Season closer...

Photo courtesy of Gtluke
Sunday at Ringwood brought my mountain bike season to an end. I say this with relief and sadness at the same time. Relief from the daily grind of training rides, naps, early bedtimes and travel. Sadness because it just feels like this season could have been so much more. Sure I won a couple big races. Singlespeed-a-polozza for the second time was huge, the Mohican 100 was great too as well as a shit load of podiums. Until recently, I felt like I just never got myself going on the shorter stuff. Maybe some intervals would have helped, maybe it was too much emphasis on the endurance stuff. Not enough time in the gym? Distractions? Who knows.

Changing from a single speed 29er to a geared 26er was a bit of a shock and took some time to get used to. I still feel like I'm learning and I continue to get better each race. That's encouraging and I look forward to further improvement. Every ride is a new adventure for me again. Old trails seem new on a different bike and trails that previously were unridable present a new challenge. Improvement feeds the fire for me and every year I seem to get better. So with that I look forward to next year. Many changes will be made and rest assured I'll be back with a vengeance next year.

So whats next? Nothing scheduled for sure. I plan on some off season cross races (gotta work on getting that cx bike together) and I look forward to trail running again as well as beer cross and the 628 challenge. Basically just lots of rest and decompression for me, nothing serious for a while. December base miles will be here soon enough....
See you then....

Don't believe the hype!!! The Vt50 recap.

All year long I've been hearing how this was the easiest of all the endurance races to win. My confidence was high coming into this race. Despite the fact that I've only ridden gears in three races leading up to this, I felt like the distance and lack of any "real pros" showing up in the past could lead to a win for me. Boy I was wrong. Andrew Freye is here, Adam Snyder is here, Jason Sager is here as well as a full cast of familiar faces from the pro class at the Root66 series, all licking their lips seeing me on gears for the first time. I almost expected Jeff Shalk himself to pull to the line at 6AM to jam his pump in my spokes (breaking away style), but he didn't, Thank god.
Start was in the dark at XC race pace, No scratch that. The start actually felt like a Cat5 crit, until the first climb where Jason Sager (Jamis bikes) took the lead followed by yours truly. Going out this hard in a endurance race is normally suicide and this was no exception. After about 45 minutes I was unwilling to hold Jason's wheel for any longer and was quickly gobbled up by the chase group where I came to the realization that I'm the only 170 pounder in the bunch. Hell I might be the only one over a buck fifty. After a long climb and a rubbled decent I was dropped from the chase group. Dropped on the downhill? Effing full suspensions and effing New Jersey. With the lack of any sustained downhills at home how do I develop this skill? I would eventually find my groove after a few miles alone and thanks to the ginger ale refill at one of the many aid stations would begin the laborious task of pulling cracked riders back. Working my way past Adam Snyder with 5 miles to go gave me a boost and I cruised to the finish. 5th overall and second in my age only to Sager. Not bad considering my tactical errors at the start and a victory for my continued development on the gears. I started hard, cracked, came back, cracked again and still finished, all the while not making too much of a ass out of myself. A victory!
I only have one more endurance race on my calender and after that I'm gonna take a year to work on speed. So don't look for me at anything over 2 hours next year and don't look for me on the single....

Northern bound...

Team Dark Horse heading to the Vermont 50 this weekend...
Loads of shenanigans I predict...
Little wheels and gears on tap for me...
Long Trail on tap for others...
Should be a hoot...