Firecracker crack

Well, the Firecracker didn't quite go as planned. In fact, it didn't even go remotely well. When the gun went off I felt good and was riding my race and shooting for a goal time of 4:20ish. At the top of the Little French climb on the first lap I pointed the bike downhill and rode across the little stream that I've ridden across EVERY other time I've been there and heard my rear tire explode. It wasn't sealing by itself so I pulled off and tried to coax it to seal, but no dice. What I found was a 1/2 in gash right on the ridge of the tire and right though a knob....and it was a brand new tire too. By the looks of the gash, I hit a piece of metal because this isn't from a rock or nail.


So, I threw in my spare tube and began pumping. Just as the tire was getting full pressure the valve stem snapped clean off in my pump....


Um.....crap. My race was over so I started to gather my things to begin the long walk out. Just then, Sonya pulls up and gives me her spare tube and CO2. I told her to take it because my race was over and I really didn't want to maybe ruin hers if she flatted. But since she is such a rock star she basically shoved the tube and CO2 on me before taking off. So, I put in the new tube, aired it up, and rolled down the trail. The adrenaline was pumping full force at this point and I started railing it....that was until my body completely shut down. I started to puke, cramp, and get the shivers, even in the sunlight. I kept the pedals turning and crossed the line, but no where even close to what I was shooting for. The last few races I just haven't been able to pull things together and to be honest, it's really starting to get on my nerves. I know that on paper I'm the strongest I've ever been, but on race day it just hasn't been coming together lately. But Jason and I have a plan and the Breck 100 is two weeks out, so bring it on!

Even though I had a bad day, the brother rocked it and ended up winning his division. He needs to get himself a license one of these days tho. :)


Oh and if the weekends body crack wasn't enough, I found this little ditty tonight while cleaning off the bike. Complete and utter frame failure on the Yeti! Looking back I know right when it happened. About 100 feet from my car after the race I was out of it, but all of a sudden the bike felt like a wet noodle and made horrible crunching sounds. At the time I just thought it was a missed shift but looking back I'm not sure why it happened there and not on the trail, but either way, I'm currently without a bike and in the peak of the season. Not good!

Crap!

Taper

This tapering stuff works - This week I've been bouncing off the walls and I'm fairly confident that I have restless leg syndrome. I guess that's what happens when I go from riding somewhere around 20 hours a week to 7 hours. Firecracker, here I come.

Firecracker pre-ride, Colorado Trail, Snowbanks, and lots O' flow

That pretty much sums up the weekend. Saturday morning, the brother and I headed out of Dillon early and spun on dirt and pave over to Breckenridge to meet up with some folks for a pre-ride of the Firecracker course. Those in attendance besides Carney Bro's Inc. were Jeff "my shoes match my bike and your's don't" Kerkove, Looney, Dejay Birtch and Rebecca Tomaszewski of Niner, Jake Kirkpatrick, and John Adamson all the way from Iowa. So after a breakfast of coffee and coffee cake (see a theme here?) we rolled out of town.

The pace was chill, so between lots of "uh, I think the course goes this way" moments, there was lots of stopping and chatting.

Word to the wise: If Looney says to go "this" way.....Go "that" way! :)

Blowdown trees added a little bit O' spice to the loop.

After finishing the loop we all parted ways, but the brother and I wanted some more hours so we hit up Coldstone for some fuel, and headed back out on the Colorado Trail up towards Georgia Pass.

Up...up....up

Who really can complain about climbing when the trail is as buff as this?

Ok, time for some down.

We ended the day with a little over 7 hours of moving time, 8K climbing and right at 70 miles of which 60 were on dirt...not bad! Afterwards, we destroyed an all you can eat salad bar before cashing in for the night.

Sunday.....more of the same...

We started with some climbing

Plenty of cookie breaks

Some occasional walking....mostly through snow

Ok, so we got turned around by snow just below 12k.

Which lead to walking back through the same snow

And lots of decending.

Another good weekend in the books!

Who stays home on the weekend anyway?

