brickhouseracing

Six days out from the Mohican 100, and I’m already feeling the pre-race crazies. At least 3 of the usual NUE badasses are at the TSE race, which runs from today until June 4th (same day as Mohican). This means that I’ll have the opportunity to scoop up some good NUE points if I can place well (I’m currently sitting 5th overall). Not that I’m totally discounting the current entries into Mohican or anything- BrendaLee Simril will be there, and she’s finished ahead of me in both NUE races so far. Also, I’m sure Laureen, just a couple of points behind me, will be looking for the opportunity to strike as well.

All of this, in addition to not knowing the course very well, leads to a little bit of singlespeeder apprehension. Last year, the course was a blur of mud and thunderstorm. I broke my rear brake lever off, then proceeded to bend and break my chain (two separate occurrences in two different spots on the chain). At the 3rd aid station, I said f*ckit and DNFd the race. Once I was home, I realized that I’d also cracked my Air9 in the process. In the meantime, I wasn’t paying attention to the course or giving singlespeeding it any thought.

This year, the forecast is looking good for fast course conditions (though, now that I’ve said that “out loud,” the city of Loudonville is doomed to a tornado on Saturday). I’m still not totally sure about gear or suspension choice, and somewhere, in the back of my mind, there’s a tiny voice saying “take the geared bike!” since what I do remember about the course is a lot of short, steep hills that will undoubtedly put me on my feet if I choose a singlespeed gear that will get me through the flat parts of the course without major spinout.

…fear not though. I’m feeding that voice a tiny glass of STFU with a side of GTFO.

In other news, the rule in the house on Friday was “no one under 30 can wear a shirt”…

…and more random thoughts that I can’t write an entire post about.

- In the comments (and in post-race conversation), I’m getting a lot of “if you had gears and suspension, you’d be fast” type comments. Ok, I’ll give you suspension. The rigid fork was perfect for Cohutta. It slowed me down on the fast parts of the Syllamo trail. But gears?

Last I checked, Gerry Pflug has finished ahead of Amanda Carey at both Cohutta and Syllamo.

Yes, I realize that I’m not Gerry Pflug, but give it a rest. I’m not totally sticking to one or the other, I’m just having a lot of fun on a singlespeed right now. My point is that gears aren’t a necessarily a prerequisite for success.I still stand by my statement that at places like Syllamo, gears are a liability.

- On a totally different note, I think that the “age group” placings for triathlons are silly. It’s like “participation awards” for the kids that couldn’t win anything at field day in elementary school. If you win your age group, but 4 other people of your gender finished ahead of you, then guess what… you did not win. The exception- masters racing. There is a point at which you start to slow down (men moreso than women), so it makes sense to offer a “masters” category (as in road racing). But 5 year age groups? That’s just silly. Try to beat everyone.

-Speaking of age, I turned 30 the day after Syllamo’s Revenge. My parents took me to dinner at an authentic Chinese place, where we had a giant fried fish that was awesome (photos below).

-Other things included in the gallery: pre-race photos from Thursday’s ride & post-ride soak in the creek near the cabin, stuff inside the cabin like Iron Chef, my alone-at-the-cabin security system, Matt covered in terriers, and porch views. Next, some birthday shots of Matt’s present to me, a card from my parents, and the aforementioned giant fish. Also,  though I didn’t race the final Tiger Lane crit, I did ride up and watch. Included are some shots that involve beer. Finally, a couple of random weekend shots- including one of me drinking a Smirnoff Ice. For all of you who have wanted to see a mohawk photo… here’s your chance.

Addendum: for those of you that don’t read the comments, I though I’d bring the following to your attention for further clarity on the triathlon matter.

From Mike:

Triathalon is MUCH more popular than mountain bike or road racing nationwide. That’s fact. What bike race has amatuer registration in the hundreds, sometimes over a thousand? Many tris do. Even the biggest mtb race I’ve done (the Shenandoah 100) doesn’t come close to the registration numbers of scores of tris on the east coast alone.
Part of the reason for this is age group placement. It gives more people a chance to compete in an evener field.

