“The Crown Jewel of the New Mexico Endurance Series”

Wow. What a rough day. Incredible trails, don’t get me wrong, but in the end, it was just a little much for what I was prepared for last saturday.

I knew there would be a lot of climbing, with an elevation profile like this:

I also knew that I had been a bit sick the week before, and so I wasn’t in tip-top form for the race. Despite these obvious obstacles, I rolled out friday afternoon, and arrived in Santa Fe at a somewhat reasonable hour on friday (for once).

Raney and I made it up early on saturday, filled the guts with coffee, the backpacks with food, and the bottles with water and headed down to the Second Street Brewery to meet the rest of the crew. People started filtering in, and by the time all was said and done, we had a nice round 40 people start the event and everyone rolled out.

Immediately the hike-a-bike started. We hiked, we pedaled, we repeated. I was definitely not feeling on my game, but kept pushing through all the on-again off-again pedaling nonetheless.

Was the 34×17 gearing a bad idea? Probably. Would I have walked any less? Doubtful.

We took a couple breaks to rest the feet, feed the belly and enjoy the scenery.

The climbing continued, and we pushed onwards towards the top of santa fe snow basin. It was a long morning, and I kept looking at the GPS thinking “Have we really only gone _____ miles?” the whole time.

Finally, at 6 hours into the ride, we hit the top of the radio towers at the snow basin and (thought) that the climbing was over for a bit. At 6 hours, you would think that we would be a good bit into the 65 mile total. Alas, the gps read 28 miles and 7500 feet of climbing. No wonder it was taking so long.

Mike mentioned that there was a good overlook after the next little section of trail, and so we pushed onwards from the towers to make it to the overlook before a lunch of hard salami, banana chips, and fig newtons (which, by the way, was an amazing lunch).

Just for good measure, there was a bit more hike-a-bike before lunch (we headed to the top of this peak).

The extra mile or so ended up being worth every bit for our lunchtime view.

We started the long descent back to lower country after that, and although it was downhill, we didn’t make up a whole lot of time. Several sections of trail, although exciting, looked more like a talus field than a discernible trail. We both went down a couple times, once resulting in a near miss with a barbed wire fence for me, and once resulting in mike knocking the wind out of himself.

Again, the trail would have been pretty sweet, and an great technical challenge, but in the current condition that we were both in, and the number of hours down on the bike already, it was somewhat of a fight for survival for the first part of the descent.

The second portion of the descent yielded a bit and we started to enjoy some incredibly fun, flowy trails an some spectacular views yet again.

Unfortunately, by the time we got to the bottom of the major descent, we were staring down the barrel of another several thousand feet of climbing, and about 15 more miles of riding. Sitting at 8 hours, we decided to pull the plug and take the road back up and over from the bottom of Rio En Medio. The beer was calling, and our legs were screaming.

We rolled back into town just under 9 hours, with 9,000 feet of climbing and 52 miles under our belts. I’m a bit disappointed that I pulled the plug, but at the same time, I think it was the right decision, especially since my sickness came back with a bit of a vengeance this week and I’ve only been on the bike to commute to work yesterday since then.

Congrats to the 17 who finished it, including Jonny Fox who did it on a singlespeed (in just under 12 hours, ouch!), and the 2009 winner, Brad Hunt who busted it out in 8:45. That’s a pretty incredible time. Full results are up here.

Nice work to everyone who came out for it, and I can’t wait to get back to santa fe to ride some of those killer trails again, maybe with an easier gear….

for the weekend.

I’m laying in bed in santa fe, and probably should be sleeping, because I’m getting up early for the SFBFL 6:30 start tomorrow morning with Raney.

But, instead, I am checking my email and oogling over J-money’s new ride and thought y’all might be interested in the next Sendero to roll off the line (sorry about the picture size, this is what I was sent, I’ll put some bigger ones up if jeremy sends them):

I’ll bet that boy is gonna be riding a lot in the next few days, but then again, who wouldn’t be with a bike like that?

