It was Deep at Kirkwood

So We headed up to Kirkwood this weekend, it was raining pretty hard the whole way up.


And then, bang it switched to Snow.



We got to kirkwood around 2PM on saturday, crossing carson pass was pretty sketch, we had to stop a few times due to white out. Limited terrain was open due to Avalanche control but it the snow was still coming down hard.



We got up early on Sunday anticipating that kirkwood would open up some more terrain, we ended up waiting at the Avy control gate before carson pass for about three hours due to an avalanche that they needed to clean up.


Caltrans was pretty cool, they ended up shuttling cars through the pass, fortunately we got there early and made the first shuttle.




The Pic above and below was taken right before the deepest turns I have ever made. We dropped in off of the Chutes from Lift 11 and traversed hard on the skiers left to the trees, we were the first ones over there. Below is a pic of Chris who I met on the lift. Thats him droping his pole straight down and hitting nothing. We then proceeded to rip through the trees while getting armpit deep the entire way down.



Heres E, Lookin all cool and stuff.....



Me Trying to look cool



Monday, they opend up the back side, and it was like Sunday all over again, but not as deep.

Well I made it into the SSWC 08

Yup I made the cut, not sure why, but Im in. Should be a good time.

The First Ride of 2008 - Oat Hill Mine, Calistoga

I wanted to throw down a New Years Century today with a few of my Roadie friends, but after being Trapped indoors for a week in Canada, I really needed to hit the dirt. I met up with the MTBR Folks, Velocipus was kind enough to post the ride, and i was anxious to check out more trails in the wine country, hoping they would be as enjoyable as Skyline park (the SSWC 08 Venue)....Needless to say i was not disappointed!

The trail was extremely Rocky and very nice pitch, the 29 er single speed was lovin it! Anyway, a few pics below.

SSWC 08 Registration

If you interested in coming out to Napa for the worlds, registration will open on January 1st at Midnight!


Hello Everyone:
Registration for the Single Speed World Championships 2008 in Napa,
CA, USA, will open on January 1, 2008, at 12:00 a.m. pacific standard
time (AKA: California time). We will post an on-line form for people
to fill out and email to us soon. Again, registration does not open
until January 1, 2008 at 12:00 a.m. Any emailed registration forms
prior to that date and time will be deleted. We will leave
registration open until it fills up, maximum riders will be 350.
Everyone will be emailed letting them know if they are in or out. If
you are in, there will be instructions on payment via PayPal.
Registration is $35 U.S. dollars. If you don't make it in, we still
encourage you to come out and play that weekend anyway. There will be
lots of rides going on all over the Bay Area. More details about the
race weekend will be posted soon. Good Luck! Please forward to
friends that might be interested and please post on blogs and
websites, if applicable. We really want to inform as many as possible
so that everyone has a fighting chance to get into the race. Thanks.
Curtis, Ken, Jeff, Andrew, Dennis & Mitzi

www.sswc08.com
email: info@sswc08.com

Theirs Gold in them hills: SSWC08 Recon

I headed up to Napa today to check out the trails and meet some more MTBR folks. I got there really late so I ended up riding alone and giving myself the tour. Every turn I made was good one. Very technical rocky switchbacks that were reminiscent of my recent days on the East Coast, greeted me over and over again. I was delighted. It kind of reminded me of Lehigh, but a little steeper.

Its going to be a tough one though, the route I took was pretty steep, 32-20 on my 29er was pretty challenging. With racers coming out of the gate at full speed, i think theres going to be a lot of pushing.

Seasonal Brew by New Belgium, Funky smell, but kind of cool. Anyway......

Resolution

I hit the trail with some of the folks from mtbr today, they were cool. We rode, I crashed then we rode some more. it was kind of weird, my front tire started sliding on this downhill, I thought i might be able to recover but it kept going. Then I hit the ground and started sliding on my right but cheek. I wondered how long the sliding would last. I think I heard riders ahead of me asking me if I was all right before i stoped sliding. This pic is nothing compared to my but cheek, but i dont want to post that here.

November 21st -Bring a Roadie Mountain Biking Day

Today I got Roadie Joe on the Trail. Joe's the fastest Roadie I know, we do quite a bit of road riding together in the summer, he's a good training partner.

Anyway we hooked him up with a bike tonight-yeah why not drag the roadie into the woods in the dark. The trail is a 2000 foot climb followed by a 2000 foot decent and it parallels one of our favorite Road climbs, one in which joe can completely hose me on. Well joe road well. I road a brisk pace, uncomfortable but I let off the gas when it hurt and I was still able to gap him a few times, but he more or less kept up. I was more impressed with the downhills. I wasn't trying to ditch joe but I was moving at a good pace and he kept up with me most of the way, except for a few techy sections, but i think joe will be back on the dirt!

E's First Day out

Pimp'n

I built a new ride For E. She doen't have a bike at the moment and never had anything high end, and I had lot of bike parts lying around from my Scalpel. I don't think I am going to go back to 26" Wheels so I acquired a medium F800 frame that would fit her nicely. It came out real nice, im impressed. I had the Carbon Lefty Re-built at the LBS, its got XTR Derailers and shifters, XT Crank, and Crossmax SL wheels thomson elite seatpost. Easton EA 70 Carbon Seatpost Maxxis Ignitor Tires, Avid Juicy 5 brakes..its going to be good. I am such a bike junky, i had great time putting together.

