Zero Carbon Footprint

Not a single strand of carbon fiber.  If  Jon at Sabrosa or Tony at Pereira were mass producing bikes in Taiwan I imagine they’d look something like the All-City Nature Boy.

Internal cable routing, integrated seat post collar and sexy drop-outs will now be mandatory features on all my future bikes.  The lugged fork  and head tube badge are unexpected bonus details.

 

You get a lot of cool stuff for about as much coin as a fancy carbon crankset.  And, most importantly, I find myself looking for any excuse to take it out for a ride.

The only niggle to all the swag: it’s heavy.  I don’t really want to know how much it weighs.  Admittedly, I only notice the weight when hefting it up and down 3 flights of stairs every time I go for a ride, which, seems like several times a day now.

Available at your NBS (Neighborhood Bike Shop) in my case, the awesome crew at Roscoe Village Bicycles.

5-Mile Pass Race Report

I’m happy to report that I didn’t race. How can I report on such an event when I didn’t even go? Easy. It woulda sucked.

After RAWROD I returned home to a nasty case of bronchitis and immediately put 5-Mile on hold. Coupled with a mild case of Lacrosse it was the perfect race to miss and a no brainer. Initially, I was a little bummed because I love the sufferfest that 5-mile is. It always hurts. Bad. I’m pretty sure it’s the longest race of the Intermountain Cup and its relatively early in the season.

After reading some of the reports I was glad I got bronchitis this week. Yes, happy to be sick with a nice rest week after RAWROD.

And, it would have cost about $1 per minute to race with the shortened course. I could get a massage for $1 a minute and not get muddy.

I took the race off and then time trialed Suncrest today. 19:30 on the button and only minimal vomit in my mouth and blood in my ears at the top. Hurt like a bitch.

Brad Is In Da House

I’m typing in my tighty whitey’s on the floor of my hotel room in the Delaware Hotel.  My Roommates are Elden, BobbyB and CapnBill.  We are all very calm and relaxed.  The nerves are residing in room 208 where Rick S. is trying really hard to get to sleep.  I wish him well.

I got out on my mountain bicycle for the first time in a couple weeks today and felt like Tigger, bouncy trouncy fun fun fun fun.  I hope I feel that way at mile 70 tomorrow but I won’t. Instead I will feel like a flaming sack of poop.  Please someone step on me.

I will give my all tomorrow because I am better than I think I am and I will now write a limerick in honor of tomorrow’s race.

There once was a man named Ken Chlouber
Who was heard to say over and over
Fatcyclist will win
again and again
Clearly poor Ken was not sober

Soldier Hollow ICUP #5

Seriously, Tasha needs to find a new mechanic. Jamie? I guess that’s what she gets for racing a bike I just built up the day before.

She found herself out front again, feeling good on the new Vassago Bandersnatch when the chain jams after a rapid shift. Dead stop. Not one but 2 racers, one out of the race with a broken chain and the other just wanting to help, stopped to see what they could do. They ended up having to take the wheel off and finally got her rolling again after a few minutes. I think that may be against the rules. Good thing Ed wasn’t around to DQ her.

It happened twice and I take full responsibility AGAIN. Turns out the Bandersnatch has longer chainstays than her old 26er and when I built it up I measured the chain off the old bike to get a length for the new build. Chan was way too short.

Live and learn and maybe fire your mechanic. She ended up 5th. Sorry!

The only excuse I have for my race is that I completely missed my mouth with the GU and ended up smearing some of it all over my face before stopping to root around in the dirt for any precious globs that dripped off my chin. I still had another lap to go, you would have done the same thing.

I’m going with calling Soldier Hollow my taper race for ICUP #6 in Draper next week. Yep, that’s what it was as I came in 5th. Bob won in convincing fashion but what he doesn’t know yet is that Soldier Hollow was his peak for the year.

Soldier Hollow was my first race and only my second ride on the Jabberwocky, isn’t it lovely. My initial impression of the bike is that after only 3 hours of ride time it feels like i’ve been riding it for years. Love it! It has some cool features that I’ll go into in another post that I think are pure genius.

On another note, Kenny didn’t die of a nose bleed like I thought he would and was the first person to finish the Kokopelli Trail Race on Saturday. Congrats! Sorry, I missed it but I’ll be there next year for sure.

RAWROD Day 2

As I was suffering up the switchbacks on Friday I was thinking that I just wanted to go home and that no way am I doing this again tomorrow. I don’t care what kind of heckling I have to endure. Maybe I’ll just ramble around camp all day clipping my toenails and waiting for everyone or go float down the river. Anything but getting back on that stupid damn dork bike again.

Of course, I changed my mind as soon as everyone started showing up that night bringing excitement and nervous energy to camp. Most importantly, I certainly didn’t want to miss out on being witness to any of the suffering that I knew would take place.

