I can still ride!

Day 19 of the  30 Days of Biking challenge I took the diSSent out for 7 mile endurance lap at Upper Paugussett State Forest, in the rain.  I didn't get to ride on Day 18 due to prior commitments, though.  There was no way I was going to ride Monday anyway because after my crash at Winding Trails on Sunday I was still in some pain but that is why I rode on Tuesday, to see if I would be able to ride in another race with the parts of me that still hurt.  Well, I am happy to say that riding won't be a problem.

Tuesday's ride, I rode up the Gussy Trail and that was brutal because it was all climbing.  Since it was raining I opted not to hit any stuntry either for fear of slipping on something and making my injuries only worse.  The Gussy Trail was fine but the one section of the Mulikin Trail is hosed.  I think it needs to be re-routed.  Hopefully I can find some deer to create a new path for me.  Then I rode up and down the entire length of the Poly Brody and that was a slop fest.

I was drenched head to toe when I got home.  It was lightly raining and what didn't get wet because of the precipitation got wet from the perspiration, and while I was wearing shorts it was still pretty cold out.

.

2011 Winding Trails CAT1 Charlie Beal @ the feed stop

2011 Winding Trails CAT1 SS Start

Here are a few pictures that I took from Winding Trails on Sunday.  Feel free to use them but please don't forget to credit the source.  I had hoped to get a good picture of Charlie Beal but all I got (last picture).was a good picture of his bike and his 4th point of contact.

 

Go Charlie, Go!

First Race @ Winding Trails, Singlespeeding at its best

First race of the 2011 Root66 New England Mountain Bike racing season got underway at Winding Trails in Farmington, CT.  It usually takes place at Hop Brook Dam State Park, but since it's a flood control dam the Army Corp of Engineers decided they wanted to test the dam this spring which meant a flooded basin where the ride would be held.  So, I spent my 17th day of the 30 Days of Biking challenge mountain bike racing!

I ran into this guy that I see at all the races (above) named Sam (didn't get the last name) who I think is from NYC.  He's racing for Audi Engineering now.  Below, is fellow Newtowner and Upper Gussy Rider Rick Brodsky racing for the first time in the First Timers heat.

After all the racers were off I headed out on a prelap run with this guy Bill that I see at all the races too.  He used to ride this root beer brown Fuji Tahoe 29er but this year upgraded to a Carbon Fiber Jamis 29er that must have been wicked light.   The Winding Trails Trails Committee changed the course a lot taking out the steep descent that is either a roller on one side or huck (center of map below) and in fact by doing this decreased the lenght of the course by a half mile.

At the whistle all the Single Speeders and myself were off and this time I decided to hang back rather than trying to be near the front after what happened last year when I hit the initial sand pit and almost took out two guys on either side of me.  When I got into the Single Track, I was on the tail of this guy from Boston who at the first log took it funny and ended up veering off the trail, I hit the log over clean and continued down the trail but Boston was back towards the trail so yelled at him that I was coming through and that was the break I needed because I never saw him again.  However, I did notice that I was having problems clipping in and out of my pedals.  I think it might have been the newness of the cleats.

Photo Credit:  Brian Cunningham

My first lap went pretty well somewhere around 30 minutes but a quarter of the way into the second lap I had a bit too much speed coming into a soft turn and I wiped out.  Landed on my hip, forearm and head but most of my weight wound up on my hip.  Fortunately, the ground was pretty soft otherwise I am not sure I would have finished the race.  I lost 2 or 3 minutes putting my ergon back on but I never saw Boston.  Except for my forearm everything else was fine so I hopped on the bike and kept going.

Photo Credit:  Brian Cunningham

The bike performed beautifully, god I love this bike!  I managed the softness in the fork pretty well taking all the climbs and mud locked out and then opening up the ABS for the short descents.  On the big descents, I really opened it up and was able to get a lot of speed - the bike just flowed through it all.  Increasing the air pressure helped but I know for sure I will need to get the firmer spring.  The one thing that wasn't performing well were my pedals and feet.  As I mentioned earlier, clipping in and out was troublesome and I think it was due to the newness of the cleats.  My left foot kept going numb which I think was due to the poor circulation in my left leg.  I need to find if there is anything I can do to prevent this from happening.