Try considering the bigger impact on the health of the sport rather than who’s really “winning.”

Disclosure: I am not a triathlete at all (terrible swimmer) but my wife is relatively successful…as a previous age group champion for the southeast.

My thoughts:
You’re exactly right. Triathlons are wildly popular vs. road or MTB racing. However, I don’t think that the main reason is because of age groups.
First, just to clarify, until you get to the “masters” realm, an age group- ESPECIALLY for women- does not denote an “evener” group of competitors. Physiologically speaking, it just doesn’t. You can’t argue with science. From an ability standpoint, it makes just as much sense as taking all the people from ages 18 to 35, putting their names into a hat, and drawing them out into random groups to tell them who they are competing against. I still stand by my statement that if you “win” your 20-24 age group while coming in 4th overall, you just didn’t win. You got 4th. Hate me for it all you want, but it won’t change human physiology. My original comment is addressed towards that 4th place person, not the person that just wants to be healthier.
The real reasons why triathlons are so popular is because, to the crowd that just wants to improve health, challenge themselves a little, and isn’t overly concerned with winning, a triathlon is a great thing to do- because of the variety of skills involved, the training is more interesting than the “specialist” athlete, and, above all, a triathlon is much less intimidating than a road or mountain bike race.
With road racing, you have pack dynamics, strategy, confrontation, etc. It can be an intimidating environment. Put me in a road race with a triathlete that’s stronger than me on the bike. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I’ll tell you now that her chances of beating me are slim. Road racing is like a strenuous game of chess. It’s often the smartest (as opposed to the strongest) who wins. Someone who doesn’t want to tackle that learning curve isn’t going to have a good time road racing.
Same with MTBing- it requires a great deal of skill AND fitness to be a great mountain biker. Once again, for the person just looking to be more fit and have a good time, the amount of skill required can be discouraging.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that a triathlon isn’t “hard,” I’m just saying that from the perspective of someone wanting to be more fit and try some sort of competition, that (save those who swim like a 1-legged horse) it’s the easiest and least intimidating from a skill standpoint.

After the race this weekend, I was giving mud-covered post race congrats/hugs to Brenda and Sonya when Ryan O’Dell (the “NUE Guy”) asked Brenda and I if we could do a short interview. Here’s the Cyclingnews race report that includes a little bit of that: Syllamo 125 on Cyclingnews. The highlight of the article is most definitely the “Mohawk and piercings” part. The last paragraph of the interview was actually a quote from me, but is labeled as “Simril.” The article also includes a quick mention from local hero Boomer Leopold, who placed 3rd in the Singlespeed category behind The Pflug and a guy from Motor Mile

In other post-race news, I found the cause of my shoulder pain/arm numbness following my red trail wreck. I was at the chiropractor Monday morning, and, after he did his usual adjustments, he told me he’d like to check my shoulder. After a little poking, he put a hand on either side of it and pushed… a move resulting in a really loud POP that resonated through my entire torso. The doctor informed me, “your collarbone was dislocated.”

Awesome. At least it feels better now.

Training-wise, I’m doing my best to relax and recover now. I don’t feel quite right yet, and my tailbone is still killing me. Tailbone, you ask? Yeah, I didn’t want to mention it before the race, but on Thursday when we were pre-riding, somewhere on the blue trail, the nose of my saddle smacked my tailbone. It hurt really bad at first, then went away with some riding, and didn’t hurt for the rest of the day. Friday morning when I woke up, it hurt like hell. Riding a little made it feel slightly better, but a tailbone is like bruised ribs- short of wrecking and hitting the same spot again, riding & racing isn’t going to make it better or injure it further, it’s just going to hurt like hell. It generally hurt worse throughout the day on Saturday and is still making a lot of movement uncomfortable today.

