- Somewhere in the Valley, maybe big boy route, Sometime after 5.

Sunday- Vultures Knob, time TBA

Let me know if you want to come out and ride, I'll make sure to not leave without you.

Finally! Mohican Wilderness Win!

2009-03-29T19:44:00.009-04:00

Today was the ride I had always dreamed about, the ride where all the training miles pay off. Today was my first win. Before this race I had a season of leisurely riding and three races under my belt, a 15th at big valley (mechanical), 4th at Medina TT's and 17th at Ray's XC TT. Not the best record but you have to start somewhere. The Mohican Wilderness OMBC race had been on my radar for a while, I figured it would suit my style, having plenty of climbing involved. Climbing has always been where I've picked up time. Being lighter and all the hill climbs I do, I'm able to get up the hills fast, in fact, at the Big Valley race before my mechanical I had picked off 4 places on a single climb. With that figured in I thought I could pick up some spots going uphill.

The day of the race came and climbing became a moot point. Forty five minutes before race start a torrential downpour came and left the course slippery and muddy. Very little actual climbing could be done in these wet and very slick conditions. So my goal was to get to the head of the pack off the front and hang on as long as I could. At the start I rocketed off the front with a good 100 meter gap between the Field and I. As we got on the trail the conditions became apparent, it was going to be muddy the entire time. I kept the lead in my class for the first mile or so with another rider slowly gaining on my tail. The hill became treacherous and the almost the entire mile had to be walked because of the slickness of the trail. This is where I lost some positions as I cramped from running up the hills, so now I will add some running to my workout routines every once in a while.

At the top of the hill, I was able to get back on my bike and start picking off people again. I was able to get past everyone and was back in the lead, but I wasn't sure if someone had gotten ahead of me. Heading onto the gravel road one rider was gaining on me again and by the time we hit the singletrack again he was right on my wheel. We traded places for the next mile or so neck and neck we eventually caught up to one of the sport class riders. Going around a tight, steep switchback the sport rider fell and I made a daring move around him. This gave me back my gap and from there on out I stayed off the front. For the rest of the 4-5 miles I sped through twisty roller coaster single track coming upon two more sport riders, the last rider told me I was the first novice to go through and that gave me the boost to pedal harder. The trail dumped me out at the beginning and I started sprinting towards the line. Halfway there I looked back and saw no riders and it was at that point I know I had finally done what I had dreamed about all winter and spent hours training, money to upgrade the bike, and practicing my skills was finally coming to fruition. I crossed the line, mud covered, wet, cold and tired but it didn't matter because this is what I love.

Thanks to Camba, Bike Authority, Crank Brothers, Rudy Project and Kenda for making this possible.

On a side note it was a good day to be my friend as Johnny P Finished first in Sport senior class and Sarah Harper finished 1st in her division in her 5k today! Congrats to you guys.

Introducing the Dirty Sanchez

2009-03-28T17:33:00.005-04:00

I want to introduce the Dirty Sanchez, the mustache I will be sporting for tomorrow's season opening race at Mohican Wilderness. In preperation today I did a easy paced ride around the towpaths of the CNVP, with my croonies Mike and Jen Bloomhuff. It was fun to catch up on the last couples months and talk shop. Nothing major to report, did get to go up Oak Hill road again. but here are some pictures from today

Totals to date (not including indoor training):

Total Mileage:521 Miles

Total time: 37 hours, 43 minutes

Elevation: +13,597 feet of climbing

Calories burned: 134,811

Total rides: 31

4 rides, 4 days and 4 different bikes.

2009-03-25T19:35:00.007-04:00

Sunday started my four days of riding. John and I went out to pre-ride the rest of Mohican Wilderness that we missed the last time we were out. It was a beautiful day once again, dry, sunny and warm. Being a week from the first ombc race and good weather there was a good amount of people out on the course. John and I had discussed chain breakage on the way up. He had pointed out that he though it was difficult to break a single speed chain, with no gears he figured the wear would be less. The first half of the trail we rode through no problem and headed off to the longest mtb hill climb in Ohio. Before we even reach to woods and about 300 feet up the hill John snaps his chain. We head back to the car and he put on a new link and off we go again. This is where karma can be a real buzzkill, John breaks his chain about half a mile up the hill. We fix the chain with tool and links we had smartly brought with us. We ascend the hill and start the downhill, at one point something happened where I had to stop, I forget way, maybe a stick got stuck in my wheel or something like that. Nonetheless, John went ahead. I fixed whatever had happened and set off. Get back to the car and John is no where to be seen. Since I was behind and didn't pass him I knew that he hadn't had a mechincal or fallen, so I assumed he had either gotten lost or gone off course and went back to try and find me. If he had gotten lost it wouldn't be a big deal because it's all one big hill so all he had to do was point his bike downhill and he would end back at the cars. So I waited around and did a little bit of cool down and waited for him to get back. When I got back his bike was sitting against the car minus a chain. That's right three chains in one ride! I can understand climbing those hills on a single speed you'll surely put a lot of torque into the pedals.

