Trail Riding

Andrea

Not all bad news

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.

Andrea

Slice of Life

Since Ryan has been away racing ToAD in Wisconsin, I’ve taken to trying to keep myself busy. I generally have just been riding and tinkering around with the bikes- especially the Jet9. After mentioning in my last post that I wanted to sell it and get an RDO, I was immediately contacted by Scott, the incredibly nice guy who gave me a tube back at Cohutta. The Jet now has new home as a pimpin’ new ride for his wife.

Also, I’ve placed the order for the RDO and generally planned out how it’ll get built up…

 

It’s not all about bikes, though. I’ve also been moonlighting as a hairstylist…

 

This weekend didn’t go as originally planned. The Hamilton Creek 50 was rescheduled due to heavy rain on the trails during the past week. Big kudos for the promoter for stepping up and doing the right thing to preserve the hard work that is put in to creating and maintaining a trail system. So, instead, I stuck around for an ass-kicking weekend of training.

Saturday, I figured out that “Brickhouse” is starting to mean more than the fact that I’m stouter than your average lady on a bike. This whole training/patience thing is starting to have tangible results in both racing and at the Saturday morning world championships (A.K.A, the Trinity ride). It was a hot hammerfest, but I managed to stay with the lead group. The most noticeable thing? My top end is not incredibly high. What I noticed after that? What top end power I do have just doesn’t quit. If there’s a surge or an attack, I can’t immediately match it. I can, however, fight right back in to the group as everyone is fading/settling. It happened repeatedly today. Unlike my training in the past, I finally feel like I’m on a fvcking solid foundation.

Brick by mother-effin-brick, I’m getting faster.

Today I hit the road on my A9C for 5 hours/82 hot, awesome miles. I decided to put some Small Block 8 CX tires on it so it wouldn’t be quite as slow-rolling. Matt went with me, kept me company, and was nice enough to pump my tire up a couple of times when the tube sprang a slow leak. It was painful, but my MTB legs are coming around quickly…

 

 

Andrea

Brakes, Rings, and a future addition to the stable…

Just after Mohican, I ordered a shiny new Rotor Q-Ring for my singlespeed. Disclosure- like SRAM, Rotor is definitely NOT a sponsor. They gave me the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” business when I made a request last year. This was an EP (employee purchase) privilege from my place of employment (Outdoors, Inc.) who actually does sponsor me. Like I’ve said in the past- shop there, thank a sales associate for the company’s support of me. Your appreciation will be heard more than once, I promise.

I digress…
The Q-Ring sat around for a while because I was having brake issues with the R1s on the singlespeed. I still have a love/hate relationship with these brakes. The feel wonderful, but they’re terribly finicky. My rear one had a piston that would not retract all the way. It made noise during the entire race in Ohio, and I spent a good bit of time troubleshooting it when I had the chance back home. It ended up being something sticky in the master cylinder that was causing the issue. Three bleeds, some drilling, and lots of cursing later, I have a cotter pin as a pad bolt, and my brake is back to working fabulously.

With that fixed, I was finally motivated to install the Q-Ring. It’s a 34 tooth, but the diameter changes throughout the pedalstroke in order to minimize the time you spend in the “dead spot” of your stroke. No, it’s not like Biopace. Shimano Biopace was the opposite, and quite a bit more extreme. Also, no, it doesn’t require the use of a chain tensioner. There’s a definite “tight spot” in the chain, but I’ve seen normal round rings with more slack/tight than the Q-Ring.

 

I hooked it up with an 18t and rode it yesterday morning for the first time. Since I roll out to the trails on the road, the first thing I noticed is that it smooths out your “almost spun out” pedal stroke. If you’ve ridden SS on less than desirable SS courses, you know that you can spend a lot of time at that cadence. Other than a bit of added smoothness, I couldn’t tell a huge difference as far as heart rate or ease of climbing. Granted, it was an easy, flat ride. The real test will be racing this weekend with a little climbing & tech stuff to get through. Updates to follow.

In other news worth mentioning, Niner has released the Jet9 RDO (race-day optimized) carbon fiber full suspension hotness. I’m getting one. So, the Jet is officially back up for sale, though this time, it’s got Avid brakes with fancy gold hoses, as well as my nice, light set of Crest/Hope race wheels. I haven’t figured out a price yet, but it’ll be a “get it out of my garage” sort of thing for sure. I might even throw in some new 9-speed drivetrain parts to sweeten the deal. That’ll be its own post, though.

Andrea

Introducing… Endo Machine

Early last year, someone abandoned a bike at the Union Avenue bike shop. When I started working there somewhere around October, the bike immediately caught my eye, and I decided to call the “owner” and inquire about it. He informed me that he’d “wised up” and didn’t want to pay that much for a bike (repairs included new wheels, cables/ housings, tune up, and tires, among other things).

