Underground Horrible Hundred

Plans are underway for an Underground Endurance race in Naples. I'll have a full page dedicated to the race and the info pretty soon. Website is now up!! Click Here
Will hit some of the best trails in the Naples Area, Stid Hill, The Tower Drop, Ontario County Park (OCP), Cutler, Nature Preserve, East Hill, Wood Hill, Hi-Tor, Italy Valley, DEC descent. It's gonna be a fun crazy event!

A Sunday event in September (FREE)

Interested Leave it in the comments or on the forum thread for mtbr

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=253199

Another Warm Spell

Man, we are just lucking out with the training weather here in the Northeast. Looking at the temp gauges my widgets are giving me says its 57!! degrees outside. Under normal circumstances I'd probably be doing everything I can to get outside. But we are doing a little night riding tonight so It's all good.

It was pretty decent over the weekend also and managed to put in a good 100k on the road up north on the lake. Mark, Suzanne, and I took the guided tour from Brandon. We headed out to Sodus Point and back, along the way our guide filled us with drunken stories from his youth about stealing golf carts, stealing boats, driving trucks on the ice and all sorts of drunken craziness.

Post ride I think he was trying to get us to relive those days as he gave us a nice pint of beer that was 10% alcohol! for our recovery drink. Needless to say it only takes on of those after a long ride for us to start jabbering away on old race and ride stories. It was a good fun ride and relaxing weekend. Looking forward to doing something like that again.

~J

EDIT: Just got a phone call that Mark's Mother's cancer is back from remission: I hope everyone can send some good energy her way.

First (but not last) Trainer Ride of Season

Tuesday night at Dryer was interesting. Ended quickly when Casey slipped off his bars and took a digger over log. Resulted in my first "walk-out" of the woods ever. Pretty good I'd say considering the number of races/rides I have done over the past 11? or so years. He got checked out in the emergency room and I believe ended up with no major problems; albeit a possibly initially separated shoulders and some good bruising.

(Casey post in the comments and let us know how you are doing)

Last night was my first trainer ride of the season; man I really dread that thing. I can now understand why cycling in the US will never catch on with the youth. A: Who wants to sit on some torture device and stare at the wall and B: It's too frigging cold outside 5 months of the year for them with the gaming console of choice so easily available.

My power numbers have dipped a little bit now that I'm back on the road bike with the power-tap. Funny as I can only really tell on the road; on the trails I'm feeling really great and pushing bigger gears than I was last year at this time on the same climbs. I chalk it up to a longer off-season compared to years past along with the lack of road riding or any intensity for that matter the last 3 months. The good news is that I can pretty much only grow from this point. I am feeling a progression of getting stronger and it's only really been 4 weeks in the prep phase. I've dropped about 3 kilos of weight; feeling alot more focused and motivated to excel in next season. Scary to think that the GVCC Giro races are something like 14-15 weeks away??


~J

Listening to ''Suzie'', by Boy Kill Boy

December....

Ah yes. December; 20 days till xmas. 0% shopping done, haven't even thought about it. Hope all you roadies are going stir crazy on your trainers. 28 degree temps are bliss, means only 1 thing; frozen ground!! Makes riding so much more fun. Hopefully hunting season ends soon so that riding areas open back up. Anyone know when the season for those woodchucks ends??

Got down to the Hollow over the weekend to hit Casey's homegrown. Good Stuff, the trails were a little bit muddy as they started to thaw out during the day. Overall they have a kick ass little riding spot right out their back door. Can't wait to get some more time on them.

After the trail session, we hit some dirt road riding around the hollow for about 1.5 hours. Just tooled around the area, jokingly throwing down and covering attacks on Shultz Hill(sp?). Ran into a few back country folks on our route. It was barely 40 degrees and a bunch of the kids were running around barefoot, wtf??

It was a bit chilly from the wind, and the coffee afterwards was a welcome retreat :)

I have an account on facebook now, anyone else use that?? If so, poke me or whatever its called to link up.

Halo 3 commercial was on MNF lastnight! Anyone catch that? Looks frigging sweet. I'm still awaiting xmas here so I can get some Gears of War action in (hint, hint mom;)

That's enough for now; going night riding tonight. Booyeah!

