Busy, Busy

Been just crazy these past few weeks. Don't even know where to begin here on the blog. This past wednesday I did manage to get out for a good ride with the GBC and Hollow crew prior to my departure.

We hit up Shindagin Hollow for a few hours of play. The night prior we had played hard at the Hartman's. Suzanne served up some great chili, then it was time for some pool and mod racing. The mod crit quickly grew into a who could do better donuts. With that, we preceded to open the garage door and try to do them out on the wet driveway.

Needless to say, there was some fun that we had. Wednesday down at Shindagin was a great day. Fall foliage was in full bloom and the trails were in perfect shape.

We managed a huge crew (Jer-Bear, Casey, Der-Kaiser, Hanggi, Fry Guy, Marky Mark, Suz and I) for a wednesday afternoon. Mark was kind enough to lend me his Hi-Fi 29er. I made sure to put it to work hitting some gap jumps, riding 6 ft high skinnies, north shore bridge drops (and subsequent crashes) and tearing up the trails. Could a dualie be in my future?

The past few days were spent at a Coaching Seminar in Ypsilanti, Mi. I learned how to go real fast, and learned boat loads of info. It's going to come in real handy. Next week I have the Coaching Summit in Colorado Springs and plan on learning even more info. Believe me, if you want to be fast for next season, hit your goals, and have fun, there's nothing better than a coach

08 Humbler Slideshow

Yesterday was worthless. I slept for 18 out of 24 hours. I'm still a little bit tired today, but no where near yesterday. I consumed probably 5x my recommended caloric intake also yesterday, and it was great. Eating is good!

Resting up today, then back to the grinder tomorrow

2008 Humbler

2008 Humbler is in the books. I'm completely wiped out today.

111 miles, 14,030ft of climbing, 12:19 of riding, 6229kj, 4 finishers. It took us 3 friggin years to finally complete our grandiose plan of ultimate misery.

Mark, Casey, Hanggi and myself soldiered on for the final loop. Spent, exhausted, sleeping in the middle of roads. We surged, we struggled, we finally slayed the dragon.

I'm exhausted today, far too exhausted to do a full write up currently. Pics and more to come

In the meantime, go buy my bike

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

Happy Birthday America!

It's been a long past few days of bike riding. Nothing really over the top insane, but just some random adventures and fun with friends.

This past Wednesday, Mark, Suzanne and myself put in a good 57 mile mix of road, rail-trails and cinder path, with a mix of some ATV trails for good measure.

Cruising along the Erie Canal

Rail Trail Express

Thursday, I headed down to the hollow for Casey's big birthday bash. The usual shenanigans occured, including a fireworks war and a 3am night ride occured, but I have no recollection nor evidence that it happened. I have some mysterious bruises and had a hangover the next day. I'm pretty sure we rode and rode hard as is the usual.

Friday was some more tooling around the Hollow and then heading over to the "bog". The ride came to a great end as Mark, Casey and I had a dogfight down Hungry Hollow road. 40+mph dirt road descending and 10ft 2-wheeled 3-wide drifting was a blast. Someday we'll catch that fighter plane style descent on film in all its glory.

War time Relics

Dogs and Bikes

Climbing up Shultz before the carnage down Cannonball Run

Casey and Val rolling along

Sunday was an epic day at Shindagin Hollow. The hollow-geneva (pronounce hallejeneva) crew spent the day bombing descents, jumping roots, hitting doubles, crashing in creek beds, cartwheeling through the woods, power sliding, catching air of bridges, listening to the casey cackle, world-cup racing, flat-tire fixing, smiling, and have a grand ol time as we put in 30+ miles. We pretty much took it easy up the climbs then just ripped it as hard as possible down the descents, racing the whole way and having a blast.

Chasing Casey and Mark through the woods

Gorrila Bear?

After a while we decided to take breaks on the descents (fixing Jer's wheel)

<

Prep work before the downhill assaults

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

Prattsburgh wrap-up

Took a podium at the Rambler!! Nice for the first victory of the year.