Great ride, great weekend.

As I mentioned last week, I participated in the first version of the newest PNT cycling event this weekend. The official name was iCABRA which is spanish for “The Goat” but also stands for “Canyon And Back Race Adventure”.

The concept was initially that you were to load up your camping gear on the bike, group ride out to the south rim, camp and be merry saturday night (3 kegs and a lot of BBQ worth of merry), and then race back on sunday.

As I am new to bikepacking, I started brainstorming some plans for light and fast packing, and was planning on doing something similar to chad in that I had a compression stuffsack strapped under the seat, and had the rest of the gear in a backpack. I attached the gear to the bike friday morning before work, and utilized the dirt commute to test it out. Unfortunately, the stuffsack kept hitting my legs and swinging out of control. Immediately, the merits of something like an Epic Designs or Carosel underseat bag became apparant.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) one of my favorite things to do, as many of you know, is to go whole-hog and put something together myself to accomplish the same mission. So, I pulled out the sewing machine, carved out a foam spacer, bent a small aluminum stay, and put in a couple hours of designing and sewing what would soon become a ’stuff sack condom’.

It actually worked out really well. It was super-solid under the seat, didn’t hit my legs, and only had one somewhat catastrophic malfunction where I lost the sleeping bag for a few moments on an incredibly rocky downhill at high speeds.

So, I packed up my gear saturday morning and headed down to pay n take to meet the other 20-some crazy folks for the neutral roll-out.

We rolled out, went through the Ft. Valley Trails, up 164B and up snowbowl to the aspen corner to catch the arizona trail. All the usual suspects were there, including the Dirty Sanchez with a cross bike. He was quick to point out that even though it was a cross bike, it did have a 1-inch suspension fork on it. I heard something later that day about numb hands, and it doesn’t suprise me at all.

We had a great time out to the aid station at mile 45 where we were greeted by Mr. Bednar and a heaping helping of Fajitas. Now that’s what I call an aid station. Fajitas and beer.

The second half of the ride was pretty exclusively forest roads, and the miles ticked by with a nice steady pace. Being the only singlespeeder, I got dropped about 10 miles into this section, pulled out the headphones and got lost in my own head for a while. It was nice to just cruise without too much regard for pushing hard or going super-fast. I even had time to snap a couple pics. The last one is for Chad, because I know how much he loves self-portraits on the bike.

I actually ended up catching back up to the group for a bit after they took a little break, got dropped again, and rolled in right around 8hrs and 45 min for a 90 mile ride. The grand total on climbing was about 5200 feet.

As people trickled in to the 10-X campground group site, the beer started flowing, and the grill was cranking. There was plenty of food, plenty of beer, and a nice big bonfire. I, unfortunately, didn’t get too many pics of the evening, as I was too busy indulging, but I’m sure you can paint a nice picture in your head.

The next morning burritos and coffee got everyone moving, and we started packing up camp. Like I said before, the plan was to race back on sunday, but the general motivation was low for another 90 miles on the bike in what was now sure to be hellish headwinds and brutal sun.

As everyone trickled back towards flagstaff, Timmy started bending my ear about the moto trails on the Hochderffer hills. As we weren’t up for another long day of spinning in the saddle, we jumped on Drew’s modded schoolbus and got dropped off at the north end of 151, about 20 miles up 180 from flagstaff. We recruited Corey the Angry Hippie, J-money Millionaire, and Aaron the Delivery Boy, and the 5 of us rolled out for an awesome ride on some killer singletrack.

It was a nice mellow ride with lots of stops, lots of hanging out, and lots of fun trails. We made our way back up towards the stage coach trail back to baderville and started discussing who was going to get the trophy that Scott had gotten for the event.

