Chillaxin At The North Pole

Oh la la! Look at all this free time. When you spend so many weeks out on the road for 90% of your day, it’s hard to find things to do during theses R&R weeks. You say to yourself so many times, “Not today, I’ll have time for this during the easy week.”, yet now that it is finally here, all I seem to have on the table is some school, some sleep, and some more school. For now, I’ll take it! Heard from Bruno that IF is getting a sponsorship deal with Ergon (hence the below post.) I might have peed my pants a little when I got that Email, I was so pumped. I’ve had the chance to ride some of their grips in the past year, and they are just out of this world. Like a lot of people, I always wrote them off as a nice innovation for the enduro-junkies but not a real necessity for the XC-ers in the bunch. Well, I was dead wrong; these things have a place on any and all bikes that dare to call themselves ‘Mountain’. Just a few more days of this pedestrian stuff and then things are going to hit anaerobic with a bang!

Hot Stuff

Man, I can't wait to get my hands on these!

NERD- Maxxis

Been holding off on this on for a while; waiting for i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed, but it's finally official.

More details later. The roads are calling my name. for now- check out some of the new 07' gear.

Our Name Is Our Virtue

Well, all good things must come to and end. (Editors not: almost all things*) The rollercoaster like frozen tundra that made for such bad ass mountain biking these past few days and nights finally kicked the bucket this afternoon when the sun made a comeback and temps shot into the mid thirties. Ah well, it was nice while it lasted. Consequently, it was back to the road bike for the last five hours this week. Speaking of good things coming to an end, my EIGHT month run without a flat finally came to and end. Lucky for me I was only about 15 minutes climbing from home, so I just rolled it back, where I promptly put back on my cyclocross wheels/tires (I should have never gone back to road slicks). With everything back up and rolling it was too late to go out for the loop I had planed, so I did what I’ve always done to get through my long rides- spend the first two and half hours trying to get as lost/far from home as is possible, then, hopefully find my way back within the limitations of that days duration goal. As the years go by it’s getting harder and harder to get myself completely lost, but once outside the 50 mile radius of home it wasn’t too hard to find some new streets that took me through undiscovered topo. The find of the day was the appropriately named “Mountain Street”. At first sight I wanted to laugh, knowing that there’re no mountains anywhere in the area, but surprisingly it wound its way back and forth up the better part of five hundred feet. The grades where pretty mellow at the start, but it turns to dirt (or ice, as it was today) about half way up and kicks to around 15%. With today, another week is in the books. This means desert and sleep and all the other tomfoolery that comes along with Sunday's culmination of a long week. Like Nick said, “all work and no play is no fun at all.”

Don't Stop Get It Get It

You can rest when you're dead.

Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me

Here in the England of New, we don’t really get to see the trails to much during the winter. There’s typically six or more inches of crunchy/slushy snow just soft enough to let your wheels sink deep enough to keep your pace below that required for the bike to stay upright. So what happened today was like winning the lottery, twice. After Wednesday’s ride from hell, things made a complete one-eighty overnight. That fresh six inches combined with twelve hours of thirty two degree rain froze overnight and left the trails solid as a rock. A pair of good studded nobbies and it was like a gift from heaven. Conditions like this can easily go wrong if the foot soldiers get to it first and leave their mark, roughing up the riding surface. Fortunately, no one had time to get out before things froze over. It was the perfect combination of concrete hard ice topped with the slightest dusting of powder to give you that little extra bite in the corners. Screw trails at this point; every square inch of ground around was ripping fast and just asking to be shredded all-day-long. Things are suppose to break freezing this weekend, so it looks like the only thing to do is man-up and get out there right at the crack of dawn before it has a chance to turn to that same old slushy/soggy bullshit. Next week is the last purely “base” week this winter, and the highest volume of my short stint as a cyclist. Sorry to keep things so lame; I keep getting asked to post about things other then the mundane-ness of the bike-geek lifestyle. Not that these 30 hours a week are all that’s going on- I just highly doubt any of you want to waist your time with the rest. Girls, bikes, school. You were all 19 once, I’m sure you get the picture. Still, I’ll try and throw in some off the bike antics this week to change it up a bit. In other news: no more Sonoma NORBA. As much as I never want to see those lousy excuses for trails ever again, as the place where I won my first stars and stripes, it holds a special place with me. And god knows I’d rather race that crap while spending a week in wine country than live an extra five days in SMOG capital USA (LA). There’s a compu-trainer down stairs waiting for an hour and a half of easy spinning…

'Running With The Buffaloes"- Chapter six.

Yeah; that's right Mother Nature, take that. Honestly, the audacity of that woman to go dumping thirty two degree rain all over my long days. You can take your 'severe weather advisory' and go shove it.This one goes out to the white pick-up truck (and we all know what kind of people drive white pick-ups) who's wheel spray literally took me off the road and perched me high upon a snow bank. I tried to get the finger up in time for him to catch in the rear-view, but those Lobster Gloves weren't allowing it. Lastly, to whoever drives those damn salt trucks up and down the roads all day. I just met my sodium needs for the next year and half over the course of one ride. These clothes might as well be burned (or hung out at pasture in replacement of some farm animals salt block). Conditions like this make surfing look like a viable alternative for getting in the hours. I smell plane tickets.

Old School

Looks like team 'Coast to Coast' is going to be rocking the road seen bigger than ever this year. Three guys coming hot off 'cross worlds and the rest putting in those big road miles. Glad I don't have to deal with that Junior business anymore- these kids are getting fast.

Live A Life Less Ordinary

I walked outside this morning and wanted to die; and conveniently enough the weather had the same thing in mind. It was back on the bloody trainer for another butt numbing session of indoor work, (hooray!) Once that nonsense was out of the way, it was time to dust of the mountain gear and take to the hills for an afternoon of what I can only describe as pandemonium. There’s barley a snow cover at all in the woods, but the ski area has had the artificial stuff cranking out all week so there’s a good base coat laid down. I made the usual rounds; up the self titled Ninja Pass and then down The Other Run with my friend Bob from Switzerland. Given the icy snow conditions I was able to shave eight seconds off my previous PR. Other than having to avoid the grooming machines driving up and down the slopes, it was incident free and only slightly more butt numbing then the trainer workout. Tomorrow is back to business with another long day (let it be outdoors; please oh please) with the first specified efforts of the year. Hakuna Matata!

Like You Don't Even Know

How are you getting in your base miles?

Base Symptoms

First, there is the loss of feeling in each and every finger.Second, attire like this is considered acceptable wardrobe for public exposure. The hat with built in headphones and mountaineering goggles combo are a registered trademarked of the IF Colt Could Fly winter riding collection (so just incase the guy in charge of those “assos” adds that have been gracing the inside cover of ‘Velo News’ for the past millennium gets any smart ideas about steeling the look- He can take it up with my attorney). Then there’s the ‘Double Shammy’. When you’re putting in more hours on your bike then you are on your couch (or at work, or even in school, for that matter) eventually you reach this point. Consider it a right of passage; that is if you can deal with knowing people are staring, thinking, “His butt sure got huge this winter.”