I Can’t Decide

I have two choices for racing this weekend.  Of course, the Southern Classic Series is still in full swing, and there is a race this Sunday.  It’s down in Clemson, SC, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.  I raced there last year, and didn’t really enjoy it.  I guess the fact that it was like three hours away didn’t help that fact, but even if it was closer I’m not sure if I would do it.

So, I have another option…

Yeah, the Tree Shaker is this Saturday.  I’ve done it before, but things are a little different this year.  First of all, it’s been changed form a six and twelve hour race to a four and eight hour.  Also, it’s not in October like usual, so it will be much, much hotter out there.  I wasn’t really considering it, but since I’m not racing Sunday…

I’m thinking about going out there and “racing” for eight hours solo, which shouldn’t be too bad (since I’ve done twelve solo before.)  However, I’m thinking of upping the difficulty level a bit by bringing the single speed bike and actually racing in the single speed class.  It would be my first crack at endurance racing on the SS.

I talked to the MadSS to find out what he thought about it, and he was all for it.  As of now, he’s the only one registered in that class and probably just wants some company.  He tried to help me decide by telling me that we could drink beer afterwards, but I can do that without even having to race.  The next thing he said might have gotten me off the fence though:

“A fun day in the sun suffering like a dog on a SS, nothing could be better.”

Is he right?  I don’t know.  I think he’s crazy, but he’s actually the one that put this whole single speed idea in my head in the first place.  Maybe misery loves company, or else he just wants someone in his class that he can lap several times on the nine mile course.

Maybe suffering for eight hours on a single speed is just what I need to help me get ready for Single Speed USA.

Should I do it?

Yes, I’m asking you because I can't make up my mind.

Tour de Triad

Yup, I played roadie for a day.  Saturday, Little Miss Sunshine headed up the road to Winston Salem so we could have our own grand tour with D-Wayne and Megan.  I wouldn’t normally get all excited about road riding, but some reason I knew this one was gonna be different.

We got to their house late in the morning and got all suited up.  We left outta the neighborhood and wound up on a local greenway.

The first stop was for breakfast at a local joint called the Screaming Rooster.  Cool little place with good food and great service.  Even though I do like to eat, I held back because I knew we had a shitload of riding to do after that.  I didn’t want to have to stop and “take a break” during the ride.  Anyway, after breakfast we rode a little further and hit stop number two:  a bike shop.

Mock Orange Bikes, which was a pretty cool shop.  They had a few vintage bikes in there to look at, and we chatted a bit before we got on our way again.  This time though, it would be a while before we stopped.  We took our asses all the way out to Lewisville to pay a visit to another bike shop, Cycletherapy. 

At one point during the ride, we found a tunnel that went under the road and we decided to check it out.

Photo cred:  Megan

It was all creepy inside, but it was a pretty cool way to avoid the traffic trying to cross the road.

 

Eventually, we headed for a coffee shop in Lewisville, The Coffee Mill.  Since I was pretty hot from riding, I opted for a coffee smoothie.  That was a first for me, and it was pretty damn good.  We sat around a bit shooting the shit and waiting for the caffeine to kick in before we got back out on the road.

The next leg of the trip was rough.  It was a long road with plenty of hills, but it was still fun as shit.  We stopped into another place, Ken’s Bike Shop, and hung out for a while.  I’d been there a few years ago, and it was fun just hanging out.

We also rode through the campus of Wake Forest:

And, rolled through downtown Winston Salem:

We eventually ended up in Old Salem, which was really cool.

I hadn’t been there in a few years, and this was the first time I went through there on a bike.  The view is much better on two wheels for sure.

We eventually made it back to their house, and headed out for some recovery beer and something to eat.  After over six hours in the saddle, I think we went over forty miles.  My phone died while we were riding, and at the time said we had gone thirty one miles.  It didn’t matter what the distance was or how much time we spent out there, because it was a helluva day.  I can’t believe I had so much fun riding a road bike.

I bet you never thought I would say such a thing.

Big thanks to Dwayne and Megan for being our tour guides, and we will definitely do that again.  In the meantime, I think it’s time to plan a similar event down here in Charlotte.  Hopefully they will have as much fun as we did.

Stay tuned for that adventure…coming to a city or town near you.

Dad’s Day

I had a pretty busy weekend, but I’ll start with yesterday since it’s still fresh in my mind. 

Yes, I’m a dad.  In fact, it’s the one thing I’m proud of more than anything.  I spend a lot of time with my son, and since he was a little guy we’ve pretty much done everything together.   When I asked him if it would be okay to do trail work for Father’s Day, he was all for it.

So, we headed up to Fisher Farm in Davidson to meet with the rest of the trail crew.

The weather was perfect, and we had a great turnout.  There was a ton of work to do, and we were actually building new trail.

Benching, digging, and other various forms of trail work later, we had a pretty decent amount of trail finished.

For some reason I stopped taking photos after that, but the fun continued.  After eating a ton of watermelon in the shade and talking about how much we accomplished, a few of us went for a ride.  The new section isn’t open yet, but the rest of the trail is still really fun.   