The second ride was a short 10 miler on my fixed gear that served two goals. First, it was meant as a recovery ride to keep my legs fresh, secondly, it was a chance to play with my new toy. The Garmin edge 205. It doesn't have heart rate or cadence but those will be features I will get back when I can afford an edge 305 later in the summer. The amount of other data and other features is incredible and will hold me over till then. The information that can be disected is so vast. Not a bad ride overall with a 16.7 mph average.

Next ride involved my Scattante Team XRL and the Summit Freewheelers. It was rather chilly on tuesday but still was a fun ride. Both of my croonies John and Sara showed up. Sara was alte and showed up to the wrong trailhead so we sadly missed her, though she would make it up the next day, and John was running late but luckily was able to jump onto the back for a good ten miles before he pulled off. We started at Botzum and ascended up Truxell Road where I was off the front the entire way. At the top we started are rotating paceline and did a quick loop around Stow and retraced down Truxell again where I hit my new top speed of 42 mph. We followed Riverview back and I asked if anyone would contest a final sprint. No one spoke up, so i figured the last 200 meters I would go all out and see if anyone would try and catch me. Well, 300 meters out one of the other riders jumped and we were off. We quickly left behind our group and blew by the Akron Bicycle Club that was 100 meters up the road. I got from 13 mph to 32 mph in 30 seconds over 300 meters on a flat road. Not to shabby for early season and being a climber.

The last ride invovled Sara and I and my Fuji "rain" bike. It rained early in the day but cleared off nicely this afternoon for a good go at the CVNP Big Boy route. It was a fun day with three major climbs of 2000+ feet total and 31 miles. Sara is a great rider and a fun person too. She stuck out each of the climbs and did well. She flatted out towards the end but that was an easy fix. With a avg speed of 15.9, and hour fifty nine minutes on the bike it was a perfect ride. I'm sure there will be a lot of fun rides with my two croonies this summer.

90 miles in 4 days

5 hours on the bike total plus working everyday.

Not a bad week!

Mohican Wilderness Pre-ride

2009-03-17T21:29:00.012-04:00

Today was the first warm weather mountain bike ride! It was meant as a pre-ride of the Mohican Wilderness race in two weeks. John and I both had today off and the weather was as warm as it was going to get for a couple days it was the perfect day to try the trails out. The first thing I noticed was that the trail was hard to find. It's located along a dirt road right outside of Mohican Reservation. Once you get there it's not entirily clear where the trail starts, and once you get on the trail it's easy to take a wrong turn in the early season. The area is potmarked with old logging roads that crisscross the trail, some are designed into the trail others are not. There were three places where the trail left the logging roads but there was not sign to show a change in direction. So needless to say a lot of time was wasted getting lost.

The first major climb was up a gravel covered logging road. It was a steep uphill and John and I stopped to see who could get up it the furthest. I was first to go, I hammered hard up the hill and got about halfway up. John went second and beat me by about 50 feet. Third time I tried a different approach and went slow and steady. This time I made it most of the way up before I lost traction. John tried to best me but in his overgeared signaled-speed couldn't best me. To the right is my winning run up the hill.

After the hill climb fun we found the trail to the right and followed a fun rolling rollercoaster section the bottomed out with a small rock covered section. Followed by yet another climb but less severe. Besides another wrong turn that sent us up a crazy steep logging road. We found our bearings and got back on the trail, where John endoed. From here it was clear where the trail went and we headed back to the parking lot and rode down from the top of the trail, which is in this video.