I finished 10th, a whole 10 minutes behind the next guy which got me thinking that maybe I am in over my head in this category and that I should go back to CAT3.  Granted there is no single speed category and the earlier start times would suck but racing against a bunch of geared riders would probably be more thrilling.  Afterall, I am not bent on going anywhere with racing but I love the competitiveness and the personal satisfaction that I gave my best performance.  In fact, what impressed me the most was that I did every climb, except for the last big one but never walked anywhere else.  

Upon getting back to the car I popped a motrin knowing that I would start feeling the pain sooner or later.  Had some fruit and then it was over to the bike wash.  I ended up giving my much needed PBR to Glenn Vernes, CT NEMBA Treasurer and went back to the car get another one.  I washed off the bike, ate lunch with my fellow NEMBA Racing teammates while watching the CAT1s/PROs come buy into the feed stop.  Overall, it was a great race and really tested my limits.  I think that is why I like racing.  It's the constant pushing to do better.

Never take a trail builder geocaching

For Day 16 of the 30 Days of Biking challenge I rode up and down the driveway a few times testing out the diSSent after lowering the handlebars an inch and adjusting the cleats on my new riding shoes.  The bars feel pretty good but they could go lower which means so I might actually look for a 0 degree stem or flip the FUGly stem over which should flatten it out.  Of course now have a happy steering tube, too, but I will get that fixed when I get the firm spring for the Manitou Minute.

Looking at all my other riding shoes, they were all set to the 20 degree release but for some reason I put set my new ones to 15.  Just to be safe, though, I added the shim and they work much better now.

Besides loading up the car for Sunday's race at Winding Trails I finally got my Thule Sidearm rack installed on the car.  I had one of these before but it got stolen at the Bridgeport Train Station.  Since then I never gone back to go to NYC.  It's actually cheaper to park at Golden's Bridge and easier to get to because it's all highway.

Then I tired removing a chain link to see if I could get a little more tension in my chain but the diSSent sliders didn't slide enough to inwards.  By adding a half link, I did get it to add a little more tension but I didn't like the idea of riding on a half link without testing it first.  Probably what I should do is add another link and then push the sliders out further.  I will try that after this race to see what's like.

The last thing I did to prepare for the race tomorrow was to go out and get a new 29er tube from The Bicycle Center in Brookfield and I almost bought a medium Cannondale seatbag that looked like an elephant's trunk when I found this one in the bargain bin for $5.  It's perfect!  Fits a tube, my multi-tool, a couple of zip ties, and my car key.

In the afternoon, my wife's family came over and my faither-in-law and brother-in-law wanted to go Geocaching in some local open space nearby that I have ridden quite a bit in the past.  It was a puzzle cache where you had to figure out the coordinates for the first cache to find it.  Once you found it, there were questions pertaining to the theme of the puzzle cache that you had to answer to get to the next cache.  Turns out the theme was Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, so the first seven caches were to find the dwarfs and the last cache was to find Snow White.

The caches were situated along a trail system that I frequently ride are in Brookfield's Burr Farm Open Space or what I now refer to the Dinglebrook trails.  It was really weird walking trails that I have only ever ridden.

Found this empty PBR can nestle in with some horse biscuits that I think someone put there as a joke.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a way to pack it out with me so I hid it in the decoy cache.  Hopefully, the next geocacher will find it and pack it out but in the meantime, the wicked queen is being kept company by my old friend.  What's interesting to note about the placement of the biscuits is that it's off trail so the equestrienne was courteous to curb their horse, bravo I say!  Bravo!  Next time I ride there, I will check on the queen and if my friend is still keeping her company I will take him with.

So what does this post have to do with Trail Building, you might ask?  In the picture above is a clue in which you use to find the next cache.  Turns out my recollection of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was not all that good and we got one of the answers wrong which meant we needed to go back to the last cache and get the right answer and thus coordinates.  Just to be safe, my brother-in-law used his iPhone to look at Wikipedia to answer the question correctly this time.  Where we stopped was on an old farming trail and the light bulb went off in my head because I have always wanted to develop a mountain biking trail in here.

At the Snow White cache, which commands a pretty good view of the land is when I saw the new trail in my head.  There was nice swale-like draw to the north that had some half pipe potential and then there was a nice run where you cut diagonally along the contours to then swoop down towards the bench at the Dingle Brook but then cut up and over the ridge, maybe get a good huck in there, too and then switch back up to the cart track and back into the half pipe!  Oh the possibilities!