Earth Quake

So i get done riding my bike tonight, infact it was an awesome ride, my first Night MTB ride in California, and we were riding somewhere where we probably shouldn't have been, Ok, we definitely shouldn't have been, anyway i get home to find out we rode during a 5.6 earthquake....i had no clue.

Critical Mass

Well, this was an interesting event, maybe 5,000 bikers showed up to just ride. It was pretty amazing to see the city streets completely shut down due to the mob of bikes, and to think this happens every month. Some of the cars cheered, others were enraged that we were disrupting there comute, Some cars tried to break through and soon found themselves trapped inbetween bikes. I rolled up on a familiy from out of town, there SUV was trapped in the swarm. A woman was standing on the back seat hanging out of the window completely loosing it, freaking out. She kept yelling, "We don't know where to go" Then they ran over someones bike, that didn't work out to well. Cops were cool, they seemed to make there pressence known, but stood back and let the bikers do there thing.

I rode the fixie and as I was grinding away on one of the climbs with my buds, we noticed the CEO of our company just rolled up right next to us...that was pretty cool!

Thats all i have to say about that.

Skeggs....

So it turns out I have trails right out my front door.....so I jumped on my Singlespeed today....oh wait, you have to do some climbing to get there...

So you have a whole lot of this......


a few nice views....





Than some more of this and so on, in fact this part of the road winds up at pretty steep grade for 4 miles before it hits the intersection of skyline, which you then continue to climb up. I dropped three roadies on tricked out bikes on the way up.




Anyway way 10 miles and 2500 feet of climbing later you get to the good stuff!

Whiskeytown 9 to 5.....Now Testify!!!!

So last week I headed up North for the Whiskeytown 9 to 5 8 h r race. Nothing but good times. I opted to Single speed it- not sure why, after doing the Wilderness 101 on the single speed I thought I was going to be done with single speed enduro’s. I guess I wanted to race against the guys from Lake Sonoma, where I ve been racing ss.

I met some cool people as soon as I rolled into the venue, people were all about saying hello- I was greeted by Mat, who I met at lake Sonoma the week before, I met Ron and Jen from TGR and a whole bunch of single speeders.

9 AM rolled around and we hit it. The race goes right into the single track, and it goes up, and more up. I tried hanging with the big dogs in the front but the single speed made me blow up pretty quick so I decided to put things into check and get into my grove.

I let one single speeder pass me on this climb and he got away from me for a bit. He was attacking pretty hard on all of the climbs, but I was realing him in on every descent, and that was how I would play it for the rest of the day, using my east coast skills . By the middle of the second lap, I was rubbing his tire on all of the technical trails. Right before we entered the most technical part of the course (which I thought was pretty technical for a race even by PA standards) I attacked hard on the climb and let it rip on the down hills. That was the last time I would see a single speeder for hours.

Every lap ended with some of the sweetest single track in California. I really looked forward to it every time, but it was followed by the beginning of the next lap and the toughest climb, which soon became the walk of shame.

Lap 7, on the fire road climb I saw a single speeder grinding away midway on the climb....he didnt look like he was enjoying it....it was Fritz. I was pretty pumped to catch him as he beat me in the last 2 Lake Sonoma races..I caught up to him and it turned out he was having some ankle problems and was going to call it a day....i was bummed, i wanted a fair fight to the end...oh well, maybe next time.

3:40 PM rolled around and I found myself pushing my bike up a really steep hike a bike section, following this dude on gears and a beginner young woman who we were passing……it was right before the end of the lap and I yelled out “once around? “ to the guy infront of me…..”hell no” he yelled back, the girl replied “ but its 20 to 4!”, “Yes, Yes it is I replied”.

You see the thing is this isn’t like your standard enduro, if you don’t finish your lap before 5 PM it doesn’t count- and nothing would suck more then a lap not counting, but i contemplated for a bit....not going out would be straight up chicken shit.....quiting.

I rolled through the pits at 3:50, this would give me an 1 hr and 10 minutes to throw down another lap. I already had one lap that was an 1hr 7 mins and I was tired.. so there was some doubt tha I would finish I hit the climb hard, and it bit back pretty hard so I changed strategies pretty quick and got of the bike to conserve energy.


I rolled up to the top of the climb to begin the lonely lap….cue the bad religion on the iPOD, “The paper said that he hit the ground running, Oh yeah, you know Im not broken, a little cracked, but Im not broken”

focus set in and I hit the longest down hill of the course at mach one, scaring myself on all of the turns….almost blowing it on a few turns, but holding tight, up and down I hit the last length single track climb, exposed backing in the sun and pushing, behind was roger, the SS leader about to lap me, I tried to hang on but I was spent. Back into the fun whippy single track. I was pushing so hard on the short steep climbs, that my arms and toroso were cramping. I had to man up and shake it off to focus on the downhills. The end was near, I bombed down a fire road and hit the last hike abike section, followed by the last techy single track section. I rolled into the trail and over a rock pile, my legs and arms went to crap and I lost it. I was about to tip over and fall into a ravine. I had to take an evasive action so I turned the wheel down the ravine to ride it for a few feet. This gave me some time to bail over the bars and land some what on my feet…..any way I cursed a bit picked up my bike and rolled in to the finsh…..thats about it……oh and I came in 4th place in the Single speed class, top ten overall….the SS class pretty much hosed everyone…..good times…ill be back.

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.