STICKING IT TO THE MAN - OH YEAH!!!

The night ride this week was spiced up a little by a close encounter with a Park Ranger! George and I had headed out for our usual jaunt and had intended to take it easy on the Howard Side, partly due to some neck issues George is enjoying and my wrist being as sore as buggery after kayaking last weekend. Best laid plans of mice and men! Once the mojo got us we were no way going to take it easy! Scooted down the sketchy downhill from the apex of Cascade - over the swing bridge and up House of Pain - whence I took a short "lie down" captured in full technicolor by George on his new fangled camera obsura! Cheers George - like I need any help looking foolish!

Over the top and we are just heading for Double Drop when as we meet up with the roadway a van is on the road - no worries we often see traffic and it's no sweat. Only this time the van has an ensignia on the door and slows suddenly as we approach! Whoops....... We turn off our lights to see how this little sketch is going to play out and then a guy steps from the van (perhaps 25 feet from us) and starts shinnig a flash light inot the trees. "Time to go" shout George and like a couple of school kids caught on school grounds during the summer vacation we high tail it out of there. Looking to "shake the man" - who I'm sure had thought "oh screw this" about 15 seconds after we rode away and just went home - we rode sometimes with lights, sometimes without along Mission Impossible. This is the trail featured in the final minutes of 24 solo where Chris Eatough (spelt correctly note) and Jon Posner take 34 attempts to clear a long log! Yeah, well I walked it and only just made it then! The log is no where near as long as it looks in the movie - perhaps only 12-15 feet, but it is about 4 feet off the ground! And below it are just nasty looking rocks! Other bits along here are unphathomable in terms of riding. Once back across the swing bridge and safely on Cascade we lit up properly and finished the ride, giggling the whole way. Idiots!

I would have felt bad about my illicit noctural riding, but I'm still smarting over the loss of by favorite log at the hands of the overzealous trail guardians so screw them! Sticking it to the man ... YEAH!!

I was back again on Sunday am wit the usual crew, but this time (for teh first time) we launched from the Park N Ride, fun trails, down House of Pain, up Vineyards and down Soapstone - even had a bit of fun catching air half way up the Mile Smile waiting for stragglers to catch up.

Calories in, Calories out balance is swinging the wrong way - no riding to work and haven't got into the habit of training after work/at lunchtime yet. If this keeps up - 300 lbs by Christmas!

Cheers now

DogzBollux (bad attitude and big belly)

O.K. so now it's getting silly!!!

Fun kind of week this one - started well with the usual night ride, just George and me so we decided to mix things up a bit. Started at the Park N Ride and took a slightly different entrance into the park. A nice steep section had me "over the bars" in the first 5 minutes - always good to get the mind focused early in a ride. Then George decided to take us on a magical mystery tour. Perfect! We rode/pushed the bikes up Bull Run (George on his Nomad me on my faithful Redline 29er Monocog). Then navigated some trails George confessed he always gets lost in, nice technical downhill sections, logs you name it! Bunch of new trails - smashing.



Then we headed down Vineyard and hit the paved path as far as the bottom of "Double Drop" from where we did our usual route in reverse - amazing how riding a route you know well but from the other direction makes it a completely different ride.



Great ride - perfectly timed as my Nite Hawk light completely burnt out just as we were making our final climb back to the cars, two plus hours of fun.



On Thursday we had a "film-night" at the Bollux residence to show 24 solo to the Sunday ride crew. Fantstic film, a must for all MTBers, take a look at the preview http://www.24-solo.com/trailer/. Much fun had by all, food, beer and a few laughs at the insanity of the 24 hour riders - Gordo is a kin hero! Is it just me or does Mark Hendershot look scarily like Gollum from Lord of the Rings?



Saturday had me venturing to Harper's Ferry to partake in some white water kayaking with Sunday crew regular Sean (he of the Irish cycling jersey). As complete novices we were assigned "duckies" and spend three and a half hours being inept on the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. Fortunately as there's been no rain this year the conditions were nice and benign, "less white water, more shite water" was Seans assessment. So no getting wet except when we chose to swim a "rapid". Hard work mind as those white water duckies do not like going in a straight line so you end up fighting the bloody thing all day.



