Friday, April 29, 2011
Back in 2 weeks
Things have been busy here. Ive gotten to ride in the first 2 of the Charlotte Mountain bike series races. It seems my times haven't improved from last year, but my placement has. Eh, it happens. Anyway, going to be gone. If this is your only source of entertainment, you need to find something better to do with your time. Enjoy!
Thursday, April 21, 2011
I'm Sorry
That I took a 2 week vacation from posting anything. It is just pretty hectic around here as the house has been in shambles with all the of guest we had here for my bachelor party one weekend and the burrowers the next. Lets just say it was a great time had by all and almost no biking gone done. I'm ok with that.
2 Thursdays ago I had the crew come into town to visit and start my marriage off right. with a big ass party. Cranky dan, shitbrick, web, kope, chuck, squeaks all crashed at the party headquarters here. Despite being one sleeping arrangement short we all survived it and had a great time. Downtown Thursday for alive after 5 concert. Friday car show, Saturday white water rafting, beer, bar, strip club. I wont get into details but it was everything a bachelor party should be.
I had a few days reprieve in which I was lucky enough to go to work (to rest) and then the burrower had her party the next weekend. Although there were half the amount of people staying at the house, it got just as crazy when all of the girls came over. That weekend me and Jason were the DD and I will tell you I might have to do that more often to watch all of the drunk people stumble out of the Epicenter at 2:15 am in the morning, including our significant others. To keep things simple here are a few of the pictures, but if your my face-friend you already have these and have tagged yourself anyway. If not enjoy, and these are all the pg-rated ones. To get the good ones you will have to message me for them.
The sombrero/mountie hat.
start of a great saturday.
Im the front paddle on the right....
The burrower and bridesmaids, well the only ones that were ok to get up to raft the next day after some madness downtown.
Oh yeah, there was a race last night for the start of the summer series. I will probably cover that sometime next week, right in time for the next race.
2 Thursdays ago I had the crew come into town to visit and start my marriage off right. with a big ass party. Cranky dan, shitbrick, web, kope, chuck, squeaks all crashed at the party headquarters here. Despite being one sleeping arrangement short we all survived it and had a great time. Downtown Thursday for alive after 5 concert. Friday car show, Saturday white water rafting, beer, bar, strip club. I wont get into details but it was everything a bachelor party should be.
I had a few days reprieve in which I was lucky enough to go to work (to rest) and then the burrower had her party the next weekend. Although there were half the amount of people staying at the house, it got just as crazy when all of the girls came over. That weekend me and Jason were the DD and I will tell you I might have to do that more often to watch all of the drunk people stumble out of the Epicenter at 2:15 am in the morning, including our significant others. To keep things simple here are a few of the pictures, but if your my face-friend you already have these and have tagged yourself anyway. If not enjoy, and these are all the pg-rated ones. To get the good ones you will have to message me for them.
The sombrero/mountie hat.
start of a great saturday.
Im the front paddle on the right....
The burrower and bridesmaids, well the only ones that were ok to get up to raft the next day after some madness downtown.
Oh yeah, there was a race last night for the start of the summer series. I will probably cover that sometime next week, right in time for the next race.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Finishing up Warrior Creek 2011
Sorry for the delay, as if anybody reads this cares, but yesterday was just to nice out not to ride, I managed to get in 3 laps at N. Meck park, even saw the Mutt out there, who declined to ride another lap with me. Wuss
After an hour an a half on the slippery, slidy, muddy trail I came into the pit area fr the 2nd lap. After some confusion on my pit crews part on what I would need, it was determined to fill up my 2nd Cambelback, take some gel packs and a banana and I was off. Right off the pit area I found Lunchbox there willing and ready as always with his camera.
14 Miles in and already looking like I am in pain. It started off pretty well, I kept my pace up and the trails were drying good due to the high wind and traffic on them. About halfway through i got hit with a rather large branch in which I think my arch nemesis the squirrels were chucking at me.
Ill get back at them one day. Also they managed to push some smaller trees down in front of the trail where I was riding, luckily I was able to avoid those and continue on with my ride.
Another major issue in which I had was that I hadn't trained for this race. Now that comes into play with my legs cramping up. I burned a lot of energy on the first lap spinning out and trying to climb muddy hills, so by the 2nd lap my legs were pretty burnt out. Although they weren't locking up completely like I am used to, they just refused to move. This resulted in me taking a stroll through the woods while pushing my bike. I did appreciate having the new and improved 30 gears install by John at QCB to run through, but sometimes gears are not the problem, it is the person. The terrian is much tougher than I have experienced here in the Charlotte area mountain bike and I just wasn't prepared. But then again when am I ever? That would make for a boring race report.
