Hard to Handle

That had to be one of the most fun mountain bike trails to race on.  Yea the granite was scary the first time over it, and there were some hard climbs, but the Olympic Track in Conyers Ga. was like a roller coaster.

I worried about the weather all week for nothing.  A shower Saturday night put down just enough moisture to make it tacky for our 11:30 start.  I have BJS to thank for that, the forecast changed as soon as he decided to bail out.  The only problem with the weekend was the wedding reception at our hotel that had moved onto the patio outside our room.  After 2 calls to the front desk they finally got things calmed down but not until my blood pressure had reached critical mass.

Are you interested in a race report?  Do you mind if I describe how I almost lost 4th place in the last 15 feet?  How about how I went for a leisurely trail ride for the first half a lap.  Or maybe how I just fell in behind a Clydesdale rider on the last lap and decided that he was "going fast enough".

Anyhoo, I got a terrible start, the guy next to me elbowed me as soon as he got on his pedals.  This is the 50 plus class but this guy looked like Santa Clause, beard and all.  How could he have been so mean?  The first clue should have been when he told me before the race that he had been in the sport class for 15 YEARS!  So naturally I got behind him and followed him for half the first lap.  I know, it doesn't make any sense to me either, but it seemed like a good move at the time.

After I got around Santa I caught a couple of riders in my class and figured I was close to the top 5, which was my goal for this race.  I had a little incident in the feed zone as yellow wave riders were just riding back and forth across the track.  I may have thrown my bottle at one of them as I tried to get to my fresh bottle.  Right after that a Clydesdale rider passed me just before we went into the single track.  He was going ever so slightly slower than I could go, not quite slow enough for me to pass him back, but slow enough that my heart rate wasn't in the "I'm racing now" zone.  I kept checking behind me and didn't see anybody so I settled in.

On the last time up the big gas line climb I came up on a rider pushing his bike, he was in my class.  I passed him and tried to put as much distance as I could between us.  When we got to the granite climb near the end I could see him at the bottom.  I figured I had my position as I couldn't even see the rider in front of me.  I then started to wonder why people were yelling "GO GO" as I approached the finish line chute.  I upped the pace a little just to make them happy.  Turns out there were 2 riders in my class right behind me, like almost in my jersey pocket.

As you can tell I need to learn a few lessons from this race.  I should know all this stuff by now.  I don't know why it's so hard to think when you're out there.  I ended up 4th in the 50+ Sport class.  The kid got a 3rd in the 15-19 base!    We'll do it again this coming weekend in Winder Ga.  Let's see if I learned anything.

Take It To The Limit One More Time

It's finally here.  This weekend is the first race of the Georgia State Championship Series by Gone Riding.  Sounds really dramatic when I type it out like that.  I know it's not as big as the Florida Series and it's sort of a subset of the Southeastern Series but hey, it's been something to work for.  My guts feel all squishy just thinking about it.  Am I ready?  Have I prepared properly?  You can have all the confidence in the world but all that really counts happens after that starting whistle blows.  Man my hands are getting sweaty already.

I've read that being nervous before an event is just your body getting ready to do something difficult.  I have raced so many events (mostly moto) since my first one in 1974 you'd think I wouldn't get the pre race jitters.   I can think of many nights spent staring at a hotel ceiling waiting for the alarm to go off, so nervous I hadn't slept a wink.  I remember being in South Carolina near Charleston as it flooded and thundered all night.  It was still raining when we went to the start the next morning, praying they would cancel the race.  No such luck.  I pushed that motorcycle more that day than I rode it, finished at 4:00, loaded up in the rain, then drove home 7 hours with South Carolina sand stuck in places it was never meant to be.  If you've ever raced much you've got stories like that, those are the ones you remember.

Let's hope there's some of this

And very little of this

I sleep good now a days before a race.  MTB races don't have quite the element of danger that moto races have.  At least not at my speed.  Anyhoo, yes, I'm excited about this weekend, and a little nervous.  The day it stops being that way for me is the day I know it's time to quit.

Georgia On My Mind

The kid, Big Worm, and I met at the old Miccosukee school at 10:00 last Saturday morning for another Ric Silk designed clay roads ride.  Ric and Big Jim The Awesome (BJTA) had rolled from Ric's house with a route that totaled 120 miles so we had planned to meet them on the road somewhere as we headed north.  I only needed 4 hours of easy riding to complete a light week of the OMTP and the map I'd briefly looked at the night before had shown 65 miles total for our abbreviated route.  The kid was not jumping up and down to go, he had had a tough experience on the last Silk death march, but he figured he could do 65 miles.  He'll learn not to listen me someday.

As you may have already figured out the 65 miles did not include our whole ride.  The map started from Metcalf, which looked a lot like Miccosukee the night before without my glasses.  Since we had started at Miccosukee it added almost 20 miles to the ride.  This didn't dawn on me until after we crossed Ga. 84 north of Dixie and we were over 2 hours in.    Please don't get me wrong, I love going on these rides and I really appreciate being allowed to tag along.  I'd have just put on a little more chamois butter if I'd have looked at the map correctly and maybe left the kid at home.  Anyhoo, once again, I am NOT whining.

