Speaking of Performance…
Last Night was Farmall Hill Challenge #2. I’d missed the first week as I was traveling. I had some heavy motivation to get out there and shred the trails. I’ve not raced in a bit and I’m in full on prep mode for the Shenandoah 100. Here in Seneca Falls, we’ve had massive thunderstorms early this week, but didn’t seem to happen over in Rochester. Course was in Primo shape, and there was a new re-route section that added about 10 seconds per lap.
I felt really good warming up, I was slightly concerned as I had to buy some new shoes, which meant new cleats also and I’d come unclipped on one of the descents and almost ended badly. My sidi’s blew-out and apparently all 4500 pairs that were being imported were stolen of the docks. I ended up with a pair of Louis Garneau Montana XT’s, quite comfy (I don’t like carbon soled shoes), but much wider shoe (and a much grippier sole). Will probably rock them until I can get a pair of Sidi’s. Also new was a pair of Bontrager XR1 Team Issue tires. I wanted to see how they would hold up in race conditions as they rocked out over the weekend (see link for my post on their performance ).
Race went on as planned, got to the front off the start, established my gap on the first 2 laps and then slowly slipped away continuing to build up my lead. Felt good and I turned about a sub 1:05 total time (link has my time listed wrong as of now). Pretty solid and def the fastest I’ve turned on that course and I think I would have been sub 1:04 and on the old course before the re-route. So things are lining up good for the SM 100!
In other news, this weekend was a boatload of riding. Put in some big miles on the Superfly down in Naples doing some prep work and getting in loads of climbing. Sunday was nothing more than a death slog in the rain as I was hosed from Saturday.
Headed down with Hanggi for some Dawn Patrol. Climbed up Parish Hill, descended Wood Hill then back up Bassett and into Hi-Tor and down the DEC descent. Here’s the video below
DEC Descent Naples, NY 8-8-09 from Jason Hilimire on Vimeo.
After dispatching Hanggi, I hit up Wolfganger and down Sunnyside, over to Griesa and up into OCP for a loop on the Hardcore course, descended down the Orange Trail and up and into Cutler for some more singletrack shredding. Took the old road down into Naples, then climbed up East hill, descended Basset Rd, climbed up Wood Hill and back through Hi-Tor and the DEC descent to finish things off. I didn’t have my power-tap on for the day, but somewhere around 70 ish miles in 5:45-6 hours of riding with 7 major climbs! I was whooped and def payed for it on Sunday as I could barely turn the pedals!
The man with the magic fingers, Mark Hartman, rebuilt my powertap hub up to a new set of Stan’s 355′s. So looking forward to a repeat of this past weekend’s workout again, but his time with some power numbers to chase around on the climbs!
This lil’ guy below has been putting in more miles than I have. He tells me his bike coach make him do all this training. When Bridget asked him who his bike coach was, he couldn’t tell her because Lake and I are supposedly in ‘competition’. Frank, did you pick him up without me knowing? 
He has me yell “Lake is the winner” every few times he rides up and down the sidewalk. Cracks me up, also when he says, “I’m dancing on the pedals” and proceeds to stand up and pedal…somebody watched waay too much Tour de France this July.
