Naples vids

I was able to get out this weekend and head down to Naples for some more of my favorite trails. While I'm researching proper helmet cams, I took my regular camera and took some video of the stuff I could ride one handed.





The above image is the Altitude graph from the gps on my iPhone. That's right for $2.99 I know have a full fledged gps that I can upload and review in google earth

Also, while I managed to have a great and fun day, I managed to be in the right place at the right time and caught a few guys going off the hanglider jump. It was insane and fun to watch at the same time.



Things are perfectly on track for the SM100, cannot wait. Time to pull out all the stops and throw down!

Wednesday's Moonlight Ride in Naples

This past wednesday saw the band get back together again. Mark, Suzanne, Casey, Hanggi, myself and even Brandon Furber and Chris Frey! We had quite the group. We decided to meet down in Naples and traverse the first loop of the Humbler, aka "dirty thirty". 30 miles of brutal climbing and insanely ripping descents.

We started off attempting to bush-whack our way through a newly built trail that overlooks the Naples creek, but the gang forgot that things grow during the summer and not during winter/spring. It was like Jurassic park, trying to get through a jungle. I nearly ripped my rear der off, and ended up bending the hangar and having a bunch of crap wrapped around my cassette. After we got through and to East Hill, we decided we'd have to skip that section because there is too much work that needs to be done in too little of time. After our usual grind up East hill, we decided we'd do a bomber run down the Hanglider trail (not in the Humbler as technically it's not rideable)

The hanglider is one of the fastest and fun descents around, super steep, lots of twists and turns, mud, jumps, etc. Casey showed us all how not to ride a water bar as he thought the best way to do this was only on your front wheel, with your chest on your stem. He managed get ahold of that bucking bronco, but the trail eventually wrestled him down when a good set of thorns reached out and wrapped around him and tried to drag him into the earth. Luckily; Mark and I were following closely enough and could rescue him. It took some saws and clippers, but we eventually defeated the mutant thorn bush. Casey wasn't the only victim though as Hanggi destroyed a wheel (just riding along!) and Chris flatted.

Our next adventure had us taking the long climb up Italy Hill to clear that trail, and then descend back down. Luckily, the anaerobic olympics had been held earlier this season as we climbed a little easier this time around, but still had quite a few major trees down that we had to clear. At the top after doing some good trail maintenance we managed to catch an incredible evening sunset.

It's awful difficult to explain the beauty, but a nice pine woods backdrop, with a fire engine red, fading to an incredible indigo blue, fading into an inky black, with stars peppering the scene. All this while standing in a tall field of white carrot flowers. It was quite mesmorizing and will stick with me for a long time.

After that, we got to firebomb down the trail with our lights. Descending at night, on high speed tech is just incredibly thrilling. Your reaction times need to be ninja quick at high speed, because you have a flash of a second to react as most likely, you really can't see what's coming up on the trail. Suzanne fell victim to Italy Hill and managed a pinch flat on the way down, after a quick fix it was time for the last climb.

Basset/Brink hill would brings us up to the top and ready for the DEC descent. Our non-chalant group ride quickly turned into a testosterone fest on the final climb. Hanggi took off early and established a gap, while Casey, Brandon and I rode tempo. Upon seeing Hanggi no longer increasing, I started to up the tempo to catch. Brandon followed and we caught Hanggi and accelerated up Brink Hill. As we climbed the steep pitch of Brink, Hanggi dropped off the pace leaving Brandon and I to ride side-by-side down the road, neither of us able to drop the other, nor willing to provide the shelter of a draft. In the end it'd have to be a draw.

The ride finished off with the DEC descent, bone-jarring, cliff-traversing, super tech. All at high speed in the dark. Mark decided to take the lead and I followed. At such high speeds and the light bouncing around, I was truthfully riding completely blind. Working only on instinct and the feel of the rubber to the dirt. After having followed Mark's wheel for the past 10 years or so, one has a good feel for the rider. I trust his lines and followed him and can read his body movements perfectly and adapt to the trail just by watching him and never looking at the ground. We all managed to make it down and out of the trail safely.