I started to get the feeling the kid and I were in trouble at two and a half hours when BJTA got to the front and we were doing 20 mph on a wash board rocky dusty road.  He had those "angry calves" he gets when he's in his training mode.  The kid started to fade off the back.  When we got to the next paved road I got Ric to show us a bail out back to Boston and the kid and I took pavement into town.  There is a world of clay roads and beautiful paved roads in the Boston Ga. area, it begs to be explored further.

We rejoined the group at a store and rolled out together, but not for long.  Since they had more miles to cover and really wanted to up the pace, they waved goodbye and disappeared into the distance.  Big Worm kept us company for a little while when even he felt the need to ride faster.  By this time I knew I didn't want to put this much pressure on my legs at this point in the OMTP so the kid and I put it in survival mode and just enjoyed the scenery.

Five and a half hours after we left we were back in Miccosukee.  Big Worm was lounging on his tail gate enjoying the cool breeze.  83 miles on the clock.  I am soooooo impressed by Silk and BJTA.  I don't know if I'll ever have that kind of leg.  Forty miles further?  Plus a faster pace?  Of course they are all between 10 and 20 years younger than I am.  Is that an excuse, well, kinda.

On the way home the kid was happier after a stop at the store for junk food.  He felt a little bad since this was the second time in a week he had caused me to cut a ride short (he flatted at the end of the warm up lap on our first Joe's ride last Wednesday).  By the time we got home he was feeling good about the trip.  You know how that goes.  We watched Paris-Roubai that night and had a new appreciation of what that must be like.

Even though I burned 5000 plus calories I still gained 2 pounds.  This seems to be common for me after longer rides.  My fueling system on the bike still needs work as my food got stuck together and was hard to eat.  According to my OMTP I shouldn't be doing rides longer than my race time.  I'm still a little stiff today and I've been off the bike for 2 days.  But you know the chance to go riding with friends on an amazing spring day couldn't be passed up just because of some stupid plan right?

Sunday Morning Coming Down

This has nothing to do with today's subject, I just thought it was funny.

No I'm not going to bore you with more vacation pictures.  I'm having enough trouble adapting to the regular work week without looking at them again.

I have tried to be true to the OMTP (Old Man Training Plan).  I seem to come up a little short with regards to hours on the long weeks and then go over on the short ones.  Anyhoo, it's been entertaining planning and scheduling my time.  I know, you've all been through something like this before and you're saying "screw that, that sounds too much like work", and you'd be right.  But give me a little slack here, I need some extra motivation now and then.  You know, when it's Sunday afternoon and you've missed all the group rides due to family stuff, but you really need another 3 hours to make the week.  The kid doesn't want to go and the back porch looks soooo inviting.  You open the fridge to get a water bottle, and you see the cold bottle of beer.   "I'm right here" it says "just grab me and a good book".  Ah, but the plan says to go ride.

That's the way it went last Sunday, so I loaded up and headed out the door, alone.

I think the kid is getting tired of just he and I riding by ourselves.  The first question I get is "who else is going?".  When I say "just me", he usually sighs.  Unfortunately it's the way that this OMTP seems to work.  It's hard to blend in a particular workout with a group ride so I end up going by myself and the kid feels like he should tag along.  But not last Sunday, he opted out.  So I took my music to Forest Meadows and rode the Torture Loop.

I managed to get my 3 hours in and still have some Sunday afternoon left.   I missed my scheduled hours for the week by 1:10 but I could hear the above mentioned beer calling to me again on the last lap.  Yea, I'm weak, that's why I have to work so hard to get a whopping 6th place.  There's only two and a half weeks until my first B race.  I better stay away from that refrigerator.

I'm Packing My Bag For The Misty Mountains

Ahhhhhhhh, Brevard N. C., even with record high temperatures it was still only in the upper 70's.

We hit the Olympic Mountain Bike trail in Conyers Ga. on the way up and got into Brevard about dark.

After stopping by the local bike shop for maps we drove the 12 miles to the DuPont State Forest. We started out with a rather easy climb on a jeep road since it was a fam ride. Even so my lovely wife had a little trouble on the rocks but once we got on the single track it was all smiles.

This was all I saw of B most of the day. The highlight was coming down Ridgeline, it had perfect flow, banked turns, and little jumps all the way to the bottom.

We went back to the truck after our morning loop. T was tired so we loaded up and drove 5 miles to another trail head where B and I made a loop by ourselves. This section had the granite climbs (slick rock) that I had heard so much about. I have never used granny-granny so much in my admittedly short cycling career. It just kept going up. I only had problems when it started down. Two foot rock drops with black mud and water running down the trail didn't inspire any confidence. B cleaned the section but admitted being scared. I walked most of it.

We only rode 15 miles of the 90 miles of trail at Du Pont. I loved the place.

Now Pisgah, that's another story. Brevard sits right on the southern boundary of the Pisgah National Forest. 400 miles of trail. At both of the bike shops we stopped in they didn't recommend we ride Pisgah. How did they know? Was it my gray hair?