Sunday and the usual ride - good turn out with five of us there for a spin. Doug and I took the opportunity to scoot off the front to give us time to "perfect" riding the log at the bottom of the Belmont hill. Few goes each, few successes and a few falls (just as it should be). MLW is still coming on leaps and bounds in terms of technical ability - happily taking on some pretty sketchy downhills that have more experienced riders getting off to walk. She has even manged to get herself a riding pseudonym - apparently she is "Steady Eddy" amongst several of the riders - due to her ability to just keep going at a steady pace regardless of the terrain for hours. Nice ride - just shy of 10 miles.

It is this ride that is the topic of my ire! Now I'm a pretty easy going guy (honest) and I am happy to defer to the trail maintenance guys most of the time - without them yada yada........ But the buggers are getting far too bloody enthusiastic in their pursuit of the smooth trail. They've gone and removed the "much storied" Y-shaped log at the bottom of the Rockburn Park Trail downhill! Roger me sideways! That log has been there for over a sodding year - and yes to begin with it was a real bloody challenge, but like most things/people time had mellowed her and now she was just enough of a challenge to make you concentrate but never (well nearly never) enough to take you off. Perfect bloody log then - and now just another victim of the over zealous chain saw! Didn't just clear a route though but removed the whole deal! What gives! Leave us some obstacle guys.

On that slightly pissed off note I shall leave you - good riding, and may the perfect logs in your lives never be stolen from under your fat wheels.

Dogzbollux

Post-Race Down Time

Well it's been a pretty low key kind of week following the SM100. A time for discovering that (i) I can't spell Eatough! (I could go back and edit my race report, but stuff it, I'll let my stupidity stay a matter of record) and (ii) my time at SM100 really was VERY average. I was kind of happy with a time under 12 hours, but on Monday morning as I made a trip to Safeway for milk - wearing my SM100 T-shirt (Poseur!) a young lady calls across the carpark "hey, you did the SM100?" It's not very often I attact the attention of ladies so I stop to chat, I confirm yes I did it and talk about long rides we have each done - she did a 24 h rtace as a 5 lady team a few months ago etc. She asks me my time.... "Oh about 11 and a quarter" I say nonchalently (rounding my time down a few minutes). Oh she replies - hardly able to disguise her disapointment - "I suppose it is a long way and just finishing is an achievement". Cheeky mare!

O.K. so back to riding.

Midweek night ride as per usual, visiting both sides of Patapsco - the only event of note was George nearly killing himself blazing down "House of Pain" on his Nomad. He cuts a corner at the bottom through some long grass to discover the long grass is hiding a log! Oh Dear - smacks his ankle on the log, flys through the air "sans bike" and both end up about ten yards down the trail stranded on their backs like turtles! A few minutes to gather himself and George (who knows no pain!) is fine. Other than that nice ride a reasonable 11 miles

Sunday and the group is thinning - just MLW, Sean and me. We hit from Landing and do a slightly longer loop taking in a few extra nice climbs and a rooty decent (which MLW nails!). Nice easy paced ride which gave us the chance to try a few new logs - both Sean and I spending time getting to grips with riding along the log just over the water at the base of the Belmont rocky decent. Nice work!

Commuting "au velo" is out for the foreseeable future as I have to take my youngest to preschool - oh well have to take up some of the slack running and other boring stuff.

Cheers - keep it real

Jim

Shenandoah Mountain 100 2007 (race report)

Well midweek reality really hit hard! I entered the Shenandoah M100 last Saturday is a fit of enthusiasm (possibly lubricated by a couple of beers) and was pretty psyched and excited right until Wednesday.


Then I did my usual night ride with George (and Todd joined to make up a happy threesome - oo er). Ride went spectacularly! Todd lead on some trails I'd never ridden - pretty technical and I had a complete blast, 10 happy fast miles. Enjoying the usual post-race libation and conversation turned to the SM100, both George and Todd were adamant that Shenandoah on a SS was a REALLY BAD IDEA! These guys know MTBing so I was spooked!


Well I hooked up with another friend also doing SM100 to travel down together and by the time we got to the Stokesville campsite the butterflies in my stomach were not so much fluttering but trying out advanced formation aeronautics! Having registered (including dropping a light to be picked up at feedstation 5 if I arrived after the 4:20 pm cut off) and got all our stuff nice and early I had a few hours daylight to make sure the faithful old 29er Monocog was in tip top condition for Sunday's adventure. Swapped out front brake blocks, cleaned the rims with rubbing alcohol and switched out the pedals that have been giving me aggrivation for the past two weeks and my baby was in the best shape she has ever been, and I was as prepared and relaxed as possible.



