don't panic

not much blogging recently... plenty going on, just get distracted when i think about putting together an entry or blogger blows up when i try to log in.

training has switched from base to build so i've been doing a couple of hard rides a week and attacking the hills more on my weekend road rides. managed mountain bike rides tuesday and thursday at wakefield with an easy/recovery spin at schaeffer on wednesday so my legs are hurting today. i've been trying to do my hard rides on dirt, but i think i'll switch some of them to the road...

hitchhikers guide to the galaxy opens tonight... hope it lives up to the book. from what i've heard they stuck pretty closely to the screenplay that douglas adams wrote before he died, and the casting looks good, so i'm hopeful... meeting some people after work to go see it.

heading up to greenbrier on sunday with the (un)usual crew to get a last look at the course before next weekends race. i want to take another crack at the red-trail climb to see if i can make up the whole way on my bike rather than having to get off and push.

demo day

despite weather reports full of massive storms and a couple days of rain in the last few days, the city bikes demo day went off as planned saturday afternoon. the clouds parted, the trails weren't too wet to ride, and by midday the sun was even out... saw some cool bikes, but mostly stuck to riding my new epic as we led groups testing bikes around little loops on the trails... rode a demo 9 and a big hit over the logpiles near the trailhead, pretty cool, but pretty painful to pedal up hills... pictures

epic...

epic weekend at douthat... saturday we rode both sides of the park, 24 miles with 3600' of climbing, 2 huge downhills, and many smaller ones. sunday i did an out and back ride up to the overlook with a group of more casual riders, as if a 1500' climb can ever be considered casual. took the camera along on sunday...

musings...

ducked out of work a little early and hit schaeffer for the first time this year... took it easy since it's a rest week and spent some time studying the way the light falls on the trails and woods at sunset. think i'm going to try to get at least 1 photo ride a week up there over the next couple of weeks while everything is nice and green. magic hour is perfectly timed for getting to schaeffer after work. i've got a couple of ideas already.

after having a couple of the strongest feeling days on a bike ever over the weekend i started feeling like another bout of flu was waiting in the wings on monday. took it easy monday night (it's a rest week anyway) and just vegged a bit. felt better tuesday and was tempted to ride schaeffer, but i went over to the shop to help build bikes. unfolded a dahon and a couple of bob strollers and built a specialized hardrock, or maybe a rockhopper, i can't remember - thankful to know they would all be throughly checked out and finished off by the mechanics in the shop - and ended up sticking around for a beer while the specialized rep did a product clinic for the staff.

taxes done and on their way to the IRS via e-file so i should have the refund that i've already spent (on the new bike) soon. nothing left now but to pack up for the trip to douthat this weekend. glad that flu came to nothing, because i would have hated to miss this one.

and don't forget the demo day next weekend...

City Bikes Season Kickoff Party at Schaeffer Farms - 4/23

In spite of the the fact that most of the almost imeasurably small readership of this blog are friend of mine that probably already know about it already i'm going to put a plug in for the City Bikes season kickoff party/demo day up at Schaeffer Farms next saturday (april 23). They'll have great mountain and road bikes to demo from Cannondale, Specialized, and Jamis, as well as some goodies from the shop (Moots, Merckx, ?) some come on out and ride some bikes. I'll be up there with a lot of the other team guys, helping out setting up bikes and leading rides if you don't know the trails at Schaeffer.

gambrill

met up at schaeffer for trailwork yesterday morning, with the crew splitting between the new halfpipe extension at schaeffer and more work on the hoyles mill connector. i help lead the schaeffer crew and spent most of the morning trying to figure out how to build a good bermed turn... each successive turn got a little cleaner, and we were helped by the fact that the trail was already in an old road bed... if you want to check it out, there's a new connector from the old halfpipe/whoop-de-dos on the trail inside the white loop. ride up the connector (non-half pipe) side and down the new trail and it meets up at the top of the original half-pipe. the trail starts with some shallower semi-technical turns -watch out for the trees, they're pretty close - and then has a couple of bigger turns inside the pipe, then has a couple of turns that pop you in and out of the pipe.