Anyhoo B and I decided we would give it a try at about 5:00 on Thursday afternoon. The trail heads were not easy to find so we rode around till we found a day use area and hit the first single track we could see from the road, Sycamore Cove I think it was called. From an easy pedal to redline in less than a mile, it went up quick. Small stream crossings with rocks set at weird angles every so often, we could clean some but some we just had to walk across. Then we got to the first switch back and the trail became 2 feet wide and cut into the side of the mountain with roots. B disappeared ahead of me. I got nervous. After a little while he came back to check on me, funny how that role has reversed without me realising it. He could tell by the look on my face I wasn't too thrilled. We turned around and it was better going down, duh.

So the bike shops were right, Pisgah was too tough for me. I admit it, I'm a wimp when it comes to shelf trail. As Big Worm put it "it's like 400 miles of nothing but the root you don't do on Cadillac". Still, I want to go back and try it again. Maybe with a little more daylight and not at the end of the trip. But there's another 75 miles at Du Pont I still want to do. So should I spend my limited time crawling over wet roots and rocks fearing for my life or should I ride the most perfect trails I've ever ridden with a big goofy grin on my face? What would you do?

Chattahoochee, I'm Not Crazy

I had been waiting anxiously for this ride. It was a Silk designed route that was supposed to take in "every hill in Chattahoochee twice". We did not achieve that goal, but I didn't hear any complaints. After 88 miles, which included some dirt roads and an aggravating return trip head wind, I think we were all glad to see beautiful downtown Havana again.

You know where Chattahoochee is right? Or rather what it's famous for? It's the home of the Florida State Mental Hospital and a correctional institute. The city is located in West Gadsden County on the banks of the Apalachicola River and sports some serious elevation changes (for Florida at least).

Urban sprawl has missed it, no new subdivisions or strip malls. With Lake Seminole on the North, the river to the West, and an abundance of rolling hills I could never figure out why more people don't live here. Oh yea, jobs, if you don't work for the state there's really not much to do here to earn a living. Still, it's a pretty place.

Not as pretty as beautiful downtown Havana though and that's where we met at 9:00 on a cool Saturday morning. There were the regulars plus a couple of faces I didn't recognize. The trip started with some slight mechanicals on one of the bikes, I won't mention whose, but after BW got it tuned up there were no problems.

Unless you count BW's flat.

On the way out we had a good tail wind. BJS got pissed because I took us off route and it messed up his Garmin, I assured him it wouldn't be the last time, and I was right.

We stopped for a water break in front of the hospital, then rolled through the grounds to get to the first clay road section.

I love clay roads. The sandy spots got my attention and I still don't trust that skinny tire at any kind of speed but I smiled the hole time we were on dirt.

Heading back into the wind everybody was getting tired. I was trying to remember all the roadie rules I had just read the day before. I kept hearing "Norman, get on that wheel!" As well as other less polite insults. Every one took their turn at the front and when BJS pulled over and let me pull we were just outside of Havana. I kept my eye on my speedometer and tried to keep the same pace as BJS was running. I had thought about sprinting for the city limits sign but BW got the jump.

Right after we got into town one of the new faces rode up beside me and gave me a little grief for my excessive pace during that last pull. Really? After 88 miles you have to do that? I don't know that guy very well so I'll reserve that rant for another time.

Anyhoo after we got cleaned up we met at Joanies for beers and food. This ride set a new personal mileage mark for me by 10 miles. I want to do more of these. All the roadie rules aside I had a great time.

Thanks Silk!

A Rainy Day In Georgia

Ah, the Tour of Amsterdam, we should have used jet skis, not bicycles.

I really thought we could get it in before the rain started. I was wrong, so very wrong. I had so few entries I decided to let riders roll when they wanted to. The earlier starters got to do at least 80% of the trail in the dry. The later ones weren't so lucky.

Anyhoo we got to socialize in the cabin while we waited for the lunch to cook. Since we had such a small crowd we were able to eat in the dry at a real table while the ATV riders stood around in the pouring rain trying to eat baked beans off of paper plates. It pays to know the promoter.

At 1:00 I still had 3 riders out on the course. By this time it must have rained 6" and was still coming down in buckets. They were pulling the food vendor's truck up the hill with a tractor while I sat there in the cabin watching the show. I finally called and got one of the rider's cell phone number and gave him a call, thinking they were huddled under a log somewhere waiting for someone to come and get them. I just didn't know who I was dealing with. They were still riding! I had to tell them to cut it short and come in on the road! They came down the muddy road to the house squealing like the Geico pig. Big smiles on all three muddy faces. They danced around hosing the red Georgia clay off of body and bike. They were having a great time!

Thanks to those who braved the almost biblical rain and wind, and to Todd and Mike at Higher ground for providing the prizes. We had fun playing poker for them while we waited for lunch. I seriously doubt I'll try this again. I have a long list of moto racing, and now cycling events, that have not gone quite as expected.

On the up side we managed to raise some money for a really good cause. No body got hurt. And I had some beer left over to take home with me.

Oh, and Mr. Anderson, you're an animal!