I don’t have anything substantive on my training schedule until the weekend, so I’m going to ride easy, work on my bikes, and drink a few beers until then. I’ve got plenty to occupy my mind, as the suggestion was made to me (by none other than Ms. Carey herself) that I should consider taking on training/racing full time if it’s somehow possible. If you’ve been reading my last few posts, you know that I entertained the idea not too long ago. It’s still an entertaining idea, but not one that’s happening soon. I’ve got lots of walking to do before I reach the herd of cows at the bottom of my hill.

It’s not very often that I’ve looked at the start list for a race and thought, “I could race a perfect race, and still finish DFL.”

The start list for the Syllamo NUE Series race was short and stacked with seasoned women who had all (for the most part) kicked my butt at one time or another. Even though the race didn’t offer a singlespeed category for women, the Syllamo terrain lends itself well to singlespeed riding. Also, I’m still on my singlespeed rampage, so I lined up against the heavy hitters on geared bikes in the women’s open category.

The race start is challenging in terms of pacing. The 3/4 mile mad dash up Blanchard Springs forest service road dumps you into the trail system close to one of the most technical, rocky sections. The crowd of racers heading up the hill was thick enough that I didn’t really know how I was placed going on to the trail, but I assumed it was good since I was feeling awesome.

My assumption was correct. As I tried to calm down and hit my rhythm, I realized I was swapping places with Brenda Simril, Namrita O’Dea, and Sonya Looney. In the past, I’ve watched their results from a distance while riding my own pace in the back. Now, I was on home turf and throwin’ bows.

The first 15 miles of trail has some tough technical spots, which were made worse (slippery and more treacherous) with the mud and moisture spread around by large amount of race traffic. I passed Namrita and Sonya on the yellow trail then swapped back and fourth with Brenda (and her husband Lee) for the 3rd place spot behind Amanda Carey and Cheryl Sorenson. At the first aid station, they passed me while I was swapping out bottles and airing up my front tire, which had punctured then sealed itself when I gave it a shot of CO2 from the Big Air I was carrying.

The green trail flew by, as did the first part of the orange. On the second orange trail climb, I caught back up to Brenda & Lee, who were working on Brenda’s bike, which was suffering from massive chainsuck. I have to learn how to keep from getting too excited, because every time I’d pass her (or any  one of the other women), I’d bobble a section of trail that I could normally ride with my eyes shut. I passed her and kept up the pace, hoping that her mechanicals would keep her from chasing me. Unfortunately, she caught back up to me on the descent to the first Highway 5 crossing to the 2nd aid station. It was at that point that I realized I should have picked the suspension fork.

At the 2nd aid, I swapped bottles and a gel flask. Brenda and Lee took off up the trail. I felt like I needed to back off a click so that I wouldn’t kill myself on the next couple of climbs. So, I settled in and hoped that they’d come back at some point.

Fast forward a bit, and I’m up the blue trail climb and up to the 4th aid station. I never saw Brenda and Lee, but I kept to the same tempo pace for the red trail. Somewhere along the way, Sonya Looney flew past me like I was sitting still. I knew I wasn’t going to chase her down on her big ring, so I kept trucking in hopes that when she caught Brenda that they’d hammer at each other enough that one of them would pop and I could make a catch on the second time around the yellow trail.

Unfortunately, other than passing a few end-of-the-pack 50-milers, I was alone on the yellow trail. I managed to cut a sidewall about a mile out from the final aid station stop before the final red loop. I was low on CO2 from my first flat, so I knew it’d be better to try to refill it at much as possible and get to the aid station. At one point, a guy I passed informed me that my tire was flat. I told him that I’d brought that wheel into the world, and I’d take it out even faster.