Listening to ''Lillian'', by (+44)

Luck is about to Change

Looks like our good weather is about to end. It's still hovering around 70 right now, but wind is picking up and the rain showers will be moving in soon. Hopefully I can get in my ride to the gym and back without getting too wet. Not sure how I'll fill in my gaps for riding this weekend. If it doesn't get too wet, I'll probably just be on the mountain bike the whole time. If its nasty guess it's time to bust out the Medieval torture device.

I did manage to get in a good night ride on Tuesday night. There was 6 of us ripping up the trails (and 3 of us were on 29ers, with another's on order!) It was good fun. I seemed to suffer quite a bit on the climbs after hitting the gym the night before. I'd forgotten how much soreness you can accumulate in your legs from the weights. It really hit me hard on the super steep stuff. Rode a bunch of new trails over at Dryer Rd, they've been working on that place a ton and its coming a long ways. Always seems like there are a ton of cars in the lot. I think it's really becoming a mecca for riders around this area.

Yesterday I managed to sneak out and get a decent road ride in. Short, but sweet. Just stretching the legs and enjoying being outside. I rode without my always-by-my-side-trusty-ipod. It was nice to be free from it's reigns and listen to the sounds of the road. Apparently, alot of other people were up to the same hijinks as the golf courses were packed!

~J

EDIT: Spoke to soon....just heard some sprinkles on the windows

Weather

Hmm... It's 55 degrees out right now at 7pm. I'm heading out the door for a night ride. Suppose to be 65 tomorrow. Looks like somebody is going to be going into work a little late...

Holiday Weekend

Hope everyone out there had a good turkey day. I know I enjoyed all the fixings and the family time for sure!
The weather has been absolutely amazing the past few days and looks to continue right on thru next weekend. That sure as hell is some good news for me as I'm trying to keep off the trainer as much as I can this season.

Friday, I busted out a great ride. I was down on Keuka lake at Erin's parents cottage for the holiday and brought my roadie down so I could ride home due to the great weather. Put in close to 4 hours as I toiled down in the hills for a bit before I hit north and headed up through Italy Valley and home. I was a little overdressed for the climbs, but I'd rather be safe than sorry at this time of the year. In the evening, Erin's family and I headed to Buffalo for a Sabres games. I'm a huge fan of the Sabres and was looking for a good time, well we certainly got that. Game went into overtime, and the Canadiens scored with 1 second to go in OT!!! It was crazy. The entire arena was stunned, you coulda heard a pin drop when the puck went in the net. Final score Habs 2, Sabres 1.

Saturdays Temps hit the low 60's so I pulled out the mountain bike and headed over to Dryer Rd to hit the trails with EJ and Jimmy. Had a great time ripping it up over there for a bit. I had to utilize the good weather clause with Erin, as she was painting the living room :)

Anyways its 55 out right now at 10am and I'm heading out the door for a nice road ride.

~J
Listening to ''Truckers Atlas'', by Modest Mouse

Preparation

It's that time of the year again for cyclists in who have wrapped up their past season. I'm through the rest and relaxation phase and on to the prep phase. I've planned out the majority of my season and my season goals. Now it's just up to me to get back into the swing of things. Funny thing is as a cyclist you are used to the 'routine' during the racing season. It swallows you whole; day-in day-out you are focusing on your training, eating and prepping for the next race. It becomes you; and then you spend 2 weeks sitting on your ass enjoying the good life and undoing everything you worked for. The hardest thing in the world is to swing yourself back into that routine.

Well, I've managed to peel myself off the couch and start putting the time back into the gym and on the bike. Managing some decent rides over at Dryer Rd and even got out on the road bike for 3 hours on Saturday. Starting to get used to being back in the 'routine' and enjoying it again. My goal this off-season is to stay off the trainer as much as possible. I'd rather freeze my toes and fingers off on the trail than have my eyes bleeding from staring at the wall as I go nowhere for an hour or so.

More later...
~J

Bikin Dirty

I ran across this video on Youtube and found it friggin hilarious. I think I've watched it 20 times by now

Speaking of the Landis scandal. Wouldn't you know someone close to him hacked the labs, or was it that they mislabeled the sample?

I'm off to the gym to kickstart the weightraining

~J

Listening to ''White Unicorn'', by Wolfmother

Bears Game Wrap-UP

Alright, we finally have some wifi here at the new place, so I guess I can get my write-up of the past weekend I spent in Chicago.

