Blast from the past

Our american airlines flight back to San Diego was mysteriously canceled this morning.. good thing i checked my email before we left at 3:00! So we leave on sunday instead. Great. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.

I’ve been doing some cross-training to keep my fitness including some XC sking, a few 3 to 4 mile runs, my homebrew pilates workout and some snow shoveling. Enough already. I was pissed at life and it was time to pedal again.

I took advantage of the extra day to do a road ride around my ole stomping grounds north of New Milford CT. The weather was a balmy 38 degrees with lots of moisture and a 100% chance of crappy grey overcast fog. But it was beautiful nonetheless.

I biked out to Kent via Sherman, Webatuk, NY and Bulls Bridge. Then back through south kent and gaylordsville.

About 38 miles and 2.5 hours of good steady low-rpm rolling hills and big gear tempo riding.

The best part was my gear .. I brought no cycling gear with me so I had to scrounge what I could from my dad. A 10-speed Trek road bike with friction shifting, some old running clothes and neon-orange hunting vest rounded out my stylish ensemble for the day. Classic.

Just goes to show you can have a fantastic ride without having the latest and greatest gear.

Cross training for xmas

Traveled to CT to visit the family for xmas this week. I have this aversion to checking luggage so I take only what I can stuff into my carry on – obviously no bikes. Turns out I wouldn’t need or even want them – I almost forgot about the cold nastiness that is New England winters.

The first two days were crystal clear and in the teens. There was 8″ of fresh snow on the ground. Finally – a chance to get back on the XC skis! We did a quick 1.5 hr training day around the house (Jos took to it like she had been born in the snow). We even made a quick practice circuit around my parents house…

Next day we went up to Bee Brook/Hidden Valley in Washinton, CT for an almost 3 hr excursion. The snow was fluffy, the temps were in the high 20s and the river and forest were gorgeous. There were some good tracks laid down on the flats but Jos and I cut some virgin snow tracks through the hills.. it was an absolute blast.

The weather did a 180 overnight and we woke up xmas eve day with some nasty freezing rain which turned the world into wet 33 degree slush pit. So no xc skiing. But I did manage to spend some time outdoors shoveling snow/ice/water off of our driveway so that my family might not trip/fall/drown on the way to dinner tonight. My compulsive exercise habit reared it’s head and I was out not simply clearing a path but clearing the entire 1000 sq foot driveway of the nastiest, heaviest slush known to man. Fun stuff. Seriously .. it’s way more fun than doing deadlifts in the gym.

Anyways, off to eat cookies and wait for Santa.

2009 Tentative Race Schedule

OK.. Now that the US Cup XC events have been announced, I’ve nailed down my schedule for next year. A bit over-ambitious? Nah. If it’s worth doing, its worth doing 110%.

1/10, Gibraltar Hillclimb Time Trial
1/17, Rio Bravo Duathalon (Jos is doing the 10k run, I’ve got the 16 mi MTB)
3/1, US Cup West #1, Bonelli Park, San Dimas, CA
3/7, Counting Coup
3/28, US Cup West #2, Fontana
4/5, US Cup West #3, Sage Brush Safarri, San Diego
4/11, Stumpgrinder Dirt Club (SGDC) Pre Otter, Los Olivos, CA
4/17, US Cup West #4, Sea Otter Classic
4/25, US Cup West #5, Santa Ynez Cup, Los Olivos, CA
5/3, Idylwild, CA
6/6, US Cup West #6, Elings Park, Santa Barbara
6/13, SGDC Summer #1
6/20, 12 hours of rim nordic (solo!)
7/18, National XC Championship, Granby, CO
8/17, SGDC Summer #3
9/12, Tahoe-Sierra 100
9/26, US Cup finals, Las Vegas
10/3, Big Bear State Championship
10/26, 24 hours of chamberlain (solo? or team?)

Plus there will be some local road time trials on alternating Monday’s that I’ll sit it on as a training ride.

Epic exhaustion

I’m not training for any 24 hour solo races (yet) so god knows what possessed me to undertake the ride I just completed. I decided to get over my distaste for riding knobbies on pavement and take my mountain bike for a spin.

The plan was to go out to montecito, climb Romero, descend into the santa ynez valley backcountry, then climb back out and spin back home. Well all was fine until I decided to take the Blue Canyon trail to Forbush to Gibraltar on my way to climb Angostura. “Singletrack will be fun” I thought. “My guide book says its rideable” I thought. What I didn’t think was that my guide book was probably written 15 years ago and every attempt I’ve made to go off the beaten path in the santa ynez backcountry involves battling overgrow, washed out trails that are nearly impossible to follow.

Well these were no different than previous attempts. My legs are so battered with cuts and scrapes that, at some point, it just ceased to even phase me. I would just plow right into the chaparral, shoulder first like I was checking it against the boards. The pisser was that the trails were really cool and would have been a blast had they been properly maintained. Makes you wonder where all our Forest Adventure Pass Fees are going … oh wait, that was for more RV hookups so that fat-ass tourists can watch sitcoms on their satellite TVs in the wilderness.

After 2 1/2 hours of getting lost, hike-a-biking through steep ass canyons, riding the occasional fun section of singletrack, and generally getting attacked by every plant and insect that I came across, I reached the relative comfort of the gibraltar trail.

From there it was just another 1 1/2 hours before I crested Angostura Pass. Why is it that every time I climb Angostura, I am dead tired, out of water, at my wits end and ready to collapse? Luckily, Mint Springs came to rescue once again .. a small little spring whose presence is revealed by a tiny patch of mint growing on the trailside. Without that water, I would really be hurting.

Anyhow, I called Jos as soon as I got in cell range to let her know that my 4 hour ride was now a 7 hour ride and that, no, I was not bleeding to death in some ditch in the wilderness. And she offered to come pick me up downtown, cutting off the last 7 miles of pavement. My pain was speaking far louder than my pride at this point so I agreed.

My pride was also wounded by the fact that, sitting with my MTB on East Camino Cielo with a half dozen of the the finest technical descents in southern california, I chose to descend the paved Gibraltar road. People like me make me sick. Oh well. I was beat and got a morbidly fascinating first hand look at the devestation of the recent Tea Fire.

Anyhow, too tired to keep typing. 53 miles. 7 hours (including almost 3 hours in zone 4!) and 8200 ft of elevation gain. Good lord. Time to eat.

Why cyclocross racing may be the coolest sport ever

Any sport where fans throw mud and beer and the athletes are allowed to retaliate with a sidekick … welll that just sounds like my kind of sport.

I think I’ll be using my camelback

Lovely. After a mountain bike race this past July in Wales, 161 of the riders got sick. The BBC reports that the sheep poo which covered their water bottles was tainted with the campylobacter bacteria.

Apparently this is not an isolated occurance; Last year cow dung struck racers with a similar fate at a BC event.

So if you’re riding in wet animal dung (and who doesn’t from time to time) make sure to leave the water bottles at home and just use your camelback.

[ Via singletracks.com ]