Yeah, yeah, you want to see all the cool photos of bike stuff from interbike. Well I’ll try to get those uploaded tonight. In the meantime here’s some quick video clips of cross vegas. Had a great time watching the race and hanging out. The part that sucked though was the 90 minute wait for the bus afterwards!
Video clips I took from Cross Vegas
Women’s Race
Men’s Race
More stuff to come later, I’m still decompressing from it all and tired from the cross race yesterday.
Last Night was Farmall Hill Challenge #2. I’d missed the first week as I was traveling. I had some heavy motivation to get out there and shred the trails. I’ve not raced in a bit and I’m in full on prep mode for the Shenandoah 100. Here in Seneca Falls, we’ve had massive thunderstorms early this week, but didn’t seem to happen over in Rochester. Course was in Primo shape, and there was a new re-route section that added about 10 seconds per lap.
I felt really good warming up, I was slightly concerned as I had to buy some new shoes, which meant new cleats also and I’d come unclipped on one of the descents and almost ended badly. My sidi’s blew-out and apparently all 4500 pairs that were being imported were stolen of the docks. I ended up with a pair of Louis Garneau Montana XT’s, quite comfy (I don’t like carbon soled shoes), but much wider shoe (and a much grippier sole). Will probably rock them until I can get a pair of Sidi’s. Also new was a pair of Bontrager XR1 Team Issue tires. I wanted to see how they would hold up in race conditions as they rocked out over the weekend (see link for my post on their performance ).
Race went on as planned, got to the front off the start, established my gap on the first 2 laps and then slowly slipped away continuing to build up my lead. Felt good and I turned about a sub 1:05 total time (link has my time listed wrong as of now). Pretty solid and def the fastest I’ve turned on that course and I think I would have been sub 1:04 and on the old course before the re-route. So things are lining up good for the SM 100!
In other news, this weekend was a boatload of riding. Put in some big miles on the Superfly down in Naples doing some prep work and getting in loads of climbing. Sunday was nothing more than a death slog in the rain as I was hosed from Saturday.
Headed down with Hanggi for some Dawn Patrol. Climbed up Parish Hill, descended Wood Hill then back up Bassett and into Hi-Tor and down the DEC descent. Here’s the video below
After dispatching Hanggi, I hit up Wolfganger and down Sunnyside, over to Griesa and up into OCP for a loop on the Hardcore course, descended down the Orange Trail and up and into Cutler for some more singletrack shredding. Took the old road down into Naples, then climbed up East hill, descended Basset Rd, climbed up Wood Hill and back through Hi-Tor and the DEC descent to finish things off. I didn’t have my power-tap on for the day, but somewhere around 70 ish miles in 5:45-6 hours of riding with 7 major climbs! I was whooped and def payed for it on Sunday as I could barely turn the pedals!
The man with the magic fingers, Mark Hartman, rebuilt my powertap hub up to a new set of Stan’s 355’s. So looking forward to a repeat of this past weekend’s workout again, but his time with some power numbers to chase around on the climbs!
This lil’ guy below has been putting in more miles than I have. He tells me his bike coach make him do all this training. When Bridget asked him who his bike coach was, he couldn’t tell her because Lake and I are supposedly in ‘competition’. Frank, did you pick him up without me knowing?
Putting in the miles
Lake is the winner!
He has me yell “Lake is the winner” every few times he rides up and down the sidewalk. Cracks me up, also when he says, “I’m dancing on the pedals” and proceeds to stand up and pedal…somebody watched waay too much Tour de France this July.
This past Tuesday, Farmall #2 went off without a hitch. I felt soo much better than I did over the weekend. Race as always is brutal, conditions though were perfect overall. I managed to tick just shy of 3 minutes time off last week’s ride for a 1:05:01. I’m pretty happy with that, and I believe is a personal best for myself. Though, I don’t think I’ll come anywhere close to the course record of 1:03:23 set buy Duncan last year, that’s blazingly fast. If I ran all my laps at my fastest lap of this past Tuesday (8:59), there’s a slim chance but damn, that was a blazing ride by him last year. Though if Jeff Walker keeps up his riding (on a full rigid SS) I may be chasing someone else around the course, dude rips it up on that bike!
MPH
Yesterday, was one of the perfect seasonal days. Made it perfect to go for a bike ride, 86 degrees and sunshine in Mid-May, I’ll take it.
