The long day

"I like pleasure spiked with pain, and music is my aeroplane."
-RHCP


The day started with the alarm going off at 3am, set from the day before so I could drive her to the airport at 4am and I forgot to reset the time. After attempting to go back to sleep and another couple hours of tossing and turning it was time to wake. Finally pouring myself out of bed like molasses on an autumn day and into the shower to get all synapses firing again, at last the day has begun.

The first joy of the day will be spent at the dentist laying on my back with drills in my mouth digging away at a neglected tooth which is now plagued with decay. The dentist and assistant laugh and converse and even try to include me in the cnversation to which my reply is usually, mmpphhhffpgphfff! At least this time she let the novicaine start to take effect before drilling away.

Lucky for me I got to head back to work before going over to Boulder Ortho Sport for some physical therapy on my left Hamstring/knee. Since I had ACL reconstructive surgery my hamstring has been tight and I have not fully regained flexion because of this they are going to be working my hammy for a few weeks, with the Graston technique. For those unfamiliar this is where they take a piece of smooth metal and 'massage' your leg and knee. It burns. But it does stretch it out and warm it up so overall it feels good.

Back in the office for the rest of the day after a nice lunch break. Ok most of the day is over now all I have to look forward to is doing bike delivery from 5-10 all around east central Boulder.

Close up shop and home by 11. Ahhh time to relax a few beers later and it's lights out by 1. The next 3 days will consist of working half day in the office bike riding camping and picking her up at the airport. I guess these long days once in a while aren't so bad.

CU STX Race Report

Race 4 for me and the second to last of the season for the Short Track (STX) series. The race is about 20 minutes of all out sprinting with lots of technical sections to climb, descend and negotiate over and around. It is a burner but it's also a blast, from the crowded hectic start to the lung searing finish this race is all out and extremely competitive.

This weeks track was the longest I had ever raced on and had lots of technical switch backs and bmx style features. I figured this favored me as I was more of a technical mountain biker than just a sit-n-spinner. I got a few warm-up laps in and was feeling strong. I made sure to get my self to the start in time to get a spot on the front line as with these races you can't win it on the start but you can sure lose it. So with 24 racers lined up and less than 50 yards to the first turn and the single track the announcer counted down.

Into turn one I managed to get myself in 6th place but the rider in front of my on a cyclocross bike made a wrong turn and went straight into the pit-high weeds as the track took a hard left up and over the toilet bowl. Ok so I'm 5th heading into the backstretch with the leaders setting a blazing pace. I shift down and mash trying to keep the gap what it is between myself and the leaders, another rider in a Boulder Cycle Sport kit passes me on the long straight towards the start/finish, ok 6th after 1. I get passed by 3 more riders over the next 3 laps but I keep them within a few bike lengths and try to conserve my energy for the last 2 laps. On lap 5 coming out of the bmx section and a quick double switch-back then steep climb a rider loses it into the bushes (the boulder cycle sport guy that passed earlier) and doesn't get back in it. Now at the end of lap 5 and getting close to a single speeder who passed earlier, then going to the sharp left turn leading up the long straight he loses it, His front tire washes out and I drop a gear and mash down the straight to make sure he can't even think of catching me. Last lap with one rider in sight, every time I get close he opens it up on the straight. We finish like this with me chasing him down the straight for a respectable 7th place finish. I notice The leaders were not too far out in front and after the single speeder we had opened a huge gap on the rest of the field.

Last race of the season next week, time for a top 5!

*Sidenote this was the first week of racing for Jimmy Johns/Ripstoke, they will be paying my entry fees and hooked up a nice jersey to rock for the races/training.

Of flat tires and lost chains

Not being properly prepared is what it all comes down to.

Story of my life, or so it seams. All the problems I have had recently have been of my own doing. Some out of laziness, some out of shear stupidity but most of all just flat out being unprepared for the situations I am forcing myself into.

If 6 was 9

Finally got my carbon 29er fork from ebay(3 weeks later!) and got a new cane creek headset as the old one was pieced together from my slavaged trek 4300(picture loose ball bearings shooting all over the place). This idea was orinally put on the table after finishing my first project bike(HT Gary Fisher Race-ready), alas that bike was stolen just a few weeks later and I now needed a race bike for the Boulder STX series and thus some urgency was injected into the life of the SS 69'er project.

