Mt. Bike Now

Sorry to bum everyone out with my last post. In more and more ways, I’m finding that life experience and bike experience can occasionally parallel each other. Finding out about the death of my friend was a lot like face planting into a tree at ~12mph. What has happened since then is like the remainder of my story that day.

(you should click the link above and read it right now so that the remainder of this post makes sense… go ahead. I’ll wait)

I found out last night that my uncle is in the hospital for kidney and lung problems. Finding out about this, I felt the same way that I did on the stalled out boat that day… at that point, nothing short of the boat catching on fire and sinking was going to be any worse than going face first into mother nature’s baseball bat. In a way, I feel the same now.

I’m sad. It sucks. It sucks really, really bad. But, eventually, the boat will crank, I’ll get to shore, ice down my lip, and the wounds will slowly heal  to leave a barely perceivable scar.

In much happier news, RDO parts are starting to arrive. I’ve got rims, spokes, seatpost, a KMC gold chain and some other random parts waiting for me at the shop right now. I’m hoping that the order from Hope (brakes and hubs) gets here soon so I can build the wheels. I’ll post a few teaser pics once that happens.

No eccentric bottom bracket will ever be 100% quiet.

Also, death. I very recently found out that a good friend of mine whom I’d lost touch with died last month by committing suicide. She was always the type that you wouldn’t hear from for a while, but that would eventually come around and want to meet up for lunch. She was also the type that, when I didn’t hear from her for a long time, I had a very, very bad feeling gnawing at the pit of my stomach until I finally heard the news.

I feel like somewhere, something has pulled a plug out of my body and part of me has drained out. We’re all going to die at some point, and I think, on some level, everyone is afraid of dying. We can hope, though, that at that moment, however brief and fleeting, the certainty of death brings a sense of peace and relief.

I miss you.

The week off after Mohican was a fun one. I bathed my soul in alcohol and didn’t ride much- which is essentially a great time… until it’s not. Monday night, we polished off the week of not giving a f*** by hanging out with coworkers at Flying Saucer, where I wing-womaned for Kenny (successfully, I might add), and Ryan broke his iPhone

(more on that in a second)

The next morning, it was back to being serious. Intervals. Thousands of them. Ok, maybe just 3 really hard ones. I felt like breaking the cranks off of my bike, which is a great thing on your first day back to training, because it indicates that you rested as hard as possible. Wednesday, I decided that since I have a fancy powertap wheel and the rigid fork on my geared A9C, that I was going to start doing some of my long, steady rides on it rather than the road bike. I figure at some point, I’ll be racing it long distances, so I might as well train on it more often as well.

Oh yeah- remember the broken iPhone? We fixed it last night. I say “we” because Ryan ordered a screen, took the old one off, and installed the new one.

All the while, I was sitting at my computer providing life-coaching services to Matt via Facebook. Apparently, everything came apart OK, but when it came time to  re-install the 500 thousand teeny electronics screws, Ryan started to get really frustrated. Like any respectable man, he throws things when he’s frustrated, so when I heard the sound of something hitting the wall from the other end of the house, I figured it was time to step in and offer up my dexterity and patience…

It eventually all came together, and, sometime around midnight, we got to sleep.

Looking ahead? Well, the Smith and Nephew Gran Prix Omnium is this weekend, and it includes the State Championship crit. I was initially planning on poaching the crit, but then realized that I didn’t feel like ditching a week of training focused on my endurance endeavors just so I could gun for another white TN Champ jersey to add to my overflowing  collection (smirk). So, instead, it’ll be more intervals and more long rides on the MTB…

If you’ve left a commented in the past couple of weeks and you’re wondering where it went, that’d be my fault. This morning, I was using my phone to look at a spam post that made it past the filter. Instead of deleting just that, I deleted a full page of comments.

That’ll teach me to moderate my blog before I have coffee in the morning…

I figured the side-cheek photo would have had more comments, anyway.

Six days out from the Mohican 100, and I’m already feeling the pre-race crazies. At least 3 of the usual NUE badasses are at the TSE race, which runs from today until June 4th (same day as Mohican). This means that I’ll have the opportunity to scoop up some good NUE points if I can place well (I’m currently sitting 5th overall). Not that I’m totally discounting the current entries into Mohican or anything- BrendaLee Simril will be there, and she’s finished ahead of me in both NUE races so far. Also, I’m sure Laureen, just a couple of points behind me, will be looking for the opportunity to strike as well.