after sweltering while i was doing trailwork i was a bit worried that the ride we had planned for the afternoon at gambrill would be a sufferfest; leaving us baking in the leafless forest under the midday sun. we had a really good group, most of the old dcamb crew from a couple of years ago, including mike, who was down from PA for the ride. good company and good riding... i felt great, rode better than perhaps i've ever ridden, at least at gambrill. made a couple of climbs that i've never made, or only made once...

my new bike felt better than i expected it too... just like a full suspension bike when i wanted it, and just like a hardtail when i wanted that. climbs the rocks like a mountain goat and despite the steep-ish head tube angles it decends like a champ.

beautiful day...

the forecast for today was overcast with a bit of sun by the afternoon, but when i woke up this morning there was nothing but beautiful bluebird sky outside my window. up in time to grab a quick breakfast and make a cup of espresso then meet mike down in the park for a couple of hours on the road.

we started with our normal road route, heading north into montgomery county, up past fall road and then kept going north all the way to seneca road and cutting over to river road there adding a couple more climbs on river road. quicker coffee break than usual today, no need to get a cup of coffee to warm up with temps in the 60's. back onto the road to start heading into the city on macarthur, with a twist today, riding most of the way into the city in zone 4 instead of zone 2 to get some tempo time. finished up with an easy spin around the capitol crescent and down through the park, but that tempo riding has left my legs hurting. since it was just the 2 of us there was less waiting around and we finished 65 miles in a little under 4 hours.

relly feels good to be out without having to worry as much about staying warm. took a vest today but it was off inside 20 minutes. this is time of year where armwarmers are the greatest piece of riding gear... get a little cold, pull them up, get warm, pull them down...

the capitol crescent trail was packed with people near bethesda... spring fever is running rampant throughout the area, and people - young and old - where out walking, running, biking, playing.

trailwork at schaeffer in the morning and a ride with some old riding buddies at gambrill tommorow afternoon, but now i've got to go into work for a couple of hours... i'm going to need my rest week by the end of this weekend.

It’s a beautiful day
Don’t let it get away
It’s a beautiful day
Don’t let it get away

DNF...

let's just get this over with and start with the end... I went up to PA to race at the Spring Mountain AMBC and ended up DNFing because of a mechanical on the 3rd of 3 laps...

as of early this morning there'd been 4 inches of rain and flooded creeks and rivers, but the race was still on. managed to get up on time in spite of losing an hour to daylight savings time and hit the road for a quick drive from philly, where i'd been visiting friends to spring mountain ski resort in schwenksville. got up there with plenty of time to get ready, so i checked in and spent the next couple of hours getting ready and huddling in my car against the cold.

tris, mike, and jon - three fifths of my team for big bear - showed up as i was starting to warm up in preparation for the start. lined up for the start, and managed to stave off the cold while we waited for the start. the race started with a loop through the parking lot and then hit the singletrack in 2nd place... instant mud, which pretty much summed up the course... mud with rocks, mud with roots, mud with rocks and roots, peanut buttery mud, wet mud, plus the cold wet puddles, and the snow.

the lap started with a twisty and rocky singletrack climb that was intermittently rideable, with a couple of rock gardens thrown in for good measure. then we're dumped back onto the ski run and climb up for a hundred yards or so, i tried to ride when everyone else in the group got off and ran. i ended up spinning my wheels while everyone ran past me.

back into the woods and more singletrack climbing, on and off the bike and we start down the back of the hill for a little while and then back up to the top. from there we started back down in earnest crossing back and forth the ski slopes on the remains of the winter's snow and into the woods on a couple of watershed-ish downhills... more snow, more woods, then a short flat section and we pop out onto a road for a couple hundred yards and one last climb, starting out on the road and ending on singletrack.

then we swing back through the start finish and hit more boggy grass/mud to start the 2nd lap... rode more and walked less on the 2nd lap and i could still see a couple of riders in my start group ahead of me, including jon, but i'd lost sight of them by the time i started my 3rd lap. spent more of this lap walking on the first climb. then near the top my cranks froze and realized that i had a problem... figured it was chain suck from the mud, so i tried to back pedal, but there was no improvement so i jumped off and saw the problem... the chain had dropped off the cassette and was jammed between the spokes and the cassette. tried to free it, but it was wedged in so deep that i couldn't free it.