Full write up over at the 29er Crew site

Exploring Corning

Headed down to Corning yesterday with the Geneva Crew to meet up with the Hollow Crew. Jer-Bear had pre-scouted some roads and terrain for what would shape up to be an "epic" day to say the least.

Temps were great, sun was shining; perfect day to be on the bikes.

Group climbs out of the city into the hills, enjoying the sun

One of the many monstrous climbs on the route. Climbing was a horrid ordeal, if the road was dirt, it was likely mud, zapping your energy with each pedal stroke. If it was snow you had to ensure you didn't spin out.

Unknown to us on this very road, would be where we would do most of our playing

Coleman Rd aka the road of a million crashes. Under these few inches of snow was solid ice. Any sudden movement on the bike and you went down. Everybody hit the deck, often multiple times. It was hilarious, you could hardly go a few pedal strokes with out starting to slide sideways. Once you got speed, it was just inevitable you were going down. I can only imagine the thoughts of the people who lived in the area. For the howls weren't from the coyotes, but our howls of laughter.

Casey slip sliding around on Coleman as we approach the end

Poor Bert. On a road bike, with slicks. He went down so many times on the road, we just stopped counting, but we had to give him huge props. For right after this photo, he had on of his best crashes that included about a 40 ft baseball style slide.

Good time, loads of climbing, 40 miles out in the sun playing around. Can't wait to go back for more

Another Cold Day this time at the Hollow

Yesterday was cold; 10 degrees F and 30 mph winds. Headed down to the Hollow to hit the trails, managed around 2 hours of ride time. Loads of fun with everyone. All fingers and toes are accounted for.

Loads of pics in the slideshow below:

Halloween at the Hollow

He-Man and She-Ra were the choice for Lindsey and I. Our Costumes are almost entirely made out of duck tape. Loads of fun!

Horrible 100: Long Version

My apologies for the lateness. I had to head out of town for work; and then I fell ill over the weekend

Full Writeup from the Horrible 100: Went of this past Sunday the 9th with 19 riders who showed up to brave the rainy conditions.

As is usual we kicked off as early as possible and got started just past 6am. The rain came down and was there all day long. The trails were wet, but completely rideable. Thankfully it was a predominately warm day.

The first loop (of 3) had us riding up East Hill right away and into Hi-Tor for some fun fire-road climbing then descending down and hitting the 2nd major climb of the route (Burke Hill). We hit the new section of singletrack across the top and then, Hanggi ended up needing to replace his der hanger. While he repaired that our group ended up re gathering and riding out acroos Pulver and onto the Italy Valley descent. Taylor and Chad had ridden thru and I bridged up to them on the descent. We hit the road together prior to the Wood Hill Climb were Taylor and I picked our way up the thru the loose rocky sections while it downpoured on us. We decided to roll on from that point and we pretty much rode together for the remainder of the day. Thru the Orange trail in Hi-Tor and down the DEC. descent was all that was left at this point. The roots in Hi-Tor proved to be pretty damn tricky but negotiable. I was afraid that the DEC descent was going to be super slick due to all the shale rocks being wet, but it was a tree root that took me out about a third of the way down.

Arrived back at base camp, refueled with all the goodies that the girls provided (huge thanks!).



The 2nd loop was epic. Taylor, Chad and I rolled out to the Griesa rd climb. Taylor and I hit it pretty good up the climb and bombed straight thru Ontario County Park with no issues. Took the road over to Stid hill rd and climbed that. The road was brutally steep but not that bad. Got into Stid Hill where it was a bit muddy but tolerable and picked our way clean to the base of Bristol Mt. Bristol was where everyone cracked pretty much. It's a tolerable climb coming fresh into it. The base of the climb is not bad but it get's long after a while and right as you get to the top you hit the steepest points. Needless to say, I was fried at that point and decided to walk. I wasn't the only one.... Bombed the super loose shale/rocky descent on the backside and started the road climb up to Cutler.

