255 Miles of Single Speed Insanity

Yep - that's right I put in a total of 255 miles on single speed bikes this past weekend. Most of that mileage was done as part of a competitive 24-hr race in Spokane put on by Round and Round. In the past I have done this race as part of a 5-person team on a geared bike, but this year for some insane reason I decided to do the event solo on my single speed. The end result of the race for me was 4th place after riding 210 miles with a total ride time of 17-hr 54-min during the 24-hr period in adverse weather conditions. The other 6+ hours were spent mostly on letting my very upset stomach right itself on 2 occasions. I figured out the part of my nutrition plan that was causing my puky feelings after the 2nd near trail-side puke and excluded the product. After that I was riding well again turning consistent lap times. Rain was a factor at times since it turned parts of the course into a fun mud-yuk slip-n-slide...perfect for a single speed (hard on all those poor geared bikes).

This event was only a trial for me so that I would know if this kind of mountain bike race was for me and to find out if my nutrition plan would hold up. I learned that junk food (potato chips and Coke) are saving graces for me when my body is trying to violently up-chuck at the thought of anything labeled as a "sport" or "endurance" nutrition.

I went to this race totally unsupported and ended up with more people helping me than you could imagine. Twice in the early morning I had hot pancakes waiting for me at the end of a lap - the people at this event were totally awesome.

In the end the ouch factor is not as bad as I thought it would be after I was done. My butt suffered on this rock-infested, bumpy course - that means my ass hurts. My hands suffered a bit also, but not bad. Nothing was bad though since I went for a "recovery" ride with some good friends from Sandpoint the following day - for some reason we had to ride the course again, but at a "leisurely" pace (on a SS that means nearly normal pace). This recovery ride along with 2-preride laps on Friday and the race gave me a total of 255-miles on the SS this weekend.

You think this is insane? I'm looking for another 24-hr race to do this summer (maybe this time on a geared bike).

The Insanity of 2 Single-Speeds

I made my Gary Fisher Supercal into a single speed (that means it has only one gear) bike last night. It's super light and ready to fly...well as fast as a single speed will fly that is.
But, wait that means I now have 2 single speed bikes...hmmmm
What's up with that??? I know nothing, I'm not telling, you'll just have to wait and find out...although I do not think you will suffer nearly as much as I will over this insane scheme I'm working on. Hahahaaahaaaaa....

Baloo

Baloo is a one of my favorite blue colored Disney characters...like how many blue Disney characters are there??? I don't know and don't care all I know is that Baloo is famous to me for singing a song about the Bear Necessities...a song that never seems to leave my twisted mind.

The bear necessities for me includes bikes - lots of bikes, never enough, always looking, highly obsessed with a bike addiction that I can't turn off. Please, would someone turn it off! I change (buy-sell) bikes faster than a Chameleon changes color... I freely admit I have a cyclogical disorder, but I can say that the SeanMan is much worse than I am about going through bikes so there is still hope for me. My obsession is mostly with 29er mountain bikes unlike the SeanMan who has a generalized bike habit.

Recently Baloo "showed" up in my bear necessities bike collection... That's all you get to see for now...there's nothing else to say here except how can one person ride four (as in 1, 2, 3, 4) mountain bikes??? SeanMan you got an answer to this?

Deer Flats

OK so it's been a while since my last post...I've been busy doing things...you know - like riding my bikes! I've been putting in some sweet longer rides - my favorite thing to do when I have time away from school or whatever. Mountain bike rides are a giga-zillion times better than (yawn) road rides, but then again after a few rides on my road bikes I am reminded of why mountain biking sooooooo much better. But wait...I admit I like road riding (gasp!)...but only when the road goes verticle.

Today I decided to ride my oh so cool Gary Fisher Supercal (that means 29er mountain bike to you and it means a fun ride to me - Thanks Gary for making this bike for me). Today's destination was to a place called Deer Flats - actually it was a total accident that I arrived there after taking a wrong turn. To get there it's about 40 miles on the dirt (riding the bike of course - only a real dork-o would drive) with an elevation gain of about 3800 feet. Deer Flats is adjacent to Anatone Butte overlooking the Grande Ronde valley (a 3000 foot drop) with the snow covered peaks of the Blues in the background - breathtaking and worth every mistaken pedal stroke to get there.

