CT Challenge Double Metric Training Ride with Happy Ending

Since last year, I have been providing input on the CT Challenge Century Ride or what they are now calling the Grand Fondo.  I noticed this year they appeared to be using last year's route so I decided a couple of weeks before the event to recon the route to make sure there weren't any surprises.

I headed out early Saturday and instead of riding Boggs Hill, I ride Boggs all the time so I knew there would be nothing unusual there, I headed down Rt 302 and stopped off to say hi to the cows at the Creamy. I think it's Karma that when a ride has cows it will be a great ride.

Cross Training with Elliot

Elliot said to me last year that he wanted to start racing more competitively.  This year I signed him up for Stride's Adaptive Race Team and we spent this year working on skiing with a guide and technique.

Elliot's guide, Jamie, in the off season we really need to cross train and I told Elliot we would start out by riding every weekend, so Saturday we headed over to Fairfield Hills and rode three laps, 5 miles, on the Recreation Trail.  It was perfect because there is a little climbing involved and some roads, too.  On the first lap he stopped a few times on the hill because he was winded and was not used to lowering his gears to make it easier to pedal.

Second lap got better and the third lap he only stopped once on the hill!  Afterwards, I treated him to Peach Wave and he was ecstatic!

What do you call 1/3 of a Triathlon?

I signed up for a team relay triathlon at work where I would naturally be on the bike.  It's called the KIC IT Triathlon supporting the Stamford, CT based charity called Kids In Crisis.  Apparently, my company is a big sponsor of this charity and reached out to our other locations to field teams.   That is why I purposefully, over the past couple of weeks have been building up the Qball to be once again, a road loving monster crosser.  

Domo arigato Mr Roboto House

Now it was time to try and ride the 24.8 miles that will be required of me this coming Sunday. I mapped out a route on RideWithGPS that encompasses a lot of familiar territory from my work commute (which I have start again) and some challenging sections that I ride with Katie on the Tandem, so basically all familiar territory. 

 

The Qball rides really nice and it's really smooth.  The new tires I have on the bike really make a difference.  They are white walled Kenda Cyclocross tires  (700x38c) and kept at 70 psi are pretty fast and really strong, more so than the Kenda Kross Commuting tires (700x42c).  Shifting on the bike was really good.  I used the big ring to descend and ride in the flats and the little ring to climb, and what I found is on my hills with more gradual grades I could ride up them in much higher gears.  I think, though, I have to replace the bottom bracket.  It was making a grinding noise whenever I was pedaling.  In fact, now that I think about it they have made this noise for quite sometime so it's probably time I replace it.

I love these Salsa Woodchipper bars.  They give me all sorts of hand positions to choose from to accentuate my riding style as the terrain demands.  Clearly, much different riding than what I am used to in the woods.  I can see why people do it because it's challenging in terms of maintaining a good average speed, climbing hills and pushing yourself, oh and the roads are pretty smooth around here, too.  I now see why a lot of mountain bike racers use road riding to train because it boosts your endurance over a long period of time and when you take it to the trail, where races are much shorter you can compress that for the event.

Thursday's route was good, it had about a mile of dirt roads, perfect for these tires, 1400 feet of climbing, which was a good mix of gradual ascents and then some real steeps.  Originally I was going to try a route that I mapped out on RideWithGPS that stayed within the Housitonic Valley but I knew that was going take much longer, especially since I wasn't going to be familiar with the routes and it had double the amount of climbing.  

When I got to Route 302 in Bethel was when I really started pushing myself because I was near the halfway point and so far the ride had been sort of choppy without any good long stretches to open up on.  That must be the allure of road riding, big open stretches of pave and pushing yourself to go faster and faster.  The descent down Mine Hill was a little scary because there was a rough patch of pavement that I hit and I knew if I were running 23c I would have flatted for sure but I think the tires and the bike geometry of the Qball kept me upright.  On Route 34, towards Sandy Hook Center, I passed a mother and her son riding mountain bikes on the road.  The son didn't have a helmet on and I as I passed him I recommended that he get one.

Past the center of town, while still flat on Glenn Road I got blown away by some dude on a Carbon Fiber Crevelo in Bethel Cycles kit.  I yelled at him after he passed that "Badger is about 10 miles ahead!"  Stephen Badger is someone I work with and a very accomplished CAT1 Road Racer.  The last stretch was the Walnut Tree Hill and Alberts Hill section back to Hanover Road.  Walnut Tree has a steady 3% climb up to Alberts Hill.  Alberts Hill has two 6% climbs that wind up being chuggers as I am nearing the end of the ride.  I passed one Clydesdale on the first hill by the vineyard who was walking and when I told him he can't walk he said he was on a new bike an unfamiliar with the bike.  He was on an old school steel Trek with shifters on the downtube.  I felt really good after the ride and I think I am going to have to do this again sometime!

Laps at Upper Paugussett SF - RAW

Day 4 of the 30 days of Biking Challenge and I was jonesin' all day to get on the mountain bike.  With my first mountain bike race of the season less than two weeks away, I need to get ready.  Of course, the diSSent is still not built due to issues stemming from a hydraulic brake caliper issue not fitting properly but fortunately I recently got a nice little gift cert to Amazon and just ordered some 2011 G2 Avid BB7s, Graphite Speed Dial 7 levers, and Clarkes Cables.  Hopefully, the diSSent will see some dirt this weekend and then all next week I will be riding it.

