Vacation Wrap-up

Well we're home. We had a great time. Lots of relaxing, visiting with family, and some good riding.

Day 6 was Thanksgiving. We had some awesome food. Stuffing, turkey, ham, and waaaayyy toooo much pie. Pecan pie is so awesome. We did a short little road ride to town with the family and then back home but that was about it for the day.

Day 7 was Friday, the day before we left. We went with the family out to the local State Park with the bikes and a picnic. There weren't any real trails out there, just gravel roads through the park. They were pretty nice though. Lots of climbing and some very nice scenery. The pace was easy but I hustled up a few hills to feel the thrill. Not singletrack but a great way to end the trip anyway.
Look at the base of the trees, uphill indeed.
Found time for a photo-op.

Thanks to the Jameses for putting us up and feeding us, great to see them for the holidays, it's been a while.

Sat. we drove from Raleigh to Ruston, about 14 hours total. Man that was a long day. Had some pizza for dinner and called it a night. Sunday we picked up Cotton and headed home. And that was our vacation. All the pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/andrew.bikerpilot/NorthCarolinaVacation08#.

Thanks for reading. See ya.

Day 5

Well we got to do some riding today around Raleigh. We rode at the Beaverdam recreation area, some pretty sweet trails there that we had fun on. The trails were near the lake, so again not a lot of big climbs, but more up and down with a few 4ish minute climbs as the longest ones. We did about 11 miles, then I went out and did the 3.5 mile loop by myself. Had some fun messing with some locals, :). Anyways, it was a good day, we just did some relaxing and the riding so it was a nice midweek day.

Day 4 - Snow!.

We got snowed on today! We went to see Raine's cousin at her college, Montreat College in Montreat, NC. It is up in the mountains a bit, and a really pretty town. It started snowing right when we got there. We went and had lunch, and by that time it was snowing pretty good. So that was cool. I didn't get to ride Pisgah today, it was really cold and wet and supposed to snow there so we decided to skip it. We tried to hit another trail on the way to Raleigh, but it was closed when we got there. :( So we're gonna ride around here tomorrow. See ya then.

Day 3

We slept in a little this morning and then cooked some breakfast. Yum. It was cold and a little damp today but we got dressed for a hike and headed out.

The Mountains to Sea Trail runs right behind the cabins so we picked it up headed East. This trail runs along the Blue Ridge Parkway and is really nice. We hiked for about an hour total and it started raining on us a bit as we headed back to the cabin. We had some lunch and hung around the cabin for a while until I had to get out. It was still a bit sprinkly and in the low 40s but I bundled up and headed out on the bike.

I rode up to the trail and headed West. The trail was awesome on the bike with good flow going up and down. I was following pretty closely to the Parkway, going on it a few times for road crossings. I rode for about a half hour until I saw a no bikes sign so i turned around and headed back.

I passed the cabins and headed the way we'd hiked earlier. After about a mile going that way I met a runner who informed me that this trail was closed to bikes, hiking only. Oooops!! There weren't any signs saying no bikes except for the one where I'd turned around(assuming it was that section only). Oh well. It was a sweet ride on some sweet trail.

Tonight we're going out for BBQ with Raine's cousin. Gotta get BBQ up here!! I'm gonna hit the hot tub again after dinner. Then tomorrow hopefully I'll get to ride Bent Creek in Pisgah National Forest before we head out to Raleigh. See ya then.

Day 2-Tsali

This was the scene this morning outside our cabin at the noc. 33 degrees and the Forester perched on the side of the hill. We slept in a little and then had breakfast beside the Nantahala river. We headed out to ride Tsali and saw some awesome views of lake Fontana.

I didn't get any pictures on the trail but this was just up the road. The trail followed the edge of the lake a lot and then back into the woods. There was a fair amount of climbing but not a whole lot since it followed the contours of the shoreline. It was a good ride, Raine did really good. I had a flat so that sucked but other than that it was great. The weather was beautiful, mid 50s with lots of sunshine. Then we came on to Asheville and checked into our cabin. A good dinner and the hot tub capped off a great day.

Vacation

This is Tennessee. Or North Carolina. Or Georgia. Doesn't really matter. It's what i'll be seeing for the next week! We're finally off on our next vacation, riding bikes all over NC. Tonight we're staying at the Nantahala Outdoor Center. We'll be riding Tsali tomorrow, then riding around Asheville for a couple of days, then heading to Raleigh to do Thanksgiving with some family and do some riding there. This is the first vacation We've been on since Colorado last year so we're really excited. I'll try to make a short entry every day and a big one when we get home. I obviously haven't blogged in quite a while, been too busy!

Another successful crit

Last night was week 10 or so of the MP crits. I managed to stay in the pack and not crash, which is always a good thing. I did get to see one crash, it was rather spectacular. Bikes and bodies flying and tires exploding made for quite a show. Unfortunately, as you can assume from the fact that I saw it, I was behind the crash and this caused a gap to open between the main field and myself. I was forced to blow it out chasing back onto the group which really put me in a spot of bother. I spent most of the rest of the race hanging on to the back of the pack. I wanted to try to go for a top ten sprint finish but I had nothing left at the end to sprint with. I was hurting most of the race, I didn't ride too smart. I was out in the wind a lot but I guess that just gave me a better workout. I've got three more chances to make a mark, hopefully I'll get my name on the scoreboard before the end of the summer.

Am I a roadie?

Good gracious what has happened to me? First it was shaved legs and my first road race interspersed in my mountain biking life, now all I have to blog about is roadie stuff. Last week was another crit race, a lot of the big hitters were either moved up into the P/1/2/3 race or sitting out prepping for the State TT race this past weekend(more on that later) so it may have been a little slower. I didn't have my speedometer(thanks Luke) but it felt a little easier. Hopefully I'm just getting faster(thanks Nate). I started up front as usual, tried to ride smart and stay towards the front, not letting gaps form, etc. A few laps in I saw an attack going up the left side so I jumped on his wheel and went with him to the front. I don't know if we actually made a break or not, but he pulled for a bit and then I was on the front. I tried to stay steady and take my turn up there but not having my computer made it hard to take a constant pull and for how long so I pulled off when I thought I needed to. We were back into the pack pretty quickly and I tried to slide into the pack near the front again and get some recovery. As the race started coming to the end and the lap cards came out, I was sitting up towards the front 2nd-4th wheel or so throughout the laps. I was thinking this was a great spot and I might actually throw down a sprint this week. But then with 2 to go, suddenly I found myself in like 20th place. I don't really know what happened, I must've missed the memo. So from then on it was just hold position, I wasn't comfortable trying to move forward with everybody else going all sketchy trying to do the same thing. I accelerated to the line and came across somewhere in the low teens.