My calves and hip flexors are still sore from about 30 miles of walking! Arrived in the Windy City this past Friday afternoon, managed to not get mugged on the metra on the way into downtown and made it to our hotel. We got settled in there and took a Taxi down to "Ditka's" the restaurant. Had a beer or 2 in there at the bar while we contemplated if we should spend 50 a plate on dinner. To our surprise none other than the man himself Mike Ditka was there in person!! Didn't get a chance to shake his hand as he was walking out the door, but goddamn he is the biggest person I have ever seen. And I'm not talking heavy-wise. His shoulders are about 4x as wide as me! (Ditka vs God; Trick Question, Ditka is God!)

After we bailed on a place a little over our heads we headed over to a place called Gibsons that was rocking and asked for a bar table, well we ended up in the dining room. The waitress did one hell of a sale of the steaks, and we couldn't resist. So much for not throwing down the cash. After dinner we shot over to a little Irish bar across the street where the drinks where cheap and we could watch some sports. And to my great satisfaction they sold Fat Tire Ale!!! Yippee I was damn excited. The bartender was excited too as she kept giving them to me right up until 4 am.

Needless to say, when you get home at 4am, Saturday was a wash of day. Slept in, went and got some late lunch and thats about it.

Game-time!
Pre-Game starts early in Chicago, we were in the parking lot by 8am and there was loads of tailgaters. We didn't have tickets, so we had to find them. Considering the game was sold out, the Bears were 7-0 and my bro was wearing Dolphins gear; it wasn't an easy task. He took his swings with a laugh, but ended up putting on my Bears Jersey for cover so we could find tickets. He played the part pretty well and chatted it up with all the fans. We scored some tickets finally, but they were only singles. After our massive search and the cost people wanted for 2 tickets together we took them. I tell you what I've been to some Buffalo Bills games and people say that is the craziest stadium in the NFl. Well, it pales in comparison to Soldier Field. The Buffalo-Miami Rivalry is huge and my bro can get by wearing his dolphins gear, not in Chitown though! The lot was filled with 99% Bears fans and half of them were there just to party and not even go into the game!!

The Game-Let's not even talk about it. Go watch Sportscenter!

Photos are here!

Side Note: Basso to Discovery!!

Bear Down

Well, I'm sitting on the plane on my way to see the Chicago Bears v. Miami Dolphins game with my brother. I'm not gonna comment on the game until its over; alot riding on it. Our personal bet that includes the spread of 13 1/2 pts for the Dolphins is that the loser must wear the others teams respective jersey on Monday. That sounds like a girly bet, but the loser must also comment to each Bears/Dolphins fans that they see; aka "How bout them Bears", etc. I'll put some pics up after the weekend.

Once I return from the game it's time to start throwing down for the upcoming season. I'm back in Victor now so that means that the gym is accessible and so is Dryer Rd. A change of pace for this season as I've switched coaches; I'm now working with Peter Cummings of Plan2Peak. I'm excited to be working with him and think that I should see some new growth this season.

Looks like I better get everything out of my system this weekend, one final blowout to flush everything out!

More to come on Monday with the recap

~J
Listening to ''Long Distance Drunk'', by Modest Mouse

Hot Prospect

Gary Fisher Supercaliber



Runaway favorite at the Fisher demo yesterday. I had to come out of my off-season shell to get a preview of the 07 models. Rocked the trails over at Dryer Rd. By far the favorite was the 29" Supercaliber. I'll admit I had my doubts on how a FS 29er would feel and if it would feel sluggish and heavy, but no way. This thing was an outright bad-ass ride. I swung a leg over the new HiFi and the Fuel Ex 9.5 also. Both were great rides also.

On the homefront Erin and I are moving back to Victor around the corner from where we were last time. This time Erin bought the place. She is pretty damn excited as its here first home!! So expect to be seeing me and the lizzy girl a little more often back on the trails.

~J

Horrible Hundred

Whoa, it's Wednesday and I think I'm still not recovered from the Horrible. That might qualify as one of the hardest rides I've ever done. By the time we reached the house I was cashed in. Nothing left. Hell, I slept till 1 pm the next day. Walking into the shop monday evening was like walking into a zombie safe house. Everyone was walking around aimlessly.