At the aid station, Nate Carey graciously helped me get a tube into my tire (Amanda was already well into her final lap of the red trail). I crammed a powerbar, took on a fresh bottle, and was off on my final 12 miles of trail. I was absolutely drained at that point, so I was trying my best to flow the downhills with no brakes. The thing about the red trail is that it’s fast, non-technical, and slippery in some spots because of loose rock over hardpack. It’s very easy to have a high-speed wreck by way of losing a front tire off the edge of the bench of the trail.

With about 7 miles to go in the race, I did just that. I was headed down a slightly fast hill when I wrecked and tumbled face first into the bushes and a deadfall tree. After laying on the ground for a minute to make sure I wasn’t paralyzed, I got up and assessed my bike, which was a good five feet away from where I come to rest. I had to dig my multitool out to straighten my handlebars, and I felt like my face was bleeding and my helmet felt tighter than before (it ended up being scratched on the right side and pretty dented in the middle/front, so I retired it to the trophy wall at the cabin).

Thank you, Rudy Project, for once again saving me from the life of a vegetable.

I continued on, albeit slightly more cautiously than before. I did my best to zone out and forget how much everything was hurting at that point. Eventually, I was making the turn back on to Blanchard Road and was hauling ass down to the finish line. Luckily, no one passed me while I was having my tire/wreck difficulties, and I ended up 5th…

45 minutes behind the winner, Amanda Carey.

Sure, 45 minutes is a long time. At last year’s races, it was two or more hours.  It’ll be a long journey of small steps, though I’ll be the first to admit to  my constant impatience. Hopefully, Saturday was a sign of good things to come in upcoming races. I think I might have arrived on at least one or more radars in the past couple of weeks.

I’ve expressed my impatience to my coach, and this was the text message reply that I received back:

“Two bulls are standing on a hill overlooking a group of cows. The young bull says, ‘let’s run down and get ourselves a cow.’ The older bull says ‘no, I have a better idea. Let’s walk down and get them all!”

So, I guess if I’m patient enough, all the cows will be mine? I’m not totally sure, but it made me laugh, and seemed like promising advice on the virtue of patience…

As a rookie singlespeeder, I sometimes fret a little over gear choice. Though a 32×20 will get you through just about anything, a 32×21 has been my gear of choice for the Breck 100 and most rides at Syllamo. Though the terrain in those races is vastly different- long climbs at >10k feet vs. short, steep sea level climbs, the lower gear seems to work out well (especially at Syllamo, where there are very few places where you can spin out).

At Cohutta, the 32×20 worked well, though if I’m more fit next year, I might bump down to a 19t so I can keep the pace up on the flat spots (same song for SM100- the 32×20 was great last year on the climbs, but the long flat pavement section was monotonous). I’m sticking to the 21t for Syllamo, but Mohican? Uh… I’m not really sure. I DNFd last year with geared-bike mechanical issues- a blessing in disguise since I also cracked the Air9 frame and decided to say “to hell with gears” and warranty it with a One9. The course is generally rolling, but has some short, steep spots, so I’m not totally certain of what to do. Same for ORAMM.

Wait… did you just say ORAMM?

Yes, the fact that I’m even considering it must mean that last year’s ORAMM was apparently a pain similar to childbirth. For the uninformed: I knew that the weekend following the Breck 100, I’d either have “awesome superstar legs,” or I’d be a total lump of sh*t. Surprise- it’s wasn’t what I was hoping for. During the race, I dislocated my thumb around mile 20something. It forced me to decide between painfully slow descending or fast and excruciatingly painful descending. If any of you vultures who hung out at the “people will probably wreck here” spots and thought you heard sobbing as I passed by, yes, you heard correctly. About halfway up Curtis Creek, I started having lower back pain. Lots of back pain. I’ve figured out now that as convenient as it is, I just can’t wear a hydration pack of any style. I’ve tried the traditional style pack, the Wingnut, and the Camelbak LR, and all of them, at some point, will make my back hurt. To cap off my ORAMM experience, I started to massively cramp just before the last climb up Kitsuma. Worst cramps of my life, in fact.I swore the race off forever.