Then Saturday was the State Individual Time Trial. This is a road event where you basically go as fast as possible all by yourself over a set course. Our course was 40 Kilometers, or about 24.8 miles. You go 12.4 miles out, turn around across the road, and come 12.4 miles back to where you started. I hadn't been caring about this event until I got called out by a "friend" to come race him, so not being one to back down I kept him on the ropes as long as possible(to watch him fume, lol) and then registered and showed up Sat. morning. I had been offered a Time Trial bike to borrow, it was too small for me but I figured I'd give it a try and see if I could make it work. I rode it twice and made some adjustments the week before, but I never really got comfortable on it. I was advised to go ahead and ride it, so I did. For reference, on a TT bike you are very scrunched and hunched to get as aerodynamic as possible. However, this changes all your muscle memory and usage so you can actually lose power if you're not used to the positioning. Having only ridden it twice for less than an hour at a time, I obviously wasn't ready to go all out for over an hour in that position. So I'm the first guy to go in my category Sat. morning, I started at 9:24AM. It was already blazing hot, I was trying to stay in the shade of the starting tent(the start line was actually in the sunshine) as long as possible. The starter said 45 seconds so I sauntered to the start line and started preparing to go off. I had just clipped into one pedal when I heard him start counting from 5 and I was like "crap man!!!" So I jumped into the other pedal(being held by a start official so you can clip in and be ready to go when it's go time) and I was off!

I had to start my computer on the fly and try to get in a rhythm. This was made harder by the fact that the first three miles include some rollers so you don't really get the chance to get onto the bars and in the zone. I was trying not to go out too hard on advice of my coach, so tried to just stay steady at what seemed like a moderate pace. As I got out of the hills I tried to get comfortable down on the bars and get a good pace going. I was doing ok for a while until my muscles started to complain about the funny motions I was putting them through and I was forced to start backing it down and stretch occasionally to keep them from locking up. This was a drag(literally!!) as I had to get off the bars, stand up and coast, and stretch each leg, costing me valuable seconds. I just tried to focus on getting to the turn, and remind myself to drink regularly. After the turn, the crosswind was now a headwind which just made things worse. The only choice was just to keep pedaling as much as possible, standing to stretch when I had to. I found that looking down at the road and tracking the white line off my left side helped me relax a lot as opposed to stretching my neck to keep my eyes up the road. So I eventually got back to the rollers, and in a moment of weakness I dropped out of the big ring up front and spun up the biggest one at all of about 16mph. What a slacker. Then when I got to the top I tried to shove it back up to the big ring to get to the line and wouldn't you know the chain falls off the ring to the outside!! Oh no!!! Now I've already had a terrible ride and to add insult to injury this happens. I tried to pedal it back on but to no avail, so I was forced to come to an almost complete stop and reach down and put it back on. Luckily I got it without having to stop and dismount, so it was back on the gas to get to the line. Also luck would have it that I got the chain back on just a bit before passing the photographer. So I dropped onto the bars real quick for the photo op and kept pushing towards the line. When the finish tent was in sight I made a hard push for the line, crossing the uphill finish with a final push at 26mph in the bars. SLOW

So that was the order of the day. My muscles below my butt(whatever they're called) hurt like crazy until about Monday, I'm sure due to being too cramped up. But it was fun I guess(how can you call an hour of pain fun?) and I did just manage to beat the challenger so I get to live to fight another day. Hopefully soon there'll be some pics posted to show. Later.

Owch

This is a picture of me last week at the crit coming across the line chasing the solo break with one to go.

I was already at 199bpm doing 31mph or so and had been drilling it for nearly a minute. That was definitely a painful effort that unfortunately didn't pay-off but it was pretty cool anyway.

This weekend I got a lot of good riding in. Me and Nathan did a workout Saturday morning at Double Lake. I rode decent but had a rough day, with a good crash and a snapped derailleur hanger(two seperate occurances). Then Sunday I did 50 miles solo before church, averaging over 20mph for the ride, completing just over 50 miles in 2:28:02. Probably not too impressive for fast cyclists but it was a great ride for me. The craziest part was that I had gone to bed at 1AM the night before and I was on the bike at 7:15 that morning. Josh Greer(college friend) was in town and staying the night with us, and Adam and Clare were over, too. We had fun, I cooked steaks that were slightly overdone but still pretty good.

Monday night Josh came back over and brought his wife Renee and their little girl Aubrey!! She's so cute and sweet and good, I was playing with her all night. :)
It was great to see Josh and Renee, we've missed them since college.

Tonight will be a warmup for the crits tomorrow, hopefully the rain won't wash away my hopes of racing.

Training is hard

Well it's 6am Sat. morning and i'm in the car on the way to double lake for a workout with my coach. I am tired and i haven't been sleeping well, hopefully my body just needs time to readjust to training. I hate being out of the house so much away from Raine, but she said if i was gonna do it, do it all the way. So i try to do my best on both fronts. Here's to hurting legs and a happy marriage! Btw we had bbq with JT and Abby last night, we love those guys!

