Ouachita Challenge, T-2 days

Tomorrow morning we're headed out to Oden, AR for the Ouachita Challenge. This will be my 5th time at this event since 2006, I have done the tour once and the race 3 times. (The tour is a non-competitive option on Saturday on a slightly easier course, the race is on Sunday) This is my big race every year, I really love the event. It's a ~60 mile course on the Ouachita and Womble trails in the Ouachita and Ozark mountain ranges. A fast 10 miles on dirt roads leads you to the Ouachita Trail, where you hit some nice sized climbs and rocky sections including Blowout Mountain. Next you transit a bit via another road section to the Womble trail. There are some nice climbs here too, but overall the trail is a bit more tame, flowy and fun. After finishing the Womble trail, there is a bit more road before the final climb that is a real kicker at over 7%. Once you pass this it's 5 miles to the finish, gravel/pavement and mostly downhill. The Ouachita Cycling Club does an awesome job putting it on, with dinners and breakfasts for the racers, nice shirts and great aid stations. I'm feeling ready, I've been training pretty well and consistently and I've got a great bike. I've been trying to break the 6hr mark for the last few years and have never been able to get it for various reasons, but I'm hoping this will be my year.

Last weekend I went out for one last big training ride. This was a great chance to check out my comfort on the bike, my nutrition strategy and my fitness. I'd done 3 hard days of intervals in the week leading up to it, but the ride went pretty well. I went to Huntsville State Park and did a 5hr ride, covering 57 miles. The ride was all trail. I felt ok most of the day, had a little downer at about the 3 hr mark but was able to keep a good pace and get back on top of it for the last hour or so. My body held up pretty well with the BMC keeping me comfortable and not getting too sore. The OC has a good bit of road mixed in, so this was a good test ride being all trail to really push myself where it's a bit flatter, since there will be bigger climbs at OC but the road sections will roll easier and be a chance for the body to recover a bit. The last time I did a ride this long was at the Miles of DisComfort marathon earlier this year, the duration was very similar. I fell apart a bit then, but last weekend I held together pretty well.

This week I've been getting the bike cleaned and tuned up well to be sure everything is ready for the race. I've only put 230 miles on it so far, but I feel pretty confident in the equipment. I've been using Stan's NoTubes rims for the last several years, and feel very confident in them, so much so that I broke the beads on both tires last night to check and add sealant. Previously I've been pretty hesitant on doing that within a week of a big race, but they seal so well and I've never had any trouble with tires blowing off so I don't really worry about it anymore. The drivetrain is all SRAM X.0, the 10 speed is new to me but it's been good so far. I've been using the 9 speed kit for 3 years and it's been perfect. I think I'm still getting used to the bike from a riding and handling perspective, though. I felt pretty good on it during the big ride last weekend, no fit issues came up so I feel like that will be fine.

Last night I went out for a little spin to keep the legs moving and make sure the bike was good to go. I played around a bit, doing jumps and wheelies and stuff just for fun. I felt good and fresh, with a few efforts just to test the legs. I'm excited about the weekend and the weather is looking great. I can't wait to line up Sunday morning with 250 others for a great day on the bike. I may get a post in this weekend, but look for the race report early next week. Wish me luck!

Solavaca Race Report

This past weekend was the Solavaca Cat Claw Classic, round 4 of the TMBRA spring series. I'd never been to this course, but heard good things about it so I was looking forward to the weekend. Raine was hostessing a baby shower for a friend Sunday so she and Ben stayed home. Raine's mom came down to stay for the weekend while I was gone, so that was helpful and I was thankful she wouldn't be home by herself. Richard and I pulled out Saturday morning headed to Glen Rose. We arrived about noon and kitted up, then headed out for a pre-ride with my teammates Adam & Clare. We did two laps, trying to learn the course well as we were both hoping for good results on Sunday. The course was really fun, mostly fast singletrack, some rocks, some really tight sections, and a mile or so of technical riding in and out of a creek. We finished up and headed back to town to our shady hotel, then grabbed some dinner and turned in relatively early. My race was at 8:30 so it was going to be an early morning.

I woke up and drove around to find some breakfast, I ended up at a little donut shop with some breakfast tacos and my usual orange juice. Decent breakfast, then it was off to the ranch. I warmed up a bit, then headed to the line. There were 13 of us this week, I got a call-up to the front row with the top 10 as I'm currently in 10th overall in the series. I tried to start more reasonably this week, hanging about 2/3rds of the way back through the group. I felt comfortable with the pace, but I eventually started to fade. This was disappointing, but thankfully it wasn't a huge blow-up like at Mellow Johnny's, just a more gradual fade. I fell back to nearly last place in my group through the rest of the lap. Normally my glasses are fine throughout the race, but about 2/3rds of the way through lap 1 they started getting sweat on the lenses and I couldn't see anything. I had to take them off and then every time I went through a creek or muddy spot I got something in my eye. This was pretty unfortunate and annoying, but I'm sure it didn't really cost me the race or anything. As the race went on I started feeling a little better and was able to pick the pace back up. Through the second half of the race I passed 3 or 4 guys in my class to make my way back up to 8th at the finish.

