JasonHilimire.com

WTF, I just typed this all out on my iphone and saved it, and now it can’t be found. These is going to be a bit briefer……

Since I dropped out of the Hardcore 24 last weekend, I was still fairly fresh and decided to hit up the GROC Fest XC at Dryer Rd. Ripping around on my old stomping grounds where I’ve put on plenty of miles was going to be fun. Though it was going to be a tough course with all the twisties and narrow trails, it was gonna be plenty of hurt.

I took the holeshot off the start and around the fields, heading into the woods. Up the steep gravel climb, I was pulled in and settled into 2nd. Heading into the woods was comfortably on the wheel and then right down the wrong trail a few of us followed. After realizing it, I ran back up the hill and jumped back on the trails. I was now in 6th or 7th place behind a long line of riders in some super tight trails unable to pass. When and where I could, I clawed my way past riders into 2nd place. Coming out of the woods and onto the perimeter I jumped off the front and rolled into the next lap in 1st.

I relinquished the lead up the gravel climb and took 2nd heading into the woods again. I was able to overtake the lead though, heading into Owl’s maze and hold it. I was putting the gaps into 2nd on the perimeter (he was on a SingleSpeed). The 3rd lap, heading into the woods with a comfortable lead, but 2nd and 3rd were hot on my heels. I knew that they wouldn’t make a pass in the woods and would have to make it on the perimeter before the final downhill. But I had opened up a huge gap each time once I hit the perimeter and the final time was no exception. I floored it and headed into the final descent with a comfortable lead of a solid 10 seconds or so. Crossed the line and finally got the coveted “W”. Legs felt great during the race and was super happy with the performance.

Sunday after feeling good on Saturday, I decided to head down to Ellicottville for the 6 Hours of Power. From the half mile LeMans start into the 1 mile opening climb, I knew I didn’t have much after racing so hard Saturday. Oddly, as soon as I hit the woods my front brake lever was flopping all over the place, causing it to be a little hard to shred on the super fun singletrack. I managed to zip tie it up for the 2nd lap, but that lap was just as tough as I broke 2 spokes. After figuring out how to wrap em up and get rolling again, the fun factor was dwindling. I decided to ride a 3rd lap for fun and fitness then head home and spend the day playing with Lake. It was a wise decision.

In the end, I was quite happy with Saturday’s race. However, I keep breaking bike parts! WTF, I’m just a poor amateur…. it’s getting ridiculous the amount of stuff broken this season and it’s all been without actually crashing. Maybe I need to hire a competent mechanic? (I do my own wrenching, and the breaking has all been total failures, not mechanical) Quite odd, but that’s what happens when you ride and ride hard.

Thankfully, I’m in the middle of a full on mid-season break. Will give me plenty of muster so I can rocket come September/October. There’s not much going on in August as I’m taking it low key and will get some training done.

On a side note, more training, means a less hectic schedule and that means more time to blog and have fun. I promise the pictures and videos and many more entries are coming over these next few weeks! Until then..

It was a long weekend of racing and driving in the car. Friday afternoon, I set out for the 4 hour drive north to my brothers place in Malone. Giving me about an hours drive to Whiteface Mt. for saturday’s race.

Got there with plenty of time to play with my nephew Peyton, eat some gnocchi with homemade sauce by Grams and watch a movie. I managed to get a great night’s sleep in and then get the the race right on schedule. However, I didn’t really get a great warm-up in. Being as the race was new and recently scheduled it meant a small field (3 of us in the pro class), but it did mean we were all gonna get paid! That however didn’t mean I didn’t race my ass off.

The race started with a little prologue section with a climb, then onto the main course and up the access rd. Suffered a bit on the start and was struggling on the first lap, trying to get the legs together. I ended up losing sight of 1st place as he disappeared in the 1st section of singletrack. I surged hard, started to feel better and raced well over all. Race was a bit short at 1:40, but every one of my 4 laps was within 30 secs of each other, so I was at least nice and consistent. I did bag $250 for 2nd!! Everybody better hit this race course next year as it was one of the baddest and best ever!

Sunday (after a long drive home saturday) I headed down to Ellicottville for the Roots, Rocks and Ridges race. I think the last time I managed to do this one was about 5 years ago. There was good number of people and it was a great day for racing. Course started with a road prologue while we were lead over to Holimont and the start of the climbing. Didn’t mean it was truly neutral though as we were clicking off a good pace on the road. Knowing the climb was coming up, I got near the front and stayed there trying to shake the legs out from the prior days efforts. Hit the climb and when it turned to dirt a small group of us split the main field. I was sitting at the tail end of the group around 4th/5th and came off on the climb prior to entering the singletrack. I was busy closing the gap to the rider in front of me, when I felt my rear tire was real squishy. I jumped off to throw a co2 in and didn’t do much. I decided to tube it and it took me forever to get the valve stem out. Finally go the valve stem out, tube it and the co2 barely puts any air in, WTF!?! I spend forever hand pumping my mini pump (luckily does both), while getting passed by everyone. I got the tire up and ready to go and ended up behind a large smashed together group near the back. It was tight singletrack and I really wanted to get back to the front. Riders were dabbing and falling all over the place, I ended up having to use the “pro” lines to pass quite a few of the riders. After a few minutes being stuck behind them, I finally got free and clawed my way back up. I was surging and flying through the singletrack.

