Breaking in the Trek

Well we finally got the Trek out on the trail. For the wife's second ride I took her out to E. Macon for a ride(insert evil grin here) and for only here second trail ride she did great! I think we have a future downhiller, she's not to fond of the climbing but is as fearless as a rookie NASCAR driver on the downhills. I was trying to take it easy on her and she was about to run me over! She is definitely enjoying the Fuel 70 more than the Giant Warp DS3 as it weighs about 10lbs less! We did a half a lap and called it good I went out to the BMX track and worked on my technique(you should fall down laughing here!)to see if I can carry some speed thru there on Sunday as that is going to be a critical point in the start to clear some room on the single track. Saw some familiar faces out there today as well as some new ones and am definitely looking forward to Sunday. Will be taking the bike into the Shop tomorrow for a last minute tune up making sure it won't have any issues unless I cause them(wife refers to me as George of the Jungle-and there are a lot of trees out there!). Well going to rest tomorrow and Saturday, do some stretching, so if your racing on Sunday I will See ya on the Trail!

Getting Ready

Today was a pretty good ride did a two lap race pace with a third lap thrown in after a 7min rest for good measure. Ordered a new MX Pro w/ETA fork will be installing that after the E. Macon race can't wait anyway going to do one more race pace day of training and taper off for the race on Sunday. Me and Jeff were discussing the first lap burn that always seems to slow ya down from not getting warmed up enough today out at the trail. Since I don't have the talent to warrant a travelling entourage I figure I will have to get out there a little early do a short section of the trail get in a climb to get the muscles loosened up so I can't get a better first lap time. This isn't new to me I have been in sports (long time a go in a high school far,far away) so I know the importance of a good warm up just need tips to accomplish this for this type of racing so please feel free to comment any suggestions. Well that is about it I am getting pysched for the race can't wait. The pic is from this past weekend at Chickasaw just having a blast! Thanks for reading and I will See ya on the Trail!

Top Ten

Well I did it first non endurance time lap race finished 7th with a 50:36 9 mile lap could have done better but laid the bike down in a turn on mile 6 probably lost a min there and was passed by four other riders before I could get back up to speed. However I accomplished my goal of finishing in the top ten for my group beginner 30-39 age group. Definitely a confidence builder for this weekends race in Macon hope I can break the top five there should be able to since I am so familar with the trail. The Sport group had just started when I left I am sure them and the experts were turning some fast laps they had to do 2 and 3 laps per respective group that is some tough riding there. The trail was really clean and not near as technical as E.Macon is so that is a heads up for anyone reading who hasn't ridden it yet in this beginners humble opinion the two laps around Macon will be tougher than the single lap around Chickasaw but the length was a good train up for the two laps at Macon. Anyway once it is posted offically I will look for some pics as well to add to the site, until then thanks for reading and I will See you on the Trail!

Fast Course!

Well I arrived here around 3pm today and was able to make it out to Chickasaw around 4pm to get in a preride lap - man this is going to be one fast course!! Hope I can keep up the downhills are great just some off camber turns and climbs that might give me some trouble however I did make all the climbs w/o to much trouble so should be ok for tomorrow. Based off the lap today I should be able to run a sub 51 min lap so will see what happens and will update(hopefully with pictures from the new digital camera) on Monday! Till then See ya on the Trail!!

Off to the Chickasaw Trace Challenge

Well I am off to the races - not sure if the reasoning is sound but what the heck drive 6 hours for a 9 mile race but judging from the course it looks like it will be fun plus I am staying a extra day for the relaxation and possibly to do a second fun lap after the race depending on if I have anything left. Judging from the times last year a 50 min lap should get me a top ten finish. Off the subject of riding I completed my checkride so I am officially trained to go play in the sandbox for a few months-hate it when work interferes with riding! no mountains in the sandbox, but the positive spin on that is when I get back I will be able to build "The Bike" yes folks picture it with a Marzocchi MX Pro w/ETA and XT and XTR and the all important(first time ever)Chris King rear hub!! hopefully Charles will be around to help me build it. Well enough of the dreaming so hopefully I will do well this weekend build some confidence for next weekend in Macon I am looking forward to racing with all the riders I have met in the past 7 months I have been here in GA it is great to be part of a group of people who enjoy riding as much as I do if not more. Well I will let ya'll know how it goes this weekend and if not before Sunday then on Sunday, I will see ya on the Trail.

Sunday Riding, Monday NASCAR

Well if that isn't a reversal of roles however while it may have rained enough in Atlanta to postpone the race there we still managed a good morning of work on the trail and then a couple of laps after to see the fruits of everyone who has put in effort to get the trail ready for the race and I gotta say.....SWEET!, a little bit of sand but nothing unbearable and pretty fast as well if we could grade out the BMX track in the turns that would be awesome. Took two laps and did a pretty good 33 min lap on the second one 5.1 miles and 23.2 max speed so overall not too bad hopefully good enough to get a top 10 or better in the beginner class. Went for a run today, good ol ARMY PT did about 6 miles and called it good after 75 4-count flutter kicks for some ab work. Well that is about it thinking I will go back out to E. Macon tomorrow for a couple of laps and take it easy for the rest of the week to prepare for the race in Columbia TN hopefully that will be a confidence builder. So until then thanks for reading and I will See Ya on The Trail!

