This will be a quick one, but I wanted to mention the TM day we has this past weekend! Over the last 3 months our local MTB club has been gathering momentum on various TM projects, and with help of other local more established groups, we are going places now!
We scoped the location and set the goal, made plans, and prepared. But I still had some doubts about how it would all turn out. It was a rather ambitious project.
But all my doubts were disolved and I was blown away that Saturday. When we had 20+ people ready to work early in the morning, standing in the pouring rain (the forecast was for sunny skies and warm temperatures) and not leaving, I knew it was going to be good! Luckily the rain stopped pretyt quickly and we had blue skies for the rest of the day!
We had 45+ volunteers working throughout the day, loggin total of over 250 man hours!!!
We changed large [parts of existing trail to shed water better and re-routed an approximately 200 feet long section!
Here are some pictures!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
High hopes, not too much disappointment
So I was thinking about attempting to try to push for doing two laps of my local loop for the first time this weekend. As I mentioned in the previous posts, For some reason, after just one loop (~16-ish miles) I'm usually so beat I find it hard to keep going.
But I fell short of that goal. Tho I'm not too disappointed.
We went out for a really hard paced lap in the morning on Saturday, thinking that we would barely have enough time to finish the loop by 1 PM, when we were meeting couple of more friends to scope out and plan the location for the TMD this coming weekend. However, we went so hard that we were done by noon! So we started with the TMD planning an hour early. No biggie.
Then in the evening we had our first PMBA annual party. I killed an hour just hanging out in the park, taking in this gorgeous, crisp, refreshing weather we are having right now. This is how each fall should be. Absolutely perfect!
Lotsa good beer later, and many many hardy laughs, I got home, and promptly fell asleep.
On Sunday, I had to meet with my son's boy scout troops, to go over the preparation for the 33 mile bike trek they will be doing at the end of the month. And I thought that afterwards I'd have time to go an do my "two-lapper".
Well, the meeting went longer than expected -- we ended up going for an easy ride in another park. It was nice seeing how some kids took the bike so naturally and were lofting their, sometimes too big for them, bikes with platform pedals over logs and log piles! Some of those boys are natural!
And that was my weekend, and now for another hard ride after work. Seems like tonight might be the first time I'll break out the lights!
But I fell short of that goal. Tho I'm not too disappointed.
We went out for a really hard paced lap in the morning on Saturday, thinking that we would barely have enough time to finish the loop by 1 PM, when we were meeting couple of more friends to scope out and plan the location for the TMD this coming weekend. However, we went so hard that we were done by noon! So we started with the TMD planning an hour early. No biggie.
Then in the evening we had our first PMBA annual party. I killed an hour just hanging out in the park, taking in this gorgeous, crisp, refreshing weather we are having right now. This is how each fall should be. Absolutely perfect!
Lotsa good beer later, and many many hardy laughs, I got home, and promptly fell asleep.
On Sunday, I had to meet with my son's boy scout troops, to go over the preparation for the 33 mile bike trek they will be doing at the end of the month. And I thought that afterwards I'd have time to go an do my "two-lapper".
Well, the meeting went longer than expected -- we ended up going for an easy ride in another park. It was nice seeing how some kids took the bike so naturally and were lofting their, sometimes too big for them, bikes with platform pedals over logs and log piles! Some of those boys are natural!
And that was my weekend, and now for another hard ride after work. Seems like tonight might be the first time I'll break out the lights!
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Confused...
Got out of the work more than an hour late yesterday. So instead of being at the trail head by 5:15-ish, it was 6:30 by the time I was ready to roll. Luckily, I saw a familiar bike on a roof of a car that pulled into a parking lot - a friend I knew from a season of XC racing I did a couple of years ago.
Turns out her SO couldn't ride and she was heading out by herself, I asked if she would mind company.
Man, if I knew how much she would kick my butt, I would've gone by myself at much slower pace! Ha-ha
It was late, and getting dark soon, so we only had time for half of the normal loop. Still about 5 miles of gravel path and then 6 or so miles of single track. She was moving at a pretty good clip, and I had to work hard to keep up!
It was a shortish ride, but a hard one, and it was nice flying thru our trails at 8-9/10th! Trails felt quite a bit different from a more relaxed normal pace.
What really perplexed me was why it felt so hard and I was so tired after only 10-12 miles?! Just a couple of weeks ago I completed SM100. I mean, it almost felt harder doing these 12 miles than 100 miles two weeks ago! Granted at shenandoah, I was pacing myself, and yesterday I was going almost all out, but still...
