Friday, May 30, 2008

Amar-Ricaaaa

So I backed out of the Mohican 100, hopefully I'll get my entry fee or at least part of it refunded. I'm looking to save the legs for Plattekill and the Hardcore 24.

Tuesday night was the final wrap-up of the Farmall Series. I finished 3rd overall, and 2nd in my age category for the series. Congrats to Corey Knowles on taking the series win! I felt really great racing and the power numbers were pretty good for the event. While short course racing isn't my forte anymore, I actually felt great and worked the course to the best I could. I had it handed to me fair and square.

Memorial day weekend was a great time to get loads of training in. Saturday was a little short due to Lake's birthday party, but I snuck out on the road and got some time in the sun.

Sunday was an awesome day. Jim Hogan joined me down at Bristol to kick off a nice killer ride. We climbed up Stid hill and then dropped the tower drop. We both managed to make the final chute (straight drop!) and headed over to OCP. At the Ontario County Park, we ripped up the new trails. With some time those trails are going to be great and can't wait till a race is hosted on them. We crushed the Orange trail descent and headed over to Cutler. There's still a few trees down there, but hopefully they'll be gone come race day for the Hardcore.

Jim ventured on with me into Naples, where I made the mistake of not picking up any water or taking any of his. As he headed back to the car and I pointed towards Parish, he offered me water, but I was sure the store in Italy Valley would be open, right? Climbing Parish was fun, but not nearly as fun as dropping the jump-off/hanglider trail into the valley.

From there I climbed up Burke and that was a good suffer-fest, and started to get really low on water. I was rationing it out as much as I could. I blazed it down past the outback inn and up to Brink/Basset, where I managed to run completely out of water. Still having to charge on through Hi-tor and then down the DEC, I finally made it into Naples 40 minutes after running out of water and nearly 2 hours after rationing. Needless to say, I was a bit dehydrated. I grab some refreshments and got an immediate "ice-cream headache" from the gatorade it was so cold.

After fueling up and re-hydrating I turned and climbed Griesa-to Gannett and back to OCP. Descended off that and headed towards the backside of Bristol. I really love that climb and I was flying up it and putting out awesome power considering I was nearly 7.5 hours into my ride at this point. I wrapped up the ride with a killer descent down the face of Bristol. 8 hours/135k, somewhere around 10-11,000'ft of climbing. 8 major climbs......

Monday was a tempo day on the roadbike, plan was to ride around Seneca Lake. After 60k of fighting a massive headwind I decided to turn around, only for the wind to pull a 180, 20k later and give me another headwind the whole way home, ugh!

No mohican= time for another epic this weekend.

I leave you this pic that sums up our society: Amar-Ricaaaa

Friday, May 23, 2008

Soul Session in Naples

This past wednesday headed down to Naples and met up with Casey, Jeremy and Hanggi for a nice soul session. Trails were incredible and I'm planning on heading back down this coming sunday for an all day session.

It was a good ride and I felt much better than I did the day before at the Farmall race. Loads of climbing and some epic brake pad burning descents to match,

Hanggi climbs Parish


Jer and Casey climbing Parish


Jer gets lost


You mean there's no hidden gear behind the cassette


Casey and Jer emerge

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Lung Butter

So last night at Farmall #2 was a big fat DNF. Prior to heading there, I was over at Dryer, testing out the new power-tap and letting lizzy get a good run around. The legs were feeling ok, and I figured all would be good.

It wasn't meant to be. About 5 minutes into the race, I could feel the lungs screaming in pain and slowly starting to seal the door shut. I tried to ride on, but I forgot my inhaler and was forced to pull the plug. No fuel for the engine caused a complete shutdown of my system. I headed to the car to recover and couldn't stop hacking up the lung butter. I was coughing so hard at one point, I threw up.

I'm still coughing hard this morning, hopefully a new inhaler is at the pharmacy and I can clear everything up. I feel like I might die....

Currently playing in iTunes: The Black Keys by NPR (All Songs Considered Podcast)

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Want to get faster quick?

Forget all the training, nutrition, sacrifices, etc. Just get your self one of these!!

Own your own pulse jet-powered bicycle for just $650 - Boing Boing Gadgets





Looks both scary as hell and crazy fun at the same time

(Via Boing Boing.)

Power tap is here!

Highland was this past weekend. See the writeup over on the 29er Crew site

Farmall #2 is tonight. Hopefully, I can flip some things around and stay near the front this time. I've got my new toy to help me out. I picked up my power tap disc on from the GBC on thursday and today will be the first day out on it. I'm gonna head to dryer prior to the race and put in some time and a few laps to loosen the legs up after this weekend. I was a little lazy and the rain kept me bundled up inside the past few days.

I'll treat you to the pics though! It's oh so pretty!





Tuesday, May 13, 2008

So you thought an hour on the trainer was long?

Illinois man reclaims stationary bike world record - Yahoo! News: ""



NAPERVILLE, Ill. - A suburban Chicago man has reclaimed the Guinness world record for time spent on a stationary bicycle.

ADVERTISEMENT
George Hood's time isn't official yet, but organizers say he spent about 177 hours over eight days riding a spinning bike at a suburban YMCA.

He rode the equivalent of 2,016 miles, burned more than 46,000 calories and never slept for more than 12 minutes at a time.

The retired Drug Enforcement Agency investigator from Aurora began his ride on May 5 and finished early Monday. He was taken to an area hospital as a precaution.

He had held the record until last summer after spending 111 hours, 11 minutes and 11 seconds on a bike. That record was broken by another cyclist from Tasmania.


Friggin ouch

Monday, May 12, 2008

Been a bit

Just put up a big entry over on the 29er site from the last week. Read it here Too lazy to repost.

The Whopper is alive!!

EDIT:
Slideshows for ya:

Past Week or So



Pics from CAT Classic

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Sea Otter Video Finally!!

Here it is, the short version. Not the whole course, but a good deal of it. The camera is actually awesome quality and the vid looks a little crappy compared to the real feed that I have, but such is youtube.



Tuesday, May 06, 2008

CAT Classic/Michaux

Chris Eatough won at 3:59. Early on in the race I was running probably 5th or 6th about 10 miles in heard a nasty grinding noise, thought it was a rock caught in my chainrings. It was a small chainring bolt came loose, WTF. I checked every bolt 2x so that wouldn't happen! I couldn't get it back in with my mini tool so I just removed it. I tried a few times and got frustrated and just wanted to get back on the trail. Few minutes later same sound, doh forgot to tighten the others when I first stopped. Could only make 1/8th of a turn on the bolts with my mini tool and it took forever to tighten the bolts down. Slammed it back on to the trail and worked my way back to picking off riders as much as I could. Course was so rocky it was really hard to get speed in the trails. I worked hard and finally came around with about 25k to go and started feeling really good. Picked off a few more riders and made it in at 5:11xx

15th age group, 25th overall. My computer read 4:56xx (5th age/7th overall!!)

Oh, the cat classic xc on saturday, that course was just brutally technical and rocky again. I just never found my legs and pulled the plug after 2 laps. Too much rest.....