Build me an arc Noah

----Psalm 29er----

Once upon a time in a land far far away mortal men enjoyed the sport we love virtually free of the biblical rains we have seen in the past few months, free of the depression that a daily torrential downpour brings and free of the daily cleaning ritual that has become a part of our lives. Many men have given up, heading for greener pastures possibly becoming bass masters or maybe begrudgingly shuffling around the mall. I know this a fact because on my rides I see no evidence of others. No trampled grass, no tire tracks, no cars at Skyline drive....Weird

So the story continues....As we all pray for sunshine a few hardy souls are braving the elements. Working hard with an eye on the prize, Improving bike handling, getting stronger. These are the days that make you what you are, a warrior ready for battle. With a musty smell in your car and remnant's of mud everywhere. You're a mountain biker...

Go Right for the frying pan......... Left for the Fire

My weekend started off with a trip to Jungle Habitat on the new full squishy machine. Chris had some tires I wanted to swap with him and vice-versa and we figured we could get a good ride in also. Jungle Habitat in the 70s was a drive through safari that was abandoned and the animals were rumored to have been left behind. Nice.....Jungle Habitat today is turning into a mountain bike mecca with about 10 miles of legal single track and many miles of "illegal" connectors to Ringwood and Norvin Green state forest. After riding the legal stuff for a while we played dumb and rode (hiked) some of the illegal stuff. I say hiked because that's exactly what we did, this shit was gnarly. Ride 25 feet than walk-crawl 100, real back country adventure. you dont want to get hurt in there boys and girls! At some point we popped out on Greenwood lake Turnpike and being inspired by watching the tour I convinced Chris into a lap around the lake on the road. All in all the new machine was a joy to ride especially on the rough downhills and surprisingly on the road. I arrived home after 4.5 hrs of riding and still felt fresh enough to go do some laundry. strange for a mountain ride huh...



Sunday morning I called Mike from Darkhorse for trail conditions and he told me not to bother coming up to Stewart. His exact words were "it's underwater". Unless we have a major drought in the next couple weeks looks like it's gonna be a wet 40. Bring the bug spray kids they have skeeters the size of hummingbirds over there.
Looking at the clouds I could see the impending doom on the horizon and not wanting to go through the hour long cleaning ritual decided to take the rigid single over to cannonball. The first 45 went well enough but then I fell apart. My hands started to hurt and so did my neck, I had to convince myself to continue, Then the monsoons started. Talk about demoralized. My XDX tires that were so good through the race season stuck to nothing at this place, turns out they suck on wet rock, who knew. The day ended up being pretty nice once the rain stopped and I actually allowed myself to get some pics mid ride (normally a major no no). I fear my rigid days may be coming to a close my body is sore and It doesn't have to be. Just have to learn how to ride these damn gears though....

Thursday night, 7:00pm. The plan. 6hrs for Chris than 6hrs for me.....



Text message, 5:32pm Saturday.

......Its over, I sucked. Sorry.......



It always sucks when you let your team down and this was a disappointing as ever. Chris Ledonne buried himself for 6 straight hours while I sat around waiting for him to finish so I could take my turn only to suck a big egg. I could tell right from the first lap I didn't have it and it was going to be a sufferfest... I tried but I failed..

I could make a bunch of excuses saying how I had the wrong tires, I don't know the bike well enough or my fueling plan was totally flawed but the truth is that if you're flying in February it's gonna hit you around July like a great big frying pan in the face.

I just have a hard time pushing right now and most of my rides turn into me sniffing the daisies or watching the birds. Not that there is anything wrong with that, those rides can be fun but you can't call that training. Not at this level anyway.

The Darkhorse 40 is looming and I don't know how I'm gonna be, I think I have enough base to do well but with these recent results???? who knows
Could be totally embarrassing, stay tuned

hopefully not this embarrassing...

" Looks like I picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue"

Err drinking coffee, That's right I decided to try to quit coffee this week somewhat for the health benefits but mostly because of the exorbitant fees charged by dunkin donuts (I added it up and it's over 5 bucks a day). Good idea.. Right...............

Wrong.... I had nothing at the Bulldog rump this weekend. Right from the start I had trouble keeping up with Jesse who put his stamp all over this race. Normally I can at least hang for a while but I was dropped like a bad habit after the first lap. Wanting very badly to pull over and go to sleep on the 2nd lap I had to convince myself to finish this race, and managed to find a slow but sustainable tempo. Roger Foco was gaining on me so on the final lap I decided to give a killer kick and make this lap my fastest, but in doing so I slammed into a large sharp rock. Pffffffft goes the front tire. As I'm putting a tube in Roger goes flying by followed shortly after by Maurice and Waggoner. Shit, 2nd to 5th just like that. Quickly empty my co2 shooter and I'm on my way, Riding with reckless abandon I catch Maurice and Waggoner only to slam into another rock and repuncture the front. That's It, my day is over. I do the walk of shame back to the finish line just in time to see Roger come flying across.

The curse of Kittatinny continues. Two years ago leading the race, bad cramps fell to 5th place. Last year drive side crankarm falls off in the second lap and this year double flat.

Think I'm gonna skip this one next year.....

Next up 12hrs 909? maybe

Monte flips the script?

Recently I've decided to try my hand at a endurance event (as if a two and a half hour race isn't enough). It all started out with George over at Darkhorse Cycles talking to me about the Shenandoah 100. The stories I have heard, it all sounds like so much fun.

But I've got to tell you I don't think I can do it on a rigid....

Enter the boys at Darkhorse....

After some going back and forth (mostly in my head) I have decided to purchase a suspended bike......Dramatic pause....... I know I'm gonna take a lot of shit over this, and the title of this blog is singlespeedracer. But my body is hurting, Hurting over the beating I have taken on a fully rigid bike for the past five years. Hurting from flying over root packs at mach1 on a eighth of an inch of travel. The funny thing is that I believe that the rigid is good on exactly opposite of what you would think. The more technical = the better for the rigid. The smoother the course you better have some cushy. Maybe its because on the smooth courses you tend to just plow into things where on a super technical ride you need to be so perfect, or maybe its the faster speed on the smoother stuff..Anyway stay tuned...

Lewis Morris Challenge

...This is how I felt after this race...

Originally I planned on not doing this race but when I saw Aaron Snyder (Scott Bikes) pre registered I changed my mind. Along with Aaron came the Alesio brothers (Fuji mtb) and Rob Lichtenwalner (visitPA.com). I haven't lined up against a stacked field like this in a while and was wondering if I had enough top end left from the early season. (I've been doing a lot of long rides lately). Brian Lariviere (Cycle Craft/Bulldog) got the hole shot while we all jockeyed for position behind him. At the top of the first climb there were five of us that made the front group and even though I was working hard to stay with the group I felt pretty good. Often times in a mtb race the pace is super fast at first then seems to slack off a little giving you time to recover, This never happened. We came around on the first lap at 24 minutes. Jocelyn would later say all she could see was a cloud of dust then our paceline, I was sitting 4th wheel and that 30mph feed zone was hectic. Major props to Jocelyn who handed me bottles like a Tour de France team director. We rode like this wheel to wheel for three laps then on a short loose climb Snyder punched it like he had a jet pack on "this kid is the real deal folks" I attempted to respond because no one else seemed interested and it turned out to be a mistake, my legs were not there. The three others caught me a couple minutes later and went right by. I was attempting to recover all the while trying to staying in contact with the group minus Aaron. Later I would catch Dylan Alesio and pass him to finish 4th with a big smile on my face knowing I gave all I had, and even though I didn't win I think this might have been the most fun I've had in a race in a while.