When we got to the bottom I noticed my stem had loosened at the handlebars. So we stopped back at the car for me to retighten the bolts. To my dismay the screws had stripped and the ride was over before we could get to the second half and the major hill climb. I was dissapointed but it is what it is. Even though John has the right length stem the size didn't match and we had to call it a day. We'll be back later this week now that we know the course the next time we go we can enjoy the ride and finish the entire loop. Can't wait to get back out there.

Things don't always go as planned

2009-03-15T21:03:00.005-04:00

Today I was lucky to have this beautiful Sunday off from work. It was a perfect day for an epic ride, I hoped my friend Johny P could come along but he had a bicycle polo game to go to which sounded fun and I can't wait to hear about it.

So about one today I left my house and start riding towards the Valley. I went my usual route which was petty normal until I hit the MUP and climb the short hill by WaterWorks Park. Normally an easy no problem climb, and I attacked like I always do, out of the saddle and powering up the hill. Today my chain decided to give. To get it out the way, yes it was properly installed and lubed, and I wasn't shifting. It hasn't the first time, this has happened 3 times before, all in the same situation, powering up a hill with a clean chain. Maybe I'm just more powerful on the climbs that I know. This derailed (pun intended) my day as I couldn't put the chain together without having it bind up. So for the first and hopefully last time i called up my out and got picked up and driven home. Pulled out my good chain tool and got everything put back together.

So know it's 3:30 and I know I can't make it to the valley and back by the time goes down, so I decide to drive up. I pulled into the parking lot of Lock 29 and spot Sarah who I saw a couple weeks ago at the Akron Bicycle Club ride. We talk and decide to head to another parking lot where there are more parking spots and head off. We follow most of the Big Boy Valley loop and I'm feeling good. I'm flying up all the hills and feeling good. We hit Sand Run Parkway Hill and Revere Road hill. Sarah is a strong rider and holds her own the entire time and I hope we have many more miles of riding this summer. Turning onto Wheatly Road we see a rider up ahead, so I ask if she's up to sprinting up to him and getting a third in our group. This is where things got interesting.

I shift up into the big ring and start putting the power to the pedals. Get up to about 28 mph and my pedal disengages, my foot flys away from the pedal and smacks something cutting my leg. I stayed on the bike, how I'm not sure give myself and my pedals a look over clip back in and start the sprint again. Sarah saw it from behind and was surprised I stayed on. To the right is a picture of the damage. We catch up and descend down Wheatly topping out at 40 MPH. At the bottom we are all tired and finish out ride.

Because of the things that went wrong and putting in two seperate rides the data for this ride is somewhat misleading. Riding to get picked up dropped my average speed and cadence down below to what it actually was. But overall, with all that happened I enjoyed my day greatly.

map (exluding before chain broke)

Avg. Speed-15.6

Distance- 29.03

Time-1:51:23

Avg Cadence-79 rpm

Elevation- +1008

All Things Considered

2009-03-12T00:41:00.002-04:00

Today's ride wasn't bad. It wasn't great but with the luck I have been having with the weather I was just happy to get out on the bike. I had the day off Sunday and was excited to ride. I woke up to rain and cold temps,so I waited it out to no avail and spent the day indoors. Monday I pulled a double so I could have all of Tuesday off. Well once again I woke up to cold and rain, so I decided to call up the City Manager of Kent and discuss a possible Mountain Bike trail Opportunity in Kent. It was a productive call and I can really see something happening soon. After that, it was still raining so I installed a 2x4 in the garage and installed some hooks and brought up my bikes from the basement into the garage.

Finally, it cleared up so I put my bike on my car and started towards the Valley. A quick stop at the LBS and picked up a frame pump, where I ran into Dr. Ducharme, one of the smartest, kindest men I have met, and one of my professors and also an avid rider. We talked for a bit and then made plans for later and I headed up to the Valley. I started to get my things together and just as I start riding it starts to sprinkle. I can handle sprinkles, but 3 miles down the road the skies open up and I'm forced to turn around.

So today, the sun in shining and the roads are dry. So I head out again to the Valley to get a ride in. This ride turns out better, except for the headwinds. On the bright side, headwinds don't force me to turn around for my saftey. I followed my regular route up through Sand Run Parkway. Instead of going straight on Yellow Creek Road I turn right onto Revere Road. Slight uphill turns into a killer 8% grade up W. Bath Road. Which is followed be a steep, fast descent down towards Yellow Creek Road again. I stop at the red light at Riverview Road and I'm swarmed from four members of the Solon Bicyle team. I'll tell you what, these guys are fast. All four were on mountain bikes and keeping pace at 18 mph! We pacelined for a while until I decided to get spry, got into the big ring and see if anyone would react to my break. I jumped off the front and got a good 100 meter break looked back and saw no one was going to chase me down so I sat up and took a pull at the front. I was pleased that I could still pull off the front.