It was an incredible ride, and I'm bummed I forgot my camera :(
Best of luck to Mark/Suzanne and Ej and Jimmy this weekend at the Hot August Nights. I'll be finishing off my final weekend of prep work before the Shenandoah 100

Farmall Wrap up

Last night was the series finale at Farmall, put on by RV & E Bike and Skate. Surprisingly there was a small turnout for the X field, but a pretty decent turnout overall. Usual course, usual format, by now I can ride the course with my eyes closed.

My legs really felt like crap, not that they hurt or didn't work. It was weird, they didn't hurt. But I also just couldn't push them to my max, like I was kinda stuck in 3rd gear. No matter how hard I tried the engines only fired at 75%. It was still a good solid hard effort.

My guess is I'm still paying for Saturday's effort and the fact that I'm in a big final push for the Shenandoah 100. MY CTL is ramped up high and so is my ATL, but my TSB isn't super low. Usually if my TSB is in the low negatives, my legs feel like dog poo.

At least my lap times were consistent, almost exactly the same every lap and I did manage to bring home some more hardware. Guess it's been a good week!

In the meantime I want one of these, badly!!

Also, here's a few cool pics from my easy ride on Saturday

Rolling along the sunflowers

The way my legs felt, I should just went swimming in the lake!

Suicide Six

My Suicide Six entry can be found over at the Fisher 29er Crew Site

Farmall Follies

Last night was the 2nd race of the Farmall Summer Series. A bit larger field as the weather was very much nicer than last weekend. I chose to ride the superfly this week in prep for this weekends race, but seemingly everyone there was on singlespeeds. WTF? I rode mine last week, guess I may have to pull it out for next weeks race.

I felt good and ready for the race. For some reason an hour on the Farmall race course seems much harder than some of the xc or 6 hour races. I had gone out yesterday morning for an hour to pull off a nice easy active recovery ride and settle the legs for the event.

Off the line I felt good and made my move in the fast section to take the lead into the woods, was overtaken after we climbed out, but took the lead back on the longest climb of the course. After that I just got into a rhythm and slowly increased my gap till I had a fairly good sized lead. Halfway through the second lap, I was jamming it up a short little climb and my left pedal suddenly snapped off. Examining it I could see a few of the threads were in bad shape and couldn't hand thread it back in on the trail. I limped out of the woods and luckily the Specialized demo trailer helped me out and got er installed back properly.

I hesitated for what I was going to do, but decided I could use the fitness and jumped back on the course to give chase. I finished out the race and did my seven laps. Even though technically I shoulda been DQ's. It was fun though and the course wore in real nice after last weeks rain storm.

Probably head out tonight either down to Naples for some climbing or over to Spencer for some more laps on the course before this weekend.

Currently playing in iTunes: The Stars Are Projectors by Modest Mouse

Poor Lizzy

I was all prepped up Friday afternoon and ready to head to the God's Country Marathon at Ski Denton in PA. I was dialing in the Superfly, ready to put the pedal back on and all would be good. Then disaster struck, literally. My dog, Lizzy, who was sitting next to me took off suddenly. Darting for the end of the driveway at full speed. Mind you, she's a hound mix and in that short distance she'll top out at 30mph. As soon as Lizzy took off, my spidey sense went crazy and I took off after her. I was a bit late as she entered the road she plowed into the side of a vehicle. Yelping and barking, I managed to get her to calm down. An overnight stay at the vet with some major painkillers and she was back home on saturday am, limping and sore. She's still yet to put weight on her right hind leg, but all seems ok from what could have been a major disaster. Guess she is gonna be laid up for a bit and that means no more riding for her for the rest of the summer :(

On a good note though, I did manage to get out saturday after I made sure she was home and settled ok. I headed down to Honeoye Lake where this weekends NYSERS finale, the Suicide Six will be held and put some laps in the newly modified course.




The course is completely changed for the 2008 race. I'm not in agreement with the changes as I thought the course was one of the best ever the original way it was run. The infamous "rattler" 800ft super technical descent has been completely removed and the course is run backwards. This essentially makes it an entirely new course as the trail is hardly ever ridden backwards as the 8 mile loop is almost always run in the original course direction.



I can't complain though, it's going to be an awesome event and after putting in a few laps I was able to get the flow of the course.





Naturally though as I was onsite, I had to take a run down the "rattler" for old times sake.