Since the brother lives is living in Dillon for the summer lumberjacking and becoming a flapjack enthusiast, I've got a free place to crash with boatloads of singletrack just out the door. So, it's a no brainer that I'm heading up there again this weekend for excessive amounts of riding and high alpine shenanigans. You should all be jealous!...

Just around the corner...

July that is, and that means it's time for some racing in Breck. First up is Marathon Nats on the 4th, then 2 weeks later is the Breck 100. Hopefully this year in the 100, I won't get lost and ride up the wrong mountain at mile 90 again!! Anyway, so Jason has been kicking my training up a notch lately as a final push before a proper taper, and since I much rather prefer to be out actually riding as oposed to writing about riding, things on here have been a bit stale. But don't worry, I've been out riding until after dark most every night! Also, I know I haven't been talking much about training lately, but take my word for it, since starting with Jason in January I've made huge gains and I'm looking forward to July! Having an educated eye on my progress has deffinately been a welcomed change and I can see and feel the results. Also, hopefully I'll have a new bike ready to rock for the 100.....I have all the bits and pieces for my Siren build and am just waiting on the frame. I think it's going to be a pretty sick build!

Racin' and recon

This weekend, the brother and I headed down to Crested Butte for Wildflower Rush and to get in on some XC ragin'. My race didn't go too hot and I rode kinda like a little girl, but Stephen managed to snag 3rd in his first MSC race - not bad!


On my 3rd lap it started to rain making for a chilly finish and a quick exit from the venue. So, instead of riding in more rain, we headed back over to Salida to our favorite forest service road pull off for a rather relaxed evening of bike cleaning and cooking over an esbit stove.

Sunday, we got in a full days worth of trail recon/hike-a-bike, for some ideas I have in my future. We managed to get up to 11k and just below the continental divide before being turned around by snow on one section. Throughout the day the views did not disappoint and another quality weekend of riding is in the books. I'm feeling it today! Only 2 more weeks before Marathon Nats in Breck, and assuming I make it through this weeks scheduled workouts, tapering should be quite easy!

Time to clean the bike again!

Redundancy

If one lock will do, why not use eight?

"When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical. Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem." - Emil Zatopek

Teva Games

Last weekend I hit up the Teva Games in Vail for some XC action at high altitude. I think there were around 75 people in my race so things were packed. Regardless, the course packed plenty of gnar into each loop and it suited me well. After all, one of my biggest pet peeves are sanitized race courses. Anyway, my race was going well until the technical decent at the end of the first lap when I burped my front tire, it wasn't bad at all and I just kept on truckin'. Then on the second lap it burped on another technical section sending me over the bars in full on superman mode and resulting in me chest bumping the dirt. I put some more air in the tire to play it safe and finished out the race trouble free....all told I don't think I lost more than 2 or so min and rolled across the line in 29th. Afterwords, I put in some more saddle time to make a bigger day out of it before crashing for the night.

Sunday, Stephen and I headed to Breck to get in some more hours. First we headed up Boreas Pass and poked around on some singletrack before a snowstorm forced us back down to town. So, some coffee and baked goods later we headed back out to complete the 6 hour day. Anyway, enough talking, here's the photos...

Reasons

I've never understood how people can sit inside and watch the TV when there's this just outside the door.

Get out.

Drizzle....ain't no thang

Puttin' in the hours and doin' the work...

White Rim Stalking

Right now the brother is cranking through the desert on White Rim. The goal is a counter-clockwise ride basically just seeing what the legs can do. If you're interweb stalking inclined, he's got my Spot, so check it out.

Update: Roughly 8.5 hours car to car with around 27 min stopped time to take pics and do the tourist thing. Pretty damn fast for his first TT of the route and having a head injury 3 days ago!! :)

Perspective

Saturday, around 2 hours into a planned 6 hour day, the brother and I were descending when he overcooked a corner on Pole Hill Road. Using his ninja reflexes, he darn-near saved it before narrowly missed a small boulder and hitting deep sand, which promptly turned him into a 35 mph lawn dart. I was ahead of him, so I didn't see or hear the crash but 10 min later after climbing back up, I found 2 vehicles and 2 other cyclists who had stopped to help and were bandaging/cleaning him up. So, a van ride, an ambulance/ranger check, and a CT scan later it was determined that other than some road rash and a totaled helmet, he's no dumber than he was before the sailor dive. :) Pretty damn lucky!

