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

Horrible Hundred: Quick and Dirty version

Horrible is all finished. Myself and Matt Hanggi were the only sole survivors who made it up over the top of Wolfganger to put down 108 miles of riding and 11,000 ft of climbing.

Ride time: 11:29, TSS 597.8!!
It rained all friggin day....

Too tired and busy to write a full report.

Pics and full write-up to come soon

Currently playing in iTunes: Yesterday Threw Everything At Me by Athlete

Horrible Hundred Recon

Well, truly back into the full swing of things this past weekend. Spent back to back days reconning the Horrible and clearing sections for next weekend.


It felt good to really get back on the bike. Yes, my CTL is pretty low after having taken some time off the bike, but mentally I'm fresh. My legs felt pretty fresh also after putting some good climbs in them.

Saturday we rode portions of the 2nd loop of the Horrible. Casey, myself and Casey's protege Taylor. Taylor was a virgin to the Naples/Bristol trails and we broke him in pretty well. We started off climbing up W. Gannett and into OCP. I was feeling the flow on OCP and just burned it down the descent. Always seems that when I'm off the bike for a bit of time, finding lines and flow becomes effortless. Everything just simply falls into place. After OCP we hit up Cutler and added some new length to the course, but also keeping some great stuff in there. Finished up the day by heading out and climbing up and over the backside of Bristol and descending the snowmobile trail.

Sunday, Mark, Suzanne and myself hit up the 1st loop of the Horrible. Climbed up East Hill, through Hi-Tor, down Bassett and up Burke. We spent a bit of time cleaning, and clearing the new section of FLT singletrack. After that we came down Italy Hill. I flatted as usual on the descent. My spare was bad, suzanne's spare was bad; finally made it out with Mark's 26" spare tube. After the brutal climb up Wood Hill and through the Orange Trail in Hi-Tor we hit the DEC. Mark and I were killing it on the way down, just flying down the thing. I was riding really close to Mark and could barely make out the trail as there was just a dust cloud to follow. As a result I hit a v-ditch wrong and flatted. I rolled it easy down the descent, Suzanne also flatted on the descent and the 2 of us walked the little section back to the car (but not after a quick dip in the creek to clean up). It was a good ride, and I felt great.

Here's a little slideshow of a bunch of pics from the weekend and some more Horrible Stuff!!



Currently playing in iTunes: After Hours by Caribou

Hardcore 24

My Prayers and Thoughts are with the Friends and Family of Ben Pritchards. Ben tragically passed away during the Hardcore 24 on June 16th, 2007.

I'm not going to elaborate on the details here, you can search out on the intertubes if you need more.

Friday: I showed up at camp around 3pm or so. Our Camp Manager (Casey) was their to hold things over for us for a while. I headed out for my typical pre-ride, I had Lizzy with me (she wasn't coming to the race) and we climbed up thru the fire roads and up thru the pines into the open meadow. I caught her eyeing some deer and strayed her, but then she got loose and chased a deer I had missed. I yelled for a looong time. I was up there for a good hour plus looking for her. I rode down a fire road in the direction I thought she headed, twice! Finally, frustrated and upset I finished out the course flying down the orange trail and into camp. Where none other than queen dipshit Lizzy was waiting for me. I asked how long she had been there, and the Camp Cook said, "Oh, bout an hour or so..." grrr

Saturday: Awoke to the typical Suzanne special blueberry pancakes and sausages. Headed over to the course, where the camp manager seemed to be worn a little thin. I knew it would take some time to set-up a good camp, but no idea it involved a golf-cart xc race thru the trail ;). I was fired up and ready to go. It was go time, been waiting a while for this one. Hit the run my usual fairly slow self, but made big gains in the singletrack and up the fire road climb. I pushed it solid, eyeing the ergomo and watching my hr. Up and thru meadow and onto the Orange Trail I was battling another solo rider. We swooped thru Whitetrashistan and then away and up the 2nd fire road climb. On the descent on the way down I flatted. Tried sealing it with co2 (using stan's) and it took a few tries but got me back to camp. Once there we tried to use the floor pump to seal it, but finally we just swapped wheels out with the Paragon and I got rolling again.

Laps 2 and 3 were more of the same. I was sitting in 2nd place, but not by too much. I was just tapping out tempo and grinding along. 1000ft of climbing in 8 miles and 3 quick laps and I was starting to slip both power wise and mentally. I re-shifted my focus to the task at hand and grabbed some more endurolytes and some ibuprofin. Lap 5 I swung in for a quick sandwich and a chat with my mother as she had shown up to give some help for the night.

Lap 6 I started to pick it back up, Each lap I was feeling progressively stronger and faster. I was having a blast. In fact, Casey's pal Phil was over from Park City to run the race and tried playing a little downhill domination. In the section of trail that ran thru Whitetrashistan was where we set-up a makeshift feedzone. I came thru on my lap just ahead of Phil and dropped my water bottle. He however, tossed his bottle right at me. Missed me, but I did run it over. Everyone in camp saw and thought it was an argument, but we were just having fun and we chatted and laughed about it up the next climb.