Sunday, I pulled out the road bike and headed for the hills. I don't think I've pulled of a road century this season? So it was a good time to put in a nice hard one with ginormous amounts of climbing. Having saturdays efforts in my legs left me a little tired and weary, but I managed to drill it for the majority of the day. I headed south to some of my favorite hills into Penn Yan then over Naples for even more climbing.

It ended up being a great day (no pics as rain was forecasted) and by the end of the ride the legs finally loosened up. I was quite a bit tired post-ride, but damn excited as my newborn nephew was in town and I got to hold him for the first time!

Here's hoping the legs are good and the rain holds off for tomorrow nights Farmall XC!!

Farmall Rain Out

I showed up at Farmall on tuesday night, slightly unaware that it was going to rain. Conditions had called for rain possibly later in the evening, but en route, I realized was going to be a massive thunderstorm.

I kitted up, and took the singlespeed out for a few laps on the slightly slick course as it was drizzling a bit. It made for an interesting course. The course is tough enough geared, because if you lose traction you're walking. I did feel a little bit overgeared with the 33x19 and just planned to dismount and run the 3 sections I couldn't conquer.

The few of us that were brave enough to start headed out on the course. I took the early lead into the singletrack, getting off to run. Only to find the off-camber side-hill was unrideable and unwalkable. We pretty much all fell on our asses trying to just walk up the hill. I had a slight lead after the first lap, and was overtaken halfway through the 2nd. I was really struggling on the climbs and could feel the previous days efforts in my legs. About the time we rolled through the 3rd lap, I'd decided I had enough. The super slick unrideable and even unwalkable sections had taken their toll. As the group of us hit the woods, the heavy, heavy rains came down. It was absolutely pouring, the wind kicked up. The trails became super saturated and I actually felt great. I kicked it up a notch and was ready to really race at this point. It was one of those really intense rainstorms where, it's you vs mother nature. As our group rolled to the line, we were yanked off the course.

I headed back to the car, thunder and lightning cracking all around. It was coming down so hard, I had to pretty much change outside and risk my clothes getting soaked, rather than opening the door and flooding the car! I guess I'll be back next week, and with some gears!

Hopefully, the Superfly will arrive by Tuesday. I got word from Fisher that they are getting a replacement out asap. I'll have to pull out the Supercaliber for this weekends marathon race down at Ski Denton. Looks like a good fun course and should be a good test of fitness prior to next weeks NYSERS Finale at Suicide Six.

Meanwhile, that gives me some time to perhaps replace the CD's in my car. I've got a 6 disc and the same ones have been in their probably a year or more. I just hit play and the small amount of driving I do, I let the swap themselves
They are:

• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
  
• The Editors: An End Has a Start
  
• Dinosaur Jr: Beyond
  
• The Twilight Singers: Blackberry Belle
  
• The Kooks: Inside In, Inside Out
  
• The White Stripes: Icky Thump
  

Head for the hills

Yesterday after work I packed up the road bike and headed to Canandaigua. I loathe having to drive to ride the road bike, and would much rather just ride alot longer, but I needed to get into the hills. Particularly wanted to test my self on my favorite climb; Gannett Hill. It climbs up out of Naples and shoots up 1200ft or so over 6 miles. Average gradient is around 6% or so. The beginning of the climb is a nice consistent 10-11% grade that suits me well. It's the latter part of the climb with the flats and steep undulations that usually zap my energy.

Rolling South, heading for the hills

Heading to the hill behind the barn

Rolling into Naples just before the climb starts

I was feeling great, and really put out an awesome personal best normalized power of 4.85w/kg up the entire climb. I really wish it was more consistent, because I lost a bunch of wattage on the flats and the little descents. It's the best I have though. I put out a 2nd personal best time of 24:15 with no wind whatsoever. My best is 23:30, but that was with a major tailwind that def helped on the flats!

Afterwards I just drilled it home, enjoying the lake and the scenery.

Late evening Sky

That's a Boat House, not someplace someone lives! Oh the money on CDGA Lake

My only disappointment is that the sun wasn't out/little warmer. Every now and then on a good summer day you can catch one of the hot rich wives out sunbathing in a skimpy bikini! I would've taken pics of some of the mansions, but I would've never finished my ride.

Tonight is Farmall Summer Series #1, and I'm going to run the rigid singlespeed. We'll see if I have any legs left after lastnight.