Well That Was Something Else

Not much going on here in blog land.

Too much work and training for Wilderness 101.

That being said, OMBC race just outside of Zanesville at the S&S Trails this past Sunday.

I showed up with time to spare, got dressed, and started to preride the course. It was awesome, super SS friendly with a few short steep climbs, a few longer grinders, and some screaming descents.

So feeling good, I take off the Lemans style start, which was pretty fun. I head into the singletrack with two guys in front of me, but no sweat, I'll reel 'em in on the climbs.

Well shit, on a descent, I was a little too amped up and wash out on a root. So much for getting in a groove and getting my heart rate down to a normal level. I scramble back on my bike and try to catch up with the first place dude.

So after finally catching him, I attack on a climb to try to open up a gap. All is well, and damn it's hot. I should drink some water.

I reach down to put my bottle back after a little sip, and what do you know; here comes a ton of technical stuff. I hit a root and go OTB. Great timing on my part.

I get up to see my handlebar not looking too hot... Shit. Thanks to Bob Myers for the snap.


So I hopped back on my bike and figured that since I was on my first lap, I could make it back to the line, grab another bike and finish up the race, if not, DNF was in my future.

Lo and behold, I got on my bike, and I had about a hand's worth of space on the bar between the stem and the bent part. Fuck it, I was going to give it a go.

The rest of the race was a torturous experience. Long gone was the leverage for climbing, so I found some sort of groove for some weird seated one armed climbing. The descents sucked, as I just had my rear brake and not as much control.

That being said, sure beats work :-)

Ended up still riding reasonably strong and ended up in Second Place Sport Senior. On to training for Wilderness, August 1st, and hopefully some cool snaps of some of the cool gravel roads I've been happening across.

Wayne Ultra Warm Up

The Wayne Ultra is this upcoming Sunday the 28th, and I haven't been really on the ball when it comes to training lately. So me and Camba all stars Mike, Rusty, and Brian decided to hit some hills in the Valley today.



When all was said and done, finished at around 3 hours with an 18 mph hour average. Goofing around playing King of the Mountain and sprinting for city limits signs was pretty awesome. Mike Fletcher is seriously some sort of freak-of-nature he-man in the hills. I couldn't even keep up with him at any point throughout the ride. Watch out all Vet Pros!

Good ride, has me pumped for the trip down to Marietta.

Vultures Knob Pukefest

Raced at the Knob this past weekend. Super fun as usual, course was in good shape, but some drizzle during the race led to some slick rocks that claimed my hip right by the over-under bridge.



I was picking through the tricky stuff right before the turn onto the bridge. Rody from Groovy Cycleworks and some other onlookers were yelling at me to stay loose, and loose I got. Front wheel slid out, hip check right on a rock. I think I've got a hematoma or something gross and purple going on. Nonetheless, lucked out on the day and ended up first in Sport Senior at somewhere around 1:26.

Legs felt great, my stupid mistakes were kept to a minimum, and the new 32x18 gear ratio was feelin' oh-so-good. Turned in some hot laps with Roger The scary part is that my lap times would have still put me in dead last in expert. I've still got a ton of work to put in. Yikes!

Good job to the dynamic duo ofRobert and Julie. Three podiums back to North Royalton ain't half bad.


So here comes the puke part.



This race was the first annual Wootown Singlespeed somethin-or-other Race.

The race had us doing three laps around the kiddie course and doing various nasty things throughout. Lap two entailed a cup of pepperocinis and monster energy drink. I ended up having burning hiccups for the next three hours. On that note, I'm outta here.

Mohican 100K Sorta

Welp, the big day came sooner than expected, and before I knew it, I was scrambling out of work on Friday night to get down to Mohican asap.

I took off with my support crew / photographer / girlfriend, and she and I pulled into the Mohican State Park resort about an hour and a half later. Damn it was awesome there. Really beautiful scenery and bonus points for the building kind of reminding me of the Shining. I got to bed early while the special lady watched The Onion Movie.

In what seemed like no time at all, the phone was ringing. Five AM wake up call. Yuck.

So we rolled out of the hotel and I stressed my self out about getting lost en route to the race. Eventually I found where I was going with time (fifteen minutes) to spare...

Getting to the line was an amazing site, a few hundred people on bikes sitting in Loudonville town square. I was able to catch up with a few buddies of mine and bullshit for a minute, and before we knew it, we were off.

After bombing through downtown Loudonville, we started climbing up a hill to get us to the singletrack. There I learned the complexity of riding in that big of a group of people. A lot of people were keeping there legs fresh and spinning a low gear up the hill. I had to thread the needle about a million times weaving in and out of people. So after that we got into the singletrack, and it all was good from there.