This is also right along the lines of what I was thinking few days ago. Having ridden 100 miles, why does it still feel almost impossible commit to and ride two complete loops of my regular ride? That would be "only" 32-ish miles...
I'm sure it's possible, but I haven't been able to convince myself to go for the second lap, after finishing first.
I wonder if I looked at the SM100 as n almost "super feat" and thus just threw everything at it, expecting to suffer to no end. I contrast, the regular ride, is just that, "regular" ride, and thus when at the end of the first loop I feel some fatigue, I expect myself to do the "regular" thing, and stop...
Must work on not stopping! After all, 12-16 mile long "training rides" would not help me much at those darn hundies next year... :-)
Turns out her SO couldn't ride and she was heading out by herself, I asked if she would mind company.
Man, if I knew how much she would kick my butt, I would've gone by myself at much slower pace! Ha-ha
It was late, and getting dark soon, so we only had time for half of the normal loop. Still about 5 miles of gravel path and then 6 or so miles of single track. She was moving at a pretty good clip, and I had to work hard to keep up!
It was a shortish ride, but a hard one, and it was nice flying thru our trails at 8-9/10th! Trails felt quite a bit different from a more relaxed normal pace.
What really perplexed me was why it felt so hard and I was so tired after only 10-12 miles?! Just a couple of weeks ago I completed SM100. I mean, it almost felt harder doing these 12 miles than 100 miles two weeks ago! Granted at shenandoah, I was pacing myself, and yesterday I was going almost all out, but still...
This is also right along the lines of what I was thinking few days ago. Having ridden 100 miles, why does it still feel almost impossible commit to and ride two complete loops of my regular ride? That would be "only" 32-ish miles...
I'm sure it's possible, but I haven't been able to convince myself to go for the second lap, after finishing first.
I wonder if I looked at the SM100 as n almost "super feat" and thus just threw everything at it, expecting to suffer to no end. I contrast, the regular ride, is just that, "regular" ride, and thus when at the end of the first loop I feel some fatigue, I expect myself to do the "regular" thing, and stop...
Must work on not stopping! After all, 12-16 mile long "training rides" would not help me much at those darn hundies next year... :-)
Monday, September 10, 2007
SM100
So this was my do or die 100-miler debut.
I was meeting some friends at the race, who went down on Friday. I pulled into the camp site about 5:30 PM, set up my tent, registered, got some food, dropped my drop bag, and settled in for the evening of pre-race jitters. :-)
My goal for the race was to finish. The longer single day ride I've done before the SM was about 75 miles long, and did not have a fraction of climbing we were facing in the race. So needless to say, I was nervous.
The morning of the race, we happily started at the back of the main group, knowing that we would pace ourselves and weren't gunning for the top honors.
However, as we turned off the paved roads into the first jeep road climbs, my buddy and I started picking the spots up. It's always entertaining to me to watch people on the geared bikes spinning granny gear up the hills. I know I'm not that strong and not stronger than the other riders, so I attribute the fact that I'm climbing faster up the hill in a harder gear on my SS than they do on geared bikes, to the black magic of SS.
At the top as we turned into the first section of singletrack, that's where our strategy of starting at the back came to bite us, as we were bogged down by riders who didn't seem to be used to and comfortable with out East Coast rocky terrain.
Luckily, the field was spreading out nicely and before we knew it we were cruising.
I must give big credit to the organizers as the course was just about perfect for a long race. There was plenty of climbing, but the climbs weren't such that they would stop us dead in our tracks and beat us up such that we wouldn't be able to ride past 20-30 mile mark. Flats were good for recovery. Singletrack sections were plentiful and absolutely a blast. Some of the best, funnest (yeah, if that's a word) prettiest singletrack I've seen. The down hills were fast and technical. I'm not the fastest down hiller by any means, and riding fully rigid bike, even tho it's a 29er doesn't help. Tho, I have to admit, it's not the bike that is really limiting the speed, but the rider. My buddy on his rigid 29er was opening a gap on my on every down hill.
I was expecting to barely claw my way to the finish, dragging my lifeless carcass by the sheer will power. In reality, I actually didn't feel half bad thru the race. I must've been better mentally prepared and definitely paid more attention and stayed on top of proper hydration and replenishment of the calories burnt.
