It's hard to figure this biking stuff out

The past week was kind of a lost one. Late last week I felt like I was coming down with some kind of cold. As a result I took off Friday and didn't ride much Saturday since the weather was so nasty. The thought of riding on Sunday didn't seem to appealing but I decided to head over to PLRA for 2 laps and then some light backroad work. Monday was more of the same as again I headed to Pontiac and downed 2 laps fairly easily. Here's where things get sticky. Tuesday comes around and mentally I feel strong but my legs are feeling tired and sore. So I decided to ride out to from my house to Stoney. It is about 12 miles and I figured that would give me a good warm up before hitting the trail (in case anyone is wondering texting is a good way while riding to kill some miles at a warm up pace). After hitting the trailhead I proceeded to rip off two laps that were 3 1/2 minutes and 4 minutes faster than my lap times at the last Stoney XC race. I mean I was flying up hills that I was dragging my ass up last September. I finished up my ride with a quick spin on the road before heading back home. Overall it was a great ride and a great day. So today is Halloween. The plan is to shoot over to PLRA after work to rip off one hot lap before heading home to take the kids out Trick or Treating. The problem is my hot lap never materialized. I had every vision of killing it today but my body wouldn't cooperate. I had no legs on the hills or one the flats. I'm pretty sure that any choad out there today could have passed me and there would have been little I could have done to counter. It is funny how one day you can feel shitty but have an incredible ride and the next day your mental edge can be there but the body just isn't willing or able to go. Well at least I got to take the kids out for Halloween. For the most part we had a lot of fun. We did happen upon one house where one adult was dressed up as a skeleton sitting in the bushes. The kids were interested to see if he was real or not however when the person made an attempt to get out of his chair both of the kids FREAKED OUT and Jenna practically lept into my arms. Zach was scared too but he just proceeded to walk off stating "I don't like that skeleton anymore!!!"

Stoney Trail re-route part deux

I must admit that although Stoney is really close to my house it's not a place that I choose to ride on a regular basis. I like the singletrack section of the trail well enough, however the only problem is that there just isn't enough of it and the two track that connects the three singletrack sections seems kind of lame. Well about three months ago the TC at Stoney (He goes by the name of Wingz on the MMBA board) decided to do a re-route of a washed out climb in the "roller coaster" section of singletrack. Admittedly the hill did need to be re-routed however the new trail that they put in lacked the flow of the old section and quite frankly it was really lame. The biggest flaw of the new section was a 180 degree off-camber turn at the end of it which then redirected the rider back up a small hill and onto the old trail. Well upon riding at Stoney yesterday I was suprised to find that they had finally bench cut in some of the new trail so it wasn't so off camber and they had totally changed the end of it so that it now took you further down the hill before changing direction (in not such an abrupt manner) tying back into the old trail....WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!!!! The new trail not only restores some of the flow of the old section but it also allows the rider to maintain some speed to as well. If you look at the picture above you can see some logs up in the distance that run off to the left this is where the old reroute used to turn left to reconnect with the trail. Now the trail just heads downhill and straight. Well done. It's not like I am going to go out of my way to do a Stoney ride anytime soon but it is nice to see that they took some time to correct an obvious flaw and the result is much better. Thanks to everyone that put in the time out there to do the maintanence. TC

Tough as nails

This is a picture of Terry Farnsworth's finger following his crash tonight at PLRA. The accident occured after Butt rounded a corner and stuck a pedal. He didn't seem to go down to hard but I knew something was wrong as he immediately popped up holding his right hand. The first words out of Terry's mouth were "my finger is broken". DC made a quick exit to go back to get the car to pick Terry up and I ended up walking/riding out with him. Not once did he wince in pain and he even rode all the way back to the parking lot via Gale road. Hope you get better soon Butt....It is too bad because Terry has been riding really strong lately.

