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!

Back to bike racing:

After the 24 hour, decided to don my Minerva Design kit and head over and hit up the GVCC Crit.  Legs were still a bit cooked, but managed to jump in and stay in the main break for 30 minutes or so out of 40.  Pack pulled us back in, was able to work my way to the front and challenge for the sprint.  Coming up the hill, had a solid jump, 2nd place was starting to move up.  Dropped another gear and still had some in the tank, and then ‘schlecked’ it as the chain jumped on the cassette.  Sat up as I saw Zito had 2nd wrapped up, then realized I still had a bit to go and raced to the line for 3rd, but was nipped and will settle for 4th.  Been a while since I earned some GVCC points but was super fun to race.

This past weekend went out and did a pretty good size ride from home around Canadaigua Lake.

Great View around that lake for sure. I slogged and suffered like hell on the ride as I didn’t get much sleep the night before, but still managed a pretty solid ride.

Farmall XC Summer Series #1

Farmall Summer series kicked off this past tuesday night.  Good to get back in the flow and get back to some hard racing again.  Managed to botch my start and mis my pedal and dropped into 4th, gasp!  I pushed my way up to 3rd and then followed Staffo into the woods in 2nd place.  He was ripping it up the climbs, but I fought the good fight, and even though he got a slight gap out of the woods, I managed to pull him back in before the end of the lap.  A hard charging Tim Pilato was hot on my heels and we managed to both get past Staffo around the start of the 3rd lap.  Got some separation from Tim after a few laps and held a steady gap to the line for the W!

But enough about the racing!  It’s about the post-ride I did with Lake!

Right after this, we were ripping down the grass, and at high speed, just before the 180 turn, it gets a bit choppy. Well, he grapped a wee bit too much front brake and did a massive high speed endo. Hit the ground face first, and the bike slammed him hard in the back of the head. I think if he did have any teeth he would have lost em in this crash! After a few minutes of tears (I think I would have cried had I crashed that hard), he was back on the bike and ripping it

Up this weekend is Sprague Brook: Singletrack Stampede! Looking forward to this one, gonna be a ton of fun!

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!!

And that I exactly did.  It downpoured pretty hard Friday evening, but trails were so dry, the only thing really affected was that the roots were wet.  Trails still had some awesome grip and quite dry for the most part everywhere.  I climbed up Stid Hill and rode up to the Tower Drop.  Ran into a few cyclists coming down the 4 wheeler trail, that was a first.  Luckily was able to help them find there way.  After hitting up the long climb, dropped down the tower drop.  Now if you’ve been lucky enough to descend the tower drop, you know it’s near vertical.

Well, mix that in that it’s really technical and steep and loose, add some wet roots and only 1 line on hte descent.  Mix it up and add a nice crash in there and you get a nice chainring scratch and impalement on the lower leg.  Looks like I was attacked by a bear-vampire.  4 streaks of gash down my let, with 2 ‘bite’ marks where the chainring dug right in.  Got a few odd remarks about the wound this weekend, but I sucked it up and charged on.

Took things up to OCP and ripped my fastest lap on the Hardcore 24 course.  41 minutes nearly on the nose.  Probably would’ve been a few seconds faster had I not hit the deck when I came off the course onto the pavement!  Turned a little early on the wet pavement and hit the gas to sprint and “Down goes Igby”.  Awfully nice to be charging hard and dump it right in front of the party houses with all the onlookers.  Thankfully that was the last time I crashed, but with that I was pretty tore up literally.  Little blood mixed with dirt, never hurt anybody!

After hitting up OCP, I decided to rip up over in Cutler and then take the road down and climb up over Bristol mountain.  36 miles & 5k feet of climbing was more than enough for the day.

Sunday had plans to go rip Dryer rd in prep for the Fat Tire Fest coming this weekend.  But while watching the tour, came down with the weirdest sickness.  Was freezing my ass while it was 80 degrees outside and couldn’t eat a thing.  Skipped out on the day and just relaxed as much as I could.