Few interesting realizations that came to us during the race. We were looking forward to 50 mile mark as some magic mile stone after which it will be all easier and we would be home free. Despite that mile 50 for us was 6 hours into the ride and we had another 50 to go, and 50 is a darn long way!!! Then we were closing on aid station 5 at mile 75, like it was god sent, and after it, we had "ONLY" 25 miles left... Ha, my normal rides are about 16-17 miles long, and here I was looking at "only" 25 miles, AFTER riding for 75 already, and in these "just" 25 I would have to climb more than I usually do on any of my normal rides...
But still, mind is a funny thing, and it definitely helped a lot to look and think about it that way, "only" 25 left. At aid station 6, mile 88, we had "just mere" 12 left, that's child's play!!! We are home free!!! :-)
At station 6 we were told that if we really push we might be able to finish in the day light without using the lights! So that became our motivation and goal, and it worked out perfectly!
So I completed my first SS hundie. The longest one day SS or otherwise ride I have ever done! I loved every second of it. I'm hooked and will come back for more, much more next year.
PS One observation I made after the race was that to my surprise, during the race I did not think once about pulling out or not finishing. I was very happy about that.
My goal for the race was to finish. The longer single day ride I've done before the SM was about 75 miles long, and did not have a fraction of climbing we were facing in the race. So needless to say, I was nervous.
The morning of the race, we happily started at the back of the main group, knowing that we would pace ourselves and weren't gunning for the top honors.
However, as we turned off the paved roads into the first jeep road climbs, my buddy and I started picking the spots up. It's always entertaining to me to watch people on the geared bikes spinning granny gear up the hills. I know I'm not that strong and not stronger than the other riders, so I attribute the fact that I'm climbing faster up the hill in a harder gear on my SS than they do on geared bikes, to the black magic of SS.
At the top as we turned into the first section of singletrack, that's where our strategy of starting at the back came to bite us, as we were bogged down by riders who didn't seem to be used to and comfortable with out East Coast rocky terrain.
Luckily, the field was spreading out nicely and before we knew it we were cruising.
I must give big credit to the organizers as the course was just about perfect for a long race. There was plenty of climbing, but the climbs weren't such that they would stop us dead in our tracks and beat us up such that we wouldn't be able to ride past 20-30 mile mark. Flats were good for recovery. Singletrack sections were plentiful and absolutely a blast. Some of the best, funnest (yeah, if that's a word) prettiest singletrack I've seen. The down hills were fast and technical. I'm not the fastest down hiller by any means, and riding fully rigid bike, even tho it's a 29er doesn't help. Tho, I have to admit, it's not the bike that is really limiting the speed, but the rider. My buddy on his rigid 29er was opening a gap on my on every down hill.
I was expecting to barely claw my way to the finish, dragging my lifeless carcass by the sheer will power. In reality, I actually didn't feel half bad thru the race. I must've been better mentally prepared and definitely paid more attention and stayed on top of proper hydration and replenishment of the calories burnt.
Few interesting realizations that came to us during the race. We were looking forward to 50 mile mark as some magic mile stone after which it will be all easier and we would be home free. Despite that mile 50 for us was 6 hours into the ride and we had another 50 to go, and 50 is a darn long way!!! Then we were closing on aid station 5 at mile 75, like it was god sent, and after it, we had "ONLY" 25 miles left... Ha, my normal rides are about 16-17 miles long, and here I was looking at "only" 25 miles, AFTER riding for 75 already, and in these "just" 25 I would have to climb more than I usually do on any of my normal rides...
But still, mind is a funny thing, and it definitely helped a lot to look and think about it that way, "only" 25 left. At aid station 6, mile 88, we had "just mere" 12 left, that's child's play!!! We are home free!!! :-)
At station 6 we were told that if we really push we might be able to finish in the day light without using the lights! So that became our motivation and goal, and it worked out perfectly!
So I completed my first SS hundie. The longest one day SS or otherwise ride I have ever done! I loved every second of it. I'm hooked and will come back for more, much more next year.
PS One observation I made after the race was that to my surprise, during the race I did not think once about pulling out or not finishing. I was very happy about that.
History
A week ago, yes it did take this long to get around to write about it, I completed my first 100-miler. In the spring of this year I had some visions of grander of doing two of them, Wilderness 101 and Shenandoah Mountain 100. But when the time came to sign up for Wild101, I chickened out.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. This is supposed to be a bit of the history of how I got here. Back in '99 I rediscovered biking, more specifically, mountain biking. I haven't been on the bike since I was a kid, but just one ride had me completely re-hooked, is that a word? I went and bought my first "real" mountain bike and proceeded to ride it fairly regularly for the next 6 years.