Early to bed (campsite was silient by 10:30pm - good job race director) and then early to rise, roused by gongs and fireworks at 5 am (bet the locals loved that). Stumbled round for a bit in the dark, it was cold but not too cold so just shorts and a summer jersey were spot on. A quick breakfast of begel and banana and soon it was 6:20 and time to head for the start to see if we could catch a glimpse of Landis and Eutough - No luck.



In the mirk at 6:30am the gun went off and the expected mad sprint got underway. The first few miles are on decending or flat asphalt, no place for a SSer when the packs adrenalin is peaking to bursting point. I was spat out the back like a bullet! Within about 5 minutes I was pretty much all by myself tootling along at about 15 mph, with the occasional late starter blasting past at about 25 mph! Bit disheartening. First tight lefthand turn (about 1.5 miles in) and some poor bugger already has his bike upside down by the roadside fixing a flat - it will be a long day for a lot of people.

The long (and I mean long) and short of the Shenandoah M100 is that it is a story of five climbs/decents that vary in length and intensity but follow a similar pattern. Paved flat, followed by paved incline which turns to steeper fire road, steeper forest double track then steep technical single track. Then sketchy steep rocky, rooty and loose decent turning into fast, fun sweeping forest single track. Few logs and water crossings thrown in for good measure to catch out anyone not paying attention.

In my estimation pretty much all of the course is ridable - if you were just riding a section of the course as a normal ride - but in the context of a 100 mile epic ride most of the steep technical inclines were "walk ups" for me. The decents were likewise perfectly ridable but their sheer length made them a challenge (especially on a rigid fork!) by the end of the decents my forearms and shoulders were just about cramping. Every section of the course hurt different bits of my body - lungs and quads on the climbs, calves on the hike-a-bike sections and shoulders forearms on the decents. Trick seems to be to try and stay relaxed and rest the bits that were not being tortured at that specific point.

The big climbs (34-39 miles and 65-80 miles) took their toll physically and mentally but the hardest climb for me was the short final climb at 92-94 miles. I thought it was all over! I was past the final aid station and cruising on the asphalt when - bugger me, the course took a right turn back onto steep fireroad! Absolute misery! As I crawled up this section I edged up alongside another rider. Trying to be cheerful I managed to pant out " Hi! How's it going, nearly there now!" The other rider turned his head to me and looked like a man only just holding on to his sanity! I wasn't sure if he was more likely to dive across and try to rip my eyeballs out or to crawl to the side of the trail, curl up into a ball and start whimpering about the "big nasty creatures" that were coming to get him. Either way I decided that I would shut the hell up and just ride - the guy was enjoying his own private, personal hell without my whittering.

After the final climb I was still sceptical about how far I had to go - little faith in the odometer which had played up a bit - and was being conservative expecting about another 4 miles. By now I had been on the road for just over 11 hours and was hoping to finish under 11:30 if I could hold it together. After the final technical decent which I was too tired to take slowly so I just let the bike go I hit a lovely sweeping double track section which was BIG FUN and allowed me to maintain a nice pace. Then suddenly the course swept into a campground (where people suddenly appeared clapping and shouting), over a couple of bumps and then opened out into a field! I could see orange tape and the Observatory - I WAS AT THE FINISH! Tears welled in my eyes as I made the final hairpin and glided to a halt at the finish line, 11 hours 17 min - slow but still far faster than I had feared.

At the finish I grabbed my "finishers" pint glass and drop my bike next to an older couple I say to them (nodding at my bike) "I'm not sure if I want to kiss it or burn it". The lady replies "well its seems to have done well for you today", I agree that is certainly the truth and head to find a beer keg - thus ended my conversation with Mr and Mrs Landis, parents of the aforementioned Floyd (who was lucky enough to sneak an early break from me and just pipped me at the line by 4 hours).

Afterwards there was great food, great beer (thanks to Old Dominion Brewery) and chance to mingle with the likes of Chris Eutough and Floyd Landis who were stars in that they didn't act like starts at all but just hung around with the rest of us mere mortals.

Big thanks to all the volunteers who were instrumental in making this a fantastic day, I'll remember it for a long time (even after the pain has gone away) and to quote "good ol' Arnie" I'LL BE BACK