Friday Rain

Will lead to Saturday tackyness that will lead to some Spoke Pony awesomeness! Now if we can keep those rocks dry.

Rest week has went well. Alot of sleep, not much riding, and just a little core work to keep everything fresh for this weekend. SpinPizza ride went well Wednesday. Good size group, and it felt good opening the legs up a bit.

I have to put a 36 tooth front ring on the Epic tonight, along with the new XT ten speed cassette I purchased for my Flow wheelset. I got tired of switching the XX cassette everytime I wanted to switch from my race wheelset to the training set. The XT is almost a quarter pound heavier, but that's why they're called training wheels. I went with a 36 tooth ring over my current 34 due to the fact that I was in my lower gears too much, and none of the races moving forward have any major climbing that warrent the 34. Still loving the 1x10. Simple, light, and effecient.

Of course tommorow is Spoke Pony, and then Sunday is the Midwest Single Speed Championships. It's going to be a tough weekend. I have high expectations for both races, and I'm still not sure which one I want to expend more energy at. Spoke Pony is going to be hard regardless, due to the length of 3 hours. No way am I doing 6... BT needs to be finished in a little over 4 hours, so 6 hours would be overkill. 3 hours at 12mph is the goal. BT will need to be 4 hours at 12.5-13 mph average. Ya, killing it...

Some happenings on the 29er front this week...

Trek is coming out with a 140mm 29er full squish. Apparently they put in in the catalogue this year, only to find out they won't be able to produce it in time, so looks like it's a 2013 model. Not really sure why they went with this certain design. Not only is the main triangle tight, but they have a dropper seatpost leaving only the downtube for any bottle mounts. They should know that most people would like some bottle mounts on this all day type of steed.


G-Ted had a pretty sweet blog about the state of 29ers in 2012 and beyond. Pretty spot on.

Europe is rolling out all sorts of new 29ers for 2012. While we don't see a whole lot of them around here, it goes to show that 29ers will see the biggest boom in the coming years. I mean those crazy Europeans are even adopting them, so the platform is obviously not going anywhere but up.

Who's got some cordless hair dyers we can take out to Swope tonight? I forsee the dirt being in amazing shape, and hopefully we can get enough dry time to dry the rocks. The last few races at Swope have been brutal. Wet rocks suck, and Swope has no shortage of them...

It'll be all good though, so get those chicken legs ready. The pain train will be blowing through in full force tommorow!

G

Ear Muffs

Hide your children, and put on the headphones if you're at work. If you haven't yet seen this video, then be prepared for some F-bomb droppin awesomness. Almost makes me wanna go out and buy some K-Swiss's. Pretty unique marketing though...

Sleep

It's the best part of a rest week. I get a lot of it, no matter what the week but on a rest week I get an extra dose of it. I think sleep is the number one overlooked recovery tool. I like to get at least 10 hours a day, and on recovery days 12 is great. Usually this means getting home and taking a 2-3 hour nap, waking up for 3-4, and then falling back asleep for the night. I can do that now that I'm single. It's very nice.

For most people though, that's out of the question. For those like you, I suggest learning the power of the power nap. 30 minutes will still do wonders for you. Find a quiet place, and learn to relax and dose off for a short period. I'm not very good about the short nap. I always tend to sleep at least and hour or more. As we loose daylight, I'll have to mix it up in order to still get rides in.

But for now, nap time is a plenty, and I never have a problem taking advantage of it.

See you all Saturday! Spoke Poney!!!!

G

Show Me State Games

Well, I guess everyone had other shit to do yesterday. At least judging by the no shows I assume that was the case. No big boys from the Lou, and none of the CoMo heavy hitters showed. I remember back in the day this used to be a very hard fought out race. All the big boys showed up, and it was something to actually win it.

Not to take away from the guys that did show up yesterday, but it was a pretty small expert field none the less. I rode a pretty consistant race, not really pushing it too hard and just trying to stay steady. Ended up coming through about 15 minutes in first after three 7.5 mile loops. Good ride through the woods no doubt.

So where was everyone? I was really looking forward to racing Dan and Best, but neither of them showed. I know Shot is in Colorado, and I haven't heard what Elwell has been up to.

No worries, this weekend will be full of some heavy racing. First Saturday, and then Sunday. My first double header!