So it appears, based on my harried work schedule and the demands of the family my knobbies are going to be seeing a lot of the Upper Paugussett State Forest.  Monday's ride consisted of two laps on the Upper Gussy trail for a total of 8.5 miles.  Once again, having a sustainable trail which is the Upper Gussy after this winter is paying off in spades.  There is not a hint of mud on the whole trail.  There is a little mud on the forest road in which we call the Poly Brody but that is par for the course.

For race training, I think I am going to have to start at the intersection of Tamarack and Sanford Roads and work in laps going both up and down the Gussy.  Monday evening, all I had time for was two loops on the Gussy but to train harder and ride longer I really need to lap from the start point.  On my second helping of Gussy I did a half superman with a good quick recovery on the log up-and-over that leads into a little , little technical descent in which I just got careless.  In fact, everything else on that second run was better than the first go.

M.O.C.D.

Rode another 10 miler last night in preparation for the Root 66 Race at Domnarski Farm. I wasn't really riding for time but I had a little geographical confusion/orientation issue in the big burn section of Huntington which triggered my Mapping Obsessive Compulsion Disorder to analyze where I went wrong.

The issue was that I was looking for an infrequently used trail that connects the Big Burn to the Green Trail but it seems that I missed the turn off, which is by the Saddle Roller and ended up following an old trail down to a stream/swamp with no way of crossing - obviously not a biking trail.

Below I have drawn it in where I should have gone on a blow up of my 3-D map.

Here is what the trail looks like from when I first rode it back in 2005. Back then, while still riding my first mountain bike I recall coming up to a really steep section and having too much weight forward on the bike and hitting the brakes causing me to experience the joys of my first endo. Ahhh, those were the days!

I think this steep section where I chickened out is between the A and R in the map below because I recall being able to see the person that I was trying to keep up with near the stream crossing. Just after the stream crossing, another person that we had met up with while attempting the climb on the other side of the stream ended up chipping a tooth on his stem.

I met a guy on the trail by the name of Larry who was riding an old school rigid geared bike. He was having fun sweating and getting lost on the trails. Later, I ran into Kevin, a guy I know from work, who is training for the VT50. I was thinking of doing the 50 this year but since I no longer have a geared full susser rig I think I might wait till next year to try it.

Speaking of bikes, I heard back from Soul Cycles. They will replace the frame when I show them a picture of my frame with a major tube cut all the way through. Makes sense when you think about it otherwise what would stop you from reselling the old frame and getting over on the manufacturer. I think before I go to all that trouble though, I am going to take the Dillinger into Brookfield Bike and see if they can find the source of the noise. I don't have the tools to pop the headset cups out of the headtube to see if there is a crack in the frame that I can't see from the outside. Of course, it could always be the headset, so I really want to put this to rest once and for all.

Not thinking

In preparation for the Domnarski Farm race on Sunday I set out to ride 10 miles at Huntington. I wanted to pop smoke from the office at 4 PM but you know that never happens, so I was runing a half hour late. I decided that I would try riding Big Vomit, one of the the two huge technical climbs at Huntington. While I didn't vomit myself it was a brutal climb. I made it only half way up and walked a section and then rode the rest of the way. Probably would stood a better chance of cleaning the climb if I rode neighboring Little Vomit, which is the other big climb.

Looking down Big Vomit.

From the get go, I didn't really plan my routes well and kind of hit a lot trails but it no real strategy. I did manage take a run down the saddle roller but wasn't really planning on any stuntry. On Friday, I think I am going to come back and try something with a little more organization, which by the way means not overlapping stuff that I have already ridden. I got my 10 miles in but it was sloppy.

Blue Trail? Looks more like a road now.

On thing is for certain, I think I need a new frame. Remember that video that posted a few weeks ago? Well, I am convinced now that the higher pitched creaking sound is also frame related after riding today.

You can never ride too much

Compared to the rest of this year (so far) my riding in April has dwarfed previous months. It's largely due to two things: warmer weather and racing. In order to train for these races I have making a double effort to get out and, whether before or after work has really paid off in increasing my ability to endure much longer rides.

My professional career seems to overlap my love for riding in that not only am I out for the pure joy of riding trails or commuting to work on my fixed gear bike, but I am also compiling data into a database for further analysis. Yes, not only am I a computer geek, I am a bike geek or data whore, too. My goal this year is to hit 1000 trail miles and after 4 months I am 1/4 of the way to hitting that goal.

Yesterday, I got some bonus miles at Huntington yesterday. I didn't have to ride but it was such nice weather out and I happen to have the bike on the car anyway so I went out after work, or what we call here in Southern New England, RAW - Ride after Work, and did a lap at Huntington but varied my route just a little bit and got an extra half mile out of it to be an 8 mile lap. The new course does a singletrack section the other way, which is harder to ride and there is one section that I have to walk. I think my training regimen will be two laps on this course each week until the race in Ware.

I will have to find another course to prepare for the Landmine Classic (one lap: 25 miles). I am thinking a 12 mile course that will encompass much more singletrack. I think the Massasoit race had the least amount of singletrack in it's course and I feel that Winding Trails had a lot more, or maybe it seems that way because you had to do three laps to the two at Hop Brook.