i was on a pace to finish in around 2:35 - which would have put me in 2nd (out of 3 in my class) - but i ended my day with a walk down the ski slope to the lodge. i think it was my bike taking revenge for kicking it out of the car and onto the roof in the rain on friday night so that i could put my new bike inside the car. we've decided to try and reconcile and i started by freeing the chain and giving it a good post-race wash instead of just loading it up on the car.

jon ended up 2nd in sport 35-39 and tris won her class.

fountainhead after dark...

my brother was back home for a couple days this week so we had to get a ride in together... he's down in florida this year at a soccer training program so we haven't had a chance to ride since he was back before thanksgiving.

out of work early to pick JJ up and we were ahead of schedule so we stopped by wakefield to check out the new trails on the racecourse hill. considering the amount of rain we got a couple of days before, the new trails were in really good shape, but some other sections of the park were still suffering. back on the road and bit of traffic on the way to fountainhead but still there in plenty of time.

fountainhead at night is a very different place than wakefield and night, very dark and almost eerie, very quiet in place but noisy (frogs?) in others. we opted for the casual group, since my brother hasn't ridden for 5 months but ended up breaking off with david after the entrance loop and kept up a slightly more spirited pace. my legs felt good and i felt pretty fast for the effort i was putting in. tried to keep it dialed back a bit since i'm racing on sunday.

rode the trainer for a while last night and my legs felt awful, tired and wooden... couldn't keep a pace that my legs were comfortable with but got my heart rate where it should have been. day off today and maybe a quick ride tommorow to loosen up my legs for sunday, so hopefully that'll help and i won't bomb out too much on sunday.

just a quick note, the fountainhead ride was one that MORE organized with permission from the park. the park is closed, so don't ride fountainhead at night unless it's on a sanctioned MORE night ride, you will get prosecuted for criminal trespass (or so i've been told).

weekend recap

on friday, the weekend wasn't looking promising, rain in the forecast and no concensus on riding... a couple of phone calls friday night and slightly less gloomy weather led me up to the watershed on saturday morning for a ride with matt and possibly marcus and bunky. driving up gambrill park road the weather changed considerably, light drizzle and fog, and most surprisingly a light layer of fresh snow.

miscomunication and last minute changes of plans led to us missing marcus and bunky who ended up starting their ride from a different parking lot. we started from hamburg road and rode north on blue, down to little canaan, back onto blue and climbed up to the sand flats, then off onto the road for a couple of minutes to search for the entrance to salamander/little michaux - which was easier to find than expected thanks to the lack of leaves. quick pit stop at the overlook, but not for long since we were getting cold as soon as we were off our bikes. back south on blue climbing back up to the sand flats, then headed down the climb from earlier in the ride and then we turned onto the roads to drop down below the end of little canaan so we could finish the ride with a steady climb on the road.

felt good for the first watershed ride of the year... my fitness has definately improved from last year, but i can't say the same for my technical skills.

overall the conditions were pretty wet, but it's the shed and it'll dry out. doesn't help that most of the trails are on old roadbeds that become streams when it rains. from the looks of it as we drove back down gambrill park road, the trails at gambrill looked like they were in pretty good shape, then again we got dumped on again last night so who knows what it's like now...

hadn't bothered trying to get a group together for sunday because of the forecasts during the week and looking at the weather forecast on saturday night i was resigned to the fact that a trainer ride was probably in the cards. turned the weather report on as soon as i got up on sunday morning and the prospects for a ride were looking up. i hit the road and headed to the bike paths since it would be easier to get home if the weather got bad. rode down through the park and out the custis trail, then down to shirlington on the w & od and back to the mall on the mt. vernon trail... through georgetown and up to bethesda on the capitol crescent and back into the park... 3 hours, 40 miles at a really easy pace. did some zone 4 riding, as prescribed by my coach, near the end of the ride, but i didn't get as much as i should have because i hit bethesda and could keep up the pace with the pedestrian traffic on the trail... it rained on and off for most of the ride, but light enough that it didn't make any difference.