Top 10 reasons why this weekend sucked

10. I had to work which always puts me in a foul mood

9. I was starting to catch a cold from Zack

8. Fighting the oncoming cold made me tired and cranky

7. Riding was held to a minimum secondary to numbers 9 and 8

6. The weather sucked

5. My 2 fantasy football teams got throttled (thanks to Uncle Art

who convinced me to start Kurt "pop" Warner over Derek

Anderson)

4. Michigan won

3. Did I mention that I worked

2. When I did get out on Sunday it started raining half way into my

ride

1. The Thai food I ate on Saturday night gave me one mean case of

colon blow

How's the fit look

Here's Zach's new set of wheels. After fighting with his sister all summer because she wouldn't let him ride her "big bike" I finally broke down and got him one of his own. It is amazing how easily kids can learn to ride a bike and this little guy has no fear. His greatest pleasure is pedaling faster than his sister so that he can beat her in a race around the block. Cornering seems to be his only downfall as he has yet to realize that he needs to slow down before trying to rail around the sidewalk.

What a difference a day makes

Tuesday was a beautiful warm fall day. As I arrived at the entrance to PLRA I had my training plan in mind. Today's goal was to ride 2 laps the first one being a hard lap, attack the hills and then recover followed by a more casual tempo controlled lap. I must admit I rode 2 laps on Monday and felt great. The legs were a little heavy at first but as the ride progressed I felt stronger and stronger. Today's laps would not be the same. From the start of today's ride I didn't feel right. Mentally I was prepared but my body was not responding. I never felt comfortable attacking and to top it off I was starting to get some lower back pain. After descending down from the first big climb I noticed a guy riding a specialized FS bike a little way down the trail. Seeing anyone in front of me usually causes me to wick up the pace and I soon found myself within 20 yards of the rider. I caught him at a section we call Terry's tumble (that's a story for another day). I slowed down and I figured he heard me coming because he slowed and moved to the right side of the trail. Well unfortunately for this guy the place he decides to move over at is slightly off camber and as just as I was passing him he starts to loose his balance. He didn't fall but didn't look to gracefull as he dismounted his steed. I breezed by not thinking much about the situation then from behind me I hear the guy shouting "Hey asshole slow down next time". Well that is definately one way to get my attention to which I respond "well maybe if you could ride faster this wouldn't have been a problem" I slowed down only because I was interested in what this guy was going to say next. Nothing really to interesting but I got the impression that he thought I was a dick. That incident kinda killed my motivation to ride (that and the fact my back pain was getting progressively worse) caused me to abort the ride after one lap. After getting back to my car I looked at my saddle and noticed that my wonderful Easton EC 70 post had slipped allowing my saddle to tip upwards, which I assumed was causing my LBP. I decided to go home and correct my saddle positioning but more importantly I finally got off my ass and ordered up a Thomson Elite post. I know there are sexier and lighter posts out there but I've had enough of the old slippage of the saddle. My attitude adjustment will have to wait, just ask the dude on the Epic.

Stoney CX race report

To say today was hot was an understatement. It seemed way to hot for a cross race and the thought of running that beach in the heat seemed unbearable. I decided that since my training has been coming along and I'm feeling a little stronger that I'd line up on the front row. It seemed like a good idea until 3 more guys decided to "squeeze in" pushing me to the far outside left. When Robert gave the go, Terry Ritter who was directly to my right bumped into me killing any momentum I had forcing me to the back. I have to admit it kinda sucked. The start out seemed fast again, but not as fast as Bloomer and I kinda got back up with the main pack. About midway through the first lap the main group broke up into 3 groups and of course I was in the third group. Oh well my race went well with the exception of running that fucking beach for 5 laps. I was kinda battling with one guy (sorry don't know his name or team) but once I got rid of him there wasn' t much else to ride for. I wasn't going to catch anybody in front of me and I wasn't going to get caught. In the end I think I got 13th or something like that. I might have been able to do better if I could have caught onto another group and rode with them. I do take pride in the fact that I didn't get caught by some of the faster masters 45 guys like I did last week and I do feel like I'm getting stronger on the bike. I didn't get to stay for all of the A race as I took the kids to an open house hosted by the local fire department. It was a blast as the kids got to use the hose to put out a small fire (with the help of a firefighter) and they got to climb all over the trucks. All in all not a bad fall day even if it did feel more like summer.