infinitely sustainable pace

nothing exciting going on here. now is the time of year when i get to knuckle-down and produce results at work. all of my efforts to be creative and different have netted me a lot more work to do, and i’m totally bogged down. Add in the stuff I need to get done for the bike shop that’s been sitting in my to-do list for months (socks, tent graphics, direct mail…) and the stuff I need to do to our house (weeding, gardens, chickens, laundry,…) and i’m feeling pretty overwhelmed.

Trillium flowers from early May

Hopefully, once I start hitting these deadlines in the next week or so my work life will simmer down a bit and I can shed some of the anxiety. But really until I return from Florida at the end of June  I anticipate being a bit of a basket case.

The good news is that the weather is starting to turn here. In other words, it hasn’t snowed for almost two weeks. Not too much rain and finally some sunshine.

Trout Lily - early may

After some fantastic racing and mountain biking with friends last weekend, I led a successful ladies ride on Tuesday night. By thursday I was in the mood to change things up a little bit and grabbed the cross bike for a nice workout on the road instead of the trails. It felt refreshing and so it’s on tap again for today.

Despite all that I need to get done, looks like we’re headed to Pine Hill Park in Rut-vegas on Saturday. And next weekend will be camping with friends at Kingdom Trails.

The VT mountain bike race season has traditionally started off with the Flower Power at Catamount Family Center. It’s been going on for forever, but this was only the second year that I’ve done it. Last year we added a singlespeed focus by also making it the Vermont State Singlespeed Supreme Championships.

The format is 5k laps, you can choose how many you want to do. The singlespeed race is 3 laps, or 15k. We had a chance on Friday to head over and preride the course, and it was totally changed from the year before. Way more climbing and some new singletrack sections. About halfway through my preride lap I knew that my 32:20 was not the right gear for me and that course. Yeah, I could ride it but I couldn’t turn the pedals over as quickly as I could with a bit easier gear. So I had to convince George to re-swap out my gearing.

Saturday morning was grey and colder than expected. Turnout for the race was a little slim. The SS men had a nice 15 deep showing, but there were only three women total doing three laps and no other  SS women.

I had an okay start and the first lap went by fairly fast and uneventful. On the second lap I crashed on a tight turn into a rock pile, the front end of my bike totally took a dive when I made the turn and I thought it was really odd as I had successfully navigated that turn several times at that point. The crash took the wind out of my sails a bit and my bike was handling really oddly and I was totally discombobulated. There was a girl that was right behind me, and I preferred not to let her pass me so it was a bit of an inner battle to keep struggling through my little issue to stay ahead.

Cruising along in my ill-fitting Bike29 kit with no air in my front tire

At the end of the 2nd lap I finally realized that the reason my bike was handling like crap was because my front tire was nearly flat. That sound I heard on my first lap in the rock section must have been my tire burping and nearly all the air coming out of it. Understanding the problem made it easier to deal with and at some point the girl that was chasing me dropped far enough back that I couldn’t see her anymore.

In the end I finished  in 1:02, which was a pretty solid result for me considering the tire problems and was good for the fastest 3-lap womens time. But again, there wasn’t a lot of competition there. We had a lot of Bike29 riders there and between the new kits and the old style ones, we were the dominent team in numbers. I also like that we have all levels of riders represented, from really fast guys to not so fast guys.

Talking about my real job here for a moment, not the bike shop. We used to do this thing called Ski Day. Kinda like a company picnic, and it sorta involved skiing. In recent years it had become fairly fractured due to not everyone being interested in skiing. This year we decided to change things up, and instead of a day-long party we decided to do a service day and give back to the community.