Here’s Mark Warner already in the fetal position at the half way point.

Surprisingly, there seemed to be very little suffering or people were just really good at hiding it.

That’s the longest tongue I’ve ever seen.

The highlight of the day for me was riding with and watching Eric complete his first RAWROD. The dude has never been on a bike for longer than 2 hours in his life and he did it on a rigid bike no less. Sorry, no props for the single speed because we all know its the easy way out but way to go bro! I also really dig the Highland Games kit you were sporting. Is that a kilt?

I don’t think I saw a single person finish who didn’t have a smile plastered on their face. Of course, how could you not smile when someone hands you a brew?

Even BotchedExperiment Dan was grinning or is he gritting his his teeth to keep the vomit in? He is looking a little pasty.

Friday was hard and not very enjoyable but it was incredibly satisfying. I ate nothing but gels and blocks. Saturday was just a total blast and I ate nothing but cookies, licorice and lots of mooched food. I loved every minute of it except for about 8 min at mile 80ish when I decided that I had had enough of sitting on a bike seat and pedaling in circles. Kenny and I had a cold brew at the top of Hardscrabble and I immediately felt better.

So much better that I began thinking that the back to back RAWROD should become a tradition. Who’s in?

I took a lot pictures of people climbing Murphy’s and at the top of Horse Thief. Help yourself.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/79867483@N00/sets/72157604797371145

White Rim TT

What’s better than riding around the White Rim in one day? Not many things.

Chris put the bee in my bonnet about time trialing the White Rim and Adam suggested we try it the day before Kenny’s annual RAWROD.

Somehow I found myself committed to ride the White Rim in one day on two consecutive days. This could possibly be one of the few things better than riding the White Rim in one day or it could end up being something much worse.

I got out of bed Friday morning at 3:50 a.m. I can’t believe it either. I met Kenny at his house and we headed out in the FnJ. Getting up that early apparently doesn’t agree with my stomach and I’m afraid Kenny will be reminded of that every time he gets in his car for the next week, possibly month.

We picked up Adam at the gas station by the Canyonlands exit North of Moab and headed out to the top of the Horse Thief swithcbacks. This is where everyone would camp that night for Saturdays RAWROD and the begining point of our ride on Friday.

Our plan was to ride in a clockwise direction and finish right where we started.

The three of us were together for about 35-40 miles when Kenny decided he needed to get moving. He was the mouse and I was the cat for the next 60 miles. I was stopping to pee every 5 miles or so and he would motor off, I would then try to catch him for the next 15 minutes and we would ride together until I had to pee again. Yes, I was well hydrated, so well hydrated that at mile 65 my camelback was empty.

The pace was such that I always felt like I was on the verge of a blow up. Luckily, it didn’t’ happen until the bottom of Horse Thief which came at about mile 98. The previous 10 miles I could tell that either Kenny was suffering or he was saving up for the climb up Horse Thief. I was feeling really good at the time and couldn’t wait to hit the climb.

I was just ahead of him at the bottom of the climb at mile 98 and the moment we turned to start climbing I was finished, kaput, done. I thought for sure I was going to have to walk. We were together most of the climb and I kept waiting for him to stop so I could stop too. Much to my disappointment he just kept going. I was miserable, any harder and I would have vomited.

He crested a couple bike lengths ahead of me and both of us finished in 7:39.

No way was I doing it again on Saturday.  More on that later and lots of pictures.

Binge and Purge

Lynda Wallenfells calls it binge training but somehow forgot to mention the purge part. Day one is over and I’m not sure I can take part in day 2. I’m beat up. She also calls it Camp Lynda which makes it sound like we are going to have punch and cookies and maybe play lawn darts. We had no punch and cookies and we didn’t play lawn darts.

I think there were about 22-24 riders that left the parking lot this morning but I only saw around 10-12 at the finish. I’m sure some guys are still on the trail as I write this. A couple casualties sidelined 2 riders right away with what was described to me as a compound fracture of a finger for one and some broken ribs for another.
Let’s just say I was the slow guy and leave it at that. Okay, I won’t leave it at that. I was very humbled today. Everyone put the hurt on me and made me feel like a total beginner. At the half-way point I was so exhausted I couldn’t clip out of my pedals and just fell over. I can’t believe I’ll probably get up tomorrow and do it again. Here are a few pics from today. I stole a few from Adam Lisonbee and a few from Dave Harris but of course I snapped the best ones.

I noticed that a lot of these endurance bikers eat some really weird stuff. I don’t know what they were eating but I do know that I would have to be seriously bonked to consider putting it in my mouth.  Which is to say, I tried some.

56 miles and about 6200 feet of climbing In 6.5 hours total time.