talking shit....

So, I see Dicky is taking a monk like approach to the BreckEpic.

meh. but what do you expect out one of those racer boy spancered PRO types? Somebody needs to yank his singlespeeder street cred, this talk about no beer....err, at least until he's out of contention. whatever.

Here's the deal, I plan to be in contention, I plan to drink beer. Don't go changing the method midstream, go with what you know...can't imagine slumming back up over Boreas or Georgia Pass without the carrot of an ice cold beer waiting back at the tent. Can't imagine chilling under a purple mountain magesty sunset w/out a tasty beverage to close out the day.

Guess it goes to mindset. My mind is set to blow some minds, the fix ain't that big of a handicap, it just isn't....just need to outclimb everybody. And keep picking away at it...like the George Castanza pick up method. Just keep lingering enough to bend them into submission, just linger and they'll come back. Ride the last climb same as the first, and they'll get reeled in. Keep at it day after day after day, use those years of Tour experience, the precedent setting rides, been there, done that, cash it all in. Pedal beyond the loneliness of the quiet place and blow their minds. Go time is coming.

qwik FYI on finalized 'plans'...Fly into DIA Thurs, chillin' w/ Furious George thru the Friday shakedown spin near Evergreen, then rolling the Volvo loaner towards BuffaloCreek. Found a place on the map to camp, Green Mountain, near a pretty lake at ~8000ft. Take in the mtn vibe w/ a bit of car camping, then roll up to the Kenosha Pass 'hood for a bit of higher mtn shakedown Saturday morn, check out the CT out of Jefferson Lake. More sight seeing tourist noobness, should roll into BreckTown Saturday afternoon for a bit of apres Firecracker50 mingling. Imagine there'll be Holidaze fireworks, crash on the couch/floor hookup afterwards and moving into my tent for the week on Sunday.

Official daily bloggyness will be somewhere, I'll try to throw the linkage up here once I know it...got a bag of clothes to pack, then to the airport on Thursday for a trip thru the metal tubez. Here we GO!

oh yeah, Rousseau, shoot me an email w/ your digits, will try to track you down on Saturday, not sure if I have your email....

heard about this....

word was in the grapevine late last year,
saw more this morning, hit the Google...

Trans Sylvania Epic, a PeeYay stage race

curious about the route(s)....cost?

thoughts

into the latter portion of a big bottle of the GoldenMonkey.
Breck on my mind, as always since MikeyMac announced the
bloggity blogness. three 1000 word articles, no problem.
race reports no problem. yeah.

I don't like using a lot of words. pare it down, say what
needs to be said. find something related to the theme,
anything, to riff on, only find maybe 600 words.
shit.

what I'm saying is, it was an interesting undertaking, learned
some things. articles are different than rambling impromptu
blog posts. that i've gotten more reserved, in some respects,
with what gets thrown up here. or there. or whereever there
is....supposed to be linkage from BikeMag, no such thing yet.
Whatever. But since a quick surf last night showed that they
haven't updated much of anything bloggish since MAy, well...
what do you expect?

Also reread, again, the last pre-race dilly, kinda happy with it,
sorta. coulda been a storger effort, jumbled thoughts w/out
flow towards the end...stuck on too many themes, trains of
thought, loose ends in the wind....what's done is done.

got onto the Google Earth last night, combined with more
incredible beta from Euro Greenerificness Sonya & Jeff, and
my map and a few obscure web pages I printed, getting a
feel for the lay of the land.

HUDGE!

wow, been telling myself, queitly on manymany rides,
'this is for Breck.' even during one foot in front of the
other last laps at Denton or Whitegrass, 'this is for Breck.'
And now this opportunity of a lifetiime is upon me, and
I can't thank everybody enough, and wish I'd given more
props in that last pre-gamer. Psyched for old school
friend hookups for the acclimatization roadtrip.
Checking out the Evergreen scene, then Kenosha
and/or Georgia Pass on the Colorado Trail on
Saturday before saunterring into BreckTown for
some Firecracker apres' scene. It's a celebration!

Then I'll deal w/ the inevitable headache and ride through
it like always and try to blow some minds w/ regard to
what an eastern boy can do on a fixed gear in the
big bad Rockies.

The well is full, time jump in, pull the plug, and drain it.

fishin'

in the mood to 'get away.'
like I don't do that all the
time anyway, but without
the bike, just me and the
flowing water, taking a
couple hours to explore
the ground that passes
under wheels in 10minutes.

even caught some fish!
of course, no picture of
the only keeper of the day.
Brook trout make me smile

to race?

you know you're in the right place
when you think about actually 'racing'
at Breck vs jra getting thru it.

