Fast Forward

I can't even remember the last time I did the Maple Springs-Motorway loop before last night. I think it was around two years ago. I remember doing it at night once and I know I've done it in the day time several times.

It's been about 8 months since I've been on Maple Springs or the Motorway, so I was excited to see how the trails had changed. Mostly I was excited to ride something different.

Maple Springs still sucks. Haha. I keep making this mistake with riding certain trails. I underestimate the challenge and overestimate my ability. I think to myself, "Maple Springs? Ha! I could ride up that with one leg and Oprah on my back. Easy."

Turns out the climb up last night wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Not sure if it's because I'm out of shape or maybe it was the lingering effects of the ride from Saturday, but it was not a cake walk.

I wanted to see what my split would be to Four Corners so I could start thinking about Vision Quest splits. I had 1:13 to Four Corners and didn't feel very strong on the climb up. My goal right now is 1:10 for Vision Quest.

The trip to the top of the Motorway started to hurt after a while. My back was sore and I think this was mostly due to the sustained climb up Maple Springs. My body just isn't used to long (8 miles) climbs right now.

Motorway was good and bad. Good in the sense that I'm happy to have completed another night trip down it and bad because it was scary.

I don't think it's just me being a baby when I say that it was looser than I remember it. The top section was especially deep. My front tire wanted very badly to dig and sink into the gravel. It felt like riding in deep sand in several sections.

The middle section was still sketchy, but I don't think it has really changed all that much. It's still long and rocky, but it now has a few ruts in the middle of the trail. After a few passes down the new Motorway I'm sure I'll remember where the ruts are and I can avoid them better than I did last night.

My personal best from a few years ago was 2:23 and last night I logged a 2:11. I was surprised because the trip down the Motorway was laughably slow and I felt kind of sluggish on all the climbs.

I really think I can get under 2 hours in the daylight. We'll have to save that for later though ...

Matt Calls Them "Rollies"

Mountain biking lately has been up and down for me. Matt doesn't recognize ups and downs on trails though. He simply calls them "rollies", so there you go ...

Let's go with alternating ups and downs.

UP

Great video from the 24 Hour Hurkey Creek race:




DOWN

My Light and Motion battery died and so I have to use my stupid NiteRider backup light. Man I hate it so much. It's dim, it's mounted on my head and it seems to get dimmer the faster I go on the bike.

It does just enough on the climbs, but on the descents it is just freaky. If there are ruts ahead of me or rocks or anything sketchy, I can't see them. I have to trust my knowledge of the trail and just ride through whatever is there.

I'm trying to order a new battery (150 dollars?!?) so I can keep night riding.


UP

I felt really good on the ride last Saturday. Managed to do the entire ride in my middle ring (Holy Jim-Joplin) and I was happy to ride around 90% of Joplin. As a side note I find it very hard to actually estimate how much of a trail I've ridden. I hiked down a few sections, but what percentage of the trail was that? Who knows.

Joplin was nowhere near as scary as I remember it. I actually had a good time on it and look forward to riding more of it the next time we hit it.


DOWN

Work has been insane lately and I had to cancel a Tuesday night ride because I had to work late. I don't know what the problem is, but I've been just really worn down lately.

I've been finding it hard to get motivated to do anything, much less ride the bike. So hopefully some more good Saturday rides with the crew will get me excited.


UP

I bought a new front tire. I've always wanted to try the Kenda Nevegal's and so I finally broke down and spent the 50 bucks. My rear tire had a small tear in it anyways, so I just put my old front tire onto the rear and put the Kenda on the front.

The Maxxis Crossmark tire I was running in the front washed out on me quite a bit. It just couldn't hold a good line and I had several crashes due to it.

It's strange but different tires have different flexibility. The Crossmark would come off the rim if you looked at it strange. The Specialized tires I was running for a long time were incredibly difficult to get on and off the rim. The Kenda's weren't easy to get on, but not tough either.

I'm hoping the Kenda's will hold lines better and give me my confidence back in the turns.

Saturday Contrast

Saturday was both good and bad. The morning was awesome and the night was less than awesome.