There was one big climb on the course with a few nice ledges at the top. I only cleared it on the second lap, I'm still figuring out steep, loose climbing on the BMC.

I ripped the big downhill on the last lap, nearly a minute faster than lap 1 when I was with a group.

The full lap segment times on Strava don't seem to correspond with what actually happened, could be due to the really twisty course and the fact that it passed very close to the start point a few minutes later. I made a segment of the last 1.3 miles through the technical section along the creek that gives a good indicator of how I was going at the end of each lap: 1. 8:17, 2. 8:20, 3. 8:04. On the last lap I was riding strong and that was my best effort on the day.

I was happy with the way I finished the race, but still have to get my starts figured out better. I think maybe I need more warm-up? I seem to roll pretty well once I get going, just takes me a while to get there and over that slump after the start. Like a big diesel. There is a positive side though, with my big race coming up in two weeks, the Ouachita Challenge, I'm feeling like my endurance is good as I seem to be riding strong through the race. Hopefully I can slow things down a little and stretch it out for 6 hours and have a good race.

17 days and counting

17 days until the Ouachita Challenge. It's getting down to crunch time, with only about a week and a half left to make any real fitness gains before a few days of rest to lead up to the race. I've been trying to stay diligent with my training, getting in long rides when possible and putting some structure to my weekday rides. I've been getting about 3 rides in per week, averaging about 80 miles and 5hr 45mins total per week. This isn't much, but at least I've been consistent. Since my last post, I've had some pretty decent rides. Last Thursday I got some trail time on the Anthills. I set 3 Strava KOMs (best overall times on a segment), one for a full out and back lap direction, the other 2 for each one way direction. I felt pretty good from both a fitness and trail riding perspective on the new BMC.

Saturday it was pretty rainy, but I tried to sneak in a road ride during a break in the weather in the afternoon. My plan was to ride towards the rain, and when it started getting wet I'd turn around. Things seemed to be going according to plan, I rode out with dry roads and no rain, it started sprinkling a little and the roads started getting wet, but when I turned around I wound up riding right into rain that was with me most all the way home. I pulled up soaking wet but still got a good couple of hours in.

Sunday morning we got some huge rain, and it hung around on and off the rest of the day. I convinced Richard to do a workout, and decided we'd do some trainer/roller work in the garage to stay dry. While we were trying to get set up, his bike wasn't fitting in the trainer very well and then the drive band on the rollers broke so that ruined our plans. It wasn't raining at the time so we decided to try to get some intervals done on the road. We weren't even out of the driveway and it started sprinkling. We kept riding for a couple of minutes and it kept sprinkling. We soon realized neither of us were dressed for this and would likely get sick, so we turned around back to the garage to give that a second try. I found the trainer skewer so he was set, then I had the great idea to cut up a road tube to use to drive the rollers. It worked perfectly so we were back on. We did some intervals out of The Time Crunched Cyclist, 3 x 8min steady state intervals with 5mins rest between intervals.

Tuesday after work, we hooked the trailer up to Raine's bike, Ben jumped in and we all rode down to the Y. I left Raine and Ben there to walk on the treadmill (Raine) and play (Ben) and I went out to do some intervals. The workout for the day was similar to Sunday, except I was doing 3 x 10min steady state intervals with 6mins rest between intervals. These were hard but I felt pretty good. The second was into a stiff headwind the WHOLE time so it was good climbing simulation. If I could have worked it out I would have set them all up to be headwind intervals but I had to manage my time so they were mixed.

Tonight I'll get another interval session, then this weekend we're headed up to Solavaca Ranch for the Cat Claw Classic, round 4 of the TMBRA TX XC Mountain Bike State Championship Series. I'm hoping to see the work on the bike pay off with continued improvement in my results. I'd like to get a solid top 10 finish after finishing 10th at the last race.

Last night Raine and I got to go on a date, that was very nice to have a quiet night out and just hang out together. We grabbed some yummy mexican food at Chuy's then capped off our night with a visit to Home Depot. Fun times!

