Snow ride tomorrow!

Merry Christmas

Global warming is definitely fake

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Global warming is definitely fake. It's such a lie that I am starting to wonder if Al Gore lied about the interweb too? Some insane weather today, and looks like most of this week will be in the 50's! Freakin' ridiculous. I'll take it though. I need to ride like a Captain needs his Crunch. Some of Pine Hill Park is in mint condition, while there are some spots that definitely should not see rubber until at least Tuesday. I tried to take a few pics but the phone just doesn't do as well on grey days as a real camera would and given the slime I was not about to spin with my camera in my pack. 

Moma's boy

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So nice to visit with the family and get some of mom's home cooking. I missed them so much. It's amazing how the little stuff that stresses you out just disappears when you get to be with the fam. Some times it's great to get a whole new perspective on the happenings of life and forget about what doesn't matter, at the same time refocusing on what does.

Things are getting even fallier around here

Fallier

Fallish Pho-Toes

Only tools get sick. That being said, i'm too under the weather to do any real riding so I just bummed around for a while and snapped a few pics. While most prefer warm sun to chilly clouds; I look forward to these overcast and damp fall days all year long. The scent of the trails is even more soothing then the colorful vistas, and the dirt is nice and tacky.

Rocky Pond

Power lines

Burm jump into boulder drop

This tree was put here for a reason...

Sound of the day

Pretty scenic riding lately

The riding has been exceptionally scenic lately. Only had the phone cam...still decent 
though:

Lunar Quarry 12 Hour

The Lunar Quarry 12 at Pine Hill Park went down this past weekend. 6pm to 6am with a 7ish mile lap and some decent gain to go with it. Prefect riding weather, great event hosts, and a glorious trail network = excellent time.

The venue, an old abandoned rock quarry, was awesome and the event staff put on a solid event. They had movies projected, live music including a band called “Dank and the Funk Sticks,” food for sale, and a superbly marked and marshaled course. They even had a pancake breakfast with some awesome Vermont syrup in the morning. Nothing beats a platter of real maple syrup with a side of pancake after racing through the night.

Calvin “broke his collar bone” (one of these days he’s probably going to just clock me in the nose for giving him so much crap about it, especially since I’ve dubbed him “collar boner Calvin”) so I ended up going solo. 

It was a pretty fun time and a little different than traditional racing. They only counted laps completed before 6am so it made for a speedy exit although different from any endurance race I’ve ever done, and it had a cool target shooting component to it at the end of each completed lap. The four man teams and the solo riders were pitted against each other for it…not really fair since any decent four man team would have more opportunities to shoot then a solo (not that I was even in contention…just pointing It out). They had wood fired pizza but it was near impossible for a solo rider to snag a piece since they only put out one pizza at a time and there were always people waiting when they put it out to gobble it up. Cool idea though and they looked and smelled like some pretty decent pies but man was it a mental torture fest to have to smell them with each transition.

I had been laying down some consistent back to back sub 40 laps with my Misfit SS 29er running 32x21 gearing while pre riding in the weeks prior so I decided to go for the first lap/fastest lap just for the heck of it. It’s just insane what that rig can do. We lined up for the start and they had a sweet explosive laden wooden Lunar moth that flew down the quarry into the bonfire pit to send us off. When we initially lined up the guys up front said they were going to be taking a hot lap so when the moth exploded I hammered out the hole shot and up the first climb, but no one was really giving chase so I dialed it back a little as to not trash my legs and just enjoyed the trails i’ve come to adore these past few months. Seriously-PHP rocks (resort quality network) and to get to do a race in there was awesome. Other than a couple of burners the course was pretty much all flow and pumps with a sweet rock garden about half way through. Some jumps and drops, a few table tops, and some cool bridge crossings throughout. They even had jackolanterns scattered about the course that filled the air with the sweet aroma of pumpkin pie. My only real complaint is that it really stunk to have to inhale the teaki-torch smoke at the end of each lap as they were lining the trail that went around the quarry site. My throat is still burning.

I came in from my first lap and headed out quickly, only to have a catastrophic mechanical at the beginning of the second lap which would eventually dwindle my lead away. My brake lever’s master cylinder linkage assembly failed (disappeared), and I found this out after landing what some would call stupid air off of a double roller, and with just one brake I tried but could not avoid the trees I then pinged off of. One big one finally caught me and tossed me to rest on a pile of rocks after snapping my ring finger like a twig. I finished out the lap and then Calvin and I spent about 20 minutes trying to fix it only to realize our efforts were useless so luckily he had his Enduro/light DH rig there, and I then got the pleasure of spinning the remaining hours of an xc endurance race on it. Don’t get me wrong…it’s an insanely nice rig, about as nice as it gets, but exactly the opposite of what was needed for that course and my body lol. With a 50ish-mm stem, Talas 36, crazy 26in. knobby tires, and a super wide bar (inches wider than mine), it made for quite an adventure. I would like to hit some stuff on it though…the thing was like riding a couch on the downs and a few times I found myself pushing my limits a little too much on it due to the confidence it instilled while bombing the descents. If only I’d brought my spare brake set (duh). What an epic waste of time though trying to fix the shot lever in the dark and then we had to set his rig up to kind of fit me which ticked away more time, and I knew that the other solo riders were gaining on me every second so I was pretty intense at that point. The other solo riders were just too strong and smart to not capitalize on my mess.

