I finally am riding with my new helmet. There was a bit of a snafu with the size, so it took a little longer. Evidently, I thought I had a bigger head than I actually do.

I’ll just leave it at that.

I don’t know what is going on around here, but the last two weeks have been pretty much off the hook for me, and I think tonight it has finally caught up with me. I have not been on either the road bike or the singlespeed exactly 2 days out of the last 14. I don’t know if it’s the high levels of stress at work right now (the bike is definitely my steam blow-off), or the impending dates of some upcoming races.

Either way, here are the highlights that stand out in my mind as direct contributors of the current state of my legs (read: in pain).

  • Deciding two weeks ago that not only was it a good idea to crank up weatherford trail as hard as I could, but to turn around, do it again, and then proceed to crank up weatherford road directly following that as well.
  • Climbing Mt. Elden, riding up waterline road, and then climbing Elden again directly following that.
  • Keeping up with the A group for the first 25 minutes of a 35 minute crit (only to get dropped when the Silverhammer decided to attack while I was pulling at around 28 mph, that bastard is fast)
  • Busting my ass like I have never done before on the group ride, including laying some tracks on the sprint into the general store, Mike and I making a 10 mile duo effort to catch the A group before blowing up (we were gaining on them!), and then cranking my ass off on the final sprint, only to be taken down at the last moment.
  • Doing most of the first lap of the upcoming singlespeed 12 hour race after hearing Mike claim that it was going to be a 3 hour lap. I made it to the top of elden from my front door via schultz-> little elden -> little bear -> red onion -> up the road to the towers in 1 hour and 37 minutes. Mike: Mark my words, the leaders will be done with that lap in 2.5 hours, easy.

Needless to say, those are the riding highlights, but I have this nagging feeling that there were other contributing factors to my current state of exhaustion. Possibly the Pepper show last tuesday night? Maybe the Powerman 5000 show this tuesday? Or possibly even the infamous Mike Raney’s bash last night, which involved a keg, a trampoline, a ping-pong table, and a living room full (to chest height) with balloons? One can only speculate. . .

In case you missed it above, there is going to be a 12 hour singlespeed shred here in flag on August 18th. From the bits and pieces I’ve heard, the course will be brutal. 3 laps, to be done in succession, first being over the back of elden via schultz and little elden, up little bear, down red onion, up the road, down sunset, down brookbank, and down rocky ridge. Second lap is the race course from the old fasioned mountain bike festival, and third lap is still TBD. I’m placing bets on it being something like dog food to weatherford road to overlook and back. The prescription is to just keep riding, and the winner is by number of laps. Should be brutal.

As you can tell, the nordic center idea was nixed (I heard it was mucho deniro). But, I’ve heard that it’s going to be a series, with the second race being the old fashioned bike race, and the third being a Mt. Elden hill climb, so that should spice it up a bit. There’s also rumors floating around about a frame to the series winner. You didn’t hear that from me. . . .

The downside is that the 12 hour race is the same weekend as 24 in the sage, which means some decision making will be happening on my part. Then there’s still the issue of durango. Decisions, decisions, decisions. . . .

On that note, I’m going to bed, because I need it, badly.