Fast forward to this year. I’m working at the Outdoors Inc bike shop. We’re kicking ass and taking names. There’s no way, in my current role at the shop, that I can take 3 weeks of summer to gallivant around New Mexico and Colorado.  Yes, I could probably make it a short trip where I arrive, race within 24 hours, then go home a day or two later, but that’d be pretty lame. So, the Breck 100 is on hold until I’m either A) Pro enough that I don’t need to work in a shop, or B) Ryan gets a fat raise at work and I don’t need to work in a shop. ORAMM, which is July 24th, is looking like an attractive option. I’ve obviously forgotten how bad it hurt last year and/or figured that since that was officially the “worst race of my life” that it couldn’t really get worse short of me leaving the course in an ambulance.

So, I guess the point of all this is that I’m trying to decide what gear I’ll use for Mohican and ORAMM. It’s not easy to go off of advice that others give, so I’ll likely just decide at the last minute and spend half of the race cursing my decision (which half will be determined by whether I choose too hard or too easy of a gear). Then there’s the rigid vs. suspension thing… who knew that singlespeed riding could be so complicated?

Finally, I’ve now got a gaping hole in my race schedule from Mohican (6/4)  ’til ORAMM (7/24). Race suggestions (must be weekend-trip-able) are more than welcome.

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.

This year, I was determined to not make the same mistake and go out too fast like I did last year when I raced Cohutta as my first 100. The start was cold. I didn’t warm up very much, but figured since my strategy was to hit my 100 mile pace from the gun, that I’d get warm in plenty of time for the first real climb about halfway into the first miles of singletrack.

My strategy was actually working very well.  It was tough to let a lot of people pass me at the start of the race, but I figured I’d see a lot of them again in due time. I entered the first singletrack in a group, but, amazingly, it was a group with a very nice pace. I was able to settle into a good rhythm, and I was feeling great.

Unfortunately, I took a bad line coming off of Boyd’s Gap. I was a little miffed at people avoiding some rocks and dabbing in order to get to an easy line. I just rolled though the rocks, but managed to flat my rear tire on the way. Talk about bad timing… avoiding an easy/slow line is a lot of what I practiced last time I was at Syllamo, and I didn’t have any issues on much gnarlier terrain.

I didn’t panic (at least not immediately) and pulled off the trail to install a tube, only to find that my spare tube had a cut in it from an edge on the Awesome Strap I was using to hold it under my saddle. Uh-oh.

Here’s a word of advice to anyone who has ever yelled out, “got everything you need?” to someone changing a flat on the side of the trail…

IF YOU DON’T PLAN ON STOPPING IF THE PERSON SAYS “NO,” THEN DON’T F^CKING ASK IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I digress.

Eventually, Scott, one of my kind and generous blog readers, came to my rescue. He gave me his tube and was nice enough to stick around until I was back rolling. Scott, I am eternally grateful.

Time lost… approximately 10 minutes. Places lost… no idea. It was a lot. The next section was alternately rooty and wet. I was nervous about a pinch flat, so I took it somewhat easy. Once I was through the creek and over the bridge by the White Water Center, the trail pitched up in a nice power climb. I started to gain ground back on the people who had passed me earlier. Since the course conditions were so much better than last year, the rest of the singletrack seemed to fly by. I refilled a bottle at the exit onto the fire road then headed on my way.

The course is generally rolling for a little while. Between the water stop and the flat spots, I was back & forth with a few women. At one point where the course was pretty flat, a woman and the guy she was with flat out dropped me. He pulled her off into the woods and left me spinning in their dust. A while later, I caught him alone on the first pitches of the “big” climb, where I joked with him, “Don’t worry, I’ll catch her here in a few minutes.”  About half an hour later, I did. We were back and forth for a while, but I was able to pull away on the last miles of the climb.