Photo credit - Rutland Herald

The rest of the race would go somewhat smoothly until my 8^th lap when the prototype chain guide/bash guard/roller combo he was testing on his rig came a little loose and I then had to back track and hunt down two chain ring bolts in the middle of the night. Yeah…lots of fun. Luckily I heard and felt them fall out so I had a pretty good idea of where to look. Then in a bit of a dazed rush I tightened my glove into the chain ring bolt by mistake. I went to stand up not knowing the preceding which sent the bar into my eye and me falling down entangled in the rig. Epic follies. Then it loosened again but this time luckily right in front of an aid station run by some really cool guys that put as much energy into pumping up the riders all night as the riders put into spinning their pedals. While I was fixing it they topped off my water and sent me on my way. That was really nice of them and I was stoked to be treated so well-as were all the racers.

Photo credit - Rutland Herald

I did 10 laps in about 10 hours, and at that point decided I’d probably not be able to bridge the 20min gap the first place rider had on me and called it a night. He was hammering out his laps at that point and I knew between his experience and fitness he wasn’t going to just give away 20 minutes. It was pretty close the whole race until I had to go hunting for chain ring bolts in the woods, and it was a pretty big surprise to me how fresh my legs were throughout. I had prepared myself for a mental and physical suffer fest but it turned out to not be too bad at all. It was definitely strange being all alone in the woods for the entire race except for a half lap I shredded with a cool guy from Jersey. One thing’s certain-I’d have been up the creak had Calvin not offered up his rig so I’m pretty thankful. It would have been such a bummer to have to quit after two laps, but running some of those descents at race pace with just a front brake can get pretty sketchy unless you go silly slow and that’s no fun.

All in all it was a great weekend and a pretty successful first 12 solo for me. If you ever have the chance hit Pine Hill Park, and the Lunar 12 is definitely worth checking out if you’re into that sort of thing. I suspect/hope that Shimano will probably warranty my lever because I’ve never before seen that happen, and they’re usually beyond excellent to deal with. The old skule XT 4 pistons and classic levers are my favorite of all time, but it’s getting harder and harder to track them down these days.

The end. (I'll put some pics up when I have time...like that ever happens)

Oops

Not sure which of us took the harder hit this morning... The squirrel, the Garmin, or myself.

Official Rutland PD rendering

Insert title here _______ _____ ___.

I made it an entire week without dirt. I can’t say it was pretty but I actually did it.

Long time no post. Short version:

Previous post > dirt > adventure walking > cracked/sprained ankle > purple foot > races > really big purple foot > doctor > no dirt/races > dirt > three double cheese burgers with bacon and cheese, spinach salad, and a baked beet > current post.

Towards the end of last month I embarked on an adventure walk across a hard packed, flat, wide open yard. Then I rolled my ankle probably worse than ever before. In hindsight I probably should have spit out my gum. I convinced myself it was just a normal sprain and did a couple of races, icing it hours a day and watching the swelling neither increase nor decrease. I think I may have given myself Arnica Shock Syndrome. Since I was experiencing a lack of power at the races and extreme pain after them I made the mistake of showing it to the wife. Then she told my mom on me. I mean come on. Then they both pressured me into going to the doctor who just like any doctor pounced on the opportunity to take away a biker’s dirt with the usual nonsensical black and white photos and even a speech about how for it to heal it’d need rest and I’d need to wear a special space age piece of plastic with Velcro straps just like the astronauts use for socks in space (ok maybe I made that last part up). Luckily since I had waited to go in for a few weeks it was already pretty much healed and I just had to avoid hurting it for a week and then assess it.

Asses it I did. Finally got out today and rode until my legs just wouldn’t work anymore. My power seems better than ever, probably from so much rest. I’ll have to hammer on it again tomorrow to really find out but I think it’s good to go. I tried four times to do the Lunar 12 race loop but each attempt I took a wrong turn here or there and my laps ended up coming out longer then they were supposed to so I just gave up and went back to my usual method of riding around the woods aimlessly with a giant grin to suit. I’ll have to go back with a map and then I’ll make a decent recon post. The course is already well marked, but it’s easy to mix up the order if you don’t know the proper lacing order, especially since PHP somehow manages to flow well in any direction on any trail and at a few points it almost crosses itself. So any time you do deviate from said course the last thing you'd do is stop and backtrack lol. It’s going to be a pretty fun time for sure, especially with the quirky paintball target aspect and the 6pm to 6am race time. 

On a side note I can not believe how superbly this Band-aid preformed today. Right on the knee and it outlasted me. 

5 hours of mud, sweat, rain, and humidity