it's august...

i just did a road ride in the middle of the day...

i wore armwarmers...

and i wish i'd worn a vest.

magic hour...

easy week on the bikes, quiet week on all other fronts... easy spin on the road on tuesday and then easy rides at schaeffer and wakefield/accotink, just trying to keep my fitness up without tiring myself out. after skyline 2 weeks ago and sswc05 this past weekend i'm riding well and feeling good on the bike.

8 days to go untill the main event of the summer, my second time around at the shenandoah mountain 100. i've been trying to keep my expectations in check for how i'll do this year - the doubt about whether i can finish has been removed after last year's result, but how much of a difference will this year's training make. i'm definately a different rider than i was last year and i think i can finish under (or at least around) twelve hours if i'm smart about keeping a good pace and not wasting time in the aid stations.

wednesday night i was riding at schaeffer riding back on the doubletrack through the fields i stopped on top of the one of hills, struck by the beauty of the scene before me... the grassy rolling hills bathed in the magic-hour sunset light, the cornfields glowing yellow, the trees surrounding the fields rimmed with a beautiful orange glow, the red-clay dirt of the trail ahead of me, another riding off in the distance cresting the next hill. love these evening rides... sometimes it's great to have company on a ride, but this was definately a great night to be out on your own, alone with your thoughts...

sswc05 - the main event

took it easy in the lemans start, and got into a good rythym for a couple of miles on the first road climb and the start of the singletrack... suffered like a dog on the rocks on longaberger path & tussey mountain trail... once i was through that part of the course i started to come into form as the course started to suit me more... the last 2/3rds of the course had 3 long gravel & fireroad climbs, a long fireroad downhill, and 2 really rocky technical downhills. got into a rythym on the climbs and passed a lot of the riders that got by me earlier in the race, and survived the downhills. in the end i finished in about 3 hours 50 minutes, just ahead of butch... really hard course, but a lot of fun... i was definately pushed to the edge and this was easily the hardest day i've ever spent on a singlespeed... wore my new custom wool city bikes jersey and it felt great all day.

felt really strong on the climbs so i'm feeling pretty good going into the sm100 in 2 weeks. my calves were on the verge of cramping for a lot of the day, but i think most of that was from the walking and doing so much more out of the saddle climbing. the next two weeks are all about resting up and making sure i go into the 100 healthy and in good shape. anyone up for an easy ride at schaeffer tommorow night?

massive thanks to eric roman and all in the state college crew who helped put on such a great event. a bunch of pros and luminaries were mixed in with the already eclectic singlespeed crowd: gary fisher, jacqui phelan, jeff jones, keith bontrager, travis brown, marla streb, adam craig, and more...

sorry for the short post, but blogger ate my first post and i don't have the energy to re-write it...

sswc05 - part 1

saturday night after hanging out a tony's big easy at the party/registration a bunch of us walked over to zeno's since they had a better beer selection and stumbled on a really cool band - angry johnny & the killbillies - and $2.50 Dogfish 60-Minute IPAs

The rest of the pics are over at flickr...

slacktastic

feel like i've been running around in circles all week trying to get my piece for Mixed Messages printed, framed, and to the gallery by today, so i haven't had much time to sit down and blog... plus the dsl line at home's been up & down all week (and with it my e-mail)

made it to wakefield last night for the thursday ride and did one of casual groups with my brother & dan. nice wasy night on the singlespeed... everyone was discussing plans for this weekend. think i'm going to bail on camping and just get a cheap motel room on saturday night since it's only for the one night and i'm going to hit the road right after the race.

was going to try to hit schaeffer tonight, but this rain doesn't look like it's going away any time soon.

big road miles

84 miles on skyline this morning, from front royal (elevation 600') to skyland (elevation 3660') and back... 8000' total in 6 hrs 20 minutes. the final 5 mile downhill from the ridge back to the cars only took 8 minutes to ride... gotta run

anyone up for a casual schaeffer singlespeed ride tommorow evening?

what's in your cd player?

looking for some new tunes for a couple of trips coming up in the next few weeks... anyone got any music recomendations?

mr head, meet mr. wall...

i've been sitting here at work for the last 2 hours banging my head against a brick wall... i've been trying to track down a stupid little bug that made no sense and refused to let me fix it no matter what i tried.

as usual, it ended up with a 'duh' moment as i realized what the problem was.