Crit Racer

Well, last night was week 7 of the MP crits, but only #6 for me, as I skipped a wet one to come hang out with Raine before she left town(good husband fanfare). I didn't know what to expect from my legs, I'd done 4 days of hard riding leading up to the crit. I managed to hang in for the whole race, and even put on some fireworks at the very end. Most of the race was pretty uneventful, a few breaks went but were always brought back without too much trouble, there was one early crash, and I just tried to stay as far forward as possible to minimize the surges. As the race was nearing the end and the lap cards started coming out a break went but didn't have the steam to stay away. Then with a little over two to go, as the break came back Leonard from Bike Barn countered, he got a good gap and nobody wanted to chase. I think this was a tactic with people up front blocking to let him go for the win. I was feeling ok and itching to start a chase, Bike Barn has a great team and they've been controlling the crits all Summer, so I didn't want to see them win again and take any Sugar rider out of the equation. I tried to get out of the pack and go on the back stretch but I was totally blocked in and couldn't get out. As we came around a corner in the back, I saw a hole to the outside so I jumped. Just as I was punching it a rider in front of me bobbled and swung wide into my path, forcing me onto the edge of the road. Right as this happened I heard bikes and concrete colliding behind me and I was afraid I had caused a crash(later found I didn't) but I knew I had to hold myself together and keep going. I somehow held it together(skilz :) ) and jumped off the front, expecting some people to come with me and chase down Lenny. As I got my gap I looked back and no one had even flinched. What's the deal? I didn't know why nobody chased but now I could either sit up and fade back in or keep going solo to try to catch Lenny and hang on and see what we could do. I decided to take the hard road and put the hammer down. I got a great gap on the pack and was closing well on Leonard. As I crossed the line on the bell lap(1 to go) I was giving it all I had and was hurting bad. I looked at my HR monitor, 199BPM already and I still hadn't caught up and we had a whole lap left!! I kept it punched for as long as I could but ran out of steam just short of catching up. After sitting up once I decided not to give up yet and to try to keep pushing. I repeated this twice and eventually just couldn't push anymore. I was forced to soft pedal and let the pack pass me by with only half a lap to go. :( They also caught Leonard, so he didn't get the win and at least my teammates had a chance to go for it. Looking back, he may have sealed his own fate by working hard to not let me catch him. If I'd been able to catch up and give him a good draft for just a little bit he might could have recovered enough to get us to the line out front. But that's racing. One of my teammates got sixth in the field sprint, so I may have bought him one position with my effort.

Unfortunately, it was one of my teammates who went down behind me with 1 1/2 to go. But, that's racing. I was glad to know I didn't cause the crash.

I'll be back for more next week, I've officially started my training plan now so hopefully more improvement will be coming soon!

Yumo

There used to be a pizza covering that plate but I ate it. :) Last night we took my brother James and his friend Charity out to dinner for James' birthday. We went to Carrabba's, it was pretty good. I had ridden 40 miles in the morning and then done the yard in the afternoon, so i earned that pizza. Then we went home and played Wii. Charity was the bowling champion. I was back on the bike at 7 this morning, then it was off to early church. We have an mtb team party this afternoon, so it's been a busy, fast weekend.

Singlespeed slugfest

Saturday I did a 60 mile singlespeed ride to Fulshear. There were 3 ss cross bikes, 1 geared cross bike that never shifted, and me on my rigid 29er ss mtb with cross tires. I was geared the lowest, so I was spinning the whole time. It was a good workout though. We rode along the bayous and backroads the whole time, so it was a neat route. The pic shows my normally big looking bike dwarfed next to the huge yetti bike in Fulshear. All the rhoadies got a kick out of seeing our ragtag group on our ragtag bikes with knobby tires all the way out in Fulshear. The best part was seeing this dude with a high zoot TT bike getting sagged back home from the station after barely making it out there.

Japanese grills

The last two fridays we have gone to japanese grills for dinner. Last weekend was JT's birthday dinner with the small group, this week Raine's family is in town and they wanted sushi. Both times the food was good, but what is it with these japanese places and their live entertainment? The first place wasn't so bad, a full band playing decent music, but a bit loud in a small restaurant. The second place though, was not good at all. It was a guitar player who could groove ok with a dude banging on the bongos and couldn't keep a good rhythm for his life. Worse though was the fact that they were playing along with canned music and all of it was blaring over huge speakers like 15 feet from our table. You can see the setup complete with the little music box in the picture. It was so loud we were yelling at each other to talk. Finally they took a break and played the canned music much quieter than they had been. That was the best part of our dinner.

Crit race

Last night was crit race #4 at Memorial Park. I've done all of them so far but this has definitely been the best one yet. I was able to stay in the pack the whole time and finish with them on the lead lap. I even found myself on the front a couple of times taking pulls. I expected big attacks when I got to the front, as I thought I would be slowing the pack up, but that didn't happen so I guess I did alright. I thought about going for a prime, but it wasn't as easy to move to the front as I thought it would be and I was afraid of blowing myself up and getting dropped so I decided to stay in the group. I got some new wheels last week, I don't know if they really helped or not, but they definitely should help as they are much more aero and I think lighter than my old wheels. They do look really good, that's worth some speed right there.

My HR numbers were pretty good from last night, I was able to hold a high effort level the whole race and not get blown like I've been doing. My avg. was 184bpm, my max was 196. I spent 32 minutes above 90% of max HR. These races are shorter than my mtb races but much more intense, so I'm hoping this will help me up the intensity level in mtb races. I know that I need to be doing long rides to go along with these races, though, 50 minutes on the bike at a time isn't going to cut it when the race is 2-2.5 hours long.

I don't know if anybody else regularly reads this except me, but I should be updating much more frequently now that I have a new phone and I can blog(with pics) from it. Whether it's a good story like this one or just a short blurb about something interesting I saw I'm gonna try to write something every day.

Dat's a big crawdad

Tonight was a going away party for David and Rachel at Ragin' Cajun. I had a crawfish poboy, it was really good but it sadly wasn't as big as this giant mudbug on the roof. David and Rachel are moving to Florida, we will miss them. They're going to meet us when we go on vacation later this year so that should be lots of fun, i'm really looking forward to it. 4th crit is tomorrow, there's a good chance of rain so we'll see how that turns out.

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I have surpassed my Wii Tennis plateau, i'm ready to give Patrick another attempt. This is also a test of blogging from my phone.