Our company headed out to the champlain islands for a day of work at Camp Ta-Kum-Ta, a summer camp for kids who have or have had cancer. They’re just moving into a brand new camp facility, and there’s a lot to do before they can bring the kids there this summer. We worked hard all day building flower gardens and working on the grounds. By the end of the day I was utterly spent, my boss chided me for being tired. But I reminded him that I haven’t been training for mulching or doing digging intervals and I didn’t think that my bike riding was translating very well into yard work.

view from the lodge

Very thankful that the camp let us come in and work and do just a little bit for those kids. Having friends with a very sick little girl, I think I can understand just a little bit I have seen how important it is for these kids to have the opportunity to be a kid and to do normal kid things.The camp has a gorgeous view of Lake Champlain. For anyone that has the ability or opportunity to organize volunteers, I’d like to recommend that you contact Camp Ta-Kum-Ta for a service project. They have a lot of work being done this spring and summer and there’s a lot of room for volunteer labor.

Of course spending the day digging in the dirt meant that i didn’t ride my bike, again. But that’s okay, it was well worth it.

woke up this morning to snow. again. it’s mother’s day. nearly mid-may. winter, your time is over.

it’s been a strange week. I’ve definitely had a sense of point-event depression. Now with SSAP and PMBAR in the past, there’s nothing big and fun looming in the distance. Nothing that I’m really working up towards. Just a few months of life as normal and a whole lot of work. It sounds funny to say that I’m depressed because these things are over, but there’s a void now. Don’t worry, in a few days I’ll get back into the swing of normal life and start working towards trying to be fast for an event or two in August - but these next few months should be shockingly normal.

In addition to being in a general bum mood, our new Bike29 kits came in - and came in messed up. The shorts are fine but the tops are running 1-2 sizes too small, and extra short. It’s such a bummer to wait so long, and then have them be wrong. I know that company that we worked with on them didn’t intend for this to happen, but it reflects badly on me as I placed the order. Add to the sizing problems, some graphic design decisions that I think I should have made differently and I’m just feeling a big pile of meh. Most people won’t notice the design issues. And somehow we’ll work out the size problems. But just ugh.

In the good news area, I’ve been wanting chickens and finally made it happen this weekend. Thanks to George and K for getting me a coop for Mothers Day. I found a few chicks at agway and we’ll give this a try. They’re funny little things, hope they make good eggs.

what day is it?

holy smokes, PMBAR really smacked me upside the head. I wasn’t so much sore, as just completely and utterly sapped. And it didn’t really hit until that 3rd day after the race. I sat at my desk, in a state a little more awake than this:

Finally I seem to be getting back to normal. A series of heavy rains in the past couple of days will keep me off the trails this afternoon, but I do intend to get back out there on some dirt roads at lunch time today.

the new bike29 kits might actually show up today, or not. Hope to have them here for all the Bike29 teamsters to wear them at the Vermont State Singlespeed Supreme Championships at Catamount outdoor. Don’t worry, geared folks can race too cause it’s also Flower Power! You should just go ahead and register now. It was a ton of fun last year, as a sponsor we try to bring a little flavor of singlespeed racing to our hillside in VT. This means cowbells, music, inflatable rafts full of canned beer, tequila and ironic trophies. Gotta play to experience it.

Pisgah has been on my list of places that I want to ride for a long time. But with the shop and the job, we’ve never worked out the timing to go down there and do it. So when Emily asked if I had any interest in being her teammate for PMBAR, it seemed like kismet. Here was an opportunity to go down there, spend all day in the woods with a friend and see a bunch of other friends at the same time. I tried to warn her, I’m slow and I ride a singlespeed - neither of which was destined to change before I got down there.

I did my homework before going down there. I knew that the trails were less technical than what I’m accustomed to - but that everything is much, much bigger. And indeed, that’s generally what I found. But I also found a few things that I hadn’t considered. PMBAR’s choose-your-own-adventure format is definitely geared for local riders. I thought that riding with Emily would make lack of local knowledge a non-issue. But what I found was that not knowing the terrain or trails meant that I never knew what sort of effort I could give when things got tough. I wasn’t really comfortable not knowing how much gas I needed in the tank, I didn’t know what size tank I needed.