Segment Analysis

I've mentioned before how cool Strava is, being able to compare historical times over segments you've ridden before. I found a new application for it after this weekends race. I picked out a couple of key sections of the trail (climbs and descents) and compared my time through those segments for each lap. The results are below, and matched my perception of the race. Segments in order through the trail are on the left, laps are across the top. Times highlighted in green were my best efforts of the day, yellow were 2nd, and red are worst.

2012 Mellow Johnny's Classic segment comparison

Just like I suspected, I went out too hard at the beginning, and accordingly set my best times on the segments early in the lap. I then blew up about halfway through, and the end of lap 1 was my worst of the day. This was also my worst full lap of the day. Early in lap 2 I was still recovering, and had my worst results of the day on the early segments. I started recovering about halfway through the race, the end of lap 2 was getting better and I set my fastest time on the last climb. Lap 3 I was much more consistent, not having my worst time on any segment and setting my personal best on 2 segments when I was really in chase mode picking off riders who'd passed me earlier. I got held up in a technical section on the final climb by a downed rider, I suspect without this I'd have closely matched or beaten my effort up the climb on the lap before. I certainly would've set my fastest lap of the day without the interruption.

This example serves as great reinforcement of the importance of pacing yourself. If I hadn't gone out so hard, I wouldn't have wasted so much time recovering from blowing up and would've undoubtedly had a better finishing time overall. It might seem important to stay with the leaders through the early part of the race and not be stuck in traffic, but whenever you blow up you will lose all the ground you earned and then some. Know how hard you can go for the duration of the race and stick to that pace, that will produce your best possible result.

Mellow Johnny's Classic 2012 Race Report

This past weekend was the Mellow Johnny's Classic race at Flat Creek Crossing Ranch. This was previously a regular TMBRA venue, but I never got a chance to race it as it was taken out of the schedule just a year or so before I arrived in TX. We went up Friday night and checked out the pre-race party at Mellow Johnny's bike shop where there were several pros doing a Q&A session. It's a cool scene but we didn't stay too long as we had Ben with us and it was nearly bedtime. We stayed at a hotel in Austin that night, then drove over Saturday morning to the race venue. We missed Richard's start but I did get to see him cross the line in a strong 5th place finish. Then Ben did the kids' cup. He had a great time, he's really learning to ride his bike a lot better. He coasted quite a long ways down a sloping downhill, then was able to ride all the way up the big hill to the finish. I was super proud.

Ben on the kids' cup course.

The UCI Pro races were up next, with the women having the first start. We watched them through the start/finish area, it was cool to see them going at it. The pro men were off next, this was the show I'd been waiting to see. One of my favorites Geoff Kabush took the holeshot with Specialized guys Max Plaxton and Todd Wells hot on his heels. They gapped the rest of the field pretty good, then Plaxton attacked on the 4th of 5 laps and got a gap on Kabush. Plaxton and Wells took 1st & 3rd, with Kabush having a very solid ride in 2nd place. Looks like he's loving riding the 29er.

After the pro races were over I took a preride of the course with my new teammate Chris and another friend Don. The course was a lot of fun, very rocky, lots of ledges, several drops and some steep climbing. I thought it'd be a decent course for me with the technical aspects but knew the climbing would give me trouble. I haven't been getting much hill training or intensity so far this year, just trying to get long rides and build a good base for Ouachita. Saturday night we stayed in Johnson City, about 20 minutes from the race venue. We had mexican for dinner with some friends then headed back to the hotel. I wound up sleeping in the bed with Ben, which ended up being him sleeping while punching and kicking me all night, and me not sleeping much.

Sunday morning we got to the race in plenty of time to take it easy getting ready to race. While hanging around before the race, I saw Chris who'd just taken the win in the Cat. 2/3 SS race. Looks like he was a good pickup for the team! I warmed up a little, some of which consisted of riding around with Ben, and then riding the start loop a few times.

Warming up with Ben.

I went and lined up with 18 in my class, being out of the top 10 I was on the 2nd row for the start. My plan was to go hard off the start and try to be with the lead group into the singletrack. When the gun went off the guy next to me stuck his bars into mine so we were tangled up for a second and I wasn't able to get a great start. I made a pass or two before the first singletrack, and then managed to pass two more on the gravel road section right before the end of the start loop. This probably put me about mid-pack. I was riding decently and staying with the group, but I was going pretty hard to do so. About halfway through the first lap I blew up pretty badly and faded hard all the way back to the tail end of the group. This wasn't completely unexpected, as I said before I haven't been doing any intensity so far this year, but I was still disappointed. I kept moving as best I could but the rest of this lap and the first half of lap 2 were pretty much a disaster. About halfway through lap 2 I started feeling better and ramping up the pace. I was able to push pretty hard from then to the finish, passing several guys in my category before the end. I got passed by a couple of the 30-39 front runners, but towards the end of the race I was able to match their pace pretty well and even drop some of them after they got close. This was a welcome indicator that I was riding strong. I managed to make my way back to 10th place only about 7 minutes behind the winner. This was an improvement over Warda, so hopefully we can keep this trend going. I have to give a special thanks to Raine for being in the feedzone for me every lap and the perfect handups, all while keeping up with Ben running around. I couldn't have done it without her.