Hill Country Challenge at Comfort

Well Comfort is a good race and a bad race for me. There is a lot of climbing, which is not so good for me, but the course is technical and has lots of downhills where you really can make up time, which is good for me. This technical aspect of the course is largely attributable to the vast amount of rocks present. Rocks and I don't seem to get along too well, having resulted in a pair of flats at the very rocky Reimer's Ranch course. Unfortunately, we continued our bad relationship this weekend when I flatted again. Yep, you heard right. I flatted 7 minutes and 30 seconds in this time. So immediately I was back to dead last. I fixed the flat and tried to get rolling again but I just couldn't get a good groove going on the first half of the course. When we hit the second half it started with a long climb to the tune of about 20 minutes, and interestingly this is where I hit my stride. I started making up some ground and passing riders in my class as well as others that had previously passed me. I kept rocking along on this second half of the course, I passed a few riders from my class and then caught another one a few miles from the finish with one solid climb left to go. I locked onto him as my last target and plotted the rest of the race to cross the line ahead of him. I knew I was going faster than him since I'd caught him, but I didn't want to pass him too early and expend too much energy, giving him a chance to lock on my wheel and pass me back. So I sat behind him until just before the last climb was over and then I made my move. I punched it to the top and flew down to the finish line. I wound up putting over a minute on him in that last mile or two, and I crossed the finish line with plenty of energy left over. Unfortunately, I finished only about 20 seconds behind the 10th place finisher, and 9th was less than a minute ahead of me. Had I continued my strong pace and passed that rider earlier, I would surely have caught 10th and maybe even 9th for a much more satisfying finish. But I didn't, so I have to settle for 11th.

I think maybe I need to work on my mental game a little? At Warda when I got dropped on that last climb I let myself explode when I may could have pushed harder to the finish alone to retain 4th place, or would have continued at the same pace if I just could have held onto that wheel and had a shot at 3rd. But once I got dropped and was by myself I couldn't push anymore. Was that mental or had I just hit my physical limit? I don't know. At this race I let the flat hang over my head too long which prevented me from getting back up to race pace. The flat should have only taken 4~5 minutes to change and I should have been back underway, but the impact on my race was much larger than that.

Well hopefully Double Lake will be a good race for me, I would like to get one more solid finish this series as a Sport racer before making the big jump this fall. I still also have X-Bar to race as well, but I'm banking on Double Lake right now as it is a local race that I did reasonably well at last year.

Oh I almost forgot to mention that just a few days before the race I woke up at 6AM Wednesday morning and didn't go to sleep until 8:30PM Thursday night. Yes that is 38.5 hours of straight being awake. I got called back into work Wednesday night to finish a test that took until 9AM Thursday morning, and then I chose to just keep on working the rest of the day Thursday. I did get Friday off, but I didn't get much sleep past 7:30AM or so. Only having a few days to recover from this episode may have had an impact on my racing, as I was sure feeling the tiredness Saturday during the preride. But I did what I had to do for work and then did what I could at the race so there's not much else to do about it.

The Warda Race and Reimer's Ranch

Well the last two races have been so good and so bad. First was Warda, a semi local course that suits me well: not much climbing and a lot of twisty stuff. And things went my way that day. My parents came out to watch the race, and brought the RV so we stayed there that night. My birthday was the next weekend so we also had a pseudo birthday party complete with cake and ice cream. Sunday morning I was on the line at 9:00AM, following a last minute tire change due to a cut sidewall the day before. I got a good start and grabbed a strong racer's wheel and we hoofed it for two and a half laps. We made a few passes here and there to move up to third and fourth place. About halfway through the last lap we hit the biggest climb on the course and Geoff got out of the saddle going up and I just couldn't match it. I tried to get back on his wheel but I couldn't do it, I was done. I was riding by myself in 4th at this point trying to hold onto it to the line. I lost one spot in a big open field right before hitting the singletrack again. I finished 5th, which was my best result ever and I was really happy with it. It was cool that my parents got to be there to watch it. This was a great race for me, and I thought my season was finally coming together and I was establishing myself as a top racer in my class. It was also an awesome race as Raine finished third in her third race, getting the first piece of podium pie between the two of us.

The next race up was Reimer's Ranch west of Austin. Reimer's is another course that suited me well. A bit more climbing but not too much, a lot of technical rocky stuff, and some fast swoopy stuff on the backside of the course. Off the line a racer went down right in front of me, and I had no choice but to run right over his bike. I was having flashbacks to my road race crash and I just knew my life was over, but I managed to roll right over his back wheel with a nice crunch and keep rolling. I lost several spots so I had to work extra hard to get back to a decent spot before hitting the singletrack. I hit the trail in sixth place or so and everything was going well. Over a rough rocky patch the guy in front of me lost his bottle when it ejected from his cage. I thought he would be easy to pick off in about 20 minutes when he had been without fluid so I got a little positive. Then we came over a sharp hump in the trail and somehow down the backside of it I found myself careening out of control and into a stand of trees. Luckily my front wheel missed the trees but my front brake lever was not so fortunate, taking the brunt of the impact. This resulted in a loose brake lever and a bent bolt, but nothing was broken so the bike was still good to go. Unfortunately, I was not so much good. In the deceleration that occurred when my bike and the tree came to know each other, one of Newton's laws(don't ask which one please) told me that I had to stay in motion until an outside force acted upon me. So stay in motion I did until the steer tube on my bike acted upon my ribcage, knocking the breath out of me and leaving me a nasty fleshwound. But I got back on the bike and just tried to keep moving forward, meanwhile I was moving backwards relative to the majority of the riders in my class. A bit after the crash when I was just starting to get my breath and my groove back, I dropped into a rock garden and heard the dreaded pshhhhh, that is an "all the air coming out of my back tire" sound. So this would be a nice little break to get my breath and my wits back and say hello as all the old guys passed me as I changed my flat, and soon I was back underway.

The rest of this first lap was ok, I got stuck behind some guys for too long but eventually got past them and assaulted the swoopy stuff on the back side of the course to pick back up a few spots. Starting the second lap I was motoring along in overdrive feeling ok and looking to make up some time in the technical stuff. Then not too far along I started feeling my rear tire getting a little squirmy, sure enough another flat. So I rode it as long as I could and then gave it my last shot of air. I nursed it from there on, but only got another few miles out of it at best until it was unridable again. So at this point I'm faced with at least 6 more miles of trail, no more tubes, and no more air. So what do I do? I start walking. I walked the rest of the course, sometimes thinking I just had to keep going to finish and sometimes thinking how stupid I was. While I was loathing in my self pity and approaching the finish line less than a mile away, the last rider from my class came by me. So I got dead freaking last by three and a half minutes after pushing my bike for over a quarter of the race. So that was my race. Not at all what I planned, but I guess it could have been worse. Don't ask me how, but that's what they always say so why not?