Rest week this week... Minus some easy riding, and Spin Wednesday. Oh, and those two races this weekend. Anyways, it'll be nice to take it easy for the most part, and try to get some stuff I've been putting off at the house done. Like cleaning and laundry. I haven't spent a full weekend at home since early Spring. Go, go, go I tell ya.

Oh, I almost forgot about the frog giggin on Friday night. It was AWESOME! It was good to spend some time with the Pops and lil Bro. It was a new experience together, and it was very successful. 86 legs when it was all said and done. Definently a good night with gigs, and even better was the frog fry we had last night.

Don't knock it till you try it...

Hope everyone had a great weekend, and had some good riding. This week looks to be much much better temp wise!

Now if we can just keep this rain away for the weekend festivities...

G

Rainy Friday

Man, I'm going to be pissed if this rain cancels our race this weekend. We go over a month without rain and then get dumped on just days leading up to the Show Me State Games. Not to worried, it was crazy dry last weekend, and I'm sure any bit of rain will actually help.

What's been happening on the 29er front this week?

Rolf Prima came out with their first mountain bike wheelset, bot in a 26 and 29er version. I have to say, it's pretty lame. Nothing great on the weight front, and a pretty heafty $850 bucks. They remind me of the Ellsworth wheels, but they don't have the width that the Ellsworth's had. 24 spoke just like Ellsworth, and about the same price and weigh. Even worse is their product launch video. Check it all out here...

Raleigh has a new carbon 29er coming out, just like everyone else this year. It's called the Talus and it looks pretty sweet. Not as sweet as that carbon cross bike though...

Jamis is adding to their carbon 29er lineup with a new Dakar. It looks cool, but nothing stands out really.

Tubulars are the new thing in mountain bike wheels now days. Take these bad boys. 1100 grams for a 29er wheelset? Yes sir, and how I just found out about them I have no idea. I sooo need to win the lottery. With new tubular tires coming out every year, I forsee more and more racers going the way of glue on's in the future. Your hardcore racers at least. I'm sure I'll be rolling something like those in a few years. After I rob a bank.

Pops invited me out to a nice boys night out. Something like two gig sticks, three ponds, and two burlap gunny sacks. Oh ya, more froggin baby! Oh to be a hillbilly. You all have no idea...

Then some pre-riding at Rockbridge tommorow, and then race on Sunday!

Come get your race on...

G

Too Many Races?

Okay, so this whole Cross thing has gotten outta hand. Really though, why in the hell would anyone want to race cross starting in September? I've yet to come across anyone that truely wants too... In fact most of the racers I come into contact with seem to bitch about it like I do and seem to want to race later, like in winter when the conditions are favorable for what is supposed to be cross racing. Not hot, dry, and boring. Make it wet, make it cold, and make the course real! Not some roadie straight, turn, straight, turn drag race.

Why do I bring up this? Because I just found out Manions cross is the same weekend as RIM. Which is also the same weekend as the Knob Noster MTB race. With cross racing starting in September, there will be even few racers at ALL races due to the fact that you'll have some mountain bikers who want to cross it up, and you'll have cross racers that still want to race mountain bikes. It makes for less attendance in both arenas, and an overall less fun race scene all around.

I want to race cross this year, but I sure as hell won't be racing in September. My mountain bike calendar goes right up to November, and mid to late November is when I'll start racing cross. I was hoping to race Manions as I've heard great things about it, but no way in September. Sorry dudes.

Of course I won't even go into the mountain bike scene. It's so great around here that we now have too many races. You heard that right, too many races, and not enough racers in my opinion. I think it's awesome that we have all of these race promoters who are willing to step up and give us something to do on a weekend, but when you have multiple overlapping weekends, along with races every single weekend, it gets a bit much. Take the Mid West SS Championships, which is the day after Spoke Poney race. And then RIM and Knob Noster on the same weekend. Both Knob and SS champs will suffer greatly due to their day after placement of such largely attended endurance races. Not many people will double up like I will, and most will be too spent from Saturday to even want to race on Sunday.

AND NOW CROSS! Common now, someone tell these diehards like Yielding and such to start racing later in the year. I know that they'll bitch about there being to many weekends taken, and they have to race earlier to get an open weekend, but really though. There are always open weekends January and February. If you start the season later, you'll have racers who race later. Now it seems like everyone is so gun ho at the beginning of season, and by late November everyone is burned out.

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I just don't know how to build a successful race scene. Maybe you need too many races, overlapping weekends, and a 6 month long cross season.