Laps 7 and 8, 9 I was flying and my normalized power per laps was as much as my 2nd and 3rd laps. Lap 8, I pulled off a humdinger. As I was coming back to the start/finish area along the dike, I clipped my pedal. Seeing the pond was so close, I bailed as hard as I could to the right to land on the dirt. Well, the bike was getting a little dirty, and ol Mary Poppins (that's her name 'cause she's 'supercal'ifragilistic) decided it was time for a bath. The bike landed dead in the pond, fully submerged. I reached in an pulled out the "Swamp Thing", she was covered in seaweed, almost every inch. I was laughing hard as I pulled it off, piece by piece
feeling best ever. Lap 9 I just was out there killing it. Each time thru camp I was chatting or singing to the iPod, and telling everyone how good I felt. In fact I was an entire lap up on the field by this point.

Unfortunately that was when I was turned around on the course.

We did have an awards ceremony, where I was congratulated as the Men's Solo Overall Winner. This was an honor and what I had worked for all season. However, under the circumstances, this was not the way I had wanted to earn it. It was difficult today to answer questions to those who had no idea. They would ask about the race, how I did, etc. I filled them in that I had won, and the circumstances surrounding. Each reaction, was of course of shock and suprise.

While honored to have won the race, I am saddened by the loss of a fellow rider.

Currently playing in iTunes: God's Gonna Cut You Down by Johnny Cash

Ski Time

Finally got some time to update the ol blog. Had quite a busy weekend. Schmoozing with the Fisher Rep, xc skiing saturday and sunday and dinner with Erin's parents Sunday night.



Super psyched to be on board with Gary Fisher again for next season. Had a hell of a time hanging out with the Fisher Rep Friday night. I think Erin did too as she got a little bit into the shots!Found out I'm gonna be rocking a 29er again; this time it'll be a dualie. Fisher Supercaliber with a sweet set of the Bontrager Race X Lite TLR 29. I can't wait to throw the legs over this bad boy!! It's gonna tear sh*t up at the endurance races this coming season. I'm still piloting the paragon, but having thoughts of possibly transforming it into a singlespeed...





Get a good look at er fellas, cause most likely you'll be watching her ride away from you!





Headed down to Hi Tor with the Hollow Crew for some xc skiing saturday morning. I've been thru there a bunch to snag the DEC descent, but never really tooled around. After spending some time there and exploring Saturday under Dave's guidance it's got a ton to offer. The trail book is starting to get quite thick at this point! I think the area is going to come in awesome for some hill training and wet conditions riding on the fireroads.



Conditions were pretty much perfect for a nice, easy going kick and glide. Sun was out and we got off the trails just as they were starting to get sticky.



Overlooking Canandaigua Lake from the South end





So, what button do I push on the camera again?





Your's truly striking the pose





Val Fuels up for the assualt on the downhill





Dave and the pups glide away thru the woods





Dave descends into the gauntlet





The Gauntlet



Sunday was some more skiing; hit the woods behind the house for some time. I chickened out on the ride down in the Hollow as it was a little chilly so early in the morning (10 degrees). Come to find out conditions improved quite a bit throughout the day and overheating was more of a factor than freezing you toes off. Serves me right in the long run. Guess I'll just have to make up for it :)

Only Temporary

Our brief respite from ol' man winter was quite short. A few inches of snow falling overnight has me prepping the skis for the weekend rather than the bikes. Our "heat-wave" brought temps that were in the low 40's on Tuesday and upper 30's with sunshine on Wednesday.



Tuesday I put the tires to the asphalt for the first time since early January, when we had an actual heat wave. It was a good feeling to see the ground move past me on each pedal stroke. The air flowing created by actual movement. Quite invigorating. I plotted my course down thru South Bristol and back; pushing a good hard tempo pace. 2 hours passed and as I was making my way home contemplating putting some more time in, a few drizzles helped ease me into the warmth of being back home. My choice was the right one as it turned into a steady rain.



Wednesday was a good group ride. Casey, Matt, Mark and I met up in Bloomfield. Our intentions were to ride the new GVCC course. We started out heading on the correct route, but made an early turn off in the wrong spot. No big deal, as we all knew where we were and decided to head down and around Bristol Mt.





Churning along the ridge on our way to Mosher Hill







We hit the backside of Mosher hill for our first true climb of the day. Brutal for being one of the first climbs of the season. After struggling up and over the top and around to rt 64 we, confronted a decent headwind heading north. We set to work and got into our usual pacelining session. One great thing about riding so often together is that we work flawless. No gapping on pulls, no accelerations, just precision and execution of the task at hand. I lucked out and managed to be on Hanggi's wheel, which equates to having a mac truck in front of me the whole time. We stopped at the convenience store in South Bristol for some calorie re-supplies.





Casey puts the burn on as we pass Bristol mt.







Slackers! Don't you guys have real jobs!



After refueling we headed back north and onto the GVCC course proper to got back to our recon mission. The course itself is going to be a beast compared to the old Perinton course. It's quite rolling with some steep climbs and sections that are easily going to cause some splits in the groups.



Right now I'm 50/50 if I really want to do anything on the road at all this season. I've raced the GVCC Giro's and the Spring Classic for a few years and they work well to bring the legs up to speed. I'm refocusing completely on the endurance aspect for this season, but we will see what happens. Maybe, I'll throw some road tires on the Paragon and run that during the Giros. I'm sure that will give me a warm welcome from all the pure roadies!



This weekend is psycho-cross take 2. Hopefully the weather sticks and I can get a decent write-up and some picks for you....