Next up is Comfort, a rocky course with lots of climbing(not good for me) but does have some fast downhills(good for me) where I can hopefully gain a little advantage. We will see how it turns out and report back. Until then, keep the greasy side down(if you're in airplane) or the rubber side down(if you're on a bike). I plan to do both Wednesday night when I fly to College Station to ride at Lake Bryan with Patrick. Sounds like fun.

Ridiculously Awesome™ Day

I had one of the best days ever yesterday. It was preceeded the night before with a slab of Texas Roadhouse ribs when my brother James came over from Baytown for my week late birthday dinner. So that wasn't really in the Ridiculously Awesome™ Day but it should be noted.
So my day started off with fresh homemade waffles. I love waffles. My birthday was last weekend, and Raine got me a waffle maker. I love my waffle maker. I got out of bed and made waffles for breakfast for Raine and I before going to church.
We headed off for "early"(9:30, not really so early) service at church which was good, we haven't been to church in three weeks because of bike races. Then we headed back home and got dressed for a bike ride.
We rolled out on the road bikes and met Clare and Adam for a ride at George Bush Park. We got in 30 miles or so for the day before arriving back home. I pulled the girls along for a couple of intervals, I was sitting straight up to get the most for my money and give them a good draft to sit in. They held on up to 28mph or so on one, they really liked that. And I was really proud of Raine.
After I got home, I ate some leftover steak I had grilled Friday night. It was still good.
I then headed out to the airport on my bike. I had planned on going flying, but I had forgotten to call ahead to get the plane pulled out early enough. The Commemorative Air Force was having their plane show and fly-in that day, which happened right in front of our hangar. They couldn't get the plane out in time, so I just hung around and took pictures of the cool WWII aircraft and watched a few fly. I took some pictures and videos, they're posted here. I didn't know Picasa supported videos, that's cool.
So next up was my small group meeting. I love my small group. I have Ridiculously Awesome™ people like Patrick and JT in my small group. We had a great time and some great discussion, and we also all agreed to read through the bible in 90 days. What a challenge this will be, and I expect it to be life changing as well.
After small group and to finish off my Ridiculously Awesome™ Day, I went up for a late evening flight. I cruised around the West part of town with the power pulled back and at about 1000'AGL(above ground level) seeing what I could see and watching the sunset fade. I flew a loop around George Bush Park, then I went and flew a few circles around JT and Abby's house and then the Flick's. I flew out to Brookshire and watched the sun paint the clouds their last shades of pink and purple, I wish Patrick had been with me, I know he could have gotten some awesome pictures. Then it was back home for a night landing to end the day.

What a Ridiculously Awesome™ Day.

Ridiculously Awesome™ is copyrighted, any use without the express written consent of the originator and copyright holder is strictly forbidden, punishable by penalty of law and a good noogie.

Bicycles & Burritos, Airplanes & Pain, Flowerbeds & Friends

Interestingly enough, none of the above pairs are actually pairs. They're all just things that have been going on in the last week. In fact, there are triplets, a pair, and a loner.

We'll start with the loner: flowerbeds. Since we bought our house, we haven't done much improvements to the exterior. We still haven't put down grass on the sides and backyard, and we didn't have much of a flower bed. Raine and her mom and grandma had done some work to the flowerbed last year, but it never really took. The soil was just not good for plants, and they planted at the wrong time of the year. So we decided to redo it this spring in the hope that it would take this time. So we started by mixing some organic matter into the soil to better support the plants. Then we planted three roses, some Salvia(?), and a few small flowers. We also put in a soaker hose to keep the bed nice and moist. We topped it all with some mulch, and it actually looks pretty good. I really hope it will stay looking good, as Raine really likes it and it also really improves the looks of the house: curb appeal, that is. Maybe a pretty flowerbed will make it easier to sell when we decide to evacuate this flat swampland, who knows?(pic to come)

Next up, the dynamic duo: bicycles and pain. After all the setbacks I've come across this season(road race wreck, grandfather sick and passing, etc.) it has been less than ideal. I am just now starting my high intensity training stuff, where you envelope yourself in pain to acclimate yourself to the pace required in a race. I was talking about this with Raine the other day, and she said "I don't get you people. Pain is not gain." This was my response:

"Pain is gain. How do you figure it's not? Ok, well you're actually right it's not the pain that's the gain, it's the recovery part that's where the gain comes from. But you have to have the pain first. But there is a certain enjoyment(to me) of going out and pushing yourself to the limits if for no other reason than to get back to the house in time to see a stupid TV show. It's euphoric. You just have to get into it to feel it. It can't be explained."

It's true that sometimes I don't feel like getting on my bike and pushing to my limits, but I know that I have to. But once I get out there and get started, I don't want to stop. In this case, hurting is good. The pain truly is euphoric. That's what those doods who hang themselves by meat hooks in their backs say, too, but I really think this is different.

And finally, the trifecta: airplanes, burritos, and friends. Towards the end of March I still had some hours to use from my plane "lease" so I took a few mid-week evening flights. Monday night I flew from home over to Eagle Lake, then up to Brenham, then back home. Had a good flight, beautiful day with smooth air and good landings. Then Wednesday night, I flew to College Station with Brandon as my copilot for dinner. Patrick picked us up and they took me for a tour of the A&M campus, then we dropped into Freebird's where Jon met us for dinner. All these guys are Aggies who are in my church small group. We are all either newly(relatively) or nearly married. It's a great group and we all get along great and have a great time. We ate our burritos and told war stories, then we went to Jon's place and watched a "The Office" episode. Namely, Conflict Resolution. Then it was back to the airport for the flight back to Houston. We were bucking a headwind down low, but the ceilings were only about 2800 feet, so we just had to ride it out. Still only took about 45 minutes, though.

So that completes the list. It's now April, which means I'm almost another year older(April 12th if you didn't know, hint hint). It also means the heaviest period of racing is upon us, with three weekends of this month occupied, and two sets of back to back races with only one weekend between the sets. Hopefully I'll have good stories to tell about those races that do not include vomit. And as always, I'll have good pictures of myself. SEE YA!!