Link Words

Well let see how does one create a direct link from references used in a posting? since I bought the wifes Trek at The Bike Store Ah ha I seem to have this down now! OK so if I want to link a word to a site I just highlight the word or phrase and then click the insert link tool now I am cooking with grass...no wait that is gas. So for a better pic of the new bike.... you got it click the word....well enough of me being silly, If your going out to the trail work group at E. Macon tomorrow I will see you there and as Always see you on the trail!

Before

AFTER

The New addition

Well the new addition to the Bike Family living in my Garage is here welcome the Trek Fuel 70 and now the wife is in on the addiction! Well at least for now she says she just wants to do casual riding and doesn't see getting as hooked as me (hehehehe, evil grin insert here! yea right!) soon I will be buying upgrades and paying registration fees for the two of us! but at least were doing things together once we get her hooked then it is onto the son- just getting of age to start testing the waters, trails and trees whatever is out there here is the before bike,what I started on, she got as a handme down and then the after what we walked out of The Bike store with today................well after many attempts it appears the pics don't want to load once again defeated by a mechanical device well lets se if I can do this another way!

Click heals together three times and say............

"there's no hill I can't climb," well that would be the fairy tale version but we will see if the man really can make the shoes. Since the trusty and noticeably worn specialized red riders where starting to lose parts of the sole I decided to invest in a new pair of shoes so after reading Jeff Kerkove's review of the Diadora Team MTB Carbon fiber shoes and seeing the Diadora Team MTB shoes on sale 50% off at Performance.com I went ahead and bought a pair and boy are they a pair of attention getters anyway looking forward to getting them dirty hopefully tomorrow afternoon out at E. Macon By the way if there is anyone looking I have a 2003 Giant Warp DS, 9 speed with Marzocchi (sp) fork 130mm and Shimano components through out that I am selling for the bargain price of $250 this is a full suspension 36lber with about 5 inches of travel all around so if you or anyone you know might be interested drop me a line. Until then, or tomorrow, I will see ya on the trail!

Blogging and Riding, Riding and Blogging

Well yesterday I finally got brave and decided to try to make my site a little more user friendly. As well as provide some links for others to the sites that I enjoy visiting that belong not only to those I ride with but who have in one way or another made my riding experience more enjoyable since I have arrived in Georgia, while giving them some taste of the riding I enjoyed out west. Of course I couldn't forget to put in a couple of links to my favorite money pit (If Bill sold stock in the Bike Store I am sure I would own a few shares, though not as much as others I am sure!), my Username sake Rocky Mountain as I can't say enough about their bikes and customer service. Anyway enough about my simple venture into adjusting my site as I continue to learn more by reading the book "Blogging for Dummies" I should continue to improve on the page so stay tuned for more colorful adjustments in the future hopefully. Today I went out to E. Macon again and put in three solid laps even with all the rain last night and this morning that trail was great it could use a little clean up Jay ended up pulling a deadfall out of the trail on our first lap and I cleared a couple of branches as I went but all in all still real clean. Put in lap times between 31-33 min on all laps had a top speed of 23.5 on the last lap(will see if I can't get that up over 25mph before the race) and around a 9mph average for all three laps, I actually turned my fastest time on the third lap! was pretty well smoked at that point so headed back to the house. I am planning on making it out there on Thursday for the afterwork ride as well but will have to see as I have to go up to Ft Benning to qualify on the 9mm that day. Just for S&G's I am going to go up to Columbia, TN and race the Chickasaw Trace Classic Mountain Bike race on the 26th so will let you know how that goes or if there is anyone else planning on going let me know I am just trying to get in as much racing as I can before I have to go play in the sand! Until then I plan on riding pretty much out in either E. Macon or hitting Arrowhead so if your out there riding I will See ya On the Trail!

East Macon - Nice Place to ride

Today I rode out at East Macon for the first time, as I was heading out there I was wondering if I needed to buy pepper spray for the dogs or get a club for my steering wheel based off the previous info I had read and the mental picture I had painted. However as I arrived out there I found instead a great trail and from my first impression a fairly nice park complex - amazing the difference between reality and assumptions! Anyway I arrived out there at about 8:30 am and found someone (Dean) had already headed out on the trail. So based off the directions I had received from Jeff I headed off down the trail and started riding not long after I came across Dean raking a section of the trail and talked to him for a bit and got some clarification on which way to go and headed off again(feeling a little guilty about not having a rake to help him out but not for long!) The trail was in great condition and even the sandy sections where fairly moderate. From what I hear they are a bear when they are dry(speaking of bears I will probably be switching to the 2.25 TrailBears for the race just for a little better handling of aforementioned sand). After the first lap I found Dean at his car putting up his rake and ready to ride another rider( didn't get her name) was there to do some trail maintenance as well and a third rider Joey also showed up( drove all the way from Atlanta!). So the three of us set off to do the actual race course, BMX track and all in the race direction Dean led on what I assumed was a standard hardtail cross country bike until we started discussing bikes at which point he mentioned that the beast he was riding was a 40lbs BMX downhill monster (wait a minute I was just huffing and puffing keeping up with him going up a hill on my 27.5lbs ETSX-30?!) we ran that lap pretty good pace Joey was doing great considering he had just been recuperating from a broken leg, knee and.....Well just one wicked injury. We decided to do one more after that and I led out for that lap and decided to see what I could push for a time on my third don't know for sure what it was but Dean said I did pretty good so hopefully I can hold my own for my first beginner race. Overall the downhills where fast with good lines to get through, some good technical climbs with tight lines around the roots and the sand was manageable, there was one tight left turn at the bottom of a gradual downhill that I will need to work on my exit thru it to keep some speed up but overall a good fast trail. Looking to ride it at least once a week until the race if not more so if your out there I will see ya on the trail!