Be carefull out there and wear your helmet!!!

Growler

The brother and I headed down to Gunnison last weekend for the Growler. Both of us had raced there last year so we knew the course but we headed out for some easy pre-riding.

Rain throughout the week left the trails crazy fast and the traction was through the roof.

We spun a bit of the course before being swallowed up by a big rain storm. We got back to the car soaked to the bone and with our clean and race ready bikes covered in mud.

Due to rain forecasted overnight, Carney Brothers Inc. did something we never do.....splurged for a cheap hotel room to clean bikes and dry kits.

The race itself was roughly a B+ day. I just plugged along never feeling like I was going 100%. With about 20 min left I rolled my front tire off the rim and lost some time trying to re-seat the bead and then ultimately putting in a tube and pumping it up with the worlds smallest pump. I rolled across the line in 6:17 something according to the results. After looking at the results and factoring in some time lost due to rolling my tire I don't think I was riding as slowly as I thought I was. I've made HUGE fitness gains this year thanks to Jason and I think I wasn't just all there mentally this time around. On the other hand, Stephen killed it after only spending a week at altitude and is riding like a demon right now!

After plenty of post race celebrating with friends we headed over towards Salida and crashed for the night in a pulloff. Monday morning we hit up Bongo Billy's for some B-fast and Absolute for some trail beta.....up to the Rainbow trail it was for some easy flowing through the pines.

We got back home Monday night tired, hungry, with no more clean kits, and mud on everything else....good weekend.

Three step weekend

Step #1......Open air bluegrass shindig

Step #2....5 hard hours of dirt with roughly one metric crap ton of climbing

Step #3....5 more hours of dirt as a chaser

Switchbacks

Sometimes ya clear em, sometimes ya don't.
Regardless - keep climbing.

Recon

Yesterday, Dave and I headed up high for some recon on Donner Pass and the surrounding area. It was a fun day of, pushing through snow, hike-a-bikes, snow, fog, and good trails.

We started off with some climbing.

Then we found some snow.

Higher yet.

Things got steeper and deeper.

Coming back down - some spots were deeper than others, sometimes we made it through, sometimes not.

More descending.

On one of the descents Dave overcooked a corner and nearly hit a tree before endo-ing to a stop at then edge of a little drop off - Check out his skid mark in the photo!


Another good weekend in the books.

Front Range 50

Well, the Front Range 50 on Saturday went.....partly well. The first 3 laps went textbook perfect and I felt right on pace, however after going through the feed zone at the start of lap 4, I stood up to power up a little rise and my left leg decided it had had enough to and started to cramp. I can count the TOTAL number of times I've ever cramped in my life on one hand so it's not really something I worry about. Needless to say, I had to back off the pace quite a bit and try to spin things out and nurse the leg back to working condition again. Basically for the 4th and half the 5th lap, my leg was just there for show and was about as useful as a christmas tree ornament. It wasn't really doing anything productive. I was able to pick the pace up a hair the last 5 miles or so, but the damage had already been done. I crossed the line in 3:22 - not quite what I had hoped for, but alright. Time to start thinking about the Growler in a few weeks.

In other news, wear your helmet! Glad you're "ok" Matt!! Heal up fast!

Weekend Update

My brain has been at a lack of words lately, so pictures will have to suffice.

Some of this

Lead to two trips up there

Followed by some of this

Good weekend.

Movin' pictures

Check out the video of this weeks New Belgium STXC action. I blatantly stole it from Yourgroupride.com so hopefully they don't use their mafia connections and send a copyright infringement hit man after me.

What did you ride today?

Here's a slice of my Wednesday.