We’ve dubbed it the “endo machine” since it’s a 26er with a failing headshok fork. Also, Matt endo-ed it inside the house the other night…

Andrea

Powertap

After a few years of training on the road with a powermeter, I finally ponied up and bought a powertap mountain bike hub. I wanted to go as light as practical, so I built it up with a Stan’s Crest rim and DT Aerolite Spokes (still went with brass nipples, though). At first, I put a cassette on it and put it on my geared bike. However, after a little thought, I realized that I won’t really be riding the geared bike much in the upcoming week or two. So, I pulled the cassette, slapped a 21t cog (for Syllamo next week), and put it on my singlespeed.

Boom. Winning.

Andrea

Customer Service Win!

In a day and age when it’s easy for big companies monopolize the cyclist market while half-assing good customer service to weekend warriors and wannabes such as myself, it’s always refreshing to be reminded that there are still small companies that aren’t under rule of a guy with a business degree wearing a suit and sitting behind a giant mahogany desk. As fighters of the man behind the desk, they actually have to care about their customers- something I experienced last night that made me feel all warm & fuzzy inside (well, it could have been the Maredsous, but whatever).

As you may remember from my race report, I flatted early and found that the Awesome Strap Race that Dicky gave me after Southern Cross had somehow cut a hole in my spare tube. I don’t really fault the strap- if you ride off-road, stuff rattles and vibrates. No matter how you secure it to your bike or person, a tube can have a hole rubbed in it over time, and it’s my job to check for that. I fault myself.

However, last night, I got an email from the president of Backcountry Research. He apologized profusely for my problems and is going to send a Hitch strap out for me to try. Hell yes! Win on so many levels.

So, there you have it. Hurray for “Awesome” customer service.

Andrea

Photodump Sunday

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.

Andrea

Climate Change: 100% Fiction.

…because it’s totally normal to have a monsoon season and a 100 year flood two years in a row.

Politics aside, I decided to take some photos of said flooding of the Wolf River this morning on my final easy ride before heading over to East Tennessee for the Cohutta 100. This year, instead of camping, I’m taking advantage of a pretty sweet package deal from Atlanta Outfitters that includes meals, showers, and two nights in a nice looking bunk for $50. Beats the heck out of a tent!

First stop on my ride was the Germantown Parkway trailhead, where I didn’t get too far before becoming distracted by a fat little snake that was enjoying the opportunity to sunbathe on the blacktop without being run over by morning trail traffic. Next, I ventured around to one of the levees that extends from the main road out to the river. There, I got some nice photos of how the water has taken over the trail. I also went for a short hike…

Andrea

Back to the Ozarks

I was long overdue for a Syllamo trip. I was actually planning on it for it for a few weeks, but since Ryan was at Mississippi Grand Prix, I knew there was a chance that I’d be going at it solo, and I didn’t want to tip off you stalker types that read my blog every day. Fortunately, Matt wanted to check out the Outdoors SIR9 demo bike on some real singletrack, and we headed over friday after work.

Saturday morning, we hit the trail going reverse race direction on the blue and orange. Doing that always makes the race direction seem easier since it forces you to start with a technical decent then climb relentlessly the entire way from the Highway 5 trailhead.

You know what sucks? They’re logging on the blue trail now. A good half mile of what was the first singletrack in that direction has been opened up to “logging equipment” size. Damnit.

In climbing away from the highway, I quickly realized that geared bike riding had made me a little soft, and that I wasn’t fully over the cold I’d caught earlier in the week. Matt was also looking a little tired, so when we arrived at the White River Bluff trailhead, I suggested that we finish our ride by going up Green Mountain Road and down to Gunner Pool, then back. Along the way back, I realized that I wouldn’t get my prescribed 4 hours for the day unless I took a detour, so I bombed down to Blanchard Springs and climbed back out to polish off the day with about 4600 feet of climbing. Hopefully that one will pay off at Cohutta in a couple of weeks.

Back at the cabin, we engaged in one of my favorite past times- drinking a beer & sitting on the porch to watch the sunset. Afterward, catfish.

Sunday, I wanted to ride the entire trail loop. We started off at the Scrappy Mountain trailhead, rode the “easy” section of the yellow to the red, around the red and “hard” part of the yellow, and back to the car. I got into a fight with the rocks somewhere along the way. Rocks 1, me 0. At the car, I dropped off Matt as well as my Camelbak, which was making my back hurt (I finished the ride with one bottle, making refill stops at the jugs we dropped at the trailheads on the way in.

Highlight of the ride: cleaning the entire green trail “overlook” rock garden from end to end without putting a foot down. Me 2, rocks 1. Low point- getting chased and bitten by a swarm of horseflies while negotiating the short climbs on the orange trail. Luckily, Matt met me at the Highway 5 trailhead with bugspray so I was able to suffer in peace for the remainder of the ride.

I felt like I was flying up the last climb- a nice feeling at 5+ hours into a ride. When I made it back to the trailhead, I realized that I’d finished the loop a lot faster than my race time from last year (granted, conditions last year sucked… but it’s still a good feeling). So, I didn’t get the 6 hours that I’d planned for, but in a good way.

Syllamo’s Revenge is probably going to be the hardest race I’ll go to this year. The additional miles are going to destroy me if I start to cramp like I did at Ouachita, but hopefully this weekend leaves me a little more prepared.

 

Andrea

Rest Weekend Day 2

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…