Then I also learned that in Pisgah they have their own language. Here are some examples of what i learned:

• right around the corner = approximately 4-5 miles
• almost there = 20 more switchbacks
• a little hike-a-bike = 45 minutes or more

Clearly, our paltry VT hike-a-bikes were no preparation for what PMBAR had in store for me on Saturday. My skimpy big rides of 3-4 hours only scraped the surface of the deep digging that I would have to do. This I figured out early in our outing. I managed to give myself a blister in the first climb/hike-a-bike because I didn’t fasten my shoe tight enough. This made me a bit cranky to start, but a fast rolling descent, a fine time on Squirrel Gap , some enjoyable stream crossings, and bagging a couple of checkpoints made things better.

It was still relatively early, and the sun came out bringing the heat with it. We headed out and back on some gravel to get another checkpoint and at one point there was a horrid, stinging pain in my eyelid. Like I had just gotten stung by a bee. Remember the last time I got stung by a bee? Was not looking forward to that on my face, but after a few minutes the crazy pain subsided and we never found evidence of an actual bee or sting - so not really sure what happened there.

checkpoint

At this point my left knee started to feel funny. And my stomach began to flag me with some issues. And i was tired. With an unknown quantity of climbing before me I was walking the steeper (though I use that term loosely) efforts in the hope that saving my legs would keep me moving forward. Emily was entertaining me with an impromptu lecture on the history of the roads and trails and use of the area, which i thoroughly enjoyed. Quiz me - I was listening.

emily forcing me to take this photo of the view from Pilot. Yes, I'm happy I have it now, though I wasn't happy at the time.

In order to grab our fourth, and thankfully final checkpoint, we had to hike-a-bike this Pilot trail. Unfortunately, this is where I completely lost all hope. It was a steep, rocky, never-ending-story of a hike. My right quad was cramping when I tried to use it. My stomach was a rock of pain and my attitude was very poor indeed. In my head, just getting to the checkpoint (if there really was a checkpoint) would be victory enough. After that I could retire easily and happily to the campsite to drink beer. Done. I was done.

Emily was not done. And she did not take kindly to my quitting words. She had many reasons why a DNF was unreasonable in my situation, and I found that listening to her convince me not to quit while we spun down the mostly flat gravel road made me feel a bit better. And then, what really made me decide to keep going (with the caveat that Emily promised that it was feasible for us to finish within the time limit, i was really unhappy with the thought that I’d undertake this final effort and not finish in time) was that we’d been discussing Fat Cyclist earlier and I remembered that he was doing an Iron Man that very same day. And while I had only some supposedly short section of climbing, one short hike-a-bike, and a descent before i could finish — he was about to run a marathon after swimming and biking a really long way. And if he could do that stupid thing, I could certainly find it within myself to finish this soul-crushing race.

So I made the turn away from the campground and my nice, warm, cozy clothes and followed Emily up the last section. Did I mention that it was raining now? As we climbed up this last road/trail thing, the rain started pouring and darkness was descending fast. My attitude was awful, in my head I was very negative and foul-mouthed. Again, I had no concept of how long this would take us. I didn’t notice when we turned onto Black Mountain. We fiddled with lights (wished I had experimented with my light before the ride) and I found that it really was a short hike-a-bike.

Coming down the other side was crazy. Yeah - we were almost done and that was great. But it was pouring rain and we couldn’t see the trail because of fog. Not knowing the trail at all I felt very discombobulated on the way down, but was pleased not to crash on any of the slick roots and rocks that I couldn’t see. Finally finishing was a great feeling. 63 miles, just under 13 hours, 50th out of 55 finishing teams. So happy to have survived. It did feel much better to finish than to DNF and big thanks to Emily for her endless reasons to keep going.

Thanks to Emily for keeping the faith, I owe her another singletrack ride in Pisgah to make up for not getting 5 checkpoints. Thanks to everyone else for being awesome and friendly. And big thanks to Pisgah Productions for a punishing race that I’ll remember forever.

PMBAR report to come soon.