However, just like all of us, I had a severe case of upgradatitis! And by '04, after having replaced every component on my bike except for the frame, I was itching for a new bike. I had my mind firmly set on Santa Cruz SuperLight. However, such and upgrade wasn't in my budget at the time. In retrospect, I'm glad it wasn't.
In '05 a friend of mine got a Surly Karate Monkey. And started talking about all the single speeding stuff. I was curious and one day in the fall I went out for a ride, put my gears into 32X15 and didn't touch the shifters for the entire hour or so that I rode that night. I've seen the light!!! Within a week that 1X9 was converted to SS (I got really lucky, because the magic gear on that bike was 32X16, no tensioner needed!) And started researching proper SS bikes.
Within a month or so of reading all the reviews and information I could get my hands on about SS, I came to the conclusion that since I'm going SS, I might as well, and should, go all the way and get myself a fully rigid 29er SS! A little detour from FS 26er geared, don't you say? A little more research and I had placed the order for On One Inbred frame and fork. While waiting for it, I started putting together the components. Finally, in early July of '06 I had my bike together in all it's glory.
However, before I got that bike I got talked into doing 12 hours of Allamuchy. For which I was still riding my old converted Trek. We were going to do it a two man team, but my buddy came down with a bad case of flu or something less than 48 hours before the race, and it was too late to pull out without loosing the entry fee. The only viable option I had was either to find a new partner in crime (didn't happen) or change our entry to a solo ride! Which I did. That was probably the hardest ride of my life! Despite the fact that I did 8 laps, "only" 56 miles, half of SM100! The entire ride was in the rain, mud galore!
And I was not prepared at all, neither mentally, nor physically, nor with nutrition. I was completely spent!!! But I also LOVED it!!! And since then was thinking about what other endurance races I could do.
Thus I was coming into '07 with plans of doing many endurance races. As it turned out I would do only one... SM100. I did attempt to do Stoopid 50 in State College PA, but had to pull out half way thru with a major mechanical.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. This is supposed to be a bit of the history of how I got here. Back in '99 I rediscovered biking, more specifically, mountain biking. I haven't been on the bike since I was a kid, but just one ride had me completely re-hooked, is that a word? I went and bought my first "real" mountain bike and proceeded to ride it fairly regularly for the next 6 years.
However, just like all of us, I had a severe case of upgradatitis! And by '04, after having replaced every component on my bike except for the frame, I was itching for a new bike. I had my mind firmly set on Santa Cruz SuperLight. However, such and upgrade wasn't in my budget at the time. In retrospect, I'm glad it wasn't.
In '05 a friend of mine got a Surly Karate Monkey. And started talking about all the single speeding stuff. I was curious and one day in the fall I went out for a ride, put my gears into 32X15 and didn't touch the shifters for the entire hour or so that I rode that night. I've seen the light!!! Within a week that 1X9 was converted to SS (I got really lucky, because the magic gear on that bike was 32X16, no tensioner needed!) And started researching proper SS bikes.
Within a month or so of reading all the reviews and information I could get my hands on about SS, I came to the conclusion that since I'm going SS, I might as well, and should, go all the way and get myself a fully rigid 29er SS! A little detour from FS 26er geared, don't you say? A little more research and I had placed the order for On One Inbred frame and fork. While waiting for it, I started putting together the components. Finally, in early July of '06 I had my bike together in all it's glory.
However, before I got that bike I got talked into doing 12 hours of Allamuchy. For which I was still riding my old converted Trek. We were going to do it a two man team, but my buddy came down with a bad case of flu or something less than 48 hours before the race, and it was too late to pull out without loosing the entry fee. The only viable option I had was either to find a new partner in crime (didn't happen) or change our entry to a solo ride! Which I did. That was probably the hardest ride of my life! Despite the fact that I did 8 laps, "only" 56 miles, half of SM100! The entire ride was in the rain, mud galore!
And I was not prepared at all, neither mentally, nor physically, nor with nutrition. I was completely spent!!! But I also LOVED it!!! And since then was thinking about what other endurance races I could do.
Thus I was coming into '07 with plans of doing many endurance races. As it turned out I would do only one... SM100. I did attempt to do Stoopid 50 in State College PA, but had to pull out half way thru with a major mechanical.
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