Iron Hill Enduro, Newark, DE

I have some business in PA tomorrow, awesome opportunity to the hit the Iron Hill Enduro. Well the forecast was for Sun all Day today but Iron Hill managed to get the only bit of rain on the east coast for 2 hours before the race which turned the course to peanut butter.



I was riding very poorly for the first two laps until things spread out a bit. It was very slipery and the Maxxis Crossmarxs werent hanging on very well on the off camber descents and turns.

Acura matt missed the start by three minutes and manged to catch me. We hit the next climb and he was gone. I had no desire to step it up at that point.

Things started to dry out a bit and I got my mojo back and was able to catch matt. we road together for a few laps...this was fun, we each took turns in the front and it was nice to bust some balls while riding. 3 hours in and the Sport Crowd was on the coarse. We passed when needed.



We got to a real technical climb that most people were not cleaning. I rolled through it and i think Matt got hung up and stuck behind some of the sport riders so i decided it was time to end our social event and I attacked. In an effort to not get stuck behind some of the Fat kids on the decent i kept putting the hammer down to get around the Sport riders, but the downhill never came, but there where more Fat Kids, so i Kept pedaling hard.

I was a bit torched, but the downhill finally came and i had to recover - i was really flying - i hit another climb, then another descent.....then it all ended very abruptly with a 15 MPH direct hit on a tree. I was surprised that the impact did not hurt, but both of my legs locked up completely. I had never experienced that before, there was nothing i could do. i couldn't move either leg.

I managed to get back on the bike, but i was pretty much done - Matt finally rolled up on me and I decided that I wasn't going out for the next lap. I lost my timing chip and they did not give us number plates so there were no results for me but I didnt really care nor did I want to sit down with the promoter and piece things together, but i think I finished an unofficial 10th, but would have easily finished with Matt around 7th or 8th had I not pulled my shenanigans. It was still fun, and good training.


The day ended with a Pig iron Porter out of the Cask at the Iron Hill Brewery.

TIme for Some Scrapple! PA Bound

I am off to PA for some work - this works out well, im going to be able to Race the 4 hour Enduro at Iron Hill with Acura Matt.

I don't know what it is but, I always feel good inside when the bike is in the Car with me......



In the mean time I picked up a small compressor to aid in mounting my tires, this was long overdue and a good investment.





After Destroying my Rohloff Chain Guide, I discovered that the bash guard Deraileur combo works way better for the 1 x 9 setup.





Met some cool people on Thursday from the NEMBA Site and i was pleasantly surprised when they kicked my ass on the trail for two hours and introduced me to many miles of awesome technical single track that I have yet to ride.

"I was totally stoked to meet a group of riders who could turn the screws on me."

8 hours in the Saddle Before Work

Man - I was a bit concerned about the flat lands and motivation to train. Friday i went out with a few of the local road clubs for a century that happens every year on the Friday before memorial day.

The first 50 miles seemed pretty chill and uneventful. We stopped for lunch at a deli, refilled our bottles.

The way back was a very solid pace, consistently above 20 MPH. Some dudes were taking some pretty wicked pulls. I ran out of water and we weren't stopping so at mile 100 I was in survival mode but still took a few pulls....the group winded down to about 20 then to about 4 riders. Even at 4 they were consistently attacking to the very end.

I was Impressed. I was in Pain. I was totally stoked to meet a group of riders who could turn the screws on me.

Refilled some bottles after 100 miles, rolled into the finish....then took the lonely ride home

130 miles

Met a lot cool people.


I took saturday off, went for a short MTB ride on Sunday and worked some bugs out of the Dos niner that have been pissing me off

Monday, I took my wife out for a ride at the blue hills, it was here first ride of the year and she did real well.


I was able to get into the Vermont 50 today. Woot!

Pete

The Crit

There is a local Criterium Training series here in my town, I gave it a whirl tonight, my first road race. 25 laps in Wompatunck, No cars and about 30 Starters. It was Open to Cat 3,4 and 5.


I had never done this before, the fast crowd went off the front super hard, and i thought the right thing to do would be to get on the train.

That was a bad decision. I blew up pretty quick and got dropped, the chase group came rolling by, I hesitated a bit and didnt have the juice to latch on so i got blown off that back pretty quick. I tried to close the gap but it wasnt happening so i slowed up and waited for them to come around again. Its a training race so no big deal.