Spring Series Intro

Well, I'm two races into my planned seven race run at the TMBRA Spring State Championship Series. Unfortunately, things haven't gotten off to the start I was hoping for. I have lots of excuses I could make for why I'm outta shape, but none of them can cover the fact that I just didn't work hard enough. So I'll take what I get and try to keep improving each race, that's positive thinking.

The first race for me was the Bar-H bash in St. Joe, TX, which is up north of Dallas almost to the OK line. This was actually the second race of the series, but I didn't make it to the first one due to the 12+ hour drive and the fact that it coincided with our annual attendance at the Houston Supercross. This was also to be Raine's first ever MTB race!! Raine and Claire(new team member) and I departed Houston Sat. morning in the new Subaru. We got there that afternoon and did a preride lap of the course. I tried to help the girls learn some stuff about climbing technical hills and riding drops while we were out. We were camping out that night and unfortunately, the wind blew hard and gusty all night long, flapping the tent incessantly, resulting in me getting pretty much no sleep. My race was at 9AM, so I had to pop out of bed and get in race mode early, ready or not.

During my warm up I could tell this wasn't going to go well, as my heart rate was sky high and any power I normally possess was non-existant. I tried to get off the line slowly and down the long start hill as gingerly as I could to hopefully warm up a little bit before hitting the singletrack and turning uphill and into the wind. But the day was not my day. I hit the singletrack in sixth I think and went all backwards from there. I had zero power and zero energy. I pulled over about 20 minutes into the race and stood on the side of the trail puking for 5 minutes. This dropped me to dead last in my class, back to 26th place. After this I did feel a little bit better and was able to move my way back up to 17th position by the end. This was definitely not the start I was looking for, and felt like my season was ruined. I sulked home and tried to put in some good effort over the next two weeks leading up to the next race at Cameron Park in Waco.

Waco was a little better to me, although I did puke again. I took a slow start off the line again and resolved to stay steady throughout the race and work my way forward. I battled through the first lap with a couple of guys who had smoked me two weeks before, so I knew this was going better. As I came around to start the second lap, that familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach reared its ugly head and I started puking again. I tried to keep moving and puked twice off the side of my bike on the roll, and then finally had to pull over and get rid of the rest of it. This only cost me a minute or two sitting still, but I know it cost me more than that in the big picture. After you puke and there's nothing left in your stomach you're just not the same. It actually feels a little better afterwards, but there's just nothing there to pull from. I rode as hard as I could for the second lap with whatever strength and willpower I had left to a 9th/28 finish.


I now sit 13th in the overall standings for the series, and hopefully with the work I've been doing I can keep posting top-ten results and move myself further up for a decent overall finish. I have my heart and mind set on upgrading to Expert starting in the Fall, so this is my shot to achieve a good overall result in the state championship series. I had set my goal as winning the overall title, but that came crashing down pretty early. I'm just gonna keep my head up and try to do as well as I can the rest of the way. I still have to earn my Expert upgrade with two top-five finishes, which is a good goal in itself.

John Neilson, 1921-2008

My grandfather passed away today. He made it to his 87th birthday last Friday before losing his battle with cancer. I don't know how to feel, I don't know what to say or what to do. I can only hope that being there for my dad will be enough comfort for him. I will be a pallbearer in his funeral Thursday, that will be a first for me. We will have to go through Easter without him, only made worse by the fact that we have just begun to spend holidays with him over the last few years. I hardly knew him, but I will miss him dearly. I wish we'd spent more time together. I guess it hasn't really sunk in yet, even though I knew it was coming I still picture him lying there in his bed sleeping or maybe talking to me a little. The best memories I will keep were when he came to my parents house at Christmas less than three months ago. He drove himself there, opened gifts with us, and he was totally capable and able to stand outside and visit and take pictures with us. But now he's gone. Miss you Gran'daddy.

Catching up.

It's been a month since I posted last, sorry about that. It happens, though. I have been busy, and I have a lot to write about, so here goes. The weekend after my last post was the supercross race in Houston. My parents and little brother came down, and went with Raine, James, and me to the race. We had a great time, got to see Kevin Windham take the win for the first time. The next day, I finally got a chance to take John flying. We flew across town through the I-10 corridor, then down towards Galveston and around the Hobby class-B airspace and back up to IWS. That was his first flight in several years that I know of, he really enjoyed it and it was real special for me.
The next weekend, I got some good riding in with a trip to Rocky Hill Ranch and 3 hrs on the mtb on Sat. and an intense solo road ride on Sunday.
The next weekend was my first race of the season, Bar-H, which I'll write about in a different post.
Sorry this post is kinda sparse, I had to get it down as I have other things to write about by now.

Time Machine

That's what my airplane is to me. It gives me extra time in a day to get places and get things done. I flew my brother and I to LA this weekend to see our grandfather. What is normally a four hour drive one-way took us less than an hour and a half in the plane. After we got to the airport, the parents picked us up and we all went to lunch. After lunch we went to see Granddaddy. He was doing well, in good spirits and pretty talkative. We had a good visit, then went down to his house to look through some of his things. He loved woodworking, and he had a lot of cool stuff around his house he had made. He wanted us to have something, so I picked out a cool biplane wall hanger.

We went back to visit with him for just a little while, but soon we had to head back. The parents drove us back to the airport and off we went into the wild blue yonder. We buzzed Granddaddy's house because I told him we would, even though I doubt he heard us, then we climbed to 6500 feet and cruised back over East TX at 150mph on a beautiful afternoon.We went up and came back and did all that stuff in about 7.5 hours. That's less than the amount of time it would have taken to drive there, walk in the front door and say hello, and then immediately get back in the car and drive home. That's why it's a time machine.

I also got some miles in this weekend on the road bike, I did the Sugar Cycles Shop Ride Sat. morning. I wound up going on the long route all the way to Angleton with three other guys, we did 64 miles in three hours flat. It was a good fast ride and a great workout. I am feeling good about my fitness with my first MTB race three weeks away.

Roadie Racing

After being a hard-core, hairy-legged, roadie-bashing mt. biker for my first few years of calling myself a cyclist, I have undergone a transition over the last couple of years. It all started when James Ramsaur at Lincoln Parish Park where I worked through part of my college career loaned me an old road bike somebody had dumped on him a few years before. It was probably an early '80s model, and it was too small, but it rolled. I began to enjoy the occasional road ride, going out for hours at a time covering the beautiful countryside around Ruston.