10 Brave soldiers stepped into Battle 10/15 2006. Only 4 would return.



From Left to Right:
Val Pal, Hanggi, Mark, Suzanne, Bruce, Radar, Jer-Bear
Front Row: Myself, Furber, Casey

Note that the sun hasn't even risen yet.

Our task was to be an epic one. 100 miles of dirt road/seasonal road climbing and descending. Cross bikes might have made sense, but the steepness of the climbs and the loose rocky descents kept everyone on the fat tires.



Click for the full graph. Note: my odometer stopped at mile 80. Yah, that was fun the last 20 miles to look down and not going anywhere.



We stopped around mile 62 (Horrible Hundred K) for a big refuel at Casey's place. It was damn good and was needed for sure. Computer read 14 hours, but it was around 10 of actual riding. Hanggi's heart rate monitor read 8200 cals burned. I'm guessing based on extrapolating power data from the road I was somewhere around 6500-7000. All I know is that at mile 75 or so as I was stuggling up a nasty climb we all decided we would stop at 100 and not the 120 as planned. We, Yes Us, backed down from an adventure. We still had alot left, and none of us were sure if we would even make it. Somewhere around mile 80, I cashed in my chips. Pulled the "wanderer" climbing up one of the final climbs. I was done, the last 20 miles were absolutely brutal. My body had nothing left to give and just pedaling on the flats took full concentration and max effort. Hell, at the end of the road from the house (3/4 mile away) we had to stop and refuel because nobody could ride any farther.

Now that finishes the season with a !!!! Time to get fat, and drink beer.

~J

BTW, Anyone see the amazing comeback by Da Bears Monday?!?!

Listening to '' If The World Ends'', by Guillemots

Horrible Hundred still on.....!!

Screw the wet weather, we're still gonna take the hills of the southern tier on. Plans are still to start at 5am, but this time from the hollow. Looks like its gonna be just a small hardcore group of us. Temps are calling for high of 50. Swapped things up to pretty much all dirt roads, but extended by about 20 miles.

Am I ready, we'll see. I rode monday at Stid hill and Bristol, tech skils are still there, base fitness is around. But throwing a 120 mile ride in during "off-season" well, we will have to see. It's gonna take alot of advil and caffeine.

My thumbs are getting in shape for the upcoming event. errr.. That would be next months release of Call of Duty 3 for the xbox 360


Little Late but: Eatough goes down in a blaze of glory

Basso Back?

Floyd makes his case




~J
Listening to ''White & Nerdy'', by "Weird Al" Yankovic

Good Weekend

Had a nice weekend here in Upstate, NY for October. The Fall Foilage is changing colors and close to full effect and it was nice to take it in with a few sunshine days. Friday night was usual dinner with E at Parkers. Our favorite hangout, good food and huge beer selection. Saturday, I put in a few hours at the GBC helping them out while everyone else is out west, enjoying the mountains. Saturday night went to see the film "The Departed" It was a pretty damn good flick.

Sunday Erin and I headed down to OCP to put the tires to the trail, spent a few hours cruising around the upper area of the park. E is still getting used to her mountain bike and is coming along really awesome. At first she was pretty scared of descending but once she did it a few times she was a natural. I was quite suprised that the trail were as dry as they were. I think I'm going to head down there tonight and put some ride time in and try to get some saddle time in here this week before the Horrible Hundred.










~J

OctoBEAR

Yup, 37-6; Total domination of Seattle. My Bears are just rolling. NHL starts up wednesday, Let's go Sabres! (FWIW the new uni's suck!)

Oh, you want to read about me and bike stuff; Well, I'm planning out the 2007 season and its more of the same. 24 hour races, marathons, NYSERS. I'm refocusing and re-motivating myself for next season. On paper, this year looked good. But personally and physically it was the worst of the past few. I'm over it now, getting energized and ready to rock for 2007.

I've got the Horrible Hundred coming up in a few weeks, but I haven't ridden in a bit. Gonna try to scoot out for a few hours tonight, but my right knees is painful right now. All came from the Highlander event last month. Pedaling even lightly I can feel it ready to pop. Hell just being still in my chair I can feel it's probably not right

Ah well time to get back to work....