After that it was really wierd, very easy to hang on most of the time, with a bunch of attacks that led me hanging on for dear life....then i am up front pulling....somtimes coasting.

Well, i figure it out next week.

Passawang

Saturday, joe and I took off from Bazel to endure a 5 hour adventure. We negoitated our way out of town - I had two bottles of water, no food, 100 Swiss Franks and no clue what was ahead of us.....i was a bit concerned about the no food part.





We got a Swiss Map from a customer that rides, it was very easy to navigate, almost every intersection has signs pointing to the next town.




We Hit a grocery story in a small town before we mad our way to the countryside. After 20 minutes of fumbling, and getting someone to understand the word powerbar I found a Tube of this stuff called IsoStar - very similar to Nuun, but it comes in a very big tube.....that and a bunch of granola bars and we were on our way.









As we made our way out of town we found a nice 1000 foot climb that led us to the country side.











We were riding kind of slow coming out of this one town as we were figuring things out and this dude and a girl roll up and pass us. The dude was pulling a trailer with a 50 to 100 pound weight in it. This may not seem signifcant now, but he was killing it on the big climb!



very slowly it started to up


and up





Then it got a bit crazy and steep I stoped briefly to take a picture of where we came from.....out of view is the steep road below. I didnt realize, i was nowhere near the top.




We finally got to the top, over 3000 feet. It was a bitch clibming with the 21 tooth rear cog.






Some really cool bike paths that cut right through the middle of farms.




Water Refill - You can drink out of any fountain in Switzerland which ended up being very convenient.









Thought this was an interesting place to put a rock poster.





The Granola bars werent treating us to well so we had to cut the ride short and refuel. Seriously we should of went for a different fuel source.

Week 2: Basel

We had a pretty successful week of testing in Basel. Roadie Joe and I met up with another Colleague from the U.S. on Friday for dinner followed by Rocking it out to some Awesome 80's tunes in a very crowded bar.

Not much happened on Saturday, but today we got up early to do a 3 hour ride. I cued up a route from the internet but we really didnt know what it was going to be like. As we made our way outside of Basel, we met a local rider who showed us the way to the biggest climb in the area.



I haven't really hit any big climbs since I left California so this was indeed a treat- but it was even better to be able to battle it out with Joe on the climb just like old times, sprinting 6 kilometers to the top passing many riders on the way.













After the ride the sales manager for Europe picked us up and brought us to his house in France for Lunch......and some beverages.


It was good to find an exceptional beer in a can!





After a very big lunch, we took a walk down the Rine river. Here are some Pill Boxes built do defend against the Germans during WWII.

Basel

This Place is about Bikes.....




And some other stuff...



Seriously, everyone seems to ride to work, but Joe and i are the only ones sportin lycra.....

This big green train scares the crap out of me... they run one in each direction with traffic at the same time and I almost blew it out today getting my wheel stuck in the track.....well i learned quick on that one.



So we have been riding to work every day which is fun, but we took a quick spin after work .




we found a short climb with about 1200 feet of elevation gain. it was pretty neat.





You have to buy this insurance sticker from the Govt for like 5 Franks. If they catch you with out it, its a 150 Frank fine.

Luckily there was another US Cyclist working at our customers site and he totatly hooked us up with the sticker...we didn't even ask him.





The plan may be to link up and ride into Germany this weekend with our new friend. Things are getting delayed with the project so if we are here for an addional week, we may take a big trip to check out the Giro D'Italia.

Stay tuned.

Training Camp: Europe

I have to really turn it up. There is some serious training going on in the The Shammy Camp and I am not going to be able to keep up with the lack of elevation around here.

Bags are packed and Im rolling to Basel Tonight to link up with Roadie Joe for some training in the alps.....ok so we are really going to work but we are bringing our bikes.



I left my bike box at my parents and i didnt have time to pick it up, but I still have this bad boy from my move back East.



Its a Trek Madonne Box that Trek ships the bikes to the dealers with - I got it for free from Chain Reaction Bikes in Redwood City, CA.


They actually charge like 20 bucks for the Box, but they werent sure it would fit my bikes, so they just gave it to me.

Its pretty sweet it comes with built in pads and straps.



I got out for a good 3 hour spin at Wompatuck today. It ended with a flat that i couldnt fix, I didnt have a tire lever, and i can barely get the Pythons on with the lever, so i was hosed and had to ride it back. I think its time to pick up a beefier tire, maybe somthing from maxxis.


Good times.