And here's some of my one handed riding/video taking skills in action.




Other than Short Track last night and some easy laps tonight, I have a pretty chill week as far as riding goes. I'm heading to Nathrop this weekend for MSC #2, Chalk Creek Stampede, and racing both the XC on Saturday and the STXC on Sunday. The weather however, looks a bit on the sketchy side with a chance of rain/snow on both days. Who knows though - the weather has ADD round these parts! Also, all of the short high intensity riding I've been putting in the last few weeks has deffinatly been paying off but looking at such small weeky ride hours on my training log is a bit odd. Higher intensity has deffinatly been missing from my riding the past few years and I'm looking forward to the Front Range 50 next weekend to see how my finish time stacks up against last years. I should see a HUGE improvement!

New Belgium STXC Episode #3

Third week of the New Belgium STXC tonight.

A weekly reminder of why I'm better suited for endurance racing.

Contrast

Saturday - Descending Rist Canyon in mist and temps in the 30's

Sunday - Pole Hill in sun and 60's

Dressing for riding here in the spring can get confusing!

MSC #1, New Belgium STXC #2, and random life adventures

Been slacking lately on here, but I've been crazy busy. Last weekend I headed back to Fruita for the MSC #1 - Rabbit Valley Ralley and some cross country action. I had planned on racing the TT on Saturday, but the storm that hit the front range on Friday changed those plans. I don't think my little go-cart of a car would of done so well in the mountains with 3+ feet of new snow in spots. Late Friday, the DOT closed I-70 so I made the right choice....see mom, I do make smart choices every once in awhile. Also, I spoke with someone at the race who drove a Winnebago over the passes earlier on Friday, and at one point he looked in the rear view to see a semi coming at him sideways....that'll make ya pucker up! Luckily it was empty and didn't cause too much damage to anyone. Ok, so back to the race, I raced cat 2 (good thing about not having a USAC license the last few years) so my race was super short....I think 1:11 something, which was good enough for 2nd (41 sec off first). Overall I was happy with how I raced considering it was so dang short. My ave HR for the race was 185 which tells me I was goin' hard.

Part of the XC course from pre-riding on Sat.

More of the course

After the race I still felt like getting a bit more riding in, so I cruised on up to 18 road and rolled a few laps on kessel run. It had been awhile since I'd ridden there, but as expected, it didn't disappoint.

Carvin' some berms

When I finished, I rolled back to my car to find a flat tire...crap...no biggie, I've got a spare....take 15 min MAX to change. Although I quickly ran into a snag - the wheel had a security lug on it and the previous owner (I've had the car for less than a month) didn't include the key in the tool kit.....crap. So now I have a perfectly good spare, but no way of getting the flat off. Well, after 30 min of attempting the "farmer method" of jamming all of my misc bike tools in to see if I can bust it loose I saddled back up and rode into town.....15ish miles into town, after already riding/racing all day. Well, it was after 5 on a Sunday...in Fruita...not much open. So, I picked up a bunch of fix-a-flat and rode back out the the car, temp patched it, and filled it full of fix-a-flat. I limped it back to town, put some more air in it an then limped all the way to Glenwood Springs to the nearest VW dealer. When they opened in the morning I had them take off all the stupid security nuts and I was home free. I finally made it back home at about 2 PM on Monday. Not quite what I had planned but, hey - whatever.

Unofficial use # 347 for an Ergon BD2 - carying large amounts of Fix-a-flat and tire patches comfortably

Last night was week number 2 for the New Belgium STXC series. I raced the open and did..... so-so....only racing for 30 min is not fun....I can tell it's helping with my power, but I still prefer to race all day. Hop on over to the Group Ride site for some pics and vids.

I think some night riding is in order this evening...

This 'n that

Not a whole lot going on this week - lots of resting and foam roller time.....Mmmm foam rollers! Anyway, provided the sketch weather that's predicted for tomorrow doesn't keep me at home, I'll be racing in Fruita on Saturday and Sunday at the first MSC event. The schedule calls for an offroad TT on Saturday and an XC on Sunday, time to rev the engine! Also, time to pack everything in to my tiny go-cart of a car again and hope the snowplows do their job.

