Was suppose to be 4man, but changed to duo due to fears of a weather repeat if last years monsoons. Casey & I manned up & got ready to rip.

Raced my ass off & won the first lap. Gave everything I had and won the 2 up sprint. Will do a full power/lap review later.

After that settled in. Rain & fog & night came. Took a break & so did everyone else. Got up early ripped out some laps. Had a huge lead and were able to stop by 9:30 when the next round of rain came.

It’s mountain bike season! Sprague Brook this weekend!

The past 2 editions saw warm temps and dry & dusty race course. It was only fair that this year was 50 and rain. Turning many of the long dirt road climbs into quicksand. It certainly felt like the brakes were on while climbing for sure.

The race started off with a new section this year, that I was totally unprepared for. Right off the bat we climbed rt 53 and Ramone gunned it hard. It drew out the pack and I was quickly gapped (need a better warmup) but we hit a new fun and muddy descent that I was able to use to my advantage to bring the front back to me.

Once we rolled back through town a 2nd time and started the first climb we were a small group of 6. Staffo, Ramone, Duncan, Andy August, Jonah D and myself. Staffo and Ramone turned up the heat and slowly our group split. First Jonah, then me then Andy & then Duncan. Duncan managed to rebridge & the 3 rode the rest if the race together.

I started off in pursuit of Andy & Jonah soon bridged up to me. I dropped my chain in my spokes going up the next steep climb and he slipped through my fingers and ended my chase of Andy.

For the next forever miles, I chased Jonah. Up and over Canen hill, down Ridge road descent and up Hungry Hollow climb. The whole time Rob Dietrick was chasing me just as fiercely as I was chasing Jonah. I managed to finally catch Jonah on Hungry Hollow just before the steep pitch at the end. For a moment it looked like we were a group of 3 as we were diamounted and running up the super steep and loose climb. But I managed to get a good gap and hold em off. At least until after the descent and passing by the onion fields. Jonah rebridgend and we hit the singletrack together. I led, and managed to have a great cartoon esque faceplant on the descent, but still kept my lead. I got out front at the exit of the singletrack with a small gap and less than a mile to go. But the forever tenacious Jonah continued to pull me back in setting us up for a Mano e Mano sprint showdown. It all came downtown the last 50 meters where I narrowly edged him out by about a tire width for 5th place!!

All in all it was a killer race! Conditions were truly epic and hopefully I’ll have some pics from the moto crew soon to post.

Saturday

Saturday, hooked up with Todd and we railed around Naples area. Some super fun climbs and some incredible descents. As usual Todd tore me apart on the climbs (I promise I’ll show up fresh for a ride sometime!) and I taught him a few skills going down.

Ride was great a solid 4 hours with 2 rips down the DEC descent.

Groc Fest

After the ride with Todd, I headed into Naples for some Lunch and some grocery shopping. Had I been 10 minutes earlier I would have caught the group ride. No big deal though as I was already hosed from earlier. Though I did have to go pick up a dozen or so riders from the bottom of the tower drop and drive them up to OCP. They dropped a bunch of crushed stone on Gannett hill and no-one wanted to ride that stuff.

The evening was filled with the usual debauchery that occurs when you mix bikes, beer, bands and brisket. Schwarty’s brisket is good stuff and I think I must’ve eaten a good 5lbs of it. The band rocked out all night long and I even made my debut on the cowbell along with a full on cowbell solo. I may have a future as a musician, if I can only keep some tempo As usual you combine beer and boys and there were a few man-challenges thrown down on the playgrounds and even in the barn (my upper body is sore today!). I dutifully retired so I could get some sleep in my car for Sunday’s ride. I completely forgot my camera and wasn’t about to head back down to camp to grab it and walk back to the pavilion…

Sunday

Well, a little bit too much debauchery had us up late and tired for Sunday’s ride. The route plan quickly got shortened and we even shuttled it to skip all the climbing.

We climbed up the backside of Bristol Mt and hit Radar’s new piece of Singletrack. All I can say is friggin awesome. Rippingly fast fun flowy and long singletrack that shoots you out onto the fire-roads for a 70kph descent!!

