With the chance to hit some trails and have some fun and the nice weather, August/September is some of the best time to ride in Naples. I headed down this past Thursday night, but forgot my lights, DOH! Managed to rip up Parish Hill, rip through Hi-Tor and down the DEC in about 50 minutes, plenty of daylight. But not enough to do it all again. So I did some hill repeats on Parish Hill in the dark. Want to really sharpen your skills? Descend a dirt road at 35mph in the pitch black, that will give you some confidence

This past Saturday, headed back down to get what I was really looking for. A good 4 hour tear with some good climbing. Felt great to rip the trails and have some fun

All in all was a great day of riding. Going to head back out there tonight (with my lights and get some more ripping in! Then this weekend, gonna take the Lake monster down to Windham to see the World Cup Finals!! First time World Cup in the US in 5 years, and it looks like they have the finals for 3 more years. He’s super pumped (as am I) to see Julien Absalon and Nino Schurter mix it up Live! It’s been super cool to watch the races on Freecaster.tv with him in the am, but will be even cooler to watch in person!

Now for the short and pissed off version.
Managed 5th overall and 3rd age at the Singletrack stampede. Broke my chain on the 1st lap & then next lap, busted up my front derailleur. After a few adjustments, was forced to stay in the small ring. So congrats to J Bixby who won by a few minutes, while I spent triple his advantage on the side of the trail.

Saturday was 126 miles on the road bike with Brendan, Staffo and Barney. Hosed completely after that ride. Brendan broke a shift cable in Italy Valley and drove it 18+ miles in the 53×12. I was gassed a bit from the race still and when we got to CDGA decided to roll the last 30 miles home. Frick, my legs were cooked after that ride.

Last night was Farmall #2. Was sitting pretty till I burped a tire at the end of the 2nd lap. Was dumfounded for a second, the realized there was a floor pump in the trailer as I was right near the finish line. Rolled over and pumped it up. Had fallen into about 6/7th place. Lost pretty close to a full minute on that. Damn near impossible to make up on that course. Drilled it the next few laps and brought the gap down to under 30 secs (EDIT: gap to 2nd place not 1st) and made my way up into 3rd. I wasn’t gonna close 30 secs on the final lap, so kinda sat up a bit. Was a little frustrated at my luck again, but oh well that will happen. All part of racing.

Next week is Farmall #3. Gonna be a shootout for the overall! Then no races till Shenandoah 100!

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.

This past weekend was the GROC Fat Tire Festival.  Held at Dryer Rd Park in Victor, NY.  Originally started as a time trial race on the trails, my first race there was abysmal.  But last season I persevered and took home the XC win.  Headed back to the race this year to have some fun & of course to represent the #1 plate that I was given!

It was a fairly short course, but completely revamped from prior years.  Not much of a roll out, but right onto a singletrack climb, up to the top of the fields, across the fields and into the trails.  A fast technical & twisty downhill and then onto lots of short & steep climbs that just seemed to keep coming.  Back out onto the field around top and then ripped the descent.  Repeat 4x

Evil Steve took the holeshot and pegged it up the first climb.  It was nice as it actually took a ton of pressure off to rip it up the climb.  I stayed nice and steady and then attacked him as we came over the top in the field to take the lead into the singletrack.  By the time we exited Chutes & ladders I had a decent lead that grew when I attacked again coming up the Elevator climb.   I kept the pace up and by the end of the 2nd lap I had a good 30-40 second lead.  More of the same on the 3rd lap, the only real excitement being of course when Bridget missed my feed.  She was afraid of coming onto the course & when I reached out for the bottle, she decided that she’d test my coordination by throwing the bottle to me.  Well, I ride bikes for a reason and don’t play ball sports…  I laughed pretty good and wasn’t worried at all.  I was turning 20 minute laps and it wasn’t too unbearably warm.  The 4th lap I had a solid 45-55 second lead over everyone and stupidly decided to take a look back across the field just as I entered the singletrack.  ….Down goes Igby!  hit the deck pretty hard when I clipped a pedal.  Lost a few seconds, but regained my composure and held on for the victory.

While we waited for the kids race to start, Lake tooled around on the skills area.  The dude can ride the stuff no problem!  I was seriously amazed!