Altitude? yeah it's a bummer, but pretty
much everybody will be in the same boat,
unless you've been hi mtn chillin' like JB,
or a hardcore local out to defend the turf...

And based on how the ridin's been goin',
I'm ready to fucking rip some cranks off!
still on a Stoopid buzz, rolling the fix
home @ only 20 couple minutes off the
Pfluganator, who just threw down a 5th
overall at Lumberjack. Yeah, the pump
is primed. Dropped a couple pounds,
turned up the intensity while backing
off the volume, and now I'm resting
and chomping at the bit.

Today the required gear list came out,
thought I had it dialed. Figured on bottles
on the bike (34+25ozer's), gel flasks in a
pocket. Stem bag to hold a tool, patch box
of bits, #2 tube. Loaner swanky rain jacket
stuffed in a pocket, camera in the other pocket.
No pods allowed.
No pack needed.

But now I see an emergency blanket and
first aid kit in the mix. Hmmm, that's a
camera's worth of space, or I go back to
riding with a pack...ride it, or race it?
Run the Ergon fully loaded and ride it like
a fast tour, or race it and maximize the
support???

Could drop the #2 tube, or strap it to
the stem! make room for silver blanky
and band aids in the box, keep the weight
off my back. cuz every time you stand to
pedal, you're lifting it over and over and
over....and I ain't 'racing' w/out my camera....

glad I got few days of shakedown once there
to figure it out. Looks like I'm hitting Evergreen
w/ FuriousGeorge and then solo explorin' a
bit of the CT on Saturday.

Good times coming!

beta-maxing

crunch time.
what's done is done.
it's all in the books now,
clock is punched.

loose ends, making lists.
collecting boxes, fill
'em w/ the 'essentials'
feet up as much as possible,
still turn the pedals a bit to
hone the edge here and there.

surfing, wondering what's
in store. small world
nowadays thru these tubez.

wanna know what's out there?
wonder what the terrain is like?

go here: Ergon pimpin' Jeff

or here: uber Green babe Sonya

or here: Little e, more my style.

then hyperventilate for full effect.

rolling it.

this is the short version,
long version was practice.

neutral leadout goes beepbeep! Go! sorta,
do take a hard tempo flyer, then latch back
and tempo once more. follow super smooth
locals Matt & Billy across Tussey, caught by
ElkBuckPete on the descent. Crush Thickhead
in a hurtful focused manner, get a gap when
you can.

Flow across Indian with Buck then keep the
tempo rolling on the approach to Beeyootiful
and it grows quiet behind, hmmmmm. neck
gets sore from all of the over the shoulder
glances. Just keep pedaling, all day long.
Beautiful trail was dialed fixy sweetness,
then steady gunning in the woods, walking
the cramp zone tightrope thru the fireroad
transiitons and get into a good back n forth
with Chip on the way to Aid2.

Had a quiet goal of a top five on the fix.
Unknowingly, I was battling for it, didn't
think we were that far up.. Crush Thickhead
again, slum down Detweiler, get caught. Chase
Chip the carrot and hit it one final time up
Gettis, get out of sight, way out of sight.
Couldn't stretch it far enough though, caught
at the bottom of Bear Meadows. Reality of
Laurel Run settled in, Chip got dibs & I was
glad to be done, happy to get down it clean.
Cross the finish line, come down off the edge,
queasiness no longer containable and empty my
stomach once back at the car, neat.

6th single, 17th overall, 4:45/50ish for fifty.

Breck? I ain't skeerd,
the work is all but done.
Breath deep.

wow!

yeah, wow.
what a wknd, what
a way to get Stoopid.