The soggy day took its toll

I hit Cutler feeling ok, but by the time I got on to the Carriage Trail I was out of food. I bummed a bar off of Taylor and headed up the climb to the top of the field and into the Pinewoods (Essentialy riding the 24 hour race course backwards). The bar really wasn't enough food at this point and I had scarce energy left. Taylor was riding strong but I was dropping him a little bit on the descents. Seeing as we had to descend the orange trail and ride mostly road back with a short bit of descent through the closed road, I decided to ride on ahead for fear of bonking. I hit the rest area about 5 minutes ahead of Taylor. I was happy to see Lindsey there waiting for me, but just as happy to gorge myself on anything I could put my hands on. I was soo hungry and ate everything I could. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was, because the next group of riders all came in from finishing the loop and everyone had run out of water and food!

4 soldiers decided to head out together for the last loop; although Chad was shortly behind us after some food and change of clothes. Taylor, Hanggi, Jim and I decided to brave it all the way to the end. I was the only one who forgot my light and I paid for it. The rain started to come a little heavier and the temps dropped quite a bit more as we climbed the final few hills. As we descended off of Flint hill, I almost crashed into the guardrail as I had no light. Taylor and Jim decided to turn and head back to base camp. Hanggi and I decided that we would trudge on and make the final push up Wolfanger. A brutal monster of a climb that was the perfect finish to the route. We slogged our sopping wet carcasses up the hill and had a enough time to take a photo at the top. I had to ride side by side with Hanggi down the descent to make use of his light and we arrived back at base camp.

We were exhausted but happy and picked up our trophy.

The Chart of the whole ride: I lost the last few climbs as my ergomo battery was dying

All the Pics from the season of scouting and the event. Click thru and you can go to the online web album

Too tired to type, here are some pics

I'm crushed from this past weekend.

FLT Sugar Hill (Sunday's Ride)



Hollow Ride from Last Sunday (After the Hardcore)

Love

"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them-" -"You beat them."

I think the above quote from the book "Enders Game" is very befitting for this weekends upcoming 24 hour event. For my enemy for the duration of the race will be a brutal race course and the inner workings of my own mind. The combination of the two factors will make the final decision as to where I stand when the timer runs out. For I must 'love' the terrain and 'love' myself in order to be able to dig as deep as is necessary.

It takes a special devotion and extreme mental fortitude to get through an epic adventure. I've not taken this race lightly, my physical preparation has been strong, but my mental preparation has been the strongest it's ever been.

I truly 'love' riding my bicycle. It will be this 'love' and nothing more that allows me to embrace my enemy, "...And then, in that very moment when I love them-" -"You beat them."

Currently playing in iTunes: THE GREATEST LOVE SONG by The Bastard Fairies

Tonight I will be testing my 'love' out at the Park Ave Wed Night Series. Blowing out the pipes and making sure the bike is dialed in pre-race. Friday I'll head down to Cutler and do some pre-riding and camp set-up. I'll get a post up tonight on how the race goes. I'm pretty psyched cause my brother is going to come out and watch

Weekend of chilling and riding in E-ville prior to the Hardcore

Well, finally home and still wiped out. I hit Buffalo Friday night with a friend for some dinner down on Elmwood. Had a great time and then had some coffee and a good chat. It was nice to enjoy night life in a city. After dinner, I hit up an old friend that I grew up with and we hit the town for some craziness. Really got to enjoy the nightlife then!I awoke a litte razzled and tired on Saturday morning. I spent some more time in Downtown Blo grabbing a quick cup of joe and just people watching for a short while.



After that I packed up and headed down to E-ville. Casey was late, so I spent some more time in another coffee shop, grabbing some quick lunch. Once Casey arrived we set up camp, I packed the 'cabin' bag in some pine trees for a lil bit of privacy, and the fact that I forgot my bedroll. The nice soft pine needles made it like a pillow top mattress back there!


Saturday; Val, Casey and I rolled out and put some time in the trails. Conditions were pretty fair considering the rainstorm that swept through the night prior. We had some fun rocking out together.


Val had to head into town for a minor upgrade, while Casey and I headed out for the forest of Endor. Climbing up and through the trails we felt like and Ewok or an Imperial Speeder were going to fly by us at any moment. It was a surreal moment as we were plodding up this climb and suddenly realized that the entire forest undergrowth was nothing except ferns. Lighting was too poor to grab a good pic, but it's banked in the internal SD card for a long time.