The odd thing is that Deer Flats is not flat and although deer were there they were not on a flat - figure that one out??? The wrong-way was mostly clear of snow, but I did find some near the top (which those of us that ride mountain bike know is just more fun added to the adventure at hand)...I almost feel bad that road-toads never get to experience this much fun.

This is about the smallest of 10 or so patches of pure snowy, mud-yuk fun!

Looking NW

And finally looking SW over the Grande Ronde Valley

Embrace the Wind!

While some whimper, whine, and snivel about riding into headwinds I typically embrace it. I have found a few others out there that are as odd as I am. For example there's one insane Iowa boy, Jeff Kerkove (that's Mr. 24 to you) who thinks it's a fun time to time trial for 70 miles or more into the wind - talk about ouch! He's not the only Iowa nut that rides into the wind for a fun training session - did you see Iowan Jason McCartney (Team Discovery) smokin the field in the recent Tour de Georgia? He commented that wind training in Iowa is good.

Just to show my love for Washington wind on Saturday I did a 60-mile sprint ride (that means fast and often painful) with 30 miles of it into a 15mph head wind (that means even more painful if you want to do it fast - uh what does slow mean again?) and the ending 30 into crossing headwinds. The hard part is finding distraction from the pain while maintaining good pedaling technique - hmmm

Whoa where did that distracting image come from? How about something bike related...

Stupid car just about hit me...Grrr!!!

Think happy thoughts (and I will fly)....

Nice! (The "Twisted Shifters" - my buddies from last year's 24-hr race - Thanks guys!) Now how about some motivating happy thoughts....

Yeah, baby now that's what I'm talking about...the spoils of fitness...

60 miles later in 2hr 50min...what wind? The next day the Dos Niner ran a 42 mile sprint ride on the local backroads into more "training" winds. Embrace the winds with a smile.

Single Speed Cloverland Loop

Took my way-cool Fisher Rig Single Speed on a sprint ride today around my 40+ mile Cloverland Loop (the same one I did last Sunday (04/09) on my Supercal). Well I can tell all that the SS (that means single speed to you) was not quite as fast, but fast on a SS is almost a paradox. Even so I was only 10-minutes slower on the SS vs. the gearie (that means geared bike to you). Maybe if I'd quit looking at all that beautiful scenery up there (you know the stuff a few local road toads call ugly and boring) and concentrate on riding faster, then I'm rather sure I would have made the same time...

Some of the locals guarding the hilltop... The 1000' decent in 1-mile...with Asotin Cr. and Lick Cr. drainages in the background...zoom, zoom!
One more thing, I've been catching some crap (that means pure negative shit) from a local road toad about my blog...here's a message to you that don't like what I write here...Don't read this, don't look here, go away and keep your negative crap to yourself! And if you become too full of yourself (as in full of your own negative crap) then go somewhere else to explode! There I'm done ranting...

Waiting Out the Rain

While out on a "short" ride I kind of got "stuck" on the dryish side of a line of squalls that were dumping the rain-of-life into the Valley-of-Hell. I got a few drops, but 50 yards down the trail was a wall of rain and a mud fest...I rode on the dry side until there was a break in the storms then slid down the hill and made it home before the next dump from Heaven...
The Salsa was a bit hot today - just the way I like it...
Looks tasty doesn't it?

Sprints and more

I did another bad thing by going to B&L Bicycles to look at (drool all over) everything. Well some how a new set of carbon cranks just jumped onto my new Trek Pilot......oh they are so soft and smooth. I just can't seem to understand how things like that happen everytime I go there. I have a very bad bike addiction I know and B&L is helping me with it-thanks guys!