resting today and dinner with the family tonight... riding chances for this week don't look too good with all the rain we've had in the last few days, even with warmer (yay!) and drier (yay!) weather coming.

banksy...

worked at wake-o-tink

met up with marcus and bunky before the regular wakefield night ride to try to get over for a loop at accotink before sunset. we set out just before six and hit the cinder trail over to accotink and within 5 minutes we were stopped at the side of the trail while bunky fixed a flat... a couple minutes later and we were back on the trail, up the switchback and cut down the road back to the cinder trail. ran into some issue with tree-trimming on one of the utility easement setions -- the limbs had been cut down but not cleaned up yet, leaving us to weave around them.

once we hit singletrack i was well warmed up and feeling strong... we started the ride the normal way, up by the gas works and then cut into some of the trails in the interior of the park, then back onto the perimeter... rode a couple of lines that i'd never tried before. turned around after a while and doubled back to hit the new boy scout trail on the way out and hit the road just as the light was to low to ride... out of the park with about 10 minutes to spare before it closed.

back over to wakefield bu we'd missed the start of the MORE ride by a good 25 minutes so we cut up the stream trail to the racecourse hill. marcus hadn't seen the new trail before, so we rode the trail the "normal" way then cut over to the 495 trail and new racecourse start and rode the new rock causeways/boardwalks along the powerlines. then rode the new trail backwards... pretty sweet in both directions, i almost prefered it backwards, since you get a pretty sweet singletrack downhill. down the creek and over to the bowl where bunky led us around every inch of trail without repeating anything. we passed by the MORE groups a couple of times, but since we had a pretty good pace going we stuck to doing our own thing. if we passed you without saying much, we weren't trying to be rude, sometimes it's just nice to ride in a smaller group.

finished the night up with beer and food over at kilroy's, always a good way to round out a night. 2:15 on the bike overall, just about right for what was on the schedule, but i was pushing a lot harder than i should have... felt great for most of the ride, but by the time we hit the bowl my legs were worked and my back was getting sore -- must have set the saddle a bit too high.

the new trail at wakefield is great, and accotink was riding really fast and feeling slalom-y. first ride with the new vanilla on the tracer... amazing, really stiff with 130mm of buttery smooth travel. the fork is a great match for the bike, felt faster and more stable than usual, but a bit sluggish in the tight twisty stuff.

179

first time on the scale under 180 this morning at the gym...

rest

back at home after a pretty easy morning on the bike... started out with a time trial test in the park to try to measure my fitness, a timed 3 miles at a set heartrate -- 10 beats below zone 5a. last month i was coming off a week of flu and did it in 9:50, this week i knocked a minute ten of the time and did it in 8:40 and did a better job of keeping at the right heartrate, last month i kept jumping up too high... got caught up in a couple groups of runners at one of the gates which forced me to drop my speed for a little bit, so i could have probably done it faster.

after the TT i rode up to the chevy chase shop to help with an MS ride training ride that the shop was sponsoring. the ride was pretty casual, which was perfect for today. there where a couple of hill where i got a bit too competitive with the other team guys helping out on the ride, but overall it was pretty easy and i was out for about 3 1/2 hours.

MORE winter party tonight, with a stop by the shop to pick up a couple things that they've been working on for me. tried the helles lager last night and even though it's only been in the bottle for a week it had an inch of head and pretty good carbonation so i'm going to bring a couple of bottles to the party.

this rest week is feeling pretty good right now, but next week it's back to base training and my first race is in 2 weeks. it'll be good to get a real test of where my fitness is, right now it's feeling good but i'm starting to itch for a race.

whatever you say, you wise mountain ape...

helped lay out new trail at schaffer on saturday... looking forward to the workdays starting in april when we'll start working on this new section. sunday ride grew again this weekend with lee joining us. bottled the helles lager, and from the first taste it's going to be a great refreshing summer beer.