I also put on a fresh set of tires for the weekend. Kenda is a BWR sponsor this year and admittedly I've never used their tires, so I'm excited to test a few of them out. Feedback to follow as I put in some hours and rail some turns in them.

Playing in the rain

Since the next few weeks will be filled with racing, I needed to get outta dodge and find some adventure for the weekend. So Moab, the old staple, it was. Had plans of a White Rim TT on Saturday but rain changed that and instead I squeezed in a few hours exploring some faint singletrack up high while watching storms slam into the LaSals. Sunday I started off before dawn from the top of the Mineral switchbacks in rain and temps in the low 40's on a White Rim mission. My time on WR was considerably slower that I was hoping for, but considering it was literally the last day in a 3 week block and an 18 hour week where Jason cleaned the road with me and high intensity work, I'll take it. I'm not happy with it, but I'll take it, for now.

Chasing faint tire tracks

Bored while waiting for dinner to cook

All the precip lately turned everything green down on the rim. Not long before everything starts to fully bloom!

Looking ahead

Been on the road the past 2 nights doing some more specific intensity work at the order of Coach Jason. Also, the next month is shaping up to be a busy one. The local New Belgium STXC races start next week, Rabbit Valley MSC (TT & XC) next weekend, Chalk Creek MSC (XC & STXC) on May 2nd, and then the Front Range 50 on May 9th. It's going to be a fast paced month for sure. Race, rest, race, rest.....

Good luck to all the BWR folks racing at Dawn till Dusk this weekend!

Also, the AZT 300 started this morning - GO little red dots GO

Late addition: Check out Jason's XXC Mag - I'm still making my way through it - but so far it ROCKS!!

Moon shadows

I watch the sunset most weeknights from my bike seat and for some reason that time of day just gets me stoked. Last night I headed out for some chill saddle time on Blue Sky (or as I call it - The trail of endless flow, followed by gnarly rocks, followed by more endless flow). Temps were in the 60's when I rolled out, and before I knew it the sun was setting, I was still smiling, and well.... still flowing. So I watched the sun slip behind the mountains and since the temps were still warm (well other than the valley bottoms - there the temp dropped like a lead balloon) I kept riding. I finished the ride under the light of the full moon while chasing my moon shadow down the trail in front of me. Good times!

Winter in April??

5 hours in the snow/sleet today. Remarkably, after a ice layer formed, I was perfectly warm the whole time. See Matt - I do use the winter gear! :)

Lessons

Learned an interesting lesson today...

110 PSI + snow and ice + descending Rist Canyon = Visiting the ditch frequently and without warning.

On the training front, Coach Jason has me starting some intensity work, so stay tuned as I poke around in the pain cave.

Sipping the kool-aid

Yup, that's right - I have a bike on order that has wheels of the larger persuasion. I've wanted a HT 29er for quite awhile and I've always thought Sirens were purdy. I met Brendan briefly in Temecula in January and he's a cool fella and if I can have a bike built by a cool fella - I'm in. Also, check out the new real time build quere on the Siren site - pretty sweet stuff!!

Time to sell some old bikes/parts to make some room for the new kid in town!

Pictures tell the story

Mmmmm Candy

Crank Brothers is a Big Wheel Racing sponsor this year and I'm stoked. I love their pedals and have been using their tools for years. I also have a bad habit of breaking pedals, so this season I'm planning ahead.

Mission who hurls first

Met up with JK, Jason, Joe Saperstein, and Aaron Potts today for a hard 4 hour dirt sesh. I was stoked to open the throttle a bit but my legs weren't quite all there. I didn't feel crappy, I just didn't feel great. Either way, we rolled out of town and into Horsetooth and Lory parks and hit up lots of singletrack. We finished the day with just over 4 hours and 5500 feet of climbing. I only snapped one picture as we were rolling on the road (which is lame for a mtb ride), but, never fear, I stole some from JK.