time to head home...

save 16th street

another chapter in the endless tale of republicans trying to rename everything after ronnie... this time a texas rep is trying sneak a resolution throught congress to turn 16th street into ronald reagan boulevard... on top of not wanting a street named after teflon ron in dc, it's just pisses me off that congress thinks it's their business to rename our streets...

the republicans have realized that the legacy of reagan, if it's looked at on just on the facts, won't match up with their mythic image of him, so they're trying to create the myth...

ramping up...

out the door and rolling north through rock creek park before 6:30 - normally i'm still asleep ocasionally thrashing about looking for the snooze button on my alarm clock - still dark enough to stash my sunglasses in a pocket and click on the blinky light on the seatpost of my road bike. droping down towards the creek at pierce mill the air was cold and damp and for a momemt i thought about arm warmer but once i was away from the water and the dense cold air in the valley those thoughts drifted away. my legs started slowly, aching a little from the lactic acid still lingering from last nights ride, but as i rode on and blood flowed through my legs the toxins cleared from my legs and the sleep cleared from my head... half way through the ride i turn around and reverse course heading south on beach drive, my slightly uphill ride becoming slightly downhill... a few diversions onto the back roads to avoid the worst of the commuter traffic starting to build up in the park and then up the last hill to home, careful not to ride too hard at the end and flood my legs lactic acid right at the end of the ride. last night emotion outweighed logic and i rode hard just trying to hold the wheel in front of me caught up in the chase and the group and the euphoria of riding on dirt. this morning logic returned and i rode to the heart rate monitor paying back my body for last night and helping to rebuild it...

summer nights...

ah, if only the summer was longer... thursday nights in the summer and the MORE thursday night ride... rode with ricky, joe, steig, pooch, and chunk as we followed cautilli around the trails, twisting through accotink and wakefield for two hours making so many turns that i was totally turned around a couple of times... the pace was fast and the stops were few and far between but i managed to hang with the group even if i was falling towards the back as we neared the end of the ride... larry timed the ride perfectly as we rolled into the parking lot as the light was failing.

wednesday night and my mind is rambling around

at risk of sounding a bit cliche...

the heat of city hit me like a sauna when i opened the back door from the newly air conditioned basement tonight, but once i was on the road and in the shade of rock creek park the heat index fell victim to my human powered wind-chill... an hour in the park, legs turning a nice smooth tempo, easy gears, spinning on the climbs with one eye on my heart rate - no reason to work to hard today... wakefield tomorrow, then a nice long ride up at the 'shed this weekend.

might ride out to wakefield on sunday and volunteer at the cranky monkey dirt crit. i figure i can get a ride in, watch some friends race, and help out jim in one... anyone know a good way to get from the w&od to wakefield?

looking back...

this is dc, it's august, this is what the weather is like... but thinking back on my reaction today to weather i'm reminded of the first time i felt washington humidity.

late july or august 1984, dulles airport... we'd just arrived in the US for the first time from england and having spent a hour or two getting through immigration and customs in the frigid terminal walked out into the sea of asphalt outside. i had no frame of reference by which to judge this weather, being used to warm & sunny or cold & drizzly back home... the heat, the humidity, even the intensity of the sun reflecting back off concrete & asphalt was like nothing i'd ever felt before. there's a picture floating around in an album or shoebox at my parents house of my sister flopped down on top of one of our suitcases, a victim of the heat...

just a bit of a sense memory that popped up...

yeah, maybe he doesn't get it, but i think i know why...

there's been a thread in the MORE forums today started by a guy who claimed that he rode wakefield and just didn't get it. where was the challenge? did he miss some hidden trails somewhere? "this" isn't mountain biking?

he might have been referring to the trails, but i think i know what he missed... the people.

wakefield (and accotink) is what it is, a small park right by the beltway with a lot of trails stuffed into land with not a lot of elevation gain. what wakefield is, and what he probably didn't see, is a social gathering place of the mountain bike community. it's a place for beginners to start riding and meet up with other riders, a place for a quick after work ride with your friends, a place for a race against your rivals (and friends), a place for long time riders to get together and hang out.

still kicking...

i'm still here... i don't think it was the party that did me in on sunday. from whatever cause i was pretty sick yesterday and this morning (the party probably didn't help) but i'm pretty well recovered now.