Movin' on up.....

No, no, no....i know what your thinkin....so I raced today in Northern California, up in the wine country on my single speed. Well they don't have a sport single speed category so I had to race with the big dogs. I thought about racing my single speed in the regular sport category with the geared guys but I started thinking, in the enduros I can keep up with the best of them, and well I have actually spanked, on occasion, much faster Elite and Expert riders....So lets do it right???


Well I got hosed, the course was beautiful, with a lot of climbing. After getting bit in the ass at a race earlier this year by gearing too low, i decided to gear on the hight side. This proved to be a bit of a mistake. There was some serious climbing. After the First lap I contemplated quiting it hurt so bad. After a crash I lost one of my water bottles, and thought i was going to eventually run out.


I never rode the course and was racing with the fast dudes on a rigid so i decided to enter the single track last, which i have never done before. Turned out I could really rip on the down hills, I was able to pull out of last place and pass a few single speeders and one guy on gears. This was good enough for me. I was able to pull off at the start/finish area and refill a bottle, which was crucial.

Afterwards it was beer and burgers on the race promoter. Pretty freakin cool. A cooler full of beers and a 1/6 Keg of something that i was really into..Turns out the beer in the Keg was brewed in someones garage. I couldn't believe a home brew would taste that good. Good times, i am glad I got out of bed today.

So I came in like 8th out of 10 Single speeders and in the overall Expert Category i was mid pack (this included all of the Experts, Pro and SSers) I can live with that, next time we are going to be a bit more aggressive.

Old La Honda Beer Experiment

The Friday morning work ride kicked off in full force today. Last night I had a theory that if I took Fast Joe out for some beers it would slow him down on the 4 mile climb. I figured my liver was more mature and I would ride much stronger with a hangover then he would since I have raced under such conditions much more often. Well since Joe was driving I drank twice as much as him and that probably didn't help.

We kicked the 3.4 mile climb off at pretty good pace, I felt good and was waiting for joe to fall apart. We dropped the rest of the group and Joe wasn't budging. I finally fell to piece's blew up and Joe pulled away. Ryan ended up realin me in in the end. It was good time. Its great to be able to ride with people from work. We had a pretty good turn out today, 7 Strong to include my boss, which was surprising since everyone was being lame yesterday and said they were not coming.


The intern man'd up and showed up in sneakers and flats. I gotta give em props, cause the roadie geeks can be intimidating with all of there flamboyant matching lycra. He hung pretty strong with the flats and down tube shifters.

Wilderness 101

I think if I do this race again next year, we are going to have to make a few mandatory upgrades to the Niner like maybe one of these-




Or even one of these, you know.



Seriously that was a bitch to single speed, I was either in excruciating pain trying to climb long Fire Roads, or getting passed on really easy down hill fire Roads, by dudes with gears. The niner was killing it on the single track though, as I probably passe about 15 people on different technical Down Hills only to be sucked back in on some stupid fire Road.

Oh and It was Hot and Humid- Which a I think Contributed to me not enjoying the Single Speed Climbs-but enough complaining.

It was good to see some friends, I got to ride a little bit with Buddy, a few seconds with Kieth and a few of the dudes from the IF crew. Sarah and Rob Caught up to me at about mile 30 or 40, Riding the tandem on one of those annoying down hills. They were pulling a train of about 5 other riders and I heard rob Screaming my name and to jump on. I gave it my best and almost got in on the draft, but spinning a 32 19 there was no way in hell I was going to be able to hang. It was fun to see the Tandem ripping by. Anyway I caught up with them at the aid station and got out in front of them. I didn't want to be beaten by a tandem team, even if Rob was driving, but well they eventually caught me @ Mile 90.

A few horrible climbs and sweet gnarly descents later I ran into Mike Y. He looked like I felt, I think the heat was getting to a lot of people. I kept moving. Mike and I went back and forth for a little bit, mostly because I didn't stop at the aid stations. I would walk up a gnarly climb and then he would catch me. He stopped at the last aid station and waited for me and offered to roll in to the finish with me, That was nice, We rolled over a narrow bridge crossing a creek and there were kids swiiming, we both looked on in envy, we almost stopped. I was able to hang with him almost all of the way in but i eventually blew up on one of the climbs and let him roll on out.

Anyway the last few miles were pretty much flat after that and I rolled on in crashed next to the Keg, put my hand in the ice bucket and dropped the Ice down My jersey. After a half of a beer, i went down to the creek which was Ice cold and layed down, That felt really good. Cleaned up went to get dinner loaded up my plate and almost puked, so i laid my head down. I could really eat for a few hours, so naturally I drank beer.