Mark and Suzanne showed up later that evening. Mark and I and the dog's headed out for a night ride. You know it's gonna be a good one when the trails have names such as; Rim, Bent Rim, and Pale Ale. It was crazy fun, and super, super tech. Loads of rocks and roots everywhere. Some crazy lines just up and over everything, stuff that would be brutal to even walk on. I probably would've taken some pics, except Mark was his usual self and just blasting off through the stuff while I was left to fend for myself. Back to camp, we found the crew had dug into the Sam Adams Summer Lager's and were having a grand ol time. I was wasted and headed to the cabin, where according to Val I fired up my generator to turn the heat on, watch some TV and cook a quick meal before I grabbed some shut eye.

Sunday, was a perfect day for a nice group ride. We climbed up the road to the backside of the mountain then hit the famous descent down to the bottom of the race course. Val and Casey headed down to Burger King to pick up Dave. I think they had a few whoppers and some fries while they waited.


Dave was a no show, so we decided to climb to the top of the of the race course and hit some of the fun stuff. Once on top, it was all coming back to me. I've ridden a ton here for the 6 Hours of Power races and loved every minute of the course. It's amazing how once you jump on a trail, it's similar to re-reading a good book. Each new rock, root, corner is similar to reading a new paragraph. There is some familiarity, it's recognizable and enjoyable to be re-acquainted.

Casey and Val dove off and headed back for camp, the rest of us took the scenic route and slowly made our way back, hitting some crazy fun stuff on the way. The trails were plenty packed with quite a few riders and it was nice to see so many people out having some fun on their bikes. By this point the pups were getting a little tired and I had no more water for Lizzy so we let them cool off in the stream crossings.



Once back at camp, we packed up and then headed over to Golden Hill for some riding on some new trails. The trails were nice and ripping fast and very flowing. Speeds were constant and ripping. I tried a funky set-up to grab some video from my camera and it came out pretty cool. Once I edit it down, I'll get it posted up for you to view. After Golden Hill, it was off to the Ellicottville Brewery for a burger and a nice brew. Great way to wrap up the weekend



See all the pics from the weekend here!

Naples: Just a small day....Farmall Kicks off tonight

Saturday was an easy day in Naples :P

• 4100+Kj's
• TSS: 266
  
  
• 83k
• 2268m of climbing (7440ft for you that can't figure out the metric system)

Wolfganger, Griesa, OCP, Cutler, East Hill, DEC, Parish Hill, DEC. Trails are in awesome shape. It was a perfect day. The supercaliber was ripping everything up and spitting it out like it was pavement. Man do I love that thing. She will get her first test tonight at Farmall...



After Naples, I headed down to the Hollow for Val Pal's birthday party. Some good eats, with some free range chicken and some free range beef from Sweet Meats down in the Naples Valley (I wish I had a website or number). Followed that up with some campfire action and then some barn badminton.



Sunday I watched the Sabres clinch and move on in the playoffs.



After that I hit up dryer rd. Right now the trails are so super perfect there, just spun the legs out and headed home.



I'll have a report on Farmall tonight!!

What a great week!

Man have we lucked out with the weather. It has been perfect these last few days. So nice in fact, I took wednesday off and we headed down to Naples. Rolled out from Bob n Ruths along the rail trail to the monster of climbs in the area. Wolfganger, 3.3k long, rises up 325+ meters and avg grade of 10.5 %. With the first section averaging 17%, a few kickers in there that top 22%!! It is one tough SOB. After suffering up that we had marked a trail at the base with the gps so we pretty much bushwacked our way to the bottom to see if we could locate it. On the road back to the next climb, Suzanne had a major blow out, tube and tire blew completely off the rim at 30kph and she pretty much destroyed her bontrager race xxx lites. What a bummer that was as it was early in the ride and we just fetched the car and she headed to the hollow to chill. After that one we headed up Flint hill, descended Sliter rd on the mt. bikes (max spd 85kph!). Then it was over to climb and descend Italy Hill. Naturally both Mark and I were attacked by the vampire rock as we both flatted in the same spot!