They turned left on Ira Road and I continued back towards Peninsula. Pretty ineventful road back into town except for the deer standing next to the side of the road that startled me. And now the ride details.

Mileage- 23.69

avg speed-16 mph

avg cadence- 86 rpm

elevation- +755 feet

time- 1:29:15

Unexpected Ride

2009-03-06T21:14:00.004-05:00

Today ride was kinda unexpected. I had planned to meet Johny P after we both got off work around 3. I got home ate a quick lunch and got ready. Called Johny but it went to voicemail, I waited around thinking he got stuck at work and finally sent him a text message. He had gotten off work and had already set off and was already in CNVP. So I sent him a text I would be at Century Cycles in half an hour if he was nearby meet me there and we'll do a little ride together. Pulled into the parking lot got my things together and he showed up just as I was about to leave. Showed him the propsed map and off we went.

We started off on Akron Peninsula road, John conceeded that he had already down close to 40 miles today and that I might have to do the brunt of the pulling in our two man paceline. I was more than happy to do that, as I figured it would be a slower paced ride because of John's already been on the road and my lunch shift. I quickly found this to be wrong. The pace immediatly went up, even against strong headwinds. I pulled hard and John stayed glue to my back wheel. Everyonce in a while I would move to the back to take a short break and before long I craved the front again. We turned right onto Sand Run Parkway and the pace picked up again. We climbed up Sand Run Parkway which turn out to be a pleasant little hill, not to steep to kill you but long enough to make you work for it.

We turned right onto Revere Road and finished the climb and started descending towards Yellowcreek road. Which proved to be a steep climb. In the gearing of 39x27 I was still standing on the pedals trudging up the hill. After the hill was a short 13% descent. We missed our turn at Revere Road and continued down Yellowcreek until we hit Brecksville road. Another right onto Bath and the pace picked up once again, now we were cruising at a pretty steady 25 mph. Bath road ended with a nice descent where I hit a top speed of 38 mph. We finished by following Riverview road, a steady slight downhill and a tailwind meant the pace kept up and even included a sprint, which I easily won, OK so he was on a fixed so he didn't have the big ring like I did but I still think I can take him in a sprint. We'll see when he get's his Waterford out. The ride ended with motopacing a car around the corners back to the parking lot (kids don't try this at home). Overall, it was a ride which I didn't think my body would do, but I was surprised at the output I could do. Hopefully, the rain holds off on Sunday and John and I can do a repeat of this ride. Here's the stats!

Mileage- 27.36

Avg speed-17.1

Avg Cadence- 84

Elavation- +761 feet

Time- 1:36:32

What's that?!

2009-03-05T19:52:00.005-05:00

First off, I wish I could say that the face I made in in the picture to the right was because a wild wildebeast was charging towards me, or something interesting was happening to my left. That would be untrue, but I do find this photo kinda funny.

So, I had the day off from work and the temp was up so I decided to go out for an epic ride. I had planned to get up early and do a metric century. The plan was to start at my house ride to the valley via the MUP and then do a lap around the Valley and ride back home, it would have been around a metric. When I woke up I checked my e-mail and saw that my Shimano 105 shifters where coming in. I decided to wait it out and do a quick install, I figured I could be out the door by 1 or 2. Boy was I wrong. The first problem came when I cut the new cable housing, not realizing that I had left the cable in the housing. So I had to make a side trip down to Peformance Bikes to pick up new cables. Came back put everything back together and started to tune my new drivetrain, this is something I know how to do, but for some reason today I couldn't get the darn thing to work. I was working towards perfection, but with time slowly slipping away, I had to go out without my drivetrain 100% perfect, it worked but it skipped a gear or two every once in a while.