I made what seemed like the only appropriate suggestion for deciding a winner and it was immediately agreed upon by the group:
The sunday race was a 26 mile neutral start to Pay N Take, and the race winner would be decided by the first one to the bottom of a glass of beer at the bar.

With the motivation of pizza and beer at Pay N Take urging us onward, we jumped on 180, and set up a nice little paceline on the way back.

We rolled into downtown flag after 26 miles, 3000 feet of climbing, and 3.5 hours of good times on the bike to a group of folks waiting to see who won. We relayed the plan, Anthony poured up 5 glasses of Sunshine Wheat, and we bellyed up to the bar.

From the moment I had suggested the chugging contest, I knew I had given away the prize. In fact, I knew at that point that I had set myself securely in DFL running, as I am one of the most pathetic beer chuggers on the planet. However, that knowledge did allow me to simply drink a beer and watch the amazement that is Corey the Angry Hippie and his amazing talent of consumption.

Note that in this picture, he had time to chug the beer, set it on the counter, and put his arms up before another beer was down. Timmy and Aaron battled it out for second, but the moment Corey stepped into the bar with that group, the fate of the trophy was sealed.

He is a man among men.

Unfortunately, I never got an actual picture of the trophy, which was a beautiful piece of custom glasswork, so if anyone has a nice pic, please shoot it my way, and I’ll get it up on the site.

Thanks to Scott for getting this together, and for all the other folks for pitching in for the support, the food, and the good times. It was a great event, and I couldn’t ask for much more out of a weekend.

Although I pulled several pics on this post, I have even more that I dumped in a gallery, so check the rest of the pics out here.

Three posts in three days? Am I feeling alright?

I don’t know about the posts, but I do know that I’m feeling just fine. In fact, I’m feeling a bit giddy.

The new bike build started over a month ago, and for the last month, it has basically just been a frame. A lovely, titanium frame.

But a little box of goodies showed up at my house yesterday from John Bon Benson with the first parts in it. Seems as though the bike part fairy came with a delivery from Chris King and FSA.

And thus it begins. The theme is carbon fiber and red for the build. The red hubs will be mated to black spokes, which will be screwed into red nipples on a set of black Mavic 819X rims when all is said and done. Obviously, there are a lot of parts still coming in, but by this time next week, I’ll probably be headed to bed with a new bike sitting by my side.

Yes, I’m not even joking, my bike will probably be in the bedroom with me. And no, I’m not even going to try and justify that fact, because it really needs no justification.

I spent the evening starting to put together plans for a little bikepacking excursion this weekend. It’s kinda been on the DL, as this is the first year Scott from PNT is working on a little race he’s calling the CABRA. I think it stands for “Canyon And Back RAce”. It’s gonna be a group MTB ride out to the south rim of the canyon on saturday and then a race back on sunday.

According to Scott, if we take the route he has in mind, it should be upwards of 95 miles each day.

And according to the current count of who is actually planning on riding back out of the ~20 who are riding out, I’m gonna be lonely on the way home. All I can hope for is that they save me some beer at Pay N Take for when I arrive, haggard and sore-assed, on sunday evening.

It’s been nice trying to put together my gear for the race. I’m trying to go with my sleeping stuff (bag and pad) strapped under my seat, and the rest in my Ergon Pack. I may try and rig something up on the handlebars too, mostly for snackage since I can’t really use my jersey pockets with the Ergon on, but we’ll see how that goes. Gonna load up and commute on the gunnar to work tomorrow with everything strapped on, so I can use it as a bit of a shakedown and so I can load up on food on the way home from work.

Gonna be an epic weekend.

For some updates this weekend, check out tRoy’s site to watch his journey live on GPS tracking (he’s gonna try to do the trip as a turn and burn to make it back for fathers day, so he should beat us all back on sunday by a good bit). Also, I’ll have my cell phone, and will probably be keeping up on my twitter feed occasionally over the weekend (which you can also see on facebook or on the sidebar to the right of this post).