I got a deal on the frame from a friend it's a Small Santa Cruz Chameleon that came with Salsa cranks(36t). The Cockpit came from Jensonusa.com on sale, the fork from ebay(as noted above), the wheels came from University and Blue Sky Velo respectively. I am using a Surly Tuggnut chain tensioner and some SPD M545 pedals.

The first ride I took was up the Boulder Canyon Link trail, very steep technical but not too long, took 17mins to climb and it felt like the fastest I had ever done it. I have it geard 36/18 or 2:1 right now which makes some if the steep climbs here very difficult but it felt very fast on the flats. The bigger front tire is awesome it allows me to just plow over small obstacles without getting hung up like with a 26'er front wheel. All in all this bike climbed like a champ but how would it descend?

I knew I was going to get rattled coming down the trail but to my surprise it was much softer than I could have expected, the carbon fork really doesn an amazing job of damping the bumps and smoothing the trail out. So far I am happy with my fork choice. And it wasn't all that much slower than my FS rig.

This bike is freiggin sweet and will be seeing alot more miles over the next few weeks, First Boulder STX in the books, with Race 2 tomorrow and a Race report to follow, I swear.

Walker Ranch ride report

"How was it?"

"Dry, loose, dusty."

"Sounds like Walker"

Burns and I headed up to Walker Ranch for a short ride post-work yesterday, a 7.4 mile loop with 900ft of elevation gain. After battling a brutal headwind on my commute home I suited up for an MTB ride and we headed up flagstaff to the TH. The above exchange took place while gearing up and then we were off. We decided to do the loop clockwise so that mean we would be hiking up the stairs. The ride starts off with a short(3/4mi) slight uphill that takes you into some North-facing(shaded) steep switch backs that are a blast to rip through at speed. After that it opens up a bit into some double track with lots of loose rocks and many different lines to take. This is where having the full squish really comes in handy as you can just float over the rocks with out getting bucked off. And just like that the down is done and we are at the bottle of this valley next to a stream and it's time to hike up the steps to get on top of this steep ridge. Once at the top you begin some decieving climbs, I say deceiving because just as it seems like it might be over you round a corner to find more of the same loose, not too steep but steep enough to burn, climbing. Finally we got to some more double track and steep decending, unfortunately there were some other bikers who slowed us down enough to where I couldnt launch it over the steep rocks and had to billy goat my way through, which led to nosing into a loarge boulder and getting bucked. From here it was just a long grind out ~1.6mi back to the parking lot.

All in all a hiller ride, next time maybe two laps?

Training for Buff Creek

Well it's only 38 days away which mean I have 4 weeks of hard training and a week of taper/carb loading until I find myself at the start line for my 3rd triathlon, 2nd at Buff Creek(124 out of 154 in 07). My goals are to demolish my previous efforts time as well as JAK's time set. I don't think it will be realistic to podium at this race as it is the 2nd biggest XTERRA this summer next to nationals. 3rd in the 25-29 AG took 18th overall last year so as I will be trying to crack to top 75(or top 50%) those guys will be out of sight.

More on training later.

Stolen Bikes

So I took a while to post the race report mostly due to the fact that the biuke I raced got stolen. This bike meant a lot to me, I built it up over the duration of rehabbing my knee then it became a true project/race bike. I sanded and painted the frame, started with the drivetrain, Race-face Evolve XC X-type Crankset and BB, SRAM 990 9spd casssetter and 9Spd pwerchain. Next came the wheels and tires, Sun Rhyno lite rims and Panaracer Fire XC Pro's, got a sick deal on craigslist(also may have jinxed the bike with stolen parts...I'll never know). Then I threw on some Avid BB7 mechanical disc's on the front and BB5's on the rear(with an adapter for the Gary Fisher frame). I picked up and LX rear de-raileur online and an SLX front derailuer at university cycles, along with all necessary cables and housing. I used the stem and handlebars of my old Jamis and threw on some new Oury grips. Seat Post and saddle also came of the old Jamis and this thing was ready to go(see pics in post below). and alas it was taken from me while moving, I left it outside on teh 3rd floor outside the front door and bam, gone. Should have never left it out of my sight, that's the lesson learned but man does it feel shitty.