He was so pumped to be out riding!  Just love the Joy the kids get out of it.

I took a video of the kids race… Lake is a Youtube Star again.



This weekend is the Hardcore 24.  Doing it as part of a 4 man team this year for the first time ever!!  Will be nice to sleep some between laps!!

Race

My race faired ok, got the holeshot out of the gate and was the first one into the woods. Doug Rusho was in tow and Andy August was shortly behind. There was really no place to shake Doug as the course is super tight, and super fast. So he hung on my wheel for the first 3 laps. I gave him the lead into the singletrack at the start of the 4th lap. 50 yds in, I hear a loud clank and my pedals stopped moving. Look down and somehow the front derailleur swung into the chainrings. Weird part was, I didn’t hit anything, was jra’ing on the trail. Ends my race quickly. Ah well, the legs felt like crud still from the weekends big efforts.

Side Bonus? Set personal best power or 2nd best numbers across the board, so from is there. Plus, I got to ride a few laps with Lizzy and Lake. I’ll happily take a DNF if that’s my reward. Hopefully I can upswing the form some for this next month of racing!

Gotta get the bike tuned up, big weekend on tap!

Things have been a bit busy here these past few weeks.  Thought that maybe I’d get a few pictures up and a brief report.  Some are already aware, but a few weeks ago strained my back a bit at the Farmall #2 Spring race.  Not sure what exactly caused it, but damn if it didn’t just shut me down immediately.  Had to pull up and head home.

Took some time to let it heal and thought that I would give the Highland Hex 6 hour a go.  Things were going great at the Hex, I laid down a super fast 1st lap and lead for the first 4/5 laps or so (first 3 hours), then my back started acting up quite a bit.  I took it easy for a lap, then tried to go again, then decided it wasn’t going to happen whatsoever.  I ended up pulling the plug and heading home.  With the back issues I decided to pull the plug on the mohican 100 this season as I was forced to rest and recover a bit and let things heal. I’ve been taking it fairly easy and just hitting the road bike for the past few weeks and letting it rest as much as possible.

Memorial Day Weekend

A few quick pics from Memorial Day weekend. If you didn’t already know, good ol’ Waterloo is the birthplace of Memorial Day! Thus it gives us a great reason to celebrate not only our soldiers, but our families. I took some good bike rides, but it was more about spending time with the family

Park Ave XC

Park Ave has changed things around a bit this year with a new venue for their weeknight mountain bike series. They’ve even added a kids race! What can I say I was thoroughly impressed with the race course. Fairly technical, almost entirely singletrack, 1 steep goat climb, but otherwise super flat and fast. Even the kiddies race hit up some singletrack!

After a big weekend of riding on the road, including a trip to OCP to rip the Hardcore Course on Monday, I decided to test the legs out and see how things went.  A lap or two to warm-up and I knew the course would be super fun.  Race started with a loop around the ball-field & I knew the start would be fairly critical.  Unfortunately mis-timed my pedal clip in and was edged out into the woods by Andy August (on his cross bike).  Flew around the course following him a bit, till he took a bad line along the creek and got stuck in the trees.  I fell into 4th behind Doug Rusho, Andy & Dan Staffo (also on cx bike).  Got past Dan down near the creek where the lines widened up and past Andy when he took a different line after the bridge crossing.

Squeezed past Doug just prior to the bridge over by the ropes course.  From there I hit the grass field with Staffo in tow.  Staffo attacked and took us into the singletrack where I followed for the first half of the course.  Down by the creek again, I managed to pass him in the same spot, put in an attack and because I was able to ride up and over the bridge steps on the 29er, I was able to really establish a gap.

From there on forward I just kept the gas on, stayed patient behind the lapped riders and just ripped it in the woods.  Focused on just staying smooth and fast and having fun!  Not exactly sure how far in front I finished (minute or two), but it was a great race and happy to have such stiff competition out there!

Up next is the Full Moon Vista Friday night crit, then I’m off to the FasCat Training Camp in Boulder for 10 days!!  Gonna be awesome to be back and ripping up some of the fun stuff I rode last year.  Also gonna hit up the Granby course for Nationals Recon!