I hung a bit with Jason and The Bikeman crew, Huber and Buddy and a few others. The party was rolling pretty late and ended with keg Stands, Even Harlan got up to do one. (no sign of Bishop and Tinker)

So i finished dead in the middle of the single speeders that started and 89 out of 173 Men with a time of 1034. It was an expereince to ride this type of course on the one speed, but I think I would have had more satisfaction if I rode the gears and placed significantly higher.

The Rattling Creek 50

First off, I have to say that it so cool to be rockin the trails in PA after Being on the West Coast for the last 2 months.

So I had to come back east to take care of some personal business, and the timing allowed me to hit up the race. Since I just finished building up my new Niner single speed I decided this would be the bike to bring from Cali. I never did an endurance race on a single speed, let alone one with a rigid fork so I was a little nervous.

We rolled out and the Beaner Crew Settled into a little peleton on the first single track section and fire road climb. We were also joined by Keith R. From Bikesport and Jamie B. riding for South Mountain Cycles.

I thought I was going to be in for some trouble when we hit the first steep fire road climb, it started getting steep and my heart rate was going through the roof trying to hang with the boys, but I saw Keith and Jamie get off and push, I figured they knew better then I did so I pushed too. It Flattend out and everyone began to pull away, I figured no sense in spinning at 1000 RPMs, so this was a good time to recover and get ready to get into my grove as they all pulled away


Once I re-entered the single track I was on fire. All 8 Pistons were kickin hard. The flow was going , the 29er was rolling over everything and I was finally being rewarded for my low tire pressure. I caught a few guys on gears right away, they were dicks about letting me pass. After droping these dudes I rolled out and caught Chris D from beans. I think this was also a first for chris doing an enduro on a SS, he let me by, a few minutes later I rolled up on Evan and Dave from beans and they let me pass by and the engine continued to fire. I rolled by Keith who flatted, asked if he was OK and Rolled out fast, figuring he was going to real me back in.

It seemed no matter how smoked and unmotivated I was on the fire roads and paved sections, I would do a complete 180 on the single track and start to haul ass. After a few miles of gravel and some climbing I saw a group gaining on me that I dropped in the single track. I really didn’t have the gears to get away from them on the gravel flats and down hills, and I was thinking these guys are going to slow me down in the single track. Well they got ahead of me as we started to climb, this time they were joined by Dan from Sicklers. I saw the course marshal guiding us to what would be the most technical single track of the race, so I put the hammer down and cut off the leader of the pack and got in first again. It felt like a dick move, and I wondered how stupid I would look if I ran out of gas and they had to pass me, Especially with Dan right behind them. Dan moved up to Expert this year and often put 15 to 20 minutes on me at any given race when we rode in sport. Well I got in and floated over the first rock garden and didn’t look back, but I heard a bunch of metal crashing and yelling and its seemed that I made the right choice. Dan seemed to make his way through the carnage and stayed about 50 feet back. The more and more rocks that were thrown at me, the bigger the gap I put on him until eventually he was gone.

As we neared the end of the single track I could see the Green colors of the Independent Fabrications Kit. I started to close in on him a bit until we hit the double track climb, he pulled a way for a bit, but towards the top of the climb it turned to single track and Mark let me pass on by as he took a break. I think he was having a bad day. Nonetheless it was enough to motivate me to keep on turning the cranks.

More rocky single track and the there was Jamie, fixing a flat. He had everything so I put the pedal down hoping he would catch me. 20 Miles to go and there were 3 guys behind me who I know had the ability to crush me, so there was no time for mistakes or hanging out at the aid stations so I kept the cranks movin.

10 to 15 miles to go I rolled into the Last aid station with two empty bottles, I refilled pounded some Gatorade and began to roll out as fast as I could. Mike Y. was checking numbers, I asked if any beaners rolled on through and he said that Ben just rolled out. Damn! Could I catch Ben? Another fire was lit on my ass so I charged back into the single track on a mission, methodically turning over the cranks until I rolled on to the pavement. As I exited the Single track I saw Keith Roll on in, to start the single track. It was comforting to know that I had a big gap on him. On the pavement Austin was directing Traffic and let me know that it was ¾ mile Climb on the black top before heading off road again. It was a hot brutal climb, I could see the guy in front of me wobbling back and forth on his geared bike as I closed in. Half way up the climb I looked over my shoulder, there was no one behind me with 7 miles left to ride. After that it was pretty much down hill all the way to the finish, where I placed 6th out of 21 single speeders and 17th overall out of 97 starters. No a bad day for my first single speed marathon.