I’m skipping the 6 Hours of Power this weekend.  Racing is expensive & so is a wedding, I’m pretty sure I don’t get to pick where the money goes at the moment.

Hope the rain holds off tonight, get some more trail ripping in tomorrow night & a road ride tonight, then some good racing this weekend at the Fat Tire Fest!

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!

Sunday though was the Naples Throwdown.  If you’ve been with me down to Naples for a mountain bike or road ride, you know my evil ways.  I pretty much picked a doozy.  77 miles, 6k+ of climbing, with majority of the climbs averaging well over 10%.

Good group of GVCC’ers were brave enough to show up and throwdown for the event.  Though I mighta scared a few of em off with the dirt road descents

But Hey, there were some great views.  Though my eyes were crossed at the top of Bopple Hill (27% will do that to you)

Even though Housler partied it up the night before, never did manage to get him to puke.  Ah well, believe me there was plenty of suffering to go around.

Nothing like a massive climbing day where the average cadence is 75 rpm.  After Flint Hill, I looked down and it said my average was 53rpm, that was 3+ hours into the ride!!

Tonight:  Park Ave XC finale at Camp Arrowhead.  Booyeah.  Feeling good and looking forward to ripping it up!!

Weekend:  Thinking a massive 85-100+ mile day on the mountain bike, then taking it easy Sunday and hitting up the boat.  Gonna head with Bridget and Lake to camp in the Adirondacks the 5th & 6th and not gonna do any training so a mondo weekend is in order!!

This past weekend I managed to get down to OCP both on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I ripped around for 2 laps, and thankfully the course is mostly marked. Though I was confused a bit crossing the Orange trail and getting back onto the Brown. Looks like they still need to build a section. Which personally I think is dumb, you guys need to stop building trails a month before a race and make the racers burn them in. Seriously?? Remember last year, yeah the course sucked when it rained?? I don’t know why they aren’t using the Orange Trail? It’s pretty kick ass and it was the only trail that held up to the rain last year. Plus its for like 100 yards?? Besides they completely eliminate the Awesome overlook view of the valley?? That’s all part of the allure, but I guess not /rant over…

Ok, where was I, got off track a bit there… So Saturday was 2 laps on the course, and sunday I went down and did some extra riding. Started at Parish Hill, up through Hi-Tor, down the DEC, up Gannett Hill, 2 laps on the Hardcore course and out the orange trail, down the abandoned road, stop get a chocolate milkshake and roll back to the Car. Seriously, nothing better than rolling up to the ice cream stand covered in sweat, dirt and grime and ordering up a chocolate milkshake for the mile roll back to the Car! I managed to rip some laps on the course and 45 minutes seems to be my gold standard, give or take, even 3 hours into the ride, still turned a 45 minute lap. I think, fresh and race day… 40 minutes will be the fastest, maybe sub 40 if it’s super dry day.

Needless to say, the big frigging deal of the weekend was me seeing a Black Bear up in Hi-Tor!! After crossing the 4 way intersection and heading towards the DEC, as I was up top by the ponds, I came rolling around the corner and BAM! almost ran into him. Scared the crap out of me and he took off into the woods. Tried to get the camera out, but no dice. He was gone! Thankfully the rest of the ride was just super fun ripping on the bike and I didn’t get eaten

Last Night, Hanggi and I ripped some laps on the Hardcore course again. As is par for the course, turned some 45 minute laps! Frig, I gotta get faster! But we rode pretty solid and pretty much Sweet Spotted for 90 minutes! Just railing the course and getting the lines down.

This weekend, will be hitting up Naples with Brendan and the Minerva Design Crew to have a good fun team ride one the road bike, haven’t done been out with the guys in a bit! Need to catch up!

Super fun time, but I’m still tired and still trying to catch up on everything. Racing some cross country this weekend at Williams Lake. Not sure why I signed up for a race thats 4 hours away, but ah well. It’s xc racing and it’ll be a blast!