DC Vacation

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

Rubber City Meltdown

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?

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

Tell ya sistas!

S&S OMBC Race

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