The race was awesome. Conditions were perfect, the course was challenging but fun, my bike and body seemed to be holding up well. I stuck to the strategy of busting ass on climbs to gain time, keeping steady on flats, and trying not to kill myself in the downhills.

Everything was going great until...

A group of people I was with, and myself took a wrong turn right before the Gas Line hike-a-bike.

Granted we did not realize this until we covered an additional 10 miles GOING THE WRONG WAY. FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

So after coming to the realization we were ass-backwards lost. We eventually put our thinking caps on and found where we turned off. Piss. We finally hit aid station two, which was supposed to be at 24 miles. My computer was reading 34. Hmm.

The second half of the course was awesome as well. It seems like they ran out of singletrack and decided to say, "All right since you don't have any more off road stuff to ride, we're going to make you climb every steep ass hill we can find in the area." And climb we did.

When all was said and done, I ended up with 72 miles in 6 hours and 53 minutes. Thirteenth place 100K SS. I still broke my goal of sub-seven hours, but I think I could have knocked almost an hour off of my time if I wouldn't have taken the ten mile detour and que sheet read-a-thon. Oh well.

Besides that bummer, this ride was one of the most fun things I've ever done. I am totally jazzed on the whole idea of this kind of stuff, and next in my sights is a 100 miler. I'm thinking Wilderness in August and Shenandoah in September.

Good job to everyone who raced: Brian, Paul, Brett, Ernesto, Brent, etc etc etc.

DFL at the Knob!

I've been doing pretty well in sport this year, so I figured I'd give an expert race a shot just to see what that was all about. Fuck!


(thanks to Robert for the photo)

Things you shouldn't do in an expert race (for those considering it):

1) Fall 50 seconds into the race. My front wheel went into a bit of a rut and my nerves got the best of me and I went down. Sorry to all the soupcan guys who probably were scared shitless of my sketchy ass. I got up and back rolling on my bike, and everyone was gone.

2) Get clotheslined by a tree. I cut a line a little too tight on a switchback up by the pine trees, ducked under a tree... it picked me off my bike by my camelback and left me in a heap on the ground. What are the odds of that?

This race really gave me even more respect for how fast the experts are, those dudes are on some next level shit. I've got a lot of work to do before I can get out of the DFL position.

On the bright side: it was awesome catching up with Brett, seeing how well the Northeast Ohio contingent (Robert, Julie, Solon guys, and Darren) did, and getting my ass in gear for Mohican this weekend.

Run to the Hills

The Mohican 100k is in a week, and I've been so damn busy with work and moving that I haven't been working on climbing enough. I'm screwed. Here's to hoping for a sub-seven hour time.

What do you know; I'm still busy. As a last ditch effort I tried to sneak in a quick hour of hills today around the house on my fixed gear. 850ish feet in 15 miles = shittiest hour of my life due to the vegan tacos still fresh in my stomach. Ew.

First on bat was the marvelous Cady Rd. which I hit twice.

First half:

Still going:


Less steep and bumpy Edgerton:


Here's a map if anyone's got an hour of their life they never want back.


Off to Camba group ride at Regan park with my two favorite bloggers, Robert and Andrew.

Wilds

Raced at the Wilds on Sunday, and about mid-race, I had an epiphany. I wasn't having too much fun. Not to say that it wasn't great seeing my friends, or that the race wasn't organized extremely well. It was just one of those rides where you aren't feeling it.

The course was extremely fast and rooty, this combined with a good deal of mud, led to a not very singlespeed or rigid friendly course. I would have enjoyed it if I was taking my time and picking through the roots, but blasting through them at race pace led to my body being beat to hell.

That being said, the legs felt good, despite the rest of my body taking a beating. The sport race was fast. I got the holeshot and was out in front for maybe 3 miles then another singlespeed rider from Pittsburgh shoots past me on a climb. Woah!

It was pretty sweet to see another dude on a singlespeed getting wild in my class. So the chase was on. We rode together for it a bit and shot the shit. I attacked on an uphill and held on for the rest of the race. Good riding though, kept me on my toes the whole time.

I ended up with a time of 1:21 and first in Sport Senior. Woop. I think I'm sort of sandbagging hard, so I've got to figure out if I'm going to finish my season out in sport, or give up all my points and go up to the Singlespeed class or Expert. Soon to come post discussing my options and encouraging anonymous shit talk.

Once again, Northeast Ohio was representing in full force. Dynamic duo of Robert and Julie both scored wins in their respective classes, and my main dude Mike Fletcher continued doing pretty damn good, winning Sport Masters again. Andrew was not so fortunate, as his legs turned to goo mid-race and then a mechanical on top of that had him carrying his bike across the finish line. Can't win 'em all, I suppose.

Regan or Westbranch on Wednesday... who's interested?