Morning ride was supposed to be Trabuco to Bell Ridge and then changed to West Horsethief to Bell. Then once we got to the top of Trabuco it changed into a San Juan super loop.

Matt and I decided to break off from Brian, Mark and Troy and do something a bit bigger. I got a flat half a mile after leaving the group for Blue Jay, but other than that it was a great ride. No other mechanicals or issues. We didn't take many breaks going down San Juan or in Caspers which was nice. I did cramp while straddling the fence to get into Caspers. Bad place to cramp. Hahaha.

It was fun to pass a ton of guys on San Juan. When we got to Cocktail there were quite a few riders hanging out. We let some storm troopers go ahead of us and quickly caught them on the descent. That always feels good. Downhill is supposed to be what they are good at, and of course it feels good to beat them at their own game.

Caspers was pretty boring as always. I don't think we saw one other rider the entire time. I told Matt I was looking for a movitational Fred, but we didn't see any. A motivational Fred is a beginner to intermediate rider that is ahead of you on a trail. He just gives you something to chase and then pass. I always get motivated to catch Fred's and get disappointed when there aren't any to chase.

I shaved off 30 minutes from my previous time on the super loop which made me feel especially fantastic. Sometimes I wonder if I'm getting any faster on the bike from year to year and rides like this give me confidence that I am indeed getting better/faster.



Saturday night sucked. It was the Sho-Air team banquet to end the year and I just felt uncomfortable the entire evening. I hadn't shaved for a week and I showed up in jeans and a t-shirt. Everyone else was wearing buttoned up shirts and slacks etc. Some women even had these really nice dresses on.

Whatever. I'm a mountain biker and represented the slack attitude that all mountain bikers have well. Hahaha.

I had to wait in line to register and get a name tag etc. and when I told them my name, SURPRISE, it wasn't on the list. Hooray for more embarrassment. I mean after racing for the team for almost the entire year you'd think I could get my name on the RSVP list. I did RSVP but apparently not in the correct way.

So they took the raffle ticket out of my hand and refused to give me a t-shirt. Nice guys.

I ended up getting a free dinner, t-shirt (Doug convinced a lady I was indeed on the team) and a water bottle out of the night, but it was pretty boring and uncomfortable.

I seriously doubt I'm going to renew my team membership for next year. The club wasn't all that supportive and I ran into one administrative hassle after another. What's the point of being on a team if no one knows you are on it?

Injury Report

So many things to cover since my last post. We'll start with a cool picture:

From Blog Pictures

Lower switchbacks on San Juan from a few weeks ago.

Holy Jim-Trabuco:

Had a great ride about a week ago on Holy Jim-Trabuco. We did the loop backwards as a group (up Trabuco, down Holy Jim) and I felt really strong the entire time. I missed a week of riding leading up to the ride and I think that actually helped me. I was rested and felt fantastic.

I actually cleared everything from the start of Trabuco to West Horsethief minus one rock. I was riding an easy part of the trail and the front tire got stuck on a rock and I stood to hit the pedals harder and the front tire never moved. Over the bars I went. That's right. I went over the bars going UPHILL.

Ended up breaking my Garmin off my stem and scraping my elbow. Oh well.

On the way back I was riding with Troy on Trabuco Creek Road and at first I thought, "Nah. Not today. I don't wanna race Troy to the cars. He can have it."

But the more we rode the more I started to want to race. About halfway back I was in full competition mode. The plan was to stay right behind him for a while and then hammer at the end to pass him.

Troy took a left hand turn that I wasn't used to and I followed him. My front tire washed out in the sand and I took a hard fall. I was going really fast and pushing really hard. Took me a few minutes to collect my thoughts and take stock of the situation.

It was one of those moments where you are curled up in a mess of limbs and bike parts and as you untangle yourself you're just praying nothing is broken. There is a lot of pain and things aren't pointing the right way.

My right knee is still tweaked, but overall I've recovered by now. It was one of the hardest crashes I've had in a while. On Trabuco. Creek. Road.


Finally getting my light situation squared away so hopefully the night rides will start up again soon.

Also looking forward to the Motorway, Maple Springs, Luge, Old Camp opening up again. Night ride possibilies are endless!