After Bristol it was time to head over to Stid Hill

Perfect day, perfect riding. Couldn’t ask for much more. Glad to get out and hang with some good friends for the weekend. Times like this past weekend are the real reason we all ride bikes!

Off to interbike wednesday!! I’ll be updating via twitter (see sidebar) with loads of pics!

21 of us took off at dawn, in the fog and drizzly skies and made our way through the Southern tier and into Northern PA. Crazy weather patterns, fog, rain, sunshine, downpours and epic views greeted us all along the way. We even got to do a little dirt-road drifting on our road bikes as always, it’s not a Hollow ride unless we are ripping up the dirt roads. 45 mph descents on seasonal roads on road bikes, yup that’s fun. Captain Conte yelling at us cause we rode 2.5 miles past the turn cause we were ripping up the descent, priceless.

7 flats total on the ride, 2 by myself! I felt great by the end of the ride and the prep for the 24 hour solo is coming along great. Perhaps it was the massive calorie intake I had during the ride; oatmeal creme pies, pizza slices, snickers bars, red bulls, pringles, orange cupcakes. How can you go wrong with all that tasty food

We hit up Shindagin Hollow for a few hours of play. The night prior we had played hard at the Hartman’s. Suzanne served up some great chili, then it was time for some pool and mod racing. The mod crit quickly grew into a who could do better donuts. With that, we preceded to open the garage door and try to do them out on the wet driveway.

Needless to say, there was some fun that we had. Wednesday down at Shindagin was a great day. Fall foliage was in full bloom and the trails were in perfect shape.

We managed a huge crew (Jer-Bear, Casey, Der-Kaiser, Hanggi, Fry Guy, Marky Mark, Suz and I) for a wednesday afternoon. Mark was kind enough to lend me his Hi-Fi 29er. I made sure to put it to work hitting some gap jumps, riding 6 ft high skinnies, north shore bridge drops (and subsequent crashes) and tearing up the trails. Could a dualie be in my future?

The past few days were spent at a Coaching Seminar in Ypsilanti, Mi. I learned how to go real fast, and learned boat loads of info. It’s going to come in real handy. Next week I have the Coaching Summit in Colorado Springs and plan on learning even more info. Believe me, if you want to be fast for next season, hit your goals, and have fun, there’s nothing better than a coach

Resting up today, then back to the grinder tomorrow

111 miles, 14,030ft of climbing, 12:19 of riding, 6229kj, 4 finishers. It took us 3 friggin years to finally complete our grandiose plan of ultimate misery.

Mark, Casey, Hanggi and myself soldiered on for the final loop. Spent, exhausted, sleeping in the middle of roads. We surged, we struggled, we finally slayed the dragon.

I’m exhausted today, far too exhausted to do a full write up currently. Pics and more to come

In the meantime, go buy my bike

This past wednesday saw the band get back together again. Mark, Suzanne, Casey, Hanggi, myself and even Brandon Furber and Chris Frey! We had quite the group. We decided to meet down in Naples and traverse the first loop of the Humbler, aka “dirty thirty”. 30 miles of brutal climbing and insanely ripping descents.

We started off attempting to bush-whack our way through a newly built trail that overlooks the Naples creek, but the gang forgot that things grow during the summer and not during winter/spring. It was like Jurassic park, trying to get through a jungle. I nearly ripped my rear der off, and ended up bending the hangar and having a bunch of crap wrapped around my cassette. After we got through and to East Hill, we decided we’d have to skip that section because there is too much work that needs to be done in too little of time. After our usual grind up East hill, we decided we’d do a bomber run down the Hanglider trail (not in the Humbler as technically it’s not rideable)

The hanglider is one of the fastest and fun descents around, super steep, lots of twists and turns, mud, jumps, etc. Casey showed us all how not to ride a water bar as he thought the best way to do this was only on your front wheel, with your chest on your stem. He managed get ahold of that bucking bronco, but the trail eventually wrestled him down when a good set of thorns reached out and wrapped around him and tried to drag him into the earth. Luckily; Mark and I were following closely enough and could rescue him. It took some saws and clippers, but we eventually defeated the mutant thorn bush. Casey wasn’t the only victim though as Hanggi destroyed a wheel (just riding along!) and Chris flatted.