I was not alone in my leg cramping problems as there seemed to be a group of us in which made it up some climbs, walked others, and just rested. The passing and being passed made for interesting conversations. Finially, the 2nd lap was completed. I finished it in the same time as the first, 1 hr 30 minutes. Not to bad, at least I was consistant.
For the final lap it was pretty uneventful. The trail dried up and was getting fast, the hills I continued to struggle up riding and resorted to walking. As I was finishing up the 3rd lap, I saw Lunchbox again with his camera, lucky it was a good shot of me crossing the rock garden.
After that it was the home stretch to the finish line.
My last lap I finished with a time of 3 hrs and 50 mintues estimated. I did have time to go out for lap number 4, but my body just didn't want to cooperate, and I don't blame it. As I was speaking with a lot of the other guys, it turns out there were a lot of people not in shape and declined to go out for another lap. That definatly made me feel better. Although I finished a pretty respectable (for me anyway) 49 of 99 mens solo, some of my teammates finished better. The owner and fearless leader Bart did 40+ mens duo with Robert Mobley and won the division. Congrats!
I have some other big news about riding bikes, but I have my bachelor party to attend to starting in a few hours, so there probably won't be riding this weekend, but plenty of beer and stories. Ill probably post up some of the pics that the burrower took that haven't been uploaded to the F-Book yet and the news of the year (at least biking related) for me.
After an hour an a half on the slippery, slidy, muddy trail I came into the pit area fr the 2nd lap. After some confusion on my pit crews part on what I would need, it was determined to fill up my 2nd Cambelback, take some gel packs and a banana and I was off. Right off the pit area I found Lunchbox there willing and ready as always with his camera.
14 Miles in and already looking like I am in pain. It started off pretty well, I kept my pace up and the trails were drying good due to the high wind and traffic on them. About halfway through i got hit with a rather large branch in which I think my arch nemesis the squirrels were chucking at me.
Ill get back at them one day. Also they managed to push some smaller trees down in front of the trail where I was riding, luckily I was able to avoid those and continue on with my ride.
Another major issue in which I had was that I hadn't trained for this race. Now that comes into play with my legs cramping up. I burned a lot of energy on the first lap spinning out and trying to climb muddy hills, so by the 2nd lap my legs were pretty burnt out. Although they weren't locking up completely like I am used to, they just refused to move. This resulted in me taking a stroll through the woods while pushing my bike. I did appreciate having the new and improved 30 gears install by John at QCB to run through, but sometimes gears are not the problem, it is the person. The terrian is much tougher than I have experienced here in the Charlotte area mountain bike and I just wasn't prepared. But then again when am I ever? That would make for a boring race report.
I was not alone in my leg cramping problems as there seemed to be a group of us in which made it up some climbs, walked others, and just rested. The passing and being passed made for interesting conversations. Finially, the 2nd lap was completed. I finished it in the same time as the first, 1 hr 30 minutes. Not to bad, at least I was consistant.
For the final lap it was pretty uneventful. The trail dried up and was getting fast, the hills I continued to struggle up riding and resorted to walking. As I was finishing up the 3rd lap, I saw Lunchbox again with his camera, lucky it was a good shot of me crossing the rock garden.
After that it was the home stretch to the finish line.
My last lap I finished with a time of 3 hrs and 50 mintues estimated. I did have time to go out for lap number 4, but my body just didn't want to cooperate, and I don't blame it. As I was speaking with a lot of the other guys, it turns out there were a lot of people not in shape and declined to go out for another lap. That definatly made me feel better. Although I finished a pretty respectable (for me anyway) 49 of 99 mens solo, some of my teammates finished better. The owner and fearless leader Bart did 40+ mens duo with Robert Mobley and won the division. Congrats!
I have some other big news about riding bikes, but I have my bachelor party to attend to starting in a few hours, so there probably won't be riding this weekend, but plenty of beer and stories. Ill probably post up some of the pics that the burrower took that haven't been uploaded to the F-Book yet and the news of the year (at least biking related) for me.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Sorry for the delay
but had some things come up with the 90 mph winds and this happened.
Had to run and buy a chainsaw, and spend time trying to dislodge it from the tree, then grocery shopping getting ready for my bachelor party..yeah, the race report can wait till tomorrow.
Had to run and buy a chainsaw, and spend time trying to dislodge it from the tree, then grocery shopping getting ready for my bachelor party..yeah, the race report can wait till tomorrow.