I like getting Stoopid.
Always a good time,
Incredible wknd, thanks
to everybody that makes
it possible, ya'll rock.

figuring it out.

hit it qwik snap w/ Old Man Withers,
timed the lull between storms perfectly.
still feeling out the El Marifixi, might
drop the bars just a smidge yet, front
end feels bouncy, like it could use a bit
more weight on it...

the 18 makes you earn it, really diggin'
it on the flats and it's a nice tempo on
the extended ups, excellent conversational
pace rolling with coasty types. Breck,
I'll have the 19 along, depending on
what shakedown spin analysis reveals.
Purist in me says you finish with what
you start, I really want to keep downhill
slummin' to a min...could be a lot of hikin'.
and I'm ok with that.

one of the wondertwins is gettin' in
my head, damn you Dave! so the next
week and half will be obsessing hell, then
there's nothing more that can be done,
cuz at that point, what's done is done
and you can't do nothing about it,
except deal, and keep on pedaling.
always keep pedaling.

always, that's where the secrets lie.

for Travis:

IF YOU DIDN"T ESTABLISH IT,
DO NOT FUCK WITH IT!!!!!!

calibrating.

good ride yesterday, but something felt....off.
I've been riding well, but just didn't feel 100%
confident, thought it might be the slightly
raised bar, or different geometry w/ the newly
installed fork.

at issue was this unnerving sensation of riding
'blind'. the normally predictable, wasn't. think
about where these episodes occured..logs, short
techy ups where you need to bring on the power
there, there and there, while picking the oh so
right line, time the low pedal to avoid the high
points. just wasn't quite clicking.

thought some more...the gear? always feared
changing it. changing it on the fix means you're
changing the length of your stride, everywhere.
play with numbers, never really worked 'em out
with this in mind....

qwik google reveals ~91.1" circum for a 29er tire.
32:19 gear rolls out to 153" per turn of the pedal.
32:18 rolls out to 162"...

9" difference. hmm, that's enough to mess with
ya, heal now lands where ball of foot used to,
takes more of a shwerve to allign the timing into
logs, a bit bigger flick, and the move needs
to start from further out.

now that I got my head wrapped around it, time
to adapt, the ninja needs practice.

ready to get Stoopid?

a sunday ride.

yesterday, rolled a qwik 50, sorta.
qwik considering the climbs,
233-B'ville-233-King's Gap.
bang, bang, bang...bang.
Tight little out n back, testing,
building, perceiving, learning.

then the Salsa rebuild, today
was shakedown time. That fancy
new superfast $40 tire lasted all of
15minutes in the forest of Meeshow.
Tire not to blame, edge of that rock
woulda sliced any rubber to graze it
the way I did. Sharp, frustrating.
Boot it, questionable patched tube
out of the saddle bag, happy that
Keith had a pump along, I was
traveling light w/ CO2 and I'm
thinking I missed a tiny thorn
pinhole the way it kept feeling...

32:18 = $$$

gives about 2mph to the top end,
does take a bit more oomph here
and there, that was revealed up along
Rattlesnake. Then we jumped onto
the 'race loop'. Last night's shakedown
spin in the Gables w/ a peanut buttery
topcoat had me wondering how well
those small blocks would hook up....
Well, the damn thing works pretty
fuckin' good! Rode the Traverse over
to ColdSpring. Trail is rippin' despite
the race day conditions. mmmm,
tire benched loamy tread, sweetness.
Ran into Riceball and Gav out there,
always good to catch up on the trail.
Then a trip down Canyon, and once
again almost cleaned the thing on the
fix, one dab, grrrr. The edumacated
guess at where to cut the fork steerer
brought my hands up just a tad.
Me likey! Front end comes up soooo
much easier. Will take a bit more
adaptation, expected. Did clean all
of the clear cut portion, big slab entry,
those goofy smaller slabby drops, even
my up n over line into the crux move
and down into the Canyon proper, then
washed the front end just above the
stream crossing on a jumble of wet rocks.
Probably would've puckered & blinked
on the mini-slab before the pine tree
carwash tunnel anyways, waited to remount
until below that 10yd section. Rolled the
rest clean, new logs and all.
FlatTrail, wow is the greenery coming
on strong! That and the Canyon clearcut
need lopped back, lot's of blind face
slapping corners, riding on instinct and
10+yrs of memorized line to stay smoove.
Maybe get out there for a rainy evening hike..

Ended with a swim inn the always
refreshing Fuller Lake. Not a bad
day in sucky south central. ;-]
Now I've got a tube to change.
and a yard to mow, a bike
to spray down, dishes to clean
and a beer to drink, good times,
good times.

race trim.

big days are around the corner.
bought a map of Colorado today,
figure out the lay of the land.
starting to refine things.
get the form tuned up,
shake out some kinks
in the stable. le Stoopid
approaches, perfect way
to test a lot of things.
freshy fresh drivetrain,
bling bling! gonna give
the 32:18 a try, PC-68
keeps it all connected.
new pedals, to prevent
killing myself in a one
footed manner.
got the fork with the frame,
why not use it? rolling ghetto
tubeless for the new Race King,
tried and true Mtn King 2.4 on
the front.
she's light, probably at
least 2lbs lighter than the
JabberFixy, poundish due
to frame plus no tubes,
carpet fiber handlebar,
XTR cranks....she's got
SNAP!
my local round the corner
'skinny' test track, into
the woods tomorrow.

meh.

don't overthink it.
run what ya brung.

right?

maps, numbers.

having gearing thoughts for Breck.
'e' says 32:18, no problemo. They
can only build a road so steep, right?
And beyond a certain pitch, trails washout.