Climbed up and over Brink Hill for the granddaddy of all descents! The DEC, the nastiest descent around. Drops 330 meters, 7+ minutes of super technical descending. We all made it off safely as usually it is so gnalry that it doesn't let someone down without having to make a bike part offering. The supercaliber was definitely rocking on that thing, I haven't felt that smooth, fast and flowing on a descent in a loong time. Damn, I love that bike!







Last night, headed over to GBC to pick up a new WTB Rocket V saddle for the supercaliber and some new kenda tires (as the vampire rock destroyed a sidewall). Also snagged me a pink bottle cage. Now I am officially part of the pink bottle cage coalition! Put the Rocket V to the test out at MPH with Mark and Casey, it was an awesome night. Nearly full moon, just glowing orange on the horizon and lighting everything up perfectly. Trails were in great shape too!



This weekend is shaping up to be another great one and hoping to put in a nasty big day down in Naples tomorrow morning! Cannot wait!!!!!!!!

Hallejuneva!!

Noun: pronounced "Hollow-Geneva": indicates excitement, enjoyment, similar to Hallelujah.

That was the choice word of the weekend.What a great one it was too!

I busted out the Supercaliber for a brutal ride with Casey on saturday. After getting the sensor for the ergomo dialed in, we decided a nice dirt road ride in the mud and rain would break her in. We assaulted Schultz hill a nice 500 ft climb right off the bat, only to realize Casey forgot his pack, descended and did it again. That opens the legs up quite nicely for sure. We blasted around the area, either doing 15k or 65k. It was up or down all day. We drilled it pretty goddamn good to because my legs were killing me afterwards. The evening was great as we had some homemade spanokopita and played some barn badminton.

Sunday was an awesome day. After a brutal fight with the race x-lites to put a set of skinny tires on and the usual killer breakfast at the Hollow we rolled out. The fellas rocked the mt. bikes while the ladies hit it up on the road bikes. We pulled off a nice 100 miler with loads of smiles, sunburn and sweet views. We rolled into Corning and took a nice little break at Wegmans, filled up on a "real" lunch for once and continued our journey back to the Hollow. It was a welcome return to the 3 bumps with several cries of "Hallejuneva" , for the journey was over, but only temporarily.

I am still here :)

Yah, I know.Holler at me all you can. I can't hear you. I've been swamped with lots of stuff going on in my personal life.



On a positive note, Epic Peaks Coaching is doing well!



Also spent alot of time on the mountain bike lately. Hit Dryer Rd up wednesday afternoon, then the hollow on saturday and sunday.



I'm riding the dirt again tonight at the MPH and I swear I will get some pics up and a decent writeup!!

Friends, food, views and happiness

Finished up a huge bloc of training with a killer ride down at the Hollow yesterday. Truly couldn't have asked for a better day. We met up at the hollow early and were treated to a killer spread for breakfast. After filling our tummies with all kinds of deliciousness we rolled out the door. My legs were zapped from my tt effort yesterday, but it wasn't really a big deal. It was actually quite cold out in the morning, but turned into an awesome day.

It was a great time chatting with friends, soaking up the sun and enjoying the day. The highlight of the day was our stop at the gas station. But I'll send you over to Brandon's blog for his writeup on that and a picture; You better update it quick!



Had a little misadventure where Mark, Brandon and I rolled off the front and missed a turn. We were just chugging along and chatting, about 5 miles later we decided to stop and wait as we hadn't seen anyone. Shot the crap and realized no one was coming so we headed back to where we last saw people. Of course they weren't there.Here we are in the middle of nowhere and no idea where to go, so we just pointed it towards Bath and buried ourselves till we got there. 10 miles later we picked the group back up downtown.



We pulled back into the hollow and were treated to another huge spread for dinner this time! Huge thanks to Wendy for hooking us all up with such good vittles!! :)



Here's some pics enjoy...

Naturally weather calls for 60's all week and this is a recovery week, wtf? Always works out that way!!