Monday, April 4, 2011
6 Hour of Warrior Creek Recap - Volume 1
Here in the lower Piedmont area of North Carolina the weather was cooperating for a nice long day in the saddle. As me, the burrower, and the culprit woke up ridiculously early to ride a bike towards the mountains. As we headed up I-77 and turned North/Northwest onto highway 421 towards Wilkesboro, the burrower pointed out something in which set the tone for the first half of the race. "Looks like it rained here."
Not only did it rain but once we got the course it looked like it poured. This was going to be a cold sloppy mess. We arrived at Warrior Creek in plenty of time and set up shop with the Mutt and the Mrs. Mutt. (I would suggust reading at least some of his non-sense to get different and probabably more articulate version of the race). I went to the registration table and signed in, not sure how it happened, but I also ended up with an extra t-shirt. Score one for the burrower for coming up to the table with me. At this time I also made an excutive decision about another race in the future that I had been pondering about for a few months or not, but I will save that for a different post.
Although I got there in plenty of time to unload, get my gear on, set up my music, listen to the pre-race instructions, line up and go...I did happen to forget something. Oh yeah, the warm up. This usually happens to me when I have plenty of time. I settled myself near the back 1/3 of the pack (which is where I usually finish anyway) and waiting for the starting horn to go off. Race started right on time and 300 riders rolled out on a chilly and damp morning.
The ride up the service roads was used to thin the field out, but what usually happens, this time included, you get rookie riders busting their ass to beat people there, and then hold everyone up about 2 miles in. Plus to make matters worse, the trail was slick. And when I say slick, I mean there was a layer of mud on the trail from the rain that made it almost impossible to get any sort of traction on the uphills, escpecially when I was running a small block 8 in the rear.
Now, you might be thinking that I would be streatching the truth about the condistions just to make me seem like a bad-ass who purposely decides to ride 6 hours in horrible conditions *which I am* but I was not stretching the truth this time. Check it out for yourself.
Thank you burrower for the pics.
It was brutal, the back tire spinning out on uphill sections, mud getting thrown in my face from the riders in front of me, all along the woods you hear "brake" and "rider down" from the constant struggle to stay up on 2 wheels. Well, the mud, the strugging to stay upright, the hike a bike up the bike while holding your bike upright sums up lap one. I believe I made it in 1 hr 30 minutes. Not to bad considering having to deal with traffic, mudslides and other natural disasters. Ill try to recap the other laps tomorrow, until then heres some more pictures.
The Culprit at the beginning, look, its white.
Me and Queen City Bike team member Chase at the beginning.
Not only did it rain but once we got the course it looked like it poured. This was going to be a cold sloppy mess. We arrived at Warrior Creek in plenty of time and set up shop with the Mutt and the Mrs. Mutt. (I would suggust reading at least some of his non-sense to get different and probabably more articulate version of the race). I went to the registration table and signed in, not sure how it happened, but I also ended up with an extra t-shirt. Score one for the burrower for coming up to the table with me. At this time I also made an excutive decision about another race in the future that I had been pondering about for a few months or not, but I will save that for a different post.
Although I got there in plenty of time to unload, get my gear on, set up my music, listen to the pre-race instructions, line up and go...I did happen to forget something. Oh yeah, the warm up. This usually happens to me when I have plenty of time. I settled myself near the back 1/3 of the pack (which is where I usually finish anyway) and waiting for the starting horn to go off. Race started right on time and 300 riders rolled out on a chilly and damp morning.
The ride up the service roads was used to thin the field out, but what usually happens, this time included, you get rookie riders busting their ass to beat people there, and then hold everyone up about 2 miles in. Plus to make matters worse, the trail was slick. And when I say slick, I mean there was a layer of mud on the trail from the rain that made it almost impossible to get any sort of traction on the uphills, escpecially when I was running a small block 8 in the rear.
Now, you might be thinking that I would be streatching the truth about the condistions just to make me seem like a bad-ass who purposely decides to ride 6 hours in horrible conditions *which I am* but I was not stretching the truth this time. Check it out for yourself.
Thank you burrower for the pics.
It was brutal, the back tire spinning out on uphill sections, mud getting thrown in my face from the riders in front of me, all along the woods you hear "brake" and "rider down" from the constant struggle to stay up on 2 wheels. Well, the mud, the strugging to stay upright, the hike a bike up the bike while holding your bike upright sums up lap one. I believe I made it in 1 hr 30 minutes. Not to bad considering having to deal with traffic, mudslides and other natural disasters. Ill try to recap the other laps tomorrow, until then heres some more pictures.
The Culprit at the beginning, look, its white.
Me and Queen City Bike team member Chase at the beginning.
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