With it now 4:30 and sunset coming fast I had to put my epic ride on the backburner. Instead of riding to the valley I decided to drive. I pulled into the parking lot around 5 pm and got out on the road. I followed Akron Peninsula Road all the way up to Merriman Road, fighting a nasty headwind the entire way. Atleast I knew the ride back I would get a nice tailwind. I turned right onto Sand Run Parkway. Followed that up the short uphill section and than made another right onto San Run Road. Sand Run Parkway starts off with a decent climb right off the start, made even harder by the fact there is no flat section to get up to speed. Once up I was treated to a nice long downhill. A right turn on Bath for a short section then a left back onto Akron Peninsula road, and back to the parking lot behind Century Cycles, where I ran into the Akron Cycling Club and Crow from CAMBA. Had a nice chat with them and then I was off to home. Here's the details.

Distance: 20.89 miles

Avg Speed: 16.7

Avg Cadence: 81

Time: 1:15:03

Elevation: 513 feet

Country roads take me home!

2009-02-26T19:06:00.004-05:00

Today was another perfect day for a ride, clear roads, little wind and favorable tempatures. After I got done with work I hopped on my bike and decided to take a ride out around some new lakes. I had mapped out a route on mapmyride.com that looked easy enough that I could find my way without getting lost. So I headed out around four and relished in the high 40 degree weather.

I turned left of my street and head down route 18 towards brimfield, and make another left on route 43. Both of these roads are pretty busy and also have high speed limits with little to no median, which is made worse by winter and snow plows. After you pass 76 you make a right, the road actually crosses the exit ramp, and then you get onto the country roads. This is where the fun begins, little traffic and generally flat and fast roads. As long as you keep you eyes out for potholes, you'll be fine. I started down Edson rd, looking for my next turn. Well, I couldn't find the next turn and somehow ended back at route 43, don't know how this happened. I turned back around and took the next left and ended up at Kent State. Again, not where I wanted to be. So I decided to retrace my steps and just head east. From here on I'm not really sure where I went. I know I saw Lake Hodgson and Sandy Lake, I know Summit Rd took me back to Route 43 and Sunnybrook Rd. That's all I know about this trip since these roads don't have street signs.

It was a fun ride, I didn't have to worry about not getting home because I had a ride avaliable, so it was fun to just get out and ride. Let the roads take me where they wanted to go, I knew I would eventually get home but it didn't matter when and how long it took. It was a truly gratifying feeling. The roads decided to drop me off a little over an hour after I started and I finished with a gratifying 30 mph sprint past my house. Up 5 mph from my personal best from last year and I already have half the numbers of rides as last year. This year is going to be great.

Stats

Mileage-20.33

avg mph- 16.2

time- 1:15:07

Avg Cadence- 81 rpm

elevation gain- 413 feet

Good Vs. Evil AKA Fixed Mania

2009-02-24T21:20:00.003-05:00

Today was another ride with my good friend Johnny P. I was on call tonight for work so I asked that we take an easy route. John came up with a nice rolling to flat route around the outskirts of Kent that may soon become a favorite ride of mine. SO brought out my white stead and met John with his black stead, and both of us headed out on a fixed gear bikes. It took us past the beautiful Brady Lake and Lake Rockwell. It followed gently rolling roads that were free of traffic. It was a generally low key ride free of any major malfunctions or problems, well except John's snow covered cleats. On the upside my rides are improving each time I go out. Here's the important info

Map

Length- 29.27 miles

Avg Speed-15.9 mph

Time-around 1:40

Elevation Change-531 feet

Training at Ray's

2009-02-23T22:11:00.006-05:00

Sunday is my one guaranteed day off a week, so it's become my tradition to make it up to Ray's mountain bike park. I was feeling spry so I decided to take up the Gary Fisher Piranha, and my Gary Fisher Advanced ss/full rigid. The plan was to do a new training regiment that my teammate Rusty tipped me off on. Last Monday, I had the night off so I went up, and he recognized me (don't worry my fame won't change me;) and introduced himself. He was doing a form of descending intervals on the cross country course at Rays. We did six laps, took a break, then did five, then break, then four etc... I thought this was a nice way to get a workout in without mindlessly doing laps, when the lap is less than a quarter mile, laps get boring quick.

So I went up Sunday with the hopes of doing ascending intervals1,2,3,4,5,6. Then head over to the sport and expert section and practice some skills. I really enjoyed the ascending intervals, it warmed up my legs nicely so that when I hit the five and six lap circuits I could really hammer hard. It was also nice because it gave me a chance to practice as it was pretty packed, if you've done the loop at Ray's you know that there is at most two places to pass without the other person pulling off. There are wider spaces but they tend to come at places where it's hard to get by. The two best places I found were switchbacks on the CAMBA climb, stay on their wheel and when they go wide for the switchback you cut to the inside and pass. The second is along the back side after the whoops, build up steam and cut to the inside ramp and pass.

