JasonHilimire.com

Things have cooled off around here.  Both literally and figuratively.  The air is crisp in the morning and warming during the afternoons.  Good sleeping weather, as its nice to have the windows open in the evening.  Racing has been on the down-low. Bunch of fun riding and making preparations for The Shenandoah 100 (2009 Race Report, can’t find my 2008 but I think it’s on the 29er Crew somewhere?). Anyways, looking forward to heading down there with Mark and Suzanne Hartman, fun few days of riding and camping!

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!

No idea why I used a french title, maybe too much watching the tour last month?  Anyways loads going on around here.  The biggest news is I got a new article published in the CycleOps Power newsletter!  If you’re subscribed to the newsletter you probably seen my mug in your email inbox (subscribe here).  If not, go read my article on Using Intensity Factor to Train in the Right Zones here!

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!

I figured since I have it, I might as well share it.  Here’s my power data from the 1st lap at the Hardcore 24 this past weekend.  I ended up winning the lap and the $100 prime in a 2 man sprint against Park Ave’s Rob Pilato.  It was an epic battle, probably one of the hardest laps/race I’ve ever done on the dirt for sure.  I set many personal bests for this season.  It may or may not have been the fastest lap overall, but we did have a little prologue in there at the start and the course wasn’t quite worn in yet.

At the start we rolled off the grass and onto the paved climb, I just basically jammed it here to string everyone out.  I knew the 40 seconds of climbing wouldn’t take too much and all it would do is really give me the lead into the singletrack.  From there it was mostly just rolling and keeping the pace high.  Right away, Rob was on my wheel and Doug Rusho was in 3rd (not sure who was in 4th).  There’s not too many opportunities to make a move in the early singletrack, so I stayed tight and let things be.

As we crossed the road and hit the sidehill climb, I really gassed it.  I knew this climb well, practiced attacking here and practiced the roll-out at the top where I would have to keep the effort up as it was still climbing and it was new trail so it’d be nice and loamy.  Didn’t really get any separation from Rob on the climb, but managed to get some separation from 3rd & 4th.  Descending the orange trail I was able to get a few seconds between us, & tried to gas it coming up the Brown trail rooty climb, but Rob was hanging on with everything he had and clawed his way onto my wheel.  Some harder efforts on the Brown trail, but never really shook him at all.

Click Here for the Big Version: Flickr resized it tiny

Coming off the Brown Trail onto the more open Orange Trail, I hit the gas on the slight climb.  Was actually able to get a few seconds of separation here and even more again on the descent.  As we bombed the trail, they rerouted us through a new section I hadn’t ridden and it was quite wet.  My front wheel slipped in the mud as I caught big air coming into it and he quickly pulled the gap right back.  Bummer for sure.  Railed the purple trail with everything I had and still, he was right there at every section.  My last shot was to drill it up the grassy open climb and get some separation.  I didn’t really attack but turned the screws on him for the whole long minute up the climb.  We were both gassed and still no separation, but still had a little bit of climbing left.  I heard him breathing pretty heavy and hit him with the knockout punch.  Drilled it again immediately and finally got the separation I needed.  I had about 8-10 seconds heading down the final descent and knew I just had to get back across the road and keep it together.

Bombed the descent and got a few extra seconds, but coming off the descent, the course was rerouted onto the red trail.  I was set up to make a left turn and cross the road.  But we had to go right on a greasy corner.  I had to pull up, and head down the red trail.  Super tight trail with zero visibility, off-camber, etc and I’d not ridden it in a long time (they actually removed it when the rain came).  As a result I had to lighten up and try not to crash.  This let Rob back on.  At this point, I basically ‘sat-up’.  There really wasn’t too many more opportunities to get separation.  Had a quick chat with Rob, we decided to cool our jets and SPRINT for MAD MONEY!  Regardless of winner, we’d split the cash.

As we came out of the woods, I swung it wide.  This gave Rob the lead onto the pavement.  I’m sure it didn’t really matter, but was nice to sit in 2nd wheel.  He tried to up the pace, but I hung on without issue.  We rolled off the pavement around the bathrooms and back onto the pavement for the final 100 meters.  I scouted the corner just incase.  Super tight left hand turn.  Slightly off-camber with tons of rock-fill everywhere.  You hit this wrong, you were gonna drift and miss a pedal stroke and have to give it some gas on the little rise up to the road.  I set myself up around the corner, Rob took inside a little tight and had to miss that pedal stroke.  I carried my momentum and as we hit the road I was already going faster than him, slammed the pedals with everything and got a few bike lengths for the W!  Official lap time 42:57?? (computer reads 41:54).