Somewhere along the way, I managed to find Laureen Coffelt as well. I knew that once I passed her that I couldn’t slow my pace lest she break me with her relentless motor. I basically rode the 2nd half of the race looking over my shoulder for blue/green/white kit.

Somewhere on the first hills, I hit a rhythm that stayed with me the entire race. I had this song in my head (which resulted in me telling a guy on one of the easy grades that he was a dime and asking why he was looking lonely), and I began singing the chorus in my head to keep time with my breathing and pedaling. I began flying past people on geared bikes like they were sitting still.
I’ve never been a good climber. I’ve always been too big to be a climber. However, what I have slowly discovered since the Death Climb at Shenandoah is that being bigger and more powerful is not as much of a  disadvantage when you don’t have the option of a granny gear. As the race progressed, I was looking less behind me and more ahead of me, hoping to see one of the other women up the road.

Unfortunately, they never showed up. I crossed the line a few minutes short of 9 hours- 1 hour better than last year. Being the only woman entered in the women’s singlespeed category, I was eager to see how I stacked up against the other ladies.

I went back to the car, grabbed a towel, and sat in the creek for a few minutes. After cleaning up & changing, I went back to the finish area to wait for results. Eventually, the race director put the open women results up and announced that the 15 minute protest period had begun. I realized that my name was nowhere on the results board, so I protested. He told me that they’d give me an award for women’s singlespeed.

Based on time (which I still don’t have an official number for), I was 7th overall, and only minutes out of the top 5 placings. Awesome. Until this afternoon when I came home and saw the results that were posted on Cyclingnews… leaving me out completely. What. The. Fuck.

Apparently, since I was a single racer in the women’s singlespeed category, that means that I’m not worthy of getting an official result posted anywhere.

Pissed? Hell yeah, I’m pissed. Discouraged? Hell no. Not at all.
At my current fitness, I was half a flat change from breaking into top 5. Am I going to be facing off with Carey and Sorenson this season? Not likely. Facing off with any number of other women? I’m gunning for it.

I’ll singlespeed my way into your Cyclingnews whether you like it or not.

[video]j6SSTMpIRFI[/video]

My brain still isn’t totally working right now, but I figured I’d get something out here to keep everyone interested…

It’s always a relief to wake up just before the phone alarm clock goes off on a race-day morning. After an on-off night of sleep, I was glad to see that it was time to get up when I woke up for the 5th or 6th time. We struck camp and headed up to Oden School for breakfast and the race start.

I don’t want to jinx myself, but if I could finish a race as well as I can start it, then I’d be kicking Amanda Carey’s butt right now.

I pedaled around and made it to the start area in time to grab a spot that would put me in good pack position for the course rollout. It was a great move, because, like Southern Cross, it meant that I’d be racing from the front. Out of sight, out of mind… or something like that.

I maintained a good position/pace all the way up the pavement/forest road to the first singletrack. Once I was there, I actually felt more at home and settled into a (probably too hard) nice pace. I was feeling great for all three of the Ouachita Trail mountains- especially Blowout, where I gave out sage advice like, “you can ride that, just pedal like hell!” With a suspension fork on it, the Air9 felt like a downhill bike. Unfortunately, I also passed Ryan, who was walking with his bike and yelled at me that he’d endoed and hit his face on a rock. I had to block out the worry and concentrate on not succumbing to the same fate. Chalybeate (pronounced “clee-bit”) was hard, but I made it over without much issue.

The next section was an 8 mile piece of pavement with a nice, 15-20mph headwind. Luckily, I found a guy who was giving off a roadie vibe. I commented on the firmness of his legs and he was happy to let me draft until we passed through Sims, where he pulled off to get some water. I didn’t want to stop, so I kept pressing on. Who cares about a little wind…

Soon enough, I passed through the next aid station where I refilled my camelbak and took to the Womble trail. For a few miles, the trail was relatively flat. My legs were feeling questionable, so I tried to flow where I could and spin where I couldn’t. Unfortunately, once the Mauldin Mountain climb started around mile 40, cramp karma tried to get me back for last year where I’d passed Namrita O’Dea when she started to cramp in the same spot. My inner thighs would seize up violently when the trail would pitch up. A few times, I tried getting off of my bike to stretch, but when I would stand up straight, my quads would cramp equally as badly.