Our next adventure had us taking the long climb up Italy Hill to clear that trail, and then descend back down. Luckily, the anaerobic olympics had been held earlier this season as we climbed a little easier this time around, but still had quite a few major trees down that we had to clear. At the top after doing some good trail maintenance we managed to catch an incredible evening sunset.

It’s awful difficult to explain the beauty, but a nice pine woods backdrop, with a fire engine red, fading to an incredible indigo blue, fading into an inky black, with stars peppering the scene. All this while standing in a tall field of white carrot flowers. It was quite mesmorizing and will stick with me for a long time.

After that, we got to firebomb down the trail with our lights. Descending at night, on high speed tech is just incredibly thrilling. Your reaction times need to be ninja quick at high speed, because you have a flash of a second to react as most likely, you really can’t see what’s coming up on the trail. Suzanne fell victim to Italy Hill and managed a pinch flat on the way down, after a quick fix it was time for the last climb.

Basset/Brink hill would brings us up to the top and ready for the DEC descent. Our non-chalant group ride quickly turned into a testosterone fest on the final climb. Hanggi took off early and established a gap, while Casey, Brandon and I rode tempo. Upon seeing Hanggi no longer increasing, I started to up the tempo to catch. Brandon followed and we caught Hanggi and accelerated up Brink Hill. As we climbed the steep pitch of Brink, Hanggi dropped off the pace leaving Brandon and I to ride side-by-side down the road, neither of us able to drop the other, nor willing to provide the shelter of a draft. In the end it’d have to be a draw.

The ride finished off with the DEC descent, bone-jarring, cliff-traversing, super tech. All at high speed in the dark. Mark decided to take the lead and I followed. At such high speeds and the light bouncing around, I was truthfully riding completely blind. Working only on instinct and the feel of the rubber to the dirt. After having followed Mark’s wheel for the past 10 years or so, one has a good feel for the rider. I trust his lines and followed him and can read his body movements perfectly and adapt to the trail just by watching him and never looking at the ground. We all managed to make it down and out of the trail safely.

It was an incredible ride, and I’m bummed I forgot my camera
Best of luck to Mark/Suzanne and Ej and Jimmy this weekend at the Hot August Nights. I’ll be finishing off my final weekend of prep work before the Shenandoah 100

This past Wednesday, Mark, Suzanne and myself put in a good 57 mile mix of road, rail-trails and cinder path, with a mix of some ATV trails for good measure.

Cruising along the Erie Canal

Rail Trail Express

Thursday, I headed down to the hollow for Casey’s big birthday bash. The usual shenanigans occured, including a fireworks war and a 3am night ride occured, but I have no recollection nor evidence that it happened. I have some mysterious bruises and had a hangover the next day. I’m pretty sure we rode and rode hard as is the usual.

Friday was some more tooling around the Hollow and then heading over to the “bog”. The ride came to a great end as Mark, Casey and I had a dogfight down Hungry Hollow road. 40+mph dirt road descending and 10ft 2-wheeled 3-wide drifting was a blast. Someday we’ll catch that fighter plane style descent on film in all its glory.

War time Relics

Dogs and Bikes

Climbing up Shultz before the carnage down Cannonball Run

Casey and Val rolling along

Sunday was an epic day at Shindagin Hollow. The hollow-geneva (pronounce hallejeneva) crew spent the day bombing descents, jumping roots, hitting doubles, crashing in creek beds, cartwheeling through the woods, power sliding, catching air of bridges, listening to the casey cackle, world-cup racing, flat-tire fixing, smiling, and have a grand ol time as we put in 30+ miles. We pretty much took it easy up the climbs then just ripped it as hard as possible down the descents, racing the whole way and having a blast.

Chasing Casey and Mark through the woods

Gorrila Bear?

After a while we decided to take breaks on the descents (fixing Jer’s wheel)

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Prep work before the downhill assaults