9 attacks on my behalf that lasted from 20-90 seconds greater than  120% of FTP.  52 efforts that ranged from 1-15 seconds that were greater than 150% of FTP.  All in all; 15 minutes (36%) of my lap was spent Anaerobic!!  Needless to say, I was spent on my 2nd lap and rolled a 48 minuter as I tried to recover.  Also, not that it mattered, but about 15 minutes into my lap, the nose of my saddle shot straight up.  Making it super tough to get forward on the nose when climbing and forcing me to stand quite a bit more than I would have liked (I fought the saddle issue for many laps and took a seatpost rebuild when Marky-Mark got there to finally fix it).

Thats it for now..

Took another good opportunity to go back down to Naples again this weekend.  After putting in a killer night ride in this past Wednesday with Casey & Hanggi, where we ripped up OCP & Cutler in the dark.  I figured putting in a little more time and keep burning in that HardCore 24 course.

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!

Lake Showing off His Stuff at Last Nights Park Ave XC

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!

Been spending quite a bit of time down at the Hardcore 24 race course at Ontario County Park. Lots of laps and dialing things in as much as possible. Funny thing is, I’m not doing the race solo this year. For the first time ever, I’m doing it as part of a team. Matt Hanggi, Mark Hartman, Casey Conte and myself are gonna rocket around that course this coming July! (PS Go Register here)

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!

Quickie Post with a few pics for those who still come here……Do people still read this in the day of Facebook photos/twitter posts?   If you do I’ll keep posting….

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!

Went big on this past Saturday.  Decided to head down to Bristol/Naples area, get in a 6 hour ride on the mtb with some heavy climbing and some singletrack ripping.  The plan was to start at Bristol mountain, ride over to Stid Hill for a bit of a warmup.  Climb Stid Hill all the way up and come down the Tower Drop (Tscheske’s favorite descent!), climb up West Gannet Road, rip around OCP & Cutler, then head down the old closed road into Naples.  Refuel, head up East Hill, rip down the DEC trail, climb up Gannet back to OCP for some more Orange trail action and then up and over Bristol mountain.

Lake’s Birthday

Saturday was Lake’s official Birthday, but we held his party on Sunday.  What else to get my boy than a bike!!  A super sweet Giant TCX!!  I think I’m actually quite jealous of his bike.  He’s already mastered the handbrakes and is still getting acclimated to the gears.  He only wants to put “in 7″ as he says so he can go as fast as possible.  Thus, we’ve been doing some extra bike riding as he wants to ride, rolling around the block pretending he’s Lance and doing his best Phil Ligget impressions!!

Farmall #2 tonight!!  Looking forward to it!

My favorite race(s) of the season kicked off last night; Farmall Hill Challenge.  This is the 10th year this race has been held, with 6 races a year!!  That’s alotta races.

If you’ve raced this course you know it’s lots of steep killer grunt climbs, and essentially no recovery between the efforts.  Seriously, check out the training zone distribution 30% of the race (25 minutes) was spent going anaerobic!  Pretty much either going full gas here or resting on the downhills!  Not sure how I did it, but the legs came together and I felt like a million bucks, as compared to the Bristol mt road race where I felt like a wrinkled dollar bill..

Last Nights workout, I did pretty much exactly the same workout a year ago when I was living in Boulder. It was a rest week as it is this time around and I was prepping for my first Off Road race of the season: Oauchita Challenge in Arkansas. It was also my last week in Boulder, so it’s been pretty much almost a year since I made my way back home to New York!

I can’t really complain. I quite enjoy it back here. Plus the road riding is just as good if not better!

Onto the workout; some 5 x 1 minute intervals, not all that hard, but not all that easy. But, big changes! 40 watts over last years workout, ya ya altitude counts (but when I came back I saw about 5-7% improvement). But a few other things weighing in, I’m nearly 5kg lighter than last year and my CTL is -35 from compared to where it was then! That’s a fairly stout improvement!

Enough of the geek speak, time for the pretty pictures…..

I’ve still got lots of work to do before racing really kicks in, but so far pretty happy with how things are progressing. This weekend is the last weekend of Giros’, then a big weekend of training and time for both my road and mountain bike season to kick off!! Battenkill and then Dryer Rd Mountain bike race. It’s gonna be a busy month in April!!