Straight spelunking into the pain cave.

If I stopped for a few minutes then continued at an easy pace, I could probably alleviate the cramps enough to get through the last 20 miles with fewer issues. If I stopped for a few minutes, I would seriously risk the win I’d been working on all day. I don’t know if anyone who reads is wondering what goes through someone’s head in that situation, but that day, it was my coworkers at Outdoors. Our store is like a family, and I wanted to represent them as hard as possible. I won’t say I didn’t utter (aka “yell”) multiple obscenities, but I went as went as fast as I could without totally locking up.

I don’t remember much about the last 15 miles or so. I wrecked once in a powdery/rooty/steep section of bench trail, but I think the short break was not a bad thing. Also, going down the last of the forest road hills, my left triceps cramped a little. When I made it to the pavement, I was looking over my shoulder more than I was looking ahead of me. I cramped up the last pitch to the finish line, and I think I cried a little bit once I crossed.

So, yeah. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a win nonetheless. If Laureen had been there, she would have been on me like Lady Gaga on a meat dress. I feel somewhat lucky, but not totally. I think I died a little bit out there. I had this song in my head most of the time:

[video]TKws7vXzukM[/video]

Good things about my weekend:

-Racing hard. Really hard. The results with lap times aren’t up yet (order of finish results HERE), but other than the pedal thing, my lap times were very consistent. Lap #6 was one of my fastest. I’m usually not consistent… to the point of being notorious amongst my peers for blowing up early and death marching late.
-Mean-mugging Pua during the pre-race meeting. She’s so damn fast, I figured that it’s not often that someone looks at her like they’re about to rip her legs off. It’s a skill worth practicing, and I was bored, so I gave her the WWE staredown. I don’t know if she even noticed, and if she did, she was probably wondering wtf was wrong with that chick in the green… then she proceeded to lay into the trail like it had insulted her mom and was the fastest person all day to complete 6 laps.
-Training really damn hard. After thrashing myself for 6 hours, 11 minutes on Saturday, I found a motel room in south Hot Springs, ordered a pizza, and kicked my feet up. Sunday morning, I met up with Todd the Antique Gun Show and Frank (who was a top 10 finisher at SouthernX) to pre-ride the first (and likely hardest) part of the Ouachita Challenge course (~4 hours and close to 40 miles of riding). Everything hurt, and I was moving a little slow, but I still had a good time.

Bad things about my weekend:

-Equipment failures of my own doing- first, the chainring thing… I made it over that rock without incident during the entire race on Saturday. Also, the fact that I failed to bring spare anything- bike, wheels, pedals, etc. I chock it up to not being in the lap race/pit mindset. Just before I found someone to borrow from during the race, I was flipping my sh*t on myself big time.
-Equipment failures not of my own doing- the pedal thing sucked, obviously, but it was kind of a freak accident. Will I switch to another type of pedal? Not sure yet. I like my Crank Brothers. My bigger complaint is that I’m riding a component group that retails for >$2k. It really didn’t work like that this weekend. Unrelated to the chainring/rock thing (which I am confident is totally fixed at this point), on several occasions, it groaned and strained to shift to lower gears. I had another chainsuck incident on the Ouachita trail when I tried to shift small-large before a long descent. The result was chainsuck so bad that it yanked my front derailleur sideways into my rear tire. Then, this morning, I noticed that the x-loc on my XX fork lockout is not really working.
I can take care of this stuff- either through working on it myself or calling up SRAM and getting warranty replacement parts. It’s not often that I feel entitled to anything, but I feel as though if I’ve meticulously installed a really expensive component group onto my bike that it should work perfectly. If I didn’t mind occasional reliability issues, I’d pay half as much for cheaper parts.