Here, Joe explains the ins and outs of his previous career - cycling kit modeling.

I'm diggin'

Our track for the day

Vert profile

I heard the other day that so far this year we've only recieved 1/4 inch of precipitation in the Fort. We need some rain BAD - the trails are super dusty..... as in like, middle of August dusty. Hopefully, it'll only rain on my off days and when I'm outta town though.

In pictures

Pics from today - it was a gooooooooood.

Tomorrow, I'm heading out for a 4 hour sufferfest with JK and Jason - we're going to be playing a little game called "who pukes first" I'm guessing we'll hit around 6K+ in vert, maybe more?

Rest week cruisin'

Regardless of weather I'm taking an easy rest week spin or enjoying some quality face to stem suffer time, I gotta admit - this is a great place to ride a bike.

This shadow wasn't shadowy enough

Shimano needs to take note of ole Eli Whitney and his interchangeable parts theory - Having to replace an entire derailleur just because one easily replaceable linkage broke is just bad engineering.....or good marketing.

My $0.02

Busted

Today, I had 5 hours on the slate to finish off a 3 week block and a roughly 20 hour week. Jason came up from Boulder to sample the local trail flavor so we headed out to Blue Sky to start off the day with a plan of then riding in Horsetooth and Lory to finish things off. Initially my legs were a little cranky from yesterdays 6 hour ride, but they soon woke up and I felt surprisingly snappy.

Blue sky was in primo shape and was rippin fast

"I think I can see my house from here"

On the return trip from Loveland we hit up the Indian summer loop and then stopped briefly as Jason hooked up his helmet cam to film the rip-roaring trip back to the trailhead. About 15 seconds after we started I head a horrible crunching noise and looked down to see my rear der hanging lifelessly from the chain and cable. Apparently, I hit a rock and it sheared off. So, I rigged up a ghetto singlespeed and we limped home. As I was rigging it up another rider walked up with a busted frame, so Blue Sky was not kind today. Also, on the limp home, Jason noticed that my wheel was a bit messed up as well. It was a brand new beautiful Mavic wheel and today was it's maiden voyage......damn. Hopefully I'll be able to get both the der and wheel fixed up this week. On the training front, this next week is a rest week before starting to bump up the intensity - I have a feeling I've got some tough workouts in the next month.

Half and half

116 on the pave today - first half with the Oval group, second half solo.

I'm hungry again.

All packed up with nowhere to go

Had plans of heading down South to NM this weekend to hit up the San Ysidro Dirty Century (123 miles - so Century-ish), however it looks like rain is in the forecast so I'm bailing. However, gathering up all my gear after a winter of scattering it around the house wasn't such a bad thing since now I'm ready to go at a moments notice.

The Ergon is packed and ready for some backcountry epicness - C'mon spring!

On the training front, I've been getting in some good hours this week with some sweet spot and tempo work by the order of the coach man. I'm looking down the barrel at a 12.5 hour training weekend and since the weather looks nice, I'm pumped. I'm thinking it'll be both a road and dirt kind of weekend.

All my rides this week have ended with me chasing the last remaining daylight home - I never win.

More dirt and tanlines

Today, after a liberal application of coffee to combat loosing an hour to daylight savings, I headed south to shred some gnar gnar with Jeff "I only use products that are green" Kerkove and Sonya "I'm always happy" Looney at Heil and Hall ranch. Temps were in the 60's again so I got in some good quality work on my March tan lines. All told we made our way through mostly all of both Heil and Hall. I'd never ridden at Hall before and it certainly lived up to it's reputation of being super rocky and technical. Also, there were TONS of other folks out riding, I think I crossed paths with 75+ people throughout the day. Well, enough blathering, here's some photos.

What flavor of powerbar are YOU going to eat?
Or
Some comment about the proverbial fork in the road/trail, although they look equally well traveled.

Climbing Hall and it's rocky goodness

I think I can fix it

Dang Looney - Quit riding so fast!