After moving to Houston and realizing the mt. bike riding here was not as convenient as it was in Ruston, and Raine getting interested in road riding and us getting the bug to ride in the Hotter 'n Hell Hundred, we bought our first road bikes. A Trek 1500 for me and a Trek 1000 for Raine. We rode around the paved bayou trails here in Houston for a while and then drove to Wichita Falls for the '06 HHH. I set off to do my first century(100mi ride) and Raine went on her first real solo ride looking for 25 miles. Raine made her full distance and I was so proud of her. My 100 mile attempt was foiled, however, when they shut down the "Hell's Gate" cut off an hour and a half early and I got there only an hour before the published cut-off! Missed it by 30 minutes. So I was forced to take the shortcut back along with a lot of other riders and finished with 75 miles for the day.

After the HHH we continued riding our road bikes together and I used mine for my primary training tool for MTB racing. Throughout all the '07 series most of my miles came on my road bike. As I had started racing for a Specialized dealer the Trek had to go. I swapped the components off my bike onto a Specialized frame and had a sort of new bike! It has continued to evolve from that point as I get more miles on it and get more comfortable on it. I also began to join the Sugar Cycles shop rides on Sat. mornings, getting comfortable riding with others in pace lines and packs. I was a fast guy on these rides but definitely not nearly the fastest. This was the extent of my roadieness for a while, just solo training rides, rides with Raine, and shop rides. I was still a hard-core, hairy-legged, mt. biker just without so much of the roadie bashing part.

Then came the Tour of New Braunfels. My shop's cat 5 team was down a man, so they asked me to pitch in and help out. I had no idea what to expect, and whether or not I would even be able to stay with the pack. My mt. bike season didn't start for another month so I wasn't getting into race shape yet, but I figured I would give it a try. We were all hyped up about the race, making big plans and talking strategy. The Thursday before the race I even gave in to the pressure and shaved my legs! We arrived in New Braunfels and hit the road on the neutral roll out, and all our planning and strategizing was out the window. We weren't all riding together, we were separated from the start, some of us jumped on the front when they weren't supposed to, etc. Eventually our field of 50 starters was whittled down to around 25 still in the lead pack, and true to statistics 3 of our 6 team members were off the back. But surprisingly, I wasn't one of those 3!! I had managed to ride smart the whole time, and didn't have much trouble staying with the pack. I did chase down a couple of breaks, and even attacked once on my own half way through the last lap, so it wasn't like I was sucking wheel the whole time.

As the pack approached the finish I was sitting somewhere about midpack, not as far forward as I should have been and definitely not organized with my remaining two teammates for a lead out. A couple hundred yards away from the line some guy a couple riders ahead of me made a bonehead move and went down, taking a few other riders with him: one of which was me. I hit a downed rider at 25+ mph and to the tarmac I went. I got the breath severely knocked out of me after impacting the stem and a pretty good road rash all the way down my right side. My front wheel was broken and my chain was wrapped all up in my back wheel. Once I got my breath back I fixed my bike enough so I could pedal to the line and I rode in. Everybody who responded to the wreck expected me to want a sag vehicle to carry me back but I told them "I don't quit." Other than the wreck, I really enjoyed the race. It was a good fitness test/indicator and I felt good afterwards. I can see myself doing more road races in the future, but MTB will still be my #1.

So now roadie-bashing and hairy-legged are out the window, but I still plan on being a hard-core mt. biker. And as they say, but it's never been more important to me: keep the rubber side down.

LA Trip

We drove up to LA this weekend to spend some time with the family. Grandaddy wasn't doing well, and Raine had an aunt coming in from NC, so the weekend was to see them. We left Friday about noon and drove to Logansport to see Granddaddy. He was having a bad day, but we still got to visit with him for a while. Afterwards, we had dinner with John, Velda and James. Then we drove on to Ruston to Raine's parents house.

Saturday morning we got up early and got on the road bikes in the 35 deg. temps and damp roads. We rode around our old college campus for a bit, brought back the memories. Luke(little bro) met us in town and then we headed out for some hills. We rode a loop North of town and then back to the house to drop Raine off at the end of an hour and 13 miles or so. Luke and I rode to the other side of town and he headed back home as he had to work, and I took off alone. I rode a loop down to the South side of town and then back to the house. I finished up with 30 miles and 2 hours. Raine rode well on the hills, she's still getting her lungs back after being sick for a while and is learning how to deal with her asthma, too. See the whole ride here.











Saturday night I got drug to the Monroe Mardi Gras Parade, what fun that was. We visited with Raine's grandpa and his wife for a while, it was good to see them. Then off to suffer at the parade standing around in the cold. The highlight of my night was getting in a shouting match and almost coming to fists with a drunk kid who tripped over my feet. That was great. Unfortunately a policeman stepped in before I got to do the world a favor and ruin his night. Had a binge on some fried catfish at Scott's restaurant and then headed back to the house.

Sunday morning I woke up and headed out to Lincoln Parish Park for some mountain bike riding. It was 35 deg. and foggy. I did a pretty easy lap the first go round and finished in an hour. I headed out for my second lap and got almost four miles in when my chain exploded. :( Oh well, so much for my 20-mile day(and glad I didn't ride to the park like I'd planned). I hiked out and drove back to the house. I absolutely chowed down on some Johnny's Pizza then we packed up and hit the road back towards Houston.

We stopped to see Grandaddy again on the way back through. He's staying at my aunt Amy's house now, and when I first walked in I saw Amy in her recliner and I looked over at Granddaddy's hospital bed and it was empty. Gave me quite a shock, I feared the worst after seeing him Friday. Fortunately, he was asleep in the recliner right in front of me buried under the blankets and I just hadn't seen him! We had a good visit, he was much more talkative and I even got him laughing a few times, telling him we'd gone out and rode bicycles in the 35 deg. morning. It was good to get a good visit and see him in a little better spirits. James stopped in and visited for a while, then we all hit the road back to Houston. We stopped at Chili's in Lufkin for dinner, and then went our separate ways.

It was a good weekend with some riding and family visiting. And as an added bonus, even loaded down and with bikes hanging off the back, our new car got 26.67 mpg on the way home Sunday!! That's almost double what we would have gotten in the Xterra. It's already proving itself as the right way to go.