I was actually feeling really great overall. I managed to catch a bunch of riders. I did have to stop at one point and put some more air in my rear as it was still feeling soft. I shot up again and was catching more riders. Any chance I got, I was doing the Big Ring Challenge and hammering through the singletrack. I was creeping way up in position and just was catching 2 more riders when I realized I had a broken spoke. Took some time to get it out of the rotor and bend it around so it wouldn’t get caught on anything. I managed to catch and pass back one rider, but ran out of trail catching the other.

Total time according to the powertap lost by flats and spoke: ~8:30. Unofficially according to mom, I was about 9 minutes down on first! I finished in 10th place, which I thought was incredible considering how many riders initially passed me. It was a great course and good ride and was happy to end my season on a strong weekend of racing!

Now it’s time for ‘cross

Currently playing in iTunes: Revelry by Kings of Leon

Full Weekend Report coming tonight.

2nd place at Whiteface
10th at Roots Rocks and Ridges

Incredible courses and great competition. Loads of driving. I slept for 12 hours last night.

Well, The Horrible 100 is done and over with. Season is winding down and my original plan was to hit up the Roots, Rocks and Ridges race in Ellicottville on 9/30. That plan has gone down the tubes lately. Last week I had to go away to Philly for work and as a result, no training and some fitness decline.

Now, it’s Thursday and I still have the same illness I’ve had since Saturday evening. I’ve had a fever and pretty bad sore throat all week. A few times I’ve either come to work late or left early cause I can’t even hold my head up. Shivering in bed with 3 blankets on while it’s 75-85 outside is definitely not how I pictured spending the past few days. Yesterday I headed to the doc and picked up some antibiotics. Hopefully those will help a bit.

I haven’t ridden since the H100, and there’s no chance of a proper recovery for the R,R & R race; this is my official end of season declaration. I’m not hanging the bike up, but I’m not going riding with any purpose other than to have fun and look forward to the next ride. I have some thoughts about hitting a cross’ race but I really don’t feel like doing any intensity training right now (specially as I’m still feeling like crap). I’ll probably wind it right back up though sometime around the start of November.

Don’t worry I won’t leave you hanging, I’ll still keep posting

Currently playing in iTunes: Challengers by The New Pornographers

Well, finally home and still wiped out. I hit Buffalo Friday night with a friend for some dinner down on Elmwood. Had a great time and then had some coffee and a good chat. It was nice to enjoy night life in a city. After dinner, I hit up an old friend that I grew up with and we hit the town for some craziness. Really got to enjoy the nightlife then!I awoke a litte razzled and tired on Saturday morning. I spent some more time in Downtown Blo grabbing a quick cup of joe and just people watching for a short while.

After that I packed up and headed down to E-ville. Casey was late, so I spent some more time in another coffee shop, grabbing some quick lunch. Once Casey arrived we set up camp, I packed the ‘cabin’ bag in some pine trees for a lil bit of privacy, and the fact that I forgot my bedroll. The nice soft pine needles made it like a pillow top mattress back there!

Saturday; Val, Casey and I rolled out and put some time in the trails. Conditions were pretty fair considering the rainstorm that swept through the night prior. We had some fun rocking out together.

Val had to head into town for a minor upgrade, while Casey and I headed out for the forest of Endor. Climbing up and through the trails we felt like and Ewok or an Imperial Speeder were going to fly by us at any moment. It was a surreal moment as we were plodding up this climb and suddenly realized that the entire forest undergrowth was nothing except ferns. Lighting was too poor to grab a good pic, but it’s banked in the internal SD card for a long time.

Mark and Suzanne showed up later that evening. Mark and I and the dog’s headed out for a night ride. You know it’s gonna be a good one when the trails have names such as; Rim, Bent Rim, and Pale Ale. It was crazy fun, and super, super tech. Loads of rocks and roots everywhere. Some crazy lines just up and over everything, stuff that would be brutal to even walk on. I probably would’ve taken some pics, except Mark was his usual self and just blasting off through the stuff while I was left to fend for myself. Back to camp, we found the crew had dug into the Sam Adams Summer Lager’s and were having a grand ol time. I was wasted and headed to the cabin, where according to Val I fired up my generator to turn the heat on, watch some TV and cook a quick meal before I grabbed some shut eye.

Sunday, was a perfect day for a nice group ride. We climbed up the road to the backside of the mountain then hit the famous descent down to the bottom of the race course. Val and Casey headed down to Burger King to pick up Dave. I think they had a few whoppers and some fries while they waited.

Dave was a no show, so we decided to climb to the top of the of the race course and hit some of the fun stuff. Once on top, it was all coming back to me. I’ve ridden a ton here for the 6 Hours of Power races and loved every minute of the course. It’s amazing how once you jump on a trail, it’s similar to re-reading a good book. Each new rock, root, corner is similar to reading a new paragraph. There is some familiarity, it’s recognizable and enjoyable to be re-acquainted.

Casey and Val dove off and headed back for camp, the rest of us took the scenic route and slowly made our way back, hitting some crazy fun stuff on the way. The trails were plenty packed with quite a few riders and it was nice to see so many people out having some fun on their bikes. By this point the pups were getting a little tired and I had no more water for Lizzy so we let them cool off in the stream crossings.

Once back at camp, we packed up and then headed over to Golden Hill for some riding on some new trails. The trails were nice and ripping fast and very flowing. Speeds were constant and ripping. I tried a funky set-up to grab some video from my camera and it came out pretty cool. Once I edit it down, I’ll get it posted up for you to view. After Golden Hill, it was off to the Ellicottville Brewery for a burger and a nice brew. Great way to wrap up the weekend

See all the pics from the weekend here!