I’m not 100% sure about what I’m going to do equipment-wise. It’s likely fixable with a couple of phone calls. That doesn’t mean it won’t be a giant PITA to fix it before Ouachita Challenge in a week and a half.

In other news, here are some race-day photos…

This is a bit of a long one-

Last time you heard from me, I was sitting in Hot Springs Starbucks thinking that I was capping off a slightly bad day with a decaf, a cookie, and some venting. Unfortunately, my daily shipment from the failboat was still being unpacked.

Back at camp, I’d already set up my tent (as a changing spot) and hammock (the snazzy new one from Eagle’s Nest that I got as a Christmas present from my parents). I was getting tired, so I settled in and got cozy. At first, the hammock seemed like a cocoon of awesome. But then, the wind blew gently… rocking the hammock ever so slightly.

I felt seasick almost instantly.

After deciding that I’d rather NOT be seasick all night, I ended up lowering the hammock enough that my butt touched the ground , which prevented the swaying/seasick combination. It was surprisingly comfortable, so I was out pretty quickly. Of course, some other campers rolled in around midnight and decided that a race course/ campground was a great place to drink and make lots of noise at midnight. So, at midnight:05, I yelled at them to please be quiet.

Stunned silence… then some muttering, very little noise, and a patchy remaining night of sleep.

In the morning, I took the advice of commenters on my previous post and went to the Pancake Shop in Hot Springs. Damn, that was good. I went back to camp to do the last of my race prep.

10:00 rolled around, and the race was on. I don’t mind a LeMans start, and I felt well-positioned and paced during the first lap. I decided on the 2nd lap that I’d stop big-ringing (39t) the climbs and start hitting the 29 on the steeper spots in order to keep from killing myself early. Unfortunately, one shift from small to large at the top of a hill resulted in chainsuck, which somehow resulted in the chain dropping to the inside of the small ring and wedging itself in between the ring and the frame. I had to stop and muscle it out, which took what seemed like hours. As I re-mounted my bike, Laureen Coffelt and Heather Ladd appeared on the trail behind me (remember what I said about Laureen being ready to kill you if you have a mechanical? Yeah… it was like that). I rode like a scalded cat.

When I passed back through the pits, I stopped to swap bottles and grab half a sandwich. Laureen passed me without stopping. Since it was only the 3rd lap, I decided to play bulldog for a little while and stuck to her wheel. I thought I had everything figured out… then we crossed a small creek. My foot came out of my left pedal. I tried for a minute to clip back in and realized that something was amiss. When I pulled over, Laureen never looked back (well, at least not when I was watching her ride away). Heather passed me soon after. The spring in my left eggbeater was broken, and I made the limp back to the pits.

I’ve never hated myself as much as I did at that point. I’d prepped as if I was going to an NUE-type race rather than a lap race. I had tools, but no replacement parts. No one in the surrounding pit area had a spare pedal of any type. I wanted to curl up & die in the back of the Element. I made one last effort to find a replacement pedal, and if finally paid off- I found a nice man that had an unfortunate wreck and was not continuing on in the race. He was using crank brothers Smarty pedals, and offered one to me for the remainder of the race. I slapped it on and took off into the pain cave of redemption.

The next two laps, I was passing people like they were in slow motion. As I rounded the last two corners of singletrack before the pit road on my 5th lap, Heather’s rear wheel was in front of me. I passed her, made my fast pit-stop, and told the officials that I was bangin’ 7 gram rocks, and going for a 6th lap. Heather was right behind me, but eventually dropped away. The effort had landed me back into a podium spot with Pua (who had pwnt all of us) and Laureen (who I finished about 7 minutes behind).

Photos and a rundown of everything I f*cked up to follow. For now… bedtime.