Listening to ''it's not your fault'', by New Found Glory

~J

Microsoft Sucks

That about sums up my day. I work on a pc all day, and those f@ckers released an update today, and it killed my outlook. Granted, I was using the 2007 Beta. However, it stopped displaying the actual messages. I erased the 2007 Beta, redownloaded (took an hour), re-installed. Bad Install, re-installed a few more times, bad-installs. Finally it installed, and well, crashes whenever it opens. Needless to say, it doesnt' work and I have no backup of any of my emails so 10 months of work data has just been erased.

I'm going to swallow 35 painkiller pills at once.

DA Bears

Showdown at Soldier Field. November 5th. Airline and Hotel tix have been purchased.

Who: Chicago Bears v. Miami Dolphins
Why: Grudge match for all-time bragging rights; My fav team Da Bears taking on my bro's team the Phag boy Phins.

Just the 2 of us are going to tackle the City of Chicago for a few nights and then do some tailgaiting in the lot for this one.

Hopefully, I won't get kicked outta this one ;) Hotel is half a mile away. I'm wearing roller skates so it'll be easier to drag me home after the Victory Celebration!!

Gotta Love the Offseason!!




Listening to ''Likufanele'', by Zero 7
~J
09/22* Autumnal Equinox

Quick Update/Horrible Hundred

Not much happening since the highlander ride. Looks like I'm cutting my losses now and going to end the season. No more events for me besides the Horrible Hundred.

The Horrible Hundred Off-road ride date is set in stone. October 15th (sunday). Start Time: 5:00am Naples, NY at Bob and Ruths.
50+ miles of singletrack, killer climbs, gnar dirt roads and pain
You will need your lights. Lights will be dropped off and recharged for the evening part of the ride. Route will be 100 miles give or take, expected climbing is around 15,000-18,000ft. Expected finish will be late in the Night 10-11pm. We will be making a few stops and waiting for everyone (unless we decide to split into a/b groups). Bring cash, lights, extra food. sprocketjockey at mac.com for more info

My training for the horrible is like this: Play Xbox 360, ride with the girlfriend, Play xbox 360.
Yah, we'll see if I can even finish it.

As far as xbox 360 I'm about so/so online at NHL 07 (11-6). If you're interested in a game or want to add me as a friend my gamertag is livtoridedirtus. Pretty much all my wins are against my brother (Shut him out in last 4/5 games!!!)



Listening to ''Shoot The Runner'', by Kasabian
~J

Highlander

Click image for full size pic

Ahh the Highlander. So 100 miles, 11,000 ft of climbing just wasn't enough for us. So we decided to add an extra 60 miles and 5,000ft or so of climbing.

Friday Night was the Alpe D'Gannet TT. It was pure pain. I haven't done any real climbing or race like efforts in a few weeks. But I'll take my 2nd place (age group) and 4th place overall finish. My time was 21:48. For the 3rd year in a row climber Chayne Hoag won again with a time of 19:53 this year. I suffered bad on the climb, put too much effort into the run-in before hand and just had a hard time getting a rythmn after the 18% section. It's tough to tell if its an improvement over last year (1 minute or so) but I also flatted last year and got a wheel change at the top of the climb.

Highlander Ride: Casey, Jeremy, Hanggi, Mark and I rolled out of the Hollow at 6:30 am. I pretty much got no sleep as I was jacked up from the TT the night before and then we were up super early for the ride. Hanggi pulled off in Naples to head to work and we rolled on to catch up with Dave. We headed out tackled the climbs and had some fun. With our late start and screwing around we ended up being the last riders pretty much on the road. About 105-110 miles or so in Casey and I dropped the hammer to get to the next sag station as it was getting ready to close. 10 miles of race effort after 110 miles of riding was a tall order, but we just made it in time to pass the word on that there were a few riders behind. Shortly after that Jeremy, decided to roll in with Dave and Mark, Casey and I had another 40 miles to ride. We missed the post ride feeding frenzy at Bristol, so we decided just to grab some caffeine and food and 'take er easy home'. Something about us implying we are going to relax, gets us all fired up and we ended up pretty much flying at full-tilt up every climb on the way home. After we climbed the Prattsburgh Pass and descended into town it was dark with some miles still to ride. Luckily our escorts (Wendy and Val)arrived and gave us a boost home.

Needless to say I was pretty drained afterwards. I suppose if I woulda got pulled over on the way home I probably woulda failed a DWI test.
~J

There are photos of the Highlander Here

I've also added a Photo Gallery Page; Enjoy!