But with bad sometimes comes great! I got my new iPad (doing this post on it!) and today for Easter took Lake out on his very first trail ride! Needless to say he was super pumped to ride!

Little dude dug it big time. He was excited to go cause he got himself a new helmet for Easter today. He really did t have too much of an issue on the trail other than his bike is to heavy to lift over the big logs. He cleared some tough root sections, negotiated the corners with ease. Made it through the mud and over some rideable log piles without any issues! Kinda was scared at how fearless he really was! I’ve been on bike rides with some fit dudes who had more issues than he did. If he couldn’t ride it! He simply got off his bike and ran it, without missing a beat.

Might have me a new training partner pretty soon (for those that think I might be pushing him to this, I’ve never asked him to ride, he has always asked me or took it up on his own).

Bonus today was that it was also our younger pup Lulu’s first trail day. Good thing Lizzy was there to show here the ropes! She did good but is a little skittish and scares easily. Had t get off and walk her down and comfort her a few times. She doesn’t like sticks; when they snap or you pick them up off the trail, she will run!

All in all a great weekend and still more to go!

Enjoy the pics (can’t put them inline through this)

I managed to get in some great training and more importantly just have some fun on the bike!

The fun even carried into this past weekend. I went and did both Giro Training races on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was doing pretty well hanging with the bunch, but the extra lap and mis-fire on my shifter had me coming off the back on the hill before the finish line about the 4th lap. Seems like the 5th lap was pretty tame though, as I sat up and was really only rolling behind the pack for most of the remainder.

Sunday, even with the tired legs decided to go race. I was berated by my teammate “Big House” (who had just won the Philly race the day before with utter dominance) to come out and ride. So I did. We had a bit of a smaller group and played around a bit with some attacks and had some fun, but it was destined down to a field sprint. Even made it over the hill and was able to sprint in the bunch for 5th, while Big House took the W. Been a while since I’ve been in a big ol’ group sprint, but don’t think that I’ve really lost too much of my edge A few more and I’ll be nice and sharp. Next weekend is the last weekend of the Giro’s, who knows what’ll happen then but I’ll at least be there saturday to mix it up again. Maybe even sunday too….

Amazingly temps have been incredible for riding in March, we got crushed with a snow storm, then bam 45-50- even 60 degree days with loads of sunshine!! I’ll take it!!.

Cause with Sunshine comes loads of motivation. Getting out there and drilling it for some “Over-Unders”

Fun intervals but, they are painful!!

Then of course, my tried and true Criss-Cross Intervals, these are even good for roadies as they help simulate riding in a paceline. Plus these aren’t boring by any means. The tempo part goes by quick and the hard part isn’t really super hard either.

In mountain bike news

The Dryer Rd. Mountain Bike Race is on!!

April 11th presented by Genesee Valley Cycling Club & Full Moon Vista. Will be a kick ass course at Dryer Rd. (designed by myself!), CA$H-MONEY prizes for Expert/Sport category!! Even the beginners walk away with some nice medals. No tube & lube for the winners here!! GVCC is really stepping it up and helping bring mountain biking up to the level it belongs. Go Pre-Reg on BikeReg.com and save $5. See you there!!

Gonna be a big weekend on the roadie!! Giro’s & some hill climbing in Naples. Hoping I can skirt the rain and stay dry!

Few days last week I managed some early morning road rides along the lakefront. Something quite serene & peaceful about it. Everything is still & it’s nice to have the solitude. Unfortunately so early in the am causes some unawakened legs also, but just takes some getting used to.

This weekend was great. The sun was out & got to race my bike on Saturday & get in a good ride again on Sunday. More importantly spent loads of time with Lake! Bridget is in NYC for a few days so we’ve been hanging out. Went for a bike ride, played some snow soccer & played some indoor hockey (don’t tell Bridget!) & all the fun stuff that little dudes do. He’s way too much fun, gotta keep it coming in doses though!

Thus week should be another killer week. Fitness is rapidly climbing & another giro again this weekend. Might skip Sunday & go climbing the hills of Naples for a big ride. Gonna be gorgeous! Maybe I’ll even get some pics up on thus thing & blog more than once a month!