So beyond being in THE ROCKIES, up in
the thin air with a lack of dank loamy
forest surrounding you, what's the worry?

32:19 works everywhere, and works great.
but....dropping a tooth, gives me a bit higher
top end, which might be handy for loooong
rippin' big mtn descents. (Did fix le Tour with
2:1 in '07, hmmmm) When I first rolled
the big wheels, did notice a subtle extra
oomph to get things rolling from dead spots.
It's not noticable anymore, but memories
have me leary of going to a taller gear, I like
the snap getting in/out of corners with the
smaller gear, not a fan of getting bogged down.
But the top end.....

And the climbing, how gnarly are those long mtn
climbs compared to local? What's the pitch like?
Well, got onto Map My Ride today, and tinkered
a bit, gathered data on all the local climbs I've
done, especially interested in the terrain that was
toured over couple weeks ago.

Breck Prologue, beta tells me 3015ft over 9miles,
but profile shows it at 7.6 mile...works out to either
335 or 396 feet per mile.

Here's a local sample:
New Germantown Rd: 1089 in 2.62 (415)
Reeds Gap/BlackLog: 1060 in 2.33 (455) paved
Wagoner's Gap: 948 in 2.3 (412) paved
Elk Hill: 833 in 1.8 (462)
Three Square: 1319 in 3.26 (404)
Ridge Rd from Mt Holly: 837 in 2.08 (402)
Woodrow Rd from 233: 673 in 1.70 (395)

So, looks like you can only build it so steep.
Was climbing those roads decent enough w/
the loaded rack on the 19....lose the extra 20lbs
of gear, drop a tooth and see how it rolls, fix
should give me a bit back thru the mo, so the
18 will probably 'feel' like a coasty 18.5. I wonder
how it'll be in the gnar, after bogging down...ez
to get back on top?

only one way to find out.

edit to add...Reed's Gap/BlackLog,
the top part, that I walked the last
couple minutes of, 492ft in .87miles.
ouch.

20.

almost got there, almost. taking it
back to basics, have only worn the
HR gizmo once this year, annoying,
hassle. So, relying on benchmarks,
perceptions of output, sensations.

Find a loop you like, a decent
loop w/ small challenges, ride
around it at an honest early season
'tempo' pace, look at the numbers.
first time 'round, 44mile w/ a 17.1avg
following week, roll around it again,
18.3avg.

remember the basic ways, recall
the old benchmarks. There was a
loop I use to ride when I lived in
Franklintown, 40miles on the button.
The mark was getting around it in 2hrs
or less, 20avg. Solid solo tempo work.

That was with a geared coasty bike.
Don't have one of those anymore, but
do still have the same motor. Haven't
hit this year's benchmark loop in a
few weeks, got out on it last night.
Not excited about the typical secenery,
so focus on something else, really
focus and pedal. Keep the revs high,
do the work on the small ups, qwik
recover on the backsides, then keep
the 40:15 spinning 20+ everywhere else.

Feel smooth, feel powerful, feel the wind,
feel the rain, feel the chill, stoke the
engine to keep it firing. Get lost in the
music, lost in the rhytmn, lost in the
sensations. Drink & pedal, head down focus
on the white line. Make it round the loop,
sit up for a cool down 10minute spin back into
town. Check the numbers....40.7 in 2:05.

19.6avg, w/ warmup (19.2 full pull)...
take away the first & last ten minutes,
does it nudge up to 20? So close.

Can you feel it?

yay!

so, as ya'll know, or did know,
until the short term got wiped.

I'm going to the BreckEpic to
'race' the fixy. Part of the deal
was that I spam the shit out of all
ya'll, then you vote, then I write
and race for 'free.'

Well, I've been writing, and even a
bit of proof reading, and now these
articles are begining to appear...

First here: My BreckEpic Page

Then they'll move, hopefully soon,
over onto my host site, Bike Magazine.
BikeMag.com, neat, huh?