Headed over to MPH to ride some trails and then headed out from their via some old-moto trails and hooked up on the Erie Canal and rode over towards Newark/Palmyra area.
Was a fun day on the bike, got some miles in and some great sunshine. Weather is looking good for this weekend. Hoping to get in some good epic rides this weekend (and I’ll be sure to get some pics)
Finished 3rd overall, was in the front group but got dropped on the Hungry Hollow climb and never was able to close gap the over the top. No chance of me closing it on the roads to the finish with all the wind. Course was super fun, super warm and a blast.
Here’s an fun video of me slamming it down the Ridge Road Descent…
Marky took loads of video out on the race course today with the vholdr, so I’ll be sorting through the 1.5 gigs and trying to get something together this week.
The fatigue is building in preparation for the first events of the season. Yesterday, I continued my anaerobic bliss, with a nice ride over to Carter Lake to do a couple of 1 min, 435 watt+ intervals. I was hosed completely after Tuesday’s efforts. The ride out to Carter Lake, I debated and dreaded the intervals, but I decided to push them out and actually felt really great and was right on target for each interval.
Today, though…. different story. Pulled out the superfly and decided to head up to Betasso Preserve. I haven’t actually been there since I was out here a few years ago, and decided to just have some fun and rip around the trails. The legs were hosed, took every ounce of effort to just get up the connector link. They just didn’t want to turn over at any point. It’s a good sign that the training is where I need to be at this point.
Hit up Heil and Hall Ranch today, making the approx 10 mile trip on some dirt roads to get to the trailhead. Put in a solid 6 hour ride and enjoyed the day
It was a bit cool on the way there, but things warmed up fast and I dug in for the full 6 hour ride.
Sky’s were crystal clear enough to grab view of Longs peak from Hall
…and then again from Heil
Found a nice set of trails to hit up on the way back
Hmm, should I go on this trail, friggin a’! That ought scare ya
Here’s a quick video I shot on the way down Hall Ranch.
Ok, I’ve double checked the date several times. It’s only March 4th, but it 75 friggin degrees and I’m ripping up bone dry singletrack?!? I’m not sure what I did to deserve this luck but, please let it continue.
I noticed Sonya was heading to ride the Heil/Hall loop so after a quick chat, we decided to head over together and have some fun. Unfortunately, the Superfly is getting some loving in the form of a brand new Fox Fork and rebuilt powertap. This left me with my rigid singlespeed. Hmm, rigid singlespeed on a super rocky course that is the only place where I’ve begged for full suspension ever? Look out window, no brainer! I’m gonna ride it!! After a swap over to my new ergon ge1 grips and a tire change (that I couldn’t get to seat and had to use a tube), I was ready to rock.
We hit Wapiti to Wild Turkey and down Picture Rock. I felt pretty comfortable on the singlespeed, though my biceps were going numb a few times from the rattling. Flatted on the way down, but a quick change had us up and running again.
After Heil we took the road over to Hall Ranch where Sonya and I picked our way up the super tech climb that opens up Hall. Someday for sure I will clean it!!
Trail was just rippingly fast and dry and I was having fun making my way over to the lollipop loop, though the legs were def hurting after the tough climb up.
I caught the ensuing descent on vid! So here’s my bang-up job of trying to follow Sonya as she screamed down the descent!! (Click HQ to watch in better quality)
After we raged it down the descent, it was back over to Heil Ranch. Though, unfortunately not caught on video was my super awesome super cross full drift through a corner on bottom of the descent. Wide sweeping left hander, came into it super hot, grabbed the rear brake and the wheel swung around power drifting through the corner. I had a major counter-steer going and was inches off the ground, the front wheel started to drift a bit and I was holding a major dukes of hazzard power-slide. It all came quickly crashing down though when the rear came around too far and I splayed myself out on the trail. But it gave us a good laugh and gave me a few nice early season wounds to remember by.
I suffered a bit on the climb up, the rigid SS was taking it’s toll for sure. Plus my tire was slowly leaking air. After a few pump ups, and a failed patching, finally snagged a tube from Sonya and made our way down Wapiti. The final descent was definitely bone jarring and tiring. I have no idea how people ride them day-in/day-out. For those of you that do it huge props!! I’m going to be sooo sore
All in all I’d say it was pretty awesome day and had a blast shredding trails with Sonya!! She rips up the trail pretty damn sick herself!