All of this, in addition to not knowing the course very well, leads to a little bit of singlespeeder apprehension. Last year, the course was a blur of mud and thunderstorm. I broke my rear brake lever off, then proceeded to bend and break my chain (two separate occurrences in two different spots on the chain). At the 3rd aid station, I said f*ckit and DNFd the race. Once I was home, I realized that I’d also cracked my Air9 in the process. In the meantime, I wasn’t paying attention to the course or giving singlespeeding it any thought.

This year, the forecast is looking good for fast course conditions (though, now that I’ve said that “out loud,” the city of Loudonville is doomed to a tornado on Saturday). I’m still not totally sure about gear or suspension choice, and somewhere, in the back of my mind, there’s a tiny voice saying “take the geared bike!” since what I do remember about the course is a lot of short, steep hills that will undoubtedly put me on my feet if I choose a singlespeed gear that will get me through the flat parts of the course without major spinout.

…fear not though. I’m feeding that voice a tiny glass of STFU with a side of GTFO.

In other news, the rule in the house on Friday was “no one under 30 can wear a shirt”…

I was going to jokingly crop this photo down to just the “bad” part and label it as “why you should purchase your Cannondale at Outdoors, Inc.” However, since I’ve apparently been dubbed “Mandrea” by the person pictured below, the gloves are off.

…and more random thoughts that I can’t write an entire post about.

- In the comments (and in post-race conversation), I’m getting a lot of “if you had gears and suspension, you’d be fast” type comments. Ok, I’ll give you suspension. The rigid fork was perfect for Cohutta. It slowed me down on the fast parts of the Syllamo trail. But gears?

Last I checked, Gerry Pflug has finished ahead of Amanda Carey at both Cohutta and Syllamo.

Yes, I realize that I’m not Gerry Pflug, but give it a rest. I’m not totally sticking to one or the other, I’m just having a lot of fun on a singlespeed right now. My point is that gears aren’t a necessarily a prerequisite for success.I still stand by my statement that at places like Syllamo, gears are a liability.

- On a totally different note, I think that the “age group” placings for triathlons are silly. It’s like “participation awards” for the kids that couldn’t win anything at field day in elementary school. If you win your age group, but 4 other people of your gender finished ahead of you, then guess what… you did not win. The exception- masters racing. There is a point at which you start to slow down (men moreso than women), so it makes sense to offer a “masters” category (as in road racing). But 5 year age groups? That’s just silly. Try to beat everyone.

-Speaking of age, I turned 30 the day after Syllamo’s Revenge. My parents took me to dinner at an authentic Chinese place, where we had a giant fried fish that was awesome (photos below).

-Other things included in the gallery: pre-race photos from Thursday’s ride & post-ride soak in the creek near the cabin, stuff inside the cabin like Iron Chef, my alone-at-the-cabin security system, Matt covered in terriers, and porch views. Next, some birthday shots of Matt’s present to me, a card from my parents, and the aforementioned giant fish. Also,  though I didn’t race the final Tiger Lane crit, I did ride up and watch. Included are some shots that involve beer. Finally, a couple of random weekend shots- including one of me drinking a Smirnoff Ice. For all of you who have wanted to see a mohawk photo… here’s your chance.

Addendum: for those of you that don’t read the comments, I though I’d bring the following to your attention for further clarity on the triathlon matter.

From Mike:

Triathalon is MUCH more popular than mountain bike or road racing nationwide. That’s fact. What bike race has amatuer registration in the hundreds, sometimes over a thousand? Many tris do. Even the biggest mtb race I’ve done (the Shenandoah 100) doesn’t come close to the registration numbers of scores of tris on the east coast alone.
Part of the reason for this is age group placement. It gives more people a chance to compete in an evener field.

Try considering the bigger impact on the health of the sport rather than who’s really “winning.”

Disclosure: I am not a triathlete at all (terrible swimmer) but my wife is relatively successful…as a previous age group champion for the southeast.