Hope you all have something just as painful fun planned for the weekend.

Peace out.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not ALL about biking. So lets take a little peek into what else has been going on around the house.

But lets crack a beer first. Grab one out of your fridge, I’ll wait. I, personally, will be indulging in a Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale at the Pay N Take. I’ll just say that it’s in honor of my dear sister, who recently moved back to new zealand for what appears to be an indefinite vacation (which also happens to be where the hops in this delightful brew are from).

Speaking of beer, the latest batch of brew is in the secondary fermenter, conditioning as we speak. It’s a fairly traditional Kolsch-style ale, with a little bit of honey malt to add a little sweetness to an otherwise dry pilsner-type beer. For you beer geeks out there, I’ve got the recipe (as usual) up on Beertools.com right here.

As some of you may remember, I set the wheels in motion last year on growing my own hops. Hops take some patience, because the first year they are just growing roots, so last year was mostly just laying a foundation for what I am hoping will be a bumper crop of hops this year. They sprouted early, and have been making a solid attempt at taking over my backyard. The 8.5′ high trellis was topped out quickly, and some heavy pruning has resulted in some seriously intimidating hop plants.

The varieties are Mt. Hood, Nugget, Cascade, and Fuggle. It’s gonna be a brewing extravaganza when they start flowering.

Then again, it’s kind of a brewing extravaganza as it is.

Just in case you thought that my gardening expertise was simply beer-oriented, we got a full garden in this year as well.

Lets do the rundown:

• Tomatoes - Cherry and 2 full-size
• Corn
• Peppers - Jalapeno, Habanero, Green
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Lettuce
• Spinich
• Zucchini
• Spaghetti Squash
• Potatoes
• Onions
• Assorted Herbs

Yeah, that’s how I roll.

Other than that, it’s mostly situation normal around here. Some housework (tore down a shed), some real work (I feel like it’s always too much, no matter how little I work), and some prep work for my trip to europe at the end of july.

Well, it’s about that time. The bottom of the glass is becoming clearer, and the steaks I have marinating in the fridge at home are beggin for me to start the grill. So, on that note, I’m outta here.

Keep the rubber side down.

there were so many options for the “aka” part of this post title. Here are a few others I considered:

“aka Why I Stopped Riding After only 24 Miles”
“aka A Lesson in Stalking Your Prey”
“aka The Rise of the Locals”
“aka Why I Skipped the Kaibab Monstercross”
“aka How to Blow Up 4 Miles Into a Race”

Are you starting to get an impression of the race so far? I’ll spare you the speculation and fill in the details for you.

I showed up at Buffalo Park around 9:00 to make my rather sizeable donation to the MBAA in the form of my “I don’t have an mbaa license or a USAC license, and I’m registering the day of the race” fee. It was a bit painful writing the check, but at the same time, it’s my own fault for not making up my mind until the night before the race. I haven’t paid for too many races this year, so we’ll just chalk this one up to increasing the average.

I spent the first 1/2 hour watching the kids race, which was pretty awesome. I saw 8-year olds with better bike handling skills than I have, and I saw kids who were lacking in that department hit the deck, bounce, and jump back up faster than I thought was physically possible.

I would like to think that I had that enthusiasm for riding 15 years ago, I try to have it now, and I hope that I can have it for at least another 15….or 30….or 60 yet to come.

After a bit of warm-up, we lined up for the 10:36 start time. The SS advanced field was 11 people deep, and several of the flag local familiar faces were there. Per usual procedure, I hammered WAY TOO HARD off the starting line with three other folks and cranked through the first descent out of buffalo part.

