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!

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

More stuff to come later, I’m still decompressing from it all and tired from the cross race yesterday.

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.

Starting it off on Parish Hill

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

DEC Descent Naples, NY 8-8-09 from Jason Hilimire on Vimeo.

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?

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.

Thanks for @SlowPoke2320 for posting it…

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.

Here’s a quick video of us ripping it at the MPH!

MPH from Jason Hilimire on Vimeo.

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…

Prattsburgh Rambler: Ridge Road Descent from Jason Hilimire on Vimeo.

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.

Little more detail here…..

(sped up a bit, because who really wants to watch 30 minutes of Hanggi’s rear!)

Prattsburgh Rambler Recon from Jason Hilimire on Vimeo.

Hope to see you all there this weekend, temps look to be great and the course will be super awesome,

Online reg is over, but you can still make it to the race!!

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.

Snagged some video of the Betasso Loop, though…

Betasso Preserve Loop from Jason Hilimire on Vimeo.

Part 2 is over on the 29er Crew Site

BTW, I’m done using Youtube to upload videos, it just sucks.

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.

Tomorrow should be fun, heading up to Ft. Collins for a nice ride with Carney, weather should be great again!