The one thing I wouldn't mind trying would be a fibonacci interval (1,1,2,3,5,8). If you got that joke you are a nerd! Did some runs on the technical lines, until I couldn't ride anymore. Overall, a fun ride. Tomorrow, I ride with Johny P, so be expecting another ride report. Finally, also be looking for my book at the end of summer titled "Tuesday with Johnny", and uplifting tale of a two cyclist who share memories and make themselves stronger because of it. I'm in a spry mood so I'm off to rest up for tomorrow.

My First Half Century

2009-02-17T18:58:00.010-05:00

Before today my total mileage for this year was a measly 100 miles, due to work and inclement weather. I tried to ride but it's hard when half the routes I normally took were impassible by snow. Luckily, today turned into a great day to ride. A local rider had seen my blog on my Valley hill climb loop and e-mailed me asking if he could tag along one time. It just so happened that we both had today off from work. So we decided to meet at my place and do a nice ride out to the valley.

Johnny P showed up to my house around 1 pm with his Surly fixed gear, and I pulled out my Scattante Team XRL. We promptly left and made out way down East Ave in Tallmadge and turned right onto Munroe Road. This took all the way to route 91 and the bike and hike trail in the Falls. After my legs warmed up, I gotta admit I was feeling pretty good, I was pushing a high cadence and generally was riding well. My corning was fast and smooth.

We followed the Bike and Hike up until we reached Truxell road and descended into the valley. Here on the gently flowing we grabbed some food and beverage in preparation for the hard work that was about to come. When we reached the Boston Mills climb Johnny P jumped out in front of me and rocketed up the hill. I was surprised at this, he was on a fixed gear for christ's sake! He's a strong rider for sure! While he rocketed up the hill, I was bonking hard core. My legs hit their lactic threshold and were burning like no other. I looked down and I was rolling at the blistering pace of 4-6mph. I couldn't muster any more strength and it took everything I had to make it up the 3 mile climb. I made it though and after the descent back down the valley we went back up Truxell road and this is where I was pushed past my limit, but I know when I got to the top I would be done with the worst part.

Our return took us through Stow and Kent and finally through Brimfield and back to my place. I gotta say it was a great ride, albeit a killer one for me. It's a ride I'll be riding again. And finally I want to thank Johnny P for the company. Pictures of me should go up on his blog.

Trip Data:

Mileage:50.47

Time: 3:24:37

Avg speed: 14.8

Avg Cadence: 75 rpm

Calories Burned: 2100

Elevation Change- 1,400 feet

Map of the ride

2009 Piranha Race build

2009-02-15T21:00:00.007-05:00

So, since being accepted to the CAMBA racing team, I've been slowly building up my 2008 Gary Fisher Piranha to race specs. So here's the specs.

Frame: 2007 Gary Fisher Piranha 16.5"

Weight- 24 pounds

Fork-Reba Race

Wheels- Mavic Crossrides

Crank- Deore LX 44-22t (2x9)

FD- Alivio

RD- Deore

Cassette- 12-34t sram

Brakes- Tektro Levers/ Avid bb5's

Shifters- Deore

Handlebars- Bontrager Race flat

Stem- Bontrager Race 90mm

Seatpost- Bontrager Select

Seat- Bontrager Inform R

Pedals- Eggbeater c's

Computer- Trek Incite 8i (soon to be Garmin 305)

Tires-Will be Kenda Karmas or Nevagals have yet to decide.

I haven't ridden with the new fork, that comes tomorrow after work, but overall I like this bike. I hope you like the build.

Map of Hill Climb Route

2009-02-13T23:01:00.002-05:00

Here's a map of my hill climb route from my last post. Make sure to check out the elevation change.

Fighting headwinds in the Valley

2009-02-07T15:44:00.004-05:00

Many of you who have ridden with me know that I absolutely love a good climb. Sure, I'm sure a lot of you think I'm crazy, why would anyone love the part of cycling the is the hardest and brings the most pain. Most people dread the uphill and would rather cruise along at a good clip along a flat stretch. Others, prefer the rush of descending, navigating switchbacks at high speeds on a razors edge. I can hold my own in these situations, but I excel is when the terrain turns upwards.