One lap at a decent pace after hours of trail work made me pretty damn hungry.  Lunchbox and I went out for lunch, and enjoyed the rest of our time together.  Big thanks to my boy for making all of my days as a Dad pretty cool.

The fun didn’t stop there though.  While I was on the trail digging in the dirt, I got a call from Dicky.  I thought he was finally gonna invite me to go for a ride with him, but it turns out that he called me for a more important reason.

There was a huge local sale on craft beer.

Apparently it started a few days before, but I had no idea.  Being a beer snob, I should probably have some kind of beer sale radar.  It’s a good thing that Dicky was my backup.

On the way back from lunch, I stopped by the store.  I picked up my usual, and saved a little bit of cash.

   

It was a good day to celebrate being a father.

Tomorrow, I’ll try to put together a recap from my Saturday adventure…

Rollin’ With My Posse

Sometimes you just gotta kick it old school.

Turns out that this weekend I probably won’t have any free time at all.  That’s a great thing, since I’ve shown over the last few days that I good at wasting time when I have it to waste.  What?  Exactly.

Tomorrow, I have a plan.  My pal D-Wayne and his special ladyfriend invited Little Miss Sunshine and I up to Winston Salem for a road ride.  I know what you’re thinking…I do hate road riding.  So, why the hell would I drive over an hour away to ride on the road when I don’t like to do it out of my own house?

Because D-Wayne is good people, and I can finally give this coupon I won a while back to someone that will use it.

I hear he likes donuts. 

From what I understand, it won’t be a “regular” road ride either.  There are pre-planned stops along the way, for things such as breakfast, ice cream, and shuffleboard.  We may even drink beer while we’re out there.  While getting all kitted up and having breakfast kinda makes me feel weird, I think it should be a fun day. 

I’m actually looking forward to it, mostly because I won’t end up wasting another Saturday.  I may have a tough time riding though, since I had a little accident last night.

I slipped while climbing over a wet root at the Whitewater Center last night, and fell pretty hard on my knee (I was still clipped in.)  While it may only look like a flesh wound, the real damage is to the bones in that area.  Right now it’s pretty swollen, and I’m having a difficult time walking.  I haven't crashed in quite some time, so I guess I was due.  I’ll have to tough it out though so I can play roadie tomorrow.

I had a good ride though.  I found a new section of trail out there that I’d heard about, and while it wasn’t difficult at all it sure was a shitload of fun.  It was an out and back trail, and the two-way traffic made it a little hairy.  Also, the trail abruptly ended because they are still working on it.

I ran into quite a few people I knew out there, and ended up riding the rest of the way out with my buddy Chad.  He kept me going when my leg was hurting like hell.  Luckily, I made it out alive so I could obtain some “medicine.”

Yes, beer is the cure for crashing (or the cause of it.)

Oh yeah, this Sunday is Father’s Day.  Since I am a dad, I plan on spending the day with my boy.  Our plan is to do some trail work up at Fisher Farm in Davidson, and taking a few laps around the trail after that.  It may sound like a strange way to spend such a holiday, but hanging out with my son is always fun no matter what we do.  Besides, we can feel better about ourselves by helping out on the trails we like to ride.

Maybe we can even squeeze some time in for trail work on Captain Jim Bob’s Space Adventure.

I really love spending time with my kid, and not just on Father’s Day.  I’m not the only one either.

It looks like I have plenty to do this weekend, and no time to waste time.

I like that.

I Need To Ride

But I still haven’t been back on the bike since my race on Sunday.  I’m not too worn out or anything like that, so there’s probably no excuse.  I almost went for a ride on Tuesday, but we've had a bout of rain around here lately.  That means that most of the trails are closed, so I decided to work on my own trail.

Yep, Captain Jim Bob’s Space Adventure got a little more love.

I somehow convinced Little Miss Sunshine to come out there with me, and it was her first time doing trail work there.  She’s ridden the first section a few times, but she hadn’t seen the new stuff yet.  Since we weren’t there for sightseeing, I put her to work with the loppers.

I cut quite a bit more trail, and actually made it to a pre-planned stopping point:  a natural rock garden.

This little collection of rocks with be fun to ride through, so I can’t wait to get past it so I can test it out.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to ride any of the new stuff, even though there’s enough to test ride.  It was getting late, and we had to do the dinner thing. 

I would have probably stayed out there into the night building trail, if it wasn’t for the little lady reminding me that we had to go home.  It’s probably a good thing I didn’t go out there on Saturday, huh?

In other news, the rear tire on my geared bike is still worn out. 

I’ve ridden on it for over a year now, which is actually pretty good for me.  Lots of miles have been put on that poor tire, and maybe that’s why I’m being a little extra loyal to it.  Sure, it’s caused me to slide around corners and off the trail on occasion, but I’m having a hard time parting with it…

Even though I have a brand new one waiting for its turn.

I’ve actually had enough free time, but as you may have learned yesterday I’m not very good at managing it.  Even my “training” isn’t really going as planned.

I have so much to do and plenty of time to do it, but I’m just being a slacker.  I guess tomorrow I’ll start planning to do something.

Or maybe I’ll put that off too.

I’m being way too lazy, especially in the middle of the season.  Maybe I need a break or something.