My thoughts:
You’re exactly right. Triathlons are wildly popular vs. road or MTB racing. However, I don’t think that the main reason is because of age groups.
First, just to clarify, until you get to the “masters” realm, an age group- ESPECIALLY for women- does not denote an “evener” group of competitors. Physiologically speaking, it just doesn’t. You can’t argue with science. From an ability standpoint, it makes just as much sense as taking all the people from ages 18 to 35, putting their names into a hat, and drawing them out into random groups to tell them who they are competing against. I still stand by my statement that if you “win” your 20-24 age group while coming in 4th overall, you just didn’t win. You got 4th. Hate me for it all you want, but it won’t change human physiology. My original comment is addressed towards that 4th place person, not the person that just wants to be healthier.
The real reasons why triathlons are so popular is because, to the crowd that just wants to improve health, challenge themselves a little, and isn’t overly concerned with winning, a triathlon is a great thing to do- because of the variety of skills involved, the training is more interesting than the “specialist” athlete, and, above all, a triathlon is much less intimidating than a road or mountain bike race.
With road racing, you have pack dynamics, strategy, confrontation, etc. It can be an intimidating environment. Put me in a road race with a triathlete that’s stronger than me on the bike. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I’ll tell you now that her chances of beating me are slim. Road racing is like a strenuous game of chess. It’s often the smartest (as opposed to the strongest) who wins. Someone who doesn’t want to tackle that learning curve isn’t going to have a good time road racing.
Same with MTBing- it requires a great deal of skill AND fitness to be a great mountain biker. Once again, for the person just looking to be more fit and have a good time, the amount of skill required can be discouraging.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that a triathlon isn’t “hard,” I’m just saying that from the perspective of someone wanting to be more fit and try some sort of competition, that (save those who swim like a 1-legged horse) it’s the easiest and least intimidating from a skill standpoint.

Rather than getting up, packing my stuff, and making a morning drive back to Memphis, I decided I’d take the morning easy and go for a recovery ride. As I mentioned before, I stayed at the lodging put together by Atlanta Outfitters. The camp was called Whitewater Express, and had a really cool “summer camp” vibe to it.

Sunday morning, the roosters woke up at 5:30am. Breakfast was 7:30, so I changed and drove out to the Boyd’s Gap overlook that I’d passed during the race. I wanted to watch the sun rise, but the overlook is more of a “sunset” spot, so I walked up to a nearby radio tower. There were too many trees and haze to take good sunrise photos, so I looked for other nearby interesting things.

Back at camp, I had breakfast, packed the car, and went for my recovery ride…

P.S. Those last couple are from an area just west of Decatur, but it wasn’t the only tornado-ravaged are I passed through. If the Earth ever wanted to eradicate the human race, we’d as helpless at the little black picnic ants that occasionally invade my kitchen.

I like my outdoor cooking appliances like I like my men.

Oh, wait, nevermind… that doesn’t make sense.

Yes, my new grill is so awesome that it deserves its own blog post. We’ve been occasionally using a little Weber kettle and dealt with it up until recently when I was forced to cook food in “shifts” since the kettle was so small. Soon after, we went shopping for something larger and found the Master Forge Jet Light… aka, the “666 grill” because of its 666 square inch grilling area. Features include “Jet Light” (a propane-powered lighting system that eliminates the need for lighter fluid or a chimney), cast iron grates, upper warming rack, and “counter” space on both sides… pure awesomeness…

In training news, Saturday’s “Cycle for Safety” ride was a trip to the pain cave and back. Sunday, I went for an easy spin on the Jet, and my legs felt leaden. Today, the trip to the chiropractor was painful because of a handful of trigger points in my upper back and shoulders, and finally, when I got to work, the first thing I managed to do was clamp my right pinky into the mechanism of the workstand. It’s likely going to result in a permanent change to my fingerprint on that finger. I also ordered a Crest rim, some DT Swiss Aerolite spokes, and a MTB Powertap hub.

Looking forward to next Saturday… Cohutta. Singlespeed.

Someone commented on my last post to ask if I was ok… yes, I’m fine, I’m just taking the weekend easy to finish recovering from the first few early season races, the volume of training put in to getting ready for those, and the lab test I completed friday morning. I’ll be back at it soon enough with 4 hours on Wednesday and 8-10 at Syllamo next weekend.

This morning, I’m relaxing with some coffee and Paris Roubaix. All I have to say is JOOOOOOOOHAAAAAAAAN!!!!

Your photos for the day are some related to Ouachita- the pre-ride on Brushy and a couple of post-race back at home shots…