So today with temperature very near 50 degrees and the snow melted off the roads, I decided to return to my old stomping grounds of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I love the National Park because not only does it offer great roads to ride, it also has some beautiful scenery. What I love most about the Valley is the ample selection of steep grades. So I decided to take my "rain" bike out and get some miles in. I knew it would also be a test of my recovery after coming down with a nasty case of the stomach flu.

My route started by descending Truxell road, a gentle downhill where you can keep speeds between 25 to 30 mph almost the entire road. Once at the bottom a right turn on Peninsula road and a small warm up climb drops you back into the sleepy town of Peninsula. A left turn on route 303 and a right on Riverview road brings you up to the first major climb of the day, what I like to call Boston Mills climb west. Today the road was pretty rough because of last summers construction. Boston Mills west starts off unassuming until the last quarter mile where the grade steepens to the point where even in your easiest gears you are at your limit going up the hill at a snails pace. Once at the top I turned around gingerly descended the wet and rough road and crossed Riverview road and head over to my favorite climb, Boston Mills east.

Boston Mills east will always hold a special place in my heart, it's my Alpe De Huez, three miles of pure agony. I have yet to have the qualities of this climb in northeast Ohio. It's not the steepness, length or curves, I can find hills that fit these bills, there's just something about this particular hill. The first mile is a steady grade, more difficult than most climbs but easily done in an easy gear. Near the mile mark it flattens out and crosses the interstate, now this is where the fun begins. A steep curving descent gives you slight hope that things may get better, but if you look across you see that it doesn't get better. Across that valley, immediately after you get to the bottom you have to go right back up the steepest part of the hill. There's no sitting and spinning up this hill, even in your easiest gear you have to stand and work up this hill. Once up the hill, you've done about two miles of the grade, the last mile is a false flat. You'll want to switch gears and start moving again, but you still are going uphill. After this you are finally done.

Two right turns and you back on the flat route 303 which descends back in Penisula, and once you back in town a left turn and you can follow your path back out Truxell road. A less daunting climb out of the valley and you're back to where you started. An hour and a half and 20 miles under the belt. Not my best time but for the conditions a great ride. I got my climbing fix in!

Sorry no photos, I left my camera in the car but trust me I'll be doing this ride again soon.

Training in Ohio Winters

2009-01-29T11:39:00.007-05:00

In November I took my bicycles into the basement, cleaned the dirt off them, cleaned the chains, let the air out of the tires and hung them up. It was a sad moment for me, it signaled the end of the riding season and that I wouldn't be riding for a couple months. I could have not been more wrong. Not only was I able to continue riding throughout the winter each bike would be upgraded or rebuilt.

The weather held out for a while to get some road miles in before the snow came so I was able to be on the road up through December. Thanksgiving came and I rode off my large dinner on my single speed, and on Christmas after the presents were open I took the fixed out again. Then the snow came and the ground froze and I got two rides in at Quails Hollow state park's mtb course. The runners were surprised to see me out in the 20 degree temps in the snow, but it was a great workout.

Then the snow came and I spent two weeks indoors on the trainer, as the snow was two deep to try and get mountain biking in, trust me I tried, and the roads were too snow covered to take out my road bike. My other option is Ray's Indoor mountain bike park, which I can't speak highly enough. However, the snow has been bad that the hour trip was to unsafe to make. So the indoor trainer has gotten a lot of use. I like it because it's a controled workout, I can tailor my workout exactly how I want to. The problem is it becomes very boring, a ten minute tempo seems to drag on forever.

The good news is my friend Mike Bloomhuff and I have both decided to really kick in our training at the same time. We'll do most of our training seperate with our own training plans and goals, but once a week we'll go up to Ray's and hammer out lap after lap. The XC loop at Ray's is made in a way that highlights my weakness, shortburts of maximal power, think power intervals.

Also I want to give a shot out to one of my good friends Bob Myers, he is one of the main reasons for getting serious into the sport and pushing me to go that little extra. I finally got to run into him this weekend at Ray's. As I was leaving I saw a truck full of top of the line Trek bicycles and knew he couldn't be far behind. Low and behold he was there, I got to talk to him for a while. Till next time...