A different kind of hurting than I usually write about.

I don't really know what I'm saying here, I just needed to write about this.

As I sit here "working", my grandfather lay dying in LA. I never really knew my dad's dad. I remember my mom taking us to visit him occasionally when I was young, but I never really got to know him. Him and my dad never got along, so we weren't that close to him. In the past several years, they have made an effort to mend their relationship, and I've gotten to visit with Granddaddy a few times and see him at Christmas and Thanksgiving. But I don't really know him. What will I tell my kids about their great-grandfather? I know he liked to fish, he liked houseboats, he liked woodworking, and he drove Dodge trucks like their grandfather. But I don't really know any stories about him. Was he in the Army? I think so, that would be a good story to share, if I knew it to share.

My dad and I will do better. My children will know their grandparents and their family's history.

He will be my last grandparent to go. I'll soon be "one generation's length away from fighting life out on my own."-John Mayer

New Car

Raine and I decided to get a new vehicle to replace the Xterra. I loved that truck, but it was just killing us on the gas mileage. 90% of the time it was being driven back and forth to work getting about 13.5 mpg. Also, doing all the traveling back and forth to the races getting 14.5 mpg was totally unacceptable. Taking Raine's car to get the good mpg wasn't really an option as I didn't want to put it through all that, it's too nice a car for that. So we started shopping for cars/SUVs with comparable interior room to the Xterra, that were also capable of doing a bit of light off-roading when needed to reach those remote race sites. Emphasis on light, I can't remember the last time I really needed the full off-road capability of the Xterra(did I ever?). Just dirt roads, grassy field parking areas, etc. After searching we settled on a Subaru Forester. The Forester has a 2.5L four-cylinder engine, and claims to get 20city/27hwy mpg. It has interior room comparable to a Rav4 or CR-V, but sits lower to the ground and edges them out in gas mileage. It still has 8+ inches of ground clearance, however, and the symmetrical all-wheel drive enables it to be pretty formidable in low traction situations like snow, mud, and wet roads or grass. I like the way it drives, it's actually a sporty handling vehicle that still has tons of interior room(big enough to put a 29er inside). I have heard that the gas mileage claims are accurate, the folks at www.subaruforester.org were pretty helpful in providing info and helping me decide on the car.

So the day after we got it we were already putting it to work with a bike trip to Huntsville State Park. We met Lisa H. there and we all rode a lap together. Afterwards Lisa and I turned out a semi fast fun lap. She was riding well, I know why she's an Expert!!! It was so nice knowing while we were buzzing down the interstate on the way home, we were getting 25+ mpg(allowance for the bikes and rack on the back). Here's a picture from after we got home.

Excruciating? You bet.

A few weekends ago, I rode the Talon Trails Excruciation Exam. I'm just now finding the energy to write about it. Sorry about that. The race was an 85 mile trail/road/dirt road odyssey through the beginnings of the TX hill country. Raine(the Wife) and I drove over to Bluff Creek Ranch, Warda, TX, the night before the race and set up camp. To bed we went, and I had trouble sleeping knowing what was staring me in the face the coming morning.

We were up before sunrise, getting registered was the first priority. With that taken care of(not without a hang-up or two) I hustled back to camp to get ready. Put the bike together, air in the tires, get food and drink together for the ride, get my jersey pockets filled up, Raine's cooking me breakfast, and before I know it and before I'm ready they're calling for the pre-race meeting. I hustled up to finish, ran to the meeting, and threw some food down as fast as I could, but not enough I know. The meeting was over, and we headed over to the start area.

I had no intentions or illusions of making this a race, I was just there for the miles. The start was Le Mans style, maybe 40 yards to a tree and then around it and back to the bike. I jogged pretty slowly, wanting to make sure that everyone who would be riding seriously would be in front of me. On the first Warda lap I rode with a few other friends for a bit, then passed up to Shaun Taylor. I finished the lap with him and then hit the road. I took it pretty slow on the road, as I was gonna wait on team Acci-Dent to catch up. A couple of friends I worked with on the South TX Death Ride last year caught up and I pacelined with them for a while, then decided to hang back and wait some more. Hit the first checkpoint where Raine was volunteering, and boy it would have been easy to quit there. I was soaking wet from riding through thick fog for an hour and a half, she was there with the truck, dry clothes, and my dog. But I kept going on down the road. I got to Rocky Hill and Dent still hadn't caught up so I decided to go on out to keep moving. The lap at Rocky Hill was neat, I'd never ridden some of that back stuff, it was pretty cool. Then of course we had to ride Y-kNot, all I could think was "why, why, why?" Back to the bottom and I headed out on the road back to Warda. I left with another rider who had dropped me pretty good on the road from BCR to RHR, but I had caught and passed him towards the end of RHR and put a few minutes on him before the end of the trail. He was in my class, and it was at this point that I started thinking, hey, I could at least beat somebody. We chit-chatted out on the road a good bit, I figured out he was a roadie and could probably drop me if he wanted on the road. But I also knew judging by the way I passed him at RHR if we got back to BCR together I could take him. We got to the last checkpoint where Raine was waiting on me again and she told me that Dent's bike had exploded on him before he even finished the first lap at BCR. So off we went to BCR, and the other rider never tried anything. He let me go into the singletrack first, and I wasn't really feeling like trying anything either. I just held a steady pace, but it turned out I dropped him pretty quickly. Once I figured out he was gone, I ramped it up a bit to make sure he stayed back there. I wound up putting five minutes on him in that three mile section.

I finished in 7:11, probably could have been a fair bit faster if I hadn't spent so much time waiting for Dent to catch up. But the time didn't matter to me really, I enjoyed the all day ride. On the way back to BCR, my arms were just totally toast. I could barely sit normal on the bike. Once I hit the singletrack back at BCR, every bump I hit felt like the fork was locked out. My wrist was the worst, still very, very tender for a couple days. That washboard road really did a number on it. Thank goodness I had the bigwheels to smooth it out some.

So that caps off my third mt. bike endurance event: Ouachita Challenge '06, South Texas Death Ride '07, and Excruciation Exam '08. They're all miserable, long, and challenging; but in the end extremely satisfying.