As everyone settled down a bit on the climb up jump, I caught onto a wheel of a guy named Daniel. As he slowly ramped up the pace and we slowly dropped the rest of the group up jump and onto elden road, I remembered that Bryan Antol had warned me about “some guy from telluride who is ridiculously fast” before the race. I noted that we were going WAY too fast for me to even attempt to keep up much longer……. right as I noted the Telluride kit that he was wearing……

Needless to say, he dropped me pretty quick into elden lookout road, and a few more people proceeded to pass me as I settled into a steady pace. That steady pace turned out to still be a bit quick, and my legs started to get a little tinge of cramping. Luckily, the homefield advantage played into the climb, and I scaled it back just enough to make the last 1/2 mile without cramping.

As expected, sunset and little bear were absolutely amazing. I was passing people left and right, and recovering nicely. I ended up passing one other singlespeeder on the way down who was repairing a flat, and started the climb up little elden in 4th place.

Little Elden is a great climb on the gear that I run. I can sit for long sections at a time and spin, and there is only one short pitch that I don’t consistently clean. I was feeling good, recovering nicely, and had pretty much settled in for what I thought was the rest of the race in 4th place.

At the top of Little Elden, there was a section where we had to jump out on the forest roads for a bit. Apparently, there is a nest of spotted owls near the trail, and so we were diverted to avoid it. As I pulled onto the road, I caught a glimpse of a familiar jersey rounding the bend ahead. Instantly I recalled that the jersey I saw was one that had passed me on Elden Road during the first part of the race. That realization brought back some strength and I added a few more watts of output to the pedalstroke.

The plan was to catch this person by the top of schultz, and then use the fact that I ride shultz several times a week to my advantage.

As I hit the top of schultz, everything was going according to plan. I caught Kaolin (from Cave Creek, I later discovered) by the time we went through the lincoln logs, and passed him soon after the quick steep downhill at the top of schultz.

Not more than 30 seconds later, I kicked the back wheel out around a turn, and burped almost all the air out of the tire. The curses were flying as I pulled off the trail, flipped the bike, dug through my pockets for a CO2 and crossed my fingers.

As I slipped back into 4th place, a miracle occurred and the tire re-seated on the bead. I drained the full CO2 into it, flipped the bike and took off like a bat out of hell down schultz.

I didn’t see that familiar jersey again until I hit the road heading up to rocky ridge, and by that point the cramps were in full-force. I ate the remaining shot blocks I had, drained what was left of my 2 bottles, and mentally prepared myself to balance on the cliff edge overlooking the dark abyss of muscle cramps.

Try as I might, Kaolin kept his distance up the road. Fortunately for me, I knew what lay ahead, and knew that if I could keep him in sight I held a couple ‘local knowledge’ trump cards.

Sure enough, I inched closer on the downhill, and only about 100 yards separated us as we started up the climb to Buffalo Park. I remember the exact sequence of thoughts that went through my head:
I know I can make this climb clean. I’ve done it before. If he gets off and walks, it’s over.

I focused on the movements, and as I hit the technical section near the top, I saw my opportunity. Kaolin stepped off his bike and fell in line behind the other two people walking up the hill. I managed to muster enough breath to barely get out “Riding Through!”, and as everyone jumped out of the way to the side, I executed one of the most painful, yet most graceful climbs up to Buffalo Park that I have ever done.

I knew, as I hit the top, that I was in a solid third place. My head went down, the pedals kept spinning, and I crossed the finish line, 2 hours and 13 minutes after I started.

It was a great day, and I have to thank everyone who put the effort into putting this race on, and I have to thank Kaolin for keeping my motivation up and making it a great race. It was a lot of fun, and I usually don’t get anything remotely like that in all the endurance races I do.

Daniel from T-ride took first, and Blair took second in the SS advanced division in front of me. Other notables include Bryan Antol who took the Cat 1 race; Silverman, who demolished the marathon field; and Timmy, Scot Keller, and Josh Kelly who went 1,2,3 in the Pro field. Like I said, it was a good day for Flagstaff.

Here’s a pic that Koss snapped of me on the podium with his phone. I feel like it says something that I decided to bring my beer with me up there. Gotta represent…..