I'd be interested to hear you all chime in... Public opinion is always welcome at the Riding Dirty household.

Rant over... Sorry.

G

Mondays Lesson

Today I'd like to teach you a very valuable lesson. Sometimes even when you have all the neccassary tools and supplies you would need to complete a successfull ride, it's still not enough. That's what I learned yesterday.

I've been very fortunate not to have hardly any flats this year. Then again, I change my tires out more frequently, which probably helps in keeping that from happening as much. Yesterday I had a flat, and normally it would be no big deal to fix it, but as it turned out, the ride resulted in me hike a biking for 2 hours in the hot, humid, stuffy jungle that's known as 4 Winds.

I got a good ride in at Rockbridge on Friday, and cooked myself pretty well since it was the last day in a 4 day riding block. I then had every intention of getting in a nice long ride down at the Lake of the Ozarks, at a trail called Honey Run. Well, as my luck would play out for the day, I got lost trying to get to Honey Run, and eventually wasted an hour driving back country roads, and ending up being overall pretty pissed. I don't know what happend, I've been to the that trail dozens of times, but it's been a few years, and for some reason everything seemed differnt. Add on the fact that I had no cell phone coverage, and it pretty much led me to fly blind. And blind I was... I had no idea where I was.

Being frustrated and in the same neighborhood as 4 Winds, I made a decision. I was going to tackle what is known as the manliest trail around. It's everything mountain biking should be. Loose, rocky, and knarly as hell in spots. 4 Winds is the kind of place that when you finish riding it, you feel like you've actaully accomplished sometime. It's not a groomed out, run of the mill kind of trail. Normally it's mostly overgrown, and they've even gone as far as to close the roughest of sections now. I had the Epic, and I was ready to tackle this beast, and conquer it in it's entirety.

Well everything was going well, until about 3 miles in I noticed my rear tire going soft. Knowing I just re-Stansd it, I grabbed my co2, and pumped the tire full of air. It sealed, and I was off and going... For awhile.

Roughly 2-3 miles later, I was picking my way up a rough and rocky incline when I hear the undeniable hiss that was a slit sidewall. No amount of Stans was sealing this one. Damn. Luckily I always carry a spare tube, and I hoped that I had enough air in my BigAir to get it pumped up enough to limp back. So I take off the spare tube that's been fixed to my bike, unmoved since I put it there back in March. Like I said, I've been lucky this year.

I slowly started the fix a flat procedure, but in the back of my head I knew that if I didn't have enough air, or the tube had somehow developed a leak, I would have one hellava long hike out. I was halfway through this 12 or so mile loop, and there was no easy way back.

I hook up the co2, and use every last bit of air it had to give. Only to hear the still undeniable slight hiss that was air escaping out of the sidewall slit. At first I figured it was the air between the tube and tire escaping, but moments later I noticed the tire getting ever so softer.

Damn. Damn. Damn. It's time to walk.

2 hours, 100 seedticks, and a pair of skinned up legs later, and I was at my car. It was a long hike indeed, and anyone of you all know that hiking in biking shoes is no fun. Toss in the fact that the trail is all loose rock, and major overgrown in spots, and you have the makings for what was one rough day in the woods.

I took some pictures of the trail, but on my old Iphone that no longer has service and I can't figure out how to upload them. The trail was beautiful in spots as I hiked back, and horrible in others. I hiked up and down the hills, crunching my cleats against rocks for what felt like a million steps.

I could have been even more pissed at the end of my day. It was a pretty much wasted ride, and it was a rough hike, but luckily I did have the right supplies as far as water and nutrition. When I flatted I still had one and a half water bottles full of EFS, and a pack of GU Chomps and a Honey Stinger Waffle. That made the hike easier. Without any of the above, especially water, the hike could have been very much worse.

I've been going sans Camelback all year, and loving it. I put everything in my jersey pockets, and it seems to make my back happy. Until I run out of supplies and I have to hike 6 miles out. You see, with the camelback, I would have had a hand pump, patches, and another tube. I would have been able to ride on. But I didn't, and I remembered why sometimes it's neccessary to overdo it, just in case.

Anywhere else and I would have been able to hike out in 20 minutes. But as it would have it, 4 Winds made for an interesting day, and in the end it conquered me more than I conquered it.

No worries though, I lived to fight another day.

Another day that will come sooner than later, and will include 4 Winds again, but this time with a much different outcome.

If first you don't succeed, try, try again...

G