A Free Day

Last Saturday (the day before the Uwharrie race), I had a whole day to myself.  That doesn't happen to often, and I had no idea what to do.  When I went to bed Friday night (actually early Saturday morning since Lunchbox and I stayed up late watching movies), I had a list of things I wanted to do:

Take an early morning road ride (gasp)

Do some trail work at Captain Jim Bob’s Space Adventure

Change the worn out rear tire on my geared bike

Wash my truck and vacuum out the inside

Ride my bike somewhere to get lunch

When I woke up though, I didn’t feel so ambitious.  Although I got plenty of sleep, I was still tired as hell.  I fed the animals and thought about the things I wanted to do.  The big cat was relaxing after her breakfast, and I kinda felt like doing the same thing.

I ended up doing some laundry, which wasn’t originally on my list but still needed to be done.  I started thinking about having to race the next day, and that made me think I shouldn’t ride.  It also made me decide against trail work, since I didn’t want to be worn out on race day.

The rear tire on my bike would have to wait too, since I didn’t want to run into any issues with sealing it up and having a problem during my race.  After realizing that planning to race on a Sunday had fucked up my Saturday, I finally dragged my ass outside to wash my truck.

It was pretty dirty from, guess what, travelling to mountain bike races.  I got the outside all clean and shiny, and made my way to the interior.  It was a filthy mess, so I worked hard to make it good as new.  That took a lot longer than I expected, and at that point I had pissed away most of my day.  Shit.

I finally got out of the house, but that was only to buy some stuff to make for dinner.  I didn’t even touch any of my bikes, so I was a little bummed.  I guess it was nice to have a day to myself, but maybe next time I should make a little better use of my time.

So, why did I have all this free time?  Little Miss Sunshine was in the mountains for the Dirt Divas Spring Trip, and even though I was invited (they have Dirt Dudes that go) I declined.  The ladies were busy with their trail riding, pillow fights, enormous feasts, and dangerous whitewater rafting.

Whitewater rafting?

Dangerous?

Yeah.  Just have a look at this photo:

That’s Little Miss Sunshine on the left, and from the looks on their faces you'd think they were riding that thing off of Niagra Falls.  That’s some scary shit right there.

Another Dirt Diva, Linda, sent me a photo of the bus they rode when they were out there.  It had something to do with me I guess.

A B-43 bus.  Awesome.  I need to hire that thing to drive me to races.  Thanks Linda.

I could always use a transportation sponsor.

That way I can sit on my ass in style.

I Still Blame Bigfoot

I was on lap two and it hurt like hell

But that’s nothing new.

Doing short distances on local trails and then trying to race a twenty mile cross country event was pretty dumb, but then I remembered that I’m not really all that serious about this shit.  When I finished the first climb on lap two, I started screaming down the fast descents again.  This time though, I had quite a few “oh shit” moments.  That was probably because of my fatigue, but it was still fun as hell.  I was still in third place, and no one was close enough behind me to push my pace.  I slowed down a bit to try to make it through the rest of the race, and I saw another climb up ahead. 

Just then, I saw a guy lying down on the side of the trail.  I asked if he was okay, and he mumbled something about being tired.  I realized that it was the guy in second place I’d been chasing, so that lifted my spirits a bit.  I spun my way up the rest of the climb knowing that I was now in second, hoping that the next downhill section would come sooner than expected.  When it did, I gave it all I had.  It was over way too fast though, and I had to climb another steep hill.

I didn’t know how much longer I could keep it up.

Just before I got to the second section, a guy in my class I hadn’t seen since the start rolled up behind me.  He shouted, “Don’t quit now, Chris!” but I was already burning out.  We crossed a fire road and hit the next section, and my legs were starting to cramp.  I didn’t eat anything while I was out there (even though I took plenty of Honey Stinger products to the race), and I had almost finished the only water bottle I brought.  We came up on a downed tree on the trail, and I knew I couldn’t roll over it in my weakened condition. 

I dismounted to get by, and I got passed because he still had the legs to roll it.  I hurried back on my bike to catch up, but he had a pretty good lead on me.  I pushed as fast as I could on the mostly downhill section, and struggled on the few climbs.  I couldn’t wait for this shit to be over, but I gave everything I had to get myself back in second place.

When I started seeing spectators, I knew I was almost there.  I pushed it again, but never caught up.  I rolled up to the finish line, and my kid was waiting as usual.

I thought I ended up in third, but I found out later that someone had gone by from my class.  I never saw him, but being as tired as I was it didn’t surprise me.  Fourth place overall wasn’t too bad I guess, but having a shot at the middle of the podium and then pissing it away kinda made me upset.  While I’m not too serious about this shit, working my ass off out there and coming up short still bothered me a little bit.

Oh well.

I spent the rest of my time out there wandering around like a zombie.

I was tired, and the trails at Uwharrie had kicked my ass.  I suffered through twenty miles of climbing, fast descents, and cramps, and I still had fun for some reason.  I pushed my limits, and that’s another reason why I like racing.  I could never work so hard on my own.

Now I have a little bit of free time until the next race, which means I can start planning some dumb shit, er training.

We’ll see how that goes.