The BMC was a great bike for this course with all the rocks and ledges, the suspension combined with the big wheels really kept me rolling smoothly. I found myself wishing for a lighter bike on the climbs, but overall I'm positive the bike has me going faster than I was on my hardtail. Perhaps most importantly, at the end of the race I didn't feel completely trashed. My legs were cooked but the rest of me was in much better shape which I think helped me go faster throughout the race. Can't say thanks enough to my guys at Sugar Cycles for this sweet ride.

A small ledge out on the course.

After my race we loaded up and drove next door to Pedernales Falls State Park. We hiked down to the falls and showed Ben the rocks and waterfalls. He had fun, but was more interested in throwing rocks in the water than anything else. Raine and I have been there once before, when Ben was just 3 months old, but he stayed home with grandma. Raine did pretty good hiking down to the falls, especially being 20 weeks pregnant! We changed our minds on hiking to the second set of falls and decided to head on home as we were all pretty tired. Overall it was a great weekend together with lots of fun stuff going on.

Ben checking out the falls.

Ben and Raine walking the rocks.

BMC Speedfox SF29: more feedback

I finally got the BMC on the scale yesterday, weight was 26lbs 7oz as pictured previously. This is about what I was expecting, but a bit more than I was hoping. Doing some looking around this morning I discovered that the bike isn't that far off on weight compared to others, even carbon frames. I found actual weights of Epic Expert Carbon 29er and Jet9 RDO, and when pedals and cages are added they would be 25lbs 15oz and 26lbs 5oz each. So the aluminum frame BMC isn't looking too bad after all. I know of at least a half pound I can take off without doing anything too extreme, so we'll see where it ends up. I would like to save some weight but I don't plan to use any super lightweight/fragile parts, and I probably won't upgrade the drivetrain much. Cassette and brake rotors are first items that I'm thinking about, just standard stuff but will save me a half pound combined, and rotational weight at that.

I had to switch to a setback seatpost and while I was at it I got to weigh a few parts which gave me some insight into the game of shaving grams and manufacturers "claimed" weights. The seatpost I took off was an Easton EC70 Zero, 31.6x400mm. The claimed weight is 225g, the actual weight was 236g. That's not a terrible overage, about 4.9%. There was also an Easton EC90 Zero, 31.6x400mm that I weighed, it came in at 234g vs. the claimed weight of 190g. This is a 23% overage! It's especially alarming that this post was only 2g lighter than the same sized EC70, when they carry pricetags of $210 and $140 each. The new seatpost is a Thomson Elite setback aluminum model. This is the only post I could find that would be long enough (410mm) with setback to get my saddle in the right spot. Thomson provides individual weights for all their different size stems and posts, so I suspected that the claimed weight would be much truer to actual. Sure enough, the claimed weight was 247g, and the actual weight on the scale was 242g. I doubt you'll find anybody complaining about a part being lighter than claimed! Also worth noting is that the post was only 6g heavier than the carbon post it replaced. Thomson makes good stuff, and this reinforces my opinion of them.

Last night I got a couple more hours of singletrack on the bike at the Anthills trails. It continues to impress. There are lots of really rooty sections out there where the hardtail would really get hung up and lose a lot of momentum, but the BMC carries through them much better. There are also some big drops and nasty steep downs that were doable on the ht but had to be given a lot more respect (line choice and braking). The suspension allowed me to carry much more speed down them. There are also some pretty steep short climbs out there to contend with, where traction is critical and proper weight distribution will determine whether you make it up or not. This is an area where I'm usually pretty good, having cleaned lots of climbs on my hardtail where others will bobble. I made it up most of the tough spots last night, but I still feel like I have a little more learning to do on figuring out how this bike responds and how the rear suspension affects things. This usually comes down to rider skill and their instinct for traction and weight distribution, but every bike is a little different and takes a little getting used to before you really feel it. Being a bit "disconnected" from the rear wheel is the biggest difference I'm feeling, where the feedback from the ht is instant and you have precise control, the full suspension is doing its own thing a bit more. This is usually a good thing as the rear wheel will follow the terrain much better and roll over obstacles on the climb, but I feel like it takes a little bit of control out of your hands when you're so accustomed to being very precise with your back wheel.