The Snake Bite!

Well my apology's to all my avid readers about how long it has been since I posted I was being lazy. Anyway Saturday was the big day my first and only attempt, this year at least, at the Snake. I arrived in Dalton on Friday wanted to be well rested for the ride, and ate at Red Lobster, the meal was on the house but that is a story for another day. Anyway Saturday morning rolled around and found me cold at a brisk 37 degrees out and feeling a little off from the prior nights meal but we load up anyway and away we go 32 miles down the road to the trail head where we would began this epic adventure. Along the way I start talking to another rider who just so happen to be from AZ (Gods Country) and had ridden a epic 66 miler in the White Mountains the same year I did to which he compared this ride and said "This trail is tougher than the 66 miler was" didn't sit well with me - it took me just short of 10hrs to complete that epic which was by the way my first ever. Anyway we arrive at the trail head and unload where I run into Grant (who had written that outstanding review after his first ride making me question my sanity for attempting the 32 miler!) Anyway it was nice to know I had friends out there even though I would not see him again until I finished the start wasn't to bad a couple of creek crossings that were cool to say the least but for the most part the trail was dry and steady climbing, and continuing to climb, and then climbing some more, about two miles into it my ill prepared leg muscles( I say this because they must have been to start burning this early) started feeling the climb, not a good sign and relates back to aforementioned dinner at Red Lobster. Anyway I start working through that and the trail kinda winds and climbs some more with minimal downhill for the first 8 miles during which I was passed by all those starting after me. At the first good downhill one of the event workers was there so I chatted as to the direction of the trail and how nice it was that they reversed it this year to create a better "challenge" for the riders to which he informed me that in his vast experience, the last 8 were some of the most technical he had ever ridden, oh happy happy joy joy! So it is off down the camping road for a short stint and then up the climbing single track again not sure how long that went for anyway there was about 2 miles of single track downhill to the first Sag point where Debbie, Grants wife greeted us with powerade, bananas and cheese and peanut butter crackers, also with the relieving news that the second half wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. With this in mind I took off again, climbing once more and wondering how funny she thought she was?! Shortly though I began to see her point as it leveled out and even had a nice two mile of downhill single track through the woods and when it did climb not all that bad on a fairly steady level area. Now as I approached mile marker 8(that is 8 left) I started looking for the forewarned nasty trail and while it was somewhat technical and challenging I would have to say it was some of the more enjoyable part of the ride good rocks and challenging lines with some level and downhill parts as well as climb. The last downhill segment of mile 28-29 was steep and fast and had a great 6 foot drop into a rutted section of trail that you just had to point and go glad I enjoyed it because that was soon coming to a end! Mile 29 and here comes the epic part climbing out on a steep hill up to the rocks, which weren't suppose to be bad until mile 31, well lets just say when mile 31 hit I began suffering from a major case of tourettes syndrome! Good thing I was one of the last ones out there- no one to offend as the rocks passed so did one foul epithet after another from my lips this continued right up until mile 32 where I was dumped back out on a road for a two mile down hill, which was nice but I would have preferred a nice single track downhill as reward for all this effort! Anyway crossing the line 5hrs and 32 mins after I started and behind someone who had a flat on the first 16 and broke a rear derailluer on the second 18 was kinda demoralizing but it was a victory just to finish on my first attempt so I took that small victory and vowed that if possible I would ride all three time trials next year!

Snake Creek here I come

Well after a week of being lazy and not updating the blog here I am getting ready to head up north to Dalton tomorrow to ride the Snake. Not sure if I am dreading this more or looking forward to it after Grant's write up on the 32 mile course but never know till ya try. I now have a new derailleur hanger, derailleur, and suspension linkage all installed(Thanks Charles) and test ridden so hopefully I will have better luck with the mechanical side of the house than I had at Razorback. Did some light riding this week with a good run and some elliptical time thrown in to keep loose so hopefully I will be well rested but not rusty for Saturday. According to the MSN weather it is suppose to be clear and dry, a little chilly but not too bad so a perfect day for the ride should draw quite a few riders plus the Litespeed they are giving away as well would be nice to have a hard tail never seriously considered riding one but a Litespeed I could give it a try. Anyway that is about it for now so I will get going here as always See ya on the trail!