I have been trying to ride on good days so I am sneaking in a few nice rides between school work. Since it's spring I decided to restart one of my favorite kind of rides...I call them sprint rides (the SeanMan remembers these I'm sure). In short it is a fast paced ride that focuses only on speed or getting there as fast as I can (mileage is for weenies, time is everything). Of course wind can make a sprint ride into a force/power ride in a hurry. So on Friday, a spectacular day, I jumped on the Pilot for an 85-mile sprint to Wawawai, up to Pullman and back around to Clarkston. I call this ride the Steve Largent Trail of Tears ride because everytime he rides this route he snivels about how boring the incredibly scenic landscape along the Snake River canyon is. I arrived at the Wawawai grade (30 miles) in a smooth 1:12 (the winds were really swirling down along the Snake River - I got everything from headwinds, crosswinds and yes even some butt pushing breezes - not to be confused with the jet propulsion of a good fart). Heading up the long Wawawai grade is where my ride went from a sprint to a pure power workout and remained a power ride for 50 miles...yes I had a smokin headwind going up hill and nearly all the way home. I made a pitt stop a B&L Bicycles for water and found (no not more bike parts) a slice of the SeanMan's Pizza waiting for me - Thanks SeanMan I really needed that. The ride was history after 4:30 in the saddle and yes the wind kicked my butt. The good news is that I was still feeling quite comfy on the new Pilot - truly a sweet riding machine. I wonder what a Madone would ride like?

Today I thought another sprint ride was in order to break in my newly rebuilt White Brothers fork... ...truly a sweet riding fork. The planned route today was climbing up Cloverland Grade--> Cloverland-->Campbell Grade down (1000' in 1-mile = steep!)-->down Asotin Creek and home. Overall it's an easy MTB cruise at just over 40-miles. Here's a pic from Cloverland Grade looking over into George Creek (another nice climb out of the valley)... My sprint was delayed a few times by some heavy winds on top, but other wise 40-miles passed with a ride time of 2:20 - not bad on a full knobby MTB, but nowhere near a record in my book. I wonder how fast I can do this on my single speed...hmmm...Anyone want to go with me and try?

Another adventurous week

The week started on Sunday with the Devil's Slide MTB Race, in which I rode like a slug aboard my Salsa Dos Niner. Long after the race was over I decided to look up my results from last year and found that I rode the course 1.5 minutes per lap faster on my Gary Fisher single-speed the previous year...hmmm and I really thought about riding the SS this year again. Lessons learned I guess or maybe the lesson is being fat and sassy or the lack of training due to school or my allergies...blah, blah, blah...excuses never change things. Some of the guys that helped with the race put out a cool little video (click here to see it). I spent the remainder of the week agonizing (riding the dog out of it) over whether or not to buy a Trek Pilot from my favorite bike shop, B&L Bicycles.

The Pilot rides like no other bike I've been on...it's not a racer, but it is incredibly smooth on the roughest roads which means less fatigue - especially on long rides. In the past, after 3-4 hrs on my roadbike I was typically ready to stop and throw it in the ditch never to be ridden again. I think the ride of the Pilot will give me a few added hours of time in the saddle before I get this feeling. It comes with a 10-speed drivetrain (which I think is nothing more than a Shimano conspiracy) that I am still trying to get use to. I put a few "test" miles on the Pilot this week (like, cough...287 miles) on the worst, roughest roads I could find. The Pilot rode ever so smoothly on the worst chip-seal I knew of. I would take my Kestrel on the same roads for comparison only to find that I instantly wanted off the rough road. This comparison is what convinced me the Pilot was worth it. Yes, my fat butt likes some cush which I know will let me ride longer with less fatigue. A word of advise: Don't ever test ride a carbon Pilot unless you're ready for the sweetest ride ever and ready to pay for it! Yes, it's that good.

Yesterday I spent some time at B&L goofing around and the SeanMan made me buy a new jacket (it was on sale of course)...Thanks Sean the jacket got a good workout in the rain this morning and I'm happy to say it was nice to have it and worth every penny you said it would be.