Race Report: Ray's Tri Flow XC Race

2009-01-23T18:18:00.008-05:00

First off, I have to say thanks to Ray for putting on a great event. This was the first year for Ray putting on an indoor cross country race. It can only be described as a success. Twenty one riders showed up to test their skills over a three lap time trail over the loop at Ray's mountain bike park. For me, it gave me a litmus test on a switch from novice to sport. Though, my time wasn't what I wanted it to be, 9:29 (with a dab penalty of 15 seconds) it gave me an idea of where I need to improve.

A good surprise was when one of the pro riders, it just happened to be my "fantasy rider" Trek's Emily Batty, showed up a day early and hung out with us. It was a neat experience, I got a chance to talk one on one with her and ask her some questions about her career, and she was able to get info about cycling in Ohio. Overall, it was a great way to spend my Friday morning and I highly recommend getting up there this weekend to see the Pro women race on Saturday, and to ride with them on Sunday. Thanks to Bike Authority, Kenda, Crank Brothers, and Rudy Project for supporting my riding and the CAMBA race team.

A mediocre start to the new year

2009-01-22T21:40:00.003-05:00

As I've said before, I haven't been putting in the miles on my bike as I would have hoped to, (I'm still way above where I was last year, not even owning a bike.) I've been using a trainer, but that's torture so I rationalize not doing it. However, with the slight warm up I decided to finally take out my new road bike for a spin.

I bought the frame, a Scattante Team XRL, in the beggining of December, and it finally came in right before the new year. Got everything built and waited for my Ultegra Lx brakes to come in, worth the wait, they peform well and look really nice. Two weeks ago I finished the build, but with sub zero tempatures and snow covered roads didn't risk taking it out. Weds I felt confident enough to take it out and I gotta say it peforms wonderfully. The Mavic Askium's are stiff, smooth rolling and responsive. I didn't get to test it's full ability as some of the roads where still snow covered, but I was easily able to get it up to 30 mph in a psuedo sprint, not full out.

Today, was warmer and I thought the perfect day to take out my "rain" bike, a Fuji newest 4.0. Nothing spectacular but it does the job of being a good beater bike. It was about 35 degrees out and the sun was shining, which made the going even more treacherous. THe snow that was left on the road turned into slush and made it feel like riding on ice. Once again because of the conditions I had to cut it short. So two rides, with 15 miles. Not the way I wanted to start of the year. Ray's Cross Country Mountain Bike race is tomorrow, so here's hoping that three days at Rays kicks off my training.

Biking in the snow and skid stops.

2009-01-18T15:26:00.001-05:00

Akron has been in the grips of a snow storm for what seems like the past month. My last ride was January 1st for CAMBA's New Years Day Poker Run. Since then we've had over a foot of snow and sub zero tempatures. Not god weather to be out on a bike. I've spent the last three weeks holed up inside on my trainer. Cabin Fever was starting to set in. Today I decided to try one of my favorites trails with one of my riding partners Glynis.

The weather was warmer, 24 f, and we had hoped that hikers and cross country skiers had made the trail passible. So this morning I set off to try to get my second ride of the season. The first picture should have been a hint of what was to come, yes, that is a paved road. I pulled into the parking lot and shortly after Glynis showed up, we suited up and attempted to ride Quails Hollow. Ten feet into the trail I knew there was going to be problems. The trails had not been packed down and the trail had accumulated another two inches of snow since the night before. Trying to stay on the bike was next to impossible as every dip and steering correction sent the front tire slipping out from underneath me. We trumbled along at a blistering 3 mph, walking up any incline. It became better when we stopped and let some of the air out of our tires, mine ended up near 6 psi.

A mile in we had both come tothe conclusion that this was not going to work. I found a bailout point and we road out to the parking lot. Not wanting to get our ride on we decided to ride around the road of Quails Hollow State Park. A small hill put our hill sprinting to the test. First time up we stayed neck and neck, neither one of us could even gain a foot on the other. The second time around I pulled a 100 meter lead before the top. This was followed by some light riding around the park seeing parts of the park I had never seen before. Finally, we went back to the parking lot and on the slight hill we practiced out skidding in the snow. I have to admit Glynis was better at holding his skids for longer, but I could get more angle. I'm sure this looked odd for all the cars driving by, but it was a blast.

Overall, it was a fun ride. Two hours out on the bike. Not exactly the workout I had hoped for but the fun was worth it. Thanks Glynis for a fun Sunday.