I leave for Pisgah in North Carolina in the morning. Though it’s just me traveling, and I’m only going for five days, I feel a bit like this –

Tomorrow night I hope to get to my cousin’s house with enough time to catch the Level II yoga class she teaches as her studio, Shenandoah Yoga. That’s gotta feel good after 12 hours in the car, I’ve gotta make (just remembered to throw my yoga mat in the car. pioneers probably also traveled with their yoga mats, tossing them out of the van wagon when things got too heavy and too tough.)

Then Friday I plan to join Emily and Dicky and Namrita and a whole bunch of people I don’t know yet for some camping. Saturday Emily and I are teaming up for PMBAR. I think I’ve accumulated all the required gear that I need, Emily has some of the key ‘team’ pieces. My goal for this race is to have an awesome day of pedaling on awesome trails. I predict it will be a polar opposite of last weekend. Instead of fast and flat I expect this to be slow and grindy. Hard saying, not knowing. Never been to Pisgah before.

If the stars align I will meet up with the new Bike29 team kits at Pisgah, and get to outfit the far away teamsters on site. Hope they turned out well.

I’m pretty sure I won’t be posting much between here, there and back again. See you on the other side.

Here’s how I looked after my Singlespeed-apalooza finish, enjoying that well earned recovery drink in my hand. This is after I had a small wardrobe change in an attempt to avoid hypothermia. I stripped off the jersey and arm warmers and threw on a fleece cycling jacket and my rain jacket that I was wearing before the ride.

like the helmet line

My poor bike. Apparently no major harm done, but it’s very tenacious soil.

The clothes I was wearing were stuffed into a corner of the trunk, and then a corner of the garage until I could deal with them with the hose and the light of day. Nasty, clumpy stuff.

that is some real mud

those knee warmers are particularly gross

After a good hosing in the yard I put them through the wash with a pre-wash and a double rinse and things have come out pretty clean. Good think as I’m already starting to get my act together for PMBAR this weekend.

To cap off our week of not having our kiddo, George and I headed down to New Windsor, NY for Singlespeed-apalooza. It was awesome to look forward to another singlespeed specific race and the date couldn’t of worked out better for us as it put us in a perfect location to get back the kid from the grandparents.

On Saturday I convinced George to close the shop early so we could get down there with enough time to pre-ride the course. The rumors I heard were true, the course was wicked fast with a downhill-esque start, not really any climbing and really fast, but still interesting trails.

It was dry as a bone and we had a blast on the pre-ride. But my fears were confirmed, my gearing was wrong. All wrong. I was kicking myself because I should have put on a 19 or even an 18 tooth cog. As it stood I expected to get spun out and spit out the back at the start.

We grabbed dinner with friends from far away and stayed up late drinking beers and tequila and planning to take over the world with grassroots 29er teams. Someone looked out the window and said, “oh look, it’s raining.” And raining it was, still, when I woke up at 6 the next morning.

inside the factory SSAP

I hadn’t been able to make a gear change happen, so I was running what I brung. and I made sure to get a good placement in the start clump as i wanted to go into the singletrack in a good position. We were off and i felt good. Passed lots of guys, was only passed by a couple guys at the beginning in the mud section. Didn’t see any women anywhere, thought I was probably the first sport woman but not entirely certain and decided to just keep hammering as best I could.

2nd time through, more muddier

The second lap was even muddier, there was one section that was now unrideable. I came upon and passed a woman in the open class who let me know that i was the first sport woman to come by. So i picked up the pace and then passed another open woman. Tryed to keep surfing the fun, flowy course and to not slow down. My bike was almost twice as heavy due to the mud and that was definitely making my legs more tired. Happy to see the sections go by, still no other women in view. Crossed the finish line as the 1st sport woman — soaking wet, covered in mud, and completely in need of a beer.

there's that 18t cog i was looking for on saturday

Dark Horse did an excellent job on this event. It was fun and easy going with a cool course that included a section through an old factory and a stair run-up with Homer Simpson at the top. Thanks to Mike and George for putting on such a great event and also to the sponsors. For my trouble I walked away with a snazzy new Cane Creek